“Bishop Wynstan insisted on an immediate election, which he oversaw.”

Wynstan had made sure that his preferred candidate won, and had then ratified the monks’ decision. In theory, both the archbishop and the king had a say in the appointment, but it would be difficult now for them to overturn Wynstan’s fait accompli.

Aldred said: “How do you know all this?”

“Archdeacon Degbert brought the news to the priory. I think he was hoping to tell you himself. Especially the part about the money.”

Aldred had a bad feeling. “Go on.”

“Hildred has canceled the abbey’s subsidy to our priory. From now on we must manage on whatever sums we can raise for ourselves, or close down.”

That was a blow. Aldred was suddenly grateful for Deorman’s three pounds. It meant the priory was not in danger of immediate closure.

He said to Godleof: “Get yourself something to eat. We should leave as soon as possible.”

They sat on the ground beside the oak tree that gave the house its name. While Godleof ate bread and cheese and drank a pot of ale, Aldred brooded. There were advantages to the new arrangement, he told himself. The priory would now be independent, in practice: the abbot could no longer control it by threatening to cut off funds—that was an arrow that could be shot only once. Aldred would now ask the archbishop of Canterbury for a charter that would make the priory’s independence official.

However, Deorman’s gift would not last forever, and Aldred’s search for some means of financial security was now urgent. What could he do?

Most monasteries depended on the accumulation of wealth from numerous donations. Some had large flocks of sheep, some drew rents from villages and towns, some owned fisheries and quarries. For three years Aldred had worked tirelessly to attract such gifts, and his success had been no more than modest.

His mind strayed to Winchester and Saint Swithin, who had been bishop there in the ninth century. Swithin had worked a miracle on the bridge over the Itchen River. Taking pity on a poor woman who had dropped her basket of eggs, he had made the smashed eggs whole again. His tomb in the cathedral was a popular destination for pilgrims. Sick people experienced miraculous cures there. The pilgrims donated money to the cathedral. They also bought souvenirs, lodged in alehouses owned by the monks, and generally brought prosperity to the town. The monks spent the profits enlarging the church so that it could accommodate more pilgrims, who brought more money.

Many churches possessed holy relics: the whited bones of a saint, a splintered piece of the True Cross, a worn square of ancient cloth miraculously imprinted with the face of Christ. Provided the monks managed their affairs shrewdly—making sure pilgrims were welcomed, placing the sacred objects in an impressive shrine, publicizing miracles—the relics would attract pilgrims who would bring prosperity to the town and to the monastery.

Unfortunately, Dreng’s Ferry had no relics.

Such things could be bought, but Aldred did not have enough money. Would anyone give him something so valuable? He thought of Glastonbury Abbey.

He had been a novice at Glastonbury, and knew that the abbey had such a large collection of relics that the sacrist, Brother Theodric, did not know what to do with them all.

He began to feel excited.

The abbey had the grave of Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, and twenty-two complete skeletons of other saints. The abbot would not give Aldred a priceless complete skeleton, but the abbey also owned numerous odd bones and scraps of clothing, one of the bloodstained arrows that had killed Saint Sebastian, and a sealed jug of wine from the wedding at Cana. Would Aldred’s old friends take pity on him? He had left Glastonbury in disgrace, of course, but that had been a long time ago. Monks generally sided with monks against bishops, and no one liked Wynstan: there was a chance, Aldred decided with mounting optimism.

Anyway, he had no better ideas.

Godleof finished his meal and took his wooden tankard back into the alehouse. Coming out, he said: “So, are we heading back to Dreng’s Ferry?”

“Change of plan,” said Aldred. “I’ll accompany you part of the way—then I’m going to Glastonbury.”

* * *

He was not prepared for the intense wave of nostalgia that overwhelmed him when he came in sight of the place where he had spent his adolescence.

He crested a low hill and looked down on a flat, swampy plain, green with spring foliage interlaced with pools and runnels that glinted in the sun. To the north a canal five yards wide came arrow straight along the gently sloping hillside and ended in a wharf at a marketplace bright with bales of red cloth and truckles of yellow cheese and stacks of green cabbages.

Edgar had questioned Aldred closely about this canal, severely taxing Aldred’s memory, before beginning construction of the canal at Outhenham.

Beyond the village stood two buildings of pale gray stone, a church and a monastery. A dozen or more timber structures were clustered around: animal shelters, storehouses, kitchens, and servants’ quarters. Aldred could even see the herb garden where he had been caught kissing Leofric, bringing down on himself a cloud of shame that had never lifted.

As he rode closer, he remembered Leofric, whom he had not seen for twenty years. He pictured a boy, tall and skinny, pink-faced with a few blond hairs on his upper lip, full of adolescent energy. But Leo must have changed. Aldred himself was different: slower and more dignified in his movements, solemn in his demeanor, with the dark shadow of a beard even when he had just shaved.

Sadness possessed him. He mourned the passing of the tireless lad he had once been, reading and learning and absorbing knowledge as the parchment soaked up the ink, and then, when lessons were over, deploying just as much energy in breaking all the rules. Coming to Glastonbury was like visiting the grave of his youth.

He tried to shake off the feeling as he rode through the village, which was noisy with buying and selling, carpentry and ironwork, men shouting and women laughing. He made his way to the monastery stable, which smelled of clean straw and brushed horses. He unsaddled Dismas and let the tired beast drink its fill from the horse trough.

Would his history here help or hinder his mission? Would people remember him with affection and do their best to help him, or would they treat him as a renegade who had been expelled for bad behavior and whose return was unwelcome?

He knew none of the stable hands, who were not monks but employees, but he asked one of the older men if Elfweard was still abbot. “Yes, and in good health, praise God,” said the groom.

“And is Theodric the sacrist?”

“Yes, though getting older, now.”

Pretending to ask casually, Aldred added: “And Brother Leofric?”

“The kitchener? Yes, he’s well.”

The kitchener was an important monastery officer, responsible for purchasing all supplies.

One of the lads said: “Well fed, anyhow,” and the others laughed.

From that Aldred deduced that Leo had put on weight.

The older groom, clearly curious, said: “May I direct you to a part of the abbey, or any particular one of the monks?”

“I should pay my respects to Abbot Elfweard first. I assume I’ll find him at his own house?”

“More than likely. The monks’ midday dinner is over, and it’ll be another hour or two before they ring the Nones bell.” Nones was the midafternoon service.

“Thank you.” Aldred left without satisfying the groom’s curiosity.

He headed not for the abbot’s house but for the cookhouse.

In a monastery this big, the kitchener did not carry sacks of flour and sides of beef to the cooking fires, but held a pen and sat at a table. All the same a wise kitchener would work near the cooks, to keep an eye on what came in and went out, and make it difficult for anyone to steal.

From the kitchen came the sound of clashing pots as the monastery servants scrubbed the utensils.

Aldred recalled that in his day the kitchener had worked in a lean-to shed attached to the cookhouse, but now, he saw, there was a more substantial building in the same place, with a stone-built extension that was undoubtedly a safe room for storage.

He approached apprehensively, full of trepidation about how Leo would receive him.

He stood in the doorway. Leo sat on a bench at a table, side-on to the entrance so that the light could fall on his work. He had a stylus in his hand and was making notes on a wax tablet in front of him. He did not look up, and Aldred had a few moments to study him. He was not really fat, though he certainly was not the bony boy Aldred remembered. The circle of hair around his tonsure was still fair, and his face was, if anything, pinker. Aldred’s heart missed a beat as he remembered how passionately he had loved this man. And now, twenty years later?

Before Aldred could examine his heart, Leo looked up.