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will remember that.’
    â€˜It’s a different abbot we have now, but Prior Robert will know, and many others among us. And Abbot Radulfus will listen, you need not fear a refusal from him. William will have witnesses enough. But I’m sorry he could not come home alive to tell us of it.’ He eyed the lanky young man before him with considered respect. ‘You’ve done well by him, and a hard road you must have had of it, these last miles. You must have been barely a grown man when he took you off overseas.’
    â€˜I was nearly nineteen,’ said Elave, smiling. ‘Nineteen and hardy enough, strong as a horse I was. I’m twenty-six now, I can make my own way.’ He was studying Cadfael as intently as he was being studied. ‘I remember you, Brother. You were the one who soldiered in the east once, years ago.’
    â€˜So I did,’ acknowledged Cadfael, almost fondly. Confronted with this young traveller from places once well known, and sharp with memories for him, he felt the old longings quickening again within him, and the old ghosts stirring. ‘When you have time, you and I could have things to talk about. But not now! If you’re not worn out with journeying, you should be, and there’ll be a moment or two to spare tomorrow. Better go and get your sleep now. I’m bound for Compline.’
    â€˜It’s true,’ owned Elave, heaving a long, fulfilled sigh at having reached the end of his charge. ‘I’m main glad to be here, and have done with what I promised him. I’ll bid you goodnight, then, Brother, and thanks.’
    Cadfael watched him cross the width of the court to the steps of the guest-hall, a tough, durable young man who had packed into seven years more journeying than most men saw in a lifetime. No one else within these walls could follow in spirit where he had been, no one but Cadfael. The old appetite stirred ravenously, after contented years of stability and peace.
    â€˜Would you have known him again?’ asked Edmund, emerging at Cadfael’s shoulder. ‘He came one or twice on his master’s errands, I remember, but between eighteen or so and his middle twenties a man can change past recognition, especially a man who’s made his way to the ends of the earth and back. I wonder sometimes, Cadfael, I even glimpse sometimes, what I may have missed.’
    â€˜And do you thank your father for giving you to God,’ wondered Cadfael, ‘or wish he’d left you your chances among men?’ They had been friends long enough and closely enough to permit such a question.
    Brother Edmund smiled his quiet, composed smile. ‘You at least can question no one’s act but your own. I am of a past order, Cadfael, there’ll be no more of me, not under Radulfus, at any rate. Come to Compline, and pray for the constancy we promised.’
    *
    The young man Elave was admitted to chapter next morning, as soon as the immediate household affairs had been dealt with.
    The numbers at chapter were swelled that day by the visiting clerics. Canon Gerbert, his mission necessarily delayed for a while, could not but turn his frustrated energies to meddling in whatever came to hand, and sat enthroned beside Abbot Radulfus throughout the session, and the bishop’s deacon, committed to faithful attendance on this formidable prelate, hovered anxiously at his elbow. This Serlo was, as Hugh had said, a meek little fellow with a soft, round, ingenuous face, much in awe of Gerbert. He might have been in his forties, smooth-cheeked and pink and wholesome, with a thin, greying ring of fair hair, erased here and there by incipient baldness. No doubt he had suffered from his over-powering companion along the road, and was intent simply on completing his errand as soon and as peaceably as possible. It might seem a very long way to Chester, if he was instructed to go so far.
    Into this augmented and august assembly Elave came when