“Not necessarily,” said Cecilia. “There could be another way.”

Merthin was distraught. Caris was trapped. She would be condemned to death, and there was nothing he could do. He could not have rescued her even if he had been Ralph, with big shoulders and a sword and a relish for violence. He stared, horrified, at the door through which she had disappeared. He knew where Caris’s mole was, and he felt sure the nuns would find it – that was just the kind of place where they would look most carefully.

All around him the noise of excited chatter rose from the crowd. People were arguing for or against Caris, rerunning the trial, but he seemed to be inside a bubble, and he could hardly follow what anyone said. In his ears, their talk sounded like the random beating of a hundred drums.

He found himself staring at Godwyn, wondering what he was thinking. Merthin could understand the others – Elizabeth was eaten up with jealousy, Elfric was possessed by greed and Philemon was pure malevolence – but the prior mystified him. Godwyn had grown up with his cousin Caris, and he knew she was not a witch. Yet he was prepared to see her die. How could he do something so wicked? What excuse did he make to himself? Did he tell himself that this was all for the glory of God? Godwyn had once seemed to be a man of enlightenment and decency, the antidote to Prior Anthony’s narrow conservatism. But he had turned out to be worse than Anthony: more ruthless in the pursuit of the same obsolete aims.

If Caris dies, Merthin thought, I’m going to kill Godwyn.

His parents came up to him. They had been in the cathedral throughout the trial. His father said something, but Merthin could not understand him. “What?” he said.

Then the north door opened, and the crowd became silent. Mother Cecilia walked in alone and closed the door behind her. There was a murmur of curiosity. What now?

Cecilia walked up to the bishop’s throne.

Richard said: “Well, Mother Prioress? What do you have to report to the court?”

Cecilia said slowly: “Caris has confessed-”

There was a roar of shock from the crowd.

Cecilia raised her voice. “…confessed her sins.”

They went quiet again. What did this mean?

“She has received absolution-”

“From whom?” Godwyn interrupted. “A nun cannot give absolution!”

“From Father Joffroi.”

Merthin knew Joffroi. He was the priest at St Mark’s, the church where Merthin had repaired the roof. Joffroi had no love for Godwyn.

But what was going on? Everyone waited for Cecilia to explain.

She said: “Caris has applied to become a novice nun here at the priory-”

Once again she was interrupted by a shout of shock from the assembled townspeople.

She yelled over their voices: “-and I have accepted her!”

There was uproar. Merthin could see Godwyn yelling at the top of his voice, but his words were lost. Elizabeth was enraged; Philemon stared at Cecilia with poisonous hatred; Elfric looked bewildered; Richard was amused. Merthin’s own mind reeled with the implications. Would the bishop accept this? Did it mean the trial was over? Had Caris been saved from execution?

Eventually the tumult died down. As soon as he could be heard, Godwyn spoke, his face white with fury. “Did she, or did she not, confess to heresy?”

“The confessional is a sacred trust,” Cecilia replied imperturbably. “I don’t know what she said to the priest, and if I did I could not tell you or anyone else.”

“Does she bear the mark of Satan?”

“We did not examine her.” This answer was evasive, Merthin realized, but Cecilia quickly added: “It was not necessary once she had received absolution.”

“This is unacceptable!” Godwyn bellowed. He had dropped the pretence that Philemon was the prosecutor. “The prioress cannot frustrate the proceedings of the court in this way!”

Bishop Richard said: “Thank you, Father Prior-”

“The order of the court must be carried out!”

Richard raised his voice. “That will do!”

Godwyn opened his mouth to protest further, then thought better of it.

Richard said: “I don’t need to hear any more argument. I have made my decision, and I will now announce my judgement.”

Silence fell.

“The proposal that Caris be permitted to enter the nunnery is an interesting one. If she is a witch, she will be unable to do any harm in the holiness of her surroundings. The devil cannot enter here. On the other hand, if she is not a witch, we will have been saved from the error of condemning an innocent woman. Perhaps the nunnery would not have been Caris’s choice as a way of life, but her consolation will be an existence dedicated to serving God. On balance, then, I find this a satisfactory solution.”

Godwyn said: “What if she should leave the nunnery?”

“Good point,” said the bishop. “That is why I am formally sentencing her to death, but suspending the sentence for as long as she remains a nun. If she should renounce her vows, the sentence would be carried out.”

That’s it, thought Merthin in despair: a life sentence; and he felt tears of rage and grief come to his eyes.

Richard stood up. Godwyn said: “The court is adjourned!” The bishop left, followed by the monks and nuns in procession.

Merthin moved in a daze. His mother spoke to him in a consoling voice, but he ignored her. He let the crowd carry him to the great west door of the cathedral and out on to the green. The traders were packing up their leftover goods and dismantling their stalls: the Fleece Fair was over for another year. Godwyn had got what he wanted, he realized. With Edmund dying and Caris out of the way, Elfric would become alderman and the application for a borough charter would be withdrawn.

He looked at the grey stone walls of the priory buildings: Caris was in there somewhere. He turned that way, moving across the tide of the crowd, and headed for the hospital.

The place was empty. It had been swept clean, and the straw-filled palliasses used by the overnight visitors were stacked neatly against the walls. A candle burned on the altar at the eastern end. Merthin walked slowly the length of the room, not sure what to do next.

He recalled, from Timothy’s Book, that his ancestor Jack Builder had briefly become a novice monk. The author had hinted that Jack had been a reluctant recruit, and had not taken easily to monastic discipline; at any rate, his novitiate had ended abruptly in circumstances over which Timothy drew a tactful veil.

But Bishop Richard had stated that if Caris ever left the nunnery she would be under sentence of death.

A young nun came in. When she recognized Merthin she looked scared. “What do you want?” she said.

“I must speak to Caris.”

“I’ll go and ask,” she said, and hurried out.

Merthin looked at the altar, and the crucifix, and the triptych on the wall showing Elizabeth of Hungary, the patron saint of hospitals. One panel showed the saint, who had been a princess, wearing a crown and feeding the poor; the second showed her building her hospital; and the third illustrated the miracle in which the food she carried beneath her cloak was turned into roses. What would Caris do in this place? She was a sceptic, doubtful of just about everything the church taught. She did not believe that a princess could turn bread into roses. “How do they know that?” she would say to stories that everyone else accepted without question – Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, David and Goliath, even the Nativity. She would be a caged wildcat in here.

He had to talk to her, to find out what was in her mind. She must have some plan that he was not able to guess at. He waited impatiently for the nun to return. She did not come back, but Old Julie appeared. “Thank heaven!” he said. “Julie, I have to see Caris, quickly!”