“That’s all right,” Mair said. “As long as you love me, even just a little bit, I’m happy. You won’t ever stop, will you?”

Caris poured boiling water on the herbs. “When you’re as old as Julie, I promise I’ll bring you an infusion to keep you healthy.”

Tears came to Mair’s eyes. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Caris had not meant it to be a vow of eternal love. “Don’t be sentimental,” she said gently. She strained the infusion into a wooden cup. “Let’s go and check on Julie.”

They crossed the cloisters and entered the hospital. A man with a bushy red beard was standing near the altar. “God bless you, stranger,” she said. The man seemed familiar. He did not reply to her greeting, but looked hard at her with intense golden-brown eyes. Then she recognized him. She dropped the cup. “Oh, God!” she said. “You!”

The few moments before she saw him were exquisite, and Merthin knew he would treasure them all his life, whatever else happened. He stared hungrily at the face he had not seen for nine years, and remembered, with a shock that was like plunging into a cold river on a hot day, how dear that face had been to him. She had hardly changed at all: his fears had been groundless. She did not even look older. She was now thirty, he calculated, but she was as slim and perky as she had been at twenty. She walked quickly into the hospital with an air of brisk authority, carrying a wooden cup full of some medicine; then she looked at him, paused, and dropped the cup.

He grinned at her, feeling happy.

“You’re here!” she said. “I thought you were in Florence!”

“I’m very pleased to be back,” he replied.

She looked at the liquid on the floor. The nun with her said: “Don’t worry about this, I’ll clear up. Go and talk to him.” The second nun was pretty, and had tears in her eyes, Merthin noticed, but he was too excited to pay much attention.

Caris said: “When did you come back?”

“I arrived an hour ago. You look well.”

“And you look… such a man.”

Merthin laughed.

She said: “What made you decide to return?”

“It’s a long story,” he replied. “But I’d love to tell it to you.”

“We’ll step outside.” She touched his arm lightly and led him out of the building. Nuns were not supposed to touch people, nor to have private conversations with men, but for her such rules had always been optional. He was glad she had not acquired a respect for authority in the last nine years.

Merthin pointed to the bench by the vegetable garden. “I sat on that seat with Mark and Madge Webber, the day you entered the convent, nine years ago. Madge told me you had refused to see me.”

She nodded. “It was the most unhappy day of my life – but I knew that seeing you would make it even worse.”

“I felt the same way, except that I wanted to see you, no matter how miserable it made me.”

She gave him a direct look, her gold-flecked green eyes as candid as ever. “That sounds a bit like a reproach.”

“Perhaps it is. I was very angry with you. Whatever you decided to do, I felt you owed me an explanation.” He had not intended the conversation to go this way, but he found he could not help himself.

She was unapologetic. “It’s really quite simple. I could hardly bear to leave you. If I had been forced to speak to you, I think I would have killed myself.”

He was taken aback. For nine years he had thought she had been selfish on that day of parting. Now it looked as if he had been the selfish one, in making such demands on her. She had always had this ability to make him revise his attitudes, he recalled. It was an uncomfortable process, but she was often right.

They did not sit on the bench, but turned away and walked across the cathedral green. The sky had clouded over, and the sun had gone. “There is a terrible plague in Italy,” he said. “They call it la moria grande.”

“I’ve heard about it,” she said. “Isn’t it in southern France, too? It sounds dreadful.”

“I caught the disease. I recovered, which is unusual. My wife, Silvia, died.”

She looked shocked. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You must feel terribly sad.”

“All her family died, and so did all my clients. It seemed like a good moment to come home. And you?”

“I’ve just been made cellarer,” she said with evident pride.

To Merthin that seemed somewhat trivial, especially after the slaughter he had seen. However, such things were important in the life of the nunnery. He looked up at the great church. “Florence has a magnificent cathedral,” he said. “Lots of patterns in coloured stone. But I prefer this: carved shapes, all the same shade.” As he studied the tower, grey stone against grey sky, it started to rain.

They went inside the church for shelter. A dozen or so people were scattered around the nave: visitors to the town looking at the architecture, devout locals praying, a couple of novice monks sweeping. “I remember feeling you up behind that pillar,” Merthin said with a grin.

“I remember it, too,” she said, but she did not meet his eye.

“I still feel the same about you as I did on that day. That’s the real reason I came home.”

She turned and looked at him with anger in her eyes. “But you got married.”

“And you became a nun.”

“But how could you marry her – Silvia – if you loved me?”

“I thought I could forget you. But I never did. Then, when I thought I was dying, I realized I would never get over you.”

Her anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and tears came to her eyes. “I know,” she said, looking away.

“You feel the same.”

“I never changed.”

“Did you try?”

She met his eye. “There’s a nun…”

“The pretty one who was with you in the hospital?”

“How did you guess?”

“She cried when she saw me. I wondered why.”

Caris looked guilty, and Merthin guessed she was feeling the way he had felt when Silvia used to say: “You’re thinking about your English girl.”

“Mair is dear to me,” Caris said. “And she loves me. But…”

“But you didn’t forget me.”

“No.”

Merthin felt triumphant, but he tried not to let it show. “In that case,” he said, “you should renounce your vows, leave the nunnery, and marry me.”

“Leave the nunnery?”

“You’ll need first to get a pardon for the witchcraft conviction, I realize that, but I’m sure it can be done – we’ll bribe the bishop and the archbishop and even the pope if necessary. I can afford it.”

She was not sure it would be as easy as he thought. But that was not her main problem. “It’s not that I’m not tempted,” she said. “But I promised Cecilia I would vindicate her faith in me… I have to help Mair take over as guest master… we need to build a new treasury… and I’m the only one who takes care of Old Julie properly…”

He was bewildered. “Is all that so important?”

“Of course it is!” she said angrily.

“I thought the nunnery was just old women saying prayers.”

“And healing the sick, and feeding the poor, and managing thousands of acres of land. It’s at least as important as building bridges and churches.”

He had not anticipated this. She had always been sceptical of religious observance. She had gone into the nunnery under duress, when it was the only way to save her own life. But now she seemed to have grown to love her punishment. “You’re like a prisoner who is reluctant to leave the dungeon, even when the door is opened wide,” he said.

“The door isn’t open wide. I would have to renounce my vows. Mother Cecilia-”

“We’ll have to work on all these problems. Let’s begin right away.”

She looked miserable. “I’m not sure.”

She was torn, he could see. It amazed him. “Is this you?” he said incredulously. “You used to hate the hypocrisy and falsehood that you saw in the priory. Lazy, greedy, dishonest, tyrannical-”