Footsteps, light and quick. They came from below: from the hall. Briefly I wondered if it could be ?lfwold, or one of the other knights, but I had grown used to the sounds of their movements by then, and I didn’t think it was any of them.
I sat up, suddenly alert. I was still dressed; I had learnt last night how cold it could become in this house, especially with a draught blowing in. The wind was less blustery tonight, but even so, it was not warm beneath the blankets. I shook them off and rose, lifting my knife-sheath from the floor and buckling it to my belt. Then, barefoot, I ventured out on to the landing, towards the stairs.
The hearth-fire had long since burnt out, but whoever it was must have had a lantern with them, for a soft glow lit up the stairs and the hall below. But who would be about at this hour, and in this house? I placed my hand upon the hilt of my knife, and then, moving slowly so as not to make a sound, started down the stairs.
The lantern-light flickered and I heard a crash of metal, as loud, I thought, as the bells in the church. A muttered curse followed – a woman’s voice. I edged further down the stairs, keeping as much as I could to the shadows, crouching low.
A figure dressed in brown cloak and habit knelt beside the hearth, hastily collecting the cooking pots she had knocked over, replacing them where they had stood. The copper gleamed in the light of the lantern, which rested on the table beside a vellum scroll. Another one, I thought.
She was turned towards the hearth, away from me, and so I could not see what she looked like. Even when she stood up and turned, still her face lay in shadow. She made for the door, pausing only to retrieve her lantern. The scroll she left on the table as the room fell into darkness.
I heard feet upon the landing and turned to see a shadow standing at the top of the stairs.
‘Tancred,’ it said, and I recognised the voice as belonging to Wace. I motioned for him to be quiet and he followed me as I went down into the hall, moving as quickly as I could, though it was dark and the steps were not even.
‘What was that noise?’ Wace asked, more softly this time. ‘What are you doing down here?’
I glanced back up past him towards the landing. If any of the others had been woken by the noise, they had no sooner fallen asleep again. But I heard no further signs of movement.
‘There was someone here just a moment ago,’ I murmured. ‘One of the nuns, I think.’
The table was in front of me, the scroll upon it. I picked it up. It was smaller than the one ?lfwold had carried, and sealed with a blob of dark-coloured wax, into which I could feel imprinted some sort of symbol, though it was too dark to make it out.
‘She left this here,’ I said. Yet another letter. But why come in the middle of the night to leave it here, rather than give it to us during the day? I tucked it into my belt and went to the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To follow her,’ I said, and hurried outside.
A cloud had passed in front of the moon and the convent buildings lay in shadow. There was no sign of her. I shivered as cold gripped my bare feet; the grass was white with hoarfrost. Over my shirt I had only my tunic.
‘She’s gone, whoever she was,’ Wace said, with a yawn. ‘And it’s too cold to be standing here.’
He went back inside, leaving me there. And then, amidst the trees in the orchard, I spotted the soft glow that could only come from a lantern and, holding it, a dark figure making for the cloister. If she reached it then she could easily lose me. There were too many buildings, too many doorways that one could slip into, and I didn’t know my way around.
I ran after her, my feet pounding the hard earth. She was nearly at the other side of the orchard when she must have heard me, as she gave a glance over her shoulder, lifted her skirts and began running too. Stones, sharp and hard, dug into my soles, but I didn’t care, for I was catching her, when she turned beneath the arch between the church and the chapter house. The arch that led into the cloister. She disappeared from sight and I willed myself faster, arriving just in time to see her duck into the church to my right, at the same time as on the other side of the courtyard another nun came into sight, swinging a lantern of her own. The circatrix, I realised, on her nightly rounds.
I shrank back behind a pillar, watching her even as I kept glancing at the church door. The stone was cold upon my fingers. I was breathing hard, the air from my lips turning to mist, and I tried to still it so as not to be seen.
The circatrix stopped by one of the doors on the southern range, sliding a large key from a ring at her belt into the lock. She gave the door a shove; it opened with a great creaking of hinges and she entered.