Athelstan could not remember the last time he had truly been lonely.

There was little privacy on a farmstead, but still less in an earl's hall. Everyone, slave or lord, shared the same spaces - the same tables, same beds, same privies. It was impossible to find a private space indoors when the small army of people who depended upon Ragnar for support (his slaves, yes, but his thegns and body guards and relatives, too) lived and worked in the same hall day in and day out. The idea of being alone, with nothing but your thoughts for company, was a luxury that few could afford.

When he'd first arrived at Ragnar's farm, Athelstan despaired of the loss of his privacy - or, perhaps more correctly, as he listened for yet another sleepless night to the sounds of Lagertha and Ragnar in their bed, the loss of everyone else's privacy. Yet now he found he missed the constant companionship offered by a busy family or an important village. In five years he had grown used to it.

In contrast, since arriving at the infirmary nearly a week ago he had seen no one save Godeleve. The entire world of the monastery outside his door was foreign to him, kept that way, no doubt, by Brother Cendric's strictures against fraternizing with him. He knew a little as he listened to Godeleve about the other people living and working in the buildings around him, but he had no faces for their names. There was Brother Cendric, of course- he was the Dean of the monks and some-time tutor in the monastery school - and Brother Wictred, who was the Assistant Infirmarer. He had a superior, Brother Merthwin, but Athelstan had gathered that he was very elderly and had few remaining duties in the Infirmary. There was Brother Aylwin and Sister Rimilde in the kitchens, and Sister Cengifa who might have been the cellerer or the larderer, it was hard to tell which. There were others, too, Sisters Brictrede and Osgyth and Derehild, but Athelstan didn't know yet what any of them did.

His days were very empty - unlike the rest of the community, who came and went with the bells for the Divine Office, dividing their days between the ora, prayer, and labora, prayer, that the Rule required, Athelstan had nothing save the marking of the changes in the weather outside his window.

He had made a careful study of his little cell in his idle hours- a small room, designed in the same manner as the cells for the brothers in another part of the monastery, about ten feet square. His bed, with its suitably monastic pallet and blankets, stood against the middle of the back wall, so there was room on either side for a caregiver, if anyone besides Godeleve ever decided to come and visit. The doorway to his room looked out into a corridor, and there was also, on the same wall, a small, unglazed window so he might observe the comings and goings of the monks. The corridor was open on one side, in the style of a Roman villa, to a courtyard garden. There was another window, much smaller than the one into the corridor, covered in oiled parchment in a wooden frame, to provide a little more of the light outside high in the wall above his bed. Add to that a simple table at his bedside for his caretakers' nostrums and decoctions, with a shelf below, a stool at the foot of his bed for his caregiver's comfort, and a crucifix on one wall, and the space's picture was complete.

It was, to put it another way, not a room with much distraction in it.

It was the window out into the passageway for which he gave the most thanks- it let him know when it was time for prayer, (a crowd following the bell in the direction of chapel) and promised when Godeleve would be coming back (the same crowd returning). And there was always the garden to watch, though that changed little from day to day. Still, from the window he could watch the shadow of the clouds go by, or the rain come down, or even, if he was very lucky, a few select species of wildlife come and go.

"You looked very pensive, just then," his caregiver observed, coming into the room after morning prayers with another basin of poultice to re-bandage his hands.

"I was watching a bird, out in the garden," Athelstan explained, the bird having long-since fled. It was easier to watch them when the others were at prayer - the cloister was quieter, and the birds likely to stay longer, when no one else was walking by.

"And do you often watch birds, out in the garden?" Godeleve asked, settling down onto the stool at his bedside and unwrapping one of his feet.

"There's very little else for me to do." He didn't know why he sounded so...so embarrassed by it. But everyone else had work, and he had none! Even the elderly brothers confined to the infirmary each had some task, however menial! While he, Athelstan, had nothing.

"The job of getting well does not fill time very easily, that I will grant you," Godeleve agreed. "I will ask Brother Hlothere if we can get a book for you to read while the others are at prayer. He certainly cannot refuse a request like that."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." Godeleve returned to the unpleasant task of unwrapping Athelstan's feet again, inspecting his wounds for signs of mortification and re-applying the herbs whose smell he was beginning to know so well.

Athelstan stared out the window over her shoulder, trying not to focus on the buzz of pain in his feet, to no avail. His gaze swung restlessly to Godeleve, her expression marked with intensity and focus. She was focused, outwardly, on his feet, but her mind seemed to be another place entirely - every so often, her mouth would twitch, and slowly, it occurred to Athelstan - she was nearly grinning. "Why are you smiling?" he asked, sounding more peevish than he meant to. "It can't be the smell."

Godeleve seemed to remember where she was and recovered a dignified look, at least for a few moments. "No, your birds only made me think about our reading this morning, from the Gospel of Matthew. It spoke about how God has his eye on every sparrow. 'And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.'"

"Do you really believe that? That you're of more value than many sparrows?"

"Don't you?" It was a simple question, simply asked - not an accusation, not a condemnation. Just a question.

And one for which, it seemed, Athelstan had no answer. His first question had slipped out in a moment of pain, a window of weakness. "I don't know what I believe any more," he replied, truthfully. "I haven't...haven't known in a long time." He didn't want to look at Godeleve, afraid of what he might see in her eyes.

There was a great silence, and then - "I can believe that."

Athelstan looked up, surprised. Now, why would she say that? he wondered to himself. What does she know of you? That you were stolen from your home, that you once professed to be a monk but profess no longer, that the world hates you as an apostate, that you have raided with Northmen but do not act as one of them. And what can any of that mean to her?

But the nun had returned to her work, leaving no clues in her expression. She finished with one foot and moved to the other one. "When you dream, what do you see?" she asked, carefully peeling away the second bandage.

"What has that to do with anything?"

She considered her words carefully here, just as carefully as she was considering the muscles of his feet. "Once, when I was lost, someone told me that your dreams are where your heart truly lives. Where do you go, when you dream?"

Athelstan thought a moment, trying to remember the last time he'd had a dream that he remembered. "I'm always on a boat," he said finally.

"Where's it going?" Godeleve asked.

"I don't know. I'm just ...there. Alone. Sometimes there's a storm around me, and sometimes it's as calm as summer. But it's always a boat."

The Saxon woman nodded, contemplating his answer for several minutes in silence. "Wiser women than me might have better answers, but I think that means you're still deciding where home is. Though I can't imagine," she added wryly, "that this bears any relation at all." She glanced around the little cell with jesting eyes.

"No, this feels a little more like a prison," Athelstan said, again almost immediately regretting it. I should not have said that. What was it about this woman that stripped him of his ability to lie?

She didn't seem deterred by the truth, glancing around at the room, her gaze lingering on the door and the window with insightful eyes. "That I can also well believe." Finishing with the second bandage, she tied off her handiwork and rinsed her hands with water from the pitcher at his bedside. "I'll see what I can do about getting you that book."

"Aren't you - aren't you going to stay?" He knew that she had other obligations, but she usually had an hour to spend with him before the bells called her back to prayer or meals.

Godeleve looked suddenly apologetic. "Brother Cendric told Sister Brictrede I could help her in the garden today," she explained. " And like a good servant, I must go where I am told."

Athelstan nodded, trying not to look too disappointed. He knew, from many overheard conversations in the corridor, that she was courting serious displeasure from Brother Cendric in helping him. It was only right that she go and do her real work, too.

"Of course," he agreed. "My apologies."

She smiled remorsefully, the silence between them awkward and unsure. For a moment, she looked as though she were trying to think of something to say, but in the end, she thought the better of it, and left without even the courtesy of a good-bye.

Why should her leaving bother him? She left every day; that was nothing new. Why should today be different?

What do you believe?

Because her question was still lingering around the corners of his room. That was why he was uneasy.

He truly wasn't sure about the sparrows. He had been a sparrow once, a fallen, suffering, shivering creature, and he found it very hard to believe that God had an eye on him, or a plan for his suffering. Among the Northmen things were simple - if you were suffering, the gods didn't like you and you should be sure to offer sacrifices towards their future good graces. Among the Christians, suffering could mean God's displeasure, or, as in the case of Job, a harbinger of better things to come when the suffering had passed in patient silence. They had been so sure, at Lindisfarne, that the visitation of the Northmen was some divine retribution for the sins of the world, sins that their daily prayers were trying to alleviate. We can all see the signs. You know as well as we that Judgment Day is at hand. Jeremiah says so! "And on that day, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall."

But now it was not so simple as that. He knew, now, because he had watched them, because he had raided with them, that the Vikings went where their ships took them, whether to Northumbria or Wessex, or to some other place entirely, not because of divine intervention but pure human greed. Or curiosity, sometimes, but on the main, for gold and land and everything else that made a treasure horde. Was it God who guided the ships to their divinely intended destination, to visit havoc upon unsuspecting sinners? Or was it Thor, answering the prayers of his people for land and riches and opportunities to kill and find a glorious death in battle? Did one cancel out the other, or did they form a sort of strange divine harmony, resisting and submitting in equal measure?

He wasn't sure he believed, as he was sure Godeleve did, that Saint Guinevere, whose aid she had invoked in the eleventh hour of his fever, had been the cause of his cure or whether her careful care had been the source. Or was it both, again working together? When Ragnar had been injured, all those years ago at the hands of Earl Haraldson's men, Floki and Lagertha and the rest prayed to Frigga for healing and help in the healing arts, wanting the magic of the god to guide what their hands already worked at.

Did it help at all that the person being worked upon believed in the intercession, too?

Around and around the argument spun, wheeling about in Athelstan's mind as the sun and the stars wheeled in the heavens with the passing of the day. He went to sleep that night hardly knowing which end of the universe was up, and slept very, very poorly on account of it. So poorly, in fact, that he woke up two or three times during the night (he hadn't done that in an age, not since he had fallen out of the habit of rising for the night offices) and continued to sleep until well after the sun was up, making him groggy enough that he hardly noticed the commotion building outside in the corridor until it was nearly outside his door.

"Sister Godeleve, what is the meaning of this?" an old, thin, reedy voice protested loudly from outside the door. Athelstan shook what little sleep was left out of his eyes and tried to sit up in bed to see what was going on.

"Brother Merthwin!"

The nearly mythic infirm infirmarer, it seemed, had chosen today to make his appearance. And while Athelstan could hear everything, he was not really sure why the older man was in such a state. "I really cannot allow this!" the older man was saying. "It contravenes all common practices."

"It will be here, and then it will be gone, Brother Merthwin. And I have cleaned the dirt from the wheels and everything. I need only to borrow Brother Wictred for a moment so I may get Athelstan out of bed, and then we will be gone."

Out of bed? Athelstan strained forward in his bed, trying to see what on earth she had brought with her that would cause such a commotion. Wheels? Dirt?

"Brother Cendric would not approve!" Brother Merthwin was saying stoutly.

"Then it is good Brother Cendric is currently in conference with the Abbot," Godeleve countered conspiratorially, edging her way down the corridor until she could enter Athelstan's room. "Good morning, Athelstan. I have brought you a present!"

"Is it a book?" Athelstan asked curiously, knowing full well books had neither dirt nor wheels, and were not usually the subject of mid-morning arguments in corridors.

Godeleve's face was flushed with pride. "No, it is even better!"

Athelstan tried to peer around her into the corridor until the object that had aroused Brother Merthwin's ire came into view. "Is that a wheelbarrow?"

And so it was. A simple wooden frame, with a middling-size wheel at the front, the kind of handcart usually used for moving weeds or stones. "I was in the garden with Sister Brictrede yesterday," she explained, obviously noting the look of growing concern on Athelstan's face, "and we were putting all the weeds in it for the dung heap, and as I was pushing it, I realized it would be just of a size for you. So today, it is your chariot. Now, put your arm around Brother Wictred's shoulder here, just so, and we will help you out of bed."

The task was easier said than done. Athelstan still could not put any weight on his feet, and after nearly a week in bed, his legs and arms were weak with disuse. Even to stand, just for a moment with most of his weight on Brother Wictred and Godeleve's shoulders, was painful beyond telling. Yet neither of them let him fall, and eventually he was seated, legs hanging perilously over the front of the barrow, and Godeleve was pushing him down the corridor he had watched for so long.

"Where shall we go?" Athelstan asked, torn between clinging to the sides of the barrow and keeping his hands folded in his lap as Godeleve had said he should.

"Outside," Godeleve promised with a wide grin.

The end of the cloister loomed ahead of them, the light at the end of the tunnel. Then suddenly, they were through it, and It was blinding to behold. After so long inside, Athelstan's eyes had adjusted to the low light, and he blinked for what seemed like countless minutes until his eyes finally adjusted and he was able to take the day in. And what a day! Hardly a cloud in the sky, a slight breeze and everywhere the smells of summer. Athelstan hadn't smelled a summer like this since -

Well, since he was a child, really. Summers on Lindisfarne and Kattegat had smelled of salt, not earth.

"Well, what do you think?" Godeleve asked, still holding the barrow so she wouldn't dump him out when she set it down.

"It's...certainly different," Athelstan allowed carefully. But inside he was rejoicing.

"Yes, well, be happy I didn't get the one Sister Wulftrude uses for the pig shit," Godeleve quipped with a jokester's smile. Athelstan, thinking about how ridiculous he looked sitting at odds in the dirt-cart, further imagined the smell of the alternative and couldn't help but laugh. "See, you would not have laughed a week ago. I am satisfied with that. Shall we go on?"

"But where?"

"Well, Sister Brictrede wants her barrow back," Godeleve explained. "So - the garden it shall have to be."

It would have been a lie to say it was not hard going. The barrow was built for carrying objects that did not mind a little jostling, and Athelstan's joints, already pulled tight by his ordeal and now stiff with disuse, did not welcome the sensation of being bustled over the packed earth paths of the monastery grounds. But it was good, so wonderfully, blessedly good, to feel sunshine again. And Godeleve had not tipped him out of the barrow once, despite a few close calls. Indeed, it was nothing short of amazing that she was able to push him as far as she had.

Finally, the wattle-walls of the the vegetable plot rose to meet them. And, with them, the distant shadow of the plot's keeper, shading her eyes against the morning sun to survey her visitors with interest.

Godeleve set the back-end of the barrow down as gracefully as she could and rubbed her arms a moment. "Welcome to the garden," she said, throwing an arm out to indicate the rows and trellises. "Ah, Sister Brictrede! Allow me to introduce my new friend, Athelstan."

"So, this is your lost soul, is it?"Sister Brictrede, a stout woman of fifty or so who looked like she might be able to pound sense into the most insubordinate of men, looked Athelstan over with a wary eye. "He doesn't look like much."

Well, she knows how to put a person in his place, Athelstan thought to himself. "He was a monk, before the Vikings took him away from his home monastery," Godeleve explained. This didn't seem to help the assessment, but it did have the slim virtue of being true..

"Mmm." the older woman still looked dismissive. "Well, go to the shed and get your tools, girl, and be quick about it."

"Yes, of course, Sister."

Once the younger woman was out of earshot, Sister Brictrede leaned over the barrow, eyes narrowed. ""I'll tell you now I don't think much of liars and thieves," she stated frankly. "Still less of murderers and oathbreakers. Especially those that turn their backs on their own kin." Athelstan remained silent. What she says is true, and I should atone for it. "But Godeleve - " she turned her hawkish glance in the direction of the shed where the tools were kept, "seems to think you are worth redeeming - though why that is, I shouldn't know - and it is for her sake that I'm allowing this. So know this, boy - set one foot out of line and no one's good graces will save you from a sound beating. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Sister," Athelstan assured her quickly, before Godeleve returned from the shed. Though setting any of my feet out of line is a little out of the question at the moment.

The older nun gave a brittle smile. "Good." She turned back to her helper, who was returning with a spade in each hand and a long, wooden-headed rake over her shoulder. "So, are you going to tell me why you felt it necessary to abscond with my wheelbarrow this morning, or shall we play the riddle game about it this afternoon?"

"I thought we might bring Athelstan out for a bit of sunshine," Godeleve explained, setting down her tools and gesturing to where Athelstan was now sitting. "We've had precious few fine days recently - we should take the blessings God gives us while they remain. He's not been outside since...he arrived…" She did not add 'since the Bishop tried to crucify him', for which Athelstan was most grateful. The less mentioned, the sooner forgotten, he hoped.

"Indeed." The older woman's narrowed gaze might have scorched earth. "Well, put him in the shade there, so he doesn't burn to a cinder, and we'll see if we can find something for him to do." she asked, following the pair as Godeleve picked up the handles of the barrow again (Was he really so heavy? He suddenly felt as though he were made of stone, and it embarrassed him.) "Do you read, boy?" Brictrede asked directly, watching Godeleve manipulate the barrow, and most of Athelstan's limbs, into the shade of an apple-tree near the edge of the vegetable plot so he wouldn't catch a sunburn.

Athelstan hadn't been called boy since his days as a novice, but he remembered enough birch rods to sit up smartly and give the answer that was required of him."The Latin and the Greek, Sister, as well as -"

"Saints of Heaven preserve us - are the heathens stealing scholars now as well as our gold? As if we didn't have enough problems. English, boy, English!"

"Like a native," Athelstan assured her quickly..

"Excellent. I have a commentary on St. John's Gospels here which you can read to us today. You may doubtless also find it very instructive."

"Of course, sister," the former monk said, taking the book from her with reverent hands.

"And mind you don't dirty it!" Brictrede added waspishly. "Now, Godeleve, we'll weed those beans today, they're looking a little starved for sunlight."

There were several gardens throughout the monastery; this was the kitchen garden, responsible for the sustenance of the monastery. The garden outside Athelstan's window in the Infirmary was the herb garden, or the simples garden, under the care of Brother Wictred, and another, larger field where the hops for the monastery's ale were grown, in addition to the fruit trees planted in the graveyard. There was also a garden plot near the Guest House, but that, Godeleve had explained dismissively, had mainly flowers kept for the Abbot's table and certain high feast days. But this ground - this was the lifeblood of the monastery. The beans and peas and onions grown here fed the monks and the nuns, as well as their guests and dependents. The whole plot was a riot of growth, a very far cry from the vegetable plots that Athelstan remembered and tended in Kattegat. Ragnar was right - this was good farmland.

Regardless of where it was carried out, gardening here was serious business - and, so it seemed, was reading. This was, Athelstan reminded himself, a Benedictine house, and the written word, and the study thereof, were undertaken by everyone. Not without reason were the words of the Benedictines Work and Prayer - they were, at times, one and the same. And reading to Sister Brictrede and Godeleve, it turned out, was harder than it had first sounded.

When Benedict had set down his rule, he made ample provision for the reading and discussion of the written word, and it showed in the words and thoughts of these two women, who made him stop, frequently, so that they might debate one set of words or another, crossing back and forth between the lives of the saints, the history of the church, the gospels, the psalms, and everything in between.

Athelstan had forgotten the richness that lay in reading aloud. It was one matter to listen as a skald told stories of ancient monsters and heroes, and joked with the children as well-meaning Thor bumbled into trouble and quick-witted Loki got him out again, but there was a different joy that came with being the storyteller, feeling the words working inside the heart and the mind like a bellows, the whole body warming with delight as the audience laughed and cried and were consoled.

After several hours, they had only progressed through a chapter of the volume on Athelstan's lap, and the former monk felt as though he, too, had been doing hard manual labor in the bean-rows. A bell in the abbey marked the passing of another hour, and Sister Brictrede went to use the privy, leaving Godeleve to throw herself on the grass next to Athelstan's barrow and take a drink from the waterskin that Sister Brictrede had brought out that morning.

"You read exceptionally well," she observed, impressed. "Sister Brictrede has not complained once all morning, and that itself is a marvel. I don't think any of our lectors read half as clearly as you do."

Athelstan smiled and ducked his head. "I was a copyist for many years - and an illuminator."

Godeleve looked surprised. "Do they have need for such skills among the pagans?"

"No. They do not write much - save their runes, which are reckoned as a form of magic and have great power. But those they generally carve, on stone or in ivory."

Godeleve studied him for a moment, still smiling. "You can tell," she stated plainly. "That you are a writer. The way you hold the book - it's as if it's a living thing you don't want to hurt. You have a great reverence for it."

Athelstan closed the commentary around the scrap of ribbon Sister Brictrede had left in the book to mark the place where they had stopped and tried not to be self-conscious about his hands."I haven't seen a book in nearly five years," he admitted.

"Five years!" Godeleve was amazed. "You must have been very young when they took you."

"Among their people, I was always counted as the youngest - because I had less training than any boy among them."

"Why did they keep you?" she asked, moving closer to the side of the wheelbarrow in fascination. "You are not a warrior, or a man of high rank that they could ransom. And, as you have said, they have little use for your skills."

A good question, that. And one he had asked himself. He remembered the trickster's mischief in Ragnar's eyes. "I spoke their language. Ragnar - the Earl - thought it would be useful." At least, I think that was part of it. But Ragnar has always thought many things, and does not make all of them known. "So he kept me as a slave."

Godeleve nodded. "But you are not a slave any longer," she guessed. At Athelstan's look of confusion, she tapped her own wrist, and, looking down, he remembered his arm ring.

"No," he remembered. "I am not. This was my first raid with Ragnar - I saved his life by blocking a blow that would have killed him, so he made me one of his thegns, his sworn soldiers. The arm-ring is a sign of that honor. But I have not been a slave, a true slave, for a long time. A trusted servant, perhaps, even sometimes a friend, but not a slave."

Godeleve took another drink of water, and Athelstan realized, as she nodded silently, that he had been speaking without thinking again. The arm ring is a sign of honor. As the gift of a slave-woman, too, would be. Athelstan, you fool, can you not think before you speak? You are so caught up in your own thoughts you look like you care nothing for the thoughts of others!

Whether or not Godeleve was truly as offended as he supposed was difficult to say - was her gaze off towards the horizon because she wished to watch something there, or because this talk of slaves and honors had made her uncomfortable? Eventually, she turned, offering him the waterskin with an expressionless face, and, for the first time all morning, he realized how thirsty he had become. He tipped the waterskin skyward with abandon, drinking in great heaving gulps until he realized that more than a little was dribbling down his chin.

And while we must eat daily, we must gratify the body more poorly and sparingly; since we must eat daily for the reason that we must go forward daily, pray daily, toil daily, and read daily.

The words of the Rule of Columbanus sprang to his mind without prompt, a sudden flash in the sky of memory. There was an image, there, too, of the novice-master at Lindisfarne and his birch rod, tapping a reminder onto the backs of the overeager boys who had begun wolfing down their food after a particularly long morning without first saying grace over it. Waste is a sin, and haste is a sin, boy! What time you have is God's time and you will spend it with care.

Athelstan lowered the skin from his lips, and wiped his chin, handing it back to her so she could stopper it. Why does all this return and leave me restless?

Godeleve, it seemed, had not noticed his growing concern - her gaze was fixed, again, across the garden, watching yet another group of birds fly and fall back into the trees on the far side of the enclosure. Athelstan tried to watch them, but his mind wasn't really in the watching, and instead, his eyes fell back to Godeleve, studying the flock with fascination, ignorant of his unrest. "You know more about God's eye and the sparrows than I think you realize, Athelstan," she noted with a grave smile, gaze still occupied with the birds.

Athelstan let his silence speak for him, wondering what she could mean, or, indeed, how she could know what he knew and didn't know about God's grace. After a while, she glanced at him, realized his suspicion, and elaborated. "How many can say that they were taken as slaves and are now honored free men?" She let the question hang in the air a moment. How many, indeed? He hadn't thought of that. "And how many of those few can say they have faced an inglorious death and were spared? Is God's eye not in that, too?"

"I...hadn't thought of that."

"And," Godeleve said, rising from her seat underneath the tree as Brictrede returned, "If he hadn't kept his eye on you, he wouldn't have been able to do anything for me."

Striding across the garden, he heard her speaking to Brictrede, something about letting his voice rest for the remainder of the day. Her voice was incredibly distant, as though a mile of open ground stood between them, and not only a few feet of dirt. The sunlight suddenly seemed heavy, and Athelstan's eyes followed the diving and wheeling flock of birds in the far grove of fruit trees, a cloud of movement dipping and skimming into the blue of the sky, guided by an unseen touch in the air.

If he hadn't kept his eye on you, he wouldn't have been able to do anything for me.

If he hadn't been stolen from Lindisfarne, he wouldn't have been enslaved, wouldn't have been befriended by Ragnar, wouldn't have earned his trust, wouldn't have come to Wessex, wouldn't have been captured, wouldn't have been crucified.

But if he hadn't been stolen and hadn't become a slave, he wouldn't have pitied the woman he'd been given as prize of battle, wouldn't have let her go free, and wouldn't have been saved from certain death by the same woman.

Always more questions, and never enough answers, Athelstan contemplated bitterly. Can nothing in this life of mine be plainly understood?

Another quote shimmered on the surface of his mind, this time from Ecclesiastes. God has made it so, in order that men should fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

He watched the birds until the bell called them back inside for the noontime meal, and said nothing to Godeleve as she wheeled him back inside, his thoughts too heavy to put into words.

The Rule of Columbanus, mentioned in one of Athelstan's flashbacks, is one of the many monastic rules in use in Britain, Ireland, and some parts of France during the Dark Ages. It was written by an Irish monk (Columbanus) and is comparatively short. Since the community at Lindisfarne was a product of the Irish-Celtic missionary movement in the 6th and 7th centuries, I thought it would make for a good point of 'culture clash' between the two monasteries. You can read the whole text online. (Rules like this fall out of use after Charlemange's monastic reforms, in which he promoted the use of the Rule of Benedict.)

This was kind of a filler chapter, but I had a lot of fun writing Sister Brictrede, who looks (in my mind) a lot like Pam Ferris on Call The Midwife.

Reviews are, as always, appreciated and treasured.