“And where do you go?”
“Where do I go?”Peris said.“To…to the infirmary, o’ course.”
“O’ course,” the prior echoed.
“And do you go anywhere else?”Hew asked.
“Think hard,” the prior suggested.
While the physician was thinking, a furtive movement from the courtyard below caught Hew’s eye.It was her.The angel.The vision.Carenza.
She had slipped behind the wall of the stable and was hunkered down in the shadows beside a small animal.He couldn’t make out what it was.A kitten?A pup?
“The refectory,” Peris said, “if I’m there for more than half a day.”
“To take your meals,” the prior explained.
“Aye, and the garderobe,” he said, “in case I…ye know.”
Whatwasthat creature?It was very small but quick and reddish in color.She seemed to be feeding it.
“The library.”
That caught Hew’s ear.“The library?”
The prior explained.“The monastery has a few medical texts.”
“That’s right,” Peris said.
“Where else?”Hew said.
“The cloister.”
“The cloister.Why?”
“To fetch water from the well.”
Hew nodded.“Go on.”
Peris continued trying to recall all the places he’d gone.
Meanwhile, the creature Carenza was feeding scampered onto her lap.He could see now it was a squirrel.How she’d convinced the wild thing to let her feed it by hand he couldn’t fathom.But she was playing a dangerous game.If it bit her…
“I think that’s all,” Peris concluded.
Hew hadn’t really been listening.But it was clear Peris basically had access to the entire monastery.After all, a monk could fall ill in any quarter of Kildunan.
“Do you know on which days you’ve come to the monastery?”Hew asked.
“The days?”Peris chewed at his lip.
“’Tis all right if ye don’t remember exactly,” the prior said.“Ye’ve been comin’ to the monastery for a long while now.”
“Aye,” Peris said.“Nigh a year.”
Hew frowned.A year wasn’t that long.And the thefts had taken place within the last year.“What days do you remember?”
“I remember the first time was a few days after Candlemas.I was there just before Beltane and sometime in midsummer…”
