He could not remember clearly what had happened once Wistan and the boy had departed Father Jonus’s chamber. The silent monk, Ninian, must have left with them, probably to provide the ointment for the boy’s wound, or simply to lead them back unobserved. In any case, he and Beatrice had been left alone with Father Jonus, and the latter, despite his wounds and his exhaustion, had examined his wife thoroughly. The monk had not asked her to remove any clothing – Axl had been relieved – and though here too his recollection was hazy, an image came to him of Jonus pressing an ear to Beatrice’s side, eyes closed in concentration as though some faint message might be heard coming from within. Axl remembered too the monk, with blinking eyes, putting to Beatrice a series of questions. Did she feel sick after drinking water? Did she ever feel pain at the back of her neck? There were other questions Axl could now no longer remember, but Beatrice had replied in the negative to one after the next, and the more she did so, the more pleased Axl had become. Only once, when Jonus asked if she had noticed blood in her urine, and she replied that yes, she sometimes had, did Axl feel unease. But the monk had nodded, as though this was normal and to be expected, and gone straight on to the next question. How then had this examination ended? He remembered Father Jonus smiling and saying, “So you can go to your son with nothing to fear,” and Axl himself saying, “You see, princess, I always knew it was nothing.”