- Brother Cadfael: You could have been excommunicated. Assault upon your priest and confessor! Though I won't deny I have wanted to strangle Brother Jerome at times myself.
- Abbot Radulfus: How is Brother Jerome?
- Brother Cadfael: Oh, his throat will mend, but a week or two will pass before his voice returns.
- Abbot Radulfus: Then even in the worst deed, there is some good.
- [first lines]
- Leoric Ashby: Master Clemence.
- Peter Clemence: Leoric.
- Leoric Ashby: [to Meriet] Take his horse, boy. Welcome to Ashby Manor.
- Peter Clemence: [dismounts into a puddle] The pleasure is all yours... cousin.
- [last lines]
- Brother Cadfael: Well then, off you go. Your vocation is elsewhere.
- Meriet Ashby: And yours is truly here?
- Brother Cadfael: Oh, yes, it is. And not merely from atonement and weariness. In middle life you too may stop and look inside yourself and wonder, "what now?" I was ripe for change, and I find that change refreshing.
- Meriet Ashby: But I shall be married then, with twelve children.
- Isobel: We'll see about the twelve.
- [Meriet laughs]
- Isobel: God keep you, Brother Cadfael.
- Brother Cadfael: I hope he will.
- [Meriet and Isobel leave]
- Brother Cadfael: I hope he will.
- [Clemence is "regaling" the company at dinner]
- Peter Clemence: ...and the Church is not sure which side the nobles favor in the civil war.
- [pause]
- Peter Clemence: You *do* know that there is a civil war between King Stephen and his frightful cousin Maud, for the crown of England?
- Meriet Ashby: [levelly] We have had friends die in it, sir.
- [an arrow hits a tree over Cadfael's head. He ducks. Isobel appears, carrying her bow]
- Isobel: Sorry, brother, I mistook you for a wild pig. Well, not strictly true, I sought you out.
- Brother Cadfael: You're not the first today.
- Isobel: Shall we talk... or must you not sit with women?
- Brother Cadfael: [smiles] I will sit with pleasure.
- Leoric Ashby: I have misprized you, Meriet. Almost from the day that you were born.
- Meriet Ashby: The fault was not all yours, sir. No man could have had a more irksome son.
- [Leoric laughs, then begins to cry and hugs Meriet close]
- Leoric Ashby: Come home.
- Abbot Radulfus: What is your prayer, my son?
- Meriet Ashby: Father, to enter the cloistered life and serve God.
- Abbot Radulfus: The life you seek is a hard one. Are you ready to accept that hardship, to obey and to bear ignominy for the love of Christ?
- Meriet Ashby: Yes, by the grace of God.
- Abbot Radulfus: Stand.
- [Meriet does]
- Abbot Radulfus: Are you freeborn, in good health, and free from incurable disease?
- Meriet Ashby: Yes, by the grace of God.
- Abbot Radulfus: Are you free from debt and irregularities?
- Meriet Ashby: Yes, by the grace of God.
- Abbot Radulfus: Are you bound by promise of marriage?
- Meriet Ashby: [with the barest noticeable hesitation] No, by the grace of God.
- Abbot Radulfus: Then your prayer is granted.
- [Eluard is called to examine the burned skeleton found in the forest]
- Canon Eluard: My Bishop will be sorely grieved.
- Sergeant Warden: It is Clemence, my lord?
- Canon Eluard: [looks at the bare skull] The smile is the same.
- Leoric Ashby: I had the horse led to the far north, by the route Clemence should have taken - devil's own job to catch. And the body I took in secret to the charcoal hearth. I built a stack and fired it. It was not well done, and against my conscience, but I did it. And I did it not for Meriet's sake, not for my own flesh and blood - that's the real shame - but to preserve that worthless thing called "honor."
- Brother Cadfael: No, honor is not worthless. But you sought to protect a family name. And a name, alone, has no worth at all.
- Abbot Radulfus: Unrequited love?
- Brother Cadfael: He is passionate. The lady chose his brother.
- Abbot Radulfus: And for that he shuts himself away?
- Brother Cadfael: He will admit no other reason.
- Prior Robert: Well, better that than murder.
- Brother Cadfael: You mean Canon Eluard's suspicions?
- Prior Robert: Given credence, surely, by his savage attack on Brother Jerome?
- Brother Cadfael: No, no, no. Meriet would have stopped.
- Prior Robert: Would he? I think, Brother Cadfael, that you see yourself in that young man. That doesn't mean you can read his heart.
- Brother Cadfael: No, but I think it wise, Father, for someone to visit his father, Leoric Ashby.
- Prior Robert: To what end?
- Brother Cadfael: Because it is not too late for him to haul the boy back from vows for which he is manifestly ill-suited.
- Abbot Radulfus: A sensible thought. This is no hideaway for lovesick youth, Brother Prior.
- Sergeant Warden: Brother Meriet! To accept banishment to the cloister may be deemed a great self-sacrifice, and there is virtue in it when it is done to save the family honour. But you still have your life, and if you killed, then that life is forfeit.
- Meriet Ashby: [stares back at him, unflinching] And I accept that penalty. No starving runaway must take my place.
- Meriet Ashby: [from his sickbed, with a broken ankle] *I* killed Peter Clemence! I shot him down in the forest not three miles from Ashby! Tell Sergeant Warden to let that poor wretch Harald free! I never thought when he was taken...!
- Brother Cadfael: Easy, easy! Why did you commit such a mortal sin?
- Meriet Ashby: Why? Because he made free with my brother's bride, the woman I too loved!
- Brother Cadfael: And your father, does he know of this?
- Meriet Ashby: How else should I be here? He gave me a choice which was no choice: to undergo this lifelong penance of the cloister, or to admit my guilt and go to shameful death, thus destroying our family name and ancient honour, and so him.