Chapter 13After Collen had used his healing powers on Matthew for the second time the boy slept for nearly twenty-four hours, waking at last clear-eyed and full of energy. The first thing he did was to go to the chapel and offer up a heart-felt prayer of thanks, and then he accosted Brother Peter and pleaded to be allowed to go to Lukas. The monk looked at the thin figure before him, the pinched face, the hollow chest, the shoulder bones almost poking through the homespun tunic.
‘What you need is some good wholesome food inside you,’ he said. ‘You’ll be going nowhere until I’m sure that you have been well fed.’
‘Does that mean I can go?’
‘After you’ve eaten... then we shall see.’
Matthew’s face broke into smiles. Brother Peter smiled back. It was impossible not to. In spite of a childh
