Epilogue

An old Franciscan arrives at the castle of Arpentel as a guard waves him through. Skirting the keep, he playfully feigns fear for a noble boy’s mock attack before the boy’s father, a wary young seigneur, brusquely directs the friar to the kitchens and warns him not to touch anything, reflecting anxiety over a returning, child-claiming plague.

In the kitchen, Marie, a gap-toothed, pregnant servant who has heard the friar preach love over fear, fills his bowl and mug and asks a blessing for her unborn child and young ones. He places his large hand on her belly and grants a warm benediction.

A chamber woman summons him to Lady Marguerite, the household’s blind matriarch. Laboring up the stairs, the friar reveals old injuries. He enters the parlor, noting familiar bergamot and the layout, suggesting prior knowledge. Lady Marguerite addresses him alone, praising the Franciscans’ closeness to Christ and asking prayers for her grandson’s survival.

The friar agrees to pray as they debate the nature of luck and God’s will. She criticizes her son’s harshness and asks about the friar’s past; he admits to a deceased wife and a living daughter who became a nun the same month he took orders. She offers him lodging, but he declines, intent on visiting his daughter in Amiens.

As he departs, Lady Marguerite taps her ring three times—“Bull. Fox. Lamb.”—a coded signal that makes the friar pause, smile, and tear up. He answers by tapping his bowl three times, acknowledging shared recognition without words. He then leaves Arpentel, continuing toward Amiens, where his daughter tends a convent garden.