Chapter Three

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E dmund ran for soft cloths and warm water,Cadfael for draughts and ointments and decoctions from hisworkshop. Tomorrow he would pick the fresh, juicy water betony, andwintergreen and woundwort, more effective than the creams and waxeshe made from them to keep in store. But for tonight these must do.Sanicle, ragwort, moneywort, adder’s tongue, all cleansingand astringent, good for old, ulcerated wounds, were all to befound around the hedgerows and the meadows close by, and along thebanks of the Meole Brook.

They cleaned the broken wound of its exudations with a lotion ofwoundwort and sanicle, and dressed it with a paste of the sameherbs with betony and the chickweed wintergreen, covered it withclean linen, and swathed the patient’s wasted trunk withbandages to keep the dressing in place. Cadfael had brought also adraught to soothe the pain, a syrup of woundwort and SaintJohn’s wort in wine, with a little of the poppy syrup added.Brother Humilis lay passive under their hands, and let them do withhim what they would.

“Tomorrow,” said Cadfael, “I’ll gatherthe same herbs fresh, and bruise them for a green plaster, it worksmore strongly, it will draw out the evil. This has happened manytimes since you got the injury?”

“Not many times. But if I’m overworn, yes—ithappens,” said the bluish lips, without complaint.

“Then you must not be allowed to overwear. But it has alsohealed before, and will again. This woundwort got its name by goodright. Be ruled now, and lie still here for two days, or three,until it closes clean, for if you stand and go it will be longer inhealing.”

“He should by rights be in the infirmary,” saidEdmund anxiously “where he could be undisturbed as long as isneedful.”

“So he should,” agreed Cadfael “but thathe’s now well bedded here, and the less he stirs the better.How do you feel yourself now, Brother?”

“At ease,” said Brother Humilis, and faintlysmiled.

“In less pain?”

“Scarcely any. Vespers will be over,” said the faintvoice, and the high-arched lids rolled back from fixed eyes.“Don’t let Fidelis fret for me… He has seenworse—let him come.”

“I’ll fetch him to you,” said Cadfael, andwent at once to do it, for in this concession to the stoic mindthere was more value than in anything further he could do here forthe ravaged body. Brother Edmund followed him down the stair,anxious at his shoulder.

“Will it heal? Marvel he ever lived for it to heal at all.Did you ever see a man so torn apart, and live?”

“It happens,” said Cadfael, “though seldom.Yes, it will close again. And open again at the leaststrain.” Not a word was said between them to enjoin orpromise secrecy. The covering Godfrid Marescot had chosen for hisruin was sacred, and would be respected.

Fidelis was standing in the archway of the cloister, watchingthe brothers as they emerged, and looking with increasing concernfor one who did not come.

Late from the orchard, the fruit-gatherers had been in haste forthe evening office, and he had not looked then for Humilis,supposing him to be already in the church. But he was looking forhim now. The straight, strong brows were drawn together, the longlips taut in anxiety. Cadfael approached him as the last of thebrothers passed by, and the young man was turning to watch them go,almost in disbelief.

“Fidelis…” The boy’s cowled head swunground to him in quick hope and understanding. It was not good newshe was expecting, but any was better than none. It was to be seenin the set of his face. He had experienced all this more than oncebefore.

“Fidelis, Brother Humilis is in his own bed in thedortoir. No call for alarm now, he’s resting, his trouble istended. He’s asking for you. Go to him.”

The boy looked quickly from Cadfael to Edmund, and back again,uncertain where authority lay, and already braced to go stridingaway. If he could ask nothing with his tongue, his eyes wereeloquent enough, and Edmund understood them.

“He’s easy, and he’ll mend. You may go andcome as you will in his service, and I will see that you areexcused other duties until we’re satisfied he does well, andcan be left. I will make that good with Prior Robert. Fetch, carry,ask, according to need—if he has a wish, write it and itshall be fulfilled. But as for his dressings, Brother Cadfael willattend to them.”

There was yet a question, more truly a demand, in the ardenteyes. Cadfael answered it in quick reassurance. “No one elsehas been witness. No one else need be, but for Father Abbot, whohas a right to know what ails all his sons. You may be content withthat as Brother Humilis is content.”

Fidelis flushed and brightened for an instant, bowed his head,made that small open gesture of his hands in submission andacceptance, and went from them swift and silent, to climb the daystairs. How many times had he done quiet service at the samesick-bed, alone and unaided? For if he had not grudged them beingthe first on the scene this time, he had surely lamented it, andbeen uncertain at first of their discretion.

“I’ll go back before Compline,” said Cadfael“and see if he sleeps, or if he needs another draught. Andwhether the young one has remembered to take food for himself aswell as for Humilis! Now I wonder where that boy can have learnedhis medicine, if he’s been caring for Brother Humilis alone,down there in Hyde?” It was plain the responsibility had notdaunted him, nor could he have failed in his endeavours. To havekept any life at all in that valiant wreck was achievementenough.

If the boy had studied in the art of healing, he might make agood assistant in the herbarium, and would be glad to learn more.It would be something in common, a way in through the sealed doorof his silence.

Brother Fidelis fetched and carried, fed, washed,shaved his patient, tended to all his bodily needs, apparently inperfect content so to serve day and night, if Humilis had notordered him away sometimes into the open air, or to rest in his owncell, or to attend the offices of the church on behalf of both ofthem; as within two days of slow recovery Humilis increasingly didorder, and was obeyed. The broken wound was healing, its lips nolonger wet and limp, but drawing together gradually under theplasters of freshly-bruised leaves. Fidelis witnessed the slowimprovement, and was glad and grateful, and assisted withoutrevulsion as the dressings were changed. This maimed body was nosecret from him.

A favoured family servant? A natural son, as Edmund hadhazarded? Or simply a devout young brother of the Order who hadfallen under the spell of a charm and nobility all the moreirresistible because it was dying? Cadfael could not choose butspeculate. The young can be wildly generous, giving away theiryears and their youth for love, without thought of any gain.

“You wonder about him,” said Humilis from hispillow, when Cadfael was changing his dressing in the earlymorning, and Fidelis had been sent down with the brothers toPrime.

“Yes,” said Cadfael honestly.

“But you don’t ask. Neither have I asked anything.My future,” said Humilis reflectively, “I left inPalestine. What remained of me I gave to God, and I trust theoffering was not all worthless. My novitiate, clipped though it wasbecause of my state, was barely ending when he entered Hyde. I havehad good cause to thank God for him.”

“No easy matter,” said Cadfael, musing, “for adumb man to vouch for himself and make known his vocation. Had hesome elder to speak for him?”

“He had written his plea, how his father was old, andwould be glad to see his sons settled, and while his elder brotherhad the lands, he, the younger, wished to choose the cloister. Hebrought an endowment with him, but it was his fine hand and hisscholarship chiefly commended him. I know no more of him,”said Humilis, “except what I have learned from him insilence, and that is enough. To me he has been all the sons I shallnever father.”

“I have wondered,” said Cadfael, drawing the cleanlinen carefully over the newly-knit wound, “about hisdumbness. Is it possible that it stems only from some malformationin the tongue? For plainly he is not deaf, to blot out speech fromhis knowledge. He hears keenly. I have usually found the two gotogether, but not in him. He learns by ear, and is quick to learn.He was taught, as you say, a fine hand. If I had him with me alwaysamong the herbs I could teach him all the years have taughtme.”

“I ask no questions of him, he asks none of me,”said Humilis. “God knows I ought to send him away from me, toa better service than nursing and comforting my too earlycorruption. He’s young, he should be in the sun. But I am toocraven to do it. If he goes, I will not hold him, but I have notthe courage to dismiss him. And while he stays, I never cease tothank God for him.”

August pursued its unshadowed course, without acloud, and the harvest filled the barns. Brother Rhun missed hisnew companion from the gardens and the garth, where the roses burstopen daily in the noon and faded by night from the heat. The grapestrained along the north wall of the enclosed garden swelled andchanged colour. And far south, in ravaged Winchester, thequeen’s army closed round the sometime besiegers, severed theroads by which supplies might come in, and began to starve thetown. But news from the south was sparse, and travellers few, andhere the unbiddable fruit was ripening early.

Of all the cheerful workers in that harvest, Rhun was theblithest. Less than three months ago he had been lame and in pain,now he went in joyous vigour, and could not have enough of his ownhappy body, or put it to sufficient labours to testify to hisgratitude. He had no learning as yet, to admit him to the work ofcopying or study or colouring of manuscripts, he had a pleasantvoice but little musical training; the tasks that fell to him werethe unskilled and strenuous, and he delighted in them. There was noone who could fail to reflect the same delight in watching himstretch and lift and stride, dig and hew and carry, he who hadlately dragged his own light weight along with crippled effort andconstant pain. His elders beheld his beauty and vigour with fondadmiration, and gave thanks to the saint who had healed him.

Beauty is a perilous gift, but Rhun had never given a thought tohis own face, and would have been astonished to be told that hepossessed so rare an endowment. Youth is no less vulnerable, by thevery quality it has of making the heart ache that beholds and haslost it.

Brother Urien had lost more than his youth, and had not lost hisyouth long enough to have grown resigned to its passing. He wasthirty-seven years old, and had come into the cloister barely ayear past, after a ruinous marriage that had left him contorted inmind and spirit. The woman had wrung and left him, and he was not amild man, but of strong and passionate appetites and imperiouswill. Desperation had driven him into the cloister, and there hefound no remedy. Deprivation and rage bite just as deeply within aswithout.

They were working side by side over the first summer apples, atthe end of August, up in the dimness of the loft over the barn,laying out the fruit in wooden trays to keep as long as it would.The hot weather had brought on the ripening by at least ten days.The light in there was faintly golden, and heady with motes ofdust, they moved as through a shimmering mist. Rhun’s flaxenhead, as yet unshorn, might have been a fair girl’s, thecurve of his cheek as he stooped over the shelves was suave as arose-leaf, and the curling lashes that shadowed his eyes were longand lustrous. Brother Urien watched him sidewise, and his heartturned in him, shrunken and wrung with pain.

Rhun had been thinking of Fidelis, how he would have enjoyed theexpedition to the Gaye, and he noticed nothing amiss when hisneighbour’s hand brushed his as they laid out the apples, ortheir shoulders touched briefly by chance. But it was not by chancewhen the outstretched hand, instead of brushing and removing, slidlong fingers over his hand and held it, stroking from fingertips towrist, and there lingering in a palpable caress.

By all the symbols of his innocence he should not haveunderstood, not yet, not until much more had passed. But he didunderstand. His very candour and purity made him wise. He did notsnatch his hand away, but withdrew it very gently and kindly, andturned his fair head to look Urien full in the face with wide,wide-set eyes of the clearest blue-grey, with such comprehensionand pity that the wound burned unbearably deep, corrosive with rageand shame. Urien took his hand away and turned aside from him.

Revulsion and shock might have left a morsel of hope that oneemotion could yet, with care, be changed gradually into another,since at least he would have known he had made a sharp impression.But this open-eyed understanding and pity repelled him beyond hope.How dared a green, simple virgin, who had never become aware of hisbody but through his lameness and physical pain, recognise the firewhen it scorched him, and respond only with compassion? No fear, noblame, and no uncertainty. Nor would he complain to confessor orsuperior. Brother Urien went away with grief and desire burning inhis bowels, and the remembered face of the woman clear and cruelbefore his mind’s eyes. Prayer was no cure for the memory ofher.

Rhun brought away from that encounter, only a moment long andaccomplished in silence, his first awareness of the tyranny of thebody. Troubles from which he was secure could torture another man.His heart ached a little for Brother Urien, he would mention him inhis prayers at Vespers. And so he did, and as Urien beheld stillhis lost wife’s hostile visage, so did Rhun continue to seethe dark, tense, handsome face that had winced away from his gazewith burning brow and hooded eyes, bitterly shamed where he, Rhun,had felt no blame, and no bitterness. This was indeed a dark andsecret matter.

He said no word to anyone about what had happened. What hadhappened? Nothing! But he looked at his fellow men with changedeyes, by one dimension enlarged to take in their distresses andopen his own being to their needs.

This happened to Rhun two days before he was finallyacknowledged as firm in his vocation, and received the tonsure, tobecome the novice, Brother Rhun.

“So our little saint has made good hisresolve,” said Hugh, encountering Cadfael as he came from theceremony. “And his cure shows no faltering! I tell youhonestly, I go in awe of him. Do you think Winifred had an eye tohis comeliness, when she chose to take him for her own? Welshwomendon’t baulk their fancy when they see a beautifulyouth.”

“You are an unregenerate heathen,” said Cadfaelcomfortably, “but the lady should be used to you by now.Never think you’ll shock her, there’s nothing she hasnot seen in her time. And had I been in her reliquary I would havedrawn that child to me, just as she did. She knew worth when shesaw it. Why, he has almost sweetened even BrotherJerome!”

“That will never last!” said Hugh, and laughed.“He’s kept his own name—the boy?”

“It never entered his mind to change it.”

“They do not all so,” said Hugh, growing serious.“This pair that came from Hyde—Humilis and Fidelis.They made large claims, did they not? Brother Humble we know by hisformer name, and he needs no other. What do we know of BrotherFaithful? And I wonder which name came first?”

“The boy is a younger son,” said Cadfael. “Hiselder has the lands, this one chose the cowl. With his burden, whocould blame him? Humilis says his own novitiate was not yetcompleted when the young one came, and they drew together andbecame fast friends. They may well have been admitted together, andthe names… Who knows which of them chose first?”

They had halted before the gatehouse to look back at the church.Rhun and Fidelis had come forth together, two notably comelycreatures with matched steps, not touching, but close and content.Rhun was talking with animation. Fidelis bore the traces of muchwatching and anxiety, but shone with a responsive glow.Rhun’s new tonsure was bared to the sun, the fair hair roundit roused like an aureole.

“He frequents them,” said Cadfael, watching.“No marvel, he reaches out to every soul who has lost a pieceof his being, such as a voice.” He said nothing of what theelder of that pair had lost. “He talks for both. A pity hehas small learning yet. There’s neither of those two can readto Humilis, the one for want of a voice, the other for want ofletters. But he studies, and he’ll learn. Brother Paul thinkswell of him.”

The two young men had vanished at the archway of the day stairs,plainly bound for the dortoir cell where Brother Humilis was stillconfined to his bed. Who would not be heartened by the vision ofBrother Rhun just radiant from his admission to his heart’sdesire? And it was fitting, that reticent kinship between twobarren bodies, the one virgin unawakened, the other hollowed outand despoiled in its prime. Two whose seed was not of thisworld.

It was that same afternoon that a young man in asoldier’s serviceable riding gear, with rolled cloak at hissaddlebow, came in towards the town by the main London road toSaint Giles, and there asked directions to the abbey of Saint Peterand Saint Paul. He went bare-headed in the sun, and in hisshirt-sleeves, with breast bared, and face and breast and nakedforearms were brown as from a hotter sun even than here, where thesummer did but paint a further copper shade on a hide alreadygilded. A neatly-made young man, on a good horse, with an easy seatin the saddle and a light hand on the rein, and a bush of wiry darkhair above a bold, blunt-featured face.

Brother Oswin directed him, and with pricking curiosity watchedhim ride on, wondering for whom he would enquire there. Evidently afighting man, but from which army, and from whose household troops,to be heading for Shrewsbury abbey so particularly? He had notasked for town or sheriff. His business was not concerned with thewarfare in the south. Oswin went back to his work with mild regretat knowing no more, but dutifully.

The rider, assured that he was near his goal, eased to a walkalong the Foregate, looking with interest at all he saw, theblanched grass of the horse-fair ground, still thirsty for rain,the leisurely traffic of porter and cart and pony in the street,the gossiping neighbours out at their gates in the sun, the high,long wall of the abbey enclave on his left hand, and the lofty roofand tower of the church looming over it. Now he knew that he wasarriving. He rounded the west end of the church, with its greatdoor ajar outside the enclosure for parish use, and turned in underthe arch of the gatehouse.

The porter came amiably to greet him and ask his business.Brother Cadfael and Hugh Beringar, still at their leisurelyleave-taking close by, turned to examine the newcomer, noted hisbusiness-like and well-used harness and leathern coat slung behind,and the sword he wore, and had him accurately docketed in a moment.Hugh stiffened, attentive, for a man in soldier’s gearheading in from the south might well have news. Moreover, one whocame alone and at ease here through these shires loyal to KingStephen was likely to be of the same complexion. Hugh went forwardto join the colloquy, eyeing the horseman up and down withrestrained approval of his appearance.

“You’re not, by chance, seeking me, friend? HughBeringar, at your service.”

“This is the lord sheriff,” said Brother Porter byway of introduction; and to Hugh: “The traveller is askingfor Brother Humilis—though by his former name.”

“I was some years in the service of GodfridMarescot,” said the horseman, and slid his reins loose andlighted down to stand beside them. He was taller than Hugh by halfa head, and strongly made, and his brown countenance was open andcheerful, lit by strikingly blue eyes. “I’ve beenhunting for him among the brothers dispersed in Winchester afterHyde burned to the ground. They told me he’d chosen to comehere. I have some business in the north of the shire, and need hisapproval for what I intend. To tell the truth,” he said witha wry smile, “I had clean forgotten the name he took when heentered Hyde. To me he’s still my lord Godfrid.”

“So he must be to many,” said Hugh, “who knewhim aforetime. Yes, he’s here. Are you from Winchesternow?”

“From Andover. Where we’ve burned the town,”said the young man bluntly, and studied Hugh as attentively as hehimself was being studied. It was plain they were of the sameparty.

“You’re with the queen’s army?”

“I am. Under FitzRobert.”

“Then you’ll have cut the roads to the north. I holdthis shire for King Stephen, as you must know. I would not keep youfrom your lord, but will you ride with me into Shrewsbury and supat my house before you move on? I’ll wait your convenience.You can give me what I’m hungry for, news of what goesforward there in the south. May I know your name? I’ve givenyou mine.”

“My name is Nicholas Harnage. And very heartily I’lltell you all I know, my lord, when I’ve done my errand here.How is it with Godfrid?” he asked earnestly, and looked fromHugh to Cadfael, who stood by watching, listening, and until nowsilent.

“Not in the best of health,” said Cadfael,“but neither was he, I suppose, when you last parted fromhim. He has broken an old wound, but that came, I think, after hislong ride here. It is mending well now, in a day or two he’llbe up and back to the duties he’s chosen. He is well loved,and well tended by a young brother who came here with him fromHyde, and had been his attendant there. If you’ll wait but amoment I’ll tell Father Prior that Brother Humilis has avisitor, and bring you to him.”

That errand he did very briskly, to leave the pair of themtogether for a few minutes. Hugh needed tidings, all the firsthandknowledge he could get from that distant and confused battlefield,where two factions of his enemies, by their mutual clawings, hadnow drawn in the whole formidable array of his friends upon oneside. A shifty side at best, seeing the bishop had changed hisallegiance now for the third time. But at least it held theempress’s forces in a steel girdle now in the city ofWinchester, and was tightening the girdle to starve them out.Cadfael’s warrior blood, long since abjured, had a way ofcoming to the boil when he heard steel in the offing. His chiefuneasiness was that he could not be truly penitent about it. Hisking was not of this world, but in this world he could not helphaving a preference.

Prior Robert was taking his afternoon rest, which was known toothers as his hour of study and prayer. A good time, since he wasnot disposed to rouse himself and come out to view the visitor, orexert himself to be ceremoniously hospitable. Cadfael got what hehad counted on, a gracious permission to conduct the guest toBrother Humilis in his cell, and attend him to provide whateverassistance he might require. In addition, of course, to FatherPrior’s greetings and blessing, sent from his daily retreatinto meditation.

They had had time to grow familiar and animated while he hadbeen absent, he saw it in their faces, and the easy turn of bothheads, hearing his returning step. They would ride together intothe town already more than comrades in arms, potential friends.

“Come with me,” said Cadfael, “and I’llbring you to Brother Humilis.”

On the day stairs the young, earnest voice at hisshoulder said quietly: “Brother, you have been doctoring mylord since this fit came on. So the lord sheriff told me. He saysyou have great skills in herbs and medicine and healing.”

“The lord sheriff,” said Cadfael, “is my goodfriend for some years, and thinks better of me than I deserve. But,yes, I do tend your lord, and thus far we two do well together. Youneed not fear he is not valued truly, we do know his worth. Seehim, and judge for yourself. For you must know what he suffered inthe east. You were with him there?”

“Yes. I’m from his own lands, I sailed when he sentfor a fresh force, and shipped some elders and wounded for home.And I came back with him, when he knew his usefulness there wasended.”

“Here,” said Cadfael, with his foot on the topstair, “his usefulness is far from ended. There are young menhere who live the brighter by his light—under the light bywhich we all live, that’s understood. You may find two ofthem with him now. If one of them lingers, let him, he has theright. That’s his companion from Hyde.”

They emerged into the corridor that ran the whole length of thedortoir, between the partitioned cells, and stood at the opening ofthe dim, narrow space allotted to Humilis.

“Go in,” said Cadfael. “You do not need aherald to be welcome.”