Chapter Five

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I t so happened that Brother Cadfael was privatewith Humilis in his cell in the dortoir when Nicholas again rode inat the gatehouse and asked leave to visit his former lord, as hehad promised. Humilis had risen with the rest that morning,attended Prime and Mass, and scrupulously performed all the dutiesof the horarium, though he was not yet allowed to exert himself byany form of labour. Fidelis attended him everywhere, ready tosupport his steps if need arose, or fetch him whatever he mightwant, and had spent the afternoon completing, under hiselder’s approving eye, the initial letter which had beensmeared and blotted by his fall. And there they had left the boy tofinish the careful elaboration in gold, while they repaired to thedortoir, physician and patient together.

“Well closed,” said Cadfael, content with his work,“and firming up nicely, clean as ever. You scarcely need thebandages, but as well keep them a day or two yet, to guard againstrubbing while the new skin is still frail.”

They were grown quite easy together, these two, and if both ofthem realised that the mere healing of a broken and festered woundwas no sufficient cure for what ailed Humilis, they were bothcourteously silent on the subject, and took their moderate pleasurein what good they had achieved.

They heard the footsteps on the stone treads of the day stairs,and knew them for booted feet, not sandalled. But there was nospring in the steps now, and no hasty eagerness, and it was a glumyoung man who appeared, shadowy, in the doorway of the cell. Norhad he been in any hurry on the way back from Lai, since he hadnothing but disappointment to report. But he had promised, and hewas here.

“Nick!” Humilis greeted him with evident pleasureand affection. “You’re soon back! Welcome as the day,but I had thought…” There he stopped, even in the diminterior light aware that the brightness was gone from the youngman’s face. “So long a visage? I see it did not go asyou would have wished.”

“No, my lord.” Nicholas came in slowly, and bent hisknee to both his elders. “I have not sped.”

“I am sorry for it, but no man can always succeed. Youknow Brother Cadfael? I owe the best of care to him.”

“We spoke together the last time,” said Nicholas,and found a half-hearted smile by way of acknowledgement. “Icount myself also in his debt.”

“Spoke of me, no doubt,” said Humilis, smiling andsighing. “You trouble too much for me, I am well contenthere. I have found my way. Now sit down a while, and tell us whatwent wrong for you.”

Nicholas plumped himself down on the stool beside the bed onwhich Humilis was sitting, and said what he had to say incommendably few words: “I hesitated three years too long.Barely a month after you took the cowl at Hyde, Julian Cruce tookthe veil at Wherwell.”

“Did she so!” said Humilis on a long breath, and satsilent to take in all that this news could mean. “Now Iwonder… No, why should she do such a thing unless it wastruly her wish? It cannot have been because of me! No, she knewnothing of me, she had only once seen me, and must have forgottenme before my back was turned. She may even have been glad…It may be this is what she always wished, if she could have herway…” He thought for a moment, frowning, perhapstrying to recall what that little girl looked like. “You toldme, Nick, that I do remember, how she took my message. She was notdistressed, but altogether calm and courteous, and gave me hergrace and pardon freely. You said so!”

“Truth, my lord,” said Nicholas earnestly,“though she cannot have been glad.”

“Ah, but she may—she may very well have been glad.No blame to her! Willing though she may have been to accept thematch made for her, yet it would have tied her to a man more thantwenty years her elder, and a stranger. Why should she not be glad,when I offered her her liberty—no, urged it upon her? Surelyshe must have made of it the use she preferred, perhaps had longedfor.”

“She was not forced,” Nicholas admitted, withsomewhat reluctant certainty. “Her brother says it was thegirl’s own choice, indeed her father was against it, and onlygave in because she would have it so.”

“That’s well,” agreed Humilis with a relievedsigh. Then we can but hope that she may be happy in herchoice.”

“But so great a waste!” blurted Nicholas, grieving.“If you had seen her, my lord, as I did! To shear such hairas she had, and hide such a form under the black habit! They shouldnever have let her go, not so soon. How if she has regretted itlong since?”

Humilis smiled, but very gently, eyeing the downcast face andhooded eyes. “As you described her to me, so gracious andsensible, of such measured and considered speech, I don’tthink she will have acted without due thought. No, surely she hasdone what is right for her. But I’m sorry for your loss,Nick. You must bear it as gallantly as she did—if ever I wasany loss!”

The Vesper bell had begun to chime. Humilis rose to go down tothe church, and Nicholas rose with him, taking the summons as hisdismissal.

“It’s late to set out now,” suggested Cadfael,emerging from the silence and withdrawal he had observed whilethese two talked together. “And it seems there’s nogreat haste, that you need leave tonight. A bed in the guest-hall,and you could set off fresh in the morning, with the whole daybefore you. And spend an hour or two more with Brother Humilis thisevening, while you have the chance.”

To which sensible notion they both said yes, and Nicholasrecovered a little of his spirits, if nothing could restore theardour with which he had ridden north from Winchester.

What did somewhat surprise Brother Cadfael was the considerateway in which Fidelis, confronted yet again with this visitant fromthe time before he had known Humilis and established his ownintimacy with him, withdrew himself from sight as he was withdrawnfrom the possibility of conversation, and left them to their sharedmemories of travel, Crusade and battle, things so far removed fromhis own experience. An affection which could so self-effacinglymake room for a rival and prior affection was generous indeed.

There was a merchant of Shrewsbury who dealt infleeces all up and down the borders, both from Wales and from suchfat sheep-country as the Cotswolds, and had done an interestingside-trade in information, for Hugh’s benefit, in thesecontrary times. His active usefulness was naturally confined tothis period of high summer when the wool clip was up for sale, andmany dealers had restricted their movements in these dangeroustimes, but he was a determined man, intrepid enough to venture wellsouth down the border, towards territory held by the empress. Hissuppliers had sold to him for some years, and had sufficientconfidence in him to hold their clip until he made contact.

He had good trading relations as far afield as Bruges inFlanders, and was not at all averse to a large risk whencalculating on a still larger profit. Moreover, he took his ownrisks, rather than delegating these unchancy journeys to hisunderlings. Possibly he even relished the challenge, for he was astubborn and stalwart man.

Now, in early September, he was on his way home with hispurchases, a train of three wagons following from Buckingham, whichwas as near as he could reasonably go to Oxford. For Oxford hadbecome as alert and nervous as a town itself under siege, every dayexpecting that the empress must be forced by starvation to retreatfrom Winchester. The merchant had left his men secure on a roadrelatively peaceful, to bring up his wagons at leisure, and himselfrode ahead at good speed with his news to report to Hugh Beringarin Shrewsbury, even before he went home to his wife and family.

“My lord, things move at last. I had it from a man who sawthe end of it, and made good haste away to a safer place. You knowhow they were walled up there in their castles in Winchester, thebishop and the empress, with the queen’s armies closing allround the city and sealing off the roads. No supplies have gone inthrough that girdle for four weeks now, and they say there’sstarvation in the town, though I doubt if either empress or bishopis going short.” He was a man who spoke his mind, and nogreat respecter of high personages. “A very different talefor the poor townsfolk! But it’s biting even the garrisonwithin there at the royal castle, for the queen has been supplyingWolvesey while she starves out the opposing side. Well, they cameto the point where they must try to win a way through.”

“I’ve been expecting it,” said Hugh, intent.“What did they hit on? They could only hope to move north orwest, the queen holds all the south-east.”

“They sent out a force, three or four hundred as I heardit, northwards, to seize on the town of Wherwell, and try to securea base there to open the Andover road. Whether they were seen onthe move, or whether some townsman betrayed them—forthey’re not loved in Winchester—however it was, Williamof Ypres and the queen’s men closed in on them whenthey’d barely reached the edge of the town, and cut them topieces. A great killing! The fellow who told me fled when thehouses started to burn, but he saw the remnant of theempress’s men put up a desperate fight of it and reach thegreat nunnery there. And they never scrupled to use it, either, hesays. They swarmed into the church itself and turned it into afortress, although the poor sisters had shut themselves in therefor safety. The Flemings threw in firebrands after them. A hellishbusiness it must have been. He could hear from far off as he ran,he said, the women screaming, the flames crackling and the din offighting within there, until those who remained were forced to comeout and surrender, half-scorched as they were. Not a man can haveescaped either death or capture.”

“And the women?” demanded Hugh aghast. “Do youtell me the abbey of Wherwell is burned down, like the convent inthe city, like Hyde Mead after it?”

“My man never dallied to see how much was left,”said the messenger drily. “But certainly the church burneddown to the ground, with both men and women in it—the sisterscannot all have come out alive. And as for those who did, God aloneknows where they will have found refuge now. Safe places are hardto find in those parts. And for the empress’s garrison,I’d say there’s no hope for them now but to musterevery man they have, and try to burst out by force of numbersthrough the ring, and run for it. And a poor chance for them, evenso.”

A poor chance indeed, after this last loss of three or fourhundred fighting men, probably hand-picked for the exploit, whichmust have been a desperate gamble from the first. The year only atearly September, and the fortunes of war had changed and changedagain, from the disastrous battle of Lincoln which had made theking prisoner and brought the empress within grasp of the crownitself, to this stranglehold drawn round the same proud lady now.Now only give us the empress herself prisoner, thought Hugh, and weshall have stalemate, recover each our sovereign, and begin thiswhole struggle all over again, for what sense there is in it! Andat the cost of the brothers of Hyde Mead and the nuns of Wherwell.Among many others even more defenceless, like the poor ofWinchester.

The name of Wherwell, as yet, meant no more to him than anyother convent unlucky enough to fall into the field of battle.

“A good year for me, all the same,” said thewool-merchant, rising to make his way home to his own waiting boardand bed. “The clip measures up well, it was worth thejourney.”

Hugh took the latest news down to the abbey nextmorning, immediately after Prime, for whatever of import came tohis ears was at once conveyed to Abbot Radulfus, a service theabbot appreciated and reciprocated. The clerical and secularauthorities worked well together in Shropshire, and moreover, inthis case a Benedictine house had been desecrated and destroyed,and those of the Rule stood together, and helped one another wherethey could. Even in more peaceful times, nunneries were apt to havemuch narrower lands and more restricted resources than the housesof the monks, and often had to depend upon brotherly alms, evenunder good, shrewd government. Now here was total devastation.Bishops and abbots would be called upon to give aid.

He had come from his colloquy with Radulfus in the abbot’sparlour with half an hour still before High Mass and, choosing tostay for the celebration since he was here, he did what hehabitually did with time to spare within the precinct of the abbeyand went looking for Brother Cadfael in his workshop in theherb-garden.

Cadfael had been up since long before Prime, inspected suchwines and distillations as he had working, and done a littlewatering while the soil was in shade and cooled from the night. Atthis time of year, with the harvest in, there was little work to bedone among the herbs, and he had no need as yet to ask for anassistant in place of Brother Oswin.

When Hugh came to look for Cadfael he found him sitting at easeon the bench under the north wall, which at this time of day waspleasantly warm without being too hot, contemplating betweenadmiration and regret the roses that bloomed with such extravagantsplendour and wilted so soon. Hugh sat down beside him, rightlyinterpreting placid silence as welcome.

“Aline says it’s high time you came to see how yourgodson has grown.”

“I know well enough how much he will have grown,”said Giles Beringar’s godfather, between complacency and aweof his formidable responsibility. “Not two years old untilChristmas, and too heavy already for an old man.”

Hugh made a derisive noise. When Cadfael claimed to be an oldman he must either be up to something, or inclined to be idle, andgiving fair warning.

“Every time he sees me he climbs me like a tree,”said Cadfael dreamily. “You he daren’t treat so, youare but a sapling. Give him fifteen more years, and he’llmake two of you.”

“So he will,” agreed the fond father, and stretchedhis lithe, light body pleasurably in the strengthening sun.“A long lad from birth—do you remember? That was aChristmas indeed, what with my son—and yours… I wonderwhere Olivier is now? Do you know?”

“How should I know? With d’Angers in Gloucester, Ihope. She can’t have drawn them all into Winchester with her,she must leave force enough in the west to hold her on to her basethere. Why, what made you think of him just now?”

“It did enter my head that he might have been among theempress’s chosen at Wherwell.” He had recoiled intogrim recollection, and did not at first notice how Cadfaelstiffened and turned to stare. “I pray you’re right,and he’s well out of it.”

“At Wherwell? Why, what of Wherwell?”

“I forgot,” said Hugh, startled, “youdon’t yet know the latest news, for I’ve only justbrought it within here, and I got it only last night. Did I not saythey’d have to try to break out—the empress’smen? They have tried it, Cadfael, disastrously for them. They senta picked force to try to seize Wherwell, no doubt hoping tostraddle the road and the river there, and open a way to bring insupplies. William of Ypres cut them to pieces outside the town, andthe remnant fled into the nunnery and shut themselves into thechurch. The place burned down over them… God forgive themfor ever violating it, but they were Maud’s men who first didit, not ours. The nuns, God help them, had taken refuge there whenthe fight began…”

Cadfael sat frozen even in the sunlight. “Do you tell meWherwell has gone the way of Hyde?”

“Burned to the ground. The church at least. As for therest… But in so hot and dry a season…”

Cadfael, who had gripped him hard and suddenly by the arm, asabruptly loosed him, leaped from the bench, and began to run,veritably to run, as he had not done since hurtling to get out ofrange from the rogue castle on Titterstone Clee, two years earlier.He had still a very respectable turn of speed when roused, but hisgait was wonderful, legless under the habit, like a black ballrolling, with a slight oscillation from side to side, aseaman’s walk become a headlong run. And Hugh, who loved him,and rose to pursue him with a very sharp sense of the urgencybehind this flight, nevertheless could not help laughing as he ran.Viewed from behind, a Benedictine in a hurry, and a Benedictine ofmore than sixty years and built like a barrel, at that, may beformidably impressive to one who knows him, but must be comic.

Cadfael’s purposeful flight checked in relief as heemerged into the great court; for they were there still, in nohaste with their farewells, though the horse stood by with a groomat his bridle, and Brother Fidelis tightening the straps that heldNicholas Harnage’s bundle and rolled cloak behind the saddle.They knew nothing yet of any need for haste. There was a wholesunlit day before the rider.

Fidelis wore the cowl always outdoors, as though to cover apersonal shyness that stemmed, surely, from his mute tongue. He whocould not open his mind to others shrank from claiming anyprivileged advance from them. Only Humilis had some manner ofsilent and eloquent speech with him that needed no voice. Havingsecured the saddle-roll the young man stepped back modestly to alittle distance, and waited.

Cadfael arrived more circumspectly than he had set out from thegarden. Hugh had not followed him so closely, but halted in shadowby the wall of the guest-hall.

There’s news,” said Cadfael bluntly. “Youshould hear it before you leave us. The empress has made an attackon the town of Wherwell, a disastrous attack. Her force is wipedout by the queen’s army. But in the fighting the abbey ofWherwell was fired, the church burned to the ground. I know no moredetail, but so much is certain. The sheriff here got the word lastnight.”

“By a reliable man,” said Hugh, drawing close.“It’s certain.”

Nicholas stood staring, eyes and mouth wide, his golden sunburndulling to an earthen grey as the blood drained from beneath it. Hegot out in a creaking whisper: “Wherwell? They’vedared…?”

“No daring,” said Hugh ruefully, “but plainterror. They were men penned in, the raiding party, they sought anyplace of hiding they could find, surely, and slammed to the door.But the end was the same, whoever tossed in the firebrands. Theabbey’s laid waste. Sorry I am to say it.”

“And the women…? Oh, God… Julian’sthere… Is there any word of the women?”

“They’d taken to the church for sanctuary,”said Hugh. In such civil warfare there were no sanctuaries, noteven for women and children. “The remnant of the raiderssurrendered—most may have come out alive. All, Idoubt.”

Nicholas turned blindly to grope for his bridle, plucking hissleeve out of the quivering hand Humilis had laid on his arm.“Let me away! I must go… I must go there and findher.” He swung back to catch again briefly at the olderman’s hand and wring it hard. “I will findher! If she lives I’ll find her, and see her safe.” Hefound his stirrup and heaved himself into the saddle.

“If God’s with you, send me word,” saidHumilis. “Let me know that she lives and is safe.”

“I will, my lord, surely I will.”

“Don’t trouble her, don’t speak to her of me.No questions! All I need, all you must ask, is to know that God haspreserved her,” and that she has the life she wanted.There’ll be a place elsewhere for her, with other sisters. Ifonly she still lives!”

Nicholas nodded mutely, shook himself out of his daze with agreat heave, wheeled his horse, and was gone, out through thegatehouse without another word or a look behind. They were leftgazing after him, as the light dust of his passing shimmered andsettled under the arch of the gate, where the cobbles ended, andthe beaten earth of the Foregate began.

All that day Humilis seemed to Cadfael to presshis own powers to the limit, as though the stress that droveNicholas headlong south took its toll here in enforced stillnessand inaction, where the heart would rather have been riding withthe boy, at whatever cost. And all that day Fidelis, turning hisback even on Rhun, shadowed Humilis with a special and grievoussolicitude, tenderness and anxiety, as though he had just realisedthat death stood no great distance away, and advanced one gentlestep with every hour that passed.

Humilis went to his bed immediately after Compline, and Cadfael,looking in on him ten minutes later, found him already asleep, andleft him undisturbed accordingly. It was not a festering wound anda maimed body that troubled Humilis now, but an obscure feeling ofguilt towards the girl who might, had he married her, have beensafe in some manor far remote from Winchester and Wherwell and theclash of arms, instead of driven by fire and slaughter even out ofher chosen cloister. Sleep could do more for his grieving mind thanthe changing of a dressing could do now for his body. Sleeping, hehad the hieratic calm of a figure already carved on a tomb. He wasat peace. Cadfael went quietly away and left him, as Fidelis musthave left him, to rest the better alone.

In the sweet-scented twilight Cadfael went to pay his usualnightly visit to his workshop, to make sure all was well there, andstir a brew he had standing to cool overnight. Sometimes, when thenights were so fresh after the heat of the day, the skies so fullof stars and so infinitely lofty, and every flower and leafsuddenly so imbued with its own lambent colour and light in despiteof the light’s departure, he felt it to be a great waste ofthe gifts of God to be going to bed and shutting his eyes to them.There had been illicit nights of venturing abroad in thepast—he trusted for good enough reasons, but did not probetoo deeply. Hugh had had his part in them, too. Ah, well!

Making his way back with some reluctance, he went in by thechurch to the night stairs. All the shapes within the vast stoneship showed dimly by the small altar lamps. Cadfael never passedthrough without stepping for a moment into the choir, to cast aglance and a thought towards Saint Winifred’s altar, inaffectionate remembrance of their first encounter, and gratitudefor her forbearance. He did so now, and checked abruptly beforeventuring nearer. For there was one of the brothers kneeling at thefoot of the altar, and the tiny red glow of the lamp showed him theuplifted face, fast-closed eyes and prayerfully folded hands ofFidelis. Showed him no less clearly, as he drew softly nearer, thetears glittering on the young man’s cheeks. A perfectly stillface, but for the mute lips moving soundlessly on his prayers, andthe tears welling slowly from beneath his closed eyelids andspilling on to his breast. The shocks of the day might well sendhim here, now his charge was sleeping, to put up fervent prayersfor a better ending to the story. But why should his face seemrather that of a penitent than an innocent appellant? And apenitent unsure of absolution!

Cadfael slipped away very quietly to the night stairs and leftthe boy the entire sheltering space of the church for hisinexplicable pain.

The other figure, motionless in the darkest cornerof the choir, did not stir until Cadfael had departed, and eventhen waited long moments before stealing forward by inches, withheld breath, over the chilly paving.

A naked foot touched the hem of Fidelis’s habit, and ashastily and delicately drew back again from the contact. A hand wasoutstretched to hover over the oblivious head, longing to touch andyet not daring until the continued silence and stillness gave itcourage. Tensed fingers sank into the curling russet that ringedthe tonsure, the light touch set the hand quivering, like thepricking of imminent lightning in the air before a storm. IfFidelis also sensed it, he gave no sign. Even when the fingersstirred lovingly in his hair, and stroked down into the nape of hisneck within the cowl he did not move, but rather froze where hekneeled, and held his breath.

“Fidelis,” whispered a hushed and aching voice closeat his shoulder. “Brother, never grieve alone! Turn tome… I could comfort you, for everything, everything…whatever your need…”

The stroking palm circled his neck, but before it reached hischeek Fidelis had started to his feet in one smooth movement,resolute and unalarmed, and swung out of reach. Without haste, orperhaps unwilling to show his face, even by this dim light, untilhe had mastered it, he turned to look upon the intruder into hissolitude, for whispers have no identity, and he had never beforetaken any particular notice of Brother Urien. He did so now, withwide and wary grey eyes. A dark, passionate, handsome man, one whoshould never have shut himself in within these walls, one whoburned, and might burn others before ever he grew cool at last. Hestared back at Fidelis, and his face was wrung and his outstretchedhand quaked, yearning towards Fidelis’s sleeve, which waswithdrawn from him austerely before he could grasp it.

“I’ve watched you,” breathed the husky,whispering voice, “I know every motion and grace. Waste,waste of youth, waste of beauty… Don’t go! No one seesus now…”

Fidelis turned his back steadily, and walked out from the choirtowards the night stairs. Silent on the tiled floor, Urien’snaked feet followed him, the tormented whisper followed him.

“Why turn your back on loving kindness? You will notalways do so. Think of me! I will wait…”

Fidelis began to climb the stairs. The pursuer halted at thefoot, too sick with anguish to go where other men might still bewakeful. “Unkind, unkind…” wailed the faintestthread of a voice, receding, and then, with barely audible butextreme bitterness: “If not here, in another place… Ifnot now, at another time!”