An Excellent Mystery (2 page)

Whether
they should, thought Cadfael, is for them to take up with their judge in the
judgement, but that they are so found, have been aforetime and will be
hereafter, is beyond doubt. To be charitable,” he said cautiously, “in this
case his lordship may consider his own freedom, safety and life to be a very
worthy cause. Some have been called to accept martyrdom meekly, but that should
surely be for nothing less than their faith. And a dead bishop could be of
little service to his church, and a legate mouldering in prison little profit
to the Holy Father.”

Brother
Oswin strode beside for some moments judicially mute, digesting that plea and
apparently finding it somewhat dubious, or else suspecting that he had not
fully comprehended the argument. Then he asked ingenuously: “Brother, would you
take arms again? Once having renounced them? For any cause?”

“Son,”
said Cadfael, “you have the knack of asking questions which cannot be answered.
How do I know what I would do, in extreme need? As a brother of the Order I
would wish to keep my hands from violence against any, but for all that, I hope
I would not turn my back if I saw innocence or helplessness being abused. Bear
in mind even the bishops carry a crook, meant to protect the flock as well as
guide it. Let princes and empresses and warriors mind their own duties, you
give all your mind to yours, and you’ll do well.”

They
were nearing the trodden path that led up a grassy slope to the open gate in
the wattle fence. The modest turret of the chapel eyed them over the roof of
the hospice. Brother Oswin bounded up the slope eagerly, his cherubic face
bright with confidence, bound for a new field of endeavour, and certain of
mastering it. There was probably no pitfall here he would evade, but none of
them would hold him for long, or damp his unquenchable ardour.

“Now
remember all I’ve taught you,” said Cadfael. “Be obedient to Brother Simon. You
will work for a time under him, as he did under Brother Mark. The superior is a
layman from the Foregate, but you’ll see little of him between his occasional
visitations and inspections, and he’s a good soul and listens to counsel. And I
shall be in attendance every now and again, should you ever need me. Come, and
I’ll show you where everything is.”

Brother
Simon was a comfortable, round man in his forties. He came out to meet them at
the porch, with a gangling boy of about twelve by the hand. The child’s eyes
were white with the caul of blindness, but otherwise he was whole and comely,
by no means the saddest sight to be found here, where the infected and diseased
might find at once a refuge and a prison for their contagion, since they were
not permitted to carry it into the streets of the town, among the uncorrupted.
There were cripples sunning themselves in the little orchard behind the
hospice, old, pox-riddled men, and faded women in the barn plaiting bands for
the straw stooks as they were stacked. Those who could work a little were glad
to do so for their keep, those who could not were passive in the sun, unless
they had skin rashes which the heat only aggravated. These kept under the shade
of the fruit-trees, or those most fevered in the chill of the chapel.

“As
at present,” said Brother Simon, “we have eighteen, which is not so ill, for so
hot a season. Three are able-bodied, and mending of their sickness, which was
not contagious, and they’ll be on their way within days now. But there’ll be
others, young man, there’ll always be others. They come and go. Some by the
roads, some out of this world’s bane. None the worse, I hope, for passing
through that door in this place.”

He
had a slightly preaching style which caused Cadfael to smile inwardly,
remembering Mark’s lovely simplicity, but he was a good man, hard-working,
compassionate, and very deft with those big hands of his. Oswin would drink in
his solemn homilies with reverence and wonder, and go about his work refreshed
and unquestioning.

I’ll
see the lad round myself, if you’ll let me,” said Cadfael, hitching forward the
laden scrip at his girdle. “I’ve brought you all the medicaments you asked for,
and some I thought might be needed, besides. We’ll find you when we’re done.”

“And
the news of Brother Mark?” asked Simon.

“Mark
is already deacon. I have but to save my most fearful confession a few more
years, then, if need be, I’ll depart in peace.”

“According
to Mark’s word?” wondered Simon, revealing unsuspected depths, and smiling to
gloss them over. It was not often he spoke at such a venture.

“Well,”
said Cadfael very thoughtfully, “I’ve always found Mark’s word good enough for
me. You may well be right.” And he turned to Oswin, who had followed this
exchange with a face dutifully attentive and bewilderedly smiling, earnest to
understand what evaded him like thistledown. “Come on, lad, let’s unload these
and be rid of the weight first, and then I’ll show you all that goes on here at
Saint Giles.”

They
passed through the hall, which was for eating and for sleeping, except for
those too sick to be left among their healthier fellows. There was a large
locked cupboard, to which Cadfael had his own key, and its shelves within were
full of jars, flasks, bottles, wooden boxes for tablets, ointments, syrups,
lotions, all the products of Cadfael’s workshop. They unloaded their scrips and
filled the gaps along the shelves. Oswin enlarged with the importance of this
mystery into which he had been initiated, and which he was now to practise in
earnest.

There
was a small kitchen garden behind the hospice, and an orchard, and barns for
storage. Cadfael conducted his charge round the entire enclave, and by the end
of the circuit they had three of the inmates in close and curious attendance,
the old man who tended the cabbages and showed off his produce with pride, a
lame youth herpling along nimbly enough on two crutches, and the blind child,
who had forsaken Brother Simon to attach himself to Cadfael’s girdle, knowing
the familiar voice.

“This
is Warin,” said Cadfael, taking the boy by the hand as they made their way back
to Brother Simon’s little desk in the porch. “He sings well in chapel, and
knows the office by heart. But you’ll soon know them all by name.”

Brother
Simon rose from his accounts at sight of them returning. “He’s shown you
everything? It’s no great household, ours, but it does a great work. You’ll
soon get used to us.”

Oswin
beamed and blushed, and said that he would do his best. It was likely that he
was waiting impatiently for his mentor to depart, so that he could begin to
exercise his new responsibility without the uneasiness of a pupil performing
before his teacher. Cadfael clouted him cheerfully on the shoulder, bade him be
good, in the tones of one having no doubts on that score, and turned towards
the gate. They had moved out into the sunlight from the dimness of the porch.

“You’ve
heard no fresh news from the south?” The denizens of Saint Giles, being
encountered at the very edge of the town, were usually beforehand with news.

“Nothing
to signify. And yet a man must wonder and speculate. There was a beggar,
able-bodied but getting old, who came in three days ago, and stayed only
overnight to rest. He was from the Staceys, near Andover, a queer one, perhaps
a mite touched in his wits, who can tell? He gets notions, it seems, that move
him on into fresh pastures, and when they come to him he must go. He said he
got word in his head that he had best get away northwards while there was
time.”

“A
man of those parts who had no property to tie him might very well get the same
notion now,” said Cadfael ruefully, “without being in want of his wits. Indeed,
it might be his wits that advised him to move on.”

“So
it might. But this fellow said, if he did not dream it, that the day he set out
he looked back from a hilltop, and saw smoke in clouds over Winchester, and in
the night following there was a red glow all above the city, that flickered as
if with still quick flames.”

“It
could be true,” said Cadfael, and gnawed a considering lip. “It would come as
no great surprise. The last firm news we had was that empress and bishop were
holding off cautiously from each other, and shifting for position. A little
patience… But she was never, it seems, a patient woman. I wonder, now, I wonder
if she has laid him under siege. How long would your man have been on the
road?”

“I
fancy he made what haste he could,” said Simon, “but four days at least,
surely. That sets his story a week back, and no word yet to confirm it.”

“There
will be, if it’s true,” said Cadfael grimly, “there will be! Of all the reports
that fly about the world, ill news is the surest of all to arrive!”

He
was still pondering this ominous shadow as he set off back along the Foregate,
and his preoccupation was such that his greetings to acquaintances along the
way were apt to be belated and absent-minded. It was mid-morning, and the dusty
road brisk with traffic, and there were few inhabitants of this parish of Holy
Cross outside the town walls that he did not know. He had treated many of them,
or their children, at some time in these his cloistered years; even, sometimes,
their beasts, for he who learns about the sicknesses of men cannot but pick up,
here and there, some knowledge of the sicknesses of their animals, creatures
with as great a capacity for suffering as their masters, and much less means of
complaining, together with far less inclination to complain. Cadfael had often
wished that men would use their beasts better, and tried to show them that it
would be good husbandry. The horses of war had been part of that curious, slow
process within him that had turned him at length from the trade of arms into
the cloister.

Not
that all abbots and priors used their mules and stock beasts well, either. But
at least the best and wisest of them recognised it for good policy, as well as
good Christianity.

But
now, what could really be happening in Winchester, to turn the sky over it
black by day and red by night? Like the pillars of cloud and fire that marked
the passage of the elect through the wilderness, these had signalled and guided
the beggar’s flight from danger. He saw no reason to doubt the report. The same
foreboding must have been on many loftier minds these last weeks, while the
hot, dry summer, close cousin of fire, waited with a torch ready. But what a
fool that woman must be, to attempt to besiege the bishop in his own castle in
his own city, with the queen, every inch her match, no great distance away at
the head of a strong army, and the Londoners implacably hostile. And how
adamant against her, now, the bishop must be, to venture all by defying her.
And both these high personages would remain strongly protected, and survive.
But what of the lesser creatures they put in peril? Poor little traders and
craftsmen and labourers who had no such fortresses to shelter them!

He
had meditated his way from the care of horses and cattle to the tribulations of
men, and was startled to hear at his back, at a moment when the traffic of the
Foregate was light, the crisp, neat hooves of mules catching up on him at a
steady clip. He halted at the corner of the horse fair ground and looked back,
and had not far to look, for they were close.

Two
of them, a fine, tall beast almost pure white, fit for an abbot, and a smaller,
lighter, fawn-brown creature stepping decorously a pace or two to the rear. But
what caused Cadfael to pull up and turn fully towards them, waiting in
surprised welcome for them to draw alongside, was the fact that both riders
wore the Benedictine black, brothers to each other and to him. Plainly they had
noted his own habit trudging before them, and made haste to overtake him, for
as soon as he halted and recognised them for his like they eased to a walk, and
so came gently alongside him.

“God
be with you, brothers!” said Cadfael, eyeing them with interest. “Do you come
to our house here in Shrewsbury?”

“And
with you, brother,” said the foremost rider, in a rich voice which yet had a
slight, harsh crepitation in it, as though the cave of his breast created a
grating echo. Cadfael’s ears pricked at the sound. He had heard the breath of
many old men, long exposed to harsh outdoor living, rasp and echo in the same
way, but this man was not old. “You belong to this house of Saint Peter and
Saint Paul?”

“Yes,
we are bound there with letters for the lord abbot. I take this to be his boundary
wall beside us? Then it is not far to go now.”

“Very
close,” said Cadfael. “I’ll walk beside you, for I’m homeward bound to that
same house. Have you come far?”

He
was looking up into a face gaunt and drawn, but fine-featured and commanding,
with deep-set eyes very dark and tranquil. The cowl was flung back on the
stranger’s shoulders, and the long, fleshless head wore its rondel of straight
black hair like a crown. A tall man, sinewy but emaciated. There was the fading
sunburn of hotter lands than England on him, a bronze acquired over more years
than one, but turned somewhat dull and sickly now, and though he held himself
in the saddle like one born there, there was also a languor upon his movements,
and an uncomplaining weariness in his face, a serene resignation which would
better have fitted an old man. This man might have been somewhere in his
mid-forties, surely not much more.

“Far
enough,” he said with a thin, dark smile, “but today only from Brigge.”