An Excellent Mystery (21 page)

“You’d
be wise to save your energy for Salton. Who knows?” marvelled Cadfael, noting
the slight flush of blood that warmed the thin grey face at the very prospect
of returning to the first remembered home of his childhood-perhaps to end where
he began. “Who knows, it may yet do you a world of good!”

“And
you will ask the lord abbot?”

“I
will,” said Cadfael. “When Fidelis returns, I’ll go to him.”

“Tell
him there may be need for haste,” said Humilis, and smiled.

Abbot
Radulfus listened with his usual shrewd gravity, and considered for a while in
silence before making any comment. Outside the dim, wood-panelled parlour in
his lodging the hot sun climbed, still veiled with a thin haze that turned it
copper-colour, and made it seem to burn even more fiercely. The roses budded,
flowered and fell all in one day.

“Is
he strong enough to bear it?” asked the abbot at length. “And is it not too
great a load to lay upon Brother Fidelis, to bear responsibility for him all
that time.”

“It’s
the passing of his strength that makes him ask so urgently,” said Cadfael. “If
his wish is to be granted at all, it must be now, quickly. And he says rightly,
it can make very little difference to the tale of his remaining days, whether
they end tomorrow or after another week. But to his peace of mind this visit
might make all the difference. As for Brother Fidelis, he has never yet shrunk
from any burden laid upon him for love, and will not now. And if Madog takes
them, they’ll be in the best of hands. No one knows the river as he does. And
he is to be trusted utterly.”

“For
that I take your word,” said Radulfus equably. “But it is a desperate
enterprise for so frail a man. Granted it is his heart’s wish, and he has every
right to advance it. But how will you get him to the boat? And at the other
end, is he sure of his welcome at Salton? Will there be willing attendants
there to care for him?”

“Salton
is a part of the honour he has relinquished now to a cousin he hardly knows,
Father, but tenant and servants there will remember him. We can make a sling
chair for him and carry him down to the mill. The infirmary lies close to the
wall there, it’s no distance to the mill wicket.”

“Very
well,” said the abbot. “It had better be very soon. If you know where to find
this Madog, I give you leave, seek him out today, and if he’s willing this
journey had better be made tomorrow.”

Cadfael
thanked him and departed, well pleased on his own account. He was no longer
quite as ready as he would once have been to take leave of absence without
asking, unless for a life-or-death reason, but he had no objection to making
the very most of official leave when it was given. The prospect of a meal with
Hugh and Aline in the town, instead of the hushed austerity of the refectory,
and then a leisurely hunt along the waterside for Madog or news of him, and a
comradely gossip when he was found, had all the attractions of a feast-day. But
he looked in again on Humilis before he left the enclave, and told him how he
had fared. Fidelis was again in careful attendance at the bedside, withdrawn
and unobtrusive as ever.

“Abbot
Radulfus grants your wish,” said Cadfael, “and gives me leave to go and find
Madog for you this very day. If he’s agreeable, you can go to Salton tomorrow.”

Hugh’s
house by Saint Mary’s church had an enclosed garden behind it, a small central
herber with grassed benches round it, and fruit trees to give shade. There
Aline Beringar was sitting on the clipped seat sown with close-growing,
fragrant herbs, with her son playing beside her. Not two years old until
Christmas, Giles stood tall and sturdy and firm on his feet, made on a bigger
scale than either his dark, trim father or his slender, fair mother. He had a
rich colouring somewhere between the two, light bronze hair and round brown
eyes, and a will of steel inherited, perhaps, from both, but not yet
disciplined. He was wearing, in this hot summer, nothing at all, and was brown
as a hazel-nut from brow to toes.

He
had a pair of cut-out wooden knights, garishly painted and strung by two
strings through their middles, their feet weighted with little blobs of lead,
their legs and sword-arms jointed so that when the cords were tweaked from both
ends they flourished their weapons and danced and slashed at each other in a
very bloodthirsty manner. Constance, his willing slave, had forsaken him to go
and supervise the preparations for dinner, and he clamoured imperiously for his
godfather to supply the vacated place. Cadfael kneeled in the turf, only mildly
complaining of the creaks in his joints, and manned the cords doughtily. In
these arts he was well practised since the birth of Giles. Moreover, he must be
careful not to be seen to give his opponent the better of the exchange by
design, or there would be a shriek of knightly outrage. The heir and pride of
the Beringars knew when he was being condescended to, and wholeheartedly
resented it, convinced he was any man’s equal. But he was none too pleased when
he was defeated, either. It was necessary to walk a mountebank’s tightrope to
avoid his displeasure.

“You’ll
be wanting Hugh,” said Aline serenely through her son’s squeals of delight, and
drew in her feet to give them full play for their strings. “He’ll be home for
dinner in a little while. There’s venison — they’ve started the cull.”

“So
have a few other law-abiding citizens of the town, I daresay,” said Cadfael,
energetically manipulating the cords to make the twin wooden swords flail like
windmills.

“One
here and there, what does it matter? Hugh knows how long to turn a blind eye.
Good meat, and enough of it — and the king with little use for it, as things
are! But it may not be long now,” said Aline, and smiled over her needlework,
inclining her pale gold head and fair face above her naked son, sprawled on the
grass tugging his strings in two plump brown fists. “His own friends are
beginning to work upon Robert of Gloucester, urging him to agree to the
exchange. He knows she can do nothing without him. He must give way.”

Cadfael
sat back on his heels, letting the cords fall slack. The two wooden warriors
fell flat in one embrace, both slain, and Giles tugged indignantly to bring
them to life again, and was left to struggle in vain for a while.

“Aline,”
said Cadfael earnestly, looking up into her gentle face, “if ever I should have
need of you suddenly, and come to fetch you, or send you word to come — would
you come? Wherever it was? And bring whatever I asked you to bring?”

“Short
of the sun or the moon,” said Aline, smiling, “whatever you asked, I would
bring, and wherever you wanted me, I would come. Why? What’s in your mind? Is
it secret?”

“As
yet,” said Cadfael ruefully, “it is. For I’m almost as blind as I must leave
you, girl dear, until I see my way, if ever I do. But indeed, some day soon I
might need you.”

The
imp Giles, distracted from his game and losing interest in the inexplicable
conversation of his elders, hoisted his fallen knights, and went off hopefully
after the floating savour of his dinner.

Hugh
came hungry and in haste from the castle, and listened to Cadfael’s account of
developments at the abbey with meditative interest, over the venison Aline
brought to the board.

“I
remember it was said when they came here — was it you who told me so? It might
well be! — that Marescot was born at Salton, and had a hankering to see it
again. A pity he’s brought so low. It seems this matter of the girl may not be
solved for him this side of death. Why should he not have what can best make
his going pleasant and endurable? It can cost him nothing but a few hours or
days of surely burdensome living. But I wish we could have done better for him
over the girl.”

“We
may yet,” said Cadfael, “if God wills. You’ve had no further word from Nicholas
in Winchester?”

“Nothing
as yet. And small wonder, in a town and a countryside torn to pieces by fire
and war. Hard to find anything among the ashes.”

“And
how is it with your prisoner? He has not conveniently remembered anything more
from his journey to Winchester?”

Hugh
laughed. “Heriet has the good sense to know where he’s safe, and sits very
contentedly in his cell, well fed, well housed and well bedded. Solitude is no
hardship to him. Question him, and he says again what he has already said, and
never falls foul of a detail, either, no matter how you try to trip him. Not
all the king’s lawyers would get anything more out of him. Besides, I took care
to let him know that Cruce has been here twice, thirsty for his blood. It may
be necessary to put a guard on his prison to keep Cruce out, but certainly not
to keep Heriet in. He sits quietly and bides his time, sure we must loose him
at last for want of proof.”

“Do
you believe he ever harmed the girl?” said Cadfael.

“Do
you?”

“No.
But he is the one man who knows what did happen to her, and if he but knew it,
he would be wise to speak, but to you only. No need for any witness besides. Do
you think you could bring him to speak, by giving him to understand it was
between you two only?”

“No,”
said Hugh simply. “What cause has he to trust me so far, if he has gone three
years without trusting any other, and keeps his mouth shut still, even to his
own peril? No, I think I know his mettle. He’ll continue secret as the grave.”

And
indeed, thought Cadfael, there are secrets which should be buried beyond
discovery, things, even people, lost beyond finding, for their own sake, for
all our sakes.

He
took his leave, and went on through the town, and down to the waterside under
the western bridge that led out towards Wales, and there was Madog of the Dead
Boat working at his usual small enclosure, weaving the rim of a new coracle
with intertwined hazel withies, peeled and soaked in the shallows under the
bridge. A squat, square, hairy, bandy-legged Welshman of unknown age, though
apparently made to last for ever, since no one could remember a time when he
had looked any younger, and the turning of the years did not seem to make him
look any older. He squinted up at Cadfael from under thick, jutting eyebrows
that had turned grey while his hair was still black, and gave leisurely
greeting, his brown hands still plaiting at the wands with practised dexterity.

“Well,
old friend, you’ve become almost a stranger this summer. What’s the word with
you, to bring you here looking for me — for I take it that was your purpose,
this side the town? Sit down and be neighbourly for a while.”

Cadfael
sat down beside him in the bleached grass, and measured the diminished level of
the Severn with a considering eye.

“You’ll
be saying I never come near but when I want something of you. But indeed we’ve
had a crowded year, what with one thing and another. How do you find working
the water now, in this drought? There must be a deal of tricky shallows
upstream, after so long without rain.”

“None
that I don’t know,” said Madog comfortably. “True, the fishing’s profitless,
and I wouldn’t say you could get a loaded barge up as far as Pool, but I can
get where I want to go. Why? Have you work for me? I could do with a day’s pay,
easy come by.”

“Easy
enough, if you can get yourself and two more up as far as Salton. Lightweights
both, for the one’s skin and bone, and the other young and slender.”

Madog
leaned back from his work, interested, and asked simply: “When?”

“Tomorrow,
if nothing prevents.”

“It
would be far shorter to ride,” Madog observed, studying his friend with
kindling curiosity.

“Too
late for one of these ever to ride again. He’s a dying man, and wants to see
again the place where he was born.”

“Salton?”
Shrewd dark eyes blinked through their thick silver brows. “That should be a de
Marisco. We heard you had the last of them in your house.”

“Marescot,
they’re calling it now. Of the Marsh, Godfrid says it should better have been,
his line being Saxon. Yes, the same. His time is not long. He wants to complete
the circle of birth to death before he goes.”

“Tell
me,” said Madog simply, and listened with still and serene attention as Cadfael
told him the nature of his cargo, and all that was required of him.

“Now,”
he said, when all was told, “I’ll tell what I think. This weather will not hold
much longer, but for all that, it may still tarry a week or so. If your paladin
is as set on his pilgrimage as you say, if he’s willing to venture whatever
comes, then I’ll bring my boat into the mill-pool tomorrow after Prime. I’ll have
something aboard to shelter him if the rain does come. I keep a waxed sheet to
cover goods that will as well cover a knight or a brother of the Benedictines
at need.”

“Such
a cerecloth,” said Brother Cadfael very soberly, “may be only too fitting for Brother
Humilis. And he will not despise it.”

Chapter Eleven

IN
THE STREETS OF WINCHESTER THE STINKING, BLACKENED DEBRIS of fire was beginning
to give place to the timid sparks of new hope, as those who had fled returned
to pick over the remnants of their shops and households, and those who had
stayed set to work briskly clearing the wreckage and carting timber to rebuild.
The merchant classes of England were a tough and resilient breed, after every
reverse they came back with fresh vigour, grimly determined upon restoration
and willing to retrench until a profit was again possible. Warehouses were
swept clear of what was spoiled, and made ready within to receive new
merchandise. Shops collected what was still saleable, cleaned out ravaged rooms
and set up temporary stalls. Life resumed, with astonishing speed and energy,
its accustomed rhythms, with an additional beat in defiance of misfortune. As
often as you fell us, said the tradesmen of the town, we will get up again and
take up where we left off, and you will tire of it first. The armies of the
queen, secure in possession here and well to westward, as well as through the
south-east, went leisurely about their business, consolidating what they held,
and secure in the knowledge that they had only to sit still and wait, and King
Stephen must now be restored to them. There must have been a few shrewd
captains, both English and Flemish, who saw no great reason to rejoice at the
exchange of generals, for however vital Stephen might be as a figurehead to be
prized and protected at all costs, and however doughty a fighter, he was no match
for his valiant wife as a strategist in war. Still, his release was essential.
They sat stolidly on their winnings, and waited for the enemy to surrender him,
as sooner or later they must. There was a degree of boredom to be endured,
while the negotiators parleyed and wrangled. The end was assured.