An Excellent Mystery (24 page)

They
had circled the whole of the town in their early passage, for the Severn,
upstream from the abbey, made a great moat about the walls, turning the town
almost into an island, but for the neck of land covered and protected by the
castle. Once under Madog’s western bridge, that gave passage to the roads into
Wales, the meanderings of the river grew tortuous, and turned first one cheek,
then the other, to the climbing, copper sun. Here there was ample water still,
though below its common summer level, and the few shoals clung inshore, and
Madog was familiar with all of them, and rowed strongly and leisurely,
conscious of his mastery.

“All
this stretch I remember well,” said Humilis, smiling towards the Frankwell
shore, as the great bend north of the town brought them back on their westward
course. “This is pure pleasure to me, friend, but I fear it must be hard labour
to you.”

“No,”
said Madog, taciturn in English, but able to hold his own, “no, this water is
my living and my life. I go gladly.”

“Even
in wintry weather?”

“In
all weathers,” said Madog, and glanced up briefly at the sky, which continued a
brazen vault, cloudless but hazy.

Beyond
the suburb of Frankwell, outside the town walls and the loop of the river, they
were between wide stretches of water-meadows, still moist enough to be greener
than the grass on high ground, and a little coolness came up from the reedy
shores, as though the earth breathed here, that elsewhere seemed to hold its
breath. For a while the banks rose on either side, and old, tall trees overhung
the water, casting a leaden shade. Heavy willows leaned from the banks, half
their roots exposed by the erosion of the soil. Then the ground levelled and
opened out again on their right hand, while on the left the bank rose in low,
sandy terraces below and a slope of grass above, leading up to hillocks of
woodland.

“It
is not far now,” said Humilis, his eyes fixed eagerly ahead. “I remember well.
Nothing here is changed.”

He
had gathered a degree of strength from his pleasure in this expedition, and his
voice was clear and calm, but there were beads of sweat on his brow and lip.
Fidelis wiped them away, and leaned over him to give him shade without
touching.

“I
am a child given a holiday,” said Humilis, smiling. “It’s fitting that I should
spend it where I was a child. Life is a circle, Fidelis. We go outward from our
source for half our time, leave behind our kin and our familiar places, value
far countries and new-made friends. But then at the furthest point we begin the
roundabout return, drawing in again towards the place from which we came. When
the circle joins, there is nowhere beyond to go in this world, and it’s time to
depart. There is nothing sad in that. It’s right and good.”

He
made to raise himself a little in the boat to look ahead, and Fidelis lifted
and supported him under the arms. “Yonder, behind the screen of trees, there is
the manor. We’re home!”

The
soil was reddish and sandy here, and provided a long, narrow beach, beyond which
a slope of grass climbed, and a trodden path went up through the trees. Madog
ran his boat into the sand, shipped his oars, and stepped ashore to haul the
boat firmly aground and moor it.

“Bide
quiet here a while, and I’ll go and tell them at the house.”

The
tenant of Salton was a man of fifty-five, and had not forgotten the boy, nine
years or so his junior, who had been born to his lord in this manor, and lived
the first few years of his life there. He came himself in haste down to the
river, with a pair of servants and an improvised chair to carry Godfrid up to
the house. It was not the paladin of the Kingdom of Jerusalem he came hurrying
to welcome, but the boy he had taught to fish and swim, and lifted on to his
first pony at three years old. The early companionship had not lasted many
years, and perhaps he had not given it a thought now for thirty years or more,
being busy marrying and raising a family of his own, but the memories were
readily reawakened. And in spite of Madog’s dry warning, he checked in sharp
and shocked dismay at sight of the frail spectre that awaited him in the boat.
He was quick to recover and run to offer hand and knee and service, but Humilis
had seen.

“You
find me much changed, Aelred,” he said, fetching the name out of the well of
his memory by instinct when it was needed. “We are none of us the boys we once
were. I have not worn well, but never let that trouble you. I’m well content.
And glad, most glad, to see you here again on this same soil where I left you
so long ago, and looking in such good heart.”

“My
lord Godfrid, you do me great honour,” said Aelred. “All here is at your
service. My wife and my sons will be proud.”

He
lifted his guest bodily out of the boat, startled by the light weight, and set
him carefully in the sling chair. As a boy of twelve, long ago, son of his
lord’s steward, he had more than once carried the little boy in his arms. The
elder brother, Marescot’s heir, had scorned, at ten, to play nursemaid to a
mere baby. Now the same arms carried the last wisp of a life, and found it
scarcely heavier than the child.

“I
am not come to put you to any trouble,” said Humilis, “but only to sit here a
while with you, and hear your news, and see how your fields prosper and your
children grow. That will be great pleasure. And this is my good friend and
helper, Brother Fidelis, who takes such good care of me that I lack nothing.”

Up
the green slope and through the windbreak of trees they carried their burden,
and there in the fields of the demesne, small but well husbanded, was the
manor-house of Salton in its ring fence lined with byres and barns. A low,
modest house, no more than a hall and one small chamber over a stone
undercroft, and a separate kitchen in the yard. There was a little orchard
outside the fence, and a wooden bench in the cool under the apple-trees. There
they installed Humilis, with brychans and pillows to ease his sparsely covered
bones, and ran busily back and forth in attendance on him with ale, fruit,
new-baked bread, every gift they could offer. The wife came, fluttered and shy,
dissembling startled pity as well as she could. Two big sons came, the elder
about thirty, the younger surely achieved after one or two infant losses, for
he was fifteen years younger. The elder son brought a young wife to make her
reverence beside him, a dark, elfin girl, already pregnant.

Under
the apple-trees Fidelis sat silent in the grass, leaving the bench for host and
guest, while Aelred talked with sudden unwonted eloquence of days long past,
and recounted all that had happened to him since those times. A quiet, settled,
hard-working life, while crusaders roamed the world and came home childless,
unfruitful and maimed. And Humilis listened with a faint, contented smile, his
own voice used less and less, for he was tiring, and much of the stimulus of
excitement was ebbing away. The sun was in the zenith, still a hazed and angry
sun, but in the west swags of cloud were gathering and massing.

“Leave
us now a little while,” said Humilis, “for I tire easily, and I would not wear
you out, as well. Perhaps I may sleep. Fidelis will watch by me.”

When
they were alone he drew breath deep, and was silent a long time, but certainly
not sleeping. He reached a lean hand to pluck Fidelis up by the sleeve, and
have him sit beside him, in the place Aelred had vacated. A soft, drowsy lowing
came to them from the byres, preoccupied as the humming of bees. The bees had
had a hectic summer, frenziedly harvesting the flowers that bloomed so lavishly
but died so soon. There were three hives at the end of the orchard. There would
be honey in store.

“Fidelis…”
The voice that had begun to flag and fail him had recovered clarity and calm,
only it sounded at a little distance, as though he had already begun to depart.
“My heart, I brought you here to be with you, you only, you of all the world,
here where I began. No one but you should hear what I say now. I know you
better than I know my own soul. I value you as I value my own soul and my hope
of heaven. I love you above any creature on this earth. Oh, hush… still!”

The
arm on which his hand lay so gently had jerked and stiffened, the mute throat
had uttered some small sound like a sob.

“God
forbid I should cause you any manner of pain, even by speaking too freely, but
time is short. We both know it. And I have things to say while there’s time.
Fidelis… your sweet companionship has been the blessing, the bliss, the joy and
comfort of these last years of mine. There is no way I can recompense you but
by loving you as you have loved me. And so I do. There can be nothing beyond
that. Remember it, when I am gone, and remember that I go exulting, knowing you
now as you know me, and loving as you have loved me.”

Beside
him Fidelis sat still and mute as stone, but stones do not weep, and Fidelis
was weeping, for when Humilis stooped and kissed his cheek he tasted tears.

That
was all that passed. And shortly thereafter Madog stood before them, saying
practically that there was a possible storm brewing, and they had better either
make up their minds to stay where they were, or else get aboard at once and
make their way briskly down with what current there was in this slack water,
back to Shrewsbury.

The
day belonged to Humilis, and so did the decision, and Humilis looked up at the
western sky, darkening into an ominous twilight, looked at his companion, who
sat like one straining to prolong a dream, remote and passive, and said,
smiling, that they should go.

Aelred’s
sons carried him down to the shore, Aelred lifted him to his place in the
bottom of the boat on his bed of rugs, with Fidelis to prop and cherish him.
The east was still sullenly bright, they launched towards the light. Behind
them the looming clouds multiplied with black and ominous speed, dangling like
overfull udders of venomous milk. Under that darkness, Wales had vanished,
distance became a matter of three miles or four. Somewhere there to westward
there had already been torrential rain. The first turgid impulse of
storm-water, creeping insidiously, began to muddy the Severn under them, and push
them purposefully downstream.

They
were well down the first reach between the water-meadows when the east suddenly
darkened, almost instantly, to reflect back the purple-black frown of the west,
and suddenly the light died into dimness, and the rumblings of thunder began,
coming from the west at speed, like rolls of drums following them, or peals of
deep-mouthed hounds on their trail in a hunt by demi-gods. Madog, untroubled
but ready, rested on his oars to unfold the waxed cloth he used for covering
goods in passage, and spread it over Humilis and across the body of the boat,
making a canopy for his head, which Fidelis held over spread hands to prevent
it from impeding the sick man’s breathing.

Then
the rain began, first great, heavy, single drops striking the stretched cloth
loud as stones, then the heavens opened and let fall all the drowning
accumulation of water of which the bleached earth was creditor, a downpour that
set the Severn seething as if it boiled, and spat abrupt fountains of sand and
soil from the banks. Fidelis covered his head, and bent to sustain the cover
over Humilis. Madog made out into the centre of the stream, for the lightning,
though it followed the course of the river, would strike first and most readily
at whatever stood tallest along the banks.

Already
soaked, he shook off water merrily as a fish, as much at home in it as beside
it. He had been out in storms quite as sudden and drastic as this, and furious
though it might be, he was assured it would not last very long.

But
somewhere far upstream they had received this baptism several hours ago, for
flood water was coming down by this time in a great, foul brown wave, sweeping
them before it. Madog ran with it, using his oars only to keep his boat well
out in midstream. And steadily and viciously the torrent of rain fell, and the
rolls and peals and slashes of thunder hounded them down towards Shrewsbury,
and the lightnings, hot on the heels of the thunder, flashed and flamed and
criss-crossed their path, the only light in a howling darkness. They could
barely see either bank except when the lightning flared and vanished, and the
blindness after its passing made the succeeding blaze even more blinding.

Wet
and streaming as a seal, Fidelis shook off water on either side, and held the cover
over Humilis with braced and aching forearms. His eyes were tight-shut against
the deluge of the rain, he opened them only by burdened glimpses, peering
through the downpour. He did not know where they were, except by flaming
visions that forced light through his very eyelids, and caused him to blink the
torment away. Such a flare showed him trees leaning, gaunt and sinister,
magnified by the lurid light before they were swallowed in the darkness. So
they were already past the open water-meadows, surely by now morasses dimpled
and pitted with heavy rain. They were being driven fast be tween the trees, not
far now from possible shelter in Frankwell.

In
spite of the covering cloth they were awash. Water swirled in the bottom of the
boat, cold and sluggish, a discomfort, but not a danger. They ran with the
current, fouled and littered with leaves and the debris of branches, muddied
and turgid and curling in perverse eddies. But very soon now they could come
ashore in Frankwell and take cover in the nearest dwelling, hardly the worse
for all this turmoil and violence.