An Excellent Mystery (29 page)

Urien’s
stony face quivered and melted suddenly like wax. He clenched his arms fiercely
over his eyes and bowed himself into the long, wet grass, and shook with a
terrible storm of dry and silent sobbing. Rhun leaned down and confidently
embraced the heaving shoulders. At the touch a great, soft groan passed through
Urien’s body and ebbed out of him, leaving him limp and still. Once it had been
Urien who touched, and Rhun who looked him mildly in the eyes and filled him
with rage and shame. Now Rhun touched Urien, laid an arm about him and let it
lie quiet there, and all the rage and shame sighed out of him and left him
clean.

“Keep
the secret. You must, if you loved him.”

“Yes
— yes,” said Urien brokenly out of his sheltering arms.

“For
his sake…” This time Rhun turned back, smiling, to set right what he had said.
“For her sake!”

“Yes,
yes — to the grave. Stay with me!”

“I’m
here. When we go, we’ll go together. Who knows? Even the harm already done may
not be incurable.”

“Can
the dead live again?” demanded Urien bitterly.

“If
God pleases!” said Rhun, who had his own good reasons for believing in
miracles.

Julian
Cruce arrived at the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul just in time to attend
the Mass for the souls of Brother Humilis and Brother Fidelis, drowned together
in the great storm. It was the second day after the burial of Humilis, a fresh,
cool day of soft blue sky and soft green earth, the gloss of summer briefly
restored. By that time every soul in and around Shrewsbury had heard the story
of the woman come back from the dead, and everyone was curious to witness her
return. There was a great crowd in the court to watch her ride in, her brother
at her side and Hugh Beringar and Adam Heriet following. Within the gates they
dismounted, and the horses were led away. Reginald took his sister by the hand,
and brought her between the eager watchers to the church door.

Cadfael
had had some qualms about this moment, and had taken his stand close beside
Nicholas Harnage, where he could pluck at his sleeve in sharp warning should he
be startled into some indiscreet utterance. It might have been better to warn
him beforehand, and forestall the danger. But on the other hand, it must be
gain if the young man never did make the connection, and it seemed worth taking
the risk. If he was never forced to consider how formidable a rival was gone
before him, and how indelible must be the memory of a devotion unlikely ever to
be matched, there would be less of a barrier to his own courtship. If he
approached her in innocence he came with strong advantages, having had the
trust and affection of Godfrid Marescot, as well as amply proving his concern
for the girl herself. There was every ground for kindness there. If he
recognised her, and saw in a moment the whole pattern of events, he might be
too discouraged ever to approach her at all, for who could follow Humilis and
not be diminished? But he might — it was just possible — he might even be large
enough to accept all the disadvantages, hold his tongue, and still put his
fortune to the test. There was promise in him. Still, Cadfael stood alerted and
anxious, his hand hovering at the young man’s elbow.

She
came through the crowd on her brother’s arm, no great beauty, simply a tall
girl in a dark cloak and gown, with a grave oval face austerely framed in a
white wimple and a dark blue hood. Sister Magdalen and Aline between them had
done well by her. The general mourning forbade bright colours, but Aline had
carefully avoided providing anything that could recall the rusty monastic
black. They were of much the same build, tall and slender, the gown fitted
well. The tonsure would take some time to grow out, but hiding the ring of chestnut
hair completely and covering half the lofty brow did much to change the shape
of the serious face. She had darkened her lashes, which gave a changed value
and an iris shade to the clear grey of her eyes. She held up her head and
walked slowly past men who had lived side by side with Brother Fidelis for many
weeks now, and they saw no one but Julian Cruce, nothing to do with the abbey
of Shrewsbury, simply a nine days’ wonder from the outer world, interesting now
but soon to be forgotten.

Nicholas
watched her draw near, and was filled with deep, glowing gratitude, simply that
she was alive. Her life might have no place for him, but at least it was hers,
all the years he had thought stolen from her by a cruel crime, while here, it
seemed, was no crime at all. He could, he would, make the assay, but not yet.
Let her have time to know him, for she knew nothing of him yet, and he had no
claim on her, unless, perhaps, Hugh Beringar had told her of his part in the
search for her. Even that gave him no rights. Those he would have to earn.

But
as she drew level with him she turned her head and looked him in the eyes. An
instant only, but it was enough.

Cadfael
saw him start and quiver, saw him open his lips, perhaps to cry out in the
sheer shock of recognition. But he made no sound, after all. Cadfael had
gripped him by the arm, but released him at once, for there had been no need.
Nicholas turned on him a face of starry brightness, dazzled and dazzling, and
said in a rapid whisper: “Never fret! I am the dumb one now!”

So
quick and agile a mind, thought Cadfael approvingly, would not be put off by
difficulties. And the girl was still barely twenty-three. They had time. Why
should a girl who had had the devoted company of one fine man therefore fail to
appreciate the value of a second? I wonder, he thought, what Humilis said to
her at Salton that last day? Did he know, in the end, what and who she was? I
hope he did. Certainly he knew the candlesticks and the cross, once Hugh
described them to him, for of course she took them with her into Hyde, and with
Hyde they must have gone to dust. But then, I think, he was in two minds, half
afraid his Fidelis had been mixed up in Julian’s death, half wondering… By the
end, however the light came, surely he knew the truth.

In
his chosen stall next to Brother Urien, Rhun leaned close to whisper: “Look!
Look at the lady! This is she who should have been wife to Brother Humilis.”

Urien
looked, but with listless eyes that saw only what they expected to see. He
shook his head. “You know her,” said Rhun. “Look again!” He looked again, and
he knew her. The load of guilt and grief and penitence lifted from him like a
lark rising. He ceased to sing, for his throat was constricted and his tongue
mute. He stood lost between knowledge and wonder, the inheritor of her silence.

Julian
emerged from the church into the temperate sunlight with the blankness of
wonder, endurance and loss still in her face. Watching her from the shadow of
the cloister, Nicholas abandoned all thought of approaching her just yet. Now
that he understood at last the magnitude of what she had done, it became
impossible to offer her an ordinary marriage and a customary love. Not yet, not
for a long while yet. But he could bide his time, keep touch with her brother,
make his way to her by delicate degrees, open his heart to her only when hers
was reconciled and at peace.

She
had halted, looking about her, withdrawing her hand from her brother’s as if
she sought someone to whom recognition was due. The palest of smiles touched her
face. She came towards Nicholas with hand extended. About the middle finger the
little golden serpent twined in a coil, he caught the tiny glitter of its ruby
eyes.

“Sir,”
said Julian, in a voice pitched almost childishly high, but very soft and
sweet, “the lord sheriff has told me of all the pains you have been spending
for me. I am sorry I have caused you and others so much needless trouble and
care. Thanks are poor recompense for so much kindness.”

Her
hand lay firm and cool in his. Her smile was still faint and remote,
acknowledging nothing of any other identity but that of Julian Cruce. He might
have thought she was denying her other self, but for the clear, straight gaze
of her grey eyes, opened wide to admit him into a shared knowledge where words
were unnecessary. Nothing need ever be said where everything was known and
understood.

“Madam,”
said Nicholas, “to see you here alive and well is all the recompense I need or
want.”

“But
I hope you will come soon to visit us at Lai,” she said. “It would be a
kindness. I should like to make better amends.”

And
that was all. He kissed the hand he held, and she turned and went away from
him. And surely this was nothing more than paying a due of gratitude, as she
paid all her dues, to the last scruple of pain, devotion and love. But she had
asked, and she was not one of those women who ask without meaning. And he would
go to Lai, soon, yes, very soon. To make do with the touch of her hand and her
pale smile and the undoubted trust she had just placed in him, until it was
fair and honourable to hope for more.

They
sat in Cadfael’s workshop in the herb-garden, in the after-dinner hush, Sister
Magdalen, Hugh Beringar and Cadfael together. It was all over, the curious all
gone home, the brothers innocent of all ill except the loss of two of their
number, and two who had been with them only a short time, and somewhat
withdrawn from the common view, at that. They would soon become but very dim
figures, to be remembered by name in prayer while their faces faded from memory.

“There
could still be some awkward questions asked,” admitted Cadfael, “if anyone went
to the trouble to probe deeper, but now no one ever will. The Order can breathe
again. There’ll be no scandal, no aspersions cast on either Hyde or Shrewsbury,
no legatine muck-raking, no ballad-makers running off dirty rhymes about monks
and their women, and hawking them round the markets, no bishops bearing down on
us with damning visitations, no carping white monks fulminating about the
laxity and lechery of the Benedictines… And no foul blight clinging round that
poor girl’s name and blackening her for life. Thank God!” he concluded
fervently.

He
had broached one of his best flasks of wine. He felt they deserved it as much
as they needed it.

“Adam
was in her confidence throughout,” said Hugh. “It was he who got her the
clothes to turn her into a young man, he who cut her hair, and sold for her the
few things she considered her own, to pay her lodging until she presented
herself at Hyde. When he said she was dead, he spoke in the bitterness of his
heart, for she was indeed dead to the world, by her own choice. And when I
brought him from Brigge, he was frantic to get news of her, for he’d given her
up for lost after Hyde burned, but when I told him there was a second brother
come from Hyde with Godfrid, then he was easy, for he knew who the second must
be. He would have died rather than betray her. He knew the ugliness of which
men are capable, as well as we.”

“And
she, I hope and think,” said Cadfael, “must know the loyalty and devotion of
which one man, at least, was capable. She should, seeing it is the mirror of
her own. No, there was no other solution possible but for Fidelis to die and
vanish without trace, before Julian could come back to life. But I never thought
the chance would come as it did…”

“You
took it nimbly enough,” said Hugh.

“It
was then or never. It would have come out else. Madog would never have said
anything, but she had stopped caring when Humilis died.” He had had her in his
arms, herself half-dead, on that ride to Godric’s Ford to commit her to Sister
Magdalen’s care, the russet tonsure wet and draggled on his shoulder, the pale,
soiled face stricken into ice, the grey eyes wide open, seeing nothing. “It was
as much as we could do to get him out of her arms. Without Aline we should have
been lost. I almost feared we might lose the girl as well as the man. But
Sister Magdalen is a powerful physician.”

“That
letter I composed for her,” said Sister Magdalen, looking back on it with a
critical but satisfied eye, “was the hardest ever I had to write. And not a lie
from start to finish! Not one in the whole of it. A little mild deception, but
no lies. That was important, you understand. Do you know why she chose to be
mute? Well, there is the matter of her voice, of course, a woman’s if ever
there was. The face — t’s a good face, clear and strong and delicate, one that
could as well belong to a boy as to a girl, but not the voice. But beyond that,”
said Sister Magdalen, “she had two good reasons for being dumb. First, she was
resolute she would never ask anything of him, never make any woman’s appeal,
for she held he owed her nothing, no privilege, no consideration. What she got
of him she had to earn. And second, she was absolute she would never lie to
him. Who cannot speak cannot plead or cajole, and cannot lie.”

“So
he owed her nothing, and she owed him all,” said Hugh, shaking his head over
the unfathomable strangeness of women.

“Ah,
but she also had her due,” said Cadfael. “What she wanted and held to be hers
she took, the whole of it, to the end, to the last moment. His company, the
care of him, the secrets of his body, as intimate as ever was marriage — his
love, far beyond the common claims of marriage. No use any man telling her she
was free, when she knew she was a wife. I wonder is she free even now.”

“Not
yet, but she will be,” Sister Magdalen assured them. “She has too much courage
to give over living. And if that young man who fancies her has courage enough
not to give over loving, he may do very well in the end. He starts with a
strong advantage, having loved the same idol. Besides,” she added, viewing a
future that held a certain promise even for some who felt just now that they
had only a past, “I doubt if that household of her brother’s, with a wife in
possession, and three children, not to speak of another on the way — no, I
doubt if an unwed sister’s part in Lai will have much lasting attraction for a
woman like Julian Cruce.”