An Excellent Mystery (8 page)

“There
are parts of myself I have never given to you,” he said at last,”things that
happened before ever I knew you. There is nothing of myself I would not wish to
share with you. Poor girl! What had she to hope for from me, so much her elder,
even before I was broken? And I never saw her but once, a little lass with
brown hair and a solemn round face. I never felt the want of a wife or children
until I was thirty years old, having an elder brother to carry on my father’s
line after the old man died. I took the Cross, and was fitting out a company to
go with me to the east, free as air, when my brother also died, and I was left
to balance my vow to God and my duty to my house. I owed it to God to do as I
had sworn, and go for ten years to the Holy Land, but also I owed it to my
house to marry and breed sons. So I looked for a sturdy, suitable little girl
who could well wait all those years for me, and still have all her
child-bearing time in its fullness when I returned. Barely six years old she
was — Julian Grace, from a family with manors in the north of this shire, and
in Stafford, too.”

He
stirred and sighed for the follies of men, and the presumptuous solemnity of
the arrangements they made for lives they would never live. The presence beside
him drew near, put back the cowl, and sat down on the stool Nicholas had vacated.
They looked each other in the eyes gravely and without words, longer than most
men can look each other in the eyes and not turn aside.

“God
knew better, my son!” said Humilis. “His plans for me were not as mine. I am
what I am now. She is what she is. Julian Cruce… I am glad she should escape me
and go to a better man. I pray she has not yet given herself to any, for this
Nicholas of mine would make her a fitting match, one that would set my soul at
rest. Only to her do I feel myself a debtor, and forsworn.”

Brother
Fidelis shook his head at him, reproachfully smiling, and leaned and laid a
finger for an instant over the mouth that spoke heresy.

Cadfael
had left Hugh waiting at the gatehouse, and was crossing the court to return to
his duties in the herb-garden, when Nicholas Harnage emerged from the arch of
the stairway, and recognising him, hailed him loudly and ran to pluck him
urgently by the sleeve.

“Brother,
a word!”

Cadfael
halted and turned to face him. “How do you find him? The long ride put him to
too great a strain, and he did not seek help until his wound was broken and
festering, but that’s over now. All’s clean, wholesome and healing. You need
not fear we shall let him founder like that a second time.”

“I
believe it, Brother,” said the young man earnestly. “But I see him now for the
first time after three years, and much fallen even from the man he was after he
got his injuries. I knew they were grave, the doctors had him in care between
life and death a long time, but when he came back to us at least he looked like
the man we knew and followed. He made his plans then to come home, I know, but
he had served already more years than he had promised, it was time to attend to
his lands and his life here at home. I made that voyage with him, he bore it
well. Now he has lost flesh, and there’s a languor about him when he moves a
hand. Tell me the truth of it, how bad is it with him?”

“Where
did he ever get such crippling wounds?” asked Cadfael, considering scrupulously
how much he could tell, and guessing at how much this boy already knew, or at
least hazarded.

“In
that last battle with Zenghi and the men of Mosul. He had Syrian doctors after
the battle.”

That
might very well be why he survived so terrible a maiming, thought Cadfael, who
had learned much of his own craft from both Saracen and Syrian physicians.
Aloud he asked cautiously: “You have not seen his wounds? You don’t know their
whole import?”

Surprisingly,
the seasoned crusader was struck silent for a moment, and a slow wave of blood
crept up under his golden tan, but he did not lower his eyes, very wide and
direct eyes of a profound blue. “I never saw his body, no more than when I
helped him into his harness. But I could not choose but understand what I can’t
claim I know. It could not be otherwise, or he would never have abandoned the
girl he was betrothed to. Why should he do so? A man of his word! He had
nothing left to give her but a position and a parcel of dower lands. He chose
rather to give her her freedom, and the residue of himself to God.”

“There
was a girl?” said Cadfael.

There
is a girl. And I am on my way to her now,” said Nicholas, as defiantly as if
his right had been challenged. “I carried the word to her and her father that
he was gone into the monastery at Hyde Mead. Now I am going to Lai to ask for
her hand myself, and he has given me his consent and blessing. She was a small
child when she was affianced to him, she has never seen him since. There is no reason
she should not listen to my suit, and none that her kin should reject me.”

“None
in the world!” agreed Cadfael heartily. “Had I a daughter in such case, I would
be glad to see the squire follow in his lord’s steps. And if you must report to
her of his well-being, you may say with truth that he is doing what he wishes,
and enjoys content of mind. And for his body, it is cared for as well as may
be. We shall not let him want for anything that can give him aid or comfort.”

“But
that does not answer what I need to know,” insisted the young man. “I have
promised to come back and tell him how I’ve fared. Three or four days, no
longer, perhaps not so long. But shall I still find him then?”

“Son,”
said Cadfael patiently, “which of us can answer that for himself or any other
man? You want truth, and you deserve it. Yes, Brother Humilis is dying. He got
his death-wound long ago in that last battle. Whatever has been done for him,
whatever can be done, is staving off an ending. But death is not in such a
hurry with him as you fear, and he is in no fear of it. You go and find your
girl, and bring him back good news, and he’ll be here to be glad of it.”

“And
so he will,” said Cadfael to Edmund, as they took the air in the garden
together before Compline that evening, “if that young fellow is brisk about his
courting, and I fancy he’s the kind to go straight for what he wants. But how
much longer we can hold our ground with Humilis I dare not guess. This fashion
of collapse we can prevent, but the old harm will devour him in the end. As he
knows better than any.”

“I
marvel how he lived at all,” agreed Edmund, “let alone bore the journey home,
and has survived three years or more since.”

They
were private together down by the banks of the Meole Brook, or they could not
have discussed the matter at all. No doubt by this hour Nicholas Harnage was
well on his way to the north-east of the county, if he had not already arrived
at his destination. Good weather for riding, he would be in shelter at Lai
before dark. And a very well-set-up young fellow like Harnage, in a thriving
way in arms by his own efforts, was not an offer to be sneezed at. He had the
blessing of his lord, and needed nothing more but the girl’s liking, her
family’s approval, and the sanction of the church.

“I
have heard it argued,” said Brother Edmund, “that when an affianced man enters
a monastic order, the betrothed lady is not necessarily free of the compact.
But it seems a selfish and greedy thing to try to have both worlds, choose the
life you want, but prevent the lady from doing likewise. But I think the
question seldom arises but where the man cannot bear to loose his hold of what
once he called his, and himself fights to keep her in chains. And here that is
not so, Brother Humilis is glad there should be so happy a solution. Though of
course she may be married already.”

“The
manor of Lai,” mused Cadfael. “What do you know of it, Edmund? What family
would that be?”

“Cruce
had it. Humphrey Cruce, if I remember rightly, he might well be the girl’s
father. They hold several manors up there, Ightfeld, and Harpecote — and Frees,
from the Bishop of Chester. Some lands in Staffordshire, too. They made Lai the
head of their honour.”

“That’s
where he’s bound. Now if he comes back in triumph,” said Cadfael contentedly,
“he’ll have done a good day’s work for Humilis. He’s already given him a great
heave upward by showing his honest brown face, but if he settles the girl’s
future for her he may have added a year or more to his lord’s life, at the same
time.”

They
went to Compline at the first sound of the bell. The visitor had indeed given
Humilis a heft forward towards health, it seemed, for here he came, habited and
erect on Fidelis’s arm, having asked no permission of his doctors, bent on
observing the night office with the rest. But I’ll hound him back as soon as
the observance is over, thought Cadfael, concerned for his dressing. Let him
brandish his banner this once, it speaks well for his spirit, even if his flesh
is drawn with effort. And who am I to say what a brother, my equal, may or may
not do for his own salvation?

The
evenings were already beginning to draw in, the height of the summer was over
while its heat continued as if it would never break. In the dimness of the
choir what light remained was coloured like irises, and faintly fragrant with
the warm, heady scents of harvest and fruit. In his stall the tall, handsome,
emaciated man who was old in his middle forties stood proudly, Fidelis on his
left hand, and next to Fidelis, Rhun. Their youth and beauty seemed to gather
to itself what light there was, so that they shone with a native radiance of
their own, like lighted candles.

Across
the choir from them Brother Urien stood, kneeled, genuflected and sang, with
the full, assured voice of maturity, and never took his eyes from those two
young, shining heads, the flaxen and the brown. Day by day those two drew
steadily together, the mute one and the eloquent one, matched unfairly,
unjustly, to his absolute exclusion, the one as desirable and as inviolable as
the other, while his need burned in his bowels day and night, and prayer could
not cool it, nor music lull it to sleep, but it ate him from within like the
gnawing of wolves.

They
had both begun — dreadful sign! — to look to him like the woman. When he gazed
at either of these two, the boy’s lineaments would dissolve and change subtly,
and there would be her face, not recognising, not despising, simply staring
through him to behold someone else. His heart ached beyond bearing, while he
sang mellifluously in the Compline psalm.

In
the twilight of the softer, more open country in the northeast of the shire,
where day lingered longer than among the folded hills of the western border,
Nicholas Harnage rode between flat, rich fields, unwontedly dried by the heat,
into the wattled enclosure of the manor of Lai. Wrapped round on all sides by
the enlarged fields of the plain, sparsely tree’d to make way for wide
cultivation, the house rose long and low, a stone-built hall and chambers over
a broad undercroft, with stables and barns about the interior of the fence. Fat
country, good for grain and for roots, with ample grazing for any amount of
cattle. The byres were vocal as Nicholas entered at the gate, the mild,
contented lowing of well-fed beasts, milked and drowsy.

A
groom heard the entering hooves and came forth from the stables, bared to the
waist in the warm night. Seeing one young horseman alone, he was quite easy.
They had had comparative peace here while Winchester burned and bled.

“Seeking
whom, young sir?”

“Seeking
the master, your lord, Humphrey Cruce,” said Nicholas, reining in peaceably and
shaking the reins free. “If he still keeps house here?”

“Why,
the lord Humphrey’s dead, sir, three years ago. His son Reginald is lord here
now. Would your errand do as well to him?”

“If
he’ll admit me, yes, surely to him, then,” said Nicholas, and dismounted. “Let
him know, I was here some three years ago, to speak for Godfrid Marescot. It
was his father I saw then, but the son will know of it.”

“Come
within,” said the groom placidly, accepting the credentials without question.
“I’ll have your beast seen to.”

In
the smoky, wood-scented hall they were at meat, or still sitting at ease after
the meal was done, but they had heard his step on the stone stairs that led to
the open hall door, and Reginald Cruce rose, alert and curious, as the visitor
entered. A big, black-haired man of austere features and imperious manner, but
well-disposed, it seemed, towards chance travellers. His lady sat aloof and
quiet, a pale-haired woman in green, with a boy of about fifteen at her side,
and a younger boy and girl about nine or ten, who by their likeness might well
be twins. Evidently Reginald Cruce had secured his succession with a
well-filled quiver, for by the lady’s swelling waist when she rose to muster
the hospitality of the house, there was another sibling on the way.

Nicholas
made his reverence and offered his name, a little confounded at finding Julian
Cruce’s brother a man surely turned forty, with a wife and growing children,
where he had assumed a young fellow in his twenties, perhaps newly-married
since inheriting. But he recalled that Humphrey Cruce had been an old man to
have a daughter still so young. Two marriages, surely, the first blessed with
an heir, the second undertaken late, when Reginald was a grown man, ready for
marriage himself, or even married already to his pale, prolific wife.