An Excellent Mystery (9 page)

“Ah,
that!” said Reginald of his guest’s former errand to this same house. “I remember
it, though I was not here then. My wife brought me a manor in Staffordshire, we
were living there. But I know how it fell out, of course. A strange business
altogether. But it happens! Men change their minds. And you were the messenger?
Well, but leave it now and take some refreshment. Come to table! There’ll be
time to talk of all such business afterwards.”

He
sat down and kept his visitor company while a servant brought meat and ale, and
the lady, having made her grave good night, drove her younger children away to
their beds, and the heir sat solemn and silent studying his elders. At last, in
the deepening evening, the two men were left alone to their talk.

“So
you are the squire who brought that word from Marescot. You’ll have noticed
there’s a generation, as near as need be, between my sister and me — seventeen
years. My mother died when I was nine years old, and it was another eight
before my father married again. An old man’s folly, she brought him nothing,
and died when the girl was born, so he had little joy of her.”

At
least, thought Nicholas, studying his host dispassionately, there was no second
son, to threaten a division of the lands. That would be a source of
satisfaction to this man, he was authentically of his class and kind, and land was
his lifeblood.

“He
may well have had great joy of his daughter, however,” he said firmly, “for she
is a very gracious and beautiful girl, as I well recall.”

“You’ll
be better informed of that than I,” said Reginald drily, “if you saw her only
three years ago. It must be eighteen or more since I set eyes on her. She was a
stumbling infant then, two years old, or three, it might be. I married about
that time, and settled on the lands Cecilia brought me. We exchanged couriers
now and then, but I never came back here until my father was on his deathbed,
and they sent for me to come to him.”

“I
didn’t know of his death when I set out to come here on this errand of my own,”
said Nicholas. “I heard it only from your groom at the gate. But I may speak as
freely with you as I should have done with him. I was so much taken with your
sister’s grace and dignity that I’ve thought of her ever since, and I’ve spoken
with my lord Godfrid, and have his full consent to what I’m asking. As for
myself,” he thrust on, leaning eagerly across the board, “I am heir to two good
manors from my father, and shall have some lands also after my mother, I stand
well in the queen’s armies and my lord will speak for me, that I’m in earnest
in this matter, and will provide for Julian as truly as any man could, if you
will…”

His
host was gazing, astonished, smiling at his fervour, and had raised a warning
hand to still the flood.

“Did
you come all this way to ask me to give you my sister?”

“I
did! Is that so strange? I admired her, and I’m come to speak for her. And she
might have worse offers,” he added, flushing and stiffening at such a
reception.

“I
don’t doubt it, but, man, man, you should have put in a word to give her due
warning then. You come three years too late!”

“Too
late?” Nicholas sat back and drew in his hands slowly, stricken. Then she’s
already married?”

“You
might call it so!” Reginald hoisted wide shoulders in a helpless gesture. “But
not to any man. And you might have sped well enough if you’d made more haste,
for all I know. No, this is quite a different story. There was some discussion,
even, about whether she was still bound like a wife to Marescot — a great
foolery, but the churchmen have to assert their authority, and my father’s
chaplain was prim as a virgin — though I suspect, for all that, in private he
was none! — and clutched at every point of canon law that gave him power, and
he took the extreme line, and would have it she was legally a wife, while the
parish priest argued the opposing way, and my father, being a sensible man,
took his side and insisted she was free. All this I learned by stages since. I
never took part or put my head into the hornets’ nest.”

Nicholas
was frowning into his cupped hands, feeling the cold heaviness of
disappointment drag his heart down. But still this was not a complete answer.
He looked up ruefully. “So how did this end? Why is she not here to use her
freedom, if she has not yet given herself to a husband?”

“Ah,
but she has! She took her own way. She said that if she was free, then she
would make her own choice. And she chose to do as Marescot had done, and took a
husband not of this world. She has taken the veil as a Benedictine nun.”

“And
they let her?” demanded Nicholas, wrung between rage and pain. “Then, when she
was moved by this broken match, they let her go so easily, throw away her youth
so unwisely?”

“They
let her, yes. How do I know whether she was wise or no? If it was what she
wished, why should she not have it? Since she went I’ve never had word from
her, never has she complained or asked for anything. She must be happy in her
choice. You must look elsewhere for a wife, my friend!”

Nicholas
sat silent for a time, swallowing a bitterness that burned in his belly like
fire. Then he asked, with careful quietness: “How was it? When did she leave
her home? How attended?”

“Very
soon after your visit, I judge. It might be a month while they fought out the
issue, and she said never a word. But all was done properly. Our father gave
her an escort of three men-at-arms and a huntsman who had always been a
favourite and made a pet of her, and a good dowry in money, and also some
ornaments for her convent, silver candlesticks and a crucifix and such. He was
sad to see her go, I know by what he said later, but she wanted it so, and her
wants were his commands always.” A very slight chill in his brisk, decisive
voice spoke of an old jealousy. The child of Humphrey’s age had plainly usurped
his whole heart, even though his son would inherit all when that heart no
longer beat. “He lived barely a month longer,” said Reginald. “Only long enough
to see the return of her escort, and know she was safely delivered where she
wished to be. He was old and feeble, we knew it. But he should not have
dwindled so soon.”

“He
might well miss her,” said Nicholas, very low and hesitantly, “about the place.
She had a brightness… And you did not send for her, when her father died?”

“To
what end? What could she do for him, or he for her? No, we let her be. If she
was happy there, why trouble her?”

Nicholas
gripped his hands together under the board, and wrung them hard, and asked his
last question: “Where was it she chose to go?” His own voice sounded to him
hollow and distant.

“She’s
in the Benedictine abbey of Wherwell, close by Andover.”

So
that was the end of it! All this time she had been within hail of him, the
house of her refuge encircled now by armies and factions and contention. If
only he had spoken out what he felt in his heart at the first sight of her,
even hampered as he had been by the knowledge of the blow he was about to deal
her, and gagged by that knowledge when for once he might have been eloquent.
She might have listened, and at least delayed, even if she could feel nothing
for him then. She might have thought again, and waited, and even remembered
him. Now it was far too late, she was a bride for the second time, and even
more indissolubly.

This
time there was no question of argument. The betrothal vows made by or for a
small girl might justifiably be dissolved, but the vocational vows of a grown
woman, taken in the full knowledge of their meaning, and of her own choice,
never could be undone. He had lost her.

Nicholas
lay all night in the small guest-chamber prepared for him, fretting at the knot
and knowing he could not untie it. He slept shallowly and uneasily, and in the
morning he took his leave, and set out on the road back to Shrewsbury.

Chapter Five

IT
SO HAPPENED THAT BROTHER CADFAEL WAS PRIVATE with Humilis in his cell in the
dortoir when Nicholas again rode in at the gatehouse and asked leave to visit
his former lord, as he had promised. Humilis had risen with the rest that
morning, attended Prime and Mass, and scrupulously performed all the duties of
the horarium, though he was not yet allowed to exert himself by any form of
labour. Fidelis attended him everywhere, ready to support his steps if need
arose, or fetch him whatever he might want, and had spent the afternoon
completing, under his elder’s approving eye, the initial letter which had been
smeared and blotted by his fall. And there they had left the boy to finish the
careful elaboration in gold, while they repaired to the dortoir, physician and
patient together.

“Well
closed,” said Cadfael, content with his work, “and firming up nicely, clean as
ever. You scarcely need the bandages, but as well keep them a day or two yet,
to guard against rubbing while the new skin is still frail.”

They
were grown quite easy together, these two, and if both of them realised that
the mere healing of a broken and festered wound was no sufficient cure for what
ailed Humilis, they were both courteously silent on the subject, and took their
moderate pleasure in what good they had achieved.

They
heard the footsteps on the stone treads of the day stairs, and knew them for
booted feet, not sandalled. But there was no spring in the steps now, and no
hasty eagerness, and it was a glum young man who appeared, shadowy, in the
doorway of the cell. Nor had he been in any hurry on the way back from Lai,
since he had nothing but disappointment to report. But he had promised, and he
was here.

“Nick!”
Humilis greeted him with evident pleasure and affection. “You’re soon back!
Welcome as the day, but I had thought…” There he stopped, even in the dim
interior light aware that the brightness was gone from the young man’s face.
“So long a visage? I see it did not go as you would have wished.”

“No,
my lord.” Nicholas came in slowly, and bent his knee to both his elders. “I
have not sped.”

“I
am sorry for it, but no man can always succeed. You know Brother Cadfael? I owe
the best of care to him.”

“We
spoke together the last time,” said Nicholas, and found a half-hearted smile by
way of acknowledgement. “I count myself also in his debt.”

“Spoke
of me, no doubt,” said Humilis, smiling and sighing. “You trouble too much for
me, I am well content here. I have found my way. Now sit down a while, and tell
us what went wrong for you.”

Nicholas
plumped himself down on the stool beside the bed on which Humilis was sitting,
and said what he had to say in commendably few words: “I hesitated three years
too long. Barely a month after you took the cowl at Hyde, Julian Cruce took the
veil at Wherwell.”

“Did
she so!” said Humilis on a long breath, and sat silent to take in all that this
news could mean. “Now I wonder… No, why should she do such a thing unless it
was truly her wish? It cannot have been because of me! No, she knew nothing of
me, she had only once seen me, and must have forgotten me before my back was
turned.

She
may even have been glad… It may be this is what she always wished, if she could
have her way…” He thought for a moment, frowning, perhaps trying to recall what
that little girl looked like. “You told me, Nick, that I do remember, how she
took my message. She was not distressed, but altogether calm and courteous, and
gave me her grace and pardon freely. You said so!”

“Truth,
my lord,” said Nicholas earnestly, “though she cannot have been glad.”

“Ah,
but she may — she may very well have been glad. No blame to her! Willing though
she may have been to accept the match made for her, yet it would have tied her
to a man more than twenty years her elder, and a stranger. Why should she not
be glad, when I offered her her liberty — no, urged it upon her? Surely she
must have made of it the use she preferred, perhaps had longed for.”

“She
was not forced,” Nicholas admitted, with somewhat reluctant certainty. “Her
brother says it was the girl’s own choice, indeed her father was against it,
and only gave in because she would have it so.”

“That’s
well,” agreed Humilis with a relieved sigh. Then we can but hope that she may
be happy in her choice.”

“But
so great a waste!” blurted Nicholas, grieving. “If you had seen her, my lord,
as I did! To shear such hair as she had, and hide such a form under the black
habit! They should never have let her go, not so soon. How if she has regretted
it long since?”

Humilis
smiled, but very gently, eyeing the downcast face and hooded eyes. “As you
described her to me, so gracious and sensible, of such measured and considered
speech, I don’t think she will have acted without due thought. No, surely she
has done what is right for her. But I’m sorry for your loss, Nick. You must
bear it as gallantly as she did — if ever I was any loss!”

The
Vesper bell had begun to chime. Humilis rose to go down to the church, and
Nicholas rose with him, taking the summons as his dismissal.

“It’s
late to set out now,” suggested Cadfael, emerging from the silence and
withdrawal he had observed while these two talked together. “And it seems there’s
no great haste, that you need leave tonight. A bed in the guest-hall, and you
could set off fresh in the morning, with the whole day before you. And spend an
hour or two more with Brother Humilis this evening, while you have the chance.”