Authors: Ellis Peters
“I
see I’m forestalled,” said Cadfael into Brother Edmund’s ear, in the doorway.
“You’ll
have warned him to wash his hands well, afterwards?”
“And
shown him where, and where to stow the bottle away safely when he’s done. He
understands. I’d hardly let a man take risks with such a brew, after your
lecture. I’ve told him what the stuff could do, misused.”
The
young man ceased his ministrations momentarily when Brother Cadfael approached,
and made to stand up respectfully, but Cadfael waved him down again. “No, sit,
lad, I won’t disturb you. I’m here for a word with an old friend, but I see
you’ve taken on my work for me, and doing it well, too.”
The
young man, with cheerful practicality, took him at his word, and went on
kneading the pungent oils into Brother Rhys’s aged shoulders. He was perhaps
twenty-four or twenty-five years old, sturdily built and strong; his square,
good-natured face was brown and weathered, and plentifully supplied with bone,
a Welsh face, smooth-shaven and decisive, his hair and brows thick, wiry and
black. His manner towards Brother Rhys was smiling, merry, almost teasing, as
it probably would have been towards a child; and that was engaging in him, and
won Brother Cadfael’s thoughtful approval, for Brother Rhys was indeed a child
again. Livelier than usual today, however, the visitor had done him a deal of
good.
“Well,
now, Cadfael!” he piped, twitching a shoulder pleasurably at the young man’s
probing. “You see my kinsmen remember me yet. Here’s my niece Angharad’s boy
come to see me, my great-nephew Meurig. I mind the time
he was
born… Eh, I mind the time she was born, for that matter, my sister’s little
lass. It’s many years since I’ve seen her—or you, boy, come to think of it, you
could have come to see me earlier. But there’s no family feeling in the young,
these days.” But he was very complacent about it, enjoying handing out praise
one moment and illogical reproof the next, a patriarch’s privilege. “And why didn’t
the girl come her-self? Why didn’t you bring your mother with you?”
“It’s
a long journey from the north of the shire,” said the young man Meurig, easily,
“and always more than enough to be done at home. But I’m nearer now, I work for
a carpenter and carver in the town here, you’ll be seeing more of me. I’ll come
and do this for you again—have you out on a hillside with the sheep yet, come
spring.”
“My
niece Angharad,” murmured the old man, benignly smiling, “was the prettiest
little thing in half the shire, and she grew up a beauty. What age would she be
now? Five and forty, it may be, but I warrant she’s still as beautiful as ever
she was—don’t you tell me different, I never yet saw the one to touch her…”
“Her
son’s not likely to tell you any different,” agreed Meurig comfortably. Are not
all one’s lost nieces beautiful? And the weather of the summers when they were
children always radiant, and the wild fruit they gathered then sweeter than any
that grows now? For some years Brother Rhys had been considered mildly senile,
his wanderings timeless and disorganised; memory failed, fantasy burgeoned, he
drew pictures that never had existed on sea or land. But somewhere else,
perhaps? Now, with the stimulus of this youthful and vigorous presence and the
knowledge of their shared blood, he quickened into sharp remembrance again. It
might not last, but it was a princely gift while it lasted.
“Turn
a little more to the fire—there, is that the spot?” Rhys wriggled and purred
like a stroked cat, and the young man laughed, and plied deep into the flesh,
smoothing out knots with a firmness that both hurt and gratified.
“This
is no new skill with you,” said Brother Cadfael, observing with approval.
“But
he’s a carpenter now,” Brother Rhys said proudly, “and working here in
Shrewsbury.”
“And
we’re making a lectern for your Lady Chapel,” said Meurig, “and when it’s
done—and it soon will be—I’ll be bringing it down to the abbey myself. And I’ll
come and see you again while I’m here.”
“And
rub my shoulder again? It gets winterly now, towards Christmas, the cold gets
in my bones.”
“I
will so. But that’s enough for now, I’ll be making you too sore. Have up your
gown again, uncle—there, and keep the warmth in. Does it burn?”
“For
a while it prickled like nettles, now there’s a fine, easy glow. I don’t feel
any pain there now. But I’m tired…”
He
would be, tired and drowsy after the manipulation of his flesh and the reviving
of his ancient mind. “That’s right, that’s well. Now you should lie down and
have a sleep.”
Meurig
looked to Cadfael to support him. “Isn’t that best, brother?”
“The
very best thing. That’s hard exercise you’ve been taking, you should rest after
it.”
Rhys
was well content to be settled on his bed and left to the sleep that was
already overtaking him. His drowsy farewells followed them towards the door, to
fade into silence before they reached it. “Take my greetings to your mother,
Meurig. And ask her to come and see me… when they bring the wool to Shrewsbury
market… I’m fain to see her again…”
“He
set great store by your mother, it seems,” said Cadfael, watching as Meurig
washed his hands where Brother Edmund had shown him, and making sure that he
was thorough about it. “Is there a hope that he may see her again?”
Meurig’s
face, seen in profile as he wrung and scrubbed at his hands, had a gravity and
brooding thoughtfulness that
belied the indulgent gaiety he had
put on for this old man. After a moment he said: “Not in this world.” He turned
to reach for the coarse towel, and looked Cadfael in the eyes fully and
steadily. “My mother has been dead for eleven years this Michaelmas past. He
knows it—or he knew it—as well as I. But if she’s alive to him again in his
dotage, why should I remind him? Let him keep that thought and any other that
can pleasure him.”
They
went out together in silence, into the chilly air of the great court, and there
separated, Meurig striking across briskly towards the gatehouse, Cadfael making
for the church, where the Vesper bell could be only a few minutes delayed.
“God
speed!” said Cadfael in parting. “You gave the old man back a piece of his youth
today. The elders of your kinship, I think, are fortunate in their sons.”
“My
kinship,” said Meurig, halting in mid-stride to stare back with great black
eyes, “is my mother’s kinship, I go with my own. My father was not a Welshman.”
He
went, lengthening a lusty stride, the square shape of his shoulders cleaving
the dusk. And Cadfael wondered about him, as he had wondered about the villein
Aelfric, as far as the porch of the church, and then abandoned him for a more
immediate duty. These people are, after all, responsible for themselves, and
none of his business.
Not
yet!
IT
WAS NEARING MID-DECEMBER before the dour manservant Aelfric came again to the
herb-gardens for kitchen herbs for his mistress. By that time he was a figure
familiar enough to fade into the daily pattern of comings and goings about the
great court, and among the multifarious noise and traffic his solitary silence
remained generally unremarked. Cadfael had seen him in the mornings, passing
through to the bakery and buttery for the day’s loaves and measures of ale,
always mute, always purposeful, quick of step and withdrawn of countenance, as
though any delay on his part might bring penance, as perhaps, indeed, it might.
Brother Mark, attracted to a soul seemingly as lonely and anxious as his own
had once been, had made some attempt to engage the stranger in talk, and had
little success.
“Though
he does unfold a little,” said Mark thoughtfully, kicking his heels on the
bench in Cadfael’s workshop as he stirred a salve. “I don’t think he’s an
unfriendly soul at all, if he had not something on his mind. When I greet him
he sometimes comes near to smiling, but he’ll never linger and talk.”
“He
has his work to do, and perhaps a master who’s hard to please,” said Cadfael
mildly.
“I
heard he’s out of sorts since they moved in,” said Mark.
“The
master, I mean. Not really ill, but low and out of appetite.”
“So
might I be,” opined Cadfael, “if I had nothing to do but sit there and mope,
and wonder if I’d done well to part with my lands, even in old age. What seems
an easy life in contemplation can be hard enough when it comes to reality.”
“The
girl,” said Mark judiciously, “is pretty. Have you seen her?”
“I
have not. And you, my lad, should be averting your eyes from contemplation of
women. Pretty, is she?”
“Very
pretty. Not very tall, round and fair, with a lot of yellow hair, and black
eyes. It makes a great effect, yellow hair and black eyes. I saw her come to
the stable with some message for Aelfric yesterday. He looked after her, when
she went, in such a curious way. Perhaps she is his trouble.”
And
that might well be, thought Cadfael, if he was a villein, and she a free woman,
and unlikely to look so low as a serf, and they were rubbing shoulders about
the household day after day, in closer quarters here than about the manor of
Mallilie.
“She
could as well be trouble for you, boy, if Brother Jerome or Prior Robert sees
you conning her,” he said briskly. “If you must admire a fine girl, let it be
out of the corner of your eyes. Don’t forget we have a reforming rule here
now.”
“Oh,
I’m careful!” Mark was by no means in awe of Brother Cadfael now, and had
adopted from him somewhat unorthodox notions of what was and was not
permissible. In any case, this boy’s vocation was no longer in doubt or danger.
If the times had been less troublesome he might well have sought leave to go
and study in Oxford, but even without that opportunity, Cadfael was reasonably
certain he would end by taking orders, and become a priest, and a good priest,
too, one aware that women existed in the world, and respectful towards their
presence and their worth. Mark had come unwillingly and resisting into the
cloister, but he had found his rightful place. Not everyone was so fortunate.
“I
hear he’s somewhat out of humour and health,” said Cadfael, rustling the linen
bags that gave forth such rich, heady scents upon the air. The young man’s
nostrils quivered and widened with pleasure, inhaling close sweetness. In the
soft light within, his wary face eased a little.
“There’s
not much ails him, more of the mind than the body. He’ll be well enough when he
plucks up heart. He’s out of sorts with his kin most of all,” said Aelfric,
growing unexpectedly confiding.
“That’s
trying for you all, even the lady,” said Cadfael.
“And
she does everything woman could do for him, there’s nothing he can reproach her
with. But this upheaval has him out with everybody, even himself. He’s been
expecting his son to come running and eat humble pie before this, to try and
get his inheritance back, and he’s been disappointed, and that sours him.”
Cadfael
turned a surprised face at this. “You mean he’s cut off a son, to give his
inheritance to the abbey? To spite the young man? That he couldn’t, in law. No
house would think of accepting such a bargain, without the consent of the
heir.”
“It’s
not his own son.” Aelfric shrugged, shaking his head. “It’s his wife’s son by a
former marriage, so the lad has no legal claims on him. It’s true he’d made a
will naming him as his heir, but the abbey charter wipes that out—or will when
it’s sealed and witnessed. He has no remedy in law. They fell out, and he’s
lost his promised manor, and that’s all there is to it.”
“For
what fault could he deserve such treatment?” Cadfael wondered.
Aelfric
hoisted deprecating shoulders, lean shoulders but broad and straight, as
Cadfael observed. “He’s young and wayward, and my lord is old and irritable,
not used to being crossed. Neither was the boy used to it, and he fought hard
when he found his liberty curbed.”
“And
what’s become of him now? For I recall you said you were but four in the
house.”
“He
has a neck as stiff as my lord’s, he’s taken himself off to live with his
married sister and her family, and learn a trade. He was expected back with his
tail between his legs before now, my lord was counting on it, but never a sign,
and I doubt if there will be.”