ointment jar laid aside on a shelf by the wall. Cadfael lifted the lid and sniffed at the greenish salve within. “Centaury, I think, and the yellow mild nettle, both good. He knows his herbs. I doubt if you could do better. But since he is not here, and you are in discomfort, may I assay?”
Evrard lay back submissively and let himself be handled. Cadfael unlaced the ties of the young man’s corte, and drew the left shoulder gently out from the wide sleeve, until the shirt could also be drawn down, and his arm freed.
“You have been out and active today, this binding is rubbed into creases, and dried hard, no wonder it hurts you. You should lie still a day or two yet, and let it rest.” It was his physician’s voice, practical, confident, even a little severe. His patient listened meekly, and let himself be unwound from his wrappings, which enveloped both shoulder and upper arm. The last folds were stained in a long slash that ran from above the heart down to the underside of the arm, with a thin, dark line of blood that ebbed out on either side into pale, dried fluid. Here Cadfael went delicately, steadying the flesh against every turn of the linen. The folds creaked stiffly free.
A long slash that could have killed him, but instead had been deflected outwards, to slice down into the flesh of his arm. Not deep nor dangerous, though he might well have bled copiously until it was staunched, and since he had ridden hard that same night, no wonder he had lost blood enough to enfeeble him. It was healing now from either end, and healing clean, but certainly, by exertion or some contagion of dirt entering, it had been ugly and festering, and even now, in the centre of the wound, the flesh showed pink, soft and angry. Cadfael cleansed it with a morsel of the linen, and applied a new plaster coated with the herbal salve. The pallid young face stared up at him all the while with unblinking, bruised eyes, wondering and mute.
“You have no other wounds?” asked Cadfael, winding a fresh bandage about his dressing. “Well, rest this one a day or two longer, and rest your own uneasy mind with it, for we are all on the same quest. Take a little air in the middle of the day, if the sun comes, but keep from cold and give your body time. There, now your sleeve, so … But it would be wise to have these boots off, wrap yourself in your gown, and make yourself content.”
The hollow eyes followed his withdrawal, marvelling. He found his voice to follow them with thanks only as they were leaving.
“You have a gifted touch, brother. I feel myself much eased. God be with you!”
They went out to their horses and the gradually fading light. Yves was dumb. He had come to challenge, and remained to feel sympathy, though almost against his will. He was new to wounds and pain and sickness, until the shock of Worcester he had lived indulged, sheltered, a child. And for his sister’s sake he was deep in bitter disappointment and anxiety, and wanted no promptings from anyone.
“He has what he claims,” said Brother Cadfael simply, when they were cresting the ridge and heading down into the trees. “A thrust meant for his heart, rubbed raw again later, and poisoned by some foulness that got into the wound. He has been in fever, sure enough, and fretted gouts from his flesh. Everything speaks him true.”
“And we are no nearer finding the girl,” said Hugh.
The nightly clouds were gathering, the sky drooping over their heads, an ominous wind stirring. They made all the haste they could to get back into Bromfield before the snow began.
Chapter Seven
After Vespers that night the wind rose violently, the vague wisps of snow that drifted aimlessly on the air changed to thin, lashing whips, driving horizontally against the walls and piling new layers of white against every windward surface. By the time supper was over, and Brother Cadfael scurried across the great court to the infirmary to look at his patient, the world outside was an opaque, shifting, blinding mass of flakes, growing ever thicker. This was to be a blizzard night. The wolves might well be abroad again. They knew their ground exceedingly well, and weather that might daunt the innocent had no terrors for them.
Brother Elyas had been allowed out of his bed for the first time, and was reclining propped by his pillow, bony and shrunken in his voluminous habit. His head wounds had healed over, his body mended of itself, but the constitution of his mind had not the same strength. With mute submission he did whatever he was bidden, with low and listless voice he gave thanks humbly for all that was done for him, but with sunken eyes and painfully knotted brows he stared beyond the walls of his cell, as if half-seeing and half-deluding himself that he saw that part of him that had been reft away and never returned. Only in sleep, and particularly when falling asleep or awaking out of sleep, was he agitated and shaken, as if between waking life and the gentler semblance of death the veil that hid his lost memory from him thinned but did not quite part.
Yves had followed Cadfael across the court, restless and anxious. He was hovering outside the door of the sickroom when Cadfael came out.
“Should you not be in your bed, Yves? Such a long, hard day as you’ve had!”
“I don’t want to sleep yet,” pleaded the boy querulously. “I’m not tired. Let me sit with him for you until after Compline. I’d rather have something to do.” And indeed it might be the best thing for him, to be doing something for someone else, and feeding a draught of herbs to Brother Elyas might spill a drop of comfort to soothe his own troubles and disappointments. “He still hasn’t said anything to help us? He doesn’t remember us?”
“Not yet. There is a name he calls sometimes in his sleep, but none of our acquaintance.” He called for her as for a thing hopelessly lost, an irreparable grief but not an anxiety, she being beyond pain or danger. “Hunydd. In his deepest sleep he calls for Hunydd.”
“A strange name,” said Yves, wondering. “Is it a man or a woman?”
“A woman’s name?a Welshwoman. I think, though I do not know, that she was his wife. And dearly loved, too dearly to leave him in peace if she is only a few months dead. Prior Leonard said of him, not long in the cloister. He may well have tried to escape from what was hard to bear alone, and found it no easier among any number of brethren.”
Yves was looking up at him with a man’s eyes, steady and grave. Even sorrows as yet well out of his range he could go far towards understanding. Cadfael shook him amiably by the shoulder. “There, yes, sit by him if you will. After Compline I’ll bring someone to take your place. And should you need me, I’ll not be far away.”
Elyas dozed, opened his eyes, and dozed again. Yves sat still and silent beside the bed, attentive to every change in the gaunt but strong and comely face, and pleased and ready when the invalid asked for a drink, or needed an arm to help him turn and settle comfortably. In the wakeful moments the boy tried tentatively to reach a mind surely not quite closed against him, talking shyly of the winter weather, and the common order of the day within these walls. The hollow eyes watched him as though from a great distance, but attentively.
“Strange,” said Elyas suddenly, his voice low and creaky with disuse. “I feel that I should know you. Yet you are not a brother of the house.”
“You have known me,” said Yves, eager and hopeful. “For a short time we were together, do you remember?
