He set a sharp pace along the Foregate and over the bridge, and asked such questions as were necessary as they went.
‘How did she come to be up and active at this hour? And how did this fit come on?’
Iestyn kept station at his side and answered shortly. He had never many words to spare. ‘Mistress Susanna was up late seeing to her stores, for she’s forced to give up her keys. And Dame Juliana rose up, belike, to see what she was still about. The fit took her at the top of the stairs and she fell.’
‘But the seizure came first? And caused the fall?’
‘So the women say.’
‘The women?’
‘The maid was there and saw it.’
‘What’s her state now, then? The old dame? Has she bones broken? Can she move freely?’
‘The mistress says nothing broken, but one side of her stiff as a tree, and her face drawn all on a skew.’
They were let in at the town gate without question. Cadfael occasionally had much later errands and was well known. They climbed the steep curve of the Wyle in silence, the gradient making demands on their breath.
‘I warned her the last time,’ said Cadfael, when the slope eased, ‘that if she did not keep her rages in check the next fit might be the last. She was well in command of herself and all about her this morning, for all the mischief that was brewing in the house, but I had my doubts
What can have upset her tonight?’
But if Iestyn had any answer to that, he kept it to himself. A taciturn man, who did his work and kept his own counsel.
Walter was hopping about uneasily at the entrance to the passage, watching for them with a horn lantern in his hand. Daniel was huddled into his gown in the hall, with the spendthrift candles still burning unheeded around him, until Walter entered with the newcomers, and having seen them within, suddenly became aware of gross waste, and begun to go round and pinch out two out of three, leaving the smell of their hot wicks on the air.
‘We carried her up to bed,’ said Daniel, restless and wretched in this upheaval that disrupted his new content. ‘The women are there with her. Go up, they’re anxious for you.’ And he followed, drawn to a trouble that must be resolved before he could take any comfort, and hovered in the doorway of the sick-chamber, but did not step within, Iestyn remained at the foot of the stairs. In all the years of service here, most likely, he had never climbed them.
A brazier burned in an iron basket set upon a wide stone, and a small lamp on a shelf jutting out from the wall. Here in the upper rooms there were no ceilings, the rooms went up into the vault of the roof, dark wood on all sides and above. On one side of the narrow bed Margery, mute and pale, drew hastily back into the shadows to let Brother Cadfael come close. On the other, Susanna stood erect and still, and her head turned only momentarily to ascertain who it was who came.
Cadfael sank to his knees beside the bed. Juliana was alive, and if one sense had been snatched from her, the others she still had, at least for a brief while. In the contorted face the ancient eyes were alive, alert and resigned. They met Cadfael’s and knew him. The grimace could almost have been her old, sour smile. ‘Send Daniel for her priest,’ said Cadfael after one look at her, and without conceal. ‘His errand here is more now than mine.’ She would appreciate that. She knew she was dying.
He looked up at Susanna. No question now who held the mastery here; no matter how they tore each other, she of all these was Juliana’s blood, kin and match. ‘Has she spoken?’
‘No. Not a word.’ Yes, she even looked as this woman must have looked fifty years ago as a comely, resolute, able matron, married to a man of lesser fibre than her own. Her voice was low, steady and cool. She had done what could be done for the dying woman, and stood waiting for whatever broken words might fall from that broken mouth. She even leaned to wipe away the spittle that ran from its deformed lips at the downward corner.
‘Have the priest come, for I am none. She is already promised our prayers, that she knows.’ And that was for her, to ensure that she was alive within this dead body, and need not regret all her gifts to the abbey, doled out so watchfully. Her faded eyes had still a flash within them; she understood. Wherever she was gone, she knew what was said and done about her. But she had said no word, nor even attempted speech.
Margery had stolen thankfully out of the room, to send her husband for the priest. She did not come back. Walter was below, pinching out candles and fretting over the few that must remain. Only Cadfael on one side of the bed and Susanna on the other kept watch still by Dame Juliana’s death.
The old woman’s live eyes in her dead carcase clung to Cadfael’s face, yet not, he thought, trying to convey to him anything but her defiant reliance on her own resources. When had she not been mistress of her own household? And these were still her family, no business of any other judge. Those outside must stay outside. This monk whom she had grown to respect and value, for all their differences, she admitted halfway, close enough to know and acknowledge her rights of possession. Her twisted mouth suddenly worked, emitted an audible sound, looked for a moment like a mouth that might speak memorable things. Cadfael stooped his ear close to her lips.
A laborious murmur, indistinguishable, and then: ‘It was I bred them
‘ she said thickly, and again struggled with incommunicable thoughts, and rested with a rattling sigh. A tremor passed through her rigid body. A thread of utterance emerged almost clearly: ‘But for all that
I should have liked to hold
my great-grandchild
‘
Cadfael had barely raised his head when she closed her eyes. No question but it was by her will they closed, no crippling weakness. But for the priest, she had done.
Even with the priest she did not speak again. She bore with his urgings, and made the effort to respond with her eyelids when he made his required probings into her sense of sin and need and hope for absolution. She died as soon as he had pronounced it, or only moments later.
Susanna stood by her to the end and never uttered a word. When all was done, she stooped and kissed the
