she raised to him was open like a flower, without reserve or fear, so that at that first glance he had seemed to see deep into her being. As though her flesh, though rounded and full and firm, had been translucent from without and luminous from within. There had been a little pale sunshine that day, and it had gained radiance from her eyes, russet-gold eyes, and reflected light from her broad brow under the soft brown hair. She had smiled at him with that same ungrudging radiance, shedding warmth about her to melt the chill of anxiety from his mind and heart, she who had never set eyes on him before, and must not be made ever to see him or think of him again.
But he had thought of her, whether he willed it or not.
He had hardly realised now that he was still riding towards the further edge of the village, where the manor lay. The line of the stockade rose out of the fields, the steep pitch of the roof within, the pattern of field strips beyond the enclosure, a square plot of orchard trees, all gleaned and almost leafless. He had splashed through the first stream almost without noticing, but the second, so close now to the wide-open gate in the manor fence, caused him to baulk suddenly and consider what he was doing, and must not do, had no right to do.
He could see the courtyard within the stockade, and the elder boy carefully leading a pony in decorously steady circles, with the small girl on its back. Regularly they appeared, passed and vanished, to reappear at the far rim of their circle and vanish again, the boy giving orders importantly, the child with both small fists clutched in the pony’s mane. Once Gunnild came into view for a moment, smiling, watching her youngest charge, astride like a boy, kicking round bare heels into the pony’s fat sides. Then she drew back again to clear their exercise ground, and passed from his sight. With an effort, Sulien came to himself, and swung away from them towards the village.
And there she was, coming towards him from the direction of the church, with a basket on her arm under the folds of her cloak, and her brown hair braided in a thick plait and tied with a scarlet cord. Her eyes were on him. She had known him before ever he was aware of her, and she approached him without either hastening or lingering, with confident pleasure. Just as he had been seeing her with his mind’s eye a moment earlier, except that then she had worn no cloak, and her hair had been loose about her shoulders. But her face had the same open radiance, her eyes the same quality of letting him into her heart.
A few paces from where he had reined in she halted, and they looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Then she said: ‘Were you really going away again, now that you’ve come? Without a word? Without coming in?’
He knew that he ought to claw out of some astute corner of his mind wit enough and words enough to show that his presence here had nothing to do with her or his former visit, some errand that would account for his having to ride by here, and make it urgent that he should be on his way home again without delay. But he could not find a single word, however false, however rough, to thrust her away from him.
‘Come and be acquainted with my father,’ she said simply. ‘He will be glad, he knows why you came before. Of course Gunnild told him, how else do you think she got horse and groom to bring her into Shrewsbury, to the sheriff? None of us need ever go behind my father’s back. I know you asked her to leave you out of it with Hugh Beringar, and so she did, but in this house we don’t have secrets, we have no cause.’
That he could well believe. Her nature spoke for her sire, a constant and carefree inheritance. And though he knew it was none the less incumbent upon him to draw away from her, to avoid her and leave her her peace of mind, and relieve her parents of any future grief on her behalf, he could not do it. He dismounted, and walked with her, bridle in hand and still mute and confounded, in at the gate of Withington.
Brother Cadfael saw them in church together at the sung Mass for Saint Cecilia’s day, the twenty-second of November. It was a matter for conjecture why they should choose to attend here at the abbey, when they had parish churches of their own. Perhaps Sulien still kept a precarious fondness for the Order he had left, for its stability and certainty, not to be found in the world outside, and still felt the need to make contact with it from time to time, while he reorientated his life. Perhaps she wanted Brother Anselm’s admired music, especially on this day of all the saints’ days. Or perhaps, Cadfael reflected, they found this a convenient and eminently respectable meeting-place for two who had not yet progressed so far as to be seen together publicly nearer home. Whatever the reason, there they were in the nave, close to the parish altar where they could see through into the choir and hear the singing unmarred by the mute spots behind some of the massive pillars. They stood close, but not touching each other, not even the folds of a sleeve brushing, very still, very attentive, with solemn faces and wide, clear eyes. Cadfael saw the girl for once grave, though she still shone, and the boy for once eased and tranquil, though the shadow of his disquiet still set its finger in the small furrow between his brows.
When the brothers emerged after service Sulien and Pernel had already left by the west door, and Cadfael went to his work in the garden wondering how often they had met thus, and how the first meeting had come about, for though the two had never looked at each other or touched hands during worship, or given any sign of being aware each of the other’s presence, yet there was something about their very composure and the fixity of their attention that bound them together beyond doubt.
It was not difficult, he found, to account for this ambivalent aura they carried with them, so clearly together, so tacitly apart. There would be no resolution, no solving of the dichotomy, until the one devouring question was answered. Ruald, who knew the boy best, had never found the least occasion to doubt that what he told was truth, and the simplicity of Ruald’s acceptance of that certainty was Ruald’s own salvation. But Cadfael could not see certainty yet upon either side. And Hugh and his lances and archers were still many miles away, their fortune still unknown, and nothing to be done but wait.
On the last day of November an archer of the garrison, soiled and draggled from the roads, rode in from the east, pausing first at Saint Giles to cry the news that the sheriff’s levy was not far behind him, intact as it had left the town, apart from a few grazes and bruises, that the king’s shire levies, those most needed elsewhere, were dismissed to their own garrisons at least for the winter, and his tactics changed from the attempt to dislodge and destroy his enemy to measures to contain him territorially and limit the damage he could do to his neighbours. A campaign postponed rather than ended, but it meant the safe return of the men of Shropshire to their own pastures. By the time the courier rode on into the Foregate the news was already flying ahead of him, and he eased his speed to cry it again as he passed, and answer some of the eager questions called out to him by the inhabitants. They came running out of their houses and shops and lofts, tools in hand, the women from their kitchens, the smith from his forge, Father Boniface from his room over the north porch of the abbey church, in a great buzz of relief and delight, passing details back and forth to one another as they had snatched them by chance from the courier’s lips.
By the time the solitary rider was past the abbey gatehouse and heading for the bridge, the orderly thudding of hooves and the faint jingle of harness had reached Saint Giles, and the populace of the Foregate stayed to welcome the returning company. Work could wait for an hour or two. Even within the abbey pale the news was going round, and brothers gathered outside the wall unreproved, to watch the return. Cadfael, who had risen to see them depart, came thankfully to see them safely home again.
They came, understandably, a little less immaculate in their accoutrements than they had departed. The lance pennants were soiled and frayed, even tattered here and there, some of the light armour dinted and dulled, a few heads bandaged, one or two wrists slung for support, and several beards where none had been before. But they rode in good order and made a very respectable show, in spite of the travel stains and the mud imperfectly brushed out of their garments. Hugh had overtaken his men well before they reached Coventry, and made a sufficient halt there to allow rest and grooming to men and horses alike. The baggage carts and the foot bowmen could take their
