“He says rightly,” said Cadfael. “You go to Mass, and I’ll stay here until you come again. No need to hurry, I fancy you’ll find Brother Rhun waiting for you.”
Fidelis accepted what he recognised as his purposeful dismissal, and went out silently, leaving them no less silent until his slight shadow had passed from the threshold of the room and out into the open court.
Humilis lay back in his raised pillows, and drew a great breath that should have floated his diminished body into the air, like thistledown.
“Will Rhun truly be looking for him?”
“He surely will,” said Cadfael.
“That’s well! Of such a one he has need. An innocent, of such native power! Oh, Cadfael, for the simplicity and the wisdom of the dove! I wish Fidelis were such a one, but he is the other, the complement, the inward one. I had to send him away, I must talk with you. Cadfael, I am troubled in my mind for Fidelis.”
It was not news. Cadfael honestly nodded, and said nothing.
“Cadfael,” said the patient voice, delivered from stress now that they were alone. “I’ve grown to know you a little, in this time you have been tending me. You know as well as I that I am dying. Why should I grieve for that? I owe a death that has been all but claimed of me a hundred times already. It is not for myself I’m troubled, it is for Fidelis. I dread leaving him alone here, trapped in this life without me.”
“He will not be alone,” said Cadfael. “He is a brother of this house. He will have the service and fellowship of all here,” The sharp, wry smile did not surprise him. “And mine,” he said, “if that means anything more to you. Rhun’s, certainly. You have said yourself that Rhun’s loyalty is not to be despised.”
“No, truly. The saints of simplicity are made of his metal. But you are not simple, Brother Cadfael. You are sometimes of frightening subtlety, and that also has its place. Moreover, I believe you understand me. You understand the nature of the need. Will you take care of Fidelis for me, stand his friend, believe in him, be shield and sword to him if need be, after I am gone?”
“To the best of my power,” said Cadfael, “yes, I will.” He leaned to wipe away a slow trickle of spittle from the corner of a mouth wearied with speaking and slack at the lip, and Humilis sighed, and let him serve, docile under the brief touch. “You know,” said Cadfael gently, “what I only guess at. If I have guessed right, there is here a problem beyond my wit or yours to solve. I promise my endeavour. The ending is not mine, it belongs only to God. But what I can do, I will do.”
“I would happily die,” said Humilis, “if my death can serve and save Fidelis. But what I dread is that my death, which cannot delay long, may only aggravate his trouble and his suffering. Could I take them with me into the judgement, how gladly would I embrace them and go. God forbid he should ever be brought to shame and punishment for what he has done.”
“If God forbids, man cannot touch him,” said Cadfael. “I see what needs to be done, but how to achieve it, God knows, I cannot see. Well, God’s vision is clearer than mine, he may both see a way out of this tangle and open my eyes to it when the time is ripe. There’s a path through every forest, and a safe passage somewhere through every marsh, it needs only the finding.”
A faint grey smile passed slowly over the sick man’s face, and left him grave again. “I am the marsh out of which Fidelis must find safe passage. I should have Englished that name of mine, it would have been more fitting, with more than half my blood Saxon-Godfrid of the Marsh for Godfrid de Marisco. My father and my grandfather thought best to turn fully Norman. Now it’s all one, we leave here all by the same gate.” He lay still and silent for a while, visibly gathering his thoughts and such strength as he had. “There is one other longing I have, before I die. I should like to see again the manor of Salton, where I was born. I should like to take Fidelis there, just once to be with him outside the monastery walls, in the place that saw my beginning. I ought to have asked permission earlier, but there is still time. It’s only a few miles up-river from us. Will you speak for me to the lord abbot, and ask this one kindness?”
Cadfael eyed him in doubt and consternation. “You cannot ride, that’s certain. Whatever means we might take to get you there, it would be asking too much of such strength as you have left.”
“No effort on my part can now alter by more than hours what is left of my life, but it would be a happiness to exchange some part of my time remaining for a glimpse of the place where I was a child. Ask it for me, Cadfael.”
“There is the river,” said Cadfael dubiously, “but such twists and turns, it adds double to the journey. And such low water, you’d need a boatman who knows every shoal and current.”
“You must know of such a one. I remember how we used to swim and fish off our own shore. Shrewsbury lads were watermen from birth, I could swim before I could walk. There must be many such adepts along this riverside.”
And so there were, and Cadfael knew the best of them, whose knowledge of the Severn spanned every islet, every bend and shallow, and who at any season could judge accurately where anything cast into the water would again be cast ashore. Madog of the Dead Boat had earned his title through the many sad services he had rendered in his time to distracted families who had lost sons or brothers into the flood after the melting of the Welsh snows far up-river, or too venturesome infants left unguarded for a moment while their mothers spread the washing on the bushes of the shore, or fishermen fathers putting out in their coracles with too much ale already under their belts. He did not resent his title, though his preferred trade was fishing and ferrying. What he did for the dead someone had to do, in grace, and since he could do it better than any other, why should he not take pride in it? Cadfael had known him many years, an elderly Welshman like himself, and had several times had occasion to seek his help, which was never grudged.
“Even in this low water,” said Cadfael thoughtfully, “Madog could get a coracle up the brook from the river, but a coracle wouldn’t carry you and Fidelis besides. But his light skiff draws very little water, I daresay he could bring it into the mill pond, there’s still depth enough that far up the brook, with the mill race fed back into it. We could carry you out by the wicket to the mill, and see you bestowed…”
“That far I could walk,” said Humilis resolutely.
“You’d be wise to save your energy for Salton. Who knows?” marvelled Cadfael, noting the slight flush of blood that warmed the thin grey face at the very prospect of returning to the first remembered home of his childhood- perhaps to end where he began. “Who knows, it may yet do you a world of good!”
“And you will ask the lord abbot?”
“I will,” said Cadfael. “When Fidelis returns, I’ll go to him.”
