moment, and then caught gratefully at the sudden shudder and crepitation of breath. “He’s here!”
The miller had recognized not the man, but the moment. He broke off on a word, stiffening and starting back a single step, and then as promptly stooped, with Cadfael’s bulk to cover the deception, and made to draw back the linen from Philip’s face, but without touching. He remained so, bending over the body, a long moment, as if making quite sure, before rising again slowly, and saying clearly: “It is! This is our Nan’s lad.”
Still adroit, sounding almost as much exasperated as grieved, and quick to resignation from long experience now of a disordered land, where death came round corners unexpectedly, and chose and took at his pleasure. “I might have known he’d never make old bones. Never one to turn away from where the fire was hottest. Well, what can a man do? There’s no bringing them back.”
The nearest of the grave-diggers had straightened his back to get a moment’s relief and turned a sympathetic face.
“Hard on a man to come on his own blood kin so. You’ll be wanting to have him away to lie with his forebears? They might allow it. Better than being put in the ground among all these, without even a name.”
Their close, half-audible conference had caught the attention of the guards. Their officer was looking that way, and in a moment, Cadfael judged, might come striding towards them. Better to forestall him by bearing down upon him with the whole tale ready.
“I’ll ask,” he offered, “if that’s your will. It would be a Christian act to take the poor soul in care.” And he led the way back towards the gate at a purposeful pace, with the miller hard on his heels. Seeing this willing approach, the officer halted and stood waiting.
“Sir,” said Cadfael, “here’s the miller of Winstone, over the river there, has found his kinsman, his sister’s son, among our dead, and asks that he may take the lad’s body away for burial among his own people.”
“Is that it?” The guard looked the petitioner up and down, but in a very cursory examination, already losing interest in an incident nowadays so common. He considered for a moment, and shrugged.
“Why not? One more or less… As well if we could clear the ground of them all at one deal. Yes, let him take the fellow. Here or wherever, he’s never going to let blood or shed it again.”
The miller of Winstone touched his forelock very respectfully, and gave fitting thanks. If there was an infinitesimal overtone of satire about his gratitude, it escaped notice. He went stolidly back to his cart and his charge. The long lad in sacking had drawn the cart closer. Between them they hoisted the pallet on which Philip lay, and in full and complacent view of the marshall’s guards, settled it carefully in the cart. Cadfael, holding the horses meantime, looked up just once into the shadow of the sacking hood the young man wore, and deep into profound black eyes, golden round the pupils, that opened upon him in a blaze of affection and elation, promising success. There was no word said. Olivier sat down in the body of the cart, and cushioned the head of the thin straw pallet upon his knees. And the miller of Winstone clambered aboard and turned his team back towards the river, down the bleached green slope, never looking back, never hurrying, the picture of a decent man who had just assumed an unavoidable duty, and had nothing to account for to any man.
At noon FitzGilbert appeared before the gate with a company drawn up at his back, to watch the garrison march out and quit their possession of La Musarderie. They had mounted some of their wounded, who could ride but could not maintain a march for long, and put the rest into such carts as they had in store, and set these in the middle of their muster, to have fit men upon either flank in case of need. Cadfael had thought in time to establish his ownership of the fine young chestnut roan Hugh had lent him, and stayed within the stables to maintain his claim, in case it should be questioned. Hugh would lop me of my ears, he thought, if I should let him be commandeered from under my nose. So only late in the day, when the rearguard was passing stiffly by the watching and waiting victors, did he witness the withdrawal from La Musarderie.
Every rank as it passed was sharply scrutinized from either side, and the carts halted to search for concealed bows, swords and lances, but Camville, curling a lip at their distrust, watched without comment and protested only when some of the wounded were disturbed too roughly for his liking. When all was done, he led his garrison away eastward, over the river and through Winstone to the Roman road, heading, most likely, for Cricklade, which was secure from immediate threat, and the centre of a circle of other castles held by the king, Bampton, Faringdon, Purton and Malmesbury, among which safe harbours his fighting men and his wounded could be comfortably distributed. Olivier and the miller of Winstone had set off by the same way, but had not so far to go, a matter maybe of a dozen miles.
And now Cadfael had things yet to do here. He could not leave until a few other sufferers, too frail or sick to go with their fellows, were committed to responsible care under the marshall’s wardship. Nor did Cadfael feel justified in leaving until the worst of the empress’s rage had passed, and no one here was in peril of death in recompense for the death of which she had been cheated.
Minutes now, and all her main companies would be riding in, to fill the almost empty stables and living quarters, view their trophy of arms, and make themselves at home here. Cadfael slipped back into the ward ahead of them, and made his way cautiously into the shell of the broken tower. Stepping warily among the fallen ashlar and rubble from the filling of the wall, he found the folded cloak wedged into a gap in the stonework, where Olivier had thrust it the moment before he slipped out into the night among the besiegers. The imperial eagle badge was still pinned into the shoulder. Cadfael rolled it within, and took his prize away with him to his own cell. Almost it seemed to him that a trace of the warmth of Olivier’s body still clung to it.
They were all in before the light faded, all but the empress’s personal household, and their forerunners were already busy with hangings and cushions making the least Spartan apartment fit for an imperial lady. The hall was again habitable, and looked much as it had always looked, and the cooks and servants turned to feeding and housing one garrison as philosophically as another. The damaged tower was shored up stoutly with seasoned timbers, and a watch placed on it to warn off any unwary soul from risking his head within.
And no one yet had opened the door to Philip’s bedchamber, and found it empty. Nor had anyone had time to remark that the Benedictine guest who had been the last to sit in attendance on the wounded man had been at large about the ward and at the graveside for the past three hours, and so had the chaplain. Everyone had been far too preoccupied to wonder who, then, was keeping watch by the bedside during their absence. It was a point to which Cadfael had not given full consideration, and now that what was most urgent had been accomplished, it began to dawn upon him that he would have to make the discovery himself, in fairness to all the rest of Philip’s remaining household. But preferably with a witness.
He went to the kitchens, almost an hour before Vespers, and asked for a measure of wine and a leather bucket of hot water for his patient, and enlisted the help of a scullion to carry the heavy bucket for him across the ward and into the keep.
“He was in fever,” he said as they entered the corridor, “when I left him some hours ago to go out to the burial ground. We may manage to break it, if I bathe him now and try to get a drop of wine into him. Will you spare me a few minutes to help lift him and turn him?”
