The curtain was abruptly swept back before the vigorous hand and glowing face of Olivier, Olivier with a shining, heraldic lustre upon him, that burned in silence and halted him on the threshold, his breath held in half elation and half dread at the bold thing he had undertaken. His eyes met Philip’s, and clung in a hopeful stare, and a tentative smile curved his long mouth. He stepped aside, not entering the room, and drew the curtain fully back, and Philip looked beyond him.
For a moment it hung in the balance between triumph and repudiation, and then, though Philip lay still and silent, giving no sign, Olivier knew that he had not laboured in vain.
Cadfael rose and stepped back into the corner of the room as Robert, earl of Gloucester, came in. A quiet man always, squarely built, schooled to patience, even at this pass his face was composed and inexpressive as he approached the bed and looked down at his younger son. The capuchon hung in folds on his shoulders, and the dusting of grey in his thick brown hair and the twin streaks of silver in his short beard caught the remaining light in the room with a moist sheen of rain. He loosed the clasp of his cloak and shrugged it off, and drawing the stool closer to the bed, sat down as simply as if he had just come home to his own house, with no tensions or grievances to threaten his welcome.
“Sir,” said Philip, with deliberate formality, his voice thin and distant, “your son and servant!”
The earl stooped, and kissed his son’s cheek; nothing to disturb even the most fragile of calms, the simple kiss due between sire and son on greeting. And Cadfael, slipping silently past, walked out into the corridor and into his own son’s exultant arms.
So now everything that had to be done here was completed. No man, nor even the empress, would dare touch what Robert of Gloucester had blessed. They drew each other away, content, into the court, and Cadfael reclaimed his horse from the stable, for in spite of the approaching dusk he felt himself bound to ride back some way before full darkness came, and find a simple lodging somewhere among the sheepfolds for the night hours.
“And I will ride with you,” said Olivier, “for our ways are the same as far as Gloucester. We’ll share the straw together in someone’s loft. Or if we reach Winstone the miller will house us.”
“I had thought,” said Cadfael, marvelling, “that you were already in Gloucester with Ermina, as indeed you should be this moment.”
“Oh, I did go to her, how could I not? I kissed her,” said Olivier, “and she saw for herself I had come to no harm from any man, so she let me go where I was bound. I rode to find Robert at Hereford. And he came with me, as I knew he would come. Blood is blood, and there is no blood closer than theirs. And now it is done, and I can go home.”
Two days they rode together, and two nights they slept close, rolled in their cloaks, the first night in a shepherd’s hut near Bagendon, the second in the hospitable mill at Cowley; and the third day, early, they entered Gloucester. And in Gloucester they parted.
Yves would have reasoned and pleaded the good sense of resting here overnight and spending some precious hours with people who loved him. Olivier only looked at him, and awaited his judgement with resignation.
“No,” said Cadfael, shaking his head ruefully, “for you home is here, yes, but not for me. I am already grossly in default. I dare not pile worse on bad. Do not ask me.”
And Olivier did not ask. Instead, he rode with Cadfael to the northern edge of the city, where the road set off northwest for distant Leominster. There was a good half of the day left, and a placid grey sky with hardly a breath of wind. There could be a few miles gained before night.
“God forbid I should stand between you and what you need for your heart’s comfort,” said Olivier, “even if it tears mine to refrain. Only go safely, and fear nothing for me, ever. There will be a time. If you do not come to me, I shall come to you.”
“If God please!” said Cadfael, and took his son’s face between his hands, and kissed him. As how could God not be pleased by such as Olivier? If, indeed, there were any more such to be found in this world.
They had dismounted to take their brief farewells. Olivier held the stirrup for Cadfael to remount, and clung for a moment to the bridle. “Bless me to God, and go with God!”
Cadfael leaned down and marked a cross on the broad, smooth forehead. “Send me word,” he said, “when my grandson is born.”
Chapter Sixteen.
THE LONG ROAD home unrolled laborious mile by mile, frustrating hour after hour and day after day. For winter, which had so far withheld its worst, with only a desultory veil of snow, soon melted and lost, began to manifest itself in capricious alternations of blinding snow and torrential rains, and roads flooded and fords ran too full to be passable without peril. It took him three days to reach Leominster, so many obstacles lay in the way and had to be negotiated, and there he felt obliged to stay over two nights at the priory to rest Hugh’s horse.
From there things went somewhat more easily, if no more happily, for if the snow and frost withdrew, a fine drizzling rain persisted. Into the lands of Lacy and Mortimer, near Ludlow, he rode on the fourth day, and outlines he knew rose comfortingly before his eyes. But always the thread that drew him homeward tightened and tore painfully at his heart, and still there was no true faith in him that any place waited for him, there where alone he could be at peace.
I have sinned, he told himself every night before he slept. I have forsaken the house and the Order to which I swore stability. I have repudiated the ordinance of the abbot to whom I swore obedience. I have gone after my own desires, and no matter if those desires were devoted all to the deliverance of my son, it was sin to prefer them before the duty I had freely and gladly assumed as mine. And if it was all to do again, would I do otherwise than I have done? No, I would do the same. A thousand times over, I would do the same. And it would still be sin.
In our various degrees, we are all sinners. To acknowledge and accept that load is good. Perhaps even to acknowledge and accept it and not entertain either shame or regret may also be required of us. If we find we must still say: Yes, I would do the same again, we are making a judgement others may condemn. But how do we know that God will condemn it? His judgements are inscrutable. What will be said in the last day of Jovetta de Montors, who also made her judgement when she killed to avenge her son, for want of a father living to lift that load from her? She, also, set the heart’s passion for its children before the law of the land or the commandments of the Church. And would she, too, say: I would do it again? Yes, surely she would. If the sin is one which, with all our will to do right, we cannot regret, can it truly be a sin?
It was too deep for him. He wrestled with it night after night until from very weariness sleep came. In the end there is nothing to be done but to state clearly what has been done, without shame or regret, and say: Here I am, and this is what I am. Now deal with me as you see fit. That is your right. Mine is to stand by the act, and pay the
