the light, his bright hair burning up like a furze fire. “Christ God!” he said in a hissing undertone, and went plunging to intercept them on the threshold.
“Aline! — Madam, should you be here? This is no place for you, so desolate a spectacle. I marvel,” he said furiously to Beringar, “that you should bring her here, to face a scene so harrowing.”
“He did not bring me,” said AIine quickly. “It was I insisted on coming. Since he could not prevent me, he has been kind enough to come with me.”
“Then, dear lady, you were foolish to impose such a penance on yourself,” said Courcelle fiercely. “Why, how can you have business here? Surely there’s none here belonging to you.”
“I pray you may be right,” she said. Her eyes, huge in the white face, ranged in fearful fascination over the shrouded ranks at her feet, and visibly the first horror and revulsion changed gradually into appalled human pity. “But I must know! Like all these others! I have only one way of being certain, and it’s no worse for me than for them. You know I have a brother — you were there when I told the king
“But he cannot be here. You said he was fled to Normandy.”
“I said it was rumoured so — but how can I be sure? He may have won to France, he may have joined some company of the empress’s men nearer home, how can I tell? I must see for myself whether he chose Shrewsbury or not.”
“But surely the garrison here were known. Your name is very unlikely to have been among them.”
“The sheriff’s proclamation,” said Beringar mildly, speaking up for the first time in this encounter, “mentioned that there was one here, at least, Who was not known. One more, apparently, than the expected tally.”
“You must let me see for myself,” said AIine, gently and firmly, “or how can I have any peace?”
Courcelle had no right to prevent, however it grieved and enraged him. And at least this particular corpse was close at hand, and could bring her nothing but reassurance. “He lies here,” he said, and turned her towards the corner where Brother Cadfael stood. She gazed, and was surprised into the faint brightness of a smile, a genuine smile though it faded soon.
“I think I should know you. I’ve seen you about the abbey, you are Brother Cadfael, the herbalist.”
“That is my name,” said. Cadfael. “Though why you should have learned it I hardly know.”
“I was asking the porter about you,” she owned, flushing. “I saw you at Vespers and Compline, and — Forgive me, brother, if I have trespassed, but you had such an air — as though you had lived adventures before you came to the cloister. He told me you were in the Crusade — with Godfrey of Bouillon at the siege of Jerusalem! I have only dreamed of such service … Oh!” She had lowered her eyes from his face, half abashed by her own ardour, and seen the young, dead face exposed at his feet. She gazed and gazed, in controlled silence. The face was not offensive, rather its congestion had subsided; the unknown lay youthful and almost comely,
“This a most Christian service you are doing now,” said Aline, low-voiced, “for all these here. This is the unexpected one? The one more than was counted?”
“This is he.” Cadfael stooped and drew down the linen to show the good but simple clothing, the absence of anything warlike about the young man. “But for the dagger, which every man wears when he travels, he was unarmed.”
She looked up sharply. Over her shoulder Beringar was gazing down with frowning concentration at the rounded face that must have been cheerful and merry in life. “Are you saying,” asked AIine, “that he was not in the fight here? Not captured with the garrison?”
“So it seems to me. You don’t know him?”
“No.” She looked down with pure, impersonal compassion. “So young! It’s great pity! I wish I could tell you his name, but I never saw him before.”
“Master Beringar?”
“No. A stranger to me.” Beringar was still staring down very sombrely at the dead. They were almost of an age, surely no more than a year between them. Every man burying his twin sees his own burial.
Courcelle, hovering solicitously, laid a hand on the girl’s arm, and said persuasively: “Come now, you’ve done your errand, you should quit this sad place at once, it is not for you. You see your fears were groundless, your brother is not here.”
“No,” said Aline, “this is not he, but for all that he may — How can I be sure unless I see them all?” She put off the urging touch, but very gently. “I’ve ventured this far, and how is it worse for me than for any of these others?” She looked round appealingly. “Brother Cadfael, this is your charge now. You know I must ease my mind. Will you come with me?”
“Very willingly,” said Cadfael, and led the way without more words, for words were not going to dissuade her, and he thought her right not to be dissuaded. The two young men followed side by side, neither willing to give the other precedence. Aline looked down at every exposed face, wrung but resolute.
“He was twenty-four years old — not very like me, his hair was darker … Oh, here are all too many no older than he!”
They had traversed more than half of the dolorous passage when suddenly she caught at Cadfael’s arm, and froze where she stood. She made no outcry, she had breath only for a soft moan, audible as a word only to Cadfael, who was nearest. “Giles!” she said again more strongly, and what colour she had drained from her face and left her almost translucent, staring down at a face once imperious, wilful and handsome. She sank to her knees, stooping to study the dead face close, and then she uttered the only cry she ever made over her brother, and that very brief and private, and swooped breast to breast with him, gathering the body into her arms. The mass of her hair slipped out of its coils and spilled gold over them both.
Brother Cadfael, who was experienced enough to let her alone until she seemed to need comfort for her grief instead of decent reticence, would have waited quietly, but he was hurriedly thrust aside, and Adam Courcelle fell on his knees beside her, and took her beneath the arms to lift her against his shoulder. The shock of discovery seemed to have shaken him fully as deeply as it had Aline, his face was stricken and dismayed, his voice an appalled stammer.
“Madam! — Aline — Dear God, is this indeed your brother? If I’d known … if I’d known, I’d have saved him for you… . Whatever the cost, I would have delivered him … God forgive me!”
