dogged, appealing face to him in silence, finding encouragement in the very tone of his voice. “I’ve been to the gate house, and the mill, and the bridge. Such ill news as there is, is ill indeed, and presently we’ll go pray for the souls of those quitting this world. But all of us quit it at last, by whatever way, that’s not the worst of evils. And there is some news not all evil. From all I can hear this side Severn, and at the bridge itself — there’s an archer among the guard there was with me in the Holy Land — your father and FitzAlan are neither dead, wounded nor captive, and all search of the town has failed to find them. They’re clear away, Godric, my lad. I doubt if Stephen for all his hunting will lay hand on them now. And now you may tend to that wine you’re watering, and practise your young manhood until we can get you safely out of here after your sire.”
Just for a moment she rained tears like the spring thaw, and then she glinted radiance like the spring sun. There was so much to grieve over, and so much to celebrate, she did not know which to do first, and essayed both together, like April. But her age was April, and the hopeful sunshine won.
“Brother Cadfael,” she said when she was calm, “I wish my father could have known you. And yet you are not of his persuasion, are you?”
“Child, dear,” said Cadfael comfortably, “my monarch is neither Stephen nor Maud, and in all my life and all my fighting I’ve fought for only one king. But I value devotion and fidelity, and doubt if it matters whether the object falls short. What you do and what you are is what matters. Your loyalty is as sacred as mine. Now wash your face and bathe your eyes, and you can sleep for half an hour before Vespers — but no, you’re too young to have the gift!”
She had not the gift that comes with age, but she had the exhaustion that comes of youthful stress, and she fell asleep on her benchbed within seconds, drugged with the syrup of relief. He awoke her in time to cross the close for Vespers. She walked beside him discreetly, her shock of clipped curls combed forward on her brow to hide her still reddened eyes.
Driven to piety by shock and terror, all the inhabitants of the guest house were also converging on the church, among them Hugh Beringar; not, perhaps, a victim of fear, but drawn by the delicate bait of Aline Siward, who came hastening from her house by the mill with lowered eyes and heavy heart. Beringar had, none the less, a quick eye for whatever else of interest might be going on round about him. He saw the two oddly contrasted figures coming in from the gardens, the squat, solid, powerful middle-aged monk with the outdoor tan and the rolling, seaman’s gait, with his hand protectively upon the shoulder of a slip of a boy in a cotte surely inherited from an older and larger kinsman, a barelegged, striding youth squinting warily through a bush of brown hair. Beringar looked, and considered; he smiled, but so inwardly that on his long, mobile mouth the smile hardly showed.
Godith controlled both her face and her pace, and gave no sign of recognition. In the church she strolled away to join her fellow-pupils, and even exchanged a few nudges and grins with them. If he was still watching, let him wonder, doubt, change his mind. He had not seen her for more than five years. Whatever his speculations, he could not be sure. Nor was he watching this part of the church, she noted; his eyes were on the unknown lady in mourning most of the time. Godith began to breathe more easily, and even allowed herself to examine her affianced bridegroom almost as attentively as he was observing Aline Siward. When last seen, he had been a coltish boy of eighteen, all elbows and knees, not yet in full command of his body. Now he had a cat’s assured and contemptuous grace, and a cool, aloof way with him. A presentable enough fellow, she owned critically, but no longer of interest to her, or possessed of any rights in her. Circumstances alter fortunes. She was relieved to see that he did not look in her direction again.
All the same, she told Brother Cadfael about it, as soon as they were alone together in the garden after supper, and her evening lesson with the boys was over. Cadfael took it gravely.
“So that’s the fellow you were to many! He came here straight from the king’s camp, and has certainly joined the king’s party, though according to Brother Dennis, who collects all the gossip that’s going among his guests, he’s on sufferance as yet, and has to prove himself before he’ll get a command.” He scrubbed thoughtfully at his blunt, brown nose, and pondered. “Did it seem to you that he recognised you? Or even looked over-hard at you, as if you reminded him of someone known?”
“I thought at first he did give me a hard glance, as though he might be wondering. But then he never looked my way again, or showed any interest. No, I think I was mistaken. He doesn’t know me. I’ve changed in five years, and in this guise … In another year,” said Godith, astonished and almost alarmed at the thought, “we should have been married.”
“I don’t like it!” said Cadfael, brooding. “We shall have to keep you well out of his sight. If he wins his way in with the king, maybe he’ll leave here with him in a week or so. Until then, keep far from the guest house or the stables, or the gate house, or anywhere he may be. Never let him set eyes on you if you can avoid.”
“I know!” said Godith, shaken and grave. “If he does find me he may turn me to account for his own advancement. I do know! Even if my father had reached shipboard, he would come back and surrender himself, if I were threatened. And then he would die, as all those poor souls over there have died… .” She could not bear to turn her head to look towards the towers of the castle, hideously ornamented. They were dying there still, though she did not know it; the work went on well into the hours of darkness. “I will avoid him, like the plague,” she said fervently, “and pray that he’ll leave soon.”
Abbot Heribert was an old, tired and peace- loving man, and disillusionment with the ugly tendencies of the time, combined with the vigour and ambition of his prior, Robert, had disposed him to withdraw from the world ever deeper into his own private consolations of the spirit. Moreover, he knew he was in disfavour with the king, like all those who had been slow to rally to him with vociferous support. But confronted with an unmistakable duty, however monstrous, the abbot could still muster courage enough to rise to the occasion. There were ninety-four dead or dying men being disposed of like animals, and every one had a soul, and a right to proper burial, whatever his crimes and errors. The Benedictines of the abbey were the natural protectors of those rights, and Heribert did not intend King Stephen’s felons to be shovelled haphazard and nameless into an unmarked grave. All the same, he shrank from the horror of the task, and looked about him for someone more accomplished in these hard matters of warfare and bloodshed than himself, to lend support. And the obvious person was Brother Cadfael, who had crossed the world in the first Crusade, and afterwards spent ten years as a sea captain about the coasts of the Holy Land, where fighting hardly ever ceased.
After Compline, Abbot Heribert sent for Cadfael to his private parlour.
“Brother, I am going — now, this night — to ask King Stephen for his leave and authority to give Christian burial to all those slaughtered prisoners. If he consents, tomorrow we must take up their poor bodies, and prepare them decently for the grave. There will be some who can be claimed by their own families, the rest we shall bury honourably with the rites due to them. Brother, you have yourself been a soldier. Will you — if I speed with the king — will you take charge of this work?”
“Not gladly, but with all my heart, for all that,” said Brother Cadfael, “yes, Father, I will.”
Chapter Three
Yes, I will,” said Godith, “if that’s how I can best be useful to you. Yes, I will go to my morning lesson and my evening lesson, eat my dinner without a word or a look to anyone, and then make myself scarce and shut myself up here among the potions. Yes, and drop the bar on the door, if need be, and wait until I hear your voice before I
