“Your lady niece, madam,” said Cadfael, forestalling whatever the girl might have roused herself to say, “is suffering from a common distress after the exertion of travel, and Brother Infirmarer rightly recommended her to come to me for a remedy.” He held out the cup to Iveta, who took it like one in a dream. She was white and still, the sum of her frustration and fear showed only in her eyes. “Drink it off now, at once, before you go to supper. You may safely, it will do you nothing but good.”
And so it would, whether her head ached or no. It was one of his best wines, he kept it for his special favorites, since the amount he made of it each year was small. He had the satisfaction of seeing faint astonishment and pleasure sparkle through the desperation of her eyes, even if it faded soon, She put the empty cup back into his hand, and gave him the palest of smiles. At Joscelin she did not venture to look at all.
In a small voice she said: “Thank you, brother. You are very good.” And to the presence that loomed darkly watching her: “I am sorry I have delayed you, aunt. I am ready now.”
Agnes Picard said never a word more, but stood aside in cold invitation to the girl to precede her out of the room, eyed her steadily and glitteringly as she passed, and then, before following her, gave the young man a long, intent look that threatened all possible evil. The civilities might have been preserved, but very certainly Agnes had not been deceived, never for a moment.
They were gone, the bride and her keeper, the last rustle of skirts silenced. There was a long moment of stillness while the two left behind gazed helplessly at each other. Then Joscelin let out his breath in a great groan, and threw himself down on the bench that stood against the wall.
“The hag should fall from the bridge and drown in the fish-pond, now, this moment, while she’s crossing! But things never work out as they should. Brother, don’t think me ungrateful for the goodwill and the wit you’ve spent for us, but I doubt it was all thrown away. She’s had her suspicions of me some while, I fancy. She’ll find some way of making me pay for this.”
“At that, she may be right,” said Cadfael honestly. “And God forgive me for the lies!”
“You told none. Or if she has not a headache, she has what’s worse, an ache of the heart.” He ran angry fingers through his shock of flaxen hair, and leaned his head back against the wall. “What was it you gave her?”
On impulse Cadfael refilled the cup and held it out to him. “Here! The like potion might not do you any harm. God he knows whether you deserve it, but we’ll scamp the judgment until I know more of you.”
Joscelin’s eyebrows, winged and expressive, and darker by many shades than his hair, rose in appreciative surprise at the savor of the wine. His forehead and cheeks had the rich golden tan of an outdoor life, rare among those of such fair coloring. The eyes, now conning Cadfael rather warily over the rim of the cup, were as radiantly blue as Cadfael remembered them from Saint Giles, like cornflowers in a wheat-field. He did not look like a deceiver or a seducer, rather like an overgrown schoolboy, honest, impatient, clever after his fashion, and probably unwise. Cleverness and wisdom are not inevitable yoke-fellows.
“This is the best medicine I ever tasted. And you have been uncommonly generous to us, as you were uncommonly quick in the uptake,” said the boy, warmed and disarmed. “And you know nothing about us, and had never seen either of us before!”
“I had seen you both before,” Cadfael corrected him. He began to measure his various pectoral herbs into a mortar, and took a small bellows to rouse the brazier from its quiescent state. “I have a linctus to make before Compline. You’ll not mind if I start work.”
“And I am in the way. I’m sorry! I’ve put you out enough already.” But he did not want to go, he was too full of matter he needed to unload from his heart, and could not possibly offer to anyone but just such a courteous chance acquaintance, perhaps never to be seen again. “Or?may I stay?”
“By all means, if you’re at leisure to stay. For you serve Huon de Domville, and I fancy his service might be exigent. I saw you pass by Saint Giles. I saw the lady, too.”
“You were there? The old man?he was not hurt?” Bless the lad, he genuinely wanted to know. In the middle of his own troubles, up to the neck, he could still feel indignation at an affront to another’s dignity.
“Neither in body nor mind. Such as he live with a humility that transcends all possibility of humiliation. He was above giving a thought to the baron’s blow.”
Joscelin emerged from his own preoccupation sufficiently to feel curiosity. “And you were there among them?those people? You?forgive me if I offend, it is not meant!?you are not afraid of going among them? Of their contagion? I have often wondered?someone tends them. I know they are forced to live apart, yet they cannot be utterly cut out of humanity.”
“The thing about fear,” said Cadfael, seriously considering, “is that it is pointless. When need arises, fear is forgotten. Would you recoil from taking a leper’s hand, if he needed yours, or you his, to be hauled out of danger? I doubt it. Some men would, perhaps?but of you I doubt it. You would grip first and consider afterwards, and by then fear would be clearly a mere waste of time. You are free of your lord’s table tonight, are you? Then stay and give account of yourself, if you’re so minded. You owe me at worst an excuse?at best, some amends for breaking in uninvited.”
But he was not displeased with his unruly intruder. Almost absent-mindedly Joscelin had taken the bellows from him, and was encouraging the brazier into reviving life.
“He has three of us,” said the boy thoughtfully. “Simon waits on him at table tonight?Simon Aguilon, his sister’s son?and Guy FitzJohn is the third of us, he’s in attendance, too. I need not go back yet. And you know nothing about me, and I think you’re in doubt whether you did right to try and help us. I should like you to think well of me. I am sure you cannot but think well of Iveta.” The name clouded his face again, he gazed ruefully into the satisfactory glow he was producing. “She is …” He struggled with adoration, and exploded rebelliously: “No, she is not perfection, how could she be? Since she was ten years old she had been in wardship to those two! If you were at Saint Giles, you saw them. One on either side, like dragons. Her perfection has been all crushed out of shape, too long. But if she were free, she would grow back into her proper self, she would be brave and noble, like her ancestors. And then I would not care,” he said, turning eyes blindingly blue and bright upon Cadfael, “if she gave it all to someone else, not to me. No, I lie?I should care infinitely, but I would bear it, and still be glad. Only this?this wicked market-bargaining, this defilement, this I will not endure!”
“Mind the bellows! There, draw it out, you’ve given me all the fire I want. Lay it by on the stone there. Good lad! A name for a name is fair exchange. My name is Cadfael, a Welsh brother of this house, born at Trefriw.” Cadfael was pounding honey and a morsel of vinegar into his powdered herbs, and warming his pot by the fire. “Now who may you be?”
“My name is Joscelin Lucy. My father is Sir Alan Lucy, and has two manors in the Hereford borders. He sent me
