keep it so silent we need not be disturbed. Often he gets little or no sleep. His bones do ache, that’s truth, but also the sinews of his calf knot into such cramps it makes him groan.”
“There can be something done about that,” said Cadfael, considering. “At least we may try. And there are draughts can dull the pain and help him to a night’s sleep, at any rate.”
“It isn’t that I don’t trust to the saint,” explained Mistress Weaver anxiously. “But while he waits for her, let him be at rest if he can, that’s what I say. Why should not a suffering lad seek help from ordinary decent mortals, too, good men like you who have faith and knowledge both?”
“Why not, indeed!” agreed Cadfael. “The least of us may be an instrument of grace, though not by his own deserving. Better let the boy come to me here, where we can be private together. The guest-hall will be busy and noisy, here we shall have quiet.”
She rose, satisfied, to take her leave, but she had plenty yet to say even in departing of the long, slow journey, the small kindnesses they had met with on the way, and the fellow pilgrims, some of whom had passed them and arrived here before them.
“There’s more than one in there,” said she, wagging her head towards the lofty rear wall of the guest-hall, “will be needing your help, besides my Rhun. There were two young fellows we came along with the last days, we could keep pace with them, for they were slowed much as we were. Oh, the one of them was hale and lusty enough, but would not stir a step ahead of his friend, and that poor soul had come barefoot more miles even than Rhun had come crippled, and his feet a sight for pity, but would he so much as bind them with rags? Not he! He said he was under vow to go unshod to his journey’s end. And a great heavy cross on a string round his neck, too, and he rubbed raw with the chafing of it, but that was part of his vow, too. I see no reason why a fine young fellow should choose such a torment of his own will, but there, folk do strange things, I daresay he hopes to win some great mercy for himself with his austerities. Still, I should think he might at least get some balm for his feet, while he’s here at rest? Shall I bid him come to you? I’d gladly do a small service for that pair. The other one, Matthew, the sturdy one, he hefted my girl safe out of the way of harm when some mad horsemen in a hurry all but rode us down into the ditch, and he carried our bundles for her after, for she was well loaded, I being busy helping Rhun along. Truth to tell, I think the young man was taken with our Melangell, for he was very attentive to her once we joined company. More than to his friend, though indeed he never stirred a step away from him. A vow is a vow, I suppose, and if a man’s taken all that suffering on himself of his own will, what can another do to prevent it? No more than bear him company, and that the lad is doing, faithfully, for he never leaves him.”
She was out of the door and spreading appreciative nostrils for the scent of the sunlit herbs, when she looked back to add: “There’s others among them may call themselves pilgrims as loud and often as they will, but I wouldn’t trust one or two of them as far as I could throw them. I suppose rogues will make their way everywhere, even among the saints.”
“As long as the saints have money in their purses, or anything about them worth stealing,” agreed Cadfael wryly, “rogues will never be far away.”
Whether Mistress Weaver did speak to her strange travelling companion or not, it was he who arrived at Cadfael’s workshop within half an hour, before ever the boy Rhun showed his face. Cadfael was back at his weeding when he heard them come, or heard, rather, the slow, patient footsteps of the sturdy one stirring the gravel of his pathways. The other made no sound in walking, for he stepped tenderly and carefully in the grass border, which was cool and kind to his misused feet. If there was any sound to betray his coming it was the long, effortful sighing of his breath, the faint, indrawn hiss of pain. As soon as Cadfael straightened his back and turned his head, he knew who came.
They were much of an age, and even somewhat alike in build and colouring, above middle height but that the one stooped in his laboured progress, brown-haired and dark of eye, and perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six years old. Yet not so like that they could have been brothers or close kin. The hale one had the darker complexion, as though he had been more in the air and the sun, and broader bones of cheek and jaw, a stubborn, proud, secret face, disconcertingly still, confiding nothing. The sufferer’s face was long, mobile and passionate, with high cheekbones and hollow cheeks beneath them, and a mouth tight-drawn, either with present pain or constant passion. Anger might be one of his customary companions, burning ardour another. The young man Matthew stalked at his heels mute and jealously watchful in attendance on him.
Mindful of Mistress Weaver’s loquacious confidences, Cadfael looked from the scarred and swollen feet to the chafed neck. Within the collar of his plain dark coat the votary had wound a length of linen cloth, to alleviate the rubbing of the thin cord from which a heavy cross of iron, chaced in a leaf pattern with what looked like gold, hung down upon his breast. By the look of the seam of red that marked the linen, either this padding was new, or else it had not been effective. The cord was mercilessly thin, the cross certainly heavy. To what desperate end could a young man choose so to torture himself? And what pleasure did he think it could give to God or Saint Winifred to contemplate his discomfort?
Eyes feverishly bright scanned him. A low voice asked: “You are Brother Cadfael? That is the name Brother Hospitaller gave me. He said you would have ointments and salves that could be of help to me. So far,” he added, eyeing Cadfael with glittering fixity, “as there is any help anywhere for me.”
Cadfael gave him a considering look for that, but asked nothing until he had marshalled the pair of them into his workshop and sat the sufferer down to be inspected with due care. The young man Matthew took up his stand beside the open door, careful to avoid blocking the light, but would not come further within.
“You’ve come a fairish step unshod,” said Cadfael, on his knees to examine the damage. “Was such cruelty needful?”
“It was. I do not hate myself so much as to bear this to no purpose.” The silent youth by the door stirred slightly, but said no word. “I am under vow,” said his companion, “and will not break it.” It seemed that he felt a need to account for himself, forestalling questioning. “My name is Ciaran, I am of a Welsh mother, and I am going back to where I was born, there to end my life as I began it. You see the wounds on my feet, brother, but what most ails me does not show anywhere upon me. I have a fell disease, no threat to any other, but it must shortly end me.”
And it could be true, thought Cadfael, busy with a cleansing oil on the swollen soles, and the toes cut by gravel and stones. The feverish fire of the deep-set eyes might well mean an even fiercer fire within. True, the young body, now eased in repose, was well-made and had not lost flesh, but that was no sure proof of health. Ciaran’s voice remained low, level and firm. If he knew he had his death, he had come to terms with it.
“So I am returning in penitential pilgrimage, for my soul’s health, which is of greater import. Barefoot and burdened I shall walk to the house of canons at Aberdaron, so that after my death I may be buried on the holy isle of Ynys Enlli, where the soil is made up of the bones and dust of thousands upon thousands of saints.”
“I should have thought,” said Cadfael mildly, “that such a privilege could be earned by going there shod and tranquil and humble, like any other man.” But for all that, it was an understandable ambition for a devout man of Welsh extraction, knowing his end near. Aberdaron, at the tip of the Lleyn peninsula, fronting the wild sea and the holiest island of the Welsh church, had been the last resting place of many, and the hospitality of the canons of the
