its best food. He had not forgotten the shock and anger that had swept through the Foregate, when they lost their favourite whore. If indeed Eluned had ever been a whore. She never asked payment. If men gave her things, it was of their own will. She, it seemed, had done nothing but give, however unwisely.
“A bonny girl, big and lusty, so Nest said.”
“Then she’ll have it in her, infant though she may be, to fight her way into life,” said Cadfael comfortably. “I must go get the right cordial for an infant’s inside. I’ll make it fresh. Who sings Mass for you today?”
“Brother Anselm.”
“Well for you!” said Brother Cadfael, making for the south porch and his quickest way to the garden and his workshop. “It might as easily have been Brother Jerome.”
The house was low and narrow, but sturdy, and the dark passage in which it stood braced against a taller dwelling looked crisp and clean in the hard frost, though in moist, mild weather it might have been an odorous hole. Cadfael rapped at the door, and for immediate reassurance called out loudly: “Brother Cadfael from the abbey, mistress. Cynric said you need me for the child.”
Whether it was his own name or Cynric’s that made him welcome there was no knowing, but instantly there was a stir of movement within, a baby howled fretfully, probably at being laid down in haste, and then the door was opened wide, and from half-darkness a woman beckoned him within, and made haste to close the door after him against the cold.
This one small room was all the house, and its only inlet for light or outlet for smoke was a vent in the roof. In clement weather the door would always be open from dawn to dusk, but frost had closed it, and the dwelling was lit only by a small oil lamp and the dim but steady glow of a fire penned in an iron cage on a flat stone under the vent. But blessedly someone had supplied charcoal for the widow’s needs, and there was a mild fume in the nostrils here but little smoke. Furnishings were few, a low bench-bed in a corner, a few pots on the firestone, a rough, small table. Cadfael took a little time to accustom his eyes to the dim light, and the shapes of things emerged gradually. The woman stood by him, waiting, and like all else here, grew steadily out of the gloom, a perceptible human being. The cradle, the central concern of this house, was placed in the most sheltered corner, where the warmth of the fire could come, but not the draught from door or vent. And the child within was wailing indignantly within its wrappings, half-asleep but unable by reason of discomfort to fall deeper into peace.
“I brought an end of candle with me,” said Cadfael, taking in everything about him without haste. “I thought we might need more light. With your leave!” He took it out from his scrip, tilted the wick into the small flame of the lamp in its clay saucer, and stood the stump upon the corner of the table, where it shed light closely upon the cradle. It was a broad-based end discarded from one of the prickets in the wall brackets of the church, he found them useful for carrying on his errands because they would stand solidly on any flat surface, and run no risk of being overturned. Among flimsy wooden cottages there was need of such care. This dwelling, poor as it was, had been more solidly built than many.
“They keep you in charcoal?” asked Cadfael, turning to the woman, who stood quite still, gazing at him with fixed and illusionless eyes.
“My man who’s dead was a forester in Eyton. The abbey’s man there remembers me. He brings me wood, as well, the dead twigs and small chippings for kindling.”
“That’s well,” said Cadfael. “So young a babe needs to be kept warm. Now you tell me, what’s her trouble?”
She was telling him herself, in small, fretful wails from her cradle, but she was well wrapped and clean, and had a healthy, well-nourished voice with which to complain.
“Three days now she’s sickened on her milk, and cries with the wind inside. But I’ve kept her warm, and she’s taken no chill. If my poor girl had lived this chit would have been at her breast, not sipping from a spoon or my fingers, but she’s gone, and left this one to me, all I have now, and I’ll do anything to keep her safe.”
“She’s been feeding well enough, by the look of her,” said Cadfael, stooping over the whimpering child. “How old is she now? Six weeks is it, or seven? She’s big and bonny for that age.”
The small, contorted face, all wailing mouth and tight-shut eyes screwed up with annoyance, was round and clear-skinned, though red now with exertion and anger. She had abundant, fine hair of a bright autumn brown, and inclined to curl.
“Feed well, yes, indeed she did, until this upset. A greedy-gut, even. I was proud of her.”
And kept plying her too long, thought Cadfael, and she without the sense yet to know when she had enough. No great mystery here.
“That’s a part of her trouble, you’ll find. Give her only a little at a time, and often, and put in the milk a few drops of the cordial I’ll leave with you. Three or four drops will be enough. Get me a small spoon, and she shall have a proper dose of it now to soothe her.”
The widow brought him a little horn spoon, and he unstoppered the glass bottle he had brought, moistened the tip of a finger at its lip, and touched it to the lower lip of the baby’s angry mouth. In an instant the howling broke off short, and the contorted countenance resumed a human shape, and even a human expression of wonder and surprise. The mouth closed, small moist lips folding on an unexpected sweetness; and miraculously this became a mouth too shapely and delicate for a baby of seven weeks, with a distant promise of beauty. The angry red faded slowly to leave the round cheeks flushed with rose, and Eluned’s daughter opened great eyes of a blue almost as dark as the night sky, and smiled an aware, responsive smile, too old for her few weeks of life. True, she wrinkled her face and uttered a warning wail the next moment, but the far-off vision of loveliness remained.
“The creature!” said her grandmother, ruefully fond. “She likes it!”
Cadfael half-filled the little spoon, touched it gently to the baby’s lower lip, and instantly her mouth opened, willing to suck in the offering. It went down fairly tidily, leaving only a gloss upon the relaxed lips. She gazed upward in silence for a moment, from those eyes that devoured half her face under the rounded brow and fluff of auburn hair. Then she turned her cheek a little into the flat pillow under her, belched resoundingly, and lay quiescent with lids half-closed, her infinitesimal fingers curled into small, easy fists under her chin.
“Nothing amiss with her that need cause you any worry,” said Cadfael, re-stoppering the bottle. “If she wakes and cries in the night, and is again in pain, you can give her a little of this in the spoon, as I did. But I think she’ll sleep. Give her somewhat less food at a time than you’ve been giving, and put three or four drops of this in the milk, and we’ll see how she fares in a few days more.”
“What is in it?” asked the widow, looking curiously at the bottle in her hand.
