“The boy is a younger son,” said Cadfael. “His elder has the lands, this one chose the cowl. With his burden, who could blame him? Humilis says his own novitiate was not yet completed when the young one came, and they drew together and became fast friends. They may well have been admitted together, and the names… Who knows which of them chose first?”
They had halted before the gatehouse to look back at the church. Rhun and Fidelis had come forth together, two notably comely creatures with matched steps, not touching, but close and content. Rhun was talking with animation. Fidelis bore the traces of much watching and anxiety, but shone with a responsive glow. Rhun’s new tonsure was bared to the sun, the fair hair round it roused like an aureole.
“He frequents them,” said Cadfael, watching. “No marvel, he reaches out to every soul who has lost a piece of his being, such as a voice.” He said nothing of what the elder of that pair had lost. “He talks for both. A pity he has small learning yet. There’s neither of those two can read to Humilis, the one for want of a voice, the other for want of letters. But he studies, and he’ll learn. Brother Paul thinks well of him.”
The two young men had vanished at the archway of the day stairs, plainly bound for the dortoir cell where Brother Humilis was still confined to his bed. Who would not be heartened by the vision of Brother Rhun just radiant from his admission to his heart’s desire? And it was fitting, that reticent kinship between two barren bodies, the one virgin unawakened, the other hollowed out and despoiled in its prime. Two whose seed was not of this world.
It was that same afternoon that a young man in a soldier’s serviceable riding gear, with rolled cloak at his saddlebow, came in towards the town by the main London road to Saint Giles, and there asked directions to the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. He went bare-headed in the sun, and in his shirtsleeves, with breast bared, and face and breast and naked forearms were brown as from a hotter sun even than here, where the summer did but paint a further copper shade on a hide already gilded. A neatly-made young man, on a good horse, with an easy seat in the saddle and a light hand on the rein, and a bush of wiry dark hair above a bold, blunt-featured face.
Brother Oswin directed him, and with pricking curiosity watched him ride on, wondering for whom he would enquire there. Evidently a fighting man, but from which army, and from whose household troops, to be heading for Shrewsbury abbey so particularly? He had not asked for town or sheriff. His business was not concerned with the warfare in the south. Oswin went back to his work with mild regret at knowing no more, but dutifully.
The rider, assured that he was near his goal, eased to a walk along the Foregate, looking with interest at all he saw, the blanched grass of the horse-fair ground, still thirsty for rain, the leisurely traffic of porter and cart and pony in the street, the gossiping neighbours out at their gates in the sun, the high, long wall of the abbey enclave on his left hand, and the lofty roof and tower of the church looming over it. Now he knew that he was arriving. He rounded the west end of the church, with its great door ajar outside the enclosure for parish use, and turned in under the arch of the gatehouse.
The porter came amiably to greet him and ask his business. Brother Cadfael and Hugh Beringar, still at their leisurely leave-taking close by, turned to examine the newcomer, noted his business-like and well-used harness and leathern coat slung behind, and the sword he wore, and had him accurately docketed in a moment. Hugh stiffened, attentive, for a man in soldier’s gear heading in from the south might well have news. Moreover, one who came alone and at ease here through these shires loyal to King Stephen was likely to be of the same complexion. Hugh went forward to join the colloquy, eyeing the horseman up and down with restrained approval of his appearance.
“You’re not, by chance, seeking me, friend? Hugh Beringar, at your service.”
“This is the lord sheriff,” said Brother Porter by way of introduction; and to Hugh: “The traveller is asking for Brother Humilis-though by his former name.”
“I was some years in the service of Godfrid Marescot,” said the horseman, and slid his reins loose and lighted down to stand beside them. He was taller than Hugh by half a head, and strongly made, and his brown countenance was open and cheerful, lit by strikingly blue eyes. “I’ve been hunting for him among the brothers dispersed in Winchester after Hyde burned to the ground. They told me he’d chosen to come here. I have some business in the north of the shire, and need his approval for what I intend. To tell the truth,” he said with a wry smile, “I had clean forgotten the name he took when he entered Hyde. To me he’s still my lord Godfrid.”
“So he must be to many,” said Hugh, “who knew him aforetime. Yes, he’s here. Are you from Winchester now?”
“From Andover. Where we’ve burned the town,” said the young man bluntly, and studied Hugh as attentively as he himself was being studied. It was plain they were of the same party.
“You’re with the queen’s army?”
“I am. Under FitzRobert.”
“Then you’ll have cut the roads to the north. I hold this shire for King Stephen, as you must know. I would not keep you from your lord, but will you ride with me into Shrewsbury and sup at my house before you move on? I’ll wait your convenience. You can give me what I’m hungry for, news of what goes forward there in the south. May I know your name? I’ve given you mine.”
“My name is Nicholas Harnage. And very heartily I’ll tell you all I know, my lord, when I’ve done my errand here. How is it with Godfrid?” he asked earnestly, and looked from Hugh to Cadfael, who stood by watching, listening, and until now silent.
“Not in the best of health,” said Cadfael, “but neither was he, I suppose, when you last parted from him. He has broken an old wound, but that came, I think, after his long ride here. It is mending well now, in a day or two he’ll be up and back to the duties he’s chosen. He is well loved, and well tended by a young brother who came here with him from Hyde, and had been his attendant there. If you’ll wait but a moment I’ll tell Father Prior that Brother Humilis has a visitor, and bring you to him.”
That errand he did very briskly, to leave the pair of them together for a few minutes. Hugh needed tidings, all the firsthand knowledge he could get from that distant and confused battlefield, where two factions of his enemies, by their mutual clawings, had now drawn in the whole formidable array of his friends upon one side. A shifty side at best, seeing the bishop had changed his allegiance now for the third time. But at least it held the empress’s forces in a steel girdle now in the city of Winchester, and was tightening the girdle to starve them out. Cadfael’s warrior blood, long since abjured, had a way of coming to the boil when he heard steel in the offing. His chief uneasiness was that he could not be truly penitent about it. His king was not of this world, but in this world he could not help having a preference.
Prior Robert was taking his afternoon rest, which was known to others as his hour of study and prayer. A good time, since he was not disposed to rouse himself and come out to view the visitor, or exert himself to be ceremoniously hospitable. Cadfael got what he had counted on, a gracious permission to conduct the guest to Brother Humilis in his cell, and attend him to provide whatever assistance he might require. In addition, of course,
