by Ellis Peters
“I will so tell him, Father,” said the messenger, and forthwith took his leave.
Left alone in his parlour, Abbot Radulfus stood for a moment looking down thoughtfully at the ring in his palm. The sheltering hand of the bishop-legate would certainly be a powerful protection to any traveller so signally favoured, wherever there existed any order or respect for law, whether in England or Wales. Only those already outside the pale of law, with lives or liberty already forfeit if taken, would defy so strong a sanction. After this crowning day many of the guests here would be leaving again for home. He must not forget to give due warning, before they dispersed, that malefactors might be lurking at large in the woods to westward, and that they were armed, and all too handy at using their daggers. Best that the pilgrims should make sure of leaving in companies stout enough to discourage assault.
Meantime, there was satisfaction in returning to one pilgrim, at least, his particular armour.
The abbot rang the little bell that lay upon his desk, and in a few moments Brother Vitalis came to answer the summons.
“Will you enquire at the guest-hall, brother, for the man called Ciaran, and bid him here to speak with me?”
Brother Cadfael had also risen well before Prime, and gone to open his workshop and kindle his brazier into cautious and restrained life, in case it should be needed later to prepare tisanes for some ecstatic souls carried away by emotional excitement, or warm applications for weaker vessels trampled in the crowd. He was used to the transports of simple souls caught up in far from simple raptures.
He had a few things to tend to, and was happy to deal with them alone. Young Oswin was entitled to his fill of sleep until the bell awoke him. Very soon now he would graduate to the hospital of Saint Giles, where the reliquary of Saint Winifred now lay, and the unfortunates who carried their contagion with them, and might not be admitted into the town, could find rest, care and shelter for as long as they needed it. Brother Mark, that dearly-missed disciple, was gone from there now, already ordained deacon, his eyes fixed ahead upon his steady goal of priesthood. If ever he cast a glance over his shoulder, he would find nothing but encouragement and affection, the proper harvest of the seed he had sown. Oswin might not be such another, but he was a good enough lad, and would do honestly by the unfortunates who drifted into his care.
Cadfael went down to the banks of the Meole brook, the westward boundary of the enclave, where the pease fields declined to the sunken summer water. The rays from the east were just being launched like lances over the high roofs of the monastic buildings, and piercing the scattered copses beyond the brook, and the grassy banks on the further side. This same water, drawn off much higher in its course, supplied the monastery fish-ponds, the hatchery, and the mill and millpond beyond, and was fed back into the brook just before it entered the Severn. It lay low enough now, an archipelago of shoals, half sand, half grass and weed, spreading smooth islands across its breadth. After this spell, thought Cadfael, we shall need plenty of rain. But let that wait a day or two.
He turned back to climb the slope again. The earlier field of pease had already been gleaned, the second would be about ready for harvesting after the festival. A couple of days, and all the excitement would be over, and the horarium of the house and the cycle of the seasons would resume their imperturbable progress, two enduring rhythms in the desperately variable fortunes of mankind. He turned along the path to his workshop, and there was Melangell hesitating before its closed door.
She heard his step in the gravel behind her, and looked round with a bright, expectant face. The pearly morning light became her, softened the coarseness of her linen gown, and smoothed cool lilac shadows round the childlike curves of her face. She had gone to great pains to prepare herself fittingly for the day’s solemnities. Her skirts were spotless, crisped out with care, her dark-gold hair, burning with coppery lustre, braided and coiled on her head in a bright crown, its tight plaits drawing up the skin of her temples and cheeks so strongly that her brows were pulled aslant, and the dark-lashed blue eyes elongated and made mysterious. But the radiance that shone from her came not from the sun’s caresses, but from within. The blue of those eyes burned as brilliantly as the blue of the gentians Cadfael had seen long ago in the mountains of southern France, on his way to the east. The ivory and rose of her cheeks glowed. Melangell was in the highest state of hope, happiness and expectation.
She made him a very pretty reverence, flushing and smiling, and held out to him the little vial of poppy-syrup he had given to Rhun three days ago. Still unopened!
“If you please, Brother Cadfael, I have brought this back to you. And Rhun prays that it may serve some other who needs it more, and with the more force because he has endured without it.”
He took it from her gently and held it in his cupped hand, a crude little vial stopped with a wooden stopper and a membrane of very thin parchment tied with a waxed thread to seal it. All intact. The boy’s third night here, and he had submitted to handling and been mild and biddable in all, but when the means of oblivion was put into his hand and left to his private use, he had preserved it, and with it some core of his own secret integrity, at his own chosen cost. God forbid, thought Cadfael, that I should meddle there. Nothing short of a saint should knock on that door.
“You are not angry with him?” asked Melangell anxiously, but smiling still, unable to believe that any shadow should touch the day, now that her love had clasped and kissed her. “Because he did not drink it? It was not that he ever doubted you. He said so to me. He said-I never quite understand him!-he said it was a time for offering, and he had his offering prepared.”
Cadfael asked: “Did he sleep?” To have deliverance in hand, even unopened, might well bring peace. “Hush, now, no, how could I be angry! But did he sleep?”
“He says that he did. I think it must be true, he looks so fresh and young. I prayed hard for him.” With all the force of her new happiness, loaded with bliss she felt the need to pour out upon all those near to her. In the conveyance of blessedness by affection Cadfael firmly believed.
“You prayed well,” said Cadfael. “Never doubt he has gained by it. I’ll keep this for some soul in worse need, as Rhun says. It will have the virtue of his faith to strengthen it. I shall see you both during the day.”
She went away from him with a light, springing step and a head reared to breathe in the very space and light of the sky. And Cadfael went in to make sure he had everything ready to provide for a long and exhausting day.
So Rhun had arrived at the last frontier of belief, and fallen, or emerged, or soared into the region where the soul realises that pain is of no account, that to be within the secret of God is more than well being, and past the power of the tongue to utter. To embrace the decree of pain is to translate it, to shed it like a rain of blessing on others who have not yet understood.
Who am I, thought Cadfael, alone in the solitude of his workshop, that I should dare to ask for a sign? If he can endure and ask nothing, must not I be ashamed of doubting?
Melangell passed with a dancing step along the path from the herbarium. On her right hand the western sky soared, in such reflected if muted brightness that she could not forbear from turning to stare into it. A counter-tide of light flowed in here from the west, surging up the slope from the brook and spilling over the crest into the garden. Somewhere on the far side of the entire monastic enclave the two tides would meet, and the light of the west falter, pale and die before the onslaught from the east; but here the bulk of guest-hall and church cut off the newly-risen sun, and left the field to this hesitant and soft-treading antidawn.
There was someone labouring along the far border of the flower-garden, going delicately on still tender feet, watching where he trod. He was alone. No attendant shadow appeared at his back, yesterday’s magic still held. She was staring at Ciaran, Ciaran without Matthew. That in itself was a minor miracle, to bring in this day made for miracles.
Melangell watched him begin to
descend the slope towards the brook, and when he was no more than a head and shoulders black against the brightness, she suddenly turned and went after him. The path down to the water skirted the growing pease, keeping close to a hedge of thick bushes above the mill-pool. Halfway down the slope she halted, uncertain whether to intrude on his solitude. Ciaran had reached the waterside, and stood surveying what looked like a safe green floor, dappled here and there with the bleached islands of sand, and studded with a few embedded rocks that stood dry from three weeks of fine weather. He looked upstream and down, even stepped into the shallow water that barely covered his naked feet, and surely soothed and refreshed them. Yet how strange, that he should be here alone! Never, until yesterday, had she seen either of these two without the other, yet now they went apart.
She was on the point of stealing away to leave him undisturbed when she saw what he was doing. He had some tiny thing in his hand, into which he was threading a thin cord, and knotting the cord to hold it fast. When he raised both hands to make fast the end of his cord to the tether that held the cross about his neck, the small talisman swung free into the light and glimmered for an instant in silver, before he tucked it away within the neck of his shirt, out of sight against his breast. Then she knew what it was, and stirred in pure pleasure for him, and uttered a small, breathless sound. For Ciaran had his ring again, the safe-conduct that was to ensure him passage to his journey’s end.
He had heard her, and swung about, startled and wary. She stood shaken and disconcerted, and then, knowing herself discovered, ran down the last slope of grass to his side. “They’ve found it for you!” she said breathlessly, in haste to fill the silence between them and dispel her own uneasiness at having seemed to spy upon him. “Oh, I am glad! Is the thief taken, then?”
“Melangell!” he said. “You’re early abroad, too? Yes, you see I am blessed, after all,! have it again. The lord abbot restored it to me only some minutes ago. But no, the thief is not caught, he and some fellow-rogues are fled into the woods, it seems. But I can go forth again without fear now.”
His dark eyes, deep-set under thick brows, opened wide upon her, smiling, holding her charmed in the abrupt discovery that he was, despite his disease, a young and comely man, who should have been in the fulness of his powers. Either she was imagining it, or he stood a little straighter, a little taller, than she had ever yet seen him, and the burning intensity of his face had mellowed into a brighter, more human ardour, as if some foreglow of the day’s spiritual radiance had given him new hope.
“Melangell,” he said in a soft, vehement rush of words, “you can’t guess how glad I am of this meeting, it was God sent you here to me. I’ve long wanted to speak to you alone. Never think that because I myself am doomed, I can’t see what’s before my eyes concerning others who are dear to me. I have something to ask of you, to beg of you, most earnestly. Don’t tell Matthew that I have my ring again!”
“Does he not know?” she asked, astray.
“No, he was not by when the abbot sent for me. He must not know! Keep my secret, if you love him-if you have some pity, at least for me. I have told no one, and you must not. The lord abbot is not likely to speak of it to any other, why should he? That he would leave to me. If you and I keep silent, there’s no need for anyone else to find out.”
Melangell was lost. She saw him through a rainbow of starting tears, for very pity of his long face hollowed in shade, his eyes glowing like the quiet, living heart of a banked fire.
“But why? Why do you want to keep it from him?”
“For his sake and yours-yes, and mine! Do you think I have not understood long ago that he loves you?-that you feel as much also for him? Only I stand in the way! It’s bitter to know it, and I would have it changed. My one wish now is that you and he should be happy together. If he loves me so faithfully, may not I also love him? You know him! He will sacrifice himself, and you, and all things beside, to finish what he has undertaken, and see me safe into Aberdaron. I don’t accept his sacrifice, I won’t endure it! Why should you both be wretched, when my one wish is to go to my rest in peace of mind and leave my friend happy? Now, while he feels secure that I dare not set out without the ring, for God’s sake, girl, leave him in innocence. And I will go, and leave you both my blessing.”
Melangell stood quivering, like a leaf shaken by the soft, vehement wind of his words, uncertain even of her own heart. “Then what must I do? What is it you want of me?”
“Keep my secret,” said Ciaran, “and go with Matthew in this holy procession. Oh, he’ll go with you, and be glad. He won’t wonder that I should stay behind and wait the saint’s coming here within the pale. And while you’re gone, I’ll go on my way. My feet are almost healed, I have my ring again, I shall reach my haven. You need not be afraid for me. Only keep him happy as long as you may, and even when my going is known, then use your arts, keep him, hold him fast. That’s all I shall ever ask of you.”
“But he’ll know,” she said, alert to dangers. “The porter will tell him you’re gone, as soon as he looks for you and asks.”
“No, for I shall go by this way, across the brook and out to the west, for Wales. The porter will not see me go. See, it’s barely ankle-deep in this season. I have kinsmen in Wales, the first miles are nothing. And among so great a throng, if he does look for me, he’ll hardly wonder at not finding me. Not for hours need he so much as think of me, if you do your part. You take care of Matthew, I will absolve both you and him of all care of me, for I shall do well enough. All the better for knowing I leave him safe with you. For you do love him,” said Ciaran softly.
“Yes,” said Melangell in a long sigh.
“Then take and hold him, and my blessing on you both. You may tell him-but well afterwards!-that it is what I designed and intended,” he said, and suddenly and briefly smiled at some unspoken thought he did not wish to share with her.
“You will really do this for him and for me? You mean it? You would go on alone for his sake… Oh, you are good!” she said passionately, and caught at his hand and pressed it to her heart for an instant, for he was giving her the whole world at his own sorrowful cost, and for selfless love of his friend, and there might never be any time but this one moment even to thank him. I’ll never forget your goodness. All my life long I shall pray for you.”
“No,” said Ciaran, the same dark smile plucking at his lips as she released his hand, “forget me, and help him to forget me. That is the best gift you can make me. And better you should not speak to me again. Go and find him. That’s your part, and I depend on you.”
She drew back from him a few paces, her eyes still fixed on him in gratitude and worship, made him a strange little reverence with head and hands, and turned obediently to climb the field into the garden. By the time she reached level ground and began to thread the beds of the rose garden she was breaking into a joyous run.
They gathered in the great court as soon as everyone, monk, lay servant, guest and townsman, had broken his fast. Seldom had the court seen such a crowd, and outside the walls the Foregate was loud with voices, as the guildsmen of Shrewsbury, provost, elders and all, assembled to join the solemn procession that would set out for Saint Giles. Half of the choir monks, led by Prior Robert, were to go in procession to fetch home the reliquary, while the abbot and the remaining brothers waited to greet them with music and candles and flowers on their return. As for the devout of town and Foregate, and the pilgrims within the walls, they might form and follow Prior Robert, such of them as were able-bodied and eager, while the lame and feeble might wait with the abbot, and prove their devotion by labouring out at least a little way to welcome the saint on her return.
“I should so much like to go with them all the way,” said Melangell, flushed and excited among the chattering, elbowing crowd in the court. “It is not far. But too far for Rhun-he could not keep pace.”
He was there beside her, very silent, very white, very fair, as though even his flaxen hair had turned paler
at the immensity of this experience. He leaned on his crutches between his sister and Dame Alice, and his crystal eyes were very wide, and looked very far, as though he was not even aware of their solicitude hemming him in on either side. Yet he answered simply enough, “I should like to go a little way, at least, until they leave me behind. But you need not wait for me.”
“As though I would leave you!” said Mistress Weaver, comfortably clucking. “You and I will keep together and see the pilgrimage out to the best we can, and heaven will be content with that. But the girl has her legs, she may go all the way, and put up a few prayers for you going and returning, and we’ll none of us be the worse for it.”
She leaned to twitch the neck of his shirt and the collar of his coat into immaculate neatness, and to fuss over his extreme pallor, afraid he was coming down with illness from over-excitement, though he seemed tranquil as ivory, and serenely absent in spirit, gone somewhere she could not follow. Her hand, rough-fingered from weaving, smoothed his well-brushed hair, teasing every tendril back from his tall forehead.
“Run off, then, child,” she said to Melangell, without turning from the boy. “But find someone we know. There’ll be riffraff running alongside, I dare say-no escaping them. Stay by Mistress Glover, or the apothecary’s widow…”
“Matthew is going with them,” said Melangell, flushing and smiling at his very name. “He told me so. I met him when we came from Prime.”
It was only half-true. She had rather confided boldly to him that she wished to tread every step of the way, and at every step remember and intercede for the souls she most loved on earth. No need to name them. He, no doubt, thought with reflected tenderness of her brother; but she was thinking no less of this anguished pair whose fortunes she now carried delicately and fearfully in her hands. She had even said, greatly venturing, “Ciaran cannot keep pace, poor soul, he must wait here, like Rhun. But can’t we make our steps count for them?”
