by Ellis Peters
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 house was never refused to any man. “I would not cast doubt on your sacrifice, but self-imposed suffering seems to me a kind of arrogance, and not humility.”
“It may be so,” said Ciaran remotely. “No help for it now, I am bound.”
“That is true,” said Matthew from his corner by the door. A measured and yet an abrupt voice, deeper than his companion’s. “Fast bound! So are we both, I no less than he.”
“Hardly by the same vows,” said Cadfael drily. For Matthew wore good, solid shoes, a little down at heel, but proof against the stones of the road.
“No, not the same. But no less binding. And I do not forget mine, any more than he forgets his.”
Cadfael laid down the foot he had anointed, setting a folded cloth under it, and lifted its fellow into his lap. “God forbid I should tempt any man to break his oath. You will both do as you must do. But at least you may rest your feet here until after the feast, which will give you three days for healing, and here within the pale the ground is not so harsh. And once healed, I have a rough spirit that will help to harden your soles for when you take to the road again. Why not, unless you have forsworn all help from men? And since you came to me, I take it you have not yet gone so far. There, sit a while longer, and let that dry.”
He rose from his knees, surveying his work critically, and turned his attention next to the linen wrapping about Ciaran’s neck. He laid both hands gently on the cord by which the cross depended, and made to lift it over the young man’s head.
“No, no, let be!” It was a soft, wild cry of alarm, and Ciaran clutched at cross and cord, one with either hand, and hugged his burden to him fiercely. “Don’t touch it! Let it be!”
“Surely,” said Cadfael, startled, “you may lift it off while I dress the wound it’s cost you? Hardly a moment’s work, why not?”
“No!” Ciaran fastened both hands upon the cross and hugged it to his breast. “No, never for a moment, night or day! No! Let it alone!”
“Lift it, then,” said Cadfael resignedly, “and hold it while I dress this cut. No, never fear, I’ll not cheat you. Only let me unwind this cloth, and see what damage you have there, hidden.”
“Yet he should doff it, and so I have prayed him constantly,” said Matthew softly. “How else can he be truly rid of his pains?”
Cadfael unwound the linen, viewed the scored line of half-dried blood, still oozing, and went to work on it with a stinging lotion first to clean it of dust and fragments of frayed skin, and then with a healing ointment of cleavers. He refolded the cloth, and wound it carefully under the cord. “There, you have not broken faith. Settle your load again. If you hold up the weight in your hands as you go, and loosen it in your bed, you’ll be rid of your gash before you depart.”
It seemed to him that they were both of them in haste to leave him, for the one set his feet tenderly to ground as soon as he was released, holding up the weight of his cross obediently with both hands, and the other stepped out through the doorway into the sunlit garden, and waited on guard for his friend to emerge. The one owed no special thanks, the other offered only the merest acknowledgement.
“But I would remind you both,” said Cadfael, and with a thoughtful eye on both, “that you are now present at the feast of a saint who has worked many miracles, even to the defiance of death. One who may have life itself within her gift,” he said strongly, “even for a man already condemned to death. Bear it in mind, for she may be listening now!”
They said never a word, neither did they look at each other. They stared back at him from the scented brightness of the garden with startled, wary eyes, and then they turned abruptly as one man, and limped and strode away.
Chapter 4
THERE WAS SO SHORT AN INTERVAL, and so little weeding done, before the second pair appeared, that Cadfael could not choose but reason that the two couples must have met at the corner of his herber, and perhaps exchanged at least a friendly word or two, since they had travelled side by side the last miles of their road here.
The girl walked solicitously beside her brother, giving him the smoothest part of the path, and keeping a hand supportingly under his left elbow, ready to prop him at need, but barely touching.
Her face was turned constantly towards him, eager and loving. If he was the tended darling, and she the healthy beast of burden, certainly she had no quarrel with the division. Though just once she did look back over her shoulder, with a different, a more tentative smile. She was neat and plain in her homespun country dress, her hair austerely braided, but her face was vivid and glowing as a rose, and her movements, even at her brother’s pace, had a spring and grace to them that spoke of a high and ardent spirit. She was fair for a Welsh girl, her hair a coppery gold, her brows darker, arched hopefully above wide blue eyes. Mistress Weaver could not be far out in supposing that a young man who had hefted this neat little woman out of harm’s way in his arms might well remember the experience with pleasure, and not be averse to repeating it. If he could take his eyes from his fellow-pilgrim long enough to attempt it!
The boy came leaning heavily on his crutches, his right leg dangling inertly, turned with the toe twisted inward, and barely brushing the ground. If he could have stood erect he would have been a hand’s-breadth taller than his sister, but thus hunched he looked even shorter. Yet the young body was beautifully proportioned, Cadfael judged, watching his approach with a thoughtful eye, wide-shouldered, slim-flanked, the one good leg long, vigorous and shapely. He carried little flesh, indeed he could have done with more, but if he spent his days habitually in pain it was unlikely he had much appetite.
Cadfael’s study of him had begun at the twisted foot, and travelling upward, came last to the boy’s face. He was fairer than the girl, wheat-gold of hair and brows, his thin, smooth face like ivory, and the eyes that met Cadfael’s were a light, brilliant grey-blue, clear as crystal between long, dark lashes. It was a very still and tranquil face, one that had learned patient endurance, and expected to have need of it lifelong. It was clear to Cadfael, in that first exchange of glances, that Rhun did not look for any miraculous deliverance, whatever Mistress Weaver’s hopes might be.
“If you please,” said the girl shyly, “I have brought my brother, as my aunt said I should. And his name is Rhun, and mine is Melangell.”
“She has told me about you,” said Cadfael, beckoning them with him towards his workshop. “A long journey you’ve had of it. Come within, and let’s make you as easy as we may, while I take a look at this leg of yours. Was there ever an injury brought this on? A fall, or a kick from a horse? Or a bout of the bone-fever?” He settled the boy on the long bench, took the crutches from him and laid them aside, and turned him so that he could stretch out his legs at rest.
The boy, with grave eyes steady on Cadfael’s face, slowly shook his head. “No such accident,” he said in a man’s low, clear voice. “It came. I think, slowly, but I don’t remember a time before it. They say I began to falter and fall when I was three or four years old.”
Melangell, hesitant in the doorway—strangely like Ciaran’s attendant shadow, thought Cadfael—had her chin on her shoulder now, and turned almost hastily to say: “Rhun will tell you all his case. He’ll be better private with you. I’ll come back later, and wait on the seat outside there until you need me.”
Rhun’s light, bright eyes, transparent as sunlit ice, smiled at her warmly over Cadfael’s shoulder. “Do go,” he said. “So fine and sunny a day, you should make good use of it, without me dangling about you.”
She gave him a long, anxious glance, but half her mind was already away; and satisfied that he was in good hands, she made her hasty reverence, and fled. They were left looking at each other, strangers still, and yet in tentative touch.
“She goes to find Matthew,” said Rhun simply, confident of being understood. “He was good to her. And to me, also—once he carried me the last piece of the way to our night’s lodging on his back. She likes him, and he would like her, if he could truly see her, but he seldom sees anyone but Ciaran.”
This blunt simplicity might well get him the reputation of an innocent, though that would be the world’s mistake. What he saw, he said—provided, Cadfael hoped, he had already taken the measure of the person to whom he spoke—and he saw more than most, having so much more need to observe and record, to fill up the hours of his day.
“They were here?” asked Rhun, shifting obediently to allow Cadfael to strip down the long hose from his hips and his maimed leg.
“They were here. Yes, I know.”
“I would like her to be happy.”
“She has it in her to be very happy,” said Cadfael, answering in kind, almost without his will. The boy had a quality of dazzle about him that made unstudied answers natural, almost inevitable. There had been, he thought, the slightest of stresses on ‘her’. Rhun had little enough expectation that he could ever be happy, but he wanted happiness for his sister. “Now pay heed,” said Cadfael, bending to his own duties, “for this is important. Close your eyes, and be at ease as far as you can, and tell me where I find a spot that gives pain. First, thus at rest, is there any pain now?”
Docilely Rhun closed his eyes and waited, breathing softly. “No, I am quite easy now.”
Good, for all his sinews lay loose and trustful, and at least in that state he felt no pain. Cadfael began to finger his way, at first very gently and soothingly, all down the thigh and calf of the helpless leg, probing and manipulating. Thus stretched out at rest, the twisted limb partially regained its proper alignment, and showed fairly formed, though much wasted by comparison with the left, and marred by the intumed toe and certain tight, bunched knots of sinew in the calf. He sought out these, and let his fingers dig deep there, wrestling with hard tissue.
“There I feel it,” said Rhun, breathing deep. “It doesn’t feel like pain—yes, it hurts, but not for crying. A good hurt…”
Brother Cadfael oiled his hands, smoothed a palm over the shrunken calf, and went to work with firm fingertips, working tendons unexercised for years, beyond that tensed touch of toe upon ground. He was gentle and slow, feeling for the hard cores of resistance. There were unnatural tensions there, that would not melt to him yet. He let his fingers work softly, and his mind probe elsewhere.
“You were orphaned early. How long have you been with your Aunt Weaver?”
“Seven years now,” said Rhun almost drowsily, soothed by the circling fingers. “I know we are a burden to her, but she never says it, nor she would never let any other say it. She has a good business, but small, it provides her needs and keeps two men at work, but she is not rich. Melangell works hard keeping the house and the kitchen, and earns her keep. I have learned to weave, but I am slow at it. I can neither stand for long nor sit for long, I am no profit to her. But she never speaks of it, for all she has an edge to her tongue when she pleases.”
“She would,” agreed Cadfael peacefully. “A woman with many cares is liable to be short in her speech now and again, and no ill meant. She has brought you here for a miracle. You know that? Why else would you all three have walked all this way, measuring out the stages day by day at your pace? And yet I think you have no expectation of grace. Do you not believe Saint Winifred can do wonders?”
“I?” The boy was startled, he opened great eyes clearer than the clear waters Cadfael had navigated long ago, in the eastern fringes of the Midland Sea, over pale and glittering sand. “Oh, you mistake me, I do believe. But why for me? In case like mine we come by our thousands, in worse case by the hundred. How dare I ask to be among the first? Besides, what I have I can bear. There are some who cannot bear what they have. The saint will know where to choose. There is no reason her choice should fall on me.”
“Then why did you consent to come?” Cadfael asked.
Rhun turned his head aside, and eyelids blue-veined like the petals of anemones veiled his eyes. “They wished it, I did what they wanted. And there was Melangell…”
Yes, Melangell who was altogether comely and bright and a charm to the eye, thought Cadfael. Her brother knew her dowryless, and wished her a little of joy and a decent marriage, and there at home, working hard in house and kitchen, and known for a penniless n
iece, suitors there were none. A venture so far upon the roads, to mingle with so various a company, might bring forth who could tell what chances?
In moving Rhun had plucked at a nerve that gripped and twisted him, he eased himself back against the timber wall with aching care. Cadfael drew up the homespun hose over the boy’s nakedness, knotted him decent, and gently drew down his feet, the sound and the crippled, to the beaten earth floor.
“Come again to me tomorrow, after High Mass, for I think I can help you, if only a little. Now sit until I see if that sister of yours is waiting, and if not, you may rest easy until she comes. And I’ll give you a single draught to take this night when you go to your bed. It will ease your pain and help you to sleep.”
The girl was there, still and solitary against the sun-warmed wall, the brightness of her face clouded over, as though some eager expectation had turned into a grey disappointment; but at the sight of Rhun emerging she rose with a resolute smile for him, and her voice was as gay and heartening as ever as they moved slowly away.
*
He had an opportunity to study all of them next day at High Mass, when doubtless his mind should have been on higher things, but obstinately would not rise above the quivering crest of Mistress Weaver’s head-cloth, and the curly dark crown of Matthew’s thick crop of hair. Almost all the inhabitants of the guest-halls, the gentles who had separate apartments as well as the male and female pilgrims who shared the two common dortoirs, came in their best to this one office of the day, whatever they did with the rest of it. Mistress Weaver paid devout attention to every word of the office, and several times nudged Melangell sharply in the ribs to recall her to duty, for as often as not her head was turned sidewise, and her gaze directed rather at Matthew than at the altar. No question but her fancy, if not her whole heart, was deeply engaged there. As for Matthew, he stood at Ciaran’s shoulder, always within touch. But twice at least he looked round, and his brooding eyes rested, with no change of countenance, upon Melangell. Yet on the one occasion when their glances met, it was Matthew who turned abruptly away.
