Chapter Five

BROTHER ADAM OF READING, being lodged in the dortoir with the monks of the house, had had leisure to observe his fellow pilgrims of the guest-hall only at the offices of the church, and in their casual comings and goings about the precinct; and it happened that he came from the garden towards midafternoon, with Cadfael beside him, just as Ciaran and Matthew were crossing the court towards the cloister garth, there to sit in the sun for an hour or two before Vespers. There were plenty of others, monks, lay servants and guests, busy on their various occasions, but Ciaran’s striking figure and painfully slow and careful gait marked him out for notice.

“Those two,” said Brother Adam, halting, “I have seen before. At Abington, where I spent the first night after leaving Reading. They were lodged there the same night.”

“At Abingdon!” Cadfael echoed thoughtfully. “So they came from far south. You did not cross them again after Abingdon, on the way here?”

“It was not likely. I was mounted. And then, I had my abbot’s mission to Leominster, which took me out of the direct way. No, I saw no more of them, never until now. But they can hardly be mistaken, once seen.”

“In what sort of case were they at Abingdon?” asked Cadfael, his eyes following the two inseparable figures until they vanished into the cloister. “Would you say they had been long on the road before that night’s halt? The man is pledged to go barefoot to Aberdaron, it would not take many miles to leave the mark on him.”

“He was going somewhat lamely, even then. They had both the dust of the roads on them. It might have been their first day’s walking that ended there, but I doubt it.”

“He came to me to have his feet tended, yesterday,” said Cadfael, “and I must see him again before evening. Two or three days of rest will set him up for the next stage of his walk. From more than a day’s going south of Abingdon to the remotest tip of Wales, a long, long walk. A strange, even a mistaken, piety it seems to me, to take upon oneself ostentatious pains, when there are poor fellows enough in the world who are born to pain they have not chosen, and carry it with humility.”

“The simple believe it brings merit,” said Brother Adam tolerantly. “It may be he has no other claim upon outstanding virtue, and clutches at this.”

“But he’s no simple soul,” said Cadfael with conviction, “whatever he may be. He has, he tells me, a mortal disease, and is going to end his days in blessedness and peace at Aberdaron, and have his bones laid in Ynys Enlli, which is a noble ambition in a man of Welsh blood. The voluntary assumption of pain beyond his doom may even be a pennon of defiance, a wag of the hand against death. That I could understand. But I would not approve it.”

“It’s very natural you should frown on it,” agreed Adam, smiling indulgence upon his companion and himself alike, “seeing you are schooled to the alleviation of pain, and feel it to be a violator and an enemy. By the very virtue of these plants we have learned to use.” He patted the leather scrip at his girdle, and the soft rustle of seeds within answered him. They had been sorting over Cadfael’s clay saucers of new seed from this freshly ripening year, and he had helped himself to two or three not native in his own herbarium. “It is as good a dragon to fight as any in this world, pain.”

They had gone some yards more towards the stone steps that led up to the main door of the guest-hall, in no hurry, and taking pleasure in the contemplation of so much bustle and motion, when Brother Adam checked abruptly and stood at gaze.

“Well, well, I think you may have got some of our southern sinners, as well as our would-be saints!”

Cadfael, surprised, followed where Adam was gazing, and stood to hear what further he would have to say, for the individual in question was the least remarkable of men at first glance. He stood close to the gatehouse, one of a small group constantly on hand there to watch the new arrivals and the general commerce of the day. A big man, but so neatly and squarely built that his size was not wholly apparent, he stood with his thumbs in the belt of his plain but ample gown, which was nicely cut and fashioned to show him no nobleman, and no commoner, either, but a solid, respectable, comfortably provided fellow of the middle kind, merchant or tradesman. One of those who form the backbone of many a township in England, and can afford the occasional pilgrimage by way of a well-earned holiday. He gazed benignly upon the activity around him from a plump, shrewd, well-shaven face, favouring the whole creation with a broad, contented smile.

“That,” said Cadfael, eyeing his companion with bright enquiry, “is, or so I am informed, one Simeon Poer, a merchant of Guildford, come on pilgrimage for his soul’s sake, and because the summer chances to be very fine and inviting. And why not? Do you know of a reason?”

“Simeon Poer may well be his name,” said Brother Adam, “or he may have half a dozen more ready to trot forward at need. I never knew a name for him, but his face and form I do know. Father Abbot uses me a good deal on his business outside the cloister and I have occasion to know most of the fairs and markets in our shire and beyond. I’ve seen that fellow—not gowned like a provost, as he is now, I grant you, but by the look of him he’s been doing well lately—round every fairground, cultivating the company of those young, green roisterers who frequent every such gathering. For the contents of their pockets, surely. Most likely, dice. Even more likely, loaded dice. Though I wouldn’t say he might not pick a pocket here and there, if business was bad. A quicker means to the same end, if a riskier.”

So knowing and practical a brother Cadfael had not encountered for some years among the innocents. Plainly Brother Adam’s frequent sallies out of the cloister on the abbot’s business had broadened his horizons. Cadfael regarded him with respect and warmth, and turned to study the smiling, benevolent merchant more closely.

“You’re sure of him?”

“Sure that he’s the same man, yes. Sure enough of his practices to challenge him openly, no, hardly, since he has never yet been taken up but once, and then he proved so slippery he slithered through the bailiffs fingers. But keep a weather eye on him, and this may be where he’ll make the slip every rogue makes in the end, and get his comeuppance.”

“If you’re right,” said Cadfael, “has he not strayed rather far from his own haunts? In my experience, from years back I own, his kind seldom left the region where they knew their way about better than the bailiffs. Has he made the south country so hot for him that he must run for a fresh territory? That argues something worse than cheating at dice.”

Brother Adam hoisted dubious shoulders. “It could be. Some of our scum have found the disorders of faction very profitable, in their own way, just as their lords and masters have in theirs. Battles are not for them—far too dangerous to their own skins. But the brawls that blow up in towns where uneasy factions come together are meat and drink to them. Pockets to be picked, riots to be started—discreetly from the rear—unoffending elders who look prosperous to be knocked on the head or knifed from behind or have their purse-strings cut in the confusion… Safer and easier than taking to the woods and living wild for prey, as their kind do in the country.”

Just such gatherings, thought Cadfael, as that at Winchester, where at least one man was knifed in the back and left dying. Might not the law in the south be searching for this man, to drive him so far from his usual hunting-grounds? For some worse offence than cheating silly young men of their money at dice? Something as black as murder itself?

“There are two or three others in the common guest-hall,” he said, “about whom I have my doubts, but this man has had no truck with them so far as I’ve seen. But I’ll bear it in mind, and keep a watchful eye open, and have Brother Denis do the same. And I’ll mention what you say to Hugh Beringar, too, before this evening’s out. Both he and the town provost will be glad to have fair warning.”

Since Ciaran was sitting quietly in the cloister garth, it seemed a pity he should be made to walk through the gardens to the herbarium, when Cadfael’s broad brown feet were in excellent condition, and sensibly equipped with stout sandals. So Cadfael fetched the salve he had used on Ciaran’s wounds and bruises, and the spirit that would brace and toughen his tender soles, and brought them to the cloister. It was pleasant there in the afternoon sun, and the turf was thick and springy and cool to bare feet. The roses were coming into full bloom, and their scent hung in the warm air like a benediction. But two such closed and sunless faces! Was the one truly condemned to an early death, and the other to lose and mourn so close a friend?

Ciaran was speaking as Cadfael approached, and did not at first notice him, but even when he was aware of the visitor bearing down on them he continued steadily to the end, “… you do but waste your time, for it will not happen. Nothing will be changed, don’t look for it. Never! You might far better leave me and go home.”

Did the one of them believe in Saint Winifred’s power, and pray and hope for a miracle? And was the other, the sick man, all too passionately of Rhun’s mind, and set on offering his early death as an acceptable and willing sacrifice, rather than ask for healing?

Matthew had not yet noticed Cadfael’s approach. His deep voice, measured and resolute, said just audibly, “Save your breath! For I will go with you, step for step, to the very end.”

Then Cadfael was close, and they were both aware of him, and stirred defensively out of their private anguish, heaving in breath and schooling their faces to confront the outer world decently. They drew a little apart on the stone bench, welcoming Cadfael with somewhat strained smiles.

“I saw no need to make you come to me,” said Cadfael, dropping to his knees and opening his scrip in the bright green turf, “when I am better able to come to you. So sit and be easy, and let me see how much work is yet to be done before you can go forth in good heart.”

“This is kind, brother,” said Ciaran, rousing himself with a sigh. “Be assured that I do go in good heart, for my pilgrimage is short and my arrival assured.”

At the other end of the bench Matthew’s voice said softly, “Amen!”

After that it was all silence as Cadfael anointed the swollen soles, kneading spirit vigorously into the misused skin, surely heretofore accustomed always to going well shod, and soothed the ointment of cleavers into the healing grazes.

“There! Keep off your feet through tomorrow, but for such offices as you feel you must attend. Here there’s no need to go far. And I’ll come to you tomorrow and have you fit to stand somewhat longer the next day, when the saint is brought home.” When he spoke of her now, he hardly knew whether he was truly speaking of the mortal substance of Saint Winifred, which was generally believed to be in that silver-chaced reliquary, or of some hopeful distillation of her spirit which could fill with sanctity even an empty coffin, even a casket containing pitiful, faulty human bones, unworthy of her charity, but subject, like all mortality, to the capricious, smiling mercies of those above and beyond question. If you could reason by pure logic for the occurrence of miracles, they would not be miracles, would they?

He scrubbed his hands on a handful of wool, and rose from his knees. In some twenty minutes or so it would be time for Vespers.

He had taken his leave, and almost reached the archway into the great court, when he heard rapid steps at his heels, a hand reached deprecatingly for his sleeve, and Matthew’s voice said in his ear, “Brother Cadfael, you left this lying.”

It was his jar of ointment, of rough, greenish pottery, almost invisible in the grass. The young man held it out in the palm of a broad, strong, workmanlike hand, long-fingered and elegant. Dark eyes, reserved but earnestly curious, searched Cadfael’s face.

Cadfael took the jar with thanks, and put it away in his scrip. Ciaran sat where Matthew had left him, his face and burning gaze turned towards them; they stood at a distance, between him and the outer day, and he had, for one moment, the look of a soul abandoned to absolute solitude in a populous world.

Cadfael and Matthew stood gazing in speculation and uncertainty into each other’s eyes. This was that able, ready young man who had leaped into action at need, upon whom Melangell had fixed her young, unpractised heart, and to whom Rhun had surely looked for a hopeful way out for his sister, whatever might become of himself. Good, cultivated stock, surely, bred of some small gentry and taught a little Latin as well as his schooling in arms. How, except by the compulsion of inordinate love, did this one come to be ranging the country like a penniless vagabond, without root or attachment but to a dying man?

“Tell me truth,” said Cadfael. “Is it indeed true—is it certain—that Ciaran goes this way towards his death?”

There was a brief moment of silence, as Matthew’s wide-set eyes grew larger and darker. Then he said very softly and deliberately, “It is truth. He is already marked for death. Unless your saint has a miracle for us, there is nothing can save him. Or me!” he ended abruptly, and wrenched himself away to return to his devoted watch.

Cadfael turned his back on supper in the refectory, and set off instead along the Foregate towards the town. Over the bridge that spanned the Severn, in through the gate, and up the curving slope of the Wyle to Hugh Beringar’s town house. There he sat and nursed his godson Giles, a large, comely, self-willed child, fair like his mother, and long of limb, some day to dwarf his small, dark, sardonic father. Aline brought food and wine for her husband and his friend, and then sat down to her needlework, favouring her menfolk from time to time with a smiling glance of serene contentment. When her son fell asleep in Cadfael’s lap she rose and lifted the boy away gently. He was heavy for her, but she had learned how to carry him lightly balanced on arm and shoulder. Cadfael watched her fondly as she bore the child away into the next room to his bed, and closed the door between.

“How is it possible that that girl can grow every day more radiant and lovely? I’ve known marriage rub the fine bloom off many a handsome maid. Yet it suits her as a halo does a saint.”

“Oh, there’s something to be said for marriage,” said Hugh idly. “Do I look so poorly on it? Though it’s an odd study for a man of your habit, after all these years of celibacy… And all the stravagings about the world before that! You can’t have thought too highly of the wedded state, or you’d have ventured on it yourself. You took no vows until past forty, and you a well-set-up young fellow crusading all about the east with the best of them. How do I know you have not an Aline of your own locked away somewhere, somewhere in your remembrance, as dear as mine is to me? Perhaps even a Giles of your own,” he added, whimsically smiling, “a Giles God knows where, grown a man now…”

Cadfael’s silence and stillness, though perfectly easy and complacent, nevertheless sounded a mute warning in Hugh’s perceptive senses. On the edge of drowsiness among his cushions after a long day out of doors, he opened a black, considering eye to train upon his friend’s musing face, and withdrew delicately into practical business.

“Well, so this Simeon Poer is known in the south. I’m grateful to you and to Brother Adam for the nudge, though so far the man has set no foot wrong here. But these others you’ve pictured for me… At Wat’s tavern in the Foregate they’ve had practice in marking down strangers who come with a fair or a feast, and spread themselves large about the town. Wat tells my people he has a group moving in, very merry, some of them strangers. They could well be these you name. Some of them, of course, the usual young fellows of the town and the Foregate with more pence than sense. They’ve been drinking a great deal, and throwing dice. Wat does not like the way the dice fall.”

“It’s as I supposed,” said Cadfael, nodding. “For every Mass of ours they’ll be celebrating the Gamblers’ Mass elsewhere. And by all means let the fools throw their money after their sense, so the odds be fair. But Wat knows a loaded throw when he sees one.”

“He knows how to rid his house of the plague, too. He has hissed in the ears of one of the strangers that his tavern is watched, and they’d be wise to take their school out of there. And for tonight he has a lad on the watch, to find out where they’ll meet. Tomorrow night we’ll have at them, and rid you of them in good time for the feast day, if all goes well.”

Which would be a very welcome cleansing, thought Cadfael, making his way back across the bridge in the first limpid dusk, with the river swirling its coiled currents beneath him in gleams of reflected light, low summer water leaving the islands outlined in swathes of drowned, browning weed. But as yet there was nothing to shed light, even by reflected, phantom gleams, upon that death so far away in the south country, whence the merchant Simeon Poer had set out. On pilgrimage for his respectable soul? Or in flight from a law aroused too fiercely for his safety, by something graver than the cozening of fools? Though Cadfael felt too close to folly himself to be loftily complacent even about that, however much it might be argued that gamblers deserved all they got.

The great gate of the abbey was closed, but the wicket in it stood open, shedding sunset light through from the west. In the mild dazzle Cadfael brushed shoulders and sleeves with another entering, and was a little surprised to be hoisted deferentially through the wicket by a firm hand at his elbow.

“Give you goodnight, brother!” sang a mellow voice in his ear, as the returning guest stepped within on his heels. And the solid, powerful, woollen-gowned form of Simeon Poer, self-styled merchant of Guildford, rolled vigorously past him, and crossed the great court to the stone steps of the guest-hall.