Free Dead Man's Ransom by Ellis Peters

in having found and recovered his chief, but also in the prospect of a closer alliance with Owain Gwynedd, whose help in the north of the shire, if ever Ranulf of Chester did decide to attack, might very well turn the tide. The provost and guildsmen of the town, in general, were well pleased. Prestcote was a man who did not encourage close friendships, but Shrewsbury had found him a just and well-intentioned officer of the crown, if heavy-handed at times, and was well aware that it might have fared very much worse. Not everyone, however, felt the same simple pleasure. Even just men make enemies.
    Cadfael returned to his proper duties well content, and having reviewed Brother Oswin’s stewardship in the herbarium and found everything in good order, his next charge was to visit the infirmary and replenish the medicine-cupboard there.
    “No new invalids since I left?”
    “None. And two have gone out, back to the dortoir, Brother Adam and Brother Everard. Strong constitutions they have, both, in spite of age, and it was no worse than a chest cold, and has cleared up well. Come and see how they all progress. If only we could send out Brother Maurice with the same satisfaction as those two,” said Edmund sadly. “He’s eight years younger, strong and able, and barely sixty. If only he was as sound in mind as in body! But I doubt we’ll never dare let him loose. It’s the bent his madness has taken. Shame that after a blameless life of devotion he now remembers only his grudges, and seems to have no love for any man. Great age is no blessing, Cadfael, when the body’s strength outlives the mind.”
    “How do his neighbours bear with him?” asked Cadfael with sympathy.
    “With Christian patience! And they need it. He fancies now that every man is plotting some harm against him. And says so, outright, besides any real and ancient wrongs he’s kept in mind all too clearly.” They came into the big, bare room where the beds were laid, handy to the private chapel where the infirm might repair for the offices. Those who could rise to enjoy the brighter part of the day sat by a large log fire, warming their ancient bones and talking by fits and starts, as they waited for the next meal, the next office or the next diversion. Only Brother Rhys was confined to his bed, though most of those within here were aged, and spent much time there. A generation of brothers admitted in the splendid enthusiasm of an abbey’s founding also comes to senility together, yielding place to the younger postulants admitted by ones and twos after the engendering wave. Never again, thought Cadfael, moving among them, would a whole chapter of the abbey’s history remove thus into retirement and decay. From this time on they would come one by one, and be afforded each a death-bed reverently attended, single and in solitary dignity. Here were four or five who would depart almost together, leaving even their attendant brothers very weary, and the world indifferent.
    Brother Maurice sat installed by the fire, a tall, gaunt, waxen, white old man of elongated patrician face and irascible manner. He came of a noble house, an oblate since his youth, and had been removed here some two years previously, when after a trivial dispute he had suddenly called out Prior Robert in a duel to the death, and utterly refused to be distracted or reconciled. In his more placid moments he was gracious, accommodating and courteous, but touch him in his pride of family and honour and he was an implacable enemy. Here in his old age he called up from the past, vivid as when they happened, every affront to his line, every lawsuit waged against them, back to his own birth and beyond, and brooded over every one that had gone unrevenged.
    It was a mistake, perhaps, to ask him how he did, but his enthroned hauteur seemed to demand it. He raised his narrow hawk, nose, and tightened his bluish lips. “None the better for what I hear, if it be true. They’re saying that Gilbert