Free An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters Page A

rest. But I’ll hound him back as soon as
the observance is over, thought Cadfael, concerned for his dressing. Let him
brandish his banner this once, it speaks well for his spirit, even if his flesh
is drawn with effort. And who am I to say what a brother, my equal, may or may
not do for his own salvation?
    The
evenings were already beginning to draw in, the height of the summer was over
while its heat continued as if it would never break. In the dimness of the
choir what light remained was coloured like irises, and faintly fragrant with
the warm, heady scents of harvest and fruit. In his stall the tall, handsome,
emaciated man who was old in his middle forties stood proudly, Fidelis on his
left hand, and next to Fidelis, Rhun. Their youth and beauty seemed to gather
to itself what light there was, so that they shone with a native radiance of
their own, like lighted candles.
    Across
the choir from them Brother Urien stood, kneeled, genuflected and sang, with
the full, assured voice of maturity, and never took his eyes from those two
young, shining heads, the flaxen and the brown. Day by day those two drew
steadily together, the mute one and the eloquent one, matched unfairly,
unjustly, to his absolute exclusion, the one as desirable and as inviolable as
the other, while his need burned in his bowels day and night, and prayer could
not cool it, nor music lull it to sleep, but it ate him from within like the
gnawing of wolves.
    They
had both begun — dreadful sign! — to look to him like the woman. When he gazed
at either of these two, the boy’s lineaments would dissolve and change subtly,
and there would be her face, not recognising, not despising, simply staring
through him to behold someone else. His heart ached beyond bearing, while he
sang mellifluously in the Compline psalm.
     
    In
the twilight of the softer, more open country in the northeast of the shire,
where day lingered longer than among the folded hills of the western border,
Nicholas Harnage rode between flat, rich fields, unwontedly dried by the heat,
into the wattled enclosure of the manor of Lai. Wrapped round on all sides by
the enlarged fields of the plain, sparsely tree’d to make way for wide
cultivation, the house rose long and low, a stone-built hall and chambers over
a broad undercroft, with stables and barns about the interior of the fence. Fat
country, good for grain and for roots, with ample grazing for any amount of
cattle. The byres were vocal as Nicholas entered at the gate, the mild,
contented lowing of well-fed beasts, milked and drowsy.
    A
groom heard the entering hooves and came forth from the stables, bared to the
waist in the warm night. Seeing one young horseman alone, he was quite easy.
They had had comparative peace here while Winchester burned and bled.
    “Seeking
whom, young sir?”
    “Seeking
the master, your lord, Humphrey Cruce,” said Nicholas, reining in peaceably and
shaking the reins free. “If he still keeps house here?”
    “Why,
the lord Humphrey’s dead, sir, three years ago. His son Reginald is lord here
now. Would your errand do as well to him?”
    “If
he’ll admit me, yes, surely to him, then,” said Nicholas, and dismounted. “Let
him know, I was here some three years ago, to speak for Godfrid Marescot. It
was his father I saw then, but the son will know of it.”
    “Come
within,” said the groom placidly, accepting the credentials without question.
“I’ll have your beast seen to.”
    In
the smoky, wood-scented hall they were at meat, or still sitting at ease after
the meal was done, but they had heard his step on the stone stairs that led to
the open hall door, and Reginald Cruce rose, alert and curious, as the visitor
entered. A big, black-haired man of austere features and imperious manner, but
well-disposed, it seemed, towards chance travellers. His lady sat aloof and
quiet, a pale-haired woman in green, with a boy of about fifteen at her side,