The Pilgram of Hate (19 page)

Behind
him, approaching quietly from the nave, a known voice said softly: “And are you
demanding yet a second miracle?”

He
withdrew his eyes reluctantly from the reflected gleams of silver along the
reliquary, and turned to look towards the parish altar. He saw the expected
shape of Hugh Beringar, the thin dark face smiling at him. But over Hugh’s
shoulder he saw a taller head and shoulders loom, emerging from dimness in
suave, resplendent planes, the bright, jutting cheekbones, the olive cheeks
smoothly hollowed below, the falcon’s amber eyes beneath high-arched black
brows, the long, supple lips tentatively smiling upon him.

It
was not possible. Yet he beheld it. Olivier de Bretagne came out of the shadows
and stepped unmistakable into the light of the altar candles. And that was the
moment when Saint Winifred turned her head, looked fully into the face of her
fallible but faithful servant, and also smiled.

A
second miracle! Why not? When she gave she gave prodigally, with both hands.

Chapter Eleven

THEY
WENT OUT INTO THE CLOISTER all three together, and that in itself was memorable
and good, for they had never been together before. Those trusting intimacies
which had once passed between Cadfael and Olivier, on a winter night in
Bromfield priory, were unknown still to Hugh, and there was a mysterious
constraint still that prevented Olivier from openly recalling them. The
greetings they exchanged were warm but brief, only the reticence behind them
was eloquent, and no doubt Hugh understood that well enough, and was willing to
wait for enlightenment, or courteously to make do without it. For that there
was no haste, but for Luc Meverel there might be.

“Our
friend has a quest,” said Hugh, “in which we mean to enlist Brother Denis’s
help, but we shall also be very glad of yours. He is looking for a young man by
the name of Luc Meverel, strayed from his place and known to be travelling
north. Tell him the way of it, Olivier.”

Olivier
told the story over again, and was listened to with close attention. “Very
gladly,” said Cadfael then, “would I do whatever man can do not only to bring
off an innocent man from such a charge, but also to bring the charge home to
the guilty. We know of this murder, and it sticks in every gullet that a decent
man, protecting his honourable opponent, should be cut down by one of his own
faction…”

“Is
that certain?” wondered Hugh sharply.

“As
good as certain. Who else would so take exception to the man standing up for
his lady and doing his errand without fear? All who still held to Stephen in
their hearts would approve, even if they dared not applaud him. And as for a
chance attack by sneak-thieves, why choose to prey on a mere clerk, with
nothing of value on him but the simple needs of his journey, when the town was
full of nobles, clerics and merchants far better worth robbing? Rainald died
only because he came to the clerk’s aid. No, an adherent of the empress, like
Rainald himself but most unlike, committed that infamy.”

“That’s
good sense,” agreed Olivier. “But my chief concern now is to find Luc, and send
him home again if I can.”

“There
must be twenty or more young fellows in that age here today,” said Cadfael,
scrubbing thoughtfully at his blunt brown nose, “but I dare wager most of them
can be pricked out of the list as well known to some of their companions by
their own right names, or by reason of their calling or condition. Solitaries
may come, but they’re few and far between. Pilgrims are like starlings, they
thrive on company. We’d best go and talk to Brother Denis. He’ll have sorted
out most of them by now.”

Brother
Denis had a retentive memory and an appetite for news and rumours that usually
kept him the best-informed person in the enclave. The fuller his halls, the
more pleasure he took in knowing everything that went on there, and the name
and vocation of every guest. He also kept meticulous books to record the
visitations.

They
found him in the narrow cell where he kept his accounts and estimated his
future needs, thoughtfully reckoning up what provisions he still had, and how
rapidly the demands on them were likely to dwindle from the morrow. He took his
mind from his store-book courteously in order to listen to what Brother Cadfael
and the sheriff required of him, and produced answers with exemplary
promptitude when asked to sieve out from his swollen household males of about
twenty-five years, bred gentle or within modest reach of gentility, lettered,
of dark colouring and medium tall build, answering to the very bare description
of Luc Meverel. As his forefinger flew down the roster of his guests the
numbers shrank remarkably. It seemed to be true that considerably more than
half of those who went on pilgrimage were women, and that among the men the
greater part were in their forties or fifties, and of those remaining, many
would be in minor orders, either monastics or secular priests or would-be
priests. And Luc Meverel was none of these.

“Are
there any here,” asked Hugh, viewing the final list, which was short enough,
“who came solitary?”

Brother
Denis cocked his round, rosy, tonsured head aside and ran a sharp brown eye,
very remiscent of a robin’s, down the list. “Not one. Young squires of that age
seldom go as pilgrims, unless with an exigent lord—or an equally exigent lady.
In such a summer feast as this we might have young friends coming together, to
take the fill of the time before they settle down to sterner disciplines. But
alone… Where would be the pastime in that?”

“Here
are two, at any rate,” said Cadfael, “who came together, but surely not for
pastime. They have puzzled me, I own. Both are of the proper age, and such word
as we have of the man we’re looking for would fit either. You know them, Denis,
that youngster who’s on his way to Aberdaron, and his friend who bears him
company. Both lettered, both bred to the manor. And certainly they came from
the south, beyond Abingdon, according to Brother Adam of Reading, who lodged
there the same night.”

“Ah,
the barefoot traveller,” said Denis, and laid a finger on Ciaran in the
shrunken toll of young men, “and his keeper and worshipper. Yes, I would not
put half a year between them, and they have the build and colouring, but you
needed only one.”

“We
could at least look at two,” said Cadfael. “If neither of them is what we’re
seeking, yet coming from that region they may have encountered such a single
traveller somewhere on the road. If we have not the authority to question them
closely about who they are and whence they come, and how and why thus linked,
then Father Abbot has. And if they have no reason to court concealment, then
they’ll willingly declare to him what they might not as readily utter to us.”

“We
may try it,” said Hugh, kindling. “At least it’s worth the asking, and if they
have nothing to do with the man we are looking for, neither they nor we have
lost more than half an hour of time, and surely they won’t grudge us that.”

“Granted
what is so far related of these two hardly fits the case,” Cadfael acknowledged
doubtfully, “for the one is said to be mortally ill and going to Aberdaron to
die, and the other is resolute to keep him company to the end. But a young man
who wishes to disappear may provide himself with a circumstantial story as
easily as with a new name. And at all events, between Abingdon and Shrewsbury
it’s possible they may have encountered Luc Meverel alone and under his own
name.”

“But
if one of these two, either of these two, should truly be the man I want,” said
Olivier doubtfully, “then who, in the name of God, is the other?”

“We
ask each other questions,” said Hugh practically, “which either of these two
could answer in a moment. Come, let’s leave Abbot Radulfus to call them in, and
see what comes of it.”

It
was not difficult to induce the abbot to have the two young men sent for. It
was not so easy to find them and bring them to speak for themselves. The
messenger, sent forth in expectation of prompt obedience, came back after a
much longer time than had been expected, and reported ruefully that neither of
the pair could be found within the abbey walls. True, the porter had not
actually seen either of them pass the gatehouse. But what had satisfied him
that the two were leaving was that the young man Matthew had come, no long time
after dinner, to reclaim his dagger, and had left behind him a generous gift of
money to the house, saying that he and his friend were already bound away on
their journey, and desired to offer thanks for their lodging. And had he
seemed, it was Cadfael who asked it, himself hardly knowing why, had he seemed
as he always was, or in any way disturbed or alarmed or out of countenance and
temper, when he came for his weapon and paid his and his friend’s score?

The
messenger shook his head, having asked no such question at the gate. Brother
Porter, when enquiry was made direct by Cadfael himself, said positively: “He
was like a man on fire. Oh, as soft as ever in voice, and courteous, but pale
and alight, you’d have said his hair stood on end. But what with every soul
within here wandering in a dream, since this wonder, I never thought but here were
some going forth with the news while the furnace was still white-hot.”

“Gone?”
said Olivier, dismayed, when this word was brought back to the abbot’s parlour.
“Now I begin to see better cause why one of these two, for all they come so
strangely paired, and so strangely account for themselves, may be the man I’m
seeking. For if I do not know Luc Meverel by sight, I have been two or three
times his lord’s guest recently, and he may well have taken note of me. How if
he saw me come, today, and is gone hence thus in haste because he does not wish
to be found? He could hardly know I am sent to look for him, but he might, for
all that, prefer to put himself clean out of sight. And an ailing companion on
the way would be good cover for a man wanting a reason for his wanderings. I
wish I might yet speak with these two. How long have they been gone?”

“It
cannot have been more than an hour and a half after noon,” said Cadfael,
“according to when Matthew reclaimed his dagger.”

“And
afoot!” Olivier kindled hopefully. “And even unshod, the one of them! It should
be no great labour to overtake them, if it’s known what road they will have
taken.”

“By
far their best way is by the Oswestry road, and so across the dyke into Wales.
According to Brother Denis, that was Ciaran’s declared intent.”

“Then,
Father Abbot,” said Olivier eagerly, “with your leave I’ll mount and ride after
them, for they cannot have got far. It would be a pity to miss the chance, and
even if they are not what I’m seeking, neither they nor I will have lost
anything. But with or without my man, I shall return here.”

“I’ll
ride through the town with you,” said Hugh, “and set you on your way, for this
will be new country to you. But then I must be about my own business, and see
if we’ve gathered any harvest from this morning’s hunt. I doubt they’ve gone
deeper into the forest, or I should have had word by now. We shall look for you
back before night, Olivier. One more night at the least we mean to keep you and
longer if we can.”

Olivier
took his leave hastily but gracefully, made a dutiful reverence to the abbot,
and turned upon Brother Cadfael a brief, radiant smile that shattered his
preoccupation for an instant like a sunburst through clouds. “I will not leave
here,” he said in simple reassurance, “without having quiet conference with
you. But this I must see finished, if I can.”

They
were gone away briskly to the stables, where they had left their horses before
Mass. Abbot Radulfus looked after them with a very thoughtful face.

“Do
you find it surprising, Cadfael, that these two young pilgrims should leave so
soon, and so abruptly? Is it possible the coming of Messire de Bretagne can
have driven them away?”

Cadfael
considered, and shook his head. “No, I think not. In the great press this
morning, and the excitement, why should one man among the many be noticed, and
one not looked for at all in these parts? But, yes, their going does greatly
surprise me. For the one, he should surely be only too glad of an extra day or
two of rest before taking barefoot to the roads again. And for the other,
Father, there is a girl he certainly admires and covets, whether he yet knows
it to the full or no, and with her he spent this morning, following Saint
Winifred home, and I am certain there was then no other thought in his mind but
of her and her kin, and the greatness of this day. For she is sister to the boy
Rhun, who came by so great a mercy and blessing before our eyes. It would take
some very strong compulsion to drag him away suddenly like this.”

“The
boy’s sister, you say?” Abbot Radulfus recalled an intent which had been
shelved in favour of Olivier’s quest. There is still an hour or more before
Vespers. I should like to talk with this youth. You have been treating his
condition, Cadfael. Do you think your handling has had anything to do with what
we witnessed today? Or could he, though I would not willingly attribute falsity
to one so young, could he have made more of his distress than it was, in order
to produce a prodigy?”

“No,”
said Cadfael very decidedly. “There is no deceit at all in him. And as for my
poor skills, they might in a long time of perseverance have softened the tight
cords that hampered the use of his limb, and made it possible to set a little
weight on it, but straighten that foot and fill out the sinews of the leg,
never! The greatest doctor in the world could not have done it. Father, on the
day he came I gave him a draught that should have eased his pain and brought
him sleep. After three nights he sent it back to me untouched. He saw no reason
why he should expect to be singled out for healing, but he said that he offered
his pain freely, who had nothing else to give. Not to buy grace, but of his
goodwill to give and want nothing in return. And further, it seems that thus
having accepted his pain out of love, his pain left him. After Mass we saw that
deliverance completed.”