The Pilgram of Hate (7 page)

“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 Four

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 niece, 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.”