by Ellis Peters
“You’ll have plenty to say to each other,” said Brother Cadfael, benignly blind and deaf to bickering, “and plenty of time hereafter to say it. But now Yves should be in his bed, for he’s had a couple of nights that could wear out any man. He needs a long day’s sleep, and if I have a physician’s authority, I order it.”
She rose to it with alacrity, though still scowling. She had his bed ready, probably smoothed with her own hands, she would shoo him into it like a hen-wife harrying her chicks, and when he was in it, and fast asleep, she would probably hang over him possessively, and have food ready for him when he stirred. But never, never would she admit that she had grieved and fretted over him, even wept, or that she had bitterly repented her rash departure. And surely that was well, for the boy would be dismayed and embarrassed if ever she bent her neck to him and begged forgiveness.
“Leave well alone until this evening,” said Cadfael contentedly, and went away and left them to argue their way to a truce. He returned to Brother Elyas, sat beside him a careful while, saw that he slept, corpse-like but deeply, and went to his own bed. Even physicians have need of the simple medicines, now and then.
*
Ermina came looking for him before Vespers, for which office he had asked Prior Leonard to call him. Hugh Beringar had not yet returned, no doubt he was still busy at Ludlow with the bestowal of the prisoners and the storage of the stock and other plunder brought down from Clee. This day was an interlude of thanksgiving for one peril past, but also a breathing-space in preparation for tasks still to be completed.
“Brother Cadfael,” said Ermina, very neat, grave and quiet in the doorway of the infirmary. “Yves is asking for you. There is still something on his mind, and I know he will not tell me, of all people. But you he wants. Will you come to him after Vespers? He will have had his supper then, and be ready for you.”
“I will come,” said Cadfael.
“And I have been wondering,” she said, and hesitated. “Those horses you brought back this morning… they came from that thieves’ nest there?”
“They did. Stolen from all these local holdings they have preyed on. Hugh Beringar is sending out to all who have had such losses to come and claim their own. The cattle and sheep are penned in Ludlow. John Druel may have picked out already some that are his. The horses I borrowed, they were fresh and ready for work. Why? What’s in your mind concerning them?”
“There is one I believe belongs to Evrard.” It was a long time since she had spoken his name, it sounded almost strange on her tongue, as if she remembered him from many years past, and after long forgetfulness. “They will be sending word to him, too?”
“Surely. Callowleas was stripped bare, there may well be other stock of his to be reclaimed.”
“If he does not already know that I am here,” said Ermina, “I hope no one will tell him. It is not that I mind him knowing I am safe and well. But I would as soon he did not expect to see me.”
There was nothing strange in that. She had put that whole mistaken episode behind her, she might well wish to avoid the embarrassment and pain of meeting him again face to face, and having to make vain play with words over something already dead.
“I doubt there’ll have been any message sent but the same to all,” said Cadfael. “Come and speak for your stolen property. And come they will. A pity there are losses that can never be made good.”
“Yes,” she said, “great pity. We can’t restore them their dead—only their cattle.”
*
Yves had risen from his long sleep cleansed of every fear for himself or his sister, and secure in his complete trust in Olivier to accomplish every miracle to which he turned his hand. He had washed and brushed and combed himself fittingly as for a thanksgiving festival, and observed with surprised approval that while he slept, Ermina had mended the rent in the knee of his hose, and laundered his only shirt and dried it by the fire. Her actions often failed to match her words, though he had never really noticed it before.
And then, not forgotten but only put aside while more desperate matters still hounded him, the question of Brother Elyas rose unresolved into his mind, and took possession of it wholly. It grew so monstrous and so insistent that he could not long contain it alone, and though Hugh Beringar was fair and approachable, Hugh Beringar was also the law, and bound by his office. But Brother Cadfael was not the law, and would listen with an open mind and a sympathetic ear.
Yves had finished his supper when Cadfael came, and Ermina wisely took her sewing and went away into the hall to have a better light for her work, leaving them together.
Yves found no way of beginning but directly, a leap into the cold and terror of remembrance. “Brother Cadfael,” he blurted wretchedly, “I’m frightened for Brother Elyas. I want to tell you. I don’t know what we ought to do. I haven’t said a word to anyone yet. He has told me things—no, he was not speaking to me, he did not tell me, but I heard. I couldn’t choose but hear!”
“There’s been no time yet for you tell what happened when he led you away in the night,” said Cadfael reasonably, “but you may tell it now. But first, there are things I have not yet told you. If I tell them first, it may be a help to you. I know where he led you, and I know how you left him in the hut, hoping for help, and fell into the hands of outlaws and murderers. Was it there in the hut that he spoke out these things that so trouble you?”
“In his sleep,” said Yves unhappily. “It is not fair dealing to listen to what a man says in his sleep, but I couldn’t help it. I was so anxious about him, I needed to know, if there was any way of helping him… Even before, when I was sitting by his bed… It was because I spoke of Sister Hilaria, and told him she was dead. Nothing else had touched him, but her name… It was terrible! It was as if he had not known till then that she was dead, and yet he blamed himself for her death. He cried out to the stones of the house to fall on him and bury him. And he got up… I couldn’t stop or hold him. I ran to find you, but everyone was at Compline.”
“And when you ran back to him,” said Cadfael mildly, “he was gone. And so you went after him.”
“I had to, I was left to care for him. I thought in time he would tire, and I could turn him and lead him back, but I couldn’t. So what could I do but go with him?”
“And he led you to the hut—yes, that we understood. And there these words passed, that so torment you. Don’t be afraid to speak them. All that you did was done for his sake, believe that this, too, you may be doing for his sake.”
“But he accused himself,” whispered Yves, trembling at the memory. “He said—he said that it was he who killed Sister Hilaria!”
The very quietness with which this was received shook him into despairing tears. “He was in such anguish, so torn… How can we give him up to be branded a murderer? But how can we hide the truth? Himself he said it. And yet I am sure he is not evil, he is good. Oh, Brother Cadfael, what are we to do?”
Cadfael leaned across the narrow trestle and took firm hold of the boy’s tight-clasped hands between his own. “Look at me, Yves, and I’ll tell you what we shall do. What you have to do is to put away all fears, and try to remember the very words he used. All of them, if you can. ‘He said that it was he who killed Sister Hilaria!’ Did he indeed say that? Or is that what you understood by what he said? Give me the man’s own words and what I have to do is listen to those words, and to no others, and see what can be made of them. Now! Go back to that night in the hut. Ely as spoke in his sleep. Begin there. Take your time, there is no haste.”
Yves scrubbed a moist cheek against his shoulder, and raised doubtful but trusting eyes to Cadfael’s face. He thought back dutifully, gnawed an unsteady lip, and began hesitantly: “I was asleep, I think, though I was trying not to sleep. He was lying on his face, but I could hear his voice clearly. He said: My sister—forgive me all my sin, my weakness. I, who have been your death! he said. That I’m sure of, that is word for word. I, who have been your death!” He shook and halted th
ere, afraid that that alone might be enough. But Cadfael held him by the hands and nodded understanding, and waited.
“Yes, and then?”
“Then—do you remember how he called on Hunydd? And you said you thought she was his wife, who died? Well, next he said: Hunydd! She was like you, warm and trusting in my arms. After six months starving, he said, such hunger. I could not bear the burning, he said, body and soul…”
The words were returning in full now, as if they had been carved into his memory. Until now he had wished only to forget them, now, when he consented to remember, they came clearly.
“Go on. There was more.”
“Yes. He changed then, he said no, don’t forgive me, bury me and put me out of mind. I am unworthy, he said, weak, inconstant…” There was a long pause, as there had been that night, before Brother Elyas cried out his mortal frailty aloud. “He said: She clung to me, she had no fear, being with me. And then he said: Merciful God, I am a man, full of blood, with a man’s body and a man’s desires. And she is dead, he said, who trusted me!”
He stared, white-faced, amazed to see Brother Cadfael unshaken, thoughtful and calm, considering him across the table with a grave smile.
“Don’t you believe me? I’ve told you truly. All those things he said.”
“I do believe you. Surely he said them. But think—his travelling cloak was there in the hut, together with her cloak and habit. And hidden! And she taken away from that place, and put into the brook, and he found some distance away, also. If he had not led you back to the hut we should not have known the half of these things. Surely I believe all that you have told me, even so you must believe and consider those things I have been able to tell you. It is not enough to say that a thing is so because of one fragment of knowledge, even so clear as a confession, and put away out of sight those other things known, because they cannot be explained. An answer to a matter of life and death must be an answer that explains all.”
Yves gazed blankly, understanding the words, but seeing no hope or help in them. “But how can we find such an answer? And if we find it, and it is the wrong answer…” he faltered, and shook again.
“Truth is never a wrong answer. We will find it, Yves, by asking the one who knows.” Cadfael rose briskly, and drew the boy up with him. “Take heart, nothing is ever quite what it seems. You and I will go and speak yet again with Brother Elyas.”
*
Brother Elyas lay weak and mute as before, yet not as before, for his eyes were open, intelligent and illusionless, windows on a great, contained grief for which there was no cure. He had a memory again, though it brought him nothing but pain. He knew them, when they sat down one on either side his bed, the boy hopelessly astray and afraid of what might come of this, Cadfael solid and practical and ready with an offered drink, and a fresh dressing for the frost-gnawed feet. The fierce strength of a man in his robust prime had stood Brother Elyas, physically at least, in good stead, he would not even lose toes, and his chest was clear. Only his grieved mind rejected healing.
“The boy here tells me,” said Cadfael simply, “that you have recovered the part of your memory that was lost. That’s well. A man should possess all his past, it is waste to mislay any. Now that you know all that happened, the night they left you for dead, now you can come back from the dead a whole man, not the half of a man. Here is this boy of yours to prove the world had need of you last night, and has need of you still.”
The hollow eyes watched him from the pillow, and the face was wrung with a bitter spasm of rejection and pain.
“I have been at your hut,” said Cadfael. “I know that you and Sister Hilaria took shelter there when the snowstorm was at its worst. A bad night, one of the worst of this bad December. It grows more clement now, we shall have a thaw. But that night was bitter frost. Poor souls caught out in it must lie in each other’s arms to live through it. And so did you with her, to keep the woman alive.” The dark eyes had burned into fierce life, even the wandering mind grew intent. “I, too,” said Cadfael with deliberation, “have known women, in my time. Never unwilling, never without love. I know what I’m saying.”
A voice harsh with disuse, but intelligent and aware, said faintly: “She is dead. The boy told me. I am the cause. Let me go after her and fall at her feet. So beautiful she was, and trusted me. Little and soft in my arms, and clung, and confided… Oh, God!” pleaded Brother Elyas, “was it well done to try me so sorely, and I emptied and starving? I could not bear the burning…”
“That I comprehend,” said Cadfael. “Neither could I have borne it. I should have been forced to do as you did. In my fear for her if I stayed, and for my own soul’s salvation, which is not such a noble motive as all that, I should have left her there asleep, and gone out into the snow and frost of that night, far away from her, to watch the night out as best I could, and return to her in the dawn, when we could go forth together and finish that journey. As you did.”
Yves leaned forward glittering with enlightenment, holding his breath for the answer. And Brother Elyas, turning his head tormentedly on his pillow, mourned aloud: “Oh, God, that ever I left her so! That I had not the steadfastness and faith to endure the longing… Where was the peace they promised me? I crept away and left her alone. And she is dead!”
“The dead are in God’s hand,” said Cadfael, “Hunydd and Hilaria both. You may not wish them back. You have an advocate there. Do you suppose that she forgets that when you went out into the cold you left her your cloak, wrapped about her for warmth, and fled from her with only your habit, to bear the rigor of the winter all those hours to dawn? It was a killing night.”
The voice from the bed said harshly: “It was not enough to help or save. I should have been strong enough in faith to bear the temptation laid on me, to stay with her though I burned….”
“So you may tell your confessor,” said Cadfael firmly, “when you are well enough to return to Pershore. But you shall, you must shun the presumption of condemning yourself beyond what he sees as your due. All that you did was done out of care for her. What as amiss may be judged. What was done well will be approved. If you had stayed with her, there is no certainty that you could have changed what befell.”
“At worst I could have died with her,” said Brother Elyas.
“But so you did in essence. Death from violence fell upon you in your loneliness that same night, as death of cold you had accepted already. And if you were delivered from both, and find you must suffer still many years of this life,” said Cadfael, “it is because God willed to have you so survive and so suffer. Beware of questioning the lot dealt out to you. Say it now, to God and us who hear you, say that you left her living, and meant to return to her with the morning, if you lived out the night, and to bring her safely where she would be. What more was required of you?”
“More courage,” lamented the gaunt mask on the pillow, and wrung out a bitter but human smile. “All was done and undone as you have said. All was well-meant. God forgive me what was badly done.”
The lines of his face had softened into humility, the stress of his voice eased into submission. There was no more he had to remember or confess, everything was said and understood. Brother Elyas stretched his long body from crown to imperilled toes, shuddered and collapsed into peace. His very feebleness came to his aid, he sank without resistance into sleep. The large eyelids expanded, lines melted from about brow and mouth and deep eye-sockets. He floated down into a prodigious profound of penitence and forgiveness.
*
“Is it true?” asked Yves in an awed whisper, as soon as they had closed the door softly upon Brother Elyas’ sleep.
“It is, surely. A passionate soul, who asks too much of himself, and under-values what he gives. He braved the frosty night and the blinding snow without his cloak, rather than sully Sister Hilaria with even the tormented presence of desire. He will live, he will be reconciled with both his body and his soul. It takes time,” said Brother Cadfael tolerantly.
If a thirteen-year-old boy understood less than all of this, or understood it only in the academic way of one instructed in an art never yet practiced, Yves gave no sign of it. The eyes fixed brightly upon Cadfael’s face were sharply intelligent. Grateful, reassured and happy, he put the last burden away from him.
“Then it was the outlaw raiders who found her, after all,” he said, “alone as she was, after Brother Elyas had left her.”
Cadfael shook his head. “They found and struck down Brother Elyas, as I think it was their way to kill any who by chance encountered them on their forays, and might bear witness against them. But here—no, I think not. Before dawn followed that same night they had time to strike at Druel’s farmstead. I do not believe they went half a mile out of their way to reach the hut. Why should they? They knew of nothing there for them. And besides, they would not have troubled to move her body elsewhere, and the good gowns they would have taken with them. No, someone came by the hut because it was on his way, and entered it, I fancy, because the blizzard was at its height, and he thought fit to shelter through the worst of it.”
“Then it could have been anyone,” said Yves, indignant and dismayed at the affront to justice, “and we may never know.”
It was in Cadfael’s mind then that there was already one person who knew, and the morrow would see it put to the proof. But he did not say so. “Well, at least,” he said instead, “you need have no more anxiety for Brother Elyas. He is as good as shriven, and he will live and thrive, and do honor to our order. And if you are not sleepy again yet, you may sit with him for a while. He claimed you for his boy in a good hour, and you may be his serviceable boy still, while you are here.” Ermina was sitting by the hall fire, still stitching relentlessly at a sleeve of the gown. Working against time, thought Cadfael, when she looked up only briefly, and at once returned to labor unaccustomed and uncongenial. She gave him a smile, but it was a grave and shadowy one.