Brother Cadfael's Penance

by Ellis Peters

  The scullion, a shock-headed young giant, his mouth firmly shut and his face equally uncommunicative under this new and untested rule, slid a glance along his shoulder at Cadfael, made an intelligent estimate of what he saw there, and uttered through motionless lips but clearly: ‘Best let him go, brother, if you wish him well.’

  ‘As you do?’ said Cadfael in a very similar fashion. It was a small skill, but useful on occasion.

  No answer to that, but he neither expected nor needed one.

  ‘Take heart! When the time comes, tell what you have seen.’

  They reached the door of the deserted bedchamber. Cadfael opened it, the wine flask in his hand. Even in the dimming light the bed showed disordered and empty, the covers tumbled every way, the room shadowy and stark. Cadfael was tempted to drop the flask in convincing astonishment and alarm, but reflected that by and large Benedictine brothers do not respond to sudden crises by dropping things, least of all flasks of wine, and further, that he had just as good as confided in this random companion, to remove all necessity for deception. There were certainly some among Philip’s domestic household who would rejoice in his deliverance.

  So neither of them exclaimed. On the contrary, they stood in mute and mutual content. The look they exchanged was eloquent, but ventured no words, in case of inconvenient ears passing too close.

  ‘Come!’ said Cadfael, springing to life. ‘We must report this. Bring the bucket,’ he added with authority. ‘It’s the details that make the tale ring true.’

  He led the way at a run, the wine flask still gripped in his hand, and the scullion galloping after, splashing water overboard from his bucket at every step. At the hall door Cadfael rushed almost into the arms of one of Bohun’s knights, and puffed out his news breathlessly.

  ‘The lord marshall – is he within? I must speak to him. We’re just come from FitzRobert’s chamber. He’s not there. The bed’s empty, and the man’s gone.’

  *

  Before the marshall, the steward and half a dozen earls and barons in the great hall it made an impressive story, and engendered a satisfying uproar of fury, exasperation and suspicion; satisfying because it was also helpless. Cadfael was voluble and dismayed, and the scullion had wit enough to present a picture of idiot consternation throughout.

  ‘My lords, I left him before noon to go out and help the chaplain with the dead. I am here only by chance, having begged some nights’ lodging, but I have some skills, and I was willing to nurse and medicine him as well as I could. When I left him he was still deep out of his senses, as he has been most of the time since he was hurt. I thought it safe to leave him. Well, my lord, you saw him yourself this morning… But when I went back to him…’ He shook a disbelieving head. ‘But how could it happen? He was fathoms deep. I went to get wine from the buttery, and hot water to bathe him, and asked this lad to come and give me a hand to raise him. And he’s gone! Impossible he should even lift himself upright, I swear. But he’s gone! This man will tell you.’

  The scullion nodded his head so long and so vigorously that his shaggy hair shook wildly over his face. ‘God’s truth, sirs! The bed’s empty, the room’s empty. He’s clean gone.’

  ‘Send and see for yourself, my lord,’ said Cadfael. ‘There’s no mistake.’

  ‘Gone!’ exploded the marshall. ‘How can he be gone? Was not the door locked upon him when you left him? Or someone set to keep watch?’

  ‘My lord, I knew no reason,’ said Cadfael, injured. ‘I tell you, he could not stir a hand or foot. And I am no servant in the household, and had no orders, my part was voluntary, and meant for healing.’

  ‘No one doubts it, brother,’ said the marshall shortly, ‘but there was surely something lacking in your care if he was left some hours alone. And with your skill as a physician, if you took so active a soul for mortally ill and unable to move.’

  ‘You may ask the chaplain,’ said Cadfael. ‘He will tell you the same. The man was out of his senses and likely to die.’

  ‘And you believe in miracles, no doubt,’ said Bohun scornfully.

  ‘That I will not deny. And have had good cause. Your lordships might consider on that,’ agreed Cadfael helpfully.

  ‘Go question the guard on the gate,’ the marshall ordered, rounding abruptly on some of his officers, ‘if any man resembling FitzRobert passed out among the wounded.’

  ‘None did,’ said Bohun with crisp certainty, but nevertheless waved out three of his men to confirm the strictness of the watch.

  ‘And you, brother, come with me. Let’s view this miracle.’ And he went striding out across the ward with a comet’s tail of anxious subordinates at his heels, and after them Cadfael and the scullion, with his bucket now virtually empty.

  The door stood wide open as they had left it, and the room was so sparse and plain that it was scarcely necessary to step over the threshold to know that there was no one within. The heap of discarded coverings disguised the fact that the straw pallet had been removed, and no one troubled to disturb the tumbled rugs, since plainly whatever lay beneath, it was not a man’s body.

  ‘He cannot be far,’ said the marshall, whirling about as fiercely as he had flown to the proof. ‘He must be still within, no one can have passed the guards. We’ll have every rat out of every corner of this castle, but we’ll find him.’ And in a very few minutes he had all those gathered about him dispersed in all directions. Cadfael and the scullion exchanged a glance which had its own eloquence, but did not venture on speech. The scullion, wooden-faced outwardly but gratified inwardly, departed without haste to the kitchen, and Cadfael, released from tension into the languor of relief, remembered Vespers, and refuged in the chapel.

  The search for Philip was pursued with all the vigour and thoroughness the marshall had threatened, and yet at the end of it all Cadfael could not fail to wonder whether FitzGilbert was not somewhat relieved himself by the prisoner’s disappearance. Not out of sympathy for Philip, perhaps not even from disapproval of such a ferocious revenge, but because he had sense enough to realize that the act contemplated would have redoubled and prolonged the killing, and made the empress’s cause anathema even to those who had served her best. The marshall went through the motions with energy, even with apparent conviction: and after the search ended in failure, an unexpected mercy, he would have to convey the news to his imperial lady this same evening, before ever she made her ceremonial entry into La Musarderie. The worst of her venom would be spent, on those even she dared not utterly humiliate and destroy, before she came among vulnerable poor souls expendable and at her mercy.

  Philip’s tired chaplain stumbled his way through Vespers, and Cadfael did his best to concentrate his mind on worship. Somewhere between here and Cirencester, perhaps by now even safe in the Augustinian abbey there, Olivier nursed and guarded his captor turned prisoner, friend turned enemy – call that relationship what you would, it remained ever more fixed and inviolable the more it turned about. As long as they remained in touch, each of them would be keeping the other’s back against the world, even when they utterly failed to understand each other.

  Neither do I understand, thought Cadfael, but there is no need that I should. I trust, I respect and I love. Yet I have abandoned and left behind me what most I trust, respect and love, and whether I can ever get back to it again is more than I know. The assay is all. My son is free, whole, in the hand of God, I have delivered him, and he has delivered his friend, and what remains broken between them must mend. They have no need of me. And I have needs, oh, God, how dear, and my years are dwindling to a few, and my debt is grown from a hillock to a mountain, and my heart leans to home.

  ‘May our fasts be acceptable to you, Lord, we entreat: and by expiating our sins make us worthy of your grace…’

  Yes, amen! After all, the long journey here has been blessed. If the long journey home proves wearisome, and ends in rejection, shall I cavil at the price?

  *

  The empress entered La Musarderie the next
day in sombre state and a vile temper, though by then she had herself in hand. Her blackly knotted brows even lightened a little as she surveyed the prize she had won, and reconciled herself grudgingly to writing off what was lost.

  Cadfael watched her ride in, and conceded perforce that, mounted or afoot, she was a regal figure. Even in displeasure she had an enduring beauty, tall and commanding. When she chose to charm, she could be irresistible, as she had been to many a lad like Yves, until he felt the lash of her steel.

  She came nobly mounted and magnificently attired, and with a company at her back, outriders on either side of herself and her women. Cadfael remembered the two gentlewomen who had attended her at Coventry, and had remained in attendance in Gloucester. The elder must be sixty, and long widowed, a tall, slender person with the remains of a youthful grace that had lasted well beyond its prime, but was now growing a little angular and lean, as her hair was silvering almost into white. The girl Isabeau, her niece, in spite of the many years between them, bore a strong likeness to her aunt, so strong that she probably presented a close picture of what Jovetta de Montors had been in her girlhood. And a vital and attractive picture it was. A number of personable young men had admired it at Coventry.

  The women halted in the courtyard, and FitzGilbert and half a dozen of his finest vied to help them down from the saddle and escort them to the apartments prepared for them. La Musarderie had a new chatelaine in place of its castellan.

  And where was that castellan now, and how faring? If Philip had lived through the journey, surely he would live. And Olivier? While there was doubt, Olivier would not leave him.

  Meantime, here was Yves lighting down and leading away his horse into the stables, and as soon as he was free he would be looking for Cadfael. There was news to be shared, and Yves must be hungry for it.

  *

  They sat together on the narrow bed in Cadfael’s cell, as once before, sharing between them everything that had happened since they had parted beside the crabbed branches of the vine, with the guard pacing not twenty yards away.

  ‘I heard yesterday, of course,’ said Yves, flushed with wonder and excitement, ‘that Philip was gone, vanished away like mist. But how, how was it possible? If he was so gravely hurt, and could not stand…? She is saved from breaking with the earl, and… and worse… So much has been saved. But how?’ He was somewhat incoherent in his gratitude for such mercies, but grave indeed the moment he came to speak of Olivier. ‘And, Cadfael, what has happened to Olivier? I thought to see him among the others in hall. I asked Bohun’s steward after any prisoners, and he said what prisoners, there were none found here. So where can he be? Philip told us he was here.’

  ‘And Philip does not lie,’ said Cadfael, repeating what was evidently an article of faith with those who knew Philip, even among his enemies. ‘No, true enough, he does not lie. He told us truth. Olivier was here, deep under one of the towers. As for where he is now, if all has gone well, as why should it not? – he has friends in these parts! – he should be now in Cirencester, at the abbey of the Augustinians.’

  ‘You helped him to break free, even before the surrender? But then, why go? Why should he leave when FitzGilbert and the empress were here at the gates? His own people?’

  ‘I did not rescue him,’ said Cadfael patiently. ‘When he was wounded and knew he might die, Philip took thought for his garrison, and ordered Camville to get the best terms he could for them, at the least life and liberty, and surrender the castle.’

  ‘Knowing there would be no mercy for himself?’ said Yves,

  ‘Knowing what she had in mind for him, as you instructed me,’ said Cadfael, ‘and knowing she would let all others go, to get her hands on him. Yes. Moreover, he took thought also for Olivier. He gave me the keys, and sent me to set him free. And so I did, and together with Olivier I have, I trust, despatched Philip FitzRobert safely to the monks of Cirencester, where by God’s grace I hope he may recover from his wounds.’

  ‘But how? How did you get him out of the gates, with her troops already on guard there? And he? Would he even consent?’

  ‘He had no choice,’ said Cadfael. ‘He was in his right senses only long enough to dispose of his own life in a bargain for his men’s lives. He was sunk deep out of them when I shrouded him, and carried him out among the dead. Oh, not Olivier, not then. It was one of the marshall’s own men helped me carry him. Olivier had slipped out by night when the besiegers drew off, and gone to get a cart from the mill, and under the noses of the guards he and the miller from Winstone came to claim the body of a kinsman, and were given leave to take it freely.’

  ‘I wish I had been with you,’ said Yves reverently.

  ‘Child, I was glad you were not. You had done your part, I thanked God there was one of you safe out of all this perilous play. No matter now, it’s well done, and if I have sent Olivier away, I have you for this day, at least. The worst has been prevented. In this life that is often the best that can be said, and we must accept it as enough.’ He was suddenly very weary, even in this moment of release and content.

  ‘Olivier will come back,’ said Yves, warm and eager against his shoulder, ‘and there is Ermina in Gloucester, waiting for him and for you. By now she will be near her time. There may be another godson for you.’ He did not know, not yet, that the child would be even closer than that, kin in the blood as well as the soul. ‘You have come so far already, you should come home with us, stay with us, where you are dearly valued. A few days borrowed – what sin is there in that?’

  But Cadfael shook his head, reluctantly but resolutely.

  ‘No, that I must not do. When I left Coventry on this quest I betrayed my vow of obedience to my abbot, who had already granted me generous grace. Now I have done what I discarded my vocation to accomplish, barring perhaps one small duty remaining, and if I delay longer still I am untrue to myself as I am already untrue to my Order, my abbot and my brothers. Some day, surely, we shall all meet again. But I have a reparation to make, and a penance to embrace. Tomorrow, Yves, whether the gates at Shrewsbury will open to me again or no, I am going home.’

  Chapter 15

  IN THE LIGHT OF EARLY MORNING Cadfael put his few possessions together, and went to present himself before the marshall. In a military establishment lately in dispute, it was well to give due notice of his departure, and to be able to quote the castellan’s authority in case any should question.

  ‘My lord, now that the way is open, I am bound to set off back to my abbey. I have here a horse, the grooms will bear witness to my right in him, though he belongs to the stables of Shrewsbury castle. Have I your leave to depart?’

  ‘Freely,’ said the marshall. ‘And Godspeed along the way.’

  Armed with that permission, Cadfael paid his last visit to the chapel of La Musarderie. He had come a long way from the place where he longed to be, and there was no certainty he would live to enter there again, since no man can know the day or the hour when his life shall be required of him. And even if he reached it within his life, he might not be received. The thread of belonging, once stretched to breaking point, may not be easily joined again. Cadfael made his petition in humility, if not quite in resignation, and remained on his knees a while with closed eyes, remembering things done well and things done less well, but remembering with the greatest gratitude and content the image of his son in the guise of a rustic youth, as once before, nursing his enemy in his lap in the miller’s cart. Blessed paradox, for they were not enemies. They had done their worst to become so, and could not maintain it. Better not to question the unquestionable.

  He was rising from his knees, a little stiffly from the chill of the air and the hardness of the flagstones, when a light step sounded on the threshold, and the door was pushed a little wider open. The presence of women in the castle had already made some changes in the furnishings of the chapel, by the provision of an embroidered altar-cloth, and the addition of a green-cushioned prie-dieu for the empress’s use. Now her gentlewoma
n came in with a heavy silver candlestick in either hand, and was crossing to the altar to install them when she saw Cadfael. She gave him a gentle inclination of her head, and smiled. Her hair was covered with a gauze net that cast a shimmer of silver over a coronal already immaculate in its own silver.

  ‘Good morning, brother,’ said Jovetta de Montors, and would have passed on, but halted instead, and looked more closely. ‘I have seen you before, brother, have I not? You were at the meeting in Coventry.’

  ‘I was, madam,’ said Cadfael.

  ‘I remember,’ she said, and sighed. ‘A pity nothing came of it. Was it some business consequent upon that meeting that has brought you so far from home? For I believe I heard you were of the abbey of Shrewsbury.’

  ‘In a sense,’ said Cadfael, ‘yes, it was.’

  ‘And have you sped?’ She had moved to the altar, and set her candlesticks one at either end, and was stooping to find candles for them in a coffer beside the wall, and a sulphur spill to light them from the small constant lamp that glowed red before the central cross.

  ‘In part,’ he said, ‘yes, I have sped.’

  ‘Only in part?’

  ‘There was another matter, not solved, no, but of less importance now than we thought it then. You will remember the young man who was accused of murder, there in Coventry?’

  He drew nearer to her, and she turned towards him a clear, pale face, and large, direct eyes of a deep blue. ‘Yes, I remember. He is cleared of that suspicion now. I talked with him when he came to Gloucester, and he told us that Philip FitzRobert was satisfied he was not the man, and had set him free. I was glad. I thought all was over when the empress brought him off safely, and I never knew until we were in Gloucester that Philip had seized him on the road. Then, days later, he came to raise the alarm over this castle. I knew,’ she said, ‘that there was no blame in him.’

  She set the candles in their sockets, and the candlesticks upon the altar, stepping back a little to match the distances, with her head tilted. The sulphur match sputtered in the little red flame, and burned up steadily, casting a bright light over her thin, veined left hand. Carefully she lit her candles, and stood watching the flames grow tall, with the match still in her hand. On the middle finger she wore a ring, deeply cut in intaglio. Small though the jet stone was, the incised design took the light brilliantly, in fine detail. The little salamander in its nest of stylized flames faced the opposite way, but was unmistakable once its positive complement had been seen.