An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online

the high-arched lids
rolled back from fixed eyes. “Don’t let Fidelis fret for me… He has seen worse
— let him come.”
    “I’ll
fetch him to you,” said Cadfael, and went at once to do it, for in this
concession to the stoic mind there was more value than in anything further he
could do here for the ravaged body. Brother Edmund followed him down the stair,
anxious at his shoulder.
    “Will
it heal? Marvel he ever lived for it to heal at all. Did you ever see a man so
torn apart, and live?”
    “It
happens,” said Cadfael, “though seldom. Yes, it will close again. And open
again at the least strain.” Not a word was said between them to enjoin or
promise secrecy. The covering Godfrid Marescot had chosen for his ruin was
sacred, and would be respected.
    Fidelis
was standing in the archway of the cloister, watching the brothers as they
emerged, and looking with increasing concern for one who did not come.
    Late
from the orchard, the fruit-gatherers had been in haste for the evening office,
and he had not looked then for Humilis, supposing him to be already in the
church. But he was looking for him now. The straight, strong brows were drawn
together, the long lips taut in anxiety. Cadfael approached him as the last of
the brothers passed by, and the young man was turning to watch them go, almost
in disbelief.
    “Fidelis…”
The boy’s cowled head swung round to him in quick hope and understanding. It
was not good news he was expecting, but any was better than none. It was to be
seen in the set of his face. He had experienced all this more than once before.
    “Fidelis,
Brother Humilis is in his own bed in the dortoir. No call for alarm now, he’s
resting, his trouble is tended. He’s asking for you. Go to him.”
    The
boy looked quickly from Cadfael to Edmund, and back again, uncertain where
authority lay, and already braced to go striding away. If he could ask nothing
with his tongue, his eyes were eloquent enough, and Edmund understood them.
    “He’s
easy, and he’ll mend. You may go and come as you will in his service, and I
will see that you are excused other duties until we’re satisfied he does well,
and can be left. I will make that good with Prior Robert. Fetch, carry, ask,
according to need — if he has a wish, write it and it shall be fulfilled. But
as for his dressings, Brother Cadfael will attend to them.”
    There
was yet a question, more truly a demand, in the ardent eyes. Cadfael answered
it in quick reassurance. “No one else has been witness. No one else need be,
but for Father Abbot, who has a right to know what ails all his sons. You may
be content with that as Brother Humilis is content.”
    Fidelis
flushed and brightened for an instant, bowed his head, made that small open
gesture of his hands in submission and acceptance, and went from them swift and
silent, to climb the day stairs. How many times had he done quiet service at
the same sick-bed, alone and unaided? For if he had not grudged them being the
first on the scene this time, he had surely lamented it, and been uncertain at
first of their discretion.
    I’ll
go back before Compline,” said Cadfael “and see if he sleeps, or if he needs
another draught. And whether the young one has remembered to take food for
himself as well as for Humilis! Now I wonder where that boy can have learned
his medicine, if he’s been caring for Brother Humilis alone, down there in
Hyde?” It was plain the responsibility had not daunted him, nor could he have
failed in his endeavours. To have kept any life at all in that valiant wreck
was achievement enough.
    If
the boy had studied in the art of healing, he might make a good assistant in
the herbarium, and would be glad to learn more. It would be something in
common, a way in through the sealed door of his silence.
     
    Brother
Fidelis fetched and carried, fed, washed, shaved his patient, tended to all his
bodily needs, apparently in