An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page A

perfect content so to serve day and night, if
Humilis had not ordered him away sometimes into the open air, or to rest in his
own cell, or to attend the offices of the church on behalf of both of them; as
within two days of slow recovery Humilis increasingly did order, and was
obeyed. The broken wound was healing, its lips no longer wet and limp, but
drawing together gradually under the plasters of freshly-bruised leaves.
Fidelis witnessed the slow improvement, and was glad and grateful, and assisted
without revulsion as the dressings were changed. This maimed body was no secret
from him.
    A
favoured family servant? A natural son, as Edmund had hazarded? Or simply a
devout young brother of the Order who had fallen under the spell of a charm and
nobility all the more irresistible because it was dying? Cadfael could not
choose but speculate. The young can be wildly generous, giving away their years
and their youth for love, without thought of any gain.
    “You
wonder about him,” said Humilis from his pillow, when Cadfael was changing his
dressing in the early morning, and Fidelis had been sent down with the brothers
to Prime.
    “Yes,”
said Cadfael honestly.
    “But
you don’t ask. Neither have I asked anything. My future,” said Humilis
reflectively, “I left in Palestine. What remained of me I gave to God, and I
trust the offering was not all worthless. My novitiate, clipped though it was
because of my state, was barely ending when he entered Hyde. I have had good
cause to thank God for him.”
    “No
easy matter,” said Cadfael, musing, “for a dumb man to vouch for himself and
make known his vocation. Had he some elder to speak for him?”
    “He
had written his plea, how his father was old, and would be glad to see his sons
settled, and while his elder brother had the lands, he, the younger, wished to
choose the cloister. He brought an endowment with him, but it was his fine hand
and his scholarship chiefly commended him. I know no more of him,” said
Humilis, “except what I have learned from him in silence, and that is enough.
To me he has been all the sons I shall never father.”
    “I
have wondered,” said Cadfael, drawing the clean linen carefully over the
newly-knit wound, “about his dumbness. Is it possible that it stems only from
some malformation in the tongue? For plainly he is not deaf, to blot out speech
from his knowledge. He hears keenly. I have usually found the two go together,
but not in him. He learns by ear, and is quick to learn. He was taught, as you
say, a fine hand. If I had him with me always among the herbs I could teach him
all the years have taught me.”
    “I
ask no questions of him, he asks none of me,” said Humilis. “God knows I ought
to send him away from me, to a better service than nursing and comforting my
too early corruption. He’s young, he should be in the sun. But I am too craven
to do it. If he goes, I will not hold him, but I have not the courage to
dismiss him. And while he stays, I never cease to thank God for him.”
     
    August
pursued its unshadowed course, without a cloud, and the harvest filled the
barns. Brother Rhun missed his new companion from the gardens and the garth,
where the roses burst open daily in the noon and faded by night from the heat.
The grapes trained along the north wall of the enclosed garden swelled and
changed colour. And far south, in ravaged Winchester, the queen’s army closed
round the sometime besiegers, severed the roads by which supplies might come
in, and began to starve the town. But news from the south was sparse, and
travellers few, and here the unbiddable fruit was ripening early.
    Of
all the cheerful workers in that harvest, Rhun was the blithest. Less than
three months ago he had been lame and in pain, now he went in joyous vigour,
and could not have enough of his own happy body, or put it to sufficient
labours to testify to his gratitude. He had no learning as yet,