Brother Cadfael's Penance (31 page)

The name of Philip FitzRobert had opened wide the reserved, chill grey eyes that had not warmed at mention of the Benedictine Order or the abbey of Shrewsbury. Whether he was loved here or hated, or simply suffered as an unavoidable complication, his father's hand was over him, and could open closed and guarded doors. Small blame to the house that kept a steely watch on its boundaries.

"I will call Brother Infirmarer," said the porter, and went to set about it within.

The infirmarer came bustling, a brisk, amiable man not much past thirty. He looked Cadfael up and down in one rapid glance, and nodded informed approval. "He said you might come. The young man described you well, brother, I should have known you among many. You are welcome here. He told us of the fate of La Musarderie, and what was threatened against this guest of ours."

"So they reached here in time," said Cadfael, and heaved a great sigh.

"In good time. A miller's cart brought them, but no miller drove it the last miles. A working man must see to his business and his family," said the infirmarer, "all the more if he has just risked more, perhaps, than was due from him. It seems there were no unseemly alarms. At any rate, the cart was returned, and all was quiet then."

"I trust it may remain so," said Cadfael fervently. "He is a good man."

"Thanks be to God, brother," said the infirmarer cheerfully, "there are still, as there always have been and always will be, more good men than evil in this world, and their cause will prevail."

"And Philip? He is alive?" He asked it with more constriction about his heart than he had expected, and held his breath.

"Alive and in his senses. Even mending, though that may be a slow recovery. But yes, he will live, he will be a whole man again. Come and see!"

Outside the partly drawn curtain that closed off one side cell from the infirmary ward sat a young canon of the order, very grave and dutiful, reading in a large book which lay open on his lap-desk. A hefty young man of mild countenance but impressive physique, whose head reared and whose eyes turned alertly at the sound of footsteps approaching. Beholding the infirmarer, with a second habited brother beside him, he immediately lowered his gaze again to his reading, his face impassive. Cadfael approved. The Augustinians were prepared to protect both their privileges and their patients.

"A mere precaution," said the infirmarer tranquilly. "Perhaps no longer necessary, but better to be certain."

"I doubt there'll be any pursuit now," said Cadfael.

"Nevertheless..." The infirmarer shrugged, and laid a hand to the curtain to draw it back. "Safe rather than sorry! Go in, brother. He is fully in his wits, he will know you."

Cadfael entered the cell, and the folds of the curtain swung closed behind him. The single bed in the narrow room had been raised, to make attendance on the patient in his helplessness easier. Philip lay propped with pillows, turned a little sidewise, sparing his broken ribs as they mended. His face, if paler and more drawn than in health, had a total and admirable serenity, eased of all tensions. Above the bandages that swathed his head wound, the black hair coiled and curved on his pillows as he turned his head to see who had entered. His eyes in their bluish hollows showed no surprise.

"Brother Cadfael!" His voice was quite strong and clear. "Yes, almost I expected you. But you had a dearer duty. Why are you not some miles on your way home? Was I worth the delay?"

To that Cadfael made no direct reply. He drew near the bed, and looked down with the glow of gratitude and content warming him. "Now that I see you man alive, I will make for home fast enough. They tell me you will mend as good as new."

"As good," agreed Philip with a wry smile. "No better! Father and son alike, you may have wasted your pains. Oh, never fear, I have no objection to being snatched out of a halter, even against my will, I shall not cry out against you, as he did: 'He has cheated me!' Sit by me, brother, now you are here. Some moments only. You see I shall do well enough, and your needs are elsewhere."

Cadfael sat down on the stool beside the bed. It brought their faces close, eye to eye in intent and searching study. "I see," said Cadfael, "that you know who brought you here."

"Once, just once and briefly, I opened my eyes on his face. In the cart, on the highroad. I was back in the dark before a word could be said, it may be he never knew. But yes, I know. Like father, like son. Well, you have taken seisin of my life between you. Now tell me what I am to do with it."

"It is still yours," said Cadfael. "Spend it as you see fit. I think you have as firm a grasp of it as most men."

"Ah, but this is not the life I had formerly. I consented to a death, you remember? What I have now is your gift, whether you like it or not, my friend. I have had time, these last days," said Philip quite gently, "to recall all that happened before I died. It was a hopeless cast," he said with deliberation, "to believe that turning from one nullity to the other could solve anything. Now that I have fought upon either side to no good end, I acknowledge my error. There is no salvation in either empress or king. So what have you in mind for me now, Brother Cadfael? Or what has Olivier de Bretagne in mind for me?"

"Or God, perhaps," said Cadfael.

"God, certainly! But he has his messengers among us, no doubt there will be omens for me to read." His smile was without irony. "I have exhausted my hopes of either side, here among princes. Where is there now for me to go?" He was not looking for an answer, not yet. Rising from this bed would be like birth to him; it would be time then to discover what to do with the gift. "Now, since there are other men in the world besides ourselves, tell me how things went, brother, after you had disposed of me."

And Cadfael composed himself comfortably on his stool, and told him how his garrison had fared, permitted to march out with their honour and their freedom, if not with their arms, and to take their wounded with them. Philip had bought back the lives of most of his men, even if the price, after all, had never been required of him. It had been offered in good faith.

Neither of them heard the flurry of hooves in the great court, or the ringing of harness, or rapid footsteps on the cobbles; the chamber was too deep within the enfolding walls for any forewarning to reach them. Not until the corridor without echoed hollowly to the tread of boots did Cadfael rear erect and break off in mid-sentence, momentarily alarmed. But no, the guardian outside the curtained doorway had not stirred. His view was clear to the end of the passage, and what he saw bearing down upon them gave him no disquiet. He simply rose to his feet and drew aside to give place to those who were approaching.

The curtain was abruptly swept back before the vigorous hand and glowing face of Olivier, Olivier with a shining, heraldic lustre upon him, that burned in silence and halted him on the threshold, his breath held in half elation and half dread at the bold thing he had undertaken. His eyes met Philip's, and clung in a hopeful stare, and a tentative smile curved his long mouth. He stepped aside, not entering the room, and drew the curtain fully back, and Philip looked beyond him.

For a moment it hung in the balance between triumph and repudiation, and then, though Philip lay still and silent, giving no sign, Olivier knew that he had not laboured in vain.

Cadfael rose and stepped back into the corner of the room as Robert, earl of Gloucester, came in. A quiet man always, squarely built, schooled to patience, even at this pass his face was composed and inexpressive as he approached the bed and looked down at his younger son. The capuchon hung in folds on his shoulders, and the dusting of grey in his thick brown hair and the twin streaks of silver in his short beard caught the remaining light in the room with a moist sheen of rain. He loosed the clasp of his cloak and shrugged it off, and drawing the stool closer to the bed, sat down as simply as if he had just come home to his own house, with no tensions or grievances to threaten his welcome.

"Sir," said Philip, with deliberate formality, his voice thin and distant, "your son and servant!"

The earl stooped, and kissed his son's cheek; nothing to disturb even the most fragile of calms, the simple kiss due between sire and son on greeting. And Cadfael, slipping silently past, walked out into the corridor and into his own son's exultant arms.

So now everything that had to be done here was completed. No man, nor even the empress, would dare touch what Robert of Gloucester had blessed. They drew each other away, content, into the court, and Cadfael reclaimed his horse from the stable, for in spite of the approaching dusk he felt himself bound to ride back some way before full darkness came, and find a simple lodging somewhere among the sheepfolds for the night hours.

"And I will ride with you," said Olivier, "for our ways are the same as far as Gloucester. We'll share the straw together in someone's loft. Or if we reach Winstone the miller will house us."

"I had thought," said Cadfael, marvelling, "that you were already in Gloucester with Ermina, as indeed you should be this moment."

"Oh, I did go to her, how could I not? I kissed her," said Olivier, "and she saw for herself I had come to no harm from any man, so she let me go where I was bound. I rode to find Robert at Hereford. And he came with me, as I knew he would come. Blood is blood, and there is no blood closer than theirs. And now it is done, and I can go home."

Two days they rode together, and two nights they slept close, rolled in their cloaks, the first night in a shepherd's hut near Bagendon, the second in the hospitable mill at Cowley; and the third day, early, they entered Gloucester. And in Gloucester they parted.

Yves would have reasoned and pleaded the good sense of resting here overnight and spending some precious hours with people who loved him. Olivier only looked at him, and awaited his judgement with resignation.

"No," said Cadfael, shaking his head ruefully, "for you home is here, yes, but not for me. I am already grossly in default. I dare not pile worse on bad. Do not ask me."

And Olivier did not ask. Instead, he rode with Cadfael to the northern edge of the city, where the road set off north-west for distant Leominster. There was a good half of the day left, and a placid grey sky with hardly a breath of wind. There could be a few miles gained before night.

"God forbid I should stand between you and what you need for your heart's comfort," said Olivier, "even if it tears mine to refrain. Only go safely, and fear nothing for me, ever. There will be a time. If you do not come to me, I shall come to you."

"If God please!" said Cadfael, and took his son's face between his hands, and kissed him. As how could God not be pleased by such as Olivier? If, indeed, there were any more such to be found in this world.

They had dismounted to take their brief farewells. Olivier held the stirrup for Cadfael to remount, and clung for a moment to the bridle. "Bless me to God, and go with God!"

Cadfael leaned down and marked a cross on the broad, smooth forehead. "Send me word," he said, "when my grandson is born."

Chapter Sixteen

The long road home unrolled laborious mile by mile, frustrating hour after hour and day after day. For winter, which had so far withheld its worst, with only a desultory veil of snow, soon melted and lost, began to manifest itself in capricious alternations of blinding snow and torrential rains, and roads flooded and fords ran too full to be passable without peril. It took him three days to reach Leominster, so many obstacles lay in the way and had to be negotiated, and there he felt obliged to stay over two nights at the priory to rest Hugh's horse.

From there things went somewhat more easily, if no more happily, for if the snow and frost withdrew, a fine drizzling rain persisted. Into the lands of Lacy and Mortimer, near Ludlow, he rode on the fourth day, and outlines he knew rose comfortingly before his eyes. But always the thread that drew him homeward tightened and tore painfully at his heart, and still there was no true faith in him that any place waited for him, there where alone he could be at peace.

I have sinned, he told himself every night before he slept. I have forsaken the house and the Order to which I swore stability. I have repudiated the ordinance of the abbot to whom I swore obedience. I have gone after my own desires, and no matter if those desires were devoted all to the deliverance of my son, it was sin to prefer them before the duty I had freely and gladly assumed as mine. And if it was all to do again, would I do otherwise than I have done? No, I would do the same. A thousand times over, I would do the same. And it would still be sin.

In our various degrees, we are all sinners. To acknowledge and accept that load is good. Perhaps even to acknowledge and accept it and not entertain either shame or regret may also be required of us. If we find we must still say: Yes, I would do the same again, we are making a judgement others may condemn. But how do we know that God will condemn it? His judgements are inscrutable. What will be said in the last day of Jovetta de Montors, who also made her judgement when she killed to avenge her son, for want of a father living to lift that load from her? She, also, set the heart's passion for its children before the law of the land or the commandments of the Church. And would she, too, say: I would do it again? Yes, surely she would. If the sin is one which, with all our will to do right, we cannot regret, can it truly be a sin?

It was too deep for him. He wrestled with it night after night until from very weariness sleep came. In the end there is nothing to be done but to state clearly what has been done, without shame or regret, and say: Here I am, and this is what I am. Now deal with me as you see fit. That is your right. Mine is to stand by the act, and pay the price.

You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple.

On the fifth day of his penitential journey he came into country familiar and dear, among the long hill ranges in the south and west of the shire, and perhaps should have made one more stay for rest, but he could not bear to halt when he was drawing so near, and pushed on even into the darkness. When he reached Saint Giles it was well past midnight, but by then his eyes were fully accustomed to the darkness, and the familiar shapes of hospital and church showed clear against the spacious field of the sky, free of clouds, hesitant on the edge of frost. He had no way of knowing the precise hour, but the immense silence belonged only to dead of night. With the cold of the small hours closing down, even the furtive creatures of the night had abandoned their nocturnal business to lie snug at home. He had the whole length of the Foregate to himself, and every step of it he saluted reverently as he passed.