Master William.
“You
are sure, brother? He has regained his senses? He has spoken? His mind is
clear?”
Patiently
Cadfael repeated his reassurances.
“But
such villainy! Has he been able to help the sheriff’s men? Did he see his
attacker? Has he any notion who it could have been?”
“Not
that, no. Never a glimpse, he was struck from behind, and knew no more until he
came to this morning in the infirmary. He’s no help to the law, I fear. It was
not to be expected.”
“But
he himself will be well and strong again?”
“As
ever he was, and before long, too.”
“Thank
God, brother!” said Jacob fervently, and went away satisfied to his accounts.
For even with the town rents lost, there was still bookwork to be done on what
remained.
More
surprising it seemed to be stopped on the way to the dortoir by Warin Harefoot,
the haberdasher, with a very civil enquiry after the steward’s health. Warin
did not presume to display the agitation of a favoured colleague like Jacob,
but rather the mannerly sympathy of a humble guest of the house, and the
law-abiding citizen’s indignation at evil-doing, and desire that justice should
pursue the evildoer. Had his honour been able to put a name or a face to his
attacker? A great pity! Yet justice, he hoped, might still be done. And would
there should any man be so fortunate as to trace the missing satchel with its
treasure would there be a small reward for such a service? To an honest man who
restored it, Cadfael thought, there well might. Warin went off to his day’s
peddling in Shrewsbury, humping his heavy pack. The back view of him, for some
reason, looked both purposeful and jaunty.
But
the strangest and most disturbing enquirer made, in fact, no enquiry, but came
silently in, as Cadfael was paying another brief visit to the infirmary in the
early afternoon, after catching up with some of his lost sleep. Brother
Eutropius stood motionless and intent at the foot of the steward’s bed, staring
down with great hollow eyes in a face like a stone mask. He gave never a glance
to Cadfael. All he regarded was the sleeping man, now so placid and eased for
all his bandaged head, a man back from the river, back from the grave. He stood
there for a long time, his lips moving on inaudible formulae of prayer Suddenly
he shuddered, like someone waking from a trance, and crossed himself, and went
away as silently as he had come.
Cadfael
was so concerned at his manner and his closed face that he went out after him,
no less quietly, and followed him at a distance through the cloisters and into
the church.
Brother
Eutropius was on his knees before the high altar, his marble face upraised over
clasped hands. His eyelids were closed, but the dark lashes glittered. A
handsome, agonised man of thirty, with a strong body and a fierce, tormented
heart, his lips framing silently but readably in the altar-light. “Mea culpa...
maxima mea culpa...”
Cadfael
would have liked to pierce the distance and the ice between, but it was not the
time. He went away quietly, and left Brother Eutropius to the remnant of his
disrupted solitude, for whatever had happened to him, the shell was cracked and
disintegrating, and never again would he be able to reassemble it about him.
Cadfael
went into the town before Vespers, to call upon Mistress Rede, and take her the
latest good word of her man. It was by chance that he met the sergeant at the
High Cross, and stopped to exchange news. It had been a routine precaution to
round up a few of the best-known rogues in Shrewsbury, and make them account
for their movements the previous day, but that had yielded nothing. Eddi’s
fellow-marksmen at the butts under the town wall had sworn to his story
willingly, but seeing they were all his cronies from boyhood, that meant little
enough. The one new thing, and it marked the exact spot of the attack past
question, was the discovery in the passage above the
“You
are sure, brother? He has regained his senses? He has spoken? His mind is
clear?”
Patiently
Cadfael repeated his reassurances.
“But
such villainy! Has he been able to help the sheriff’s men? Did he see his
attacker? Has he any notion who it could have been?”
“Not
that, no. Never a glimpse, he was struck from behind, and knew no more until he
came to this morning in the infirmary. He’s no help to the law, I fear. It was
not to be expected.”
“But
he himself will be well and strong again?”
“As
ever he was, and before long, too.”
“Thank
God, brother!” said Jacob fervently, and went away satisfied to his accounts.
For even with the town rents lost, there was still bookwork to be done on what
remained.
More
surprising it seemed to be stopped on the way to the dortoir by Warin Harefoot,
the haberdasher, with a very civil enquiry after the steward’s health. Warin
did not presume to display the agitation of a favoured colleague like Jacob,
but rather the mannerly sympathy of a humble guest of the house, and the
law-abiding citizen’s indignation at evil-doing, and desire that justice should
pursue the evildoer. Had his honour been able to put a name or a face to his
attacker? A great pity! Yet justice, he hoped, might still be done. And would
there should any man be so fortunate as to trace the missing satchel with its
treasure would there be a small reward for such a service? To an honest man who
restored it, Cadfael thought, there well might. Warin went off to his day’s
peddling in Shrewsbury, humping his heavy pack. The back view of him, for some
reason, looked both purposeful and jaunty.
But
the strangest and most disturbing enquirer made, in fact, no enquiry, but came
silently in, as Cadfael was paying another brief visit to the infirmary in the
early afternoon, after catching up with some of his lost sleep. Brother
Eutropius stood motionless and intent at the foot of the steward’s bed, staring
down with great hollow eyes in a face like a stone mask. He gave never a glance
to Cadfael. All he regarded was the sleeping man, now so placid and eased for
all his bandaged head, a man back from the river, back from the grave. He stood
there for a long time, his lips moving on inaudible formulae of prayer Suddenly
he shuddered, like someone waking from a trance, and crossed himself, and went
away as silently as he had come.
Cadfael
was so concerned at his manner and his closed face that he went out after him,
no less quietly, and followed him at a distance through the cloisters and into
the church.
Brother
Eutropius was on his knees before the high altar, his marble face upraised over
clasped hands. His eyelids were closed, but the dark lashes glittered. A
handsome, agonised man of thirty, with a strong body and a fierce, tormented
heart, his lips framing silently but readably in the altar-light. “Mea culpa...
maxima mea culpa...”
Cadfael
would have liked to pierce the distance and the ice between, but it was not the
time. He went away quietly, and left Brother Eutropius to the remnant of his
disrupted solitude, for whatever had happened to him, the shell was cracked and
disintegrating, and never again would he be able to reassemble it about him.
Cadfael
went into the town before Vespers, to call upon Mistress Rede, and take her the
latest good word of her man. It was by chance that he met the sergeant at the
High Cross, and stopped to exchange news. It had been a routine precaution to
round up a few of the best-known rogues in Shrewsbury, and make them account
for their movements the previous day, but that had yielded nothing. Eddi’s
fellow-marksmen at the butts under the town wall had sworn to his story
willingly, but seeing they were all his cronies from boyhood, that meant little
enough. The one new thing, and it marked the exact spot of the attack past
question, was the discovery in the passage above the
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