An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters

They were men penned in, the
raiding party, they sought any place of hiding they could find, surely, and
slammed to the door. But the end was the same, whoever tossed in the
firebrands. The abbey’s laid waste. Sorry I am to say it.”
    “And
the women…? Oh, God… Julian’s there… Is there any word of the women?”
    “They’d
taken to the church for sanctuary,” said Hugh. In such civil warfare there were
no sanctuaries, not even for women and children. “The remnant of the raiders
surrendered — most may have come out alive. All, I doubt.”
    Nicholas
turned blindly to grope for his bridle, plucking his sleeve out of the
quivering hand Humilis had laid on his arm. “Let me away! I must go… I must go
there and find her.” He swung back to catch again briefly at the older man’s
hand and wring it hard. “I will find her! If she lives I’ll find her, and see
her safe.” He found his stirrup and heaved himself into the saddle.
    “If
God’s with you, send me word,” said Humilis. “Let me know that she lives and is
safe.”
    “I
will, my lord, surely I will.”
    “Don’t
trouble her, don’t speak to her of me. No questions! All I need, all you must
ask, is to know that God has preserved her,” and that she has the life she
wanted. There’ll be a place elsewhere for her, with other sisters. If only she
still lives!”
    Nicholas
nodded mutely, shook himself out of his daze with a great heave, wheeled his
horse, and was gone, out through the gatehouse without another word or a look
behind. They were left gazing after him, as the light dust of his passing
shimmered and settled under the arch of the gate, where the cobbles ended, and
the beaten earth of the Foregate began.
     
    All
that day Humilis seemed to Cadfael to press his own powers to the limit, as
though the stress that drove Nicholas headlong south took its toll here in
enforced stillness and inaction, where the heart would rather have been riding
with the boy, at whatever cost. And all that day Fidelis, turning his back even
on Rhun, shadowed Humilis with a special and grievous solicitude, tenderness
and anxiety, as though he had just realised that death stood no great distance
away, and advanced one gentle step with every hour that passed.
    Humilis
went to his bed immediately after Compline, and Cadfael, looking in on him ten
minutes later, found him already asleep, and left him undisturbed accordingly.
It was not a festering wound and a maimed body that troubled Humilis now, but
an obscure feeling of guilt towards the girl who might, had he married her,
have been safe in some manor far remote from Winchester and Wherwell and the
clash of arms, instead of driven by fire and slaughter even out of her chosen
cloister. Sleep could do more for his grieving mind than the changing of a dressing
could do now for his body. Sleeping, he had the hieratic calm of a figure
already carved on a tomb. He was at peace. Cadfael went quietly away and left
him, as Fidelis must have left him, to rest the better alone.
    In
the sweet-scented twilight Cadfael went to pay his usual nightly visit to his
workshop, to make sure all was well there, and stir a brew he had standing to
cool overnight. Sometimes, when the nights were so fresh after the heat of the
day, the skies so full of stars and so infinitely lofty, and every flower and
leaf suddenly so imbued with its own lambent colour and light in despite of the
light’s departure, he felt it to be a great waste of the gifts of God to be
going to bed and shutting his eyes to them. There had been illicit nights of venturing
abroad in the past — he trusted for good enough reasons, but did not probe too
deeply. Hugh had had his part in them, too. Ah, well!
    Making
his way back with some reluctance, he went in by the church to the night
stairs. All the shapes within the vast stone ship showed dimly by the small
altar lamps. Cadfael never passed through without