then to my bed, and so should you. And tomorrow…”
“Tomorrow,” she said, rising to the touch of his hand, “we shall bury Nicholas. We! He was in some measure my friend, and I shall be there.”
“So you shall, my heart,” said Cadfael, yawning, and led her away in his arm to celebrate, with gratitude and grief and hope, the ending of the day.
Chapter Five
NICHOLAS FAINTREE WAS LAID, WITH DUE HONOURS, under a stone in the transept of the abbey church, an exceptional privilege. He was but one, after so many, and his singleness was matter for celebration, besides the fact that there was room within rather than without, and the labour involved was less. Abbot Heribert was increasingly disillusioned and depressed with all the affairs of this world, and welcomed a solitary guest who was not a symbol of civil war, but the victim of personal malice and ferocity. Against all the probabilities, in due course Nicholas might find himself a saint. He was mysterious, feloniously slain, young, to all appearances clean of heart and life, innocent of evil, the stuff of which martyrs are made.
Aline Seward was present at the funeral service, and had brought with her, intentionally or otherwise, Hugh Beringar. That young man made Cadfael increasingly uneasy. True, he was making no inimical move, nor showing any great diligence in his search for his affianced bride, if, indeed, he was in search of her at all. But there was something daunting in the very ease and impudence of his carriage, the small, sardonic turn of his lip, and the guileless clarity of the black eyes when they happened to encounter Cadfael’s. No doubt about it, thought Cadfael, I shall be happier when I’ve got the girl safely away from here, but in the meantime at least I can move her away from anywhere he’s likely to be.
The main orchards and vegetable gardens of the abbey were not within the precinct, but across the main road, stretched along the rich level beside the river, called the Gaye; and at the far end of this fertile reach there was a slightly higher field of corn. It lay almost opposite the castle, and no great distance from the king’s siege camp, and had suffered some damage during the siege; and though what remained had been ripe for cutting for almost a week, it had been too dangerous to attempt to get it in. Now that all was quiet, they were in haste to salvage a crop that could not be spared, and all hands possible were mustered to do the work in one day. The second of the abbey’s mills was at the end of the field, and because of the same dangers had been abandoned for the season, just when it was beginning to be needed, and had suffered damage which would keep it out of use until repairs could be undertaken.
“You go with the reapers,” said Cadfael to Godith. “My thumbs prick, and rightly or wrongly, I’d rather have you out of the enclave, if only for a day.”
“Without you?” said Godith, surprised.
“I must stay here and keep an eye on things. If anything threatens, I’ll be with you as fast as legs can go. But you’ll be well enough, no one is going to have leisure to look hard at you until that corn is in the barns. But stay by Brother Athanasius, he’s as blind as a mole, he wouldn’t know a stag from a hind. And take care how you swing a sickle, and don’t come back short of a foot!”
She went off quite happily among the crowd of reapers in the end, glad of an outing and a change of scene. She was not afraid. Not afraid enough, Cadfael considered censoriously, but then, she had an old fool here to do the fearing for her, just as she’d once had an old nurse, protective as a hen with one chick. He watched them out of the gate house and over the road towards the Gaye, and went back with a relieved sigh to his own labours in the inner gardens. He had not been long on his knees, weeding, when a cool, light voice behind him, almost as quiet as the steps he had not heard in the grass, said: “So this
“Tomorrow,” she said, rising to the touch of his hand, “we shall bury Nicholas. We! He was in some measure my friend, and I shall be there.”
“So you shall, my heart,” said Cadfael, yawning, and led her away in his arm to celebrate, with gratitude and grief and hope, the ending of the day.
Chapter Five
NICHOLAS FAINTREE WAS LAID, WITH DUE HONOURS, under a stone in the transept of the abbey church, an exceptional privilege. He was but one, after so many, and his singleness was matter for celebration, besides the fact that there was room within rather than without, and the labour involved was less. Abbot Heribert was increasingly disillusioned and depressed with all the affairs of this world, and welcomed a solitary guest who was not a symbol of civil war, but the victim of personal malice and ferocity. Against all the probabilities, in due course Nicholas might find himself a saint. He was mysterious, feloniously slain, young, to all appearances clean of heart and life, innocent of evil, the stuff of which martyrs are made.
Aline Seward was present at the funeral service, and had brought with her, intentionally or otherwise, Hugh Beringar. That young man made Cadfael increasingly uneasy. True, he was making no inimical move, nor showing any great diligence in his search for his affianced bride, if, indeed, he was in search of her at all. But there was something daunting in the very ease and impudence of his carriage, the small, sardonic turn of his lip, and the guileless clarity of the black eyes when they happened to encounter Cadfael’s. No doubt about it, thought Cadfael, I shall be happier when I’ve got the girl safely away from here, but in the meantime at least I can move her away from anywhere he’s likely to be.
The main orchards and vegetable gardens of the abbey were not within the precinct, but across the main road, stretched along the rich level beside the river, called the Gaye; and at the far end of this fertile reach there was a slightly higher field of corn. It lay almost opposite the castle, and no great distance from the king’s siege camp, and had suffered some damage during the siege; and though what remained had been ripe for cutting for almost a week, it had been too dangerous to attempt to get it in. Now that all was quiet, they were in haste to salvage a crop that could not be spared, and all hands possible were mustered to do the work in one day. The second of the abbey’s mills was at the end of the field, and because of the same dangers had been abandoned for the season, just when it was beginning to be needed, and had suffered damage which would keep it out of use until repairs could be undertaken.
“You go with the reapers,” said Cadfael to Godith. “My thumbs prick, and rightly or wrongly, I’d rather have you out of the enclave, if only for a day.”
“Without you?” said Godith, surprised.
“I must stay here and keep an eye on things. If anything threatens, I’ll be with you as fast as legs can go. But you’ll be well enough, no one is going to have leisure to look hard at you until that corn is in the barns. But stay by Brother Athanasius, he’s as blind as a mole, he wouldn’t know a stag from a hind. And take care how you swing a sickle, and don’t come back short of a foot!”
She went off quite happily among the crowd of reapers in the end, glad of an outing and a change of scene. She was not afraid. Not afraid enough, Cadfael considered censoriously, but then, she had an old fool here to do the fearing for her, just as she’d once had an old nurse, protective as a hen with one chick. He watched them out of the gate house and over the road towards the Gaye, and went back with a relieved sigh to his own labours in the inner gardens. He had not been long on his knees, weeding, when a cool, light voice behind him, almost as quiet as the steps he had not heard in the grass, said: “So this
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