The Leper of Saint Giles by Ellis Peters Page B

done to Iveta. In the middle of his narration the controlling hand pressed his knee for silence and stillness, as the two mounted men passed by again towards the town. And when they were gone, the last echo of hooves lost along the road, he resumed as if the thread had never been broken.
    “And you have planned to hide yourself somewhere about the cloister,” mused the old man, at the end of it, “and burst forth to challenge your sometime lord to single combat, and so affront him that he shall not be able to deny you and keep his face?”
    “It is the only way I can see,” said Joscelin, though put in such clear terms, he did not think too well of its chances.
    “Then be in no haste about it,” said Lazarus, “until daylight comes, for a clapper-dish and a hood and veil can make you faceless and nameless as well as another. One thing I can tell you. Huon de Domville did not lie in his bed this night. He rode out beyond here, turning right from this road, and I have been here every moment since, and unless he knows of another way back, he has not returned. I think he must ride back by the same way he rode out, and until he passes this place, no bridegroom will present himself at the altar. Between us, you and I can make shift to watch for him. If he comes! But how if he never comes?”
    It was the strangest night Joscelin had ever passed, and the strangest dawn. Faint mist came with the light, and the rising sun peered through it overhead, while it lay in great swathes in the valley beyond the road. But no Huon de Domville came trotting back towards the bishop’s house.
    “Stay in hiding,” said Lazarus at length, “until I come back.” And he rose and went into the hospice, to return presently with a hooded cloak like his own, and a blue linen cloth for a veil. “You may creep out and put them on. If you are not afraid to wear the habit of a dead man? He is in the cemetery there. When they come to die here, they leave such clothing behind, there’s store enough within. The linen they burn, the habits they clean as best they can. A big man he must have been, you’ll find it ample enough.”
    Joscelin did all that he was bidden, like a child, or a man in so unpredictable a dream that he must rely on his guide. In such a state it no longer seemed strange that he should open his heart to a leper, accept the protection of the leper cloak, and let himself be led into the hospital where the unfortunates were housed, without conscious fear or revulsion. This was the hand that had been held out to him, and he gripped it warmly and gratefully. He did not even ask how he should pass among the inmates. Surely their number must be known, and he was too large to escape notice. Whether Lazarus had already spoken a word in several ears, or whether the poor know by instinct when one of their fellows is in need, and deploy their movements so subtly as to contain and dissemble him, all those men and women mustered about Joscelin and hid him among them as they assembled in the church for Prime.
    Round about him he saw all manner of maimings and disfigurements, and found himself possessed unexpectedly by an overwhelming and unaccustomed humility. Not for a long time had he paid such devout attention to the words of the office, or felt himself so truly drawn into a company at worship.
    As for the watch on the road, outside, Lazarus had confided it to the little boy Bran, who knew very well the appearance of the man for whom he was to watch. All was being done for Joscelin by others, and as at this moment there was no resistance he could offer, and no repayment he could make, but to bow his head fervently among the rest and give profound thanks for present mercies. And so he did.

 
     
    Chapter Five
     
    THEY HAD ROUSED IVETA EARLY, for she had an elaborate toilet to make. Agnes and Madlen bathed, dressed and adorned her, swept up the gold mane of her hair in a dozen shining braids, coiled it in a filigree net, and bound it in a