Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many

everything about this young fellow you've discovered, for once across the road no one is going to hear us.'
    And on the way she did indeed pour out in her relief and eagerness what she could not have said so freely by daylight. It was not yet dark, but a fine neutral twilight in which they saw each other clear but without colours.
    'The bushes there are thick. I heard him stir and groan, and I went to look. He looks like a young gentleman of family, someone's squire. Yes, he talked to me, but - but told me nothing, it was like talking to a wilful child. So weak, and blood on his shoulder and arm, and making little jests ... But he trusted me enough to know I wouldn't betray him.' She skipped beside Cadfael through the tall stubble into which the abbey sheep would soon be turned to graze, and to fertilise the field with their droppings. 'I gave him what I had, and told him to lie still, and I would bring help as soon as it grew dusk.'
    'Now we're near, do you lead the way. You he'll know.' There was already starlight before the sun was gone, a lovely August light that would still last them, their eyes being accustomed, an hour or more, while veiling them from other eyes. Godith withdrew from Cadfael's clasp the hand that had clung like a child's through the stubble, and waded forward into the low, loose thicket of bushes. On their left hand, within a few yards of them, the river ran, dark and still, only the thrusting sound of its current like a low throb shaking the silence, and an occasional gleam of silver showing where its eddies swirled.
    'Hush! It's me - Ganymede! And a friend to us both!'
    In the sheltered dimness a darker form stirred, and raised into sight a pale oval of face and a tangled head of hair almost as pale. A hand was braced into the grass to thrust the half-seen stranger up from the ground. No broken bones there, thought Cadfael with satisfaction. The hard-drawn breath signalled stiffness and pain, but nothing mortal. A young, muted voice said: 'Good lad! Friends I surely need ...'
    Cadfael kneeled beside him and lent him a shoulder to lean against. 'First, before we move you, where's the damage? Nothing out of joint - by the look of you, nothing broken.' His hands were busy about the young man's body and limbs, he grunted cautious content.
    'Nothing but gashes,' muttered the boy laboriously, and gasped at a shrewd touch. 'I lost enough blood to betray me, but into the river ... And half-drowned ... they must think wholly ...' He relaxed with a great sigh, feeling how confidently he was handled.
    'Food and wine will put the blood back into you, in time. Can you rise and go?'
    'Yes,' said his patient grimly, and all but brought his careful supporters down with him, proving it.
    'No, let be, we can do better for you than that. Hold fast by me, and turn behind me. Now, your arms round my neck...'
    He was long, but a light weight. Cadfael stooped forward, hooked his thick arms round slim, muscular thighs, and shrugged the weight securely into balance on his solid back. The dank scent of the river water still hung about the. young man's clothing. 'I'm too great a load,' he fretted feebly. 'I could have walked ...'
    'You'll do as you're bid, and no argument. Godric, go before, and see there's no one in sight.'
    It was only a short way to the shadow of the mill. Its bulk loomed dark against the still lambent sky, the great round of the undershot wheel showing gaps here and there like breaks in a set of teeth. Godith heaved open the leaning door, and felt her way before them into gloom. Through narrow cracks in the floorboards on the left side she caught fleeting, spun gleams of the river water hurrying beneath. Even in this hot, dry season, lower than it had been for some years, the Severn flowed fast and still.
    'There'll be dry sacks in plenty piled somewhere by the landward wall,' puffed Cadfael at her back. 'Feel your way along and find them.' There was also a dusty, rustling layer of last harvest's chaff under their feet, sending up fine powder to tickle their noses. Godith groped her way to the corner, and spread sacks there in a thick, comfortable mattress, with two folded close for a pillow. 'Now take this long-legged heron of yours under the armpits, and help me ease him down... There, as good a bed as mine in the dortoir! Now close the door, before I make a light to see him by.'
    He had brought a good end of candle with him, and a handful of the dry chaff spread on a millstone made excellent