Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many

with his tail in his mouth.
    Cadfael let the others go on through the gates, and halted to say a word to the crippled man. 'Well, how have you been since last I saw you by the king's guard-post? You have a better place here.'
    'I remember you,' said Osbern, looking up at him with eyes remarkably clear and innocent, in a face otherwise as misshapen as his body. 'You are the brother who brought me the cloak.'
    'And has it done you good service?'
    'It has, and I have prayed for the lady, as you asked. But, brother, it troubles me, too. Surely the man who wore it before me is dead. Is it so?'
    'He is,' said Cadfael, 'but that should not trouble you. The lady who sent it to you is his sister, and trust me, her giving blesses the gift. Wear it, and take comfort.'
    He would have walked on then, but a hasty hand caught at the skirt of his habit, and Osbern besought him pleadingly: 'But, brother, I go in dread that I bear some guilt. For I saw the man, living, with this cloak about him, hale as I...'
    'You saw him?' echoed Cadfael on a soundless breath, but the anxious voice had ridden over him and rushed on.
    'It was in the night, and I was cold, and I thought to myself, I wish the good God would send me such a cloak to keep me warm! Brother, thought is also prayer! And no more than three days later God did indeed send me this very cloak. You dropped it into my arms! How can I be at peace? The young man gave me a groat that night, and asked me to say a prayer for him on the morrow, and so I did. But how if my first prayer made the second of none effect? How if I have prayed a man into his grave to get myself a cloak to wear?'
    Cadfael stood gazing at him amazed and mute, feeling the chill of ice flow down his spine. The man was sane, clear of mind and eye, he knew very well what he was saying, and his trouble of heart was real and deep, and must be the first consideration, whatever else followed.
    'Put all such thoughts out of your mind, friend,' said Cadfael firmly, 'for only the devil can have sent them. If God gave you the thing for which you wished, it was to save one morsel of good out of a great evil for which you are no way to blame. Surely your prayers for the former wearer are of aid even now to his soul. This young man was one of FitzAlan's garrison here, done to death after the castle fell, at the king's orders. You need have no fears, his death is not at your door, and no sacrifice of yours could have saved him.'
    Osbern's uplifted face eased and brightened, but still he shook his head, bewildered. 'FitzAlan's man? But how could that be, when I saw him enter and leave the king's camp?'
    'You saw him? You are sure? How do you know this is the same cloak?'
    'Why, by this clasp at the throat. I saw it clearly in the firelight when he gave me the groat.'
    He could not be mistaken, then, there surely were not two such designs exactly alike, and Cadfael himself had seen its match on the buckle of Giles Siward's sword-belt.
    'When was it that you saw him?' he asked gently. 'Tell me how it befell.'
    'It was the night before the assault, around midnight. I had my place then close to the guard-post for the sake of the fire, and I saw him come, not openly, but like a shadow, among the bushes. He stood when they challenged him, and asked to be taken to their officer, for he had something to tell, to the king's advantage. He kept his face hidden, but he was young. And afraid! But who was not afraid, then? They took him away within, and afterwards I saw him return, and they let him out. He said he had orders to go back, for there must be no suspicion. That was all I heard. He was in better heart then, not so frightened, so I asked him for alms, and he gave, and asked my prayers in return. Say some prayer for me tomorrow, he said - and on the morrow, you tell me, he died! This I'm sure of, when he left me he was not expecting to die.'
    'No,' said Cadfael, sick with pity and grief for all poor, frightened, breakable men, 'surely he was not. None of us knows the day. But pray for him you may, and your prayers will benefit his soul. Put off all thought that ever you did him harm, it is not so. You never wished him ill, God hears the heart. Never wished him any, never did him any.'
    He left Osbern reassured and comforted, but went on into the castle carrying with him the load of discomfort and depression the lame man had shed. So it always is, he thought, to relieve another you must burden yourself. And such a burden! He remembered