Brother Cadfael 03: Monk's Hood

wooden tray laden with covered dishes. Guests enjoyed a more relaxed diet than the brothers, though it did not differ greatly except in the amount of meat, and at this time of year that would already be salt beef. To judge by the aroma that wafted from the tray as it passed, beef boiled with onions, and served with a dish of beans. The small covered bowl balanced on top had a much more appetising smell. Evidently the newcomer was to enjoy an intermissum today, before coming to the apples from the orchard. Aelfric carried his burden, which must be quite heavy, with a careful concentration, bent on getting it safely and quickly to the house by the pond. It was not a long journey, out at the gatehouse, a short step to the left, to the limits of the monastery wall, then past the mill-pond on the left, and the first house beyond was Aelfric's destination. Beyond, again, came the bridge over the Severn, and the wall and gate of Shrewsbury. Not far, but far enough in December for food to get cold. No doubt the household, though relieved of the need to do much cooking, had its own fire and hob, and pans and dishes enough, and the fuel was a part of the price of Bonel's manor.
    Cadfael went on to the refectory, and his own dinner, which turned out to be boiled beef and beans, as he had foreseen. No savoury intermissum here. Brother Richard, the sub-prior, presided; Prior Robert ate privately in the lodging he already thought of as his own. The partridge was excellent.
    They had reached the grace after meat, and were rising from table, when the door flew open almost in Brother Richard's face, and a lay brother from the porter's lodge burst in, babbling incoherently for Brother Edmund, but too short of breath from running to explain the need.
    "Master Bonel - his serving-maid has come running for help ..." He gulped breath deep, and suppressed his panting long enough to get out clearly: "He's taken terribly ill, she said he looks at death's door ... the mistress begs someone to come to him quickly!"
    Brother Edmund gripped him by the arm. "What ails him? Is it a stroke? A convulsion?"
    "No, from what the girl said, not that. He ate his dinner, and seemed well and well content, and not a quarter of an hour after he was taken with tingling of the mouth and throat, and then willed to vomit, but could not, and lips and neck are grown stiff and hard ... So she said!"
    By the sound of it, she was a good witness, too, thought Cadfael, already making for the door and his workshop at a purposeful trot. "Go before, Edmund, I'll join you as fast as I may. I'll bring what may be needed."
    He ran, and Edmund ran, and behind Brother Edmund the messenger scuttled breathlessly towards the gatehouse, and the agitated girl waiting there. Prickling of the lips, mouth and throat, Cadfael was reckoning as he ran, tingling and then rigidity, and urgent need, but little ability, to rid himself of whatever it was he had consumed. And a quarter of an hour since he got it down, more by now, if it was in the dinner he had eaten. It might be late to give him the mustard that would make him sick, but it must be tried. Though surely this was merely an attack of illness from some normal disagreement between an indisposed man and his perfectly wholesome food, nothing else was possible. But then, that prickling of the flesh of mouth and throat, and the stiffness following ... that sounded all too like at least one violent illness he had witnessed, which had almost proved fatal; and the cause of that he knew. Hurriedly he snatched from the shelves the preparations he wanted, and ran for the gatehouse.
    For all the chill of the December day, the door of the first house beyond the mill-pond stood wide, and for all the awed quietness that hung about it, a quivering of agitation and confusion seemed to well out at the doorway to meet him, an almost silent panic of fluttering movements and hushed voices. A good house, with three rooms and the kitchen, and a small garden behind, running down to the pond; he knew it well enough, having visited a previous inmate upon less desperate business. The kitchen door faced away from the pond, towards the prospect of Shrewsbury beyond the river, and the north light at this time of day and year made the interior dim, although the window that looked out southwards stood unshuttered to let in light and air upon the brazier that did duty as all the cooking facilities such pensioners needed. He caught the grey gleam of a reflection