Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

Cadfael, no less than Joscelin Lucy. For here was Guimar de Massard's granddaughter, stripped of all her kin but these two who hedged her in like guardian dragons. And how could the last of the Massards be left to her fate, without a finger raised from all those who had known her grandfather, and reverenced his memory? As well abandon a comrade wounded and surrounded in battle.
    Brother Oswin crept diffidently to Cadfael's side in the warming-room. "Is the linctus already prepared, brother? The fault was mine, let me do something to make amends. I will rise early and bottle it for you. I have caused you such extra travail, I should make some repayment."
    He had caused more travail than he knew, and more perplexity of mind, but at least he had recalled Cadfael to the remembrance of his first duty here; after, of course, the observance of the rule.
    "No, no," said Cadfael hastily. "The boiling is very well, and it will cool overnight and thicken, after Prime is time enough before bottling. You are reader tomorrow, you must keep the offices strictly, and think only of your reading."
    And leave my brew alone, he thought, as he went to his cell and his prayers. It came clear to him suddenly how like were Brother Oswin's large hands to those of Joscelin Lucy, and yet how the one pair made a havoc of whatever they touched, and the other pair, for all their size, moved with delicate dexterity, whether on the reins of a speckled grey horse, or sword and lance, or circling the tender body of a heart-heavy girl.
    And with equal adroitness, thus driven, on the means of murder?
    Cadfael arose well before Prime next morning, and went to bottle his overnight brew, and take a measure of it to Brother Edmund at the infirmary. The day had dawned misty and mild, without wind. In the still air sounds were muted and movements softened, and the great court presented an ordinary picture of routine activities from Prime to breakfast, through the first Mass and the chapter that followed, on this occasion cut short and briskly conducted, there being so much following business to be seen to for the next day's marriage. There was therefore a rather longer interval left for relaxation before High Mass at ten, and Cadfael took the opportunity of returning to the herb-gardens, and earmarking for Brother Oswin's afternoon duty those tasks which seemed best proofed against his knack of well-intentioned devastation. Autumn was a good time, since there was digging to be done, to make the cleared ground ready for the operation of the frosts to come.
    Cadfael returned to the great court before ten o'clock, when brothers, pupils, guests and townsmen were beginning to gather for High Mass. The Picards were just issuing forth from the guest-hall, Iveta forlornly small and mute between uncle and aunt, but looking, or so Cadfael thought, resolutely composed, as though a faint, reviving wind had blown through the heavy stillness of her despair, and given her heart at least to hope for a miracle. The elderly maidservant, as forbidding of visage as Agnes herself, walked close behind. The child was hemmed in securely every way.
    They were moving at leisure towards the cloister and the south door, with Brother Denis the hospitaller in attendance, when the decorous quiet was rudely broken by a furious clatter of hooves at the gatehouse, and into the court galloped a rider on a speckled grey horse, at such headlong speed that he almost rode down the porter, and scattered the servants like hens before the fox. Reining round abruptly with great slithering of hooves on the moist cobbles, he flung the bridle on his horse's neck, and leaped down with flaxen hair erected and blue eyes blazing, to plant himself squarely in Godfrid Picard's path, feet spread and jaw jutting, a young man in a formidable rage.
    "My lord, it's you have done this thing to me! I am cast off from my service, thrown out without reason, without fault, with nothing but horse and saddle-bags, and ordered to quit this town before night. This in a moment, and no word of mine will be heard in excuse! And well I know to whom I owe the favour! You, you have complained of me to my lord, and got me turned off like a dog, and I will have satisfaction from you for the favour, man to man, before ever I turn my back on Shrewsbury!"
    Chapter Three
    Like a flung stone in a placid pool, this violent invasion cast out flurries of ripples in all directions, to beat against gatehouse and guest-hall and cloister.