Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

the most respectable of housewives might, after her man was dead, recalling quiet, domestic affection, customary and unexciting.
    "And when you heard of his death," said Cadfael, "you thought best to withdraw from the scene? Did they tell you it was murder?"
    "By the afternoon of that day it was common knowledge," she said. "I had no part in it, I had no means of guessing who had done such a thing. I was not afraid, if that's what you may be thinking, Brother Cadfael. I never yet did anything out of fear."
    She said it quite simply and practically, and he believed her. He would have gone further, and sworn that in her whole life she had never experienced fear. She spoke the very word with a kind of mild curiosity, as if she put her hand into a fleece to judge its weight and fineness.
    "No, not fear - reluctance, rather, to play a part in any notorious or public thing. I have been discreet more than twenty years, to become a byword now is something I could not stomach. And when a thing is ended, why delay? I could not bring him back. That was ended. And I am forty-four years old, with some experience of the world. As I think," she said, eyeing him steadily, and the dimple coming and vanishing in her cheek, "you also can claim, brother. For I think I do not surprise you as much as I had expected."
    "As at this time," said Cadfael, "I cannot conceive of any man whom you would not surprise. But yes, I have been abroad in the world before I took this cowl of mine. Would it be foolish in me to suppose that it was your gift of astonishment that took Huon de Domville's fancy in the first place?"
    "If you'll believe me," said Avice, sitting back with a sigh, and folding plump, homely hands upon a rounding stomach, "I hardly remember now. I do know that I had wit enough and gall enough to take the best that offered a wench of my birth, and pay for it without grudging. I still have both the wit and the gall, I take the best of what is offered a woman of my years and history."
    She had said far more than was in the words, and knew very well that he had understood all of it. She had recognized instantly the end of one career. Too old now to make a success of another such liaison, too wise to want one, perhaps too loyal even to consider one, after so many years, she had cast about her for something to do now with her powers and energies. Too late, with her past, to contemplate an ordinary marriage. What is left for such a woman?
    "You are right," said Avice, relaxed and easy. "I made good use of my time while I waited for Huon, as often I have waited, weeks together. I am lettered and numerate, I have many skills. I need to use what I know, and make use of what I can do. My beauty is no longer with me, and never was remarkable, no one is likely to want or pay for it now. I suited Huon, he was accustomed to me. I was his feather-bed when other women had plagued and tired him."
    "You loved him?" asked Cadfael, for her manner with him was such that it was no intrusion to put such a question. And she considered it seriously.
    "No, it could not be said that I loved him, that was not what he required. After all these years, certainly there was a fondness, a habit that sat well with us both, and did not abrade. Sometimes we did not even couple," confided the postulant nun thoughtfully. "We just sat and drank wine together, played chess, which he taught me, listened to minstrels. Nodded over my embroidery and his wine, one either side the fire. Sometimes we did not even kiss or touch, though we slept snugly in the same bed."
    Like an old, married lord and his plain, pleasant old wife. But that was over, and she was one who acknowledged the realities. She had sincerely regretted her dead companion, even while she was thinking hard, and rubbing her hands in anticipation of getting to work upon a new and different enterprise. So much intelligent life must go somewhere, find some channel it can use. The ways of youth had closed, but there were other ways.
    "Yet he came to you," said Cadfael, "on his wedding eve." And the bride, he thought but did not say, is eighteen years old, beautiful, submissive, and has great possessions.
    She leaned forward to the table, her face mild and inward-looking, as though she examined honestly the workings of the human spirit, so obdurate and yet so given to conformity.
    "Yes, he came. It was the first time since we came to Shrewsbury, and it turned out the last time of all. His wedding eve ... Yes, marriage is