Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

and a half hands high. The carver's hooded and veiled head was bent over a work of supererogation, gouging out from another fistful of wood the features of a recognizable child. Eyes unwarily bright and blue flashed a glance upwards now and then to study Bran, and sank again to the work in hand. In two whole hands, unblemished, smooth, sunburned, young. He had forgotten to be cautious.
    Brother Mark returned to his post confirmed in an allegiance for which he had no logical justification. The little head, already live before it had any shaping but in the face, had enlisted him beyond release.
    The afternoon passed so, the light faded to a point where artistry was no longer possible. Mark could not see his figures, which in any case were completed, and he was sure that Joscelin Lucy - he had a name, why not acknowledge it? - could not see to continue his carving, and must have abandoned or finished his little portrait of Bran. Just after the lamps were lighted within, the boy burst in, flourishing it for his tutor's approval with small, excited shrieks of joy.
    "Look! Look, Brother Mark! This is me! My friend made it."
    And it was he, no question, rough, baulked here and there by the obstinate grain of the wood and an inadequate knife, but lively, pert and pleased. But his friend who had made it had not followed him in.
    "Run," said Brother Mark, "run and show it to your mother, quickly. Give it to her, and she'll be so cheered - she's down today. She'll like it and praise it. You go and see!" And Bran nodded, and beamed, and went. Even his gait was becoming firmer and more gainly now he had a little more flesh on him and was eating regularly.
    Brother Mark rose and left his desk, as soon as the boy was gone. Outside the light was dimming but still day. Almost an hour yet to Vespers. There was no one sitting under the churchyard wall. Down the grassy slope to the verge of the highroad, without haste, as one taking the late air, Joscelin Lucy's tall, straight figure moved, paused at the roadside to see all empty, crossed, and slipped down to where the old man Lazarus still sat alone and aloof.
    Brother Mark forsook his desk, and followed at a discreet distance.
    Down there beneath Lazarus's tree there was a long pause. In the shadows two men stirred, there were words exchanged, but few; plainly those two understood each other very well. Out of the dimness where a hooded figure had stooped and vanished, another figure emerged, outlined against the pallidly luminous sky, tall, lissome, young, unshrouded and uncowled, in blessedly dark and plain clothing that melted away into shade as he moved. He leaned to the tree again. Mark thought that he stooped to a hand, since there was no cheek offered him. The kiss proper by rights between blood-kin was certainly given.
    The leper gown remained among the shades. Evidently he would not take the repute of Saint Giles with him into whatever peril he was going out to encounter. Joscelin Lucy, owner here of nothing in the world but what he was and what he wore, stepped out and dropped away down the slope with long, light strides, into the valley. Half an hour now to Vespers, and still dangerously light in the open.
    Brother Mark, determined now on his duty, made a wary circle round the old man's sheltering tree, and followed. Down the steep slope, a light, springy leap over the mill leat for Joscelin, a more awkward and ungainly jump for Mark, and on to the brook. Gleams of light flashed out of the stony bed. Mark got his sandalled feet wet, his vision uncertain in this light, but made the further shore without more damage, and set off along the brookside meadows with the tall young figure still in view.
    Halfway along the floor of the valley towards the abbey gardens, Joscelin drew off from the brook into the fringes of woodland and copse that closed in on the meadows. Faithfully Brother Mark followed, slipping from tree to tree, his eyes growing accustomed now to the fading light, so that it did not seem to fade at all, but remained constant and limpid, free as yet of the nightly mist. Looking to his right, Mark could see clearly the outlines of his monastery against the last rosy light of the sunset, roofs and towers and walls, looming above the brook, the serene rise of the pease-fields, and the walls and hedges of the enclosed gardens beyond.
    The twilight came; even on the open sward colours put on their final lucent glow before the dusk washed them all into soft shades of