Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

treads of the stairs to the hall in good time on the following morning, determined to greet Brother Cadfael when he came after breakfast with all the presence and assurance of a healthy old lady in full command of her household, even if she had to prepare her seat and surroundings in advance and keep her walking-stick handy. He knew that she was no such matter, and she knew that he knew it. She had a foot in the grave, and sometimes felt it sinking under her and drawing her in. But this was a final game they played together, in respect and admiration if not in love or even liking.
    Walter was off to his workshop with his son this morning. Juliana sat enthroned in her corner by the stairs, cushioned against the wall, eyeing them all, tolerant of all, content with none. Her long life, longer than any woman should be called upon to sustain, trailed behind her like a heavy bridal train dragging at the shoulders of a child bride, holding her back, weighing her down, making every step a burden.
    As soon as Rannilt had washed the few platters and set the bread-dough to rise, she brought some sewing to a stool in the hall doorway, to have the full light. A decent, drab brown gown, with a jagged tear above its hem. The girl was making a neat job of mending it. Her eyes were young. Juliana's were very old, but one part of her that had not mouldered. She could see the very stitches the maid put in, small and precise as they were.
    'Susanna's gown?' she said sharply. 'How did she come to get a rent like that? And the hems washed out too! In my day we made things last until they wore thin as cobweb before we thought of discarding them. No such husbandry these days. Rend and mend and throw away to the beggars! Spendthrifts all!'
    Plainly nothing was going to be right for the old woman today, she was determined to make her carping authority felt by everyone. It was better, on such days, to say nothing, or if answers were demanded, make them as short and submissive as possible.
    Rannilt was glad when Brother Cadfael came in through the passage with dressings in his scrip for the ulcer that was again threatening to erupt on the old woman's ankle. The thin, eroded skin parted at the least touch or graze. He found his patient reared erect and still in her corner, waiting for him, silent and thoughtful for once, but at his coming she roused herself to maintain, in the presence of this friendly enemy, her reputation for tartness, obstinacy and grim wit, and for taking always, with all her kin, the contrary way. Whoever said black, Juliana would say white.
    'You should keep this foot up,' said Cadfael, cleaning the small but ugly lesion with a pad of linen, and applying a new dressing. 'As you know very well, and have been told all too often. I wonder if I should not rather be telling you to stamp about upon it day-long - then you might do the opposite and let it heal.'
    'I kept my room yesterday,' she said shortly, 'and am heartily sick of it now. How do I know what they get up to behind my back while I'm shut away up there? Here at least I can see what goes on and speak up if I see cause - as I will, to the end of my days.'
    'Small doubt!' agreed Cadfael, rolling his bandage over the wound and finishing it neatly. 'I've never known you baulk your fancy yet, and never expect to. Now, how is it with your breathing? No more chest pains? No giddiness?'
    She would not have considered she had had her full dues unless she had indulged a few sharp complaints of a pain here, or a cramp there, and she did not grudge it that most of them he brushed away no less bluntly. It was all a means of beguiling the endless hours of the day that seemed so long in passing, but once past, rushed away out of mind like water slipping through the fingers.
    Rannilt finished her mending, and carried off the gown into Susanna's chamber, to put it away in the press; and presently Susanna came in from the kitchen and stopped to pass the time of day civilly with Cadfael, and enquire of him how he thought the old woman did, and whether she should continue to take the draught he had prescribed for her after her seizure.
    They were thus occupied when Daniel and Margery came in together from the shop. Side by side they entered, and there was something ceremonious in their approach, particularly in their silence, where they had certainly been talking together in low, intent tones on the threshold. They barely greeted Cadfael, not with any incivility, but rather as if their