Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

acute stare, took him by the arm and turned him promptly towards the town. 'Come on then and save your breath to tell the tale but once. I'm earlier back than anyone will expect me, I can stretch my license an hour or two, for you and for Meriet.'
    So they were two who arrived at the house near Saint Mary's, where Hugh had settled his family. By luck he was home before supper, and free of his labours for the day. He haled them in warmly, and had wit enough not to offer Brother Mark respite or refreshment until he had heaved his whole anxiety off his narrow chest. Which he did very consideringly, measuring words. He stepped meticulously from fact to fact, as on sure stepping-stones through a perilous stream.
    'I called him round to me because I had seen that on the side of that stack where I was, and where the pile was burned out, the wind had carried fine ash right into the trees, and the near branches of the trees were scorched, the leaves browned and withered. I meant to call his attention to these things, for such a fire was no long time ago. Those were this year's leaves scorched brown, that was ash not many weeks old still showing grey. And he came readily, but as he came he held on to the rake and tugged it with him, to bring down the top of the stack, where it had not burned out. So he brought down a whole fall of wood and earth and leaves, and this thing rolled down between, at our feet.'
    'You saw it plainly,' said Hugh gently, 'tell us as plainly.'
    'It is a fashionable long-toed riding shoe,' said Mark steadily, 'shrunk and dried and twisted by fire, but not consumed. And in it a man's leg-bone, in the ashes of hose.'
    'You are in no doubt,' said Hugh, watching him with sympathy.
    'None. I saw projecting from the pile the round knee-joint from which the shin-bone had parted,' said Brother Mark, pale but tranquil. 'It so happened I saw it break away. I am sure the man is there. The fire broke through on the other side, a strong wind drove it, and left him, it may be, almost whole for Christian burial. At least we may collect his bones.'
    'That shall be done with all reverence,' said Hugh, 'if you are right. Go on, you have more to tell. Brother Meriet saw what you had seen. What then?'
    'He was utterly stricken and shocked. He had spoken of coming there as a child, and helping the old charcoal-burner. I am certain he knew of nothing worse there than what he remembered. I told him first we must get our people home undisturbed, and he did his part valiantly,' said Brother Mark, 'We have left all as we found it - or as we disturbed it unwitting. In the morning light I can show you the place.'
    'I think, rather,' said Hugh with deliberation, 'Meriet Aspley shall do that. But now you have told us what you had to tell, now you may sit down with me and eat and drink a morsel, while we consider this matter.'
    Brother Mark sat down obediently, sighing away the burden of his knowledge. Grateful for the humblest of hospitality, he was equally unawed by the noblest, and having no pride, he did not know how to be servile. When Aline herself brought him meat and drink, and the same for Cadfael, he received it gladly and simply, as saints accept alms, perpetually astonished and pleased, perpetually serene.
    'You said,' Hugh pressed him gently over the wine, 'that you had cause, in the blown ash and the scorching of the trees, to believe that the fire was of this season, and not from a year ago, and that I accept. Had you other reasons to think so?'
    'I had,' said Mark simply, 'for though we have brought home, to our gain, a whole cord of good coppice-wood, yet not far aside from ours there were two other flattened and whitened shapes in the grass, greener than the one we have now left, but still clear to be seen, which I think must have been bared when the wood was used for this stack. Meriet told me the logs must be left to season. These would have seasoned more than a year, dried out, it may be, too far for what was purposed. No one was left to watch the burning, and the over-dried wood burned through and burst into a blaze. You will see the shapes where the wood lay. You will judge better than I how long since it was moved.'
    'That I doubt,' said Hugh, smiling, 'for you seem to have done excellently well. But tomorrow we shall see. There are those can tell to a hair, by the burrowing insects and the spiders, and the tinder fringing the wood. Sit and take your ease awhile, before you must return, for there's nothing now