Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

never learn, and the few wise men among those who follow never quite avail to teach. But faith given and allegiance pledged are stronger than fear, thought Cadfael, and that, perhaps, is virtue, even in the teeth of death. Death, after all, is the common expectation from birth. Neither heroes nor cowards can escape it.
    'He's sent no word ahead,' he asked, 'of how the day went?'
    'None. But the rumour is it did not go well.' She said it firmly and freely, putting back with a small hand the pale gold hair from her forehead. A slender girl, still only twenty, one years old and mother of a year, old son and as fair as her husband was black, avised. The shy manner of her girlhood years had matured into a gentle dignity. 'This is a very wanton tide that flows and carries us all, here in England,' she said. 'It cannot always run one way, there must be an ebb.' She was brisk and practical about it, whatever that firm face cost her. 'You haven't eaten, you can't have stayed for supper,' she said, the housewife complete. 'Sit there and nurse your godson a little while, and I'll bring you meat and ale.' The infant Giles, formidably tall for a year old when he was reared erect by holding to benches and trestles and chests to keep his balance, made his way carefully but with astonishing rapidity round the room to the stool by the fireside, and clambered unaided into Cadfael's rusty black lap. He had a flow of words, mostly of his own invention, though now and then a sound made sudden adult sense. His mother talked to him much, so did her woman Constance, his devoted slave, and this egg of the nobility listened and made voluble response. Of lordly scholars, thought Cadfael, rounding his arms to cradle the solid weight comfortably, we can never have too many. Whether he takes to the church or the sword, he'll never be the worse for a quick and ready mind. Like a pair of hound puppies nursed in the lap, Hugh's heir gave off glowing warmth, and the baked, bread scent of young and untainted flesh.
    'He won't sleep,' said Aline, coming with a wooden tray to set it on the chest close to the fire, 'for he knows there's something in the wind. Never ask me how, I've said no word to him, but he knows. There, give him to me now, and take your meal. We may have a long wait, for they'll see all provided at the castle before ever Hugh comes to me.'
    It was more than an hour before Hugh came. By then Constance had whisked away the remains of Cadfael's supper, and carried off a drooping princeling, who could not keep his eyes open any longer for all his contrivances, but slept in sprawled abandon in her arms as she lifted him. For all Cadfael's sharp hearing, it was Aline who first pricked up her head and rose, catching the light footsteps in the doorway. Her radiant smile faltered suddenly, for the feet trod haltingly.
    'He's hurt!'
    'Stiff from a long ride,' said Cadfael quickly. 'His legs serve him. Go, run, whatever's amiss will mend.'
    She ran, and Hugh entered into her arms. As soon as she had viewed him from head to foot, weary and weather, stained as he was, and found him whole, whatever lesser injuries he might be carrying, she became demure, brisk and calm, and would make no extravagant show of anxiety, though she watched him every moment from behind the fair shield of her wifely face. A small man, lightly built, not much taller than his wife, black haired, black browed. His movements lacked their usual supple ease, and no wonder after so long in the saddle, and his grin was brief and wry as he kissed his wife, drove a fist warmly into Cadfael's shoulder, and dropped with a great, hoarse sigh on to the cushioned bench beside the fire, stretching out his booted feet gingerly, the right decidedly with some pain. Cadfael kneeled, and eased off the stiff, ice, rimmed boots that dripped melting rivulets into the rushes.
    'Good Christian soul!' said Hugh, leaning to clap a hand on his friend's tonsure. 'I could never have reached them myself. God, but I'm weary! No matter, that's the first need met, they're home and so am I.'
    Constance came sailing in with food and a hot posset of wine, Aline with his gown and to rid him of his leather coat. He had ridden light the last stages, shedding his mail. He scrubbed with both hands at cheeks stiffened from the cold, twitched his shoulders pleasurably in the warmth of the fire, and drew in a great, easing breath. They watched him eat and drink with hardly a word spoken. Even the voice stiffens and