Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

into a tight, wary pallor, and his eyes to dilate in sudden bright green like stormy sunlight through June leaves. 'Cristina sends to tell you, by me, that she has spoken with her father and with yours and soon, by consent, she will be her own woman to give herself where she will. And she will give herself to none but you.' An abrupt and blinding flood drowned the green and sent the sunlight sparkling in sudden fountains, and Eliud's good left hand groped lamely after anything human he might hold by for comfort, closed hungrily on the hand Cadfael offered, and drew it down against his quivering face, and lower into the bed, against his frantically beating heart. Cadfael let him alone thus for some moments, until the storm passed. When the boy was still again, he withdrew his hand gently.
    'But she does not know,' whispered Eliud wretchedly, 'what I am... what I have done...'
    'What she knows of you is all she needs to know, that she loves you as you love her, and there is not nor ever could be any other. I do not believe that guilt or innocence, good or evil can change Cristina towards you. Child, by the common expectation of man you have some thirty years at least of your life to live, which is room for marriage, children, fame, atonement, sainthood. What is done matters, but what is yet to do matters far more. Cristina has that truth in her. When she does know all, she will be grieved, but she will not be changed.'
    'My expectation,' said Eliud faintly through the covers that hid his ravaged face, 'is in weeks, months at most, not thirty years.'
    'It is God fixes the term,' said Cadfael, 'not men, not kings, not judges. A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there's no escape from either. Who knows the length of the penance, or the magnitude of the reparation, that may be required of you?'
    He rose from his place then, because John Miller and a couple of other neighbours, nursing the small scars of the late battle, carried in Elis, cot and all, from the next cell and set him down beside Eliud's couch. It was a good time to break off, the boy had the spark of the future already alive in him, however strongly resignation prompted him to quench it, and now this reunion with the other half of his being came very aptly. Cadfael stood by to see them settled and watch John Miller strip down the covers from Eliud and lift and replace him bodily, as lightly as an infant and as deftly as if handled by a mother. John had been closeted with Elis and Melicent, and was grown fond of Elis as of a bold and promising small boy from among his kin. A useful man, with his huge and balanced strength, able to pick up a sick man from his sleep, provided he cared enough for the man, and carry him hence without disturbing his rest. And devoted to Sister Magdalen, whose writ ran here firm as any king's.
    Yes, a useful ally.
    Well...
    The next day passed in a kind of deliberate hush, as if every man and every woman walked delicately, with bated breath, and kept the ritual of the house with particular awe and reverence, warding off all mischance. Never had the horarium of the order been more scrupulously observed at Godric's Ford. Mother Mariana, small, wizened and old, presided over a sisterhood of such model devotion as to disarm fate. And her enforced guests in their twin cots in one cell were quiet and private together, and even Melicent, now a lay guest of the house and no postulant, went about the business of the day with a pure, still face, and left the two young men to their own measures.
    Brother Cadfael observed the offices, made some fervent prayers of his own, and went out to help Sister Magdalen tend the few injuries still in need of supervision among the neighbours.
    'You're worn out,' said Sister Magdalen solicitously, when they returned for a late bite of supper and Compline. 'Tomorrow you should sleep until Prime, you've had no real rest for three nights now. Say your farewell to Elis tonight, for they'll be here at first light in the morning. And now I think of it,' she said, 'I could do with another flask of that syrup you brew from poppies, for I've emptied my bottle, and I have one patient to see tomorrow who gets little sleep from pain. Will you refill the flask if I bring it?'
    'Willingly,' said Cadfael, and went to fetch the jar he had had sent from Brother Oswin in Shrewsbury after the battle. She brought a large green glass flask, and he filled it to the brim without comment.
    Nor did he rise early in