Brother Cadfael 10: The Pilgrim of Hate

fair, as though even his flaxen hair had turned paler at the immensity of this experience. He leaned on his crutches between his sister and Dame Alice, and his crystal eyes were very wide, and looked very far, as though he was not even aware of their solicitude hemming him in on either side. Yet he answered simply enough, "I should like to go a little way, at least, until they leave me behind. But you need not wait for me."
    "As though I would leave you!" said Mistress Weaver, comfortably clucking. "You and I will keep together and see the pilgrimage out to the best we can, and heaven will be content with that. But the girl has her legs, she may go all the way, and put up a few prayers for you going and returning, and we'll none of us be the worse for it."
    She leaned to twitch the neck of his shirt and the collar of his coat into immaculate neatness, and to fuss over his extreme pallor, afraid he was coming down with illness from over-excitement, though he seemed tranquil as ivory, and serenely absent in spirit, gone somewhere she could not follow. Her hand, rough-fingered from weaving, smoothed his well-brushed hair, teasing every tendril back from his tall forehead.
    "Run off, then, child," she said to Melangell, without turning from the boy. "But find someone we know. There'll be riffraff running alongside, I dare say - no escaping them. Stay by Mistress Glover, or the apothecary's widow..."
    "Matthew is going with them," said Melangell, flushing and smiling at his very name. "He told me so. I met him when we came from Prime."
    It was only half-true. She had rather confided boldly to him that she wished to tread every step of the way, and at every step remember and intercede for the souls she most loved on earth. No need to name them. He, no doubt, thought with reflected tenderness of her brother; but she was thinking no less of this anguished pair whose fortunes she now carried delicately and fearfully in her hands. She had even said, greatly venturing, "Ciaran cannot keep pace, poor soul, he must wait here, like Rhun. But can't we make our steps count for them?"
    But for all that, Matthew had looked over his shoulder, and hesitated a sharp instant before he turned his face fully to her, and said abruptly: "Yes, we'll go, you and I. Yes, let's go that short way together, surely I have the right, this once... I'll make my prayers for Rhun every step of the way."
    "Trot and find him, then, girl," said Dame Alice, satisfied. "Matthew will take good care of you. See, they're forming up, you'd best hurry. We'll be here to watch you come in."
    Melangell fled, elated. Prior Robert had drawn up his choir, with Brother Anselm the precentor at their head, facing the gate. The shifting, murmuring, excited column of pilgrims formed up at his rear, twitching like a dragon's tail, a long, brightly-coloured, volatile train, brave with flowers, lighted tapers, offerings, crosses and banners. Matthew was waiting to reach out an eager hand to her and draw her in beside him. "You have leave? She trusts you to me...?"
    "You're not troubled about Ciaran?" she could not forbear asking anxiously. "He's right to stay here, he couldn't manage the walk."
    The choir monks before them began their processional psalm, Prior Robert led the way through the open gate, and after him went the brothers in their ordered pairs, and after them the notabilities of the town, and after them the long retinue of pilgrims, crowding forward eagerly, picking up the chant where they had knowledge of it or a sensitive ear, pouring out past the gatehouse and turning right towards Saint Giles.
    Brother Cadfael went with Prior Robert's party, with Brother Adam of Reading walking beside him. Along the broad road by the enclave wall, past the great triangle of trodden grass at the horse-fair ground, and again bearing right with the road, between scattered houses and sun-bleached pastures and fields to the very edge of the suburb, where the squat tower of the hospital church, the roof of the hospice, and the long wattle fence of its garden showed dark against the bright eastern sky, slightly raised from the road on a gentle green mound. And all the way the long train of followers grew longer and more gaily-coloured, as the people of the Foregate in their best holiday clothes came out from their dwellings and joined the procession. There was no room in the small, dark church for more than the brothers and the civic dignitaries of the town. The rest gathered all about