Brother Cadfael 10: The Pilgrim of Hate

occasion was over. Time will prove whether this one takes to his crutches again."
    "I shall speak with him later," said the abbot, "after the excitement has cooled. I hear from Brother Edmund that Brother Cadfael has been treating the boy these three days he has been here. That may have eased his condition, but it can scarcely have brought about so sudden a cure. No, I must say it, I truly believe our house has been the happy scene of divine grace. I will speak also with Cadfael, who must know the boy's condition."
    Olivier sat quiet and deferential in the presence of so reverend a churchman as the abbot, but Hugh observed that his arched lids lifted and his eyes kindled at Cadfael's name. So he knew who it was he sought, and something more than a distant salute in action had passed between that strangely assorted pair.
    "And now I should be glad," said the abbot, "to hear what news you bring from the south. Have you been in Westminster with the empress's court? For I hear she is now installed there."
    Olivier gave his account of affairs in London readily, and answered questions with goodwill. "My lord has remained in Oxford, it was at his wish I undertook this errand. I was not in London, I set out from Winchester. But the empress is in the palace of Westminster, and the plans for her coronation go forward, admittedly very slowly. The city of London is well aware of its power, and means to exact due recognition of it, or so it seems to me." He would go no nearer than that to voicing whatever qualms he felt about his liege lady's wisdom or want of it, but he jutted a dubious underlip, and momentarily frowned. "Father, you were there at the council, you know all that happened. My lord lost a good knight there, and I a valued friend, struck down in the street."
    "Rainald Bossard," said Radulfus sombrely. "I have not forgotten."
    "Father, I have been telling the lord sheriff here what I should like to tell also to you. For I have a second errand to pursue, wherever I go on the business of the empress, an errand for Rainald's widow. Rainald had a young kinsman in his household, who was with him when he was killed, and after that death this young man left the lady's service without a word, secretly. She says he had grown closed and silent even before he vanished, and the only trace of him afterwards was on the road to Newbury, going north. Since then, nothing. So knowing I was bound north, she begged me to enquire for him wherever I came, for she values and trusts him, and needs him at her side. I may not deceive you, Father, there are those who say he has fled because he is guilty of Rainald's death. They claim he was besotted with Dame Juliana, and may have seized his chance in this brawl to widow her, and get her for himself, and then taken fright because these things were so soon being said. But I think they were not being said at all until after he had vanished. And Juliana, who surely knows him better than any, and looks upon him as a son, for want of children of her own, she is quite sure of him. She wants him home and vindicated, for whatever reason he left her as he did. And I have been asking at every lodging and monastery along the road for word of such a young man. May I also ask here? Brother Hospitaller will know the names of all his guests. Though a name," he added ruefully, "is almost all I have, for if ever I saw the man it was without knowing it was he. And the name he may have left behind him."
    "It is not much to go on," said Abbot Radulfus with a smile, "but certainly you may enquire. If he has done no wrong, I should be glad to help you to find him and bring him off without reproach. What is his name?"
    "Luc Meverel. Twenty-four years old, they tell me, middling tall and well made, dark of hair and eye."
    "It could fit many hundreds of young men," said the abbot, shaking his head, "and the name I doubt he will have put off if he has anything to hide, or even if he fears it may be unfairly besmirched. Yet try. I grant you in such a gathering as we have here now a young man who wished to be lost might bury himself very thoroughly. Denis will know which of his guests is of the right age and quality. For clearly your Luc Meverel is well-born, and most likely tutored and lettered."
    "Certainly so," said Olivier.
    "Then by all means, and with my blessing, go freely to Brother Denis, and see what he can do to help you. He has an excellent memory, he will be able to tell you which, among the men here, is of