Brother Cadfael 10: The Pilgrim of Hate

wait," she said.
    "Better go to your bed and sleep, the waiting may be longer than you think, he has been wrung. But he will come."
    But at that she shook her head. "I'll watch till he comes," she said, and suddenly smiled at them, pale and lustrous as pearl, and turned and went away swiftly and silently towards the cloister.
    "That is the girl you spoke of?" asked Hugh, looking after her with somewhat frowning interest. "The lame boy's sister? The girl that young man fancies?"
    "That is she," said Cadfael, and closed the half-door of the stall.
    "The weaver-woman's niece?"
    "That, too. Dowerless and from common stock," said Cadfael, understanding but untroubled. "Yes, true! I'm from common stock myself. I doubt if a young fellow who has been torn apart and remade as Luc has tonight will care much about such little things. Though I grant you others may! I hope the lady Juliana has no plans yet for marrying him off to some heiress from a neighbour manor, for I fancy things have gone so far now with these two that she'll be forced to abandon her plans. A manor or a craft, if you take pride in them, and run them well, where's the difference?"
    "Your common stock," said Hugh heartily, "gave growth to a most uncommon shoot! And I wouldn't say but that young thing would grace a hall better than many a highbred dame I've seen. But listen, they're ending. We'd best present ourselves."
    Abbot Radulfus came from Matins and Lauds with his usual imperturbable stride, and found them waiting for him as he left the cloister. This day of miracles had produced a fittingly glorious night, incredibly lofty and deep, coruscating with stars, washed white with moonlight. Coming from the dimness within, this exuberance of light showed him clearly both the serenity and the weariness on the two faces that confronted him.
    "You are back!" he said, and looked beyond them. "But not all! Messire de Bretagne, you said he had gone by a wrong way. He has not returned here. You have not encountered him?"
    "Yes, Father, we have," said Hugh. "All is well with him, and he has found the young man he was seeking. They will return here, all in good time."
    "And the evil you feared, Brother Cadfael? You spoke of another death..."
    "Father," said Cadfael, "no harm has come tonight to any but the masterless men who escaped into the forest there. They are now safe in hold, and on their way under guard to the castle. The death I dreaded has been averted, no threat remains in that quarter to any man. I said, if the two young men could be overtaken, the better surely for one, and perhaps for both. Father, they were overtaken in time, and better for both it surely must be."
    "Yet there remains," said Radulfus, pondering, "the print of blood, which both you and I have seen. You said, you will recall, that, yes, we have entertained a murderer among us. Do you still say so?"
    "Yes, Father. Yet not as you suppose. When Olivier de Bretagne and Luc Meverel return, then all can be made plain, for as yet," said Cadfael, "there are still certain things we do not know. But we do know," he said firmly, "that what has passed this night is the best for which we could have prayed, and we have good need to give thanks for it."
    "So all is well?"
    "All is very well, Father."
    "Then the rest may wait for morning. You need rest. But will you not come in with me and take some food and wine, before you sleep?"
    "My wife," said Hugh, gracefully evading, "will be in some anxiety for me. You are kind, Father, but I would not have her fret longer than she need."
    The abbot eyed them both, and did not press them.
    "And God bless you for that!" sighed Cadfael, toiling up the slight slope of the court towards the dortoir stair and the gatehouse where Hugh had hitched his horse. "For I'm asleep on my feet, and even a good wine could not revive me."
    The moonlight was gone, and there was as yet no sunlight, when Olivier de Bretagne and Luc Meverel rode slowly in at the abbey gatehouse. How far they had wandered in the deep night neither of them knew very clearly, for this was strange country to both. Even when overtaken, and addressed with careful gentleness, Luc had still gone forward blindly, hands hanging slack at his sides or vaguely parting the bushes, saying nothing, hearing nothing, unless some core of feeling within him was aware of this calm, relentless pursuit by a tolerant, incurious kindness, and distantly wondered at it. When he had dropped at last and lain down in the lush