Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

portative organ testing out a new chant. The illuminators and copiers would be putting the finishing touches to their afternoon's work, and cleaning their pens and brushes. Brother Humilis must be alone in his carrel, having sent Fidelis out to the joyous labour in the garden, for nothing less would have induced the boy to leave him. Cadfael had intended crossing the open garth to the precentor's workshop, to sit down comfortably with Anselm for a quarter of an hour, until the Vesper bell, and talk and perhaps argue about music. But the memory of the dumb youth, so kindly sent out to his brief pleasure in the orchard among his peers, stirred in him as he entered the cloister, and the gaunt visage of Brother Humilis rose before him, self-contained, uncomplaining, proudly solitary. Or should it be, rather, humbly solitary? That was the quality he had claimed for himself and by which he desired to be accepted. A large claim, for one so celebrated. There was not a soul within here now who did not know his reputation. If he longed to escape it, and be as mute as his servitor, he had been cruelly thwarted.
    Cadfael veered from his intent, and turned instead along the north walk of the cloister, where the carrels of the scrip scriptorium basked in the sun, even at this hour. Humilis had been given a study midway, where the light would fall earliest and linger longest. It was quiet there, the soft tones of Anselm's organetto seemed very distant and hushed. The grass of the open garth was blanched and dry, in spite of daily watering.
    'Brother Humilis…' said Cadfael softly, at the opening of the carrel.
    The leaf of parchment was pushed askew on the desk, a small pot of gold had spilled drops along the paving as it rolled. Brother Humilis lay forward over his desk with his right arm flung up to hold by the wood, and his left hand gripped hard into his groin, the wrist braced to press hard into his side. His head lay with the left cheek on his work, smeared with the blue and the scarlet, and his eyes were shut, but clenched shut, upon the controlled awareness of pain. He had not uttered a sound. If he had, those close by would have heard him. What he had, he had contained. So he would still.
    Cadfael took him gently about the body, pinning the sustaining arm where it rested. The blue-veined eyelids lifted in their high vaults, and eyes brilliant and intelligent behind their veils of pain peered up into his face. 'Brother Cadfael…?'
    'Lie still a moment yet,' said Cadfael. I'll fetch Edmund - Brother Infirmarer…'
    'No! Brother, get me hence…to my bed…This will pass…it is not new. Only softly, softly help me away! I would not be a show…'
    It was quicker and more private to help him up the night stairs from the church to his own cell in the dortoir, rather than across the great court to the infirmary, and that was what he earnestly desired, that there might be no general alarm and fuss about him. He rose more by strength of will than any physical force, and with Cadfael's sturdy arm about him, and his own arm leaning heavily round Cadfael's shoulders, they passed unnoticed into the cool gloom of the church and slowly climbed the staircase. Stretched on his own bed, Humilis submitted himself with a bleakly patient smile to Cadfael's care, and made no ado when Cadfael stripped him of his habit, and uncovered the oblique stain of mingled blood and pus that slanted across the left hip of his linen drawers and down into the groin.
    'It breaks,' said the calm thread of a voice from the pillow. 'Now and then it suppurates - I know. The long ride…Pardon brother! I know the stench offends…'
    'I must bring Edmund,' said Cadfael, unloosing the drawstring and freeing the shirt. He did not yet uncover what lay beneath. 'Brother Infirmarer must know.'
    'Yes…But no other! What need for more?'
    'Except Brother Fidelis? Does he know all?'
    'Yes, all!' said Humilis, and faintly and fondly smiled. 'We need not fear him, even if he could speak he would not, but there's nothing of what ails me he does not know. Let him rest until Vespers is over.'
    Cadfael left him lying with closed eyes, a little eased, for the lines of his face had relaxed from their tight grimace of pain, and went down to find Brother Edmund, just in time to draw him away from Vespers. The filled baskets of plums lay by the garden hedge, awaiting disposal after the office, and the gatherers were surely already within the church, after hasty ablutions. Just as