Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

leaning eagerly across the board, 'I am heir to two good manors from my father, and shall have some lands also after my mother, I stand well in the queen's armies and my lord will speak for me, that I'm in earnest in this matter, and will provide for Julian as truly as any man could, if you will…'
    His host was gazing, astonished, smiling at his fervour, and had raised a warning hand to still the flood.
    'Did you come all this way to ask me to give you my sister?'
    'I did! Is that so strange? I admired her, and I'm come to speak for her. And she might have worse offers,' he added, flushing and stiffening at such a reception.
    'I don't doubt it, but, man, man, you should have put in a word to give her due warning then. You come three years too late!'
    'Too late?' Nicholas sat back and drew in his hands slowly, stricken. Then she's already married?'
    'You might call it so!' Reginald hoisted wide shoulders in a helpless gesture. 'But not to any man. And you might have sped well enough if you'd made more haste, for all I know. No, this is quite a different story. There was some discussion, even, about whether she was still bound like a wife to Marescot - a great foolery, but the churchmen have to assert their authority, and my father's chaplain was prim as a virgin - though I suspect, for all that, in private he was none! - and clutched at every point of canon law that gave him power, and he took the extreme line, and would have it she was legally a wife, while the parish priest argued the opposing way, and my father, being a sensible man, took his side and insisted she was free. All this I learned by stages since. I never took part or put my head into the hornets' nest.'
    Nicholas was frowning into his cupped hands, feeling the cold heaviness of disappointment drag his heart down. But still this was not a complete answer. He looked up ruefully. 'So how did this end? Why is she not here to use her freedom, if she has not yet given herself to a husband?'
    'Ah, but she has! She took her own way. She said that if she was free, then she would make her own choice. And she chose to do as Marescot had done, and took a husband not of this world. She has taken the veil as a Benedictine nun.'
    'And they let her?' demanded Nicholas, wrung between rage and pain. 'Then, when she was moved by this broken match, they let her go so easily, throw away her youth so unwisely?'
    'They let her, yes. How do I know whether she was wise or no? If it was what she wished, why should she not have it? Since she went I've never had word from her, never has she complained or asked for anything. She must be happy in her choice. You must look elsewhere for a wife, my friend!'
    Nicholas sat silent for a time, swallowing a bitterness that burned in his belly like fire. Then he asked, with careful quietness: 'How was it? When did she leave her home? How attended?'
    'Very soon after your visit, I judge. It might be a month while they fought out the issue, and she said never a word. But all was done properly. Our father gave her an escort of three men-at-arms and a huntsman who had always been a favourite and made a pet of her, and a good dowry in money, and also some ornaments for her convent, silver candlesticks and a crucifix and such. He was sad to see her go, I know by what he said later, but she wanted it so, and her wants were his commands always.' A very slight chill in his brisk, decisive voice spoke of an old jealousy. The child of Humphrey's age had plainly usurped his whole heart, even though his son would inherit all when that heart no longer beat. 'He lived barely a month longer,' said Reginald. 'Only long enough to see the return of her escort, and know she was safely delivered where she wished to be. He was old and feeble, we knew it. But he should not have dwindled so soon.'
    'He might well miss her,' said Nicholas, very low and hesitantly, 'about the place. She had a brightness…And you did not send for her, when her father died?'
    'To what end? What could she do for him, or he for her? No, we let her be. If she was happy there, why trouble her?'
    Nicholas gripped his hands together under the board, and wrung them hard, and asked his last question: 'Where was it she chose to go?' His own voice sounded to him hollow and distant.
    'She's in the Benedictine abbey of Wherwell, close by Andover.'
    So that was the end of it! All this time she had been within hail of him, the house of her refuge encircled now by armies and factions and