Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

courteous, and gave me her grace and pardon freely. You said so!'
    'Truth, my lord,' said Nicholas earnestly, 'though she cannot have been glad.'
    'Ah, but she may - she may very well have been glad. No blame to her! Willing though she may have been to accept the match made for her, yet it would have tied her to a man more than twenty years her elder, and a stranger. Why should she not be glad, when I offered her her liberty - no, urged it upon her? Surely she must have made of it the use she preferred, perhaps had longed for.'
    'She was not forced,' Nicholas admitted, with somewhat reluctant certainty. 'Her brother says it was the girl's own choice, indeed her father was against it, and only gave in because she would have it so.'
    'That's well,' agreed Humilis with a relieved sigh. Then we can but hope that she may be happy in her choice.'
    'But so great a waste!' blurted Nicholas, grieving. 'If you had seen her, my lord, as I did! To shear such hair as she had, and hide such a form under the black habit! They should never have let her go, not so soon. How if she has regretted it long since?'
    Humilis smiled, but very gently, eyeing the downcast face and hooded eyes. 'As you described her to me, so gracious and sensible, of such measured and considered speech, I don't think she will have acted without due thought. No, surely she has done what is right for her. But I'm sorry for your loss, Nick. You must bear it as gallantly as she did - if ever I was any loss!'
    The Vesper bell had begun to chime. Humilis rose to go down to the church, and Nicholas rose with him, taking the summons as his dismissal.
    'It's late to set out now,' suggested Cadfael, emerging from the silence and withdrawal he had observed while these two talked together. 'And it seems there's no great haste, that you need leave tonight. A bed in the guest-hall, and you could set off fresh in the morning, with the whole day before you. And spend an hour or two more with Brother Humilis this evening, while you have the chance.'
    To which sensible notion they both said yes, and Nicholas recovered a little of his spirits, if nothing could restore the ardour with which he had ridden north from Winchester.
    What did somewhat surprise Brother Cadfael was the considerate way in which Fidelis, confronted yet again with this visitant from the time before he had known Humilis and established his own intimacy with him, withdrew himself from sight as he was withdrawn from the possibility of conversation, and left them to their shared memories of travel, Crusade and battle, things so far removed from his own experience. An affection which could so self-effacingly make room for a rival and prior affection was generous indeed.
    There was a merchant of Shrewsbury who dealt in fleeces all up and down the borders, both from Wales and from such fat sheep-country as the Cotswolds, and had done an interesting side-trade in information, for Hugh's benefit, in these contrary times. His active usefulness was naturally confined to this period of high summer when the wool clip was up for sale, and many dealers had restricted their movements in these dangerous times, but he was a determined man, intrepid enough to venture well south down the border, towards territory held by the empress. His suppliers had sold to him for some years, and had sufficient confidence in him to hold their clip until he made contact.
    He had good trading relations as far afield as Bruges in Flanders, and was not at all averse to a large risk when calculating on a still larger profit. Moreover, he took his own risks, rather than delegating these unchancy journeys to his underlings. Possibly he even relished the challenge, for he was a stubborn and stalwart man.
    Now, in early September, he was on his way home with his purchases, a train of three wagons following from Buckingham, which was as near as he could reasonably go to Oxford. For Oxford had become as alert and nervous as a town itself under siege, every day expecting that the empress must be forced by starvation to retreat from Winchester. The merchant had left his men secure on a road relatively peaceful, to bring up his wagons at leisure, and himself rode ahead at good speed with his news to report to Hugh Beringar in Shrewsbury, even before he went home to his wife and family.
    'My lord, things move at last. I had it from a man who saw the end of it, and made good haste away to a safer place. You know how they were walled up there in their