Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

endangered and now breathing more easily, could tell him nothing of Julian Grace. Some sisters from Wherwell they had taken in and cherished, but she was not among them. Nicholas had speech with one of their elder members, who was kind and solicitous, but could not help him.
    'Sir, it is a name I do not know. But consider, there is no reason I should know it, for surely this lady may have taken a very different name when she took her vows, and we do not ask our sisters where they came from, nor who they once were, unless they choose to tell us freely. And I had no office that should bring me knowledge of these things. Our abbess would certainly be able to answer you, but we do not know where she is now. Our prioress, also. We are as lost as you. But God will find us, and bring us together again. As he will find for you the one you seek.'
    She was a shrewd, agile, withered woman, thin as a gnat but indestructible as scutch grass. She eyed him with mildly amused sympathy, and asked blandly: 'She is kin to you, this Julian?'
    'No,' said Nicholas shortly, 'but I would have had her kin, and very close kin, too.'
    'And now?'
    'I want to know her safe, living, content. There is no more in it. If she is so, God keep her so, and I am satisfied.'
    'If I were you,' said the lady, after viewing him closely for some moments in silence, 'I should go on to Romsey. It is far enough removed to be a safer place than here, and it is the greatest of our Benedictine houses in these parts. God knows which of our sisters you may find there, but surely some, and it may be, the highest.'
    He was young enough and innocent enough still, for all his travels, to be strongly moved by any evidence of trust and kindness, and he caught and kissed her hand in taking leave, as though she had been his hostess somewhere in hall. She, for her part, was too old and experienced to blush or bridle, but when he was gone she sat smiling a long, quiet while, before she rejoined her sisters. He was a very personable young man.
    Nicholas rode the twelve miles or so to Romsey in sobering solemnity, aware he might be drawing near to an answer possibly not to his liking. Once clear of Winchester and on his way further south-west, he was delivered from any threat, for he went through country where the queen's writ ran without challenge. Pleasant, rolling country, well tree'd even before he reached the fringes of the great forest. He came to the abbey gatehouse, in the heart of the small town, in the late evening, and rang the bell at the gate.
    The portress peered at him through the grille, and asked his business. He stooped entreatingly to the grid, and gazed into a pair of bright, elderly eyes in beds of wrinkles.
    'Sister, have you given refuge here to some of the nuns of Wherwell? I am seeking for news of one of them, and could get no answers there.'
    The portress eyed him narrowly, and saw a young face soiled and drawn with travel, a young man alone, and in dead earnest, no threat. Even here in Romsey they had learned to be cautious about opening their gates, but the road beyond him was empty and still, and the twilight folded down on the little town peacefully enough.
    'The prioress and three sisters reached here,' she said, 'but I doubt if any of them can tell you much of the rest, not yet. But come within, and I'll ask if she will speak with you.'
    The wicket clanked open, lock and chain, and he stepped through into the court. 'Who knows?' said the portress kindly, fastening the door again after him. 'One of our three may be the one you're seeking. At least you may try.'
    She led him along dim corridors to a small, panelled parlour, lit by a tiny lamp, and there left him. The evening meal would be long over, even Compline past, it was almost time for sleeping. They would want him satisfied, if satisfaction was possible, and out of their precinct before the night.
    He could not rest or sit, but was prowling the room like a caged bear when a further door opened, and the prioress of Wherwell came quietly in. A short, round, rosy woman, but with a formidably strong face and exceedingly direct brown eyes, that studied her visitor from head to foot in one piercing glance as he made his reverence to her.
    'You asked for me, I am told. I am here. How can I help you?'
    'Madam,' said Nicholas, trembling for awe of what might come, 'I was well north, in Shropshire, when I heard of the sack of Wherwell. There was a sister there of whose vocation I had only just learned,