Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

He went where he knew Fidelis had been sent, and where he would surely go, valuing the bench where he sat by the true tenant who should have been sitting there, and the vellum leaf on the desk before him, and the little pots of colour deployed there, by the work Humilis had begun, and bade him finish.
    At the far end of the scriptorium range in the cloister, under the south wall of the church, Brother Anselm the precentor was trying out a chant on his small hand-organ, a sequence of a half-dozen notes repeated over and over, like an inspired bird-call, sweet and sad. One of the boy pupils was there with him, lifting his childish voice unconcernedly, as gifted children will, wondering why the elders make so much fuss about what comes by nature and costs no pain. Urien knew little of music, but felt it acutely, as he felt everything, like arrows piercing his flesh. The boy rang purer and truer than any instrument, and did not know he could wring the heart. He would rather have been playing with his fellow-pupils, out in the Gaye.
    The carrels of the scriptorium were deep, and the stone partitions cut off sound. Fidelis had moved his desk so that he could sit half in shade, while the full sunlight lit his leaf. His left side was turned to the sun, so that his hand cast no shadow as he worked, though the coiled tendril which was his model for the decoration of the capital letter M was wilting in the heat. He worked with a steady hand and a very fine brush, twining the delicate curls of the stem and starring them with pale, bright flowers frail as gossamer. When the singing boy, released from his schooling, passed by at a skipping run, Fidelis never raised his head. When Urien cast a long shadow and did not pass by, the hand that held the brush halted for a moment, then resumed its smooth, long strokes, but still Fidelis did not look up. By which token Brother Urien was aware that he was known. For any other this mute painter would have looked up briefly, for many among the brothers he would have smiled. And without looking, how could he know? By a silence as heavy as his own, or by some quickening that flushed his flesh and caused the hairs of his neck to rise when this one man of all men came near?
    Urien stepped within the carrel, and stood close at Fidelis's shoulder, looking down at the intricate M that still lacked its touches of gold. Looking down also, with more intense awareness, at the inch or two of thin silver chain that showed within the dropped folds of collar and cowl, threading the short russet hairs on the bent neck. A cross a little finger long, on a neck-chain, and studded with yellow, green and purple stones…He could have inserted a finger under the chain and plucked it forth, but he did not touch. He had learned that a touch is witchcraft, instant separation, putting cold distance between.
    'Fidelis,' said the softest of yearning voices at Fidelis's shoulder, 'you keep from me. Why do you so? I can be the truest friend ever you had, if you will let me. What is there I will not do for you? And you have need of a friend. One who will keep secrets and be as silent as you are. Let me in to you, Fidelis…' He did not say ‘brother'. ‘Brother' is a title beyond desire, an easy title, no shaker of the mind or spirit. 'Let me in, and I can be to you all you need of love and loyalty. To the death!'
    Fidelis laid aside his brush very slowly, and set both hands to the edge of the desk as though bracing himself to rise, and all this with rigid body and held breath. Urien pressed on in hushed haste.
    'You need not fear me, I mean you only good. Don't stir, don't draw away! I know what you have done, I know what you have to hide…No one else will ever hear it from me, if only you'll do your part. Silence deserves a reward…love deserves love!'
    Fidelis slid along the polished wood of the bench and stood clear, putting the desk between them. His face was pale and fixed, the dilated grey eyes enormous. He shook his head vehemently, and moved round to push past Urien and quit the carrel, but Urien spread his arms and blocked the way.
    'Oh, no, not this time! Not now! That's over. I've asked, I've begged, now I give you to know even asking is over.' His tight control had burned into abrupt and savage anger, his eyes flared redly. 'I have ears, I could be your ruin if I were so minded. You had best be kind to me.' His voice was still very low, no one would hear, and no one passed along the cloister