Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

sat down beside him in the bleached grass, and measured the diminished level of the Severn with a considering eye.
    'You'll be saying I never come near but when I want something of you. But indeed we've had a crowded year, what with one thing and another. How do you find working the water now, in this drought? There must be a deal of tricky shallows upstream, after so long without rain.'
    'None that I don't know,' said Madog comfortably. 'True, the fishing's profitless, and I wouldn't say you could get a loaded barge up as far as Pool, but I can get where I want to go. Why? Have you work for me? I could do with a day's pay, easy come by.'
    'Easy enough, if you can get yourself and two more up as far as Salton. Lightweights both, for the one's skin and bone, and the other young and slender.'
    Madog leaned back from his work, interested, and asked simply: 'When?'
    'Tomorrow, if nothing prevents.'
    'It would be far shorter to ride,' Madog observed, studying his friend with kindling curiosity.
    'Too late for one of these ever to ride again. He's a dying man, and wants to see again the place where he was born.'
    'Salton?' Shrewd dark eyes blinked through their thick silver brows. 'That should be a de Marisco. We heard you had the last of them in your house.'
    'Marescot, they're calling it now. Of the Marsh, Godfrid says it should better have been, his line being Saxon. Yes, the same. His time is not long. He wants to complete the circle of birth to death before he goes.'
    'Tell me,' said Madog simply, and listened with still and serene attention as Cadfael told him the nature of his cargo, and all that was required of him.
    'Now,' he said, when all was told, 'I'll tell what I think. This weather will not hold much longer, but for all that, it may still tarry a week or so. If your paladin is as set on his pilgrimage as you say, if he's willing to venture whatever comes, then I'll bring my boat into the mill-pool tomorrow after Prime. I'll have something aboard to shelter him if the rain does come. I keep a waxed sheet to cover goods that will as well cover a knight or a brother of the Benedictines at need.'
    'Such a cerecloth,' said Brother Cadfael very soberly, 'may be only too fitting for Brother Humilis. And he will not despise it.'

Chapter Eleven
    In the streets of Winchester the stinking, blackened debris of fire was beginning to give place to the timid sparks of new hope, as those who had fled returned to pick over the remnants of their shops and households, and those who had stayed set to work briskly clearing the wreckage and carting timber to rebuild. The merchant classes of England were a tough and resilient breed, after every reverse they came back with fresh vigour, grimly determined upon restoration and willing to retrench until a profit was again possible. Warehouses were swept clear of what was spoiled, and made ready within to receive new merchandise. Shops collected what was still saleable, cleaned out ravaged rooms and set up temporary stalls. Life resumed, with astonishing speed and energy, its accustomed rhythms, with an additional beat in defiance of misfortune. As often as you fell us, said the tradesmen of the town, we will get up again and take up where we left off, and you will tire of it first. The armies of the queen, secure in possession here and well to westward, as well as through the south-east, went leisurely about their business, consolidating what they held, and secure in the knowledge that they had only to sit still and wait, and King Stephen must now be restored to them. There must have been a few shrewd captains, both English and Flemish, who saw no great reason to rejoice at the exchange of generals, for however vital Stephen might be as a figurehead to be prized and protected at all costs, and however doughty a fighter, he was no match for his valiant wife as a strategist in war. Still, his release was essential. They sat stolidly on their winnings, and waited for the enemy to surrender him, as sooner or later they must. There was a degree of boredom to be endured, while the negotiators parleyed and wrangled. The end was assured.
    Nicholas Harnage, with the list of Julian Cruce's valuables in his pouch, went doggedly about the city of Winchester, enquiring wherever such articles might have surfaced, whether stolen, sold or given in reverence. And he had begun with the highest, the Holy Father's representative in England, the Prince-Bishop of Winchester, Henry of Blois, just shaking