Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

Severn, upstream from the abbey, made a great moat about the walls, turning the town almost into an island, but for the neck of land covered and protected by the castle. Once under Madog's western bridge, that gave passage to the roads into Wales, the meanderings of the river grew tortuous, and turned first one cheek, then the other, to the climbing, copper sun. Here there was ample water still, though below its common summer level, and the few shoals clung inshore, and Madog was familiar with all of them, and rowed strongly and leisurely, conscious of his mastery.
    'All this stretch I remember well,' said Humilis, smiling towards the Frankwell shore, as the great bend north of the town brought them back on their westward course. 'This is pure pleasure to me, friend, but I fear it must be hard labour to you.'
    'No,' said Madog, taciturn in English, but able to hold his own, 'no, this water is my living and my life. I go gladly.'
    'Even in wintry weather?'
    'In all weathers,' said Madog, and glanced up briefly at the sky, which continued a brazen vault, cloudless but hazy.
    Beyond the suburb of Frankwell, outside the town walls and the loop of the river, they were between wide stretches of water-meadows, still moist enough to be greener than the grass on high ground, and a little coolness came up from the reedy shores, as though the earth breathed here, that elsewhere seemed to hold its breath. For a while the banks rose on either side, and old, tall trees overhung the water, casting a leaden shade. Heavy willows leaned from the banks, half their roots exposed by the erosion of the soil. Then the ground levelled and opened out again on their right hand, while on the left the bank rose in low, sandy terraces below and a slope of grass above, leading up to hillocks of woodland.
    'It is not far now,' said Humilis, his eyes fixed eagerly ahead. 'I remember well. Nothing here is changed.'
    He had gathered a degree of strength from his pleasure in this expedition, and his voice was clear and calm, but there were beads of sweat on his brow and lip. Fidelis wiped them away, and leaned over him to give him shade without touching.
    'I am a child given a holiday,' said Humilis, smiling. 'It's fitting that I should spend it where I was a child. Life is a circle, Fidelis. We go outward from our source for half our time, leave behind our kin and our familiar places, value far countries and new-made friends. But then at the furthest point we begin the roundabout return, drawing in again towards the place from which we came. When the circle joins, there is nowhere beyond to go in this world, and it's time to depart. There is nothing sad in that. It's right and good.'
    He made to raise himself a little in the boat to look ahead, and Fidelis lifted and supported him under the arms. 'Yonder, behind the screen of trees, there is the manor. We're home!'
    The soil was reddish and sandy here, and provided a long, narrow beach, beyond which a slope of grass climbed, and a trodden path went up through the trees. Madog ran his boat into the sand, shipped his oars, and stepped ashore to haul the boat firmly aground and moor it.
    'Bide quiet here a while, and I'll go and tell them at the house.'
    The tenant of Salton was a man of fifty-five, and had not forgotten the boy, nine years or so his junior, who had been born to his lord in this manor, and lived the first few years of his life there. He came himself in haste down to the river, with a pair of servants and an improvised chair to carry Godfrid up to the house. It was not the paladin of the Kingdom of Jerusalem he came hurrying to welcome, but the boy he had taught to fish and swim, and lifted on to his first pony at three years old. The early companionship had not lasted many years, and perhaps he had not given it a thought now for thirty years or more, being busy marrying and raising a family of his own, but the memories were readily reawakened. And in spite of Madog's dry warning, he checked in sharp and shocked dismay at sight of the frail spectre that awaited him in the boat. He was quick to recover and run to offer hand and knee and service, but Humilis had seen.
    'You find me much changed, Aelred,' he said, fetching the name out of the well of his memory by instinct when it was needed. 'We are none of us the boys we once were. I have not worn well, but never let that trouble you. I'm well content. And glad, most glad, to see you here again on this same soil where I left you so long