Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

cloth again, blessed the bier and the bearers, and motioned to his obedientiaries to take up the body and carry it into the mortuary chapel.
    Only then, when Brother Edmund, reminded of old reticences those two lost brothers had shared, and manifestly deprived of Fidelis, looked round for the one other man who was in the intimate secrets of Humilis's broken body, and failed to find him - only then did Hugh realise that Brother Cadfael was the one man missing from this gathering. He, who of all men should have been ready and dutiful in whatever concerned Humilis, to be elsewhere at this moment! The dereliction stuck fast in Hugh's mind, until he made sense of it later. It was, after all, possible that a dead man should have urgent unfinished business elsewhere, even more dear to him than the last devotions paid to his body.
    They extended their respects and condolences to Abbot Radulfus, with the promise that search should be made downstream for the body of Brother Fidelis, as long as any hope remained of finding him, and then they rode back at a walking pace into the town, host and guest together. The dusk was closing gently in, the sky clear, bland, innocent of evil, the air suddenly cool and kind. Aline was waiting with the evening meal ready to be served, and welcomed two men returning as graciously as one. And if there was still a horse missing from the stables, Hugh did not linger to discover it, but left the horses to the grooms, and devoted his own attention to Nicholas.
    'You must stay with us,' he said over supper, 'until his burial. I'll send word to Cruce, he'll want to pay the last honours to one who once meant to become his brother by law, and he has a right to know how things stand now with Heriet.'
    That caused Aline to prick up her ears. 'And how do things stand now with Heriet? So much has happened today, I seem to have missed at least the half of it. Nicholas did say he brought grim news, but even the downpour couldn't delay him long enough to say more. What has happened?'
    They told her, between them, all that had passed, from the dogged search in Winchester to the point where news of Madog's disaster had interrupted the questioning of Adam Heriet, and sent them out in consternation to find out the truth of the report. Aline listened with a slight, anxious frown.
    'He burst in crying that two brothers from the abbey were dead, drowned in the river? Named names, did he? There in the cell, in front of your prisoner?'
    'I think it was I who named names,' said Hugh. 'It came at the right moment for Heriet, I fancy he was nearing the end of his tether. Now he can draw breath for the next bout, though I doubt if it will save him.'
    Aline said no more on that score until Nicholas, short of sleep after his long ride and the shocks of this day, took himself off to his bed. When he was gone, she laid by the embroidery on which she had been working, and went and sat down beside Hugh on the cushioned bench beside the empty hearth, and wound a persuasive arm about his neck.
    'Hugh, love - there's something you must hear - and Nicholas must not hear, not yet, not until all's over and safe and calm. It might be best if he never does hear it, though perhaps he'll divine at least half of it for himself in the end. But you we need now.'
    'We?' said Hugh, not too greatly surprised, and turned to wind an arm comfortably about her waist and draw her closer to his side.
    'Cadfael and I. Who else?'
    'So I supposed,' said Hugh, sighing and smiling. 'I did wonder at his abandoning the disastrous end of a venture he himself helped to launch.'
    'But he did not abandon it, he's about resolving it this moment. And if you should hear someone about the stables, a little later, no need for alarm, it will only be Cadfael bringing back your horse, and you know he can be trusted to see to his horse's comfort before he gives a thought to his own.'
    'I foresee a long story,' said Hugh. 'It had better be interesting.' Her fair hair was soft and sweet against his cheek. He turned to touch his lips to hers, very softly and briefly.
    'It is. As any matter of life and death must be. You'll see! And since it was blurted out in front of poor Adam Heriet that two brothers have drowned, you ought to pay him a visit as soon as you can, tomorrow, and tell him he need not fret, that things are not always what they seem.'
    'Then tell me,' said Hugh, 'what they really are.'
    She settled herself warmly into the circle of his arm, and very gravely