Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

and embarking on new, while the children of the cloister, oblates and schoolboys alike, gathered in little groups, all eyes and ears, bouncing and shrilling like crickets, and darting about among the pilgrims as excitedly as dogs at a fair. The passing of Brother Jerome, scuttling up the court from the cloister towards the infirmary, would normally have subdued the boys into demure silence, but in this cheerful turmoil it was easy to avoid him.
    "You'll have your house full for the festival," said Hugh, halting to watch the coloured chaos, and taking pleasure in it as candidly as did the children.
    In the group gathered just within the gate there was a sudden ripple of movement. The porter drew back towards the doorway of his lodge, and on either side people recoiled as if to allow passage to horsemen, but there was no sharp rapping of hooves striking the cobbles under the arch of the gateway. Those who entered came on foot, and as they emerged into the court the reason for making such generous way for them became apparent. A long, flat handcart came creaking in, towed by a thickset, grizzled countryman before, and pushed by a lean and travel-stained young man behind. The load it carried was covered by a dun-coloured cloak, and topped with a bundle wrapped in sacking, but by the way the two men leaned and strained at it, it was seen to be heavy, and the shape of it, a man's height long and shoulder-wide, brought mortality to mind. A ripple of silence washed outward from it, and by degrees reached the spot where Hugh and Cadfael stood watching. The children looked on great-eyed, ears pricked, at once awestricken and inquisitive, intent on missing nothing.
    "I think," said Hugh quietly, "you have a guest who'll need a bed somewhere else than in the guest hail."
    The young man had straightened up wincingly from stooping into the weight of the cart, and looked round him for the nearest authority. The porter came towards him, circling the cart and coffin with the circumspect bearing of one accustomed to everything, and not to be put out of countenance even by the apparition of death intruding like a morality play into the preparations for a festival. What passed between them was too soft, too earnest and private to be heard beyond the two of them, but it seemed that the stranger was asking lodging for both himself and his charge. His bearing was reverent and courteous, as was due in these surroundings, but also quietly confident. He turned his head and gestured with his hand towards the church. A young fellow of perhaps twenty-six or twenty-seven years, in clothes sun-faded and very dusty from the roads. Above average tall, thin and sinewy, large-boned and broad-shouldered, with a tangle of straw-coloured hair somewhat fairer than the deep tan of his forehead and cheeks, and a good, bold prow of a nose, thin and straight. A proud face, somewhat drawn with effort just now, and earnest with the gravity of his errand, but by nature, Cadfael thought, studying him across the width of the court, it should be an open, hopeful, good-natured countenance, ready to smile, and a wide-lipped mouth ready to confide at the first friendly invitation.
    "One of your flock from here in the Foregate?" asked Hugh, viewing him with interest. "But no, by the look of him he's been on the roads from somewhere a good deal more distant."
    "But for all that," said Cadfael, shaking his head over an elusive likeness, "it seems to me I've seen that face before, somewhere, at some time. Or else he reminds me of some other lad I've known."
    "The lads you've known in your time could come from half the world over. Well, you'll find out, all in good time," said Hugh, "for it seems Brother Denis is giving his attention to the matter, and one of your youngsters is off into the cloister in haste to fetch somebody else."
    The somebody else proved to be no less than Prior Robert himself, with Brother Jerome trotting dutifully at his heels. The length of Robert's stride and the shortness of Jerome's legs turned what should have been a busy, self-important bustle into a hasty shamble, but it would always get Jerome in time to any spot where there was something happening that might provide him with occasion for curiosity, censure, or sanctimony.
    "Your strange visitors are acceptable," observed Hugh, seeing how the conference was proceeding, "if only on probation. I suppose he could hardly turn away a dead man."
    "The fellow with the cart I do know," said Cadfael.