Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

played, but she was the profound intelligence that heard him. She drew him in with her great bruised eyes, and his music she drank, and it was wine to her thirst. Crossing the half of Europe overland, long ago, Cadfael had seen gentians in the grass of the mountain meadows, bluer than blue, of the same profound beyond-blue of her eyes. The set of her lips, wryly smiling, told a slightly different story. Tutilo was already crystal to her, she knew more of him than he himself knew.
    The affectionate, sceptical twist of her mouth vanished when he began to sing. The tune was at once simple and subtle, playing with no more than half a dozen notes, and his voice, pitched higher than in speech, and very soft and suave, had the same qualities, innocent as childhood, piercing as a wholly adult grief. And he was singing not in English, not even in Norman-French as England knew it, but in the langue d'oc Cadfael remembered imperfectly from long ago. Where had this cloister novice heard the melodies of the Provencal troubadours, and learned their songs? In the lord's hall where he had been a harper? Donata knew no southern French, Cadfael had long forgotten it, but they knew a love song when they heard it. Rueful, unfulfilled, eternally hopeful, an amour de loin, never to come face to face.
    The cadence changed in an instant, the secret words passed magically into: "Ave mater salvatoris..." and they were back with the liturgy of Saint Martial before they realized, as Tutilo had realized with the wild perceptions of a fox, that the door of the room had opened. He was taking no chances. The door had actually opened on the harmless person of Sulien Blount, but Sub-Prior Herluin was there at his shoulder, looming like a cloud.
    Donata lay smiling, approving the lightning wit that could change course so smoothly, without a break, without a blush. True, Herluin drew his austere brows into a displeased frown at the sight of his novice seated upon the edge of a woman's bed and plainly singing for her pleasure; but a glance at the woman herself, in her wasted and daunting dignity, disarmed him at once. She came as a shock, all the more because she was not old, but withered in her prime.
    Tutilo arose modestly, clasping the psaltery to his breast, and withdrew himself dutifully into a corner of the room, his eyes lowered. When he was not looking at her, Cadfael suspected, he was seeing her all the more clearly.
    "Mother," said Sulien, grave and a little stiff from his small battlefield, "here is Sub-Prior Herluin, sometime my instructor in Ramsey, willing you well and promising you his prayers. In my brother's name, as I do, make him welcome."
    In the absence of son and daughter-in-law she spoke authoritatively for both. "Father, use our house as your own. Your visit does us honour. It was welcome news to every soul among us that Ramsey is again delivered to the service of God."
    "God has indeed regarded us," said Herluin, a little cautiously and with less than his usual assurance, for the sight of her had shaken him. "But there is much to be done to restore our dwelling, and we have need of every hand that can be brought to our aid. I had hoped to take your son back with me, but it seems I may no longer call him brother. Nevertheless, be sure both he and you will be in my prayers."
    "I will remember Ramsey," said Donata, "in mine. But if the house of Blount has denied you a brother, we may still be of help in other ways."
    "We are seeking the charity of all good men," agreed Herluin fervently, "in whatever form. Our house is destitute, they left us nothing but the fabric of the walls, and that defaced, and stripped of all that could be carted away."
    "I have promised," said Sulien, "to return to Ramsey and work there with my hands for one month, when the time is right." He had never rid himself completely of a feeling of guilt for abandoning a vocation he had been foolish and mistaken ever to undertake. He would be glad to pay his ransom with hard labour, and free his conscience before he took a bride. And Pernel Otmere would approve him, and give him leave to go.
    Herluin thanked him for the offer, but with no very great enthusiasm, perhaps doubtful how much work Ramsey was likely to get out of this recusant youth.
    "I will also speak to my brother," Sulien pursued earnestly, "and see what more we may be able to do. They are cutting coppice-wood, there will be older stands well seasoned. And they are taking out some wellgrown trees from