Brother Cadfael 20: Brother Cadfael's Penance

free."
    "I will be the judge," said Philip, his brows drawn formidably, but his voice as level as before, "whether I have ground of bitter complaint against Olivier de Bretagne. As for you, your horse is saddled and provided, and you may ride where you will, back to your empress without hindrance from any man of mine. The gate will open for you. Be on your way."
    The curtness of the dismissal raised a flush in Yves's smooth, scrubbed cheeks, and for a moment Cadfael feared for the young man's newly achieved maturity. Where would be the sense in protesting further when the situation put all but dignified compliance out of his reach? A few months back, and he might have blazed in ineffective rage, in the perilous confusion of the transition from boy to man. But somewhere beneath one of the curtain towers of La Musarderie Yves had completed his growing up. He confronted his antagonist with mastered face and civil bearing.
    "Let me at least ask," he said, "what is your intent with Brother Cadfael. Is he also prisoner?"
    "Brother Cadfael is safe enough with me. You need not fear for him. But for the present I desire to retain his company, and I think he will not deny me. He is free to go when he will, or stay as long as he will. He can keep the hours as faithfully in my chapel as in Shrewsbury. And so he does," said Philip with a brief smile, remembering the night encounter, "even the midnight matin. Leave Brother Cadfael to his own choice."
    "I have still business here," said Cadfael, meeting the boy's earnest eyes, that widened to take in more meanings than the mere words conveyed.
    "I go, then," he said. "But I give you to know, Philip FitzRobert, that I shall come back for Olivier de Bretagne in arms."
    "Do so," said Philip, "but do not complain then of your welcome."
    He was gone, without looking back. A hand to the bridle, a foot in the stirrup, and a light spring into the saddle, and the reins were gathered in one hand, and his spurless heels drove into the horse's dappled flanks. The ranks of curious soldiers, servants and retainers parted to let him through, and he was out at the gate and on the descending causeway, towards the rim of the trees in the river valley below. There he would cross, and climb out again through the thick belt of woodland that everywhere surrounded Greenhamsted. By the same way that Cadfael had come, Yves departed, out to the great, straight road the Romans had made long ago, arrow-straight across the plateau of the Cotswolds, and when he reached it he would turn left, towards Gloucester and back to his duty.
    Cadfael did not go towards the gate to watch him depart. The last he saw of him that day was clear against a sullen sky in the gateway, his back as straight as a lance, before the gates were closed and barred behind him.
    "He means it," said Cadfael by way of warning. For there are young men who say things they do not really mean, and those who fail to understand how to distinguish between the two may live to regret it. "He will come back."
    "I know it," said Philip. "I would not grudge him his flourish even if it was no more than a flourish."
    "It is more. Do not disdain him."
    "God forbid! He will come, and we shall see. It depends how great a force she has now in Gloucester, and whether my father is with her." He spoke of his father quite coldly, simply estimating in his competent mind the possible forces arrayed against him.
    The men of the garrison had dispersed to their various duties. A wind from the courtyard brought in the scent of fresh, warm bread carried in trays from the bakery, sweet as clover, and the sharp, metallic chirping of hammers from the armoury.
    "Why," asked Cadfael, "should you wish to retain my company? It is I who had business unfinished with you, not you with me."
    Philip stirred out of his pondering to consider question and questioner with sharp attention. "Why did you choose to remain? I told you you might go whenever you wished."
    "The answer to that you know," said Cadfael patiently. "The answer to my question I do not know. What is it you want of me?"
    "I am not sure myself," Philip owned with a wry smile. "Some signpost into your mind, perhaps. You interest me more than most people."
    That, if it was a compliment, was one which Cadfael could have returned with fervent truth. Some signpost into this man's mind, indeed, might be a revelation. To get some grasp of the son might even illuminate the father. If Yves found Robert of Gloucester with the