An Excellent Mystery

Chapter Fourteen

THE BURIAL OF BROTHER HUMILIS BROUGHT TOGETHER in the abbey guest-hall representatives of all the small nobility of the shire, and most of the Benedictine foundations within the region. Sheriff and town provost would certainly attend and so would many of the elders and merchants of Shrewsbury, more by reason of the dramatic and tragic nature of the dead man’s departure than for any real knowledge they had had of him in his short sojourn in the town. Most had never seen him, but knew his reputation before he took the cowl, and felt that his birth and death here in their midst gave them some title in him. It would be a great occasion, befitting an entombment within the church itself, a rare honour.

Reginald Cruce came down from Lai a day in advance of the ceremony, malevolently gratified at all that Nicholas had to report, and taking vengeful pleasure in having the miscreant who had dared do violence to a member of the Cruce family securely in prison and tacitly acknowledged as guilty, even if trial had to await the legal formalities. Hugh did nothing to cast doubts on his satisfaction.

Reginald held the enamelled ring in a broad palm, and studied the intricate decoration with interest. “Yes, I remember it. Strange it should be this small thing that condemns him. She had another ring, I recall, that she valued, perhaps all the more because it was given to her as a child, when her fingers were far too small to retain it. Marescot sent it to her when the contract of betrothal was concluded, it was old, one that had been handed down bride to bride in his family. She used to wear it on a chain round her neck because it was too big for her fingers. I’m sure she would not leave that behind.”

“This was the only ring listed in the valuables she took with her,” said Nicholas, taking back the little jewel. “I’m pledged to return it to the silversmith’s wife in Winchester.”

“The list was of the things intended for her dowry. The ring Marescot sent her she probably meant to keep. It was gold, a snake with red eyes making two coils about the finger. Very old, the scales were worn smooth. I wonder,” said Reginald, “where it is now. There are no more Marescots left, not of that branch, to give it to their brides.”

No more Marescots, thought Nicholas, and no more Julianas. A double, grievous loss, for which revenge, now that he seemed to have it securely in his hands, was no compensation at all. “Should you be mistaken, and she is still living,” the silversmith’s wife had said, “and wants her ring, then give it back to her, and pay me for it whatever you think fair.” If I had more gold than king and empress put together, thought Nicholas, nursing the ache he carried within him, it would not be enough to pay for so inexpressible a blessing.

Brother Cadfael had behaved himself extremely modestly and circumspectly these last days, strict to every scruple of the horarium, prompt in every service, trying, he admitted to himself ruefully, to deserve success, and disarm whatever disapproval the heavens might be harbouring against him. The end in view, he was certain, was not only good but vitally necessary, for the sake of the abbey and the church, and the peace of mind of all those whose fate it was to live on now that Humilis was delivered out of the body, and safe for ever. But the means-he was less certain that the means were above reproach. But what can a man do, or a woman either, but use what comes to hand?

He rose early on the funeral day, to have a little time for his private and vehement prayers before Prime. Much depended on this day, he had good reason to be uneasy, and to turn to Saint Winifred for indulgence, pardon and aid. She had forgiven him, before this, for very irregular means towards desirable ends, and shown him humouring kindness when sterner patrons might have frowned.

But this morning she had another petitioner before him. Someone was crouched almost prostrate on the three steps leading up to her altar. The rigid lines of body and limbs, the convulsive knot of the linked hands contorted on the highest step, spoke of a need at least as extreme as his own. Cadfael drew back silently into shadow, and waited, and after what seemed a long and anguished time the petitioner gathered himself stiffly and slowly, like a man crippled, rose from his knees, and slipped away towards the south door into the cloister. It came as a surprise and a wonder that Brother Urien should be tearing out his heart thus alone in the early morning. Cadfael had never paid, perhaps, sufficient attention to Brother Urien. Who did? Who talked with him, who was familiar with him? The man elected himself into solitude.

Cadfael made his prayers. He had done what seemed best, he had had loyal and ingenious helpers, now he could only plump the whole matter confidingly into Saint Winifred’s tolerant Welsh arms, remind her he was her distant kin, and leave the rest to her.

In the morning of a mild, clear day, with all due ceremony and every honour, Brother Humilis, Godfrid Marescot, was buried in the transept of the abbey church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Cadfael had been looking in vain for one particular mourner, and had not found her, but having rested his case with the saint he left the church not greatly troubled. And as the brothers emerged into the great court, Abbot Radulfus leading, there she was, neat and competent and comely as ever, waiting near the gatehouse to advance to meet the concourse, like a lone knight venturing undeterred against an army. She had a gift for timing, she had conjured up for herself a great cloud of witnesses. Let the revelation be public and wonderful.

Sister Magdalen, of the Benedictine cell of Godric’s Ford, a few miles distant towards the Welsh border, had been both beautiful and worldly in her youth, a baron’s mistress by choice, and honest and loyal to her bargain at that. True to her word and bond then, so she was now in her new vocation. If she had brought as escort some of her devoted army of countrymen from the western forests on this occasion, she had discreetly removed them from sight at this moment. She had the field to herself.

A plump, rosy, middle-aged lady, bright-eyed and brisk, the remnant of her beauty wisely tempered by the austere whiteness of her wimple and blackness of her habit into something homely and comfortable, at least until her indomitable dimple plunged dazzlingly in her cheek, like the twinkling dive of a small golden fish, and again smoothed out as rapidly and demurely as the water of a stream resuming its sunny level. Cadfael had known her for a few years now, and had had occasion to rely on her more than once in complex matters. His trust in her was absolute.

She advanced decorously upon the abbot, glanced aside and veered slightly towards Hugh, and succeeded in halting them both, arresting sacred and secular authority together. All the remaining mourners, monks and laymen, flooded out from the church and stood waiting respectfully for the nobility to disperse unimpeded.

“My lords,” said Sister Magdalen, dividing a reverence between church and state, “I pray your pardon that I come so late, but the recent rains have flooded some parts of the way, and I did not allow enough time for the delays. Mea culpa! I shall make my prayers for our brothers in private, and hope to attend the Mass for them here, to make amends for today’s failing.”

“Late or early, sister, you have a welcome assured,” said the abbot. “You should stay a day or two, until the ways are clear again. And certainly you must be my guest at dinner now you are here.”

“You are very gracious, Father,” she said. “Having failed of my time, I would not have ventured to trouble you now, but that I am the bearer of a letter, to the lord sheriff.” She turned and looked full at Hugh, very gravely. She had the rolled and sealed parchment leaf in her hand. “I must tell you how this came to Godric’s Ford. Mother Mariana regularly receives letters from the prioress of our mother house at Polesworth. In the most recent, which came only yesterday, this other letter was enclosed, from a lady just arrived with a company of other travellers, and now resting after her journey. It is superscribed to the lord sheriff of Shropshire, and sealed with the seal of Polesworth. I brought it with me at this opportunity, seeing it may be important. With your leave, Father, here I deliver it.”

How it was done remained her secret, but she had a way of holding people so that they felt they might miss some prodigy if they went away from her. No one had moved, no one had slipped into casual talk, all the movement there was in the court was of those still making their way out to join the press, and sidling softly round the periphery to find a place where they might see and hear better. There was only the softest rustling of garments and shuffling of feet as Hugh took the scroll. The seal would be immaculate, for it was also the seal of Polesworth’s daughter cell at Godric’s Ford.

“Have I your leave, Father? It may well be something of importance.”

“By all means, read,” said the abbot.

Hugh broke the seal and unrolled the leaf. He read with brows drawn close in fixed attention. Round the great court men held their breath, or drew it very softly and cautiously. There was tension in the air, after all that had passed.

“Father,” said Hugh, looking up abruptly, “there is matter here that concerns more than me. Others here have much more to do in this, and deserve and need to know at once what is set down here. It is a marvel! Of such weight, I should have had to issue its purport as a public proclamation. With your leave I’ll do so here and now, before all this company.”

There was no need to raise his voice, every ear was strained to attend on every word as he read clearly:

‘My lord Sheriff,

‘It is come to my ears, to my great dismay, that in my own shire I am rumoured to be dead, robbed and done to death for gain. Wherefore I send in haste this present witness that I am not so wronged, but declare myself alive and well, here arrived into the hospitality of the house sisters at Polesworth. I repent me that lives and honours may have been put in peril mistakenly on my account, some, perhaps, who have been good friends and servants to me. And I ask pardon if I have been the means of disruption and distress to any, unknown to me but through my silence. There shall be amends made.

‘As to my living heretofore, I confess with all humility that I came to doubt whether I had the nun’s true vocation before ever I reached my goal, and therefore I have been living retired and serviceable, but have taken no vows as a nun. At Sopwell Priory by Saint Albans a devout woman may live a life of holiness and service short of the veil, through the charity of Prior Geoffrey. Now, being advised I am sought as one dead, I desire to show myself to all those who know me, that no one may go any longer in grief or peril because of me.

‘I entreat you, my lord, make this known to my good brother and all my kin, and send some trustworthy man to bring me safe to Shrewsbury, and I shall rest your lordship’s grateful debtor.

Juliana Cruce.’

Long before he had reached the end there had begun a stirring, a murmur, an eddy that shook its way like a sudden rising wind through the ranks of the listeners, and then a roused humming like bees in swarm, and suddenly Reginald’s stunned silence broke in a bellow of wonder, bewilderment and delight all mingled: “My sister living? She’s alive! By God, we have been wildly astray…”

“Alive!” echoed Nicholas in a dazed whisper. “Juliana is alive… alive and well…”

The murmur grew to a throbbing chorus of wonder and excitement, and above it the voice of Abbot Radulfus soared exultantly: “God’s mercies are infinite. Out of the shadow of death he demonstrates his miraculous goodness.”

“We have wronged an honest man!” cried Reginald, as vehement in amends as in accusation. “He was as truly her man as ever he claimed! Now it comes clear to me-all that he sold he sold for her, surely for her! Only those woman’s trinkets that were hers in the world-she had the right to what they would fetch…”

“I’ll bring her from Polesworth myself, along with you,” said Hugh, “and Adam Heriet shall be hauled out of his prison a free man, and go along with us. Who has a better right?”

The burial of Brother Humilis had become in a moment the resurrection of Juliana Cruce, from a mourning into a celebration, from Good Friday to Easter. “A life taken from us and a life restored,” said Abbot Radulfus “is perfect balance, that we may fear neither living nor dying.”

Brother Rhun came from the refectory with his mind full of a strange blend of pleasure and sorrow, and took them with him into the quietness and solitude of the abbey orchards along the Gaye. There would be no one there at this hour of this season if he left the kitchen garden and the fields behind, and went on to the very edge of abbey ground. Beyond, trees came right down to the waterside, overhanging the river. There he halted, and stood gazing downstream, where Fidelis was gone.

The water was still turgid and dark, but the level had subsided slightly, though it still lay in silvery shallows over hollows in the water-meadows on the far shore. Rhun thought of his friend’s body being swept down beneath that opaque surface, lost beyond recovery. The morning had seen a woman supposed dead restored to life, and there was gladness in that, but it did not balance the grief he felt over the loss of Fidelis. He missed him with an aching intensity, though he had said no word of his pain to anyone, nor responded when others found the words he could not find to give expression to sorrow.

He crossed the boundary of abbey land, and threaded a way through the belt of trees, to have a view down the next long reach. And there suddenly he stopped and drew back a pace, for someone else was there before him, some creature even more unhappy than himself. Brother Urien sat huddled in the muddy grass among the bushes at the edge of the water, and stared at the rapid eddies as they coiled and sped by. Downstream from here the dull mirrors of water dappling the far meadows had been fed, since the storm, by two nights of gentler rain, and once filled could not drain away, they could only dry up slowly. Their stillness and tranquillity, reflecting back the pale blue of sky and fleeting white of clouds, made the demonic speed of the main stream seem more than a mere aspect of nature, rather a live, malignant force that gulped down men.

Rhun had made no noise in his approach, yet Urien grew aware that he was not alone, and turned a defensive face, hollow-eyed and hostile.

“You too?” he said dully. “Why you? It was I destroyed Fidelis.”

“No, you did no such thing!” protested Rhun, and came out of the bushes to stand beside him. “You must not say or think it.”

“Fool, you know what I did, why deny it? You know it, you did what you could to undo it,” said Urien bleakly. “I drove, I threatened-I destroyed Fidelis. If I had the courage I would go after him by the same way, but I have not the courage.”

Rhun sat down beside him in the grass, close but not touching him, and earnestly studied the drawn and embittered face. “You have not slept,” he said gently.

“How should I sleep, knowing what I know? Not slept, no, nor eaten, either, but it takes a long time to die of not eating. A man can go on water alone for many weeks. And I am neither patient nor brave. There’s only one way for me, and that is full confession. Oh, not for absolution, no-for retribution. I have been sitting here preparing for it. Soon I will go and get it over.”

“No!” said Rhun with sudden, fierce authority. “That you must not do.” He was not entirely clear himself why this was so urgent a matter, but there was something pricking at his mind, some truth deep within him that he could glimpse only by sidelong flashes, out of the corner of his mind’s eye. When he turned to pursue it directly, it vanished. Life and death were both mysteries. A life taken from us and a life restored, Abbot Radulfus had said, is perfect balance. A life taken, and a life restored, almost in the same moment…

He had it, then. Light opened brilliantly before him, the load on his heart was lifted away. A perfect balance, yes! He sat entranced, so filled and overfilled with enlightenment that all his senses were turned inward to the glow, like cold hands spread blissfully at a bright fire, and he scarcely heard Urien saying savagely: “That I must and will do. How can I bear this longer alone?”

Rhun stirred and awakened from his trance of bliss. “You need not be alone,” he said. “You are not alone now. I am here. Say what you choose to me, but never to any other. Even the confessional might not be secret enough. Then you would indeed have destroyed all that Fidelis was, all that Fidelis did, fouled and muddied it into a byword, a scandal that would cast a shadow on us all, on the Order, most of all on his memory…” He caught himself up there, smiling. “See how strong is habit! But I do know-I know now what you could tell, and for the sake of Fidelis it must never be told. Surely you see that, as clearly as I now see it. Do no more harm! Bear what you have to bear, and be as silent as Fidelis was.”

Urien’s stony face quivered and melted suddenly like wax. He clenched his arms fiercely over his eyes and bowed himself into the long, wet grass, and shook with a terrible storm of dry and silent sobbing. Rhun leaned down and confidently embraced the heaving shoulders. At the touch a great, soft groan passed through Urien’s body and ebbed out of him, leaving him limp and still. Once it had been Urien who touched, and Rhun who looked him mildly in the eyes and filled him with rage and shame. Now Rhun touched Urien, laid an arm about him and let it lie quiet there, and all the rage and shame sighed out of him and left him clean.

“Keep the secret. You must, if you loved him.”

“Yes-yes,” said Urien brokenly out of his sheltering arms.

“For his sake…” This time Rhun turned back, smiling, to set right what he had said. “For her sake!”

“Yes, yes-to the grave. Stay with me!”

“I’m here. When we go, we’ll go together. Who knows? Even the harm already done may not be incurable.”

“Can the dead live again?” demanded Urien bitterly.

“If God pleases!” said Rhun, who had his own good reasons for believing in miracles.

Juliana Cruce arrived at the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul just in time to attend the Mass for the souls of Brother Humilis and Brother Fidelis, drowned together in the great storm. It was the second day after the burial of Humilis, a fresh, cool day of soft blue sky and soft green earth, the gloss of summer briefly restored. By that time every soul in and around Shrewsbury had heard the story of the woman come back from the dead, and everyone was curious to witness her return. There was a great crowd in the court to watch her ride in, her brother at her side and Hugh Beringar and Adam Heriet following. Within the gates they dismounted, and the horses were led away. Reginald took his sister by the hand, and brought her between the eager watchers to the church door.

Cadfael had had some qualms about this moment, and had taken his stand close beside Nicholas Harnage, where he could pluck at his sleeve in sharp warning should he be startled into some indiscreet utterance. It might have been better to warn him beforehand, and forestall the danger. But on the other hand, it must be gain if the young man never did make the connection, and it seemed worth taking the risk. If he was never forced to consider how formidable a rival was gone before him, and how indelible must be the memory of a devotion unlikely ever to be matched, there would be less of a barrier to his own courtship. If he approached her in innocence he came with strong advantages, having had the trust and affection of Godfrid Marescot, as well as amply proving his concern for the girl herself. There was every ground for kindness there. If he recognised her, and saw in a moment the whole pattern of events, he might be too discouraged ever to approach her at all, for who could follow Humilis and not be diminished? But he might-it was just possible-he might even be large enough to accept all the disadvantages, hold his tongue, and still put his fortune to the test. There was promise in him. Still, Cadfael stood alerted and anxious, his hand hovering at the young man’s elbow.

She came through the crowd on her brother’s arm, no great beauty, simply a tall girl in a dark cloak and gown, with a grave oval face austerely framed in a white wimple and a dark blue hood. Sister Magdalen and Aline between them had done well by her. The general mourning forbade bright colours, but Aline had carefully avoided providing anything that could recall the rusty monastic black. They were of much the same build, tall and slender, the gown fitted well. The tonsure would take some time to grow out, but hiding the ring of chestnut hair completely and covering half the lofty brow did much to change the shape of the serious face. She had darkened her lashes, which gave a changed value and an iris shade to the clear grey of her eyes. She held up her head and walked slowly past men who had lived side by side with Brother Fidelis for many weeks now, and they saw no one but Juliana Cruce, nothing to do with the abbey of Shrewsbury, simply a nine days’ wonder from the outer world, interesting now but soon to be forgotten.

Nicholas watched her draw near, and was filled with deep, glowing gratitude, simply that she was alive. Her life might have no place for him, but at least it was hers, all the years he had thought stolen from her by a cruel crime, while here, it seemed, was no crime at all. He could, he would, make the assay, but not yet. Let her have time to know him, for she knew nothing of him yet, and he had no claim on her, unless, perhaps, Hugh Beringar had told her of his part in the search for her. Even that gave him no rights. Those he would have to earn.

But as she drew level with him she turned her head and looked him in the eyes. An instant only, but it was enough.

Cadfael saw him start and quiver, saw him open his lips, perhaps to cry out in the sheer shock of recognition. But he made no sound, after all. Cadfael had gripped him by the arm, but released him at once, for there had been no need. Nicholas turned on him a face of starry brightness, dazzled and dazzling, and said in a rapid whisper: “Never fret! I am the dumb one now!”

So quick and agile a mind, thought Cadfael approvingly, would not be put off by difficulties. And the girl was still barely twenty-three. They had time. Why should a girl who had had the devoted company of one fine man therefore fail to appreciate the value of a second? I wonder, he thought, what Humilis said to her at Salton that last day? Did he know, in the end, what and who she was? I hope he did. Certainly he knew the candlesticks and the cross, once Hugh described them to him, for of course she took them with her into Hyde, and with Hyde they must have gone to dust. But then, I think, he was in two minds, half afraid his Fidelis had been mixed up in Juliana’s death, half wondering… By the end, however the light came, surely he knew the truth.

In his chosen stall next to Brother Urien, Rhun leaned close to whisper: “Look! Look at the lady! This is she who should have been wife to Brother Humilis.”

Urien looked, but with listless eyes that saw only what they expected to see. He shook his head. “You know her,” said Rhun. “Look again!” He looked again, and he knew her. The load of guilt and grief and penitence lifted from him like a lark rising. He ceased to sing, for his throat was constricted and his tongue mute. He stood lost between knowledge and wonder, the inheritor of her silence.

Juliana emerged from the church into the temperate sunlight with the blankness of wonder, endurance and loss still in her face. Watching her from the shadow of the cloister, Nicholas abandoned all thought of approaching her just yet. Now that he understood at last the magnitude of what she had done, it became impossible to offer her an ordinary marriage and a customary love. Not yet, not for a long while yet. But he could bide his time, keep touch with her brother, make his way to her by delicate degrees, open his heart to her only when hers was reconciled and at peace.

She had halted, looking about her, withdrawing her hand from her brother’s as if she sought someone to whom recognition was due. The palest of smiles touched her face. She came towards Nicholas with hand extended. About the middle finger the little golden serpent twined in a coil, he caught the tiny glitter of its ruby eyes.

“Sir,” said Juliana, in a voice pitched almost childishly high, but very soft and sweet, “the lord sheriff has told me of all the pains you have been spending for me. I am sorry I have caused you and others so much needless trouble and care. Thanks are poor recompense for so much kindness.”

Her hand lay firm and cool in his. Her smile was still faint and remote, acknowledging nothing of any other identity but that of Juliana Cruce. He might have thought she was denying her other self, but for the clear, straight gaze of her grey eyes, opened wide to admit him into a shared knowledge where words were unnecessary. Nothing need ever be said where everything was known and understood.

“Madam,” said Nicholas, “to see you here alive and well is all the recompense I need or want.”

“But I hope you will come soon to visit us at Lai,” she said. “It would be a kindness. I should like to make better amends.”

And that was all. He kissed the hand he held, and she turned and went away from him. And surely this was nothing more than paying a due of gratitude, as she paid all her dues, to the last scruple of pain, devotion and love. But she had asked, and she was not one of those women who ask without meaning. And he would go to Lai, soon, yes, very soon. To make do with the touch of her hand and her pale smile and the undoubted trust she had just placed in him, until it was fair and honourable to hope for more.

They sat in Cadfael’s workshop in the herb-garden, in the after-dinner hush, Sister Magdalen, Hugh Beringar and Cadfael together. It was all over, the curious all gone home, the brothers innocent of all ill except the loss of two of their number, and two who had been with them only a short time, and somewhat withdrawn from the common view, at that. They would soon become but very dim figures, to be remembered by name in prayer while their faces faded from memory.

“There could still be some awkward questions asked,” admitted Cadfael, “if anyone went to the trouble to probe deeper, but now no one ever will. The Order can breathe again. There’ll be no scandal, no aspersions cast on either Hyde or Shrewsbury, no legatine muck-raking, no ballad-makers running off dirty rhymes about monks and their women, and hawking them round the markets, no bishops bearing down on us with damning visitations, no carping white monks fulminating about the laxity and lechery of the Benedictines… And no foul blight clinging round that poor girl’s name and blackening her for life. Thank God!” he concluded fervently.

He had broached one of his best flasks of wine. He felt they deserved it as much as they needed it.

“Adam was in her confidence throughout,” said Hugh. “It was he who got her the clothes to turn her into a young man, he who cut her hair, and sold for her the few things she considered her own, to pay her lodging until she presented herself at Hyde. When he said she was dead, he spoke in the bitterness of his heart, for she was indeed dead to the world, by her own choice. And when I brought him from Brigge, he was frantic to get news of her, for he’d given her up for lost after Hyde burned, but when I told him there was a second brother come from Hyde with Godfrid, then he was easy, for he knew who the second must be. He would have died rather than betray her. He knew the ugliness of which men are capable, as well as we.”

“And she, I hope and think,” said Cadfael, “must know the loyalty and devotion of which one man, at least, was capable. She should, seeing it is the mirror of her own. No, there was no other solution possible but for Fidelis to die and vanish without trace, before Juliana could come back to life. But I never thought the chance would come as it did…”

“You took it nimbly enough,” said Hugh.

“It was then or never. It would have come out else. Madog would never have said anything, but she had stopped caring when Humilis died.” He had had her in his arms, herself half-dead, on that ride to Godric’s Ford to commit her to Sister Magdalen’s care, the russet tonsure wet and draggled on his shoulder, the pale, soiled face stricken into ice, the grey eyes wide open, seeing nothing. “It was as much as we could do to get him out of her arms. Without Aline we should have been lost. I almost feared we might lose the girl as well as the man. But Sister Magdalen is a powerful physician.”

“That letter I composed for her,” said Sister Magdalen, looking back on it with a critical but satisfied eye, “was the hardest ever I had to write. And not a lie from start to finish! Not one in the whole of it. A little mild deception, but no lies. That was important, you understand. Do you know why she chose to be mute? Well, there is the matter of her voice, of course, a woman’s if ever there was. The face-it’s a good face, clear and strong and delicate, one that could as well belong to a boy as to a girl, but not the voice. But beyond that,” said Sister Magdalen, “she had two good reasons for being dumb. First, she was resolute she would never ask anything of him, never make any woman’s appeal, for she held he owed her nothing, no privilege, no consideration. What she got of him she had to earn. And second, she was absolute she would never lie to him. Who cannot speak cannot plead or cajole, and cannot lie.”

“So he owed her nothing, and she owed him all,” said Hugh, shaking his head over the unfathomable strangeness of women.

“Ah, but she also had her due,” said Cadfael. “What she wanted and held to be hers she took, the whole of it, to the end, to the last moment. His company, the care of him, the secrets of his body, as intimate as ever was marriage-his love, far beyond the common claims of marriage. No use any man telling her she was free, when she knew she was a wife. I wonder is she free even now.”

“Not yet, but she will be,” Sister Magdalen assured them. “She has too much courage to give over living. And if that young man who fancies her has courage enough not to give over loving, he may do very well in the end. He starts with a strong advantage, having loved the same idol. Besides,” she added, viewing a future that held a certain promise even for some who felt just now that they had only a past, “I doubt if that household of her brother’s, with a wife in possession, and three children, not to speak of another on the way-no, I doubt if an unwed sister’s part in Lai will have much lasting attraction for a woman like Juliana Cruce.”

The half-hour of rest after dinner had passed, the brothers stirred again to their work, and so did Cadfael, parting from his friends at the turn of the box hedge. Sister Magdalen and her two stout woodsmen would be off back to Godric’s Ford by the westward track, and Hugh was heading thankfully for home. Cadfael passed through the herb-garden into the small plot where he had a couple of apple trees and a pear tree of his own growing, just old enough to crop. He surveyed the scene with deep content. Everything was greening afresh where it had been pale as straw. The Meole Brook had still a few visible shoals, but was no longer a mere sad, sluggish network of rivulets struggling through pebble and sand. September was again September, mellowed and fruitful after the summer heat and drought. Much of the abundant weight of fruit had fallen unplumped by reason of the dryness, but even so there would still be harvest enough for thanksgiving. After every extreme the seasons righted themselves, and won back the half at least of what was lost. So might the seasons of men right themselves, with a little help by way of rain from heaven.

O God, who hast consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery… Look mercifully, upon these thy servants. from ‘The form of Solemnization of Matrimony’ in The Book of Common Prayer