“There was a girl?” said Cadfael.
“There is a girl. And I am on my way to her now,” said Nicholas, as defiantly as if his right had been challenged. “I carried the word to her and her father that he was gone into the monastery at Hyde Mead. Now I am going to Lai to ask for her hand myself, and he has given me his consent and blessing. She was a small child when she was affianced to him, she has never seen him since. There is no reason she should not listen to my suit, and none that her kin should reject me.”
“None in the world!” agreed Cadfael heartily. “Had I a daughter in such case, I would be glad to see the squire follow in his lord’s steps. And if you must report to her of his well-being, you may say with truth that he is doing what he wishes, and enjoys content of mind. And for his body, it is cared for as well as may be. We shall not let him want for anything that can give him aid or comfort.”
“But that does not answer what I need to know,” insisted the young man. “I have promised to come back and tell him how I’ve fared. Three or four days, no longer, perhaps not so long. But shall I still find him then?”
“Son,” said Cadfael patiently, “which of us can answer that for himself or any other man? You want truth, and you deserve it. Yes, Brother Humilis is dying. He got his death-wound long ago in that last battle. Whatever has been done for him, whatever can be done, is staving off an ending. But death is not in such a hurry with him as you fear, and he is in no fear of it. You go and find your girl, and bring him back good news, and he’ll be here to be glad of it.”
“And so he will,” said Cadfael to Edmund, as they took the air in the garden together before Compline that evening, “if that young fellow is brisk about his courting, and I fancy he’s the kind to go straight for what he wants. But how much longer we can hold our ground with Humilis I dare not guess. This fashion of collapse we can prevent, but the old harm will devour him in the end. As he knows better than any.”
“I marvel how he lived at all,” agreed Edmund, “let alone bore the journey home, and has survived three years or more since.”
They were private together down by the banks of the Meole Brook, or they could not have discussed the matter at all. No doubt by this hour Nicholas Harnage was well on his way to the northeast of the county, if he had not already arrived at his destination. Good weather for riding, he would be in shelter at Lai before dark. And a very well-set-up young fellow like Harnage, in a thriving way in arms by his own efforts, was not an offer to be sneezed at. He had the blessing of his lord, and needed nothing more but the girl’s liking, her family’s approval, and the sanction of the church.
“I have heard it argued,” said Brother Edmund, “that when an affianced man enters a monastic order, the betrothed lady is not necessarily free of the compact. But it seems a selfish and greedy thing to try to have both worlds, choose the life you want, but prevent the lady from doing likewise. But I think the question seldom arises but where the man cannot bear to loose his hold of what once he called his, and himself fights to keep her in chains. And here that is not so, Brother Humilis is glad there should be so happy a solution. Though of course she may be married already.”
“The manor of Lai,” mused Cadfael. “What do you know of it, Edmund? What family would that be?”
“Cruce had it. Humphrey Cruce, if I remember rightly, he might well be the girl’s father. They hold several manors up there, Ightfeld, and Harpecote-and Frees, from the Bishop of Chester. Some lands in Staffordshire, too. They made Lai the head of their honour.”
“That’s where he’s bound. Now if he comes back in triumph,” said Cadfael contentedly, “he’ll have done a good day’s work for Humilis. He’s already given him a great heave upward by showing his honest brown face, but if he settles the girl’s future for her he may have added a year or more to his lord’s life, at the same time.”
They went to Compline at the first sound of the bell. The visitor had indeed given Humilis a heft forward towards health, it seemed, for here he came, habited and erect on Fidelis’s arm, having asked no permission of his doctors, bent on observing the night office with the rest. But I’ll hound him back as soon as the observance is over, thought Cadfael, concerned for his dressing. Let him brandish his banner this once, it speaks well for his spirit, even if his flesh is drawn with effort. And who am I to say what a brother, my equal, may or may not do for his own salvation?
The evenings were already beginning to draw in, the height of the summer was over while its heat continued as if it would never break. In the dimness of the choir what light remained was coloured like irises, and faintly fragrant with the warm, heady scents of harvest and fruit. In his stall the tall, handsome, emaciated man who was old in his middle forties stood proudly, Fidelis on his left hand, and next to Fidelis, Rhun. Their youth and beauty seemed to gather to itself what light there was, so that they shone with a native radiance of their own, like lighted candles.
Across the choir from them Brother Urien stood, kneeled, genuflected and sang, with the full, assured voice of maturity, and never took his eyes from those two young, shining heads, the flaxen and the brown. Day by day those two drew steadily together, the mute one and the eloquent one, matched unfairly, unjustly, to his absolute exclusion, the one as desirable and as inviolable as the other, while his need burned in his bowels day and night, and prayer could not cool it, nor music lull it to sleep, but it ate him from within like the gnawing of wolves.
They had both begun-dreadful sign!-to look to him like the woman. When he gazed at either of these two, the boy’s lineaments would dissolve and change subtly, and there would be her face, not recognising, not despising, simply staring through him to behold someone else. His heart ached beyond bearing, while he sang mellifluously in the Compline psalm.
In the twilight of the softer, more open country in the northeast of the shire, where day lingered longer than among the folded hills of the western border, Nicholas Harnage rode between flat, rich fields, unwontedly dried by the heat, into the wattled enclosure of the manor of Lai. Wrapped round on all sides by the enlarged fields of the plain, sparsely tree’d to make way for wide cultivation, the house rose long and low, a stone-built hall and chambers over a broad undercroft, with stables and barns about the interior of the fence. Fat country, good for grain and for roots, with ample grazing for any amount of cattle. The byres were vocal as Nicholas entered at the gate, the mild, contented lowing of well-fed beasts, milked and drowsy.
A groom heard the entering hooves and came forth from the stables, bared to the waist in the warm night. Seeing one young horseman alone, he was quite easy. They had had comparative peace here while Winchester burned and bled.
“Seeking whom, young sir?”
“Seeking the master, your lord, Humphrey Cruce,” said Nicholas, reining in peaceably and shaking the reins free. “If he still keeps house here?”
“Why, the lord Humphrey’s dead, sir, three years ago. His son Reginald is lord here now. Would your errand do as well to him?”
“If he’ll admit me, yes, surely to him, then,” said Nicholas, and dismounted. “Let him know, I was here some three years ago, to speak for Godfrid Marescot. It was his father I saw then, but the son will know of it.”
“Come within,” said the groom placidly, accepting the credentials without question. “I’ll have your beast seen to.”
In the smoky, wood-scented hall they were at meat, or still sitting at ease after the meal was done, but they had heard his step on the stone stairs that led to the open hall door, and Reginald Cruce rose, alert and curious, as the visitor entered. A big, black-haired man of austere features and imperious manner, but well-disposed, it seemed, towards chance travellers. His lady sat aloof and quiet, a pale-haired woman in green, with a boy of about fifteen at her side, and a younger boy and girl about nine or ten, who by their likeness might well be twins. Evidently Reginald Cruce had secured his succession with a well-filled quiver, for by the lady’s swelling waist when she rose to muster the hospitality of the house, there was another sibling on the way.