This time there was no question of argument. The betrothal vows made by or for a small girl might justifiably be dissolved, but the vocational vows of a grown woman, taken in the full knowledge of their meaning, and of her own choice, never could be undone. He had lost her.
Nicholas lay all night in the small guest-chamber prepared for him, fretting at the knot and knowing he could not untie it. He slept shallowly and uneasily, and in the morning he took his leave, and set out on the road back to Shrewsbury.
Chapter Five
IT SO HAPPENED THAT BROTHER CADFAEL WAS PRIVATE with Humilis in his cell in the dortoir when Nicholas again rode in at the gatehouse and asked leave to visit his former lord, as he had promised. Humilis had risen with the rest that morning, attended Prime and Mass, and scrupulously performed all the duties of the horarium, though he was not yet allowed to exert himself by any form of labour. Fidelis attended him everywhere, ready to support his steps if need arose, or fetch him whatever he might want, and had spent the afternoon completing, under his elder’s approving eye, the initial letter which had been smeared and blotted by his fall. And there they had left the boy to finish the careful elaboration in gold, while they repaired to the dortoir, physician and patient together.
“Well closed,” said Cadfael, content with his work, “and firming up nicely, clean as ever. You scarcely need the bandages, but as well keep them a day or two yet, to guard against rubbing while the new skin is still frail.”
They were grown quite easy together, these two, and if both of them realised that the mere healing of a broken and festered wound was no sufficient cure for what ailed Humilis, they were both courteously silent on the subject, and took their moderate pleasure in what good they had achieved.
They heard the footsteps on the stone treads of the day stairs, and knew them for booted feet, not sandalled. But there was no spring in the steps now, and no hasty eagerness, and it was a glum young man who appeared, shadowy, in the doorway of the cell. Nor had he been in any hurry on the way back from Lai, since he had nothing but disappointment to report. But he had promised, and he was here.
“Nick!” Humilis greeted him with evident pleasure and affection. “You’re soon back! Welcome as the day, but I had thought…” There he stopped, even in the dim interior light aware that the brightness was gone from the young man’s face. “So long a visage? I see it did not go as you would have wished.”
“No, my lord.” Nicholas came in slowly, and bent his knee to both his elders. “I have not sped.”
“I am sorry for it, but no man can always succeed. You know Brother Cadfael? I owe the best of care to him.”
“We spoke together the last time,” said Nicholas, and found a half-hearted smile by way of acknowledgement. “I count myself also in his debt.”
“Spoke of me, no doubt,” said Humilis, smiling and sighing. “You trouble too much for me, I am well content here. I have found my way. Now sit down a while, and tell us what went wrong for you.”
Nicholas plumped himself down on the stool beside the bed on which Humilis was sitting, and said what he had to say in commendably few words: “I hesitated three years too long. Barely a month after you took the cowl at Hyde, Juliana Cruce took the veil at Wherwell.”
“Did she so!” said Humilis on a long breath, and sat silent to take in all that this news could mean. “Now I wonder… No, why should she do such a thing unless it was truly her wish? It cannot have been because of me! No, she knew nothing of me, she had only once seen me, and must have forgotten me before my back was turned.
She may even have been glad… It may be this is what she always wished, if she could have her way…” He thought for a moment, frowning, perhaps trying to recall what that little girl looked like. “You told me, Nick, that I do remember, how she took my message. She was not distressed, but altogether calm and courteous, and gave me her grace and pardon freely. You said so!”
“Truth, my lord,” said Nicholas earnestly, “though she cannot have been glad.”
“Ah, but she may-she may very well have been glad. No blame to her! Willing though she may have been to accept the match made for her, yet it would have tied her to a man more than twenty years her elder, and a stranger. Why should she not be glad, when I offered her her liberty-no, urged it upon her? Surely she must have made of it the use she preferred, perhaps had longed for.”
“She was not forced,” Nicholas admitted, with somewhat reluctant certainty. “Her brother says it was the girl’s own choice, indeed her father was against it, and only gave in because she would have it so.”
“That’s well,” agreed Humilis with a relieved sigh. Then we can but hope that she may be happy in her choice.”
“But so great a waste!” blurted Nicholas, grieving. “If you had seen her, my lord, as I did! To shear such hair as she had, and hide such a form under the black habit! They should never have let her go, not so soon. How if she has regretted it long since?”
Humilis smiled, but very gently, eyeing the downcast face and hooded eyes. “As you described her to me, so gracious and sensible, of such measured and considered speech, I don’t think she will have acted without due thought. No, surely she has done what is right for her. But I’m sorry for your loss, Nick. You must bear it as gallantly as she did-if ever I was any loss!”
The Vesper bell had begun to chime. Humilis rose to go down to the church, and Nicholas rose with him, taking the summons as his dismissal.
“It’s late to set out now,” suggested Cadfael, emerging from the silence and withdrawal he had observed while these two talked together. “And it seems there’s no great haste, that you need leave tonight. A bed in the guest-hall, and you could set off fresh in the morning, with the whole day before you. And spend an hour or two more with Brother Humilis this evening, while you have the chance.”
To which sensible notion they both said yes, and Nicholas recovered a little of his spirits, if nothing could restore the ardour with which he had ridden north from Winchester.
What did somewhat surprise Brother Cadfael was the considerate way in which Fidelis, confronted yet again with this visitant from the time before he had known Humilis and established his own intimacy with him, withdrew himself from sight as he was withdrawn from the possibility of conversation, and left them to their shared memories of travel, Crusade and battle, things so far removed from his own experience. An affection which could so self-effacingly make room for a rival and prior affection was generous indeed.
There was a merchant of Shrewsbury who dealt in fleeces all up and down the borders, both from Wales and from such fat sheep-country as the Cotswolds, and had done an interesting side-trade in information, for Hugh’s benefit, in these contrary times. His active usefulness was naturally confined to this period of high summer when the wool clip was up for sale, and many dealers had restricted their movements in these dangerous times, but he was a determined man, intrepid enough to venture well south down the border, towards territory held by the empress. His suppliers had sold to him for some years, and had sufficient confidence in him to hold their clip until he made contact.