“Should I so intrude upon him?” wondered Meriet, his voice thin with pain. “He has not asked after me,” he said, aching, and turned his face away, ashamed of so complaining.
“You should and you must,” said Mark firmly. “You promised the lady, and she has put herself out to make your visit easy. Now let her groom mount you, you have not yet the full use of that foot, you cannot spring.”
Meriet gave way, consenting to borrow a hand to get into the saddle. “And that’s her own riding horse you have there,” said Edred, looking up proudly at the tall young gelding. “And a stout little horsewoman she is, and thinks the world of him. There’s not many she’d let into a saddle on that back, I can tell you.”
It occurred to Meriet, somewhat late, to wonder if he was not trying Brother Mark too far, in enforcing him to clamber aboard a beast strange and possibly fearsome to him. He knew so little of this small, tireless brother, only what he was, not at all what he had been aforetime, nor how long he had worn the habit; there were those children of the cloister who had been habited from infancy. But Brother Mark set foot briskly enough in the stirrup, and hoisted his light weight into the saddle without either grace or difficulty.
“I grew up on a well-farmed yardland,” he said, noting Meriet’s wide eye. “I have had to do with horses from an infant, not your high-bred stock, but farm-drudges. I plod like them, but I can stay up, and I can get my beast where he must go. I began very early,” he said, remembering long hours half-asleep and sagging in the fields, a small hand clutching the stones in his bag, to sling at the crows along the furrow.
They went out along the Foregate thus, two mounted brothers of the Benedictines with a young groom trotting alongside. The winter morning was young, but the human traffic was already brisk, husbandmen out to feed their winter stock, housewives shopping, late packmen humping their packs, children running and playing, everybody quick to make use of a fine morning, where daylight was in any case short, and fine mornings might be few. As brothers of the abbey, they exchanged greetings and reverences all along the way.
They lighted down before the gatehouse, and left the horses with Edred to bestow as he had said. Here in the precinct where he had sought entry, for whatever reason of his own and counter-reason of his father’s, Meriet hung irresolute, trembling, if Mark had not taken him by the arm and drawn him within. Through the great court, busy enough but engrossed, they made their way into the blessed dimness and chill of the church, and if any noticed them they never wondered at two brothers going cowled and in a hurry on such a frosty morning.
Edred, whistling, tethered the horses as he had said he would, and went off to visit his sister and the girl next door.
Hugh Beringar, not a wedding guest, was nevertheless as early on the scene as were Meriet and Mark, nor did he come alone. Two of his officers loitered unobtrusively among the shifting throng in the great court, where a number of the curious inhabitants of the Foregate had added themselves to the lay servants, boys and novices, and the various birds of passage lodged in the common hall. Cold though it might be, they intended to see all there was to be seen. Hugh kept out of sight in the anteroom of the gatehouse, where he could observe without himself being observed. Here he had within his hand all those who had been closest to the death of Peter Clemence. If this day’s ferment did not cast up anything fresh, then both Leoric and Nigel must be held to account, and made to speak out whatever they knew.
In compliment to a generous patron of the abbey, Abbot Radulfus himself had elected to conduct the marriage service, and that ensured that his guest Canon Eluard should also attend. Moreover, the sacrament would be at the high altar, not the parish altar, since the abbot was officiating, and the choir monks would all be in their places. That severed Hugh from any possibility of a word in advance with Cadfael. A pity, but they knew each other well enough by now to act in alliance even without prearrangement.
The leisurely business of assembly had begun already, guests crossed from hall to church by twos and threes, in their best. A country gathering, not a court one, but equally proud and of lineage as old or older. Compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses, equally Saxon and Norman, Roswitha Linde would go to her bridal. Shrewsbury had been given to the great Earl Roger almost as soon as Duke William became king, but many a manor in the outlying countryside had remained with its old lord, and many a come-lately Norman lordling had had the sense to take a Saxon wife, and secure his gains through blood older than his own, and a loyalty not due to himself.
The interested crowd shifted and murmured, craning to get the best view of the passing guests. There went Leoric Aspley, and there his son Nigel, that splendid young man, decked out to show him at his best, and Janyn Linde in airy attendance, his amused and indulgent smile appropriate enough in a good-natured bachelor assisting at another young man’s loss of liberty. That meant that all the guests should now be in their places. The two young men halted at the door of the church and took their stand there.
Roswitha came from the guest-hall swathed in her fine blue cloak, for her gown was light for a winter morning. No question but she was beautiful, Hugh thought, watching her sail down the stone steps on Wulfric’s plump, complacent arm. Cadfael had reported her as quite unable to resist drawing all men after her, even elderly monks of no attraction or presence. She had the audience of her life now, lined up on either side of her unhurried passage to the church, gaping in admiration. And in her it seemed as innocent and foolish as an over-fondness for honey. To be jealous of her would be absurd.
Isouda Foriet, demure in eclipse behind such radiance, walked after the bride, bearing her gilded prayer-book and ready to attend on her at the church door, where Wulfric lifted his daughter’s hand from his own arm, and laid it in the eager hand Nigel extended to receive it. Bride and groom entered the church porch together, and there Isouda lifted the warm mantle from Roswitha’s shoulders and folded it over her own arm, and so followed the bridal pair into the dim nave of the church.
Not at the parish altar of Holy Cross, but at the high altar of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Nigel Aspley and Roswitha Linde were made man and wife.
Nigel made his triumphal way from the church by the great west door which lay just outside the enclave of the abbey, close beside the gatehouse. He had Roswitha ceremoniously by the hand, and was so blind and drunk with his own pride of possession that it was doubtful if he was aware even of Isouda herself standing in the porch, let alone of the cloak she spread in her hands and draped over Roswitha’s shoulders, as bride and groom reached the chill brightness of the frosty noon outside. After them streamed the proud fathers and gratified guests; and if Leone’s face was unwontedly grey and sombre for such an occasion, no one seemed to remark it; he was at all times an austere man.
Nor did Roswitha notice the slight extra weight on her left shoulder of an ornament intended for a man’s wear. Her eyes were fixed only on the admiring crowd that heaved and sighed with approbation at sight of her. Here outside the wall the throng had grown, since everyone who had business or a dwelling along the Foregate had come to stare. Not here, thought Isouda, following watchfully, not here will there be any response, here all those who might recognise the brooch are walking behind her, and Nigel is as oblivious as she. Only when they turn in again at the gatehouse, having shown themselves from the parish door, will there be anyone to take heed. And if Canon Eluard fails me, she thought resolutely, then I shall speak out, my word against hers or any man’s.