An Excellent Mystery Read Free Page A

the city, that flickered as
if with still quick flames.”
    “It
could be true,” said Cadfael, and gnawed a considering lip. “It would come as
no great surprise. The last firm news we had was that empress and bishop were
holding off cautiously from each other, and shifting for position. A little
patience… But she was never, it seems, a patient woman. I wonder, now, I wonder
if she has laid him under siege. How long would your man have been on the
road?”
    “I
fancy he made what haste he could,” said Simon, “but four days at least,
surely. That sets his story a week back, and no word yet to confirm it.”
    “There
will be, if it’s true,” said Cadfael grimly, “there will be! Of all the reports
that fly about the world, ill news is the surest of all to arrive!”
    He
was still pondering this ominous shadow as he set off back along the Foregate,
and his preoccupation was such that his greetings to acquaintances along the
way were apt to be belated and absent-minded. It was mid-morning, and the dusty
road brisk with traffic, and there were few inhabitants of this parish of Holy
Cross outside the town walls that he did not know. He had treated many of them,
or their children, at some time in these his cloistered years; even, sometimes,
their beasts, for he who learns about the sicknesses of men cannot but pick up,
here and there, some knowledge of the sicknesses of their animals, creatures
with as great a capacity for suffering as their masters, and much less means of
complaining, together with far less inclination to complain. Cadfael had often
wished that men would use their beasts better, and tried to show them that it
would be good husbandry. The horses of war had been part of that curious, slow
process within him that had turned him at length from the trade of arms into
the cloister.
    Not
that all abbots and priors used their mules and stock beasts well, either. But
at least the best and wisest of them recognised it for good policy, as well as
good Christianity.
    But
now, what could really be happening in Winchester, to turn the sky over it
black by day and red by night? Like the pillars of cloud and fire that marked
the passage of the elect through the wilderness, these had signalled and guided
the beggar’s flight from danger. He saw no reason to doubt the report. The same
foreboding must have been on many loftier minds these last weeks, while the
hot, dry summer, close cousin of fire, waited with a torch ready. But what a
fool that woman must be, to attempt to besiege the bishop in his own castle in
his own city, with the queen, every inch her match, no great distance away at
the head of a strong army, and the Londoners implacably hostile. And how
adamant against her, now, the bishop must be, to venture all by defying her.
And both these high personages would remain strongly protected, and survive.
But what of the lesser creatures they put in peril? Poor little traders and
craftsmen and labourers who had no such fortresses to shelter them!
    He
had meditated his way from the care of horses and cattle to the tribulations of
men, and was startled to hear at his back, at a moment when the traffic of the
Foregate was light, the crisp, neat hooves of mules catching up on him at a
steady clip. He halted at the corner of the horse fair ground and looked back,
and had not far to look, for they were close.
    Two
of them, a fine, tall beast almost pure white, fit for an abbot, and a smaller,
lighter, fawn-brown creature stepping decorously a pace or two to the rear. But
what caused Cadfael to pull up and turn fully towards them, waiting in
surprised welcome for them to draw alongside, was the fact that both riders
wore the Benedictine black, brothers to each other and to him. Plainly they had
noted his own habit trudging before them, and made haste to overtake him, for
as soon as he halted and recognised them for his like they eased to a walk, and
so came gently