Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery Read Free

venture.
    'Well,' said Cadfael very thoughtfully, 'I've always found Mark's word good enough for me. You may well be right.' And he turned to Oswin, who had followed this exchange with a face dutifully attentive and bewilderedly smiling, earnest to understand what evaded him like thistledown. 'Come on, lad, let's unload these and be rid of the weight first, and then I'll show you all that goes on here at Saint Giles.'
    They passed through the hall, which was for eating and for sleeping, except for those too sick to be left among their healthier fellows. There was a large locked cupboard, to which Cadfael had his own key, and its shelves within were full of jars, flasks, bottles, wooden boxes for tablets, ointments, syrups, lotions, all the products of Cadfael's workshop. They unloaded their scrips and filled the gaps along the shelves. Oswin enlarged with the importance of this mystery into which he had been initiated, and which he was now to practise in earnest.
    There was a small kitchen garden behind the hospice, and an orchard, and barns for storage. Cadfael conducted his charge round the entire enclave, and by the end of the circuit they had three of the inmates in close and curious attendance, the old man who tended the cabbages and showed off his produce with pride, a lame youth herpling along nimbly enough on two crutches, and the blind child, who had forsaken Brother Simon to attach himself to Cadfael's girdle, knowing the familiar voice.
    'This is Warin,' said Cadfael, taking the boy by the hand as they made their way back to Brother Simon's little desk in the porch. 'He sings well in chapel, and knows the office by heart. But you'll soon know them all by name.'
    Brother Simon rose from his accounts at sight of them returning. 'He's shown you everything? It's no great household, ours, but it does a great work. You'll soon get used to us.'
    Oswin beamed and blushed, and said that he would do his best. It was likely that he was waiting impatiently for his mentor to depart, so that he could begin to exercise his new responsibility without the uneasiness of a pupil performing before his teacher. Cadfael clouted him cheerfully on the shoulder, bade him be good, in the tones of one having no doubts on that score, and turned towards the gate. They had moved out into the sunlight from the dimness of the porch.
    'You've heard no fresh news from the south?' The denizens of Saint Giles, being encountered at the very edge of the town, were usually beforehand with news.
    'Nothing to signify. And yet a man must wonder and speculate. There was a beggar, able-bodied but getting old, who came in three days ago, and stayed only overnight to rest. He was from the Staceys, near Andover, a queer one, perhaps a mite touched in his wits, who can tell? He gets notions, it seems, that move him on into fresh pastures, and when they come to him he must go. He said he got word in his head that he had best get away northwards while there was time.'
    'A man of those parts who had no property to tie him might very well get the same notion now,' said Cadfael ruefully, 'without being in want of his wits. Indeed, it might be his wits that advised him to move on.'
    'So it might. But this fellow said, if he did not dream it, that the day he set out he looked back from a hilltop, and saw smoke in clouds over Winchester, and in the night following there was a red glow all above 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