Ellis Peters - Brother Cadfael's Penance

They passed through all the activity in the ward, and out at the gatehouse into the dull grey December light, and the guard on the paved apron without passed them through indifferently. They had no interest in the dead; they were there only to ensure that no arms and accoutrements of value were taken away when the garrison departed, and perhaps to check that Philip FitzRobert should not pass as one of the wounded. A short space to the left from the causeway there was a level place where the common grave was being opened, and beside the plot the dead were laid decently side by side.

Between this mournful activity and the rim of the woodland several people from the village, and perhaps from further afield, had gathered to watch, curious but aloof. There was no great love among the commonalty for either of these factions, but the present threat was over. A Musard might yet come back to Greenhamsted. Four generations had left the family still acceptable to their neighbours.

A cart, drawn by two horses, came up the slope from the river valley, and ground steadily up the causeway towards the gatehouse. The driver was a thickset, bearded, well-fleshed man of about fifty, in dark homespun and a shoulder cape and capuchon of green, but all their colours faintly veiled and dusted over from long professional days spent in an air misty with the milling of grain. The lad at his back had sackcloth draped over his shoulders and the opened end of a sack over his head, a long young fellow in the common duncoloured cotte and hose of the countryside. Cadfael watched them approach and gave thanks to God.

Beholding the work in progress in the meadow, the row of shrouded bodies, the last of them just brought forth and laid beside the rest, and the chaplain, drooping and disconsolate, stumbling after, the driver of the cart, blithely ignoring the guards at the gate, turned his team aside, and made straight for the place of burial. There he climbed down briskly, leaving his lad to descend after him and wait with the horses. It was to Cadfael the miller addressed himself, loudly enough to reach the chaplain’s ears also.

“Brother, there was a nephew of mine serving here under Camville, and I’d be glad to know how he’s fared, for his mother’s sake. We heard you had dead, and a deal more wounded. Can I get news of him?”

He had lowered his voice by then as he drew close. For all it gave away his face might have been oak.

“Rid your mind of the worst before you need go further,” said Cadfael, meeting shrewd eyes of no particular colour, but bright with sharp intelligence. The chaplain was halted a little apart, talking to the officer of FitzGilbert’s guard. “Walk along the line with me, and satisfy yourself that none of these here is your man. And take it slowly,” said Cadfael quietly. Any haste would be a betrayal. They walked the length of the ranks together, talking in low tones, stooping to uncover a face here and there, very briefly, and at every assay the miller shook his head.

“It’s been a while since I saw him last, but I’ll know.” He talked easily, inventing a kinsman not so far from the truth, not so close as to be an irreparable loss, or long or deeply lamented, but still having the claim of blood, and not to be abandoned. “Thirty year old, he’d be, black avised, a good man of his hands with quarter-staff or bow. Not one for keeping out of trouble, neither. He’d be into the thick of it with the best.”

They had arrived at the straw pallet on which Philip lay, so still and mute that Cadfael’s heart misdoubted for a moment, and then caught gratefully at the sudden shudder and crepitation of breath. “He’s here!”

The miller had recognized not the man, but the moment. He broke off on a word, stiffening and starting back a single step, and then as promptly stooped, with Cadfael’s bulk to cover the deception, and made to draw back the linen from Philip’s face, but without touching. He remained so, bending over the body, a long moment, as if making quite sure, before rising again slowly, and saying clearly: “It is! This is our Nan’s lad.”

Still adroit, sounding almost as much exasperated as grieved, and quick to resignation from long experience now of a disordered land, where death came round corners unexpectedly, and chose and took at his pleasure. “I might have known he’d never make old bones. Never one to turn away from where the fire was hottest. Well, what can a man do? There’s no bringing them back.”

The nearest of the grave-diggers had straightened his back to get a moment’s relief and turned a sympathetic face.

“Hard on a man to come on his own blood kin so. You’ll be wanting to have him away to lie with his forebears? They might allow it. Better than being put in the ground among all these, without even a name.”

Their close, half-audible conference had caught the attention of the guards. Their officer was looking that way, and in a moment, Cadfael judged, might come striding towards them. Better to forestall him by bearing down upon him with the whole tale ready.

“I’ll ask,” he offered, “if that’s your will. It would be a Christian act to take the poor soul in care.” And he led the way back towards the gate at a purposeful pace, with the miller hard on his heels. Seeing this willing approach, the officer halted and stood waiting.

“Sir,” said Cadfael, “here’s the miller of Winstone, over the river there, has found his kinsman, his sister’s son, among our dead, and asks that he may take the lad’s body away for burial among his own people.”

“Is that it?” The guard looked the petitioner up and down, but in a very cursory examination, already losing interest in an incident nowadays so common. He considered for a moment, and shrugged.

“Why not? One more or less… As well if we could clear the ground of them all at one deal. Yes, let him take the fellow. Here or wherever, he’s never going to let blood or shed it again.”

The miller of Winstone touched his forelock very respectfully, and gave fitting thanks. If there was an infinitesimal overtone of satire about his gratitude, it escaped notice. He went stolidly back to his cart and his charge. The long lad in sacking had drawn the cart closer. Between them they hoisted the pallet on which Philip lay, and in full and complacent view of the marshall’s guards, settled it carefully in the cart. Cadfael, holding the horses meantime, looked up just once into the shadow of the sacking hood the young man wore, and deep into profound black eyes, golden round the pupils, that opened upon him in a blaze of affection and elation, promising success. There was no word said. Olivier sat down in the body of the cart, and cushioned the head of the thin straw pallet upon his knees. And the miller of Winstone clambered aboard and turned his team back towards the river, down the bleached green slope, never looking back, never hurrying, the picture of a decent man who had just assumed an unavoidable duty, and had nothing to account for to any man.

At noon FitzGilbert appeared before the gate with a company drawn up at his back, to watch the garrison march out and quit their possession of La Musarderie. They had mounted some of their wounded, who could ride but could not maintain a march for long, and put the rest into such carts as they had in store, and set these in the middle of their muster, to have fit men upon either flank in case of need. Cadfael had thought in time to establish his ownership of the fine young chestnut roan Hugh had lent him, and stayed within the stables to maintain his claim, in case it should be questioned. Hugh would lop me of my ears, he thought, if I should let him be commandeered from under my nose. So only late in the day, when the rearguard was passing stiffly by the watching and waiting victors, did he witness the withdrawal from La Musarderie.