Ellis Peters - The Pilgrim of Hate

They eyed each other silently for a moment, and Hugh said softly, quoting remembered words: “To tell you truth, now I’ve met you I expected nothing less.”

“I’ll go and rouse my men, and we’ll get to horse. You’ll follow to your house, before I go? I must take leave of Lady Beringar.”

“I’ll follow you,” said Hugh.

Olivier turned to Brother Cadfael without a word but with the brief golden flash of a smile breaking through his roused gravity for an instant, and again vanishing. “Brother… remember me in your prayers!” He stooped his smooth cheek yet again in farewell, and as the elder’s kiss was given he embraced Cadfael vehemently, with impulsive grace. “Until a better time!”

“God go with you!” said Cadfael.

And he was gone, striding rapidly along the gravel path, breaking into a light run, in no way disheartened or down, a match for disaster or for triumph. At the corner of the box hedge he turned in flight to look back, and waved a hand before he vanished.

“I wish to God,” said Hugh, gazing after him, “he was of our party! There’s an odd thing, Cadfael! Will you believe, just then, when he looked round, I thought I saw something of you about him. The set of the head, something…”

Cadfael, too, was gazing out from the open doorway to where the last sheen of blue had flashed from the burnished hair, and the last echo of the light foot on the gravel died into silence. “Oh, no,” he said absently, “he is altogether the image of his mother.”

An unguarded utterance. Unguarded from absence of mind, or design?

The following silence did not trouble him, he continued to gaze, shaking his head gently over the lingering vision, which would stay with him through all his remaining years, and might even, by the grace of God and the saints, be made flesh for him yet a third time. Far beyond his deserts, but miracles are neither weighed nor measured, but as uncalculated as the lightnings.

“I recall,” said Hugh with careful deliberation, perceiving that he was permitted to speculate, and had heard only what he was meant to hear, “I do recall that he spoke of one for whose sake he held the Benedictine order in reverence… one who had used him like a son…”

Cadfael stirred, and looked round at him, smiling as he met his friend’s fixed and thoughtful eyes. “I always meant to tell you, some day,” he said tranquilly, “what he does not know, and never will from me. He is my son.”