“It’s early yet to say,” said the young man guardedly.
What age would he be? Twenty-five years or so? Hardly more. He bristled like an urchin at a touch, alert against all the world. Unfree, thought Cadfael, sympathetic; and of quick and vulnerable mind. Servant to someone less feeling than himself? It might well be.
“How many are you in the house?”
“My master and mistress, and I. And a maid.” A maid! No more, and his long, mobile mouth shut fast even on that.
“Well, Aelfric, you’re welcome to make your way here when you will, and what I can supply for your lady, that I will. What is it I can send her this time?”
“She asks for some sage, and some basil, if you have such. She brought a dish with her to warm for the evening,” said Aelfric, thawing a little, “and has it on a hob there, but it wants for sage. She was out. It’s a curious time, moving house here, she’ll have left a mort of things behind.”
“What’s in my way she may send here for, and welcome. Here you are, Aelfric, lad, here’s a bunch of either. Is she a good mistress, your lady?”
“She’s that!” said the youth, and closed upon it, as he had upon mention of the maid. He brooded, frowning into mixed and confused thoughts. “She was a widow when she wed him.” He took the bunches of herbs, fingers gripping hard on the stems. On a throat? Whose, then, since he melted at mention of his mistress? “I thank you kindly, brother.”
He drew back, lissome and silent. The door opening and closing took but a moment. Cadfael was left gazing after him very thoughtfully. There was still an hour before Vespers. He might well go over to the infirmary, and pour the sweet sound of Welsh into Brother Rhys’s old, dulled ears, and dig the monk’s-hood oil deep into his aching joints. It would be a decent deed.
But that wild young thing, caged with his grievances, hurts and hatreds, what was to be done for him? A villein, if Cadfael knew one when he saw one, with abilities above his station, and some private anguish, maybe more than one. He remembered that mention of the maid, bitten off jealousy between set teeth.
Well, they were but newly come, all four of them. Let the time work for good. Cadfael washed his hands, with all the thoroughness he recommended to his patrons, reviewed his sleeping kingdom, and went to visit the infirmary.
Old Brother Rhys was sitting up beside his neatly made bed, not far from the fire, nodding his ancient, grey-tonsured head. He looked proudly complacent, as one who has got his due against all the odds, stubbly chin jutting, thick old eyebrows bristling in all directions, and the small, sharp eyes beneath almost colourless in their grey pallor, but triumphantly bright. For he had a young, vigorous, dark-haired fellow sitting on a stool beside him, waiting on him good-humouredly and pouring voluble Welsh into his ears like a mountain spring. The old man’s gown was stripped down from his bony shoulders, and his attendant was busily massaging oil into the joints with probing fingers, drawing grunts of pleasure from his patient.
“I see I’m forestalled,” said Cadfael into Brother Edmund’s ear, in the doorway.
“A kinsman,” said Brother Edmund as softly. “Some young Welshman from up in the north of the shire, where Rhys comes from. It seems he came here today to help the new tenants move in at the house by the mill-pond. He’s connected somehow—journeyman to the woman’s son, I believe. And while he was here he thought to ask after the old man, which was a kind act. Rhys was complaining of his pains, and the young fellow offered, so I set him to work. Still, now you’re here, have a word. They’ll neither of them need to speak English for you.”
“You’ll have warned him to wash his hands well, afterwards?”
“And shown him where, and where to stow the bottle away safely when he’s done. He understands. I’d hardly let a man take risks with such a brew, after your lecture. I’ve told him what the stuff could do, misused.”
The young man ceased his ministrations momentarily when Brother Cadfael approached, and made to stand up respectfully, but Cadfael waved him down again. “No, sit, lad, I won’t disturb you. I’m here for a word with an old friend, but I see you’ve taken on my work for me, and doing it well, too.”
The young man, with cheerful practicality, took him at his word, and went on kneading the pungent oils into Brother Rhys’s aged shoulders. He was perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five years old, sturdily built and strong; his square, good-natured face was brown and weathered, and plentifully supplied with bone, a Welsh face, smooth-shaven and decisive, his hair and brows thick, wiry and black. His manner towards Brother Rhys was smiling, merry, almost teasing, as it probably would have been towards a child; and that was engaging in him, and won Brother Cadfael’s thoughtful approval, for Brother Rhys was indeed a child again. Livelier than usual today, however, the visitor had done him a deal of good.
“Well, now, Cadfael!” he piped, twitching a shoulder pleasurably at the young man’s probing. “You see my kinsmen remember me yet. Here’s my niece Angharad’s boy come to see me, my great-nephew Meurig. I mind the time he was born… Eh, I mind the time she was born, for that matter, my sister’s little lass. It’s many years since I’ve seen her—or you, boy, come to think of it, you could have come to see me earlier. But there’s no family feeling in the young, these days.” But he was very complacent about it, enjoying handing out praise one moment and illogical reproof the next, a patriarch’s privilege. “And why didn’t the girl come herself? Why didn’t you bring your mother with you?”
“It’s a long journey from the north of the shire,” said the young man Meurig, easily, “and always more than enough to be done at home. But I’m nearer now, I work for a carpenter and carver in the town here, you’ll be seeing more of me. I’ll come and do this for you again—have you out on a hillside with the sheep yet, come spring.”
“My niece Angharad,” murmured the old man, benignly smiling, “was the prettiest little thing in half the shire, and she grew up a beauty. What age would she be now? Five and forty, it may be, but I warrant she’s still as beautiful as ever she was—don’t you tell me different, I never yet saw the one to touch her…”
“Her son’s not likely to tell you any different,” agreed Meurig comfortably. Are not all one’s lost nieces beautiful? And the weather of the summers when they were children always radiant, and the wild fruit they gathered then sweeter than any that grows now? For some years Brother Rhys had been considered mildly senile, his wanderings timeless and disorganised; memory failed, fantasy burgeoned, he drew pictures that never had existed on sea or land. But somewhere else, perhaps? Now, with the stimulus of this youthful and vigorous presence and the knowledge of their shared blood, he quickened into sharp remembrance again. It might not last, but it was a princely gift while it lasted.
“Turn a little more to the fire—there, is that the spot?” Rhys wriggled and purred like a stroked cat, and the young man laughed, and plied deep into the flesh, smoothing out knots with a firmness that both hurt and gratified.
“This is no new skill with you,” said Brother Cadfael, observing with approval.
“I’ve worked mostly with horses, and they get their troubles with swellings and injuries, like men. You learn to see with your fingers, where to find what’s bound, and loose it again.”
“But he’s a carpenter now,” Brother Rhys said proudly, “and working here in Shrewsbury.”
“And we’re making a lectern for your Lady Chapel, “said Meurig, “and when it’s done—and it soon will be—I’ll be bringing it down to the abbey myself. And I’ll come and see you again while I’m here.”
“And rub my shoulder again? It gets winterly now, towards Christmas, the cold gets in my bones.”
“I will so. But that’s enough for now, I’ll be making you too sore. Have up your gown again, uncle—there, and keep the warmth in. Does it burn?”
“For a while it prickled like nettles, now there’s a fine, easy glow. I don’t feel any pain there now. But I’m tired…”
He would be, tired and drowsy after the manipulation of his flesh and the reviving of his ancient mind. “That’s right, that’s well. Now you should lie down and have a sleep.”
Meurig looked to Cadfael to support him. “Isn’t that best, brother?”
“The very best thing. That’s hard exercise you’ve been taking, you should rest after it.”