“I’ll have trouble paying my shot,” said the boy, valiantly grinning, and ended the grin with a sharp indrawn breath as the sleeve was detached painfully from his wound.
“Our charges are low. For a straight story you can buy such hospitality as we’re offering. Godric, lad, I need water, and river water’s better than none. See if you can find anything in this place to carry it in.”
She found the sound half of a large pitcher among the debris under the wheel, left by some customer after its handle and lip had got broken, scrubbed it out industriously with the skirt of her cotte, and went obediently to bring water, he hoped safely. The flow of the river here would be fresher than the leat, and occupy her longer on the journey, while Cadfael undid the boy’s belt, and stripped off his shoes and hose, shaking out the blanket to spread over his nakedness. There was a long but not deep gash, he judged from a sword-cut, down the right thigh, a variety of bruises showing bluish on his fair skin, and most strangely, a thin, broken graze on the left side of his neck, and another curiously like it on the outer side of his right wrist. More healed, dark lines, these, older by a day or two than his wounds. “No question,” mused Cadfael aloud, “but you’ve been living an interesting life lately.”
“Lucky to keep it,” murmured the boy, half-asleep in his new ease.
“Who was hunting you?”
“The king’s men — who else?”
“And still will be?”
“Surely. But in a few days I’ll be fit to relieve you of the burden of me . . .”
“Never mind that now. Turn a little to me — so! Let’s get this thigh bound up, it’s clean enough, it’s knitting already. This will sting.” It did, the youth stiffened and gasped a little, but made no complaint. Cadfael had the wound bound and under the blanket by the time Godith came with the pitcher of water. For want of a handle she had to use two hands to carry it.
“Now we’ll see to this shoulder. This is where you lost so much blood. An arrow did this!” It was an oblique cut sliced through the outer part of his left arm just below the shoulder, bone-deep, leaving an ugly flap of flesh gaping. Cadfael began to sponge away the encrustations of blood from it, and press it firmly together beneath a pad of linen soaked in one of his herbal salves. “This will need help to knit clean,” he said, busy rolling his bandage tightly round the arm. “There, now you should eat, but not too much, you’re over-weary to make the best use of it. Here’s meat and cheese and bread, and keep some by you for morning, you may well be ravenous when you wake.”
“If there’s water left,” besought the young man meekly, “I should like to wash my hands and face. I’m foul!”
Godith kneeled beside him, moistened a piece of linen in the pitcher, and instead of putting it into his hand, very earnestly and thoroughly did it for, him, putting back the matted hair from his forehead, which was wide and candid, even teasing out some of the knots with solicitous fingers. After the first surprise he lay quietly and submissively under her ministering touch, but his eyes, cleansed of the soiled shadows, watched her face as she bent over him, and grew larger and larger in respectful wonder. And all this while she had hardly said a word.
The young man was almost too worn out to eat at all, and flagged very soon. He lay for a few moments with lids drooping, peering at his rescuers in silent thought. Then he said, his tongue stumbling sleepily: “I owe you a name, after all you’ve done for me. . . .”
“Tomorrow,” said Cadfael firmly. “You’re in the best case to sleep sound, and here I believe you may. Now drink this down-it helps keep wounds from festering, and eases the heart.” It was a strong cordial of his own brewing, he tucked away the empty vial in his gown. “And here’s a little flask of wine to bear you company if you wake. In the morning I’ll be with you early.”
“We!” said Godith, low but firmly.
“Wait, one more thing!” Cadfael had remembered it at the last moment. “You’ve no weapon on you — yet I think you did wear a sword.”
“I shed it,” mumbled the boy drowsily, “in the river. I had too much weight to keep afloat — and they were shooting. It was in the water I got this clout . . . I had the wit to go down, I hope they believe I stayed down . . . God knows it was touch and go!”
“Yes, well, tomorrow will do. And we must find you a weapon. Now, good night!”
He was asleep before ever they put out the candle, and drew the door closed. They walked wordlessly through the rustling stubble for some minutes, the sky over them an arch of dark and vivid blue paling at the edges into a fringe of sea-green. Godith asked abruptly: “Brother Cadfael, who was Ganymede?”
“A beautiful youth who was cup-bearer to Jove, and much loved by him.”
“Oh!” said Godith, uncertain whether to be delighted or rueful, this success being wholly due to her boyishness.
“But some say that it’s also another name for Hebe,” said Cadfael.
“Oh! And who is Hebe?”
“Cup-bearer to Jove, and much loved by him — but a beautiful maiden.”
“Ah!” said Godith profoundly. And as they reached the road and crossed towards the abbey, she said seriously:
“You know who he must be, don’t you?”
“Jove? The most god-like of all the pagan gods . . .”
“He!” she said severely, and caught and shook Brother Cadfael’s arm in her solemnity. “A Saxon name, and Saxon hair, and on the run from the king’s men. . . . He’s Torold Blund, who set out with Nicholas to save FitzAlan’s treasury for the empress. And of course he had nothing to do with poor Nicholas’s death. I don’t believe he ever did a shabby thing in his whole life!”
“That,” said Cadfael, “I hesitate to say of any man, least of all myself. But I give you my word, child, this one most shabby thing he certainly did not do. You may sleep in peace!”
It was nothing out of the ordinary for Brother Cadfael, that devoted gardener and apothecary, to rise long before it was necessary for Prime, and have an hour’s work done before he joined his brothers at the first service; so no one thought anything of it when he dressed and went out early on that particular morning, and no one even knew that he also roused his boy, as he had promised. They went out with more medicaments and food, and a cotte and hose that Brother Cadfael had filched from the charity offerings that came in to the almoner. Godith had taken away with her the young man’s bloodstained shirt, which was of fine linen and not to be wasted, had washed it before she slept, and mended it on rising, where the arrow-head had sliced the threads asunder. On such a warm August night, spread out carefully on the bushes in the garden, it had dried well.
Their patient was sitting up in his bed of sacks, munching bread with appetite, and seemed to have total mist in them, for he made no move to seek cover when the door began to open. He had draped his tom and stained cotte round his shoulders, but for the rest was naked under his blanket, and the bared, smooth chest and narrow flanks were elegantly formed. Body and eyes still showed blue bruises, but he was certainly much restored alter one long night of rest.
“Now,” said Cadfael with satisfaction, “you may talk as much as you like, my friend, while I dress this wound of yours. The leg will do very well until we have more time, but this shoulder is a tricky thing. Godric, see to him on the other side while I uncover it, it may well stick. You steady bandage and arm while I unbind. Now, sir . . .” And he added, for fair exchange: “They call me Brother Cadfael, I’m as Welsh as Dewi Sant, and I’ve been about the world, as you may have guessed. And this boy of mine is Godric, as you’ve heard, and brought me to you. Trust us both, or neither.”
“I trust both,” said the boy. He had more colour this morning, or it was the flush of dawn reflected, his eyes were bright and hazel, more green than brown. “I owe you more than mist can pay, but show me more I can do, and I’ll do it. My name is Torold Blund, I come from a hamlet by Oswestry, and I’m FitzAlan’s man from head to foot.” The bandage stuck then, and Godith felt him flinch, and locked the fold until she could ease it free, by delicate touches. “If that puts you in peril,” said Torold, suppressing the pain,