An Excellent Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

reflection it seemed a liberty to speak of a man as anyone’s master who called
himself Humilis, and had renounced the world.
    “I
had in mind,” said Edmund, but hesitantly, and with reverence, “a natural son.
I may be far astray, but it is what came to mind. I take him for a man who
would love and protect his seed, and the young one might well love and admire
him, for that as for all else.”
    And
it could well be true. The tall man and the tall youth, a certain likeness,
even, in the clear features, insofar, thought Cadfael, as anyone had yet looked
directly at the features of young Brother Fidelis, who passed so silently and
unobtrusively about the enclave, patiently finding his way in this unfamiliar
place. He suffered, perhaps, more than his elder companion in the change,
having less confidence and experience, and all the anxiety of youth. He clung
to his lodestar, and every motion he made was oriented by its light. They had a
shared carrel in the scriptorium, for Brother Humilis had need, only too
clearly, of a sedentary occupation, and had proved to have a delicate hand with
copying, and artistry in illumination. And since he had limited control after a
period of work, and his hand was liable to shake in fine detail, Abbot Radulfus
had decreed that Brother Fidelis should be present with him to assist whenever
he needed relief. The one hand matched the other as if the one had taught the
other, though it might have been only emulation and love. Together, they did
slow but admirable work.
    “I
had never considered,” said Edmund, musing aloud, “how remote and strange a man
could be who has no voice, and how hard it is to reach and touch him. I have
caught myself talking of him to Brother Humilis, over the lad’s head, and been
ashamed — as if he had neither hearing nor wits. I blushed before him. Yet how
do you touch hands with such a one? I never had practice in it till now, and I
am altogether astray.”
    “Who
is not?” said Cadfael.
    It
was truth, he had noted it. The silence, or rather the moderation of speech
enjoined by the Rule had one quality, the hush that hung about Brother Fidelis
quite another. Those who must communicate with him tended to use much gesture
and few words, or none, reflecting his silence. As though, truly, he had
neither hearing nor wits. But manifestly he had both, quick and delicate senses
and sharp hearing, tuned to the least sound. And that was also strange. So
often the dumb were dumb because they had never learned of sounds, and
therefore made none. And this young man had been well taught in his letters,
and knew some Latin, which argued a mind far more agile than most.
    Unless,
thought Cadfael doubtfully, his muteness was a new-come thing in recent years,
from some constriction of the cords of the tongue or the sinews of the throat?
Or even if he had it from birth, might it not be caused by some strings too
tightly drawn under his tongue, that could be eased by exercise or loosed by
the knife?
    “I
meddle too much,” said Cadfael to himself crossly, shaking off the speculation
that could lead nowhere. And he went to Compline in an unwontedly penitent
mood, and by way of discipline observed silence himself for the rest of the
evening.
     
    They
gathered the purple-black Lammas plums next day, for they were just on the
right edge of ripeness. Some would be eaten at once, fresh as they were, some
Brother Petrus would boil down into a preserve thick and dark as cakes of
poppy-seed, and some would be laid out on racks in the drying house to wrinkle
and crystallise into gummy sweetness. Cadfael had a few trees in a small
orchard within the enclave, though most of the fruit-trees were in the main
garden of the Gaye, the lush meadow-land along the riverside. The novices and younger
brothers picked the fruit, and the oblates and schoolboys were allowed to help;
and if everyone knew that a few handfuls went into the breasts of