Cadfael 01 - A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

Author:Ellis Peters
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-03-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

After Compline, in the soft evening light, with the slanting sunset filtering through young viridian leaves, they went up, all six together, to the wooden chapel and the solitary graveyard, to bring their first pair of pilgrims to the vigil. And there, advancing to meet them in the clearing before the gate, came another procession, eight of Rhisiart’s household officers and servants, winding down out of the woods with their lord’s bier upon their shoulders, and their lord’s daughter, now herself their lord, walking erect and dignified before them, dressed in a dark gown and draped with a grey veil, under which her long hair lay loose in mourning. Her face was calm and fixed, her eyes looked far. She could have daunted any man, even an abbot. Prior Robert baulked at sight of her. Cadfael was proud of her.

So far from checking at sight of Robert, she gave a slight spring of hope and purpose to her step, and came on without pause. Face to face with him at three paces distance, she halted and stood so still and quiet that he might have mistaken this for submission, if he had been fool enough. But he was not a fool, and he gazed and measured silently, seeing a woman, a mere girl, who had come to match him, though not yet recognising her as his match.

“Brother Cadfael,” she said, without taking her eyes from Robert’s face, “stand by me now and make my words plain to the reverend prior, for I have a prayer to him for my father’s sake.”

Rhisiart was there at her back, not coffined, only swathed and shrouded in white linen, every line of the body and face standing clear under the tight wrappings, in a cradle of leafy branches, carried on a wooden bier. All those dark, secret Welsh eyes of the men who bore him glowed like little lamps about a catafalque, betraying nothing, seeing everything. And the girl was so young, and so solitary. Prior Robert, even in his assured situation, was uneasy. He may have been moved.

“Make your prayer, daughter,” he said.

“I have heard that you intend to watch three nights in reverence to Saint Winifred, before you take her hence with you. I ask that for the ease of my father’s soul, if he has offended against her, which was never his intent, he may be allowed to lie those three nights before her altar, in the care of those who keep watch. I ask that they will spare one prayer for forgiveness and rest to his soul, one only, in a long night of prayer. Is that too much to ask?”

“It is a fair asking,” said Robert, “from a loyal daughter.” And after all, he came of a noble family, and knew how to value the ties of blood and birth, and he was not all falsity.

“I hope for a sign of grace,” said Sioned, “all the more if you approve me.”

There was no way that such a request could do anything but add lustre and glory to his reputation.

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