Brother Cadfael 10: The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters Page A

at first notice him, but even when he was aware of the visitor bearing down on them he continued steadily to the end, "... you do but waste your time, for it will not happen. Nothing will be changed, don't look for it. Never! You might far better leave me and go home."
    Did the one of them believe in Saint Winifred's power, and pray and hope for a miracle? And was the other, the sick man, all too passionately of Rhun's mind, and set on offering his early death as an acceptable and willing sacrifice, rather than ask for healing?
    Matthew had not yet noticed Cadfael's approach. His deep voice, measured and resolute, said just audibly, "Save your breath! For I will go with you, step for step, to the very end."
    Then Cadfael was close, and they were both aware of him, and stirred defensively out of their private anguish, heaving in breath and schooling their faces to confront the outer world decently. They drew a little apart on the stone bench, welcoming Cadfael with somewhat strained smiles.
    "I saw no need to make you come to me," said Cadfael, dropping to his knees and opening his scrip in the bright green turf, "when I am better able to come to you. So sit and be easy, and let me see how much work is yet to be done before you can go forth in good heart."
    "This is kind, brother," said Ciaran, rousing himself with a sigh. "Be assured that I do go in good heart, for my pilgrimage is short and my arrival assured."
    At the other end of the bench Matthew's voice said softly, "Amen!"
    After that it was all silence as Cadfael anointed the swollen soles, kneading spirit vigorously into the misused skin, surely heretofore accustomed always to going well shod, and soothed the ointment of cleavers into the healing grazes.
    "There! Keep off your feet through tomorrow, but for such offices as you feel you must attend. Here there's no need to go far. And I'll come to you tomorrow and have you fit to stand somewhat longer the next day, when the saint is brought home." When he spoke of her now, he hardly knew whether he was truly speaking of the mortal substance of Saint Winifred, which was generally believed to be in that silver-chased reliquary, or of some hopeful distillation of her spirit which could fill with sanctity even an empty coffin, even a casket containing pitiful, faulty human bones, unworthy of her charity, but subject, like all mortality, to the capricious, smiling mercies of those above and beyond question. If you could reason by pure logic for the occurrence of miracles, they would not be miracles, would they?
    He scrubbed his hands on a handful of wool, and rose from his knees. In some twenty minutes or so it would be time for Vespers.
    He had taken his leave, and almost reached the archway into the great court, when he heard rapid steps at his heels, a hand reached deprecatingly for his sleeve, and Matthew's voice said in his ear, "Brother Cadfael, you left this lying."
    It was his jar of ointment, of rough, greenish pottery, almost invisible in the grass. The young man held it out in the palm of a broad, strong, workmanlike hand, long-fingered and elegant. Dark eyes, reserved but earnestly curious, searched Cadfael's face.
    Cadfael took the jar with thanks, and put it away in his scrip. Ciaran sat where Matthew had left him, his face and burning gaze turned towards them; they stood at a distance, between him and the outer day, and he had, for one moment, the look of a soul abandoned to absolute solitude in a populous world.
    Cadfael and Matthew stood gazing in speculation and uncertainty into each other's eyes. This was that able, ready young man who had leaped into action at need, upon whom Melangell had fixed her young, unpractised heart, and to whom Rhun had surely looked for a hopeful way out for his sister, whatever might become of himself. Good, cultivated stock, surely, bred of some small gentry and taught a little Latin as well as his schooling in arms. How, except by the compulsion of inordinate love, did this