Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

mare. She had a pursed, calculating mouth and shrewd eyes, beneath brows tending to a frown even when the mouth smiled. Her head-dress was of the most fashionable, her riding habit had the London cut, and she rode with grace and style, but the very look of her struck with a coldness.
    And in between these two, dwarfed and overshadowed, there paced a tiny, childlike creature on a palfrey too large for her. Her touch on the rein was light, her seat in the saddle listless but graceful. She was sumptuously arrayed in cloth of gold and dark blue silks, and within the burden of her finery her slight form seemed cramped and straitened, like a body coffined. Her face gazed ahead, beneath a gilded net heavy with dark-gold hair, into emptiness. A softly rounded face, with delicate features and great iris-grey eyes, but so pale and subdued that she might have been a pretty doll rather than a living woman. Cadfael heard Mark draw in startled breath. It was a shame to see youth and freshness so muted and bereft of joy.
    This lord, too, had noted the nature of this place, and of those who had come out from it to see his niece go by. He did not, like Domville, spur deliberately at the offence, but swung his mount the other way, to give the infected a wider berth, and turned his head away to avoid even seeing them. The girl might have passed by without so much as noticing them, so deep was she drowned in her submissive sadness, if the child Bran, all shining eyes, had not so far forgotten himself as to run halfway down the hillock for a nearer view. The flash of movement in the corner of her eye caused her to start and look round, and seeing him, she came suddenly to life in the piteous contemplation of an innocent even more wretched than herself. For an instant she stared at him with nothing but horrified compassion, and then, seeing that she mistook him, seeing that he looked up at her smiling, she smiled too. It lasted only the twinkling of an eye, but for that while she shone with a warm, bright, grieving kindness; and before the clear sky clouded again she had leaned across her aunt's saddle-bow, and tossed a handful of small coins into the grass at the child's feet. Bran was so enchanted that he could not even stoop to pick them up, but followed her progress wide-eyed and open-mouthed as she passed by.
    No one else in the company offered largesse here. No doubt it was being reserved to make a greater impression at the abbey gatehouse, where there would certainly be a crowd of hopeful beggars waiting.
    For no very sound reason, Cadfael turned from the child to look at the old man Lazarus. Bran could afford to take candid delight in the bright colours and pretty clothes of those more fortunate than himself, without envy or greed, but the old in experience might well find a bitter flavour in viewing impossible fruit. The old man had not moved, except that as the riders passed by his head turned to hold those three in sight, with never a glance to spare for the gentlewomen and servants who followed. The eyes staring between hood and veil glittered pale, brilliant and blue as ice, unblinking, as long as the bride remained in sight. When even the last pack-pony had vanished round the curve of the Foregate, he still stood motionless, as though the intentness of his stare could follow them as far as the gatehouse, and pierce the walls to keep unbroken watch on them within.
    Brother Mark drew long and rueful breath, and turned to gaze wonderingly at Cadfael. "And that is she? And they mean to marry her to that man? He could be her grandsire - and no gentle or kindly one, either. How can such things be?" He stared along the road as the old man was staring. "So small, and so young! And did you see her face - how sad! This is not with her will!"
    Cadfael said nothing; there was nothing reassuring or consoling to be said. Such things were the commonplace of marriage where there were lands and wealth and powerful alliances to be gained, and small say the brides - or often enough the young bridegrooms - had in the disposal of their persons. There might even be brides who could see shrewdly enough the advantages of marrying men old enough to be their grandsires, where there was material good to be gained, since death might very soon relieve them of their husbands but leave them their dower and the status of their widowhood, and with some luck and a deal of cleverness they might manage to make a second match more to their liking. But by her