The Serpent in the Heart
Chapter 1
That this was an island of contrasts, Malik had already realised. He had arrived here some six months ago, in the depth of winter. To a man raised in the desert, cold was not in itself strange. At night, under the clear skies of his homeland, the cold is a keen, biting thing. But the cold of winter in this Northern country was almost alive. White snow under a bright sky brought a cold that was savage as a leopard, striking hard and clawing mercilessly. But worse was the damp cold that came with the fog. Subtle and relentless as one of his own kind, this dull cold insinuated itself past the warmest clothing to chill flesh and sink deep into a mans' bones.
But now, six short months later, he walked in bright, warm sunshine past green fields and meadows, or through well-coppiced woodlands. Unfamiliar birds sang in ancient trees of mighty girth and spread. The hedgerows and banks beside the road blazed with bright flowers. Never had he seen a land so lush.
The crowd he walked with were as contrasting as the land they occupied. The Saxons he knew. Stolid, taciturn men and warm, vocal women; they were a quietly hospitable people who had spared him many a night under the stars. They had shared their cramped cottages, bright fires and simple foods with him, asking for no return except an extra hand with the mornings' work, or a tale of distant lands. Then there were the Normans. Wealthier, in the main, and carrying swords rather than the knives and staves of the Saxons. They were less taciturn, but arrogant and ever conscious of their status and honour, ignoring the Saxons and speaking amongst themselves in French.
Nevertheless, they all stayed together as well as they could. With war still going on between King Stephen and Empress Maud, the land was in poor order. Bandits and masterless men roamed the countryside and would attack small groups of travellers if they saw an opportunity.
The crowd had grown since Malik had joined them. These were pilgrims, heading to a town called Shrewsbury to celebrate the anniversary of the Translation of Saint Winifred to the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul. Who St Winifred was, Malik neither knew nor cared, but Shrewsbury, he knew, was the destination of his target. This pilgrimage would get him to the town at about the same time as the Templar party, in safety.
Of course, his white hooded robe marked him out from the crowd, as did the long sword and dagger at his side. But he kept himself to himself, telling the curious he was under a vow, which seemed to satisfy them. Hiding in plain sight, as the Creed demanded.
Nevertheless, he did not ignore those about him, and when he heard the argument, he moved closer to listen. One of the Saxons, a giant of a man with golden hair and beard, was remonstrating with one of the armed Normans.
"Tha'll not leave 'em?" He was saying. "T'lass 'as t'fallin sickness, she might be poorly and need 'elp!"
"You think me some knight-errant, churl?" The Norman replied. "Some gallant to go rushing to save a maiden in distress? Were she a lady, I might, but some Saxon wench? Let her fend for herself!"
The Saxon replied. "I'll go by missen, then. Like as not yon sword's nowt but decoration anyroad!"
He set off. Malik fell into step beside him. The other gave a brief nod, but said nothing. They followed the road back the way they had come. When they were out of earshot of the rest of the party, the blond man shook his head.
"Norman bastards!" He growled. "Don't see so many of 'em where I come from! Daft bugger didn't realise I'm no more a Saxon nor 'e is!"
"You are not?" Malik asked. "Forgive me, but I am strange to much of your land. Are there more than Norman and Saxon people here?"
"Oh, aye." Was the reply. "This far west, you'll run into the Welsh a lot. Sing like angels, fight like wildcats. But I'm a Dalesman, from north and east of here. Sven Bjornsson."
"I am John of Acre." Malik replied. John was a common name throughout Christendom and a useful alias. Sven accepted it with a nod and without comment. It seemed Dalesmen were as incurious as Saxons.
They had gone perhaps half a mile when they found the missing people. As Malik had suspected, it was Dame Rowena, her daughter Mistress Megan and the child Alice. The two grown women were trying to restrain the child from harming herself as she thrashed in a fit.
Dame Rowena looked up. "Blessings on you both!" She cried. "We hoped for help, but thought that none might come. The child was sick before, but the fit came on her just moments past."
Malik came forward and knelt at the childs' head. Reaching into his pouch he produced a small flask which he unstopped, then held under her nose.
"Soothing herbs from the East." He said. "They are meant to aid sleep, but their scent will calm the warring humours within her."
Sure enough, the convulsions eased as the girl breathed in the scent. After a few moments, she passed into a natural sleep.
Dame Rowena got to her feet, the image of Saxon womanhood. Sturdy without fat, the pushed-back sleeves of her gown revealing large, strong hands and corded forearms. Bright blue eyes in a tanned, weathered face and corn-coloured hair shot with silver. She accorded Malik a nod of grave respect before giving Sven a look of unabashed approval.
"And it's no surprise to me that it was you came to our aid, Sven Bjornsson!" She said meaningfully.
"Be still, Mother!" Megan said from where she knelt protectively over the child. Megan was slender and wiry, dark of hair and pale of skin with snapping grey eyes in an elfin face that was now blushing deeply. "'Twas no more than kindness in him!"
The older woman grinned, then drew off a little, indicating with a flick of her eyes that Malik should follow.
"Let them be a little." She told him. "There's an understanding there, but still speech to be had. My son's three years in his grave, and I love the girl like my own, always have. But the child needs a father and Megan needs a man. She has too much fire and wit for the cloister, besides being Welsh. Sven's a good man, he'll not mind her temper and his wits are no duller than hers.
"His coming I looked for, but not yours, John of Acre."
"My vows call me to protect the innocent." Malik explained.
"This being why you dress like a friar, but go armed like a knight?" She asked. "Well, I'll not ask what you don't like to answer, but we owe you a debt, Master John, and we will be your friends from now."
Malik stiffened, then called out. "Sven! We are not alone!"
They gathered round the child. Megan remained crouched over her. Sven took his staff in a two-handed grip. Malik had seen the quarterstaff in use, and knew that in the hands of one like the Dalesman, it was a weapon to be feared. Dame Rowena reached beneath her cloak and produced a sturdy cudgel, holding it with the grip of one who knows its use. Malik drew his long sword as they came out of the woods.
They were filthy, clad in mismatched rags and bits of leather and armour. Their eyes were full of an unfocused anger, and each one had a mark on his forehead in some dark paint. They stopped, staring hungrily at the people before them.
Malik moved his blade so that it flashed in the sunlight. "Do not try us!" He warned.
For answer, three of the men leaped forward. One swung a long, crudely-forged sword at Malik, who slipped the slash and countered, opening the man's throat. Sven blocked an attack from an axe and smashed his assailant under the jaw with his staff; Malik heard the neck snap as the man fell. Dame Rowena, facing one armed with a knife, did not swing her club, but instead thrust the end hard into the fellows' face with all her considerable weight and strength behind it. There was a horrible crunching sound and the bandit fell as if pole-axed.
Five more remained, staring almost in disbelief at their dead companions. "We warned you!" Sven bellowed.
"You defy our God!" One shouted. "You must die!"
Then they charged. They did not seem skilled, they got in each other's way and swung wildly with ill-assorted weapons. Malik killed two with cold efficiency and Sven took down another. Then a new element entered the battle with the sound of galloping hooves. A tall horse strode up and the rider swung a bright sword down to split the skull of an attacker before turning to behead the last one at a stroke.
Malik at first could not see the rider well, as the sun rendered him a sihouette, but then the man dismounted. Tall and well-made, dressed as a knight, clean-shaven with blue-black hair cropped like a Norman. A hawklike face with olive skin and fierce golden eyes that were hauntingly familiar. Not Norman, but not fully Arab either. A perfect blend of both. But Malik could not rid himself of the notion that he knew, or had known, the man.
"Well met, indeed!" The stranger said heartily. "I am Olivier de Bretagne, a knight in service to my Lord of Gloucester. It seems my Ladys' desire to ride a little ahead of the carriage has served you well!"
A woman was mounted on a horse nearby, not a ladys' palfrey, but a tall horse like her husbands'. She smiled at Olivier as she sheathed the long dagger she had been holding ready for use. "After so long, Olivier, you should have learned to trust my instincts. But who are these folk?"
Malik made introductions, and the Lady Ermina immediately dismounted to join Megan. Little Alice was waking now, confused and frightened, and the three men made shift to drag the bodies away before the child might see or notice them. Malik noted that Olivier treated Sven and himself with a courtesy few of his rank would deign to use to commoners.
The bodies being out of sight of the women, Sven went to rejoin them, but Olivier held Malik back.
"Such doings as this are rare in this shire." He said. "The Sheriff, Hugh Beringar, is known to me, and though he holds allegiance to Stephen of Blois, his first duty is to those under his protection. He will wish to know all we can tell him of these outlaws.
"We shall do as my father would, and look closely at the bodies."
The men were all Saxons, and apparently well-fed. But they were unwashed and several showed evidence of untreated wounds. Their clothing seemed to be gear looted at random, their weapons either old, crude or tools put to deadlier use.
"Masterless men, it would seem." Olivier said. "Exiled or fled from their lords, and with no clear leader or organisation. You were fortunate that they did not belong to one of the larger bands -some of those have discharged men-at-arms or Sergeants among them."
"Yet there is some sign that they belonged to a band of some kind." Malik noted. "They all carry this sign on their foreheads. At first, I thought it was painted or daubed on, but I now see that the dye has been forced into the skin with a needle as the Berber tribesmen do.
"A circle with lines coming from it, like the rays of the sun. I have seen this design elsewhere, but cannot now recall its significance."
"Yet it must have some meaning." Olivier said. "But while we are quiet here, Master John of Acre, if that be your name at all, answer me a question. What has one of the hashishin to do in England?"
"What mean you?" Malik asked, reluctant to kill this man, but prepared to do so if necessary.
"I grew up a Syrian, though my father was a Crusader." Olivier said. "I was raised among the common folk, who know the cut of an Assassins' robe and know that the innocent need not fear them.
"I ask you only this, and trust you to answer on your honour. Do you intend any harm or ill to the cause or vassals of the Empress I serve, or to the people of Shrewsbury, whom I have cause to care for?"
"None." Malik assured him. "I seek only one man, and he is not native to Shrewsbury nor to England. You have my word, by the Creed."
"Then I will ask no more." Olivier said. "The others are pilgrims, yes? Bound for the Abbey?
"Well, Ermina and I are so bound. My father is a Brother at the Abbey, and I would have him see his grandson.
"We have a carriage coming up soon, and the sick child and her mother may ride with the babe and his nurse. Company on the road is always well, is it not?"
Brother Cadfael was seated on the bench outside his workshop, overlooking his herb garden. These hours, between Vespers and Compline, with the days' work and the evening meal done, were to some the most precious. Whether one spent them in private prayer, as Brother Rhun did, or in contemplation or study, or even walking in the cloisters in quiet talk,. They were hours to do as one chose. Cadfael chose to spend them here, in his own acknowledged domain, and here was where any who might wish speech with him could come.
Hugh Beringar was a more welcome visitor than most. Not quite the eager young knight Cadfael had met and aided so many years ago, but still slender and well-knit, still active of step and keen of eye and mind. Cadfael greeted him warmly, enquiring after Aline and Giles.
"Both well, and asking for you." Hugh told him. "Aline commands me to tell you that she has kitchen-servants to spare should you need aid feeding the pilgrims. Giles merely wishes to see his godfather and hear more of his tales."
"I must take care not to run short." Cadfael said. "The lads' appetite for them is bottomless!
"But I know you, Hugh. There is that in your manner which tells me you have more urgent business than family news."
"True." Hugh remarked. "And sorry I am to trouble you this close to the festival. But the truth is I've a dead man at the Castle and none to say how he came by his end. I had hoped to have the benefit of your eyes and wits once again, old friend."
"Well, and you shall have them." Cadfael began to rise, but Hugh raised a hand.
"No need for haste, Cadfael." He admonished. "He was yet warm when they brought him in, not dead above an hour, I think. We have him in the dungeon, where the air is chill, he will last until morning. I have spoken with Abbot Radulfus, and he bids me tell you that you have his leave to come after Chapter tomorrow.
"But I know your curiosity, so will tell you now what I know. I have sent out more patrols than is usual, as is my custom at the time of the Translation, for there are pilgrims on the road. Pilgrims often bring rich gifts, and outlaws know this. Also I have word from neighbouring shires of a greater number of masterless men loose in the woods and fields."
"That I have heard." Cadfael noted. "And rumours that these are no ordinary runaway villeins nor deserting soldiers, but bands of madmen dressed in rags?"
"So they say." Hugh said. "Madmen who slay or seize travellers, but do not loot or ravish. But these are tales only, and until I see with my own eyes, or get report from my own trusted men, I'll reserve judgement.
"But to return to my tale. This evening, not three hours past, a patrol came in bearing a dead man. He was dressed as a workman or farmer, had no weapon, not even a working knife, and none knew him. Not a Shrewsbury man, or anyone from the farms round about.
"His clothes are ripped and travel-stained, but there are no wounds upon him that I can find. From his face, he must have died in pain, but from what cause I cannot tell."
"Where was he found?" Cadfael asked.
"In the woods." Hugh replied. "Within reach of the road, but not so close as to be seen from it. Tomorrow I will send out trackers, to see if they can find more."
Cadfael considered. To refuse Hugh, after all they had shared, was unthinkable. That the Abbot had given permission showed that Cadfaels' own recent straying was truly forgiven. But the trickle of pilgrims that had arrived today would become a flood on the morrow. There would be those among them in need of his aid. The ailing, bringing their afflictions to St Winifred in hopes of a cure, as well as those hurt on the road, the footsore and weary.
Still, it was less than likely that many would arrive before noon – most would have already camped for the night. There would be time, then. After all, this matter might point to something more dangerous. If the man had died of some catching illness, then among the crowds about the Abbey, it might spread like wildfire, perhaps to be carried home with them as they departed. Cause enough for him to examine, at the least.
"I shall come to you after Chapter, then." Cadfael promised.
Chapter was short, this day, being mostly taken up by Brother Denis, the Hospitaller, explaining his arrangements for accommodating some pilgrims within the Abbey guest-house, and assisting others in setting up camp in the fields set aside for this. He had set out wooden pegs, he told them, with squares of white cloth attached, to mark out spaces where shelters could be set up, and had dug pits, lined and edged with stones, where fires could safely be lit for cooking. Previous pilgrimages had taught him the perils of allowing people to set up higgledy-piggledy.
Prior Robert, who had prepared a long set of instructions and admonishments for the brothers, aimed at keeping the occasion properly solemn and reverent, was much put out. He had but barely begun when Abbot Radulfus sharply reminded him that, in the first place, the festival was a joyous occasion, in the second, that all the brothers were well aware of how to conduct themselves, and in the third, that there was still a good deal of work to be done, and they had best set about it. Cadfael was still smiling faintly as he made his way up to the Castle.
All thoughts of humour vanished as he came into the Castle. Hugh had had the corpse brought up into one of the guardhouses, to be examined under daylight. It was naked, Hugh having had the body stripped before it stiffened. A well-grown, well-fed, healthy-looking man in his thirties, perhaps. Fair-haired and tanned from outdoor work, he looked like any Saxon farmer or herdsman. His face was stretched in a grimace of fear or pain. Cadfael examined him carefully.
"He made his living tilling the soil." He noted. "See his hands? Calloused like one who uses a hoe and a scythe."
"You can tell that from his hands?" The man-at-arms who stood nearby shook his head. "If I knew no better, I would call that witchcraft, Brother!"
Cadfael shook his head. "'Tis a simple thing, Edmund. Look to your own right hand. The callouses there are from swordplay, they are like none other." He carried on. "He was found face down, yes? There is earth and grass in his teeth and beard. He bit the earth in pain as he died.
"No wounds to the front. No buboes, pustules or wasting -he died from no sickness I can see, nor is there blood in his nose, eyes or mouth. Can he be turned over?"
Again, Cadfael examined the broad back. "Here!" He said. "And here! Do you see, Hugh?"
There were indeed two small marks, one between the shoulder blades, the other at the base of the neck.
"They look like burns." Hugh remarked. "Burns such as a man might get from dropping hot oil or wax onto himself. These are not what killed him, surely?"
Cadfael shook his head. "It might not seem so, but I have seen such things before. When I was a sailor in the service of the King of Jerusalem. We were caught in a storm once, with little choice but to reef the sails and run before it. Most of us gathered in the waist of the ship, where there was shelter. But one brave fellow volunteered to go up onto the fore-castle and keep lookout.
"I and several others saw it happen. A bolt of lightning came down and struck upon his head, and he fell like a tree. None dare go up to him, but after a while, the storm abated and we went to fetch him. He was stone dead, with a look on his face like this poor souls'. He had been wearing a leather cap, braced with iron, but it had been shattered into fragments. The hair beneath was burned and crisped away. But on the very top of his head was a mark, just such a one as these, but larger, perhaps the size of a gold piece."
"You are saying this man was struck by lightning?" Hugh asked. "But there was no storm last night!"
"True." Cadfael said. "But lightning does not always come from the sky. I have seen women in the East who weight their spindles with amber. If the amber is rubbed hard enough with a woollen cloth it will draw threads and scraps of cloth or leaves to it, and sometimes, if touched with a bare hand, it will give off sparks and make the hair stand on end.
"But still, I have no notion as to how this man died, unless from poison. Have you his clothing?
"Now see here, the tears and rips go all in one direction, and here we find leaves, twigs and thorns caught on the threads. He was, I think, running desperately through the woods. From what I cannot tell, but perhaps your trackers will find some trace. Let us pray that it is not wolves he ran from, though that might be better than from men!
"As to his dying, it may be that he burst his heart in fear and exertion. Men in the prime of health have been known to fall dead on the spot from shock or fright.
"At the very least, it seems that he did not die from any plague or sickness. As to who or what might have caused him to flee in such fear, that is for you and your hunters, Hugh!"
Hugh nodded. "My thanks for that, Cadfael. It seems, though, that I have work to do!
"Now you had best go to the garden. Should you not at least speak with Aline and Giles, neither of us will be forgiven!"
The trickle of pilgrims had indeed become a flood by midday. Cadfael and Brother Oswin were kept busy at his workshop, dealing with the footsore, with those who had sustained minor injuries on their journey, and those who had come to the Abbey seeking healing from Saint Winifred. Yet for all the aches and pains, the illnesses and worry, there was a cheerfulness about. The bright summer weather might account for some of it, but much, Cadfael felt, was due to the saint herself. Winifred was not one of the solemn saints, to whom one brought weighty matters with a grave heart. She was a saint of hope, of blessings, and if folk left her shrine without the miracles they hoped for, they still left with bright memories of a summer's journey and new-met friends, companions of the road.
About the hour of the noon meal, the visitors grew fewer, as people took their ease, leaving minor matters for later. Some pains can be better healed by food, ale and genial company than by all the herbs in the field. Cadfael had thought to provide Brother Oswin and himself with a jug of ale and some bread and cheese, so they would not need to abandon their post and go to the Refectory. He was about to suggest that they eat, when another small party approached the hut.
The figure who walked ahead, eagerly and wearing, in Cadfaels' eyes, the sunlight like a cloak made only for him, was Olivier! Cadfael rose and went forward to embrace his son, acknowledged and known at last.
"I had your letter when the boy was born." He said. "But I did not look to see you so soon!"
Olivier laughed. "Ermina wished to see you again, Father." He said. "She was also determined that David meet his grandfather. The babe is strong, the weather fair and the journey pleasant, so I could not refuse, had I wished to. Come now, there is someone you will want to greet."
Ermina was no longer the girl she had been when Cadfael first knew her. Her beauty had strengthened and deepened, but her eyes were as direct as ever. Her mind and will both evidently as strong as they had been in that bitter winter years ago. She said nothing, but merely held out the precious bundle she was carrying.
Cadfael accepted it and looked down. The face was barely formed, as yet. Life would write its story there in the years to come. For now it was the placid face of a babe, yet still an individual. The skin had a tinge of olive, and there was already a down of thick black hair on the head. But the eyes that stared into Cadfaels', full of solemn curiosity, were the colour and shape of his own. Cadfael used a finger to push the wrap aside, to see the face better, only to have a chubby fist seize it in an iron grip. In that moment, a bond was formed which he knew could not be broken. He could have stayed thus forever, but he felt Erminas' urgency, her need. He handed the child off to Olivier and turned to his daughter-in-law.
She came to him, embraced him fiercely and kissed him warmly. "Greetings, Father." She said softly. "How strange the workings of God, that my friend and helper of old should come to stand so to me! I could ask for no more."
"Nor I, child." Cadfael told her. "How fares your brother?"
"Yves is well." She replied. "He grows in my Lords' favour. More canny than he was, but no less brave and fierce!
"Come now, let us eat and talk for a while!"
At her imperious gesture, a man came forward bearing a covered basket. A man at arms, Cadfael judged, pressed into double duty as a servant for the journey, and unsure of how to act. Ermina relieved his worry by taking the basket with a smile and thanks, and beginning to set out the contents on the workbench Cadfael had placed outside for use during the Festival. The man stood uncertain until Brother Oswin, who had quietly withdrawn a little way, caught his eye and gestured him over, holding up the ale-jug.
They sat, and they ate, and they talked. They talked but little of the cold winter of murder and battle which had first brought them together. Their concern now was both with the present and the future. What sort of world would little David grow up in?
Both Ermina and Olivier noted that the appetite for conflict among the nobility was waning. King and Empress each stubbornly held to their claims, but more perhaps out of habit than any real passion. Nobles who had once fiercely supported one side or the other were beginning to fall away, to tend to their own lands and people.
"Some are saying the North is all but lost." Olivier noted. "The nobility there care nothing for either side, but plot and war amongst themselves while the Scots push at the borders."
"The war is not yet close to an ending." Ermina said. "But some can now see one. It will happen in our lifetime, I think. Our son will come to manhood in a united realm."
"Glad will I be to see it, if I am spared so long!" Cadfael averred. "I've seen much of war, both as a soldier and a man. Always the small folk suffer for the quarrels of the greater!"
Eventually, young David announced his need of attention with considerable volume and authority. Ermina took him into Cadfael's hut to see to him, leaving father and son alone. This gave Olivier the chance to speak with Cadfael about the encounter of the previous day.
"I've already spoken with Hugh Beringar, and have agreed to lend him aid should it be needed." He said. "But we agreed I should speak to you of it, so that you may speak to Abbot Radulfus. There are always pricked ears and chattering tongues to mark a meeting between Abbot and Sheriff, but a talk with a Brother will cause no gossip. Hugh would not have the festival disrupted over what might be just one group of madmen."
"Well enough." Cadfael said. "I will speak with the Abbot as soon as I may."
"There is one other matter, Father, this for your ears alone." Olivier said, dropping his voice. "The man I spoke of, John of Acre, who stood with the Dalesman? I had speech with him and he admitted – since I had already surmised -that he is of the Assassins. You know of them?"
Cadfael was careful not to let the surprise into his voice, lest it attract unwanted ears. "Aye, I do. Some little from my fellow soldiers, more from your mother. An order older, it is said, than both Christianity and Islam, devoted to their own ideas and manner of justice. Scourges of the guilty and protectors of the innocent, so they say."
"That also is my understanding." Olivier agreed. "Now this John of Acre gave me his word that he intends no harm to anyone here, so he may not linger. But if he does, and any man from another land or place comes here and dies suddenly, I think it would be best if you did not allow yourself to be drawn into the matter.
"I know your curiosity and your passion for justice. But if the Assassins are what they say they are, justice, of a kind, will have been served. If they are not, then they will not baulk at putting an end to an over- curious monk. I would not lose my father so soon after finding him!"
It was then that Ermina came out with the babe, and their talk ended.
"I see more come in need of your aid, Father." She said. "We will leave you to your duties then, and return to the castle, where we are to lodge. We shall come again, and remain after the festival, so that David will come to know his grandfather."
Cadfael allowed himself one more short moment with his grandson, then returned to his duties. By the friendly greetings Olivier and Ermina exchanged with the newcomers, he guessed that this must be the party Olivier had spoken of.
Dame Rowena assessed Cadfael at a glance, and approved with a nod. This was no scholarly, useless Benedictine, her nod said, but a man who knew the world and had chosen his place in it well. Mistress Megan was quick and voluble, worried for her child, unsure of her strength to care for her and, knowingly or unknowingly, aware of a source she might borrow that strength from. Even as she talked with Cadfael, her glance often went back to the towering form of the taciturn Dalesman who stood nearby. His glance never strayed from her and the child.
Alice herself, the centre of all this attention, was a slender child of some eight summers, who bore her mothers' sharp Celtic features, but the flaxen hair and blue eyes of a Saxon father. Like her mother, she was voluble, and seemed cheerful. She expressed no fear of her affliction, merely remarking on the vivid dreams she had in her 'sick times'.
"Has she had the sickness all her life?" Cadfael asked.
Megan shook her head. "No. Only the last year-and-a-half or so."
"Are they frequent?" He enquired.
"Perhaps one a week, now." Megan told him. "At first, they came more often, but less now."
Cadfael pursed his lips. "Was there an injury, a blow to the head? Before the fits started?"
"She fell from a loft in the barn." Dame Rowena said. "Some two years ago. She landed in a pile of straw and broke no bones, but she lay in a sleep, and did not waken for almost a day. We all but despaired of her. The fits began soon after."
"And how do they come?" Cadfael was speaking to the mother, but it was the child who answered.
"My head hurts, first." She said. "Then I become very tired and cannot walk or think. Then the light goes and the dreams come. Then I wake, not tired, but aching and bruised from the fit."
The child was clearly intelligent, Cadfael noted, and not disposed to fret about things she could not help. He got up and went over to the workbench, where he picked up an apple left over from the meal. He tossed it to the girl with no warning, but she caught it deftly, and at a nod from her mother, bit into it with the relish of any healthy child receiving an unexpected treat.
"You say this John of Acre had herbs that soothed the fit?" Cadfael said. "I believe I know the ones he used, or ones that have the same effect. Stay a moment, and I will make the mixture up."
As he worked, Dame Rowena came close and spoke softly.
"The girl worries that the child is possessed." She told him. "Or that a demon is trying to take hold on her. Can that be true, Brother?"
"It could be." Cadfael said, equally low. "Such things have been known. Yet I ask myself, what use to a demon is a child? Why would a creature of such power content itself with tormenting one simple family when a whole realm is at war?"
"A man of sense, for all the habit!" Dame Rowena smiled. "But Megan would have it that we should bring Alice here, to see if good Saint Winifred can drive the beast away. But I guess, Brother, that you think as I do? Mayhap the fall and the unnatural sleep set the humours out of balance?"
"The simple explanation is usually the best." Cadfael agreed. "The childs' mind is untouched -the falling sickness sometimes accompanies idiocy. She caught the apple I threw, so we know she is mistress of her body.
"It may be that there was something hard, a discarded tool or a stone, in the straw she landed in. If she struck her head and was rendered senseless, the fits might be a lingering effect of that. You say they have grown less frequent? It may be that over time, they stop altogether."
"Which would make this a wasted journey." Dame Rowena answered. "Were it not that it gives Megan and Sven a chance to speak together beyond the prying ears of neighbours!"
"Or for her to speak, and him to listen!" Cadfael observed.
"He doesn't speak without he has aught to say." She replied. "But he'll say his piece at the right time, and then she will listen!"