Ellis Peters - A Morbid Taste for Bones

AMorbid Taste for Bones

Ellis Peters

Chapter One

On the fine, bright morning in early May when the whole sensational affairof the Gwytherin relics may properly be considered to have begun, Brother Cadfaelhad been up long before Prime, pricking out cabbage seedlings before the daywas aired, and his thoughts were all on birth, growth and fertility, not at allon graves and reliquaries and violent deaths, whether of saints, sinners orordinary decent, fallible men like himself. Nothing troubled his peace but thenecessity to take himself indoors for Mass, and the succeeding half-hour ofchapter, which was always liable to stray over by an extra ten minutes. Hegrudged the time from his more congenial labours out here among the vegetables,but there was no evading his duty. He had, after all, chosen this cloisteredlife with his eyes open, he could not complain even of those parts of it hefound unattractive, when the whole suited him very well, and gave him the kindof satisfaction he felt now, as he straightened his back and looked about him.

He doubted if there was a finer Benedictine garden in the whole kingdom, orone better supplied with herbs both good for spicing meats, and also invaluableas medicine. The main orchards and lands of the Shrewsbury abbey of Saint Peterand Saint Paul lay on the northern side of the road, outside the monasticenclave, but here, in the enclosed garden within the walls, close to theabbots fishponds and the brook that worked the abbey mill, BrotherCadfael ruled unchallenged. The herbarium in particular was his kingdom, for hehad built it up gradually through the fifteen years of labour, and added to itmany exotic plants of his own careful raising, collected in a roving youth thathad taken him as far afield as Venice, and Cyprus and the Holy Land. ForBrother Cadfael had come late to the monastic life, like a battered shipsettling at last for a quiet harbour. He was well aware that in the first yearsof his vows the novices and lay servants had been wont to point him out to oneanother with awed whisperings.

See that brother working in the garden there? The thickset fellow whorolls from one leg to the other like a sailor? You wouldnt think to lookat him, would you, that he went on crusade when he was young? He was withGodfrey de Bouillon at Antioch, when the Saracens surrendered it. And he tookto the seas as a captain when the king of Jerusalem ruled all the coast of theHoly Land, and served against the corsairs ten years! Hard to believe it now,eh?

Brother Cadfael himself found nothing strange in his wide-ranging career,and had forgotten nothing and regretted nothing. He saw no contradiction in thedelight he had taken in battle and adventure and the keen pleasure he now foundin quietude. Spiced, to be truthful, with more than a little mischief when hecould get it, as he liked his victuals well-flavoured, but quietude all thesame, a ship becalmed and enjoying it. And probably the youngsters who eyed himwith such curiosity also whispered that in a life such as he had led there musthave been some encounters with women, and not all purely chivalrous, and whatsort of grounding was that for the conventual life?

They were right about the women. Quite apart from Richildis, who had notunnaturally tired of waiting for his return after ten years, and married asolid yeoman with good prospects in the shire, and no intention of flying offto the wars, he remembered other ladies, in more lands than one, with whom hehad enjoyed encounters pleasurable to both parties, and no harm to either.Bianca, drawing water at the stone well-head in Venicethe Greekboat-girl AriannaMariam, the Saracen widow who sold spices and fruit inAntioch, and who found him man enough to replace for a while the man she hadlost. The light encounters and the grave, not one of them had left any hardfeelings behind. He counted that as achievement enough, and having known themwas part of the harmonious balance that made him content now with thisharboured, contemplative life, and gave him patience and insight to bear withthese cloistered, simple souls who had put on the Benedictine habit as alifes profession, while for him it was a timely retirement. When youhave done everything else, perfecting a conventual herb-garden is a fine andsatisfying thing to do. He could not conceive of coming to this stasis havingdone nothing else whatever.

Five minutes more, and he must go and wash his hands and repair to thechurch for Mass. He used the respite to walk the length of his pale-flowered,fragrant inner kingdom, where Brother John and Brother Columbanus, twoyoungsters barely a year tonsured, were busy weeding and edge-trimming. Glossyand dim, oiled and furry, the leaves tendered every possible variation ongreen. The flowers were mostly shy, small, almost furtive, in soft, sidelongcolours, lilacs and shadowy blues and diminutive yellows, for they were theunimportant and unwanted part, but for ensuring seed to follow. Rue, sage,rosemary, gilvers, gromwell, ginger, mint, thyme, columbine, herb of grace,savoury, mustard, every manner of herb grew here, fennel, tansy, basil anddill, parsley, chervil and marjoram. He had taught the uses even of theunfamiliar to all his assistants, and made plain their dangers, too, for thebenefit of herbs is in their right proportion, and over-dosage can be worsethan the disease. Small of habit, modest of tint, close-growing and shy, hisherbs called attention to themselves only by their disseminated sweetness asthe sun rose on them. But behind their shrinking ranks rose others taller andmore clamorous, banks of peonies grown for their spiced seeds, and lofty,pale-leaved, budding poppies, as yet barely showing the white or purple-blackpetals through their close armour. They stood as tall as a short man, and theirhome was the eastern part of the middle sea, and from that far place Cadfaelhad brought their ancestors in the seed long ago, and raised and cross-bredthem in his own garden, before ever he brought the perfected progeny here withhim to make medicines against pain, the chief enemy of man. Pain, and theabsence of sleep, which is the most beneficent remedy for pain.

The two young men, with habits kilted to the knee, were just straighteningtheir backs and dusting the soil from their hands, as well aware as he of thehour. Brother Columbanus would not for the world have let slip one grain of hisduties, or countenanced such a backsliding in any of his fellows. A verycomely, well-made, upstanding young fellow he was, with a round, formidable,Norman head, as he came from a formidable, aristocratic Norman family, ayounger son despatched to make his way in the monastic ranks as next-best toinheriting the land. He had stiff, upstanding yellow hair and full blue eyes,and his modest demeanour and withdrawn pallor tended to obscure the muscularforce of his build. Not a very comfortable colleague, Brother Columbanus, forin spite of his admirable body equipment he had some while since proved that hehad a mental structure of alarming sensitivity, and was liable to fits ofemotional stress, crises of conscience, and apocalyptic visions far removedfrom the implications of his solid skull. But he was young and idealistic, hehad time to get over his self-torments. Brother Cadfael had worked with him forsome months, and had every hope for him. He was willing, energetic, and almosttoo eager to please. Possibly he felt his debt to his aristocratic house toonearly, and feared a failure that would reflect on his kin. You cannot be ofhigh Norman blood, and not excel! Brother Cadfael felt for any such victims asfound themselves in this trap, coming as he did, of antique Welsh stock withoutsuperhuman pretensions. So he tolerated Brother Columbanus with equanimity, anddoctored his occasional excesses philosophically. The juice of the paynimpoppies had quieted Columbanus more than once when his religious fervourprostrated him.