Read Online An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters - Free Book Online

read well, he could learn by heart, and recite what
he had learned with feeling and warmth, and he was in the middle of a prayer of
Saint Augustine which Brother Paul had taught him, when he felt suddenly that
he had an audience larger than he had bargained for, and faltered and fell
silent, turning towards the open end of the cell.
    Nicholas
Harnage stood hesitant within the doorway, until his eyes grew accustomed to
the dim light. Brother Humilis had opened his eyes in wonder when Rhun
faltered. He beheld the best-loved and most trusted of his former squires
standing almost timorously at the foot of his bed.
    “Nicholas?”
he ventured, doubtful and wondering, heaving himself up to stare more intently.
    Brother
Fidelis stooped at once to prop and raise him, and brace the pillows at his
back, and then as silently withdrew into the dark corner of the cell, to leave
the field to the visitor.
    “Nicholas!
It is you!”
    The
young man went forward and fell on his knee to clasp and kiss the thin hand
stretched out to him.
    “Nicholas,
what are you doing here? You’re welcome as the morning, but I never looked to
see you in this place. It was kind indeed to seek me out in such a distant
refuge. Come, sit by me here. Let me see you close!”
    Rhun
had slipped away silently. From the doorway he made a small reverence before he
vanished. Fidelis took a step to follow him, but Humilis laid a hand on his arm
to detain him.
    “No,
stay! Don’t leave us! Nicholas, to this young brother I owe more than I can
ever repay. He serves me as truly in this field as you did in arms.”
    “All
who have been your men, like me, will be grateful to him,” said Nicholas
fervently, looking up into a face shadowed by the cowl, and as featureless as
voiceless in this half-darkness. If he wondered at getting no answer, but only
an inclination of the head by way of acknowledgement, he shrugged it off
without another thought, for it was of no importance that he should reach a
closer acquaintance with one he might never see again. He drew the stool close
to the bedside, and sat studying the emaciated face of his lord with deep
concern.
    “They
tell me you are mending well. But I see you leaner and more fallen than when I
left you, that time in Hyde, and went to do your errand. I had a long search in
Winchester to find your prior, and enquire of him where you were gone. Need you
have chosen to ride so far? The bishop would have taken you into the Old
Minster, and been glad of you.”
    “I
doubt if I should have been so glad of the bishop,” said Brother Humilis with a
wry little smile. “No, I had my reasons for coming so far north. This shire and
this town I knew as a child. A few years only, but they are the years a man
remembers later in life. Never trouble for me, Nick, I’m very well here, as
well as any other place, and better than most. Let us speak rather of you. How
have you fared in your new service, and what has brought you here to my bedside?”
    “I’ve
thrived, having your commendation. William of Ypres has mentioned me to the
queen, and would have taken me among his officers, but I’d rather stay with
FitzRobert’s English than go to the Flemings. I have a command. It was you who
taught me all I know,” he said, at once glowing and sad, “you and the mussulmen
of Mosul.”
    “It
was not the Atabeg Zenghi,” said Brother Humilis, smiling, “whose affairs sent
you here so far to seek me out. Leave him to the King of Jerusalem, whose noble
and perilous business he is. What of Winchester, since I fled from it?”
    The
queen’s armies have encircled it. Few men get out, and no food gets in. The
empress’s men are shut tight in their castle, and their stores must be running
very low. We came north to straddle the road by Andover. As yet nothing moves,
therefore I got leave to ride north on my own business. But they must attempt
to break out soon or starve where they