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    A Morbid Taste for Bones
    A Morbid Taste for Bones
    A Morbid Taste for Bones
    Ebook295 pages5 hours

    A Morbid Taste for Bones

    By Ellis Peters

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The “irresistible” and “compelling” first novel in the historical mystery series featuring a Welsh Benedictine monk in the twelfth century (The Washington Post).

    A Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey in western England, Brother Cadfael spends much of his time tending the herbs and vegetables in the garden—but now there’s a more pressing matter. Cadfael is to serve as translator for a group of monks heading to the town of Gwytherin in Wales. The team’s goal is to collect the holy remains of Saint Winifred, which Prior Robert hopes will boost the abbey’s reputation, as well as his own. But when the monks arrive in Gwytherin, the town is divided over the request.

    When the leading opponent to disturbing the grave is found shot dead with a mysterious arrow, some believe Saint Winifred herself delivered the deadly blow. Brother Cadfael knows an earthly hand did the deed, but his plan to root out a murderer may dig up more than he can handle.

    Before CSI and Law & Order, there was Brother Cadfael, “wily veteran of the Crusades” (Los Angeles Times). His knowledge of herbalism, picked up in the Holy Land, and his skillful observance of human nature are blessings in dire situations, and earned Ellis Peters a Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger Award. A Morbid Taste for Bones kicks off a long-running and much-loved series that went on to be adapted for stage, radio, and television.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMysteriousPress.com Open Road
    Release dateAug 5, 2014
    ISBN9781497671058
    Author

    Ellis Peters

    Ellis Peters (the pen name of Edith Pargeter, 1913–1995) is a writer beloved of millions of readers worldwide and has been widely adapted for radio and television, including her Brother Cadfael crime novels, which were made into a series starring Derek Jacobi. She has been the recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger, Edgar Award for Best Novel, Agatha Award for Best Novel, and was awarded an OBE for her services to literature in 1994.

    Read more from Ellis Peters

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    Reviews for A Morbid Taste for Bones

    4.5/5

    49 ratings27 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Marvelous story. You have to read it to find out exactly what happens. A fun spoof on religion. The historical detail, the characters, and the humor are enchanting. By the end I loved Brother Cadfael and all the villagers of Gwytherin, Wales. An utterly charming tale and funny too! Completed Oct 6, 2010
    • 5/5
      I've been meaning to reread these for a while. I don't think I can improve on my first impressions: it's a believable enough portrayal of both medieval Welsh and religious life, from what I know of either, and I particularly liked the portrayal of the women of the story, even the dead woman. I like that there's a hint of mystery and sacredness, too, that things turn out alright and it might be human effort or there might be a hint of divine intervention as well. It suits the time period.

      I also noticed the quality of the writing, this time round. There are some gorgeous bits.

      The mystery itself -- well, I remembered how it panned out from before, so that wasn't exactly revelatory, but I think it was well done, and all the clues were there to solve it for yourself.
    • 4/5
      I'm probably the rare person who has never read or watched a Brother Cadfael medieval mystery. I enjoyed this inaugural foray into the Welsh countryside and those who dwell there. The characters were well written and the plot was fast paced and intriguing. The murder mystery had me stumped until nearly the end, when within the last couple of chapters I finally saw the light, though the author was circumspect with foreshadowing to heighten the surprise.

      My only twinge were the strong women characters of Sioned and Annest. Perhaps I'm overanalysing but I'm not convinced that 12th century women (Welsh or not) would be so outspoken and forthright. I always fear that 20th (and now 21st) century authors are superimposing our liberated ideas on characters living nearly a thousand years before our times.
    • 4/5
      Six-word review: Clever medieval monk investigates Welshman's murder.Extended review:The first of the well-known Brother Cadfael mysteries by Edith Pargeter (writing as Ellis Peters) is also my first exposure to the series. I managed to miss all twenty of the novels, published beginning in 1977, and the four-season TV series broadcast in the nineties.Now, it seems, I'm in for a treat.Brother Cadfael is a Benedictine monk of the twelfth century, a Welshman living in an English abbey. After an adventuresome life as a soldier and sailor, he took the cowl in middle age. Hints of his colorful background enliven the quiet picture of a monastic herbalist and also account for his world-weary ability to see past men's poses to read the evil behind their acts.In this novel, the prior of Cadfael's abbey takes it as a personal mission to annex a long-dead Welsh saint and have her relics moved from her resting place to England where they can be properly venerated. The Welsh parish that has kept her chapel over the centuries objects. A violent death ensues, amidst thwarted love, a blooming romance, clan loyalties, and ecclesiastical ambition. Only Brother Cadfael can see the way to uncover the truth of the crime and accomplish justice for the afflicted parties.
    • 4/5
      Cadfael left his life crusading and traveling to join a monastery and choose a quiet contemplative life. He lends his knowledge of herbs and medicine to his brothers and tends the gardens for them. One of the brothers has a vision involving a minor Welsh saint that seems to ask them to move her bones to their church from her grave in Wales. Cadfael travels with a group of monks to collect Saint Winifred. Cadfael is not thoroughly convinced of this vision and goes along to help translate English to Welsh and see if he can enable Winifred to stay where she is.One of the most ardent arguers of this move is the major landowner of the village of Gwytherin who is not cowed by the august company that descends on his community. Unfortunately, before he can deliver his final verdict he is found dead. Cadfael helps solve the incongruities of the death and at the same time help to settle Saint Winifred where she should be.Lovers of medieval mysteries will have a blast with Brother Cadfael.
    • 3/5
      Having seen a number of good recommendations for this novel, I looked forward to reading it, but alas I couldn't get into the story. I say this regretfully since I don't easily give up on books. It doesn't help that the narrative takes its time to get going, with this Brother talking to that Prior using a stilted, high language. Even the words themselves feel slow.Not necessarily a bad book, just not for me.
    • 4/5
      Loved it! A medieval murder mystery with characters fleshed out and real to their times, and the setting just as you’d imagine Wales to be at that time.
    • 4/5
      A Morbid Taste for Bones is the first Brother Cadfael mystery. When a fellow monk by the name of Brother Columbanus falls ill, he’s taken in a pilgrimage to St Winifred’s Well in North Wales and returns cured. The cure is attributed to St Winifred. Prior Robert, Cadfael (needed to translate) and a small party travel to the village of Gwytherin in Wales to claim the saint’s relics; against the will of the local community. Tempers rise, and murder is the result. It’s up to Brother Cadfael and to Sioned, a local young woman, to find out what really happened. This book is a fun read--things move along quickly. 3.5 out of 5 stars.
    • 5/5
      As a lover of British TV how did I miss not only this series but the great books? I loved this book. The main character Brother Cadfael is engaging and well developed. In this first book his monastery is trying to get the bones of a saint from a Welsh village when a town leader is murdered. Brother Cadfael steps in and assists the remaining family with trying to determine who did the horrible deed. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction or mysteries, Enjoy!
    • 5/5
      Loved it! A good mystery, with some nice twists and turns. Good, interesting, likable - and unlikable - characters. Cadfael himself is interesting and enjoyable enough that I look forward to reading many more of his adventures. Great sense of humor in him. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good "popcorn" mystery - not much substance but tons of fun. :)
    • 4/5
      This is a story of a abbey's gardener,Cadfael.He and his companions were asked to do one thing, so they went to certain village.But they encountered a murder there.Cadfael tried to find the murderer.This book is worth reading.The story is interesting.I can have read this book without tire.
    • 5/5
      Brother Cadfael, the sleuth in this book, is a monk in the Benedictine Order in the 12th Century during the struggle for the throne between King Stephen and Empress Maud and the history of the time is skillfully woven into the tales. I recommend not just this book but the entire series--they're favorites of mine. Good comfort reads for when you want to immerse yourself in another world with a characters you think of as friends, and there's usually an element of romance. I've seen Cadfael compared to Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet in his attempts to aid lovers, only he's wiser, smarter and more successful. I think each novel could be read on its own, and isn't dependent on the earlier ones, but I think you do enjoy it more when you read it from the beginning, because there is also an underlying arc to the series, such as the friendship between Cadfael and the sheriff Hugh Beringar (Who first appears in One Corpse Too Many. I liked the ending in particular in this--justice done with a light touch. A good read and a strong opening for the series.
    • 5/5
      In this first chronicle of Brother Cadfael, the medieval monk and amateur sleuth, Peters takes us along as the Benedictine brothers travel to a small Welsh village in order to claim the relics of a neglected saint as their own. But when the community's most outspoken opponent of the relocation is murdered, Cadfael sets out to discover the killer and ends up becoming involved in the miracles attendant upon the saint. A wonderful, short mystery that has become a classic in the genre. The television adaptation starring Derek Jacobi is also highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      I did like this one. Often the first book or two in a series are the weakest as the author, not to mention the characters, begin finding their way in their world, but Brother Cadfael seems to be well fleshed out from the beginning. The plot hangs together fairly well, and the driving motivations of all the main characters make for some interesting interactions between them. Finally - and this is always a favorite plot device of mine - there is just a hint that St. Winifred is taking a direct hand in the proceedings. Nothing so crass as melting away the bad guys like Indiana Jones, but, just as you would expect from a saint, a light touch having a significant effect; and the touch is so light it's not clear that it's really there. Nicely done, although if it happened in every book of the series it would get old fast.
    • 3/5
      Fifty-seven year old Welshman Brother Cadfael is a “squat, barrel-chested, bandy-legged” Benedictine monk in the 12th Century at the Abbey of Shrewsbury. He came to the monastery late in life after an action-packed youth that included a stint in the Crusades. The Abbey is a sort of retirement for him, and he works in the herbarium. There he is assisted by “the youngsters” Brother John and Brother Columbanus, only two years tonsured. The Abbey Administrator, Prior Robert, ambitious and vain, is seeking some saintly relics (at that time they were considered as good as penicillin for what ailed you) to add to the glory of himself as well as the Abbey. Thus, he looks toward Wales, “where it was well known that holy men and women had been common as mushrooms in autumn…”After a vision by Brother Columbanus, they settle on Winifred of Gwytherin in Wales, and the Abbot sends out a delegation to get her bones. Brother Cadfael goes along as an interpreter. In Gwytherin, the primary opponent of moving the saint, Rhisiart, is murdered, and Brother Cadfael helps solve the crime with the assistance of Sioned, the beautiful daughter of the murdered man.When Brother Cadfael isn’t solving mysteries, he’s playing matchmaker, helping various young people find love and happiness. This process is assisted by his sense of humor, a wry religious realism, and a generosity of spirit. In addition, he alludes to memories of happiness with women as a young man, so you get a strong image of Anna in "The King and I," looking out at the starry night and singing:"Hello young lovers, whoever you are, I hope your troubles are few. All my good wishes go with you tonight, I've been in love like you. Be brave, young lovers, and follow your star,Be brave and faithful and true, Cling very close to each other tonight.I've been in love like you. I know how it feels to have wings on your heels, And to fly down the street in a trance. You fly down a street on the chance that you meet, And you meet -- not really by chance. Don't cry young lovers, whatever you do, Don't cry because I'm alone; All of my memories are happy tonight, I've had a love of my own.I've had a love of my own, like yours- I've had a love of my own."Evaluation: This is a book one might call cozy-historical. It’s pleasant enough, although it’s a bit like drinking lite beer. The mystery is fairly obvious, and the characters aren’t fully fleshed out: what we learn about them is pretty much on a need-to-know basis. Still, you get some interesting insights into 12th Century England and Wales, especially into the religious life, and the story is not without its charms. It provides an enjoyable way to pass some time, although to be honest, the next book in the series is better. I would say this first book is one in which Peters sets out the premises of the series, lays some background, and tests her stride. You don't need to read it to keep going in the series, but you won't regret reading it, either.
    • 3/5
      A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters is the first of a long series of Brother Cadfael mysteries. I have watched many televised episodes, in no particular order, and enjoyed them a great deal. Of course, I am generally a fan of BBC and most of my limited viewing time is devoted to British productions.In this story, the ambitious members of Brother Cadfael's monastery decide to appropriate an obscure Welsh saint for the benefits that miracles and pilgrims can bring. Brother Cadfael, with his Welsh background and language skills joins the expedition over the border to translate the saint's bones. Not surprisingly, the local villagers are not pleased with the idea, and the most outspoken opponent turns up dead. In this story, Brother Cadfael relies on basic forensics observations rather than his extensive herbal and botanical knowledge to investigate the murder, though the book clearly lays out his personality and background.It was a charming story that brought the era to life and highlighted the differences between Wales and England. It also gives insights into monastic life, which must seem quite alien to most modern readers. The characters were sympathetically drawn though without much depth. The dialogue was good, the narrative was in reasonable proportion, and the plot was moderately interesting if generally predictable. And of course, the poetic justice was lovely.
    • 4/5
      In this First Chronicle of Brother Cadfael of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Shrewsbury we journey with Brother Cadfael and a retinue from the abbey to Gwytherin, Wales to recover the bones of St. Winifred from her resting place in a small cemetery in Gwytherin and transport her to grace the grand altar at Shrewsbury. We witness the clash of two cultures as the patrician Norman, Prior Robert of Shrewsbury, who thinks in terms of heirarchies and Rhisiart, the landholder of Gwytherin who thinks in terms of blood ties battle over the right to St. Winifred's bones. Prior Robert, who comes with the blessing and authority of church and state and with an overbearing arrogance has little to say to a culture which looks upon itself as kinship members, with different places but not inferior one to the other. Brother Cadfael, a native of Wales, is in the thick of the arguments and resulting murders with his empathetic outlook and his knowledge of the language and culture. A surprise ending which will be alluded to and cause unease to Cadfael in succeeding books of this very engaging series of medieval mystery by a master storyteller.
    • 4/5
      At last I've started the Brother Cadfael mysteries, after several friends recommended the books for quite some time. I enjoyed this story and I'll certainly be looking for the rest of the series. Brother Cadfael is an old Welsh adventurer, who has joined the Benedictine order as a retirement rather than for religious reasons. He is quite worldy-wise and astute about the motivations of others, and he observes his spiritual brothers with interest. I found him a little too cynically modern in his thinking, a little too easy to relate to — but I suppose it would be difficult for modern readers to really identify with a zealously strict monk. In this first story, Brother Cadfael joins a party from his monastery that is going in search of a saint's relics to boost its monastery's importance among the religious orders. Everyone around this time was relic-crazy, with bones and body parts of saints performing great miracles (or so everyone said) for the faithful. Prior Robert, who is leading their group, has set his sights on Saint Winifred, a centuries-old saint of a small village in Wales. The people of the village don't want the monks to take her away, and one man in particular, Rhisiart, leads the movement against the monk's mission. When he is found murdered with an arrow through his chest, the resistance collapses. Prior Robert claims that it's saintly vengeance for Rhisiart's opposition to the monks. But Brother Cadfael knows better — who really killed Rhisiart?Brother Cadfael begins his own investigations, aided by the dead man's daughter Sioned. The story has a good dash of humor, especially with the earthy, young Brother John, and there is also a bit of the supernatural. Of course a lot of it is just the ready ambition and competition of the monks, but not everything is so neatly explained. I like that... so much in religious experience is overblown and unreal, but not all of it. And there are some good insights about religion and psychology. My favorite line: "It's a kind of arrogance to be so certain you're past redemption."Peters gives plenty of hints about Brother Cadfael's varied past, and it will be interesting to see how these things pop up in later stories. Though the mystery is nothing earth-shattering, it's fairly well-written, and the characters are interesting. Enjoyable and light.
    • 4/5
      In 1137 a delegation of monks from Shrewsbury Abbey in England, journey to Gwytherin Wales to collect the sacred remains of Saint Winifred. The wise and slightly irreverent native Welshman, Brother Cadfael, is included on the holy expedition as the interpreter. Their reception by the residents of Gwytherin is not entirely welcome as the villagers are reluctant to give up their Saint. When one of the leading opponents ends up with an arrow to the heart, some villagers believe that it is the Saint herself making her wishes known. But wise and worldly Brother Cadfael recognizes a murder victim when he sees one, and is quietly determined to solve the mystery.This short novel is certainly not great literature but it is an enjoyable read. It's a truly delightful mystery with an ending that is both fitting and humorous. I'm looking forward to reading other books in the series.
    • 4/5
      In the first part the characters are described; at p. 114 the adding of characters is stopped and a murder is analyzed in the nexth pages by experimenting. Things work not out so well, such is life. At the end the quality of the plot is diminishing; more humour is introduced and a happy ending concludes a nice story, which puts you back in time.
    • 3/5
      An entertaining mystery with a good plot and characters. I would like it better if Cadfael was actually a faithful Catholic instead of a moral relativist.
    • 4/5
      The first in the Brother Cadfael series.We're in 12th century England near the Welsh border at Shrewbury, the site of the Benedictine Abbey of Sts. Peter and Paul. Brother Cadfael at 57 has had his share of worldly adventures as part of the First Crusade fighting in the Holy land; he has also had his share of experiences with women, which he remembers with affection. For the past 15 years, he has been a contented member of the Benedictine community, his major responsibility being the abbey garden, especially the medicinal herbs.No organization is immune from politics and its ambitious practitioners, least of all the Catholic Church. The prior of Shrewsbury Abbey, Prior Robert, is a descendant of the Norman conquerors, and while he may have given up lordship over a secular domain, he definitely aspires to rise to the top within the Church. Thus he chafes under the galling lack of a saint's relics at the abbey, diminishing the abbey's (and therefore his) reputation. Prior Robert launches a campaign to transfer the bones of St. Winifred, a little-known virgin Welsh saint from their resting place in Wales to Sts. Peter and Paul.The Welsh community is NOT amused, and the opposition is led by a prominent Welsh landowner who is soon found murdered.The plot is excellent, given the era in which the story is set. Peters draws the characters--all of them, including the haughty Prior Robert--with great affection. She has a wonderful ability to put us right in the time and the location.The climax of the story is very well done and Brother Cadfael's solution to the resulting problem a stroke of genius; the humor and irony are exquisite.It may be a murder mystery, but Peters writes with great gentleness, humor, and fondness for the period. Brother Cadfael is one of the most endearing "detectives" of the genre.Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      A man is stuck down by an arrow and people take it as a sign that a saint is angry. Brother Cadfael knows this to be the work of a mortal, a work of hate rather than heavenly vengeance. I love the book. There is a bit of humor in Cadfael. Medeival life has more to it than blunt killings and crude farm works. The human mind is as complex in murdering as the present day criminals.
    • 5/5
      A favorite, this gives a lot of explanation of Cadfael's faith and truth vs. religiosity.
    • 5/5
      This is the 1st Cadfael I've read (as well as the 1st in the series) and it was an enjoyable read. It was a nice easy who-dun-it and I plan to read all the rest of them as well. The PBS Cadfael specials first pointed me in this direction. Cadfael goes with a group of his brother monks to bring back the relics of Saint Winifred from a reluctant parish and during the course of things a murder occurs of the chief holdout. Problems abound and Cadfael tries to find a solution and to make everyone satisfied.
    • 3/5
      Good writing, good characters, decent mystery. Kinda slow, it could have ended at about 17 places in the last 2 chapters but it just kept going.
    • 4/5
      The first Cadfael story, and I have a sneaking suspicion I saw the tv version first. Cadfael is sent with some other monks to recover the body of a saint to enhance the Benedectine Monastery of Shrewsbury. The people where the saint is don't really want to release her and when one of the villagers is found dead suspicion is thrown on the monks, Cadfael has to investigate.The Carlton Video starring Derek Jacobi follows the book quite well.

    Book preview

    A Morbid Taste for Bones - Ellis Peters

    1

    On the fine, bright morning in early May when the whole sensational affair of the Gwytherin relics may properly be considered to have begun, Brother Cadfael had been up long before Prime, pricking out cabbage seedlings before the day was aired, and his thoughts were all on birth, growth and fertility, not at all on graves and reliquaries and violent deaths, whether of saints, sinners or ordinary decent, fallible men like himself. Nothing troubled his peace but the necessity to take himself indoors for Mass, and the succeeding half-hour of chapter, which was always liable to stray over by an extra ten minutes. He grudged 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 cloistered life with his eyes open, he could not complain even of those parts of it he found unattractive, when the whole suited him very well, and gave him the kind of 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, or one better supplied with herbs both good for spicing meats, and also invaluable as medicine. The main orchards and lands of the Shrewsbury abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul lay on the northern side of the road, outside the monastic enclave, but here, in the enclosed garden within the walls, close to the abbot’s fishponds and the brook that worked the abbey mill, Brother Cadfael ruled unchallenged. The herbarium in particular was his kingdom, for he had built it up gradually through the fifteen years of labour, and added to it many exotic plants of his own careful raising, collected in a roving youth that had taken him as far afield as Venice, and Cyprus and the Holy Land. For Brother Cadfael had come late to the monastic life, like a battered ship settling at last for a quiet harbour. He was well aware that in the first years of his vows the novices and lay servants had been wont to point him out to one another with awed whisperings.

    See that brother working in the garden there? The thickset fellow who rolls from one leg to the other like a sailor? You wouldn’t think to look at him, would you, that he went on crusade when he was young? He was with Godfrey de Bouillon at Antioch, when the Saracens surrendered it. And he took to the seas as a captain when the king of Jerusalem ruled all the coast of the Holy 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 the delight he had taken in battle and adventure and the keen pleasure he now found in quietude. Spiced, to be truthful, with more than a little mischief when he could get it, as he liked his victuals well-flavoured, but quietude all the same, a ship becalmed and enjoying it. And probably the youngsters who eyed him with such curiosity also whispered that in a life such as he had led there must have been some encounters with women, and not all purely chivalrous, and what sort of grounding was that for the conventual life?

    They were right about the women. Quite apart from Richildis, who had not unnaturally tired of waiting for his return after ten years, and married a solid yeoman with good prospects in the shire, and no intention of flying off to the wars, he remembered other ladies, in more lands than one, with whom he had enjoyed encounters pleasurable to both parties, and no harm to either. Bianca, drawing water at the stone well-head in Venice—the Greek boat-girl Arianna—Mariam, the Saracen widow who sold spices and fruit in Antioch, and who found him man enough to replace for a while the man she had lost. The light encounters and the grave, not one of them had left any hard feelings behind. He counted that as achievement enough, and having known them was part of the harmonious balance that made him content now with this harboured, contemplative life, and gave him patience and insight to bear with these cloistered, simple souls who had put on the Benedictine habit as a life’s profession, while for him it was a timely retirement. When you have done everything else, perfecting a conventual herb-garden is a fine and satisfying thing to do. He could not conceive of coming to this stasis having done nothing else whatever.

    Five minutes more, and he must go and wash his hands and repair to the church for Mass. He used the respite to walk the length of his pale-flowered, fragrant inner kingdom, where Brother John and Brother Columbanus, two youngsters barely a year tonsured, were busy weeding and edge-trimming. Glossy and dim, oiled and furry, the leaves tendered every possible variation on green. The flowers were mostly shy, small, almost furtive, in soft, sidelong colours, lilacs and shadowy blues and diminutive yellows, for they were the unimportant 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 and dill, parsley, chervil and marjoram. He had taught the uses even of the unfamiliar to all his assistants, and made plain their dangers, too, for the benefit of herbs is in their right proportion, and over-dosage can be worse than the disease. Small of habit, modest of tint, close-growing and shy, his herbs called attention to themselves only by their disseminated sweetness as the sun rose on them. But behind their shrinking ranks rose others taller and more clamorous, banks of peonies grown for their spiced seeds, and lofty, pale-leaved, budding poppies, as yet barely showing the white or purple-black petals through their close armour. They stood as tall as a short man, and their home was the eastern part of the middle sea, and from that far place Cadfael had brought their ancestors in the seed long ago, and raised and cross-bred them in his own garden, before ever he brought the perfected progeny here with him to make medicines against pain, the chief enemy of man. Pain, and the absence of sleep, which is the most beneficent remedy for pain.

    The two young men, with habits kilted to the knee, were just straightening their backs and dusting the soil from their hands, as well aware as he of the hour. Brother Columbanus would not for the world have let slip one grain of his duties, or countenanced such a backsliding in any of his fellows. A very comely, well-made, upstanding young fellow he was, with a round, formidable, Norman head, as he came from a formidable, aristocratic Norman family, a younger son despatched to make his way in the monastic ranks as next-best to inheriting the land. He had stiff, upstanding yellow hair and full blue eyes, and his modest demeanour and withdrawn pallor tended to obscure the muscular force of his build. Not a very comfortable colleague, Brother Columbanus, for in spite of his admirable body equipment he had some while since proved that he had a mental structure of alarming sensitivity, and was liable to fits of emotional stress, crises of conscience, and apocalyptic visions far removed from the implications of his solid skull. But he was young and idealistic, he had time to get over his self-torments. Brother Cadfael had worked with him for some months, and had every hope for him. He was willing, energetic, and almost too eager to please. Possibly he felt his debt to his aristocratic house too nearly, and feared a failure that would reflect on his kin. You cannot be of high Norman blood, and not excel! Brother Cadfael felt for any such victims as found themselves in this trap, coming as he did, of antique Welsh stock without superhuman pretensions. So he tolerated Brother Columbanus with equanimity, and doctored his occasional excesses philosophically. The juice of the paynim poppies had quieted Columbanus more than once when his religious fervour prostrated him.

    Well, at any rate there was no nonsense of that kind with the other one! Brother John was as plain and practical as his name, a square young man with a snub nose and an untamable ring of wiry russet curls round his tonsure. He was always hungry, and his chief interest in all things that grew in gardens was whether they were eatable, and of agreeable flavour. Come autumn he would certainly find a way of working his passage into the orchards. Just now he was content to help Brother Cadfael prick out early lettuces, and wait for the soft fruits to come into season. He was a handsome, lusty, good-natured soul, who seemed to have blundered into this enclosed life by some incomprehensible error, and not yet to have realised that he had come to the wrong place. Brother Cadfael detected a lively sense of mischief the fellow to his own, but never yet given its head in a wider world, and confidently expected that some day this particular red-crested bird would certainly fly. Meantime, he got his entertainment wherever it offered, and found it sometimes in unexpected places.

    I must be in good tune, he said, unkilting his gown and dusting his hands cheerfully on his seat. I’m reader this week. So he was, Cadfael recalled, and however dull the passages they chose for him in the refectory, and innocuous the saints and martyrs he would have to celebrate at chapter, John would contrive to imbue them with drama and gusto from his own sources. Give him the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, and he would shake the foundations.

    You read for the glory of God and the saints, brother, Columbanus reminded him, with loving reproof and somewhat offensive humility, not for your own! Which showed either how little he knew about it, or how false he could be, one or the other.

    The blessed thought is ever in my mind, said Brother John with irrepressible zest, and winked at Cadfael behind his colleague’s back, and set off enthusiastically along the aisles of shrubs towards the abbot’s gate and the great court. They followed him more demurely, the slender, fair, agile youth and the squat, barrel-chested, bandy-legged veteran of fifty-seven. Was I ever, wondered Cadfael, rolling with his powerful seaman’s gait beside the other’s long, supple strides, as young and earnest as this? It cost him an effort to recall that Columbanus was actually fully twenty-five, and the sprig of a sophisticated and ambitious house. Whose fortunes, surely, were not founded wholly on piety?

    This third Mass of the day was non-parochial and brief, and after it the Benedictine brothers of the abbey of Shrewsbury filed in procession from the choir into the chapter-house, and made their way to their stalls in due order, Abbot Heribert leading. The abbott was old, of mild nature and pliant, a gentle grey ascetic very wishful of peace and harmony around him. His figure was unimpressive, though his face was beguiling in its anxious sweetness. Novices and pupils were easy in his presence, when they could reach it, which was by no means always easy, for the extremely impressive figure of Prior Robert was liable to loom between.

    Prior Robert Pennant of mixed Welsh and English blood, was more than six feet tall, attenuated and graceful, silver-grey hair at fifty, blanched and beautiful of visage, with long, aristocratic features and lofty marble brow. There was no man in the midland shires would look more splendid in a mitre, superhuman in height and authority, and there was no man in England better aware of it, or more determined to prove it at the earliest opportunity. His very motions, sweeping across the chapter-house to his stall, understudied the pontificate.

    After him came Brother Richard the sub-prior, his antithesis, large, ungainly, amiable and benevolent, of a good mind, but mentally lazy. Doubtful if he would ever become prior when Robert achieved his end, with so many ambitious and industrious younger men eyeing the prospect of advancement, and willing to go to a great deal of trouble to secure it.

    After Richard came all the other brothers in their hierarchies. Brother Benedict the sacristan, Brother Anselm the precentor, Brother Matthew the cellarer, Brother Dennis the hospitaller, Brother Edmund the infirmarer, Brother Oswald the almoner, Brother Jerome, the prior’s clerk, and Brother Paul, master of the novices, followed by the commonalty of the convent, and a very flourishing number they made. Among the last of them Brother Cadfael rolled to his own chosen corner, well to the rear and poorly lit, half-concealed behind one of the stone pillars. Since he held no troublesome parchment office, he was unlikely to be called upon to speak in chapter upon the various businesses of the house, and when the matter in hand was dull into the bargain it was his habit to employ the time to good account by sleeping, which from long usage he could do bolt upright and undetected in his shadowy corner. He had a sixth sense which alerted him at need, and brought him awake instantly and plausibly. He had even been known to answer a question pat, when it was certain he had been asleep when it was put to him.

    On this particular May morning he remained awake long enough to enjoy Brother John’s extraction of the last improbable ounce of drama from the life of some obscure saint whose day fell on the morrow, but when the cellarer began to expound a complicated matter of a legacy partly to the altar of Our Lady, partly to the infirmary, he composed himself to slumber. After all, he knew that most of the remaining time, once a couple of minor malefactors had been dealt with, would be given to Prior Robert’s campaign to secure the relics and patronage of a powerful saint for the monastery. For the past few months very little else had been discussed. The prior had had it on his mind, in fact, ever since the Cluniac house of Wenlock had rediscovered, with great pride and jubilation, the tomb of their original foundress, Saint Milburga, and installed her bones triumphantly on their altar. An alien priory, only a few miles distant, with its own miracle-working saint, and the great Benedictine house of Shrewsbury as empty of relics as a plundered almsbox! It was more than Prior Robert could stomach. He had been scouring the borderlands for a spare saint now for a year or more, looking hopefully towards Wales, where it was well known that holy men and women had been common as mushrooms in autumn in the past, and as little regarded. Brother Cadfael had no wish to hear the latest of his complaints and urgings. He slept.

    The heat of the sun rebounded from honed new facets of pale, baked rock, scorching his face, as the floating arid dust burned his throat. From where he crouched with his fellows in cover he could see the long crest of the wall, and the steel-capped heads of the guards on the turrets glittering in the fierce light. A landscape carved out of reddish stone and fire, all deep gullies and sheer cliffs, with never a cool green leaf to temper it, and before him the object of all his journeyings, the holy city of Jerusalem, crowned with towers and domes within its white walls. The dust of battle hung in the air, dimming the clarity of battlement and gate, and the hoarse shouting and clashing of armour filled his ears. He was waiting for the trumpet to sound the final assault, and keeping well in cover while he waited, for he had learned to respect the range of the short, curly Saracen bow. He saw the banners surge forward out of hiding, streaming on the burning wind. He saw the flash of the raised trumpet, and braced himself for the blare.

    The sound that brought him leaping wide-awake out of his dream was loud enough and stirring enough, but not the brazen blast of a trumpet, nor was he launched from his stillness towards the triumphant storming of Jerusalem. He was back in his stall in the dark corner of the chapter-house, and starting to his feet as alertly as the rest, and with the same consternation and alarm. And the shriek that had awakened him was just subsiding into a series of rending moans and broken cries that might have been of extreme pain or extreme ecstasy. In the open space in the centre of the chapter-house Brother Columbanus lay on his face, threshing and jerking like a landed fish, beating his forehead and his palms against the flagstones, kicking and flailing with long, pale legs bared to the knee by his contortions, and barking out of him those extraordinary sounds of shattering physical excitement, while the nearest of the brothers hovered in helpless shock, and Prior Robert with lifted hands exhorted and exclaimed.

    Brother Cadfael and Brother Edmund, the infirmarer, reached the victim together, kneeled over him one on either side, and restrained him from battering his brains out against the stones of the floor, or dislocating his joints in the flailings. Falling sickness! said Brother Edmund tersely, and wedged the thick cord of Columbanus’ girdle between his teeth, and a fold of his habit with it, to prevent him from biting his tongue.

    Brother Cadfael was less certain of the diagnosis, for these were not the grunting, helpless noises of an epileptic in an attack, but such as might be expected from a hysterical woman in a frenzy. But at least the treatment stopped half the noise, and even appeared to diminish the vigour of the convulsions, though they resumed again as soon as the restraining grip on him was loosed.

    Poor young man! fluttered Abbot Heribert, hovering in the background. So sudden, so cruel an affliction! Handle him gently! Carry him to the infirmary. We must pray for his restoration.

    Chapter broke up in some disorder. With the help of Brother John, and certain others of a practical turn of mind, they got Brother Columbanus securely but comfortably swathed in a sheet, confining arms and legs so that he would do himself no injury, wedged his teeth apart with a wooden spit instead of the cloth, on which he might have gagged and choked, and carried him on a shutter to the infirmary, where they got him into bed, and secured him there with bandages round breast and thighs. He moaned and gurgled and heaved still, but with weakening force, and when they had managed to get a draught of Brother Cadfael’s poppy-juice into him his moans subsided into pitiful mutterings, and the violence of his struggles against his confinement grew feebler.

    Take good care of him, said Prior Robert, frowning anxiously over the young man’s bed. I think someone should be constantly by to watch over him, in case the fit comes again. You have your other sick men to attend to, you cannot sit by his side day and night. Brother Jerome, I put this sufferer in your charge, and excuse you from all other duties while he needs you.

    Willingly, said Brother Jerome, and prayerfully! He was Prior Robert’s closest associate and most devoted hanger-on, and an inevitable choice whenever Robert required strict obedience and meticulous reporting, as might well be the case where a brother of the house succumbed to what might elsewhere be whispered abroad as a fit of madness.

    Stay with him in particular during the night, said the prior, for in the night a man’s resistance falters, and his bodily evils may rise against him. If he sleeps peacefully, you may rest also, but remain close, in case he needs you.

    He’ll sleep within the hour, said Cadfael confidently, and may pass into natural sleep well before night. God willing, he may put this off before morning.

    For his part, he thought Brother Columbanus lacked sufficient work for both mind and body, and took his revenge for his deprivation in these excesses, half-wilful, half-involuntary, and both to be pitied and censured. But he retained enough caution to reserve a doubt with every conviction. He was not sure he knew any of his adopted brothers well enough to judge with certainty. Well, Brother John—yes, perhaps! But inside the conventual life or outside, cheerful, blunt, extrovert Brother Johns are few and far between.

    *

    Brother Jerome appeared at chapter next morning with an exalted countenance, and the air of one bursting with momentous news. At Abbot Heribert’s mild reproof for leaving his patient without permission, he folded his hands meekly and bowed his head, but lost none of his rapt assurance.

    Father, I am sent here by another duty, that seemed to me even more urgent. I have left Brother Columbanus sleeping, though not peacefully, for even his sleep is tormented. But two lay-brothers are watching by him. If I have done wrong, I will abide it humbly.

    Our brother is no better? asked the abbot anxiously.

    He is still deeply troubled, and when he wakes he raves. But, Father, this is my errand! There is a sure hope for him! In the night I have been miraculously visited. I have come to tell you what divine mercy has instructed me. Father, in the small hours I fell into a doze beside Brother Columbanus’ bed, and had a marvellously sweet dream.

    By this time he had everyone’s attention, even Brother Cadfael was wide awake. What, another of them? whispered Brother John wickedly into his ear. The plague’s spreading!

    Father, it seemed to me that the wall of the room opened, and a great light shone in, and through the light and radiating the light there came in a most beautiful young virgin, and stood beside our brother’s bed, and spoke to me. She told me that her name was Winifred, and that in Wales there is a holy spring, that rose to the light where she suffered martyrdom. And she said that if Brother Columbanus bathed in the water of that well, he would surely be healed, and restored at once to his senses. Then she uttered a blessing upon our house, and vanished in a great light, and I awoke.

    Through the murmur of excitement that went round the chapter-house, Prior Robert’s voice rose in reverent triumph: Father Abbot, we are being guided! Our quest for a saint has drawn to us this sign of favour, in token that we should persevere.

    Winifred! said the abbot doubtfully. I do not recall clearly the story of this saint and martyr. There are so many of them in Wales. Certainly we ought to send Brother Columbanus to her holy spring, it would be ingratitude to neglect so clear an omen. But exactly where is it to be found?

    Prior Robert looked round for the few Welshmen among the brothers, passed somewhat hurriedly over Brother Cadfael, who had never been one of his favourites, perhaps by reason of a certain spark in his eye, as well as his notoriously worldly past, and lit gladly upon Old Brother Rhys, who was virtually senile but doctrinally safe, and had the capacious if capricious memory of the very old. Brother, can you tell us the history of this saint, and where her well is to be found?

    The old man was slow to realise that he had become the centre of attention. He was shrunken like a bird, and toothless, and used to a tolerant oblivion. He began hesitantly, but warmed to the work

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