Read Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles for Free Online Page B

corrected him. He began to measure his various pectoral herbs into a mortar, and took a small bellows to rouse the brazier from its quiescent state. "I have a linctus to make before Compline. You'll not mind if I start work."
    "And I am in the way. I'm sorry! I've put you out enough already." But he did not want to go, he was too full of matter he needed to unload from his heart, and could not possibly offer to anyone but just such a courteous chance acquaintance, perhaps never to be seen again. "Or - may I stay?"
    "By all means, if you're at leisure to stay. For you serve Huon de Domville, and I fancy his service might be exigent. I saw you pass by Saint Giles. I saw the lady, too."
    "You were there? The old man - he was not hurt?" Bless the lad, he genuinely wanted to know. In the middle of his own troubles, up to the neck, he could still feel indignation at an affront to another's dignity.
    "Neither in body nor mind. Such as he live with a humility that transcends all possibility of humiliation. He was above giving a thought to the baron's blow."
    Joscelin emerged from his own preoccupation sufficiently to feel curiosity. "And you were there among them - those people? You - forgive me if I offend, it is not meant! - you are not afraid of going among them? Of their contagion? I have often wondered - someone tends them. I know they are forced to live apart, yet they cannot be utterly cut out of humanity."
    "The thing about fear," said Cadfael, seriously considering, "is that it is pointless. When need arises, fear is forgotten. Would you recoil from taking a leper's hand, if he needed yours, or you his, to be hauled out of danger? I doubt it. Some men would, perhaps - but of you I doubt it. You would grip first and consider afterwards, and by then fear would be clearly a mere waste of time. You are free of your lord's table tonight, are you? Then stay and give account of yourself, if you're so minded. You owe me at worst an excuse - at best, some amends for breaking in uninvited."
    But he was not displeased with his unruly intruder. Almost absent-mindedly Joscelin had taken the bellows from him, and was encouraging the brazier into reviving life.
    "He has three of us," said the boy thoughtfully. "Simon waits on him at table tonight - Simon Aguilon, his sister's son - and Guy FitzJohn is the third of us, he's in attendance, too. I need not go back yet. And you know nothing about me, and I think you're in doubt whether you did right to try and help us. I should like you to think well of me. I am sure you cannot but think well of Iveta." The name clouded his face again, he gazed ruefully into the satisfactory glow he was producing. "She is ..." He struggled with adoration, and exploded rebelliously: "No, she is not perfection, how could she be? Since she was ten years old she had been in wardship to those two! If you were at Saint Giles, you saw them. One on either side, like dragons. Her perfection has been all crushed out of shape, too long. But if she were free, she would grow back into her proper self, she would be brave and noble, like her ancestors. And then I would not care," he said, turning eyes blindingly blue and bright upon Cadfael, "if she gave it all to someone else, not to me. No, I lie - I should care infinitely, but I would bear it, and still be glad. Only this - this wicked market-bargaining, this defilement, this I will not endure!"
    "Mind the bellows! There, draw it out, you've given me all the fire I want. Lay it by on the stone there. Good lad! A name for a name is fair exchange. My name is Cadfael, a Welsh brother of this house, born at Trefriw." Cadfael was pounding honey and a morsel of vinegar into his powdered herbs, and warming his pot by the fire. "Now who may you be?"
    "My name is Joscelin Lucy. My father is Sir Alan Lucy, and has two manors in the Hereford borders. He sent me as page to Domville when I was fourteen, as the custom is, to learn my squire-craft in a greater household. And I won't say