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smeared with the blue and the scarlet, and his eyes were shut, but clenched shut, upon the controlled awareness of pain. He had not uttered a sound. If he had, those close by would have heard him. What he had, he had contained. So he would still.
    Cadfael took him gently about the body, pinning the sustaining arm where it rested. The blue-veined eyelids lifted in their high vaults, and eyes brilliant and intelligent behind their veils of pain peered up into his face. 'Brother Cadfael…?'
    'Lie still a moment yet,' said Cadfael. I'll fetch Edmund - Brother Infirmarer…'
    'No! Brother, get me hence…to my bed…This will pass…it is not new. Only softly, softly help me away! I would not be a show…'
    It was quicker and more private to help him up the night stairs from the church to his own cell in the dortoir, rather than across the great court to the infirmary, and that was what he earnestly desired, that there might be no general alarm and fuss about him. He rose more by strength of will than any physical force, and with Cadfael's sturdy arm about him, and his own arm leaning heavily round Cadfael's shoulders, they passed unnoticed into the cool gloom of the church and slowly climbed the staircase. Stretched on his own bed, Humilis submitted himself with a bleakly patient smile to Cadfael's care, and made no ado when Cadfael stripped him of his habit, and uncovered the oblique stain of mingled blood and pus that slanted across the left hip of his linen drawers and down into the groin.
    'It breaks,' said the calm thread of a voice from the pillow. 'Now and then it suppurates - I know. The long ride…Pardon brother! I know the stench offends…'
    'I must bring Edmund,' said Cadfael, unloosing the drawstring and freeing the shirt. He did not yet uncover what lay beneath. 'Brother Infirmarer must know.'
    'Yes…But no other! What need for more?'
    'Except Brother Fidelis? Does he know all?'
    'Yes, all!' said Humilis, and faintly and fondly smiled. 'We need not fear him, even if he could speak he would not, but there's nothing of what ails me he does not know. Let him rest until Vespers is over.'
    Cadfael left him lying with closed eyes, a little eased, for the lines of his face had relaxed from their tight grimace of pain, and went down to find Brother Edmund, just in time to draw him away from Vespers. The filled baskets of plums lay by the garden hedge, awaiting disposal after the office, and the gatherers were surely already within the church, after hasty ablutions. Just as well! Brother Fidelis might at first be disposed to resent any other undertaking the care of his master. Let him find him recovered and well doctored, and he would accept what had been done. As good a way to his confidence as any.
    'I knew we should be needed before long,' said Edmund, leading the way vigorously up the day stairs. 'Old wounds, you think? Your skills will avail more than mine, you have ploughed that field yourself.'
    The bell had fallen silent. They heard the first notes of the evening office raised faintly from within the church as they entered the sick man's cell. He opened slow, heavy lids and smiled at them.
    'Brothers, I grieve to be a trouble to you…'
    The deep eyes were hooded again, but he was aware of all, and submitted meekly to all.
    They drew down the linen that hid him from the waist, and uncovered the ruin of his body. A great misshapen map of scar tissue stretched from the left hip, where the bone had survived by miracle, slantwise across his belly and deep, deep into the groin. Its colouration was of limestone pallor and striation below, where he was half disembowelled but stonily healed. But towards the upper part it was reddened and empurpled, the inflamed belly burst into a wet-lipped wound that oozed a foul jelly and a faint smear of blood.
    Godfrid Marsecot's crusade had left him maimed beyond repair, yet not beyond survival. The faceless, fingerless lepers who crawl into Saint Giles, thought Cadfael, have not