Read Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief for Free Online Page A

be appropriate reward for piping to Herluin's tune with such devotion during the day.
    Cadfael saw him ride out from the gatehouse, the childish delight showing through plainly by then; delight at being remembered and needed, delight at riding out when he had expected only a routine evening within the walls. Cadfael could appreciate and excuse that. The indulgent smile was still on his face as he went to tend certain remedies he had working in his herbarium. And there was another creature just as shiningly young, though perhaps not as innocent, hovering at the door of his hut, waiting for him.
    "Brother Cadfael?" questioned R� of Pertuis' girl singer, surveying him with bold blue eyes just on a level with his own.
    Not tall, but above average for a woman, slender almost to leanness, and straight as a lance. "Brother Edmund sent me to you. My master has a cold, and is croaking like a frog. Brother Edmund says you can help him."
    "God willing!" said Cadfael, returning her scrutiny just as candidly. He had never seen her so close before, nor expected to, for she kept herself apart, taking no risks, perhaps, with an exacting master. Her head was uncovered now, her face, oval, thin and bright, shone lily-pale between wings of black, curling hair.
    "Come within," he said, "and tell me more of his case. His voice is certainly of importance. A workman who loses his tools has lost his living. What manner of cold is it he's taken? Has he rheumy eyes? A thick head? A stuffed nose?"
    She followed him into the workshop, which was already shadowy within, lit only by the glow of the damped-down brazier, until Cadfael lit a sulphur spill and kindled his small lamp. She looked about her with interest at the laden shelves and the herbs dangling from the beams, stirring and rustling faintly in the draught from the door. "His throat," she said indifferently. "Nothing else worries him. He's hoarse and dry. Brother Edmund says you have lozenges and draughts. He's not ill," she said with tolerant disdain. "Not hot or fevered. Anything that touches his voice sends him into a sweat. Or mine, for that matter. Another of his tools he can't afford to lose, little as he cares about the rest of me. Brother Cadfael, do you make all these pastes and potions?" She was ranging the shelves of bottles and jars with eyes respectfully rounded.
    "I do the brewing and pounding," said Cadfael, "the earth supplies the means. I'll send your lord some pastilles for his throat, and a linctus to take every three hours. But that I must mix. A few minutes only. Sit by the brazier, it grows cold here in the evening."
    She thanked him, but did not sit. The array of mysterious containers fascinated her. She continued to prowl and gaze, restless but silent, a feline presence at his back as he selected from among his flasks cinquefoil and hore-hound, mint and a trace of poppy, and measured them into a green glass bottle. Her hand, slender and long-fingered, stroked along the jars with their Latin inscriptions.
    "You need nothing for yourself?" he asked. "To ward off his infection?"
    "I never take cold," she said, with scorn for the weaknesses of R� of Pertuis and all his kind.
    "Is he a good master?" Cadfael asked directly.
    "He feeds and clothes me," she said promptly, proof against surprise.
    "No more than that? He would owe that to his groom or his scullion. You, I hear, are the prop of his reputation."
    She turned to face him as he filled his bottle to the neck with a honeyed syrup, and stoppered it. Thus eye to eye she showed as experienced and illusionless, not bruised but wary of bruises, and prepared to evade or return them at need; and yet even younger than he had taken her to be, surely no more than eighteen.
    "He is a very good poet and minstrel, never think other wise. What I know, he taught me. What I had from God, yes, that is mine; but he showed me its use. If there ever was a debt, that and food and clothing would still have paid it, but there is none. He