The morning of departure dawned moist and still, the sun veiled, and every green thing looked at its greenest in the soft, amorphous light. Later the veil would thin and vanish, and the sun come forth in its elusive spring brightness. A good day to be riding home. Daalny came out into the great court from a sleepless bed, making her way to Prime, for she needed all her strength for the thing she had to do, and prayer and quietness within the huge solitude of the nave might stiffen her will to the act. For it seemed to her that no one else knew or even suspected what she suspected, so there was no one else to take action.
And still she might be wrong. The chink of coin, the weight of some solid bundle shifting against the pressure of her foot with that soft, metallic sound, what was that to prove anything? Even when she added to it the strange circumstances Brother Cadfael had recounted, the lie about Rémy’s harness being forgotten in the outer stable. Yet he had lied, and what business, therefore, had he in that place, unless he had gone to recover something secret of his own—or, of course, of someone else’s, or why keep it secret?
Well, Tutilo was out and gone, she hoped a good way west by now. The Benedictines had no great hold in Wales, the old, less rigidly organized Christianity of the Celtic Church lingered stubbornly there, even though the Roman rite had prevailed. They would accept a runaway novice, all the more when they heard him sing and play; they would provide him a patron and a house harp, and strip him of his skirts and find him chausses and shirt and cotte in payment for his music. And she, whatever it might cost her, would lift from him the last shadow of suspicion of murder, so that wherever he went he would go a free and vindicated man. And as for his other and lesser sins, they would be forgiven him.
There was an ache within her at his going, but she would not regard it, or regret his leaving her, though he had said in his haste that he would go nowhere without her. Now all that mattered to make her achievement complete was that he should never be recaptured, never subjected to narrow stone walls cramping his wings, or a halter crushing the cords of his throat into silence.
All through Prime she prayed unworded prayers for him, and waited and listened for the first outcry of his loss. It came only when Brother Porter had carried the breakfast bread and thin ale to Brother Jerome, and returned for the like repast for Tutilo, and even then it was hardly an outcry at all, since Brother Porter was not an exclaiming man, and scarcely recognized a crisis when he blundered into one. He emerged quickly from the cell, detached one hand from the wooden tray he was carrying to lock the door behind him, and then, recalling that there was no one within to need the precaution, in recoil not only left it unlocked but flung it wide open again. Daalny, keeping a wary eye on that corner of the court from the doorway of the guesthall, for some reason found this reaction perfectly logical. So did Cadfael, emerging at the same moment from the garden. But in view of this want of surprise and consternation on the custodian’s part, it behoved someone else to supply the deficiency. Daalny slipped back to her preparations within, and left them to deal with it as they thought best.
“He’s gone!” said Brother Porter. “Now, how is that possible?”
It was a serious question, not a protest. He looked at the large, heavy key on his tray, and back to the open door, and knitted his thick grizzled brows.
“Gone?” said Cadfael, very creditably astonished. “How could he be gone, and the door locked, and the key in your lodge?”
“Look for yourself,” said the porter. “Unless the devil has fetched his own away, then someone else has laid hands on this key in the night to good purpose and turned him loose in this world. Empty as a pauper’s purse in there, and the bed hardly dented. He’ll be well away by this. Sub-Prior Herluin will be out of his mind when he hears. He’s with Father Abbot at breakfast now, I’d best go and spoil his porridge for him.” He did not sound greatly grieved about it, but not exactly eager to bear the news, either.
“I’m bound there myself,” said Cadfael, not quite mendaciously, for he had just conceived the intention. “You get rid of the tray and follow me down, I’ll go before and break the news.”
“I never knew,” observed the porter, “that you had a bent for martyrdom. But lead the way and welcome. And I’ll come. Praise God, his lordship is set to leave this day, if he wants a safe journey Herluin and his fellows would be fools to lose the chance for the sake of hunting a slippery lad like that, with a night’s start into the bargain. We’ll be rid of them all before noon.” And he went off amiably to free his hands of the tray. He was in two minds whether he should return the key to its nail, but in the end he took it with him, as some manner of corroborative evidence, and followed Cadfael down towards the abbot’s lodging, but in no haste.
*
It was a different matter when Herluin heard the news. He surged up from the abbot’s table in his deprivation and loss, bereft now not only of his treasure gleaned here in Shrewsbury, but of his vengeance also, enraged beyond measure at having to go back to Ramsey almost empty-handed. For a short time, even though he himself did not know the whole of it, he had been on his way back a triumphant success, with generous largesse for the restoration, and the immeasurable blessing of a miracle-working saint. All gone now, and the culprit slipped through his fingers, so that he was left to trail home a manifest failure, meagrely re-paid for his travels, and short of a novice not, perhaps, exemplary in his behaviour, but valued for his voice, and therefore also in his way profitable.
“He must be pursued!” said Herluin, biting off every word with snapping, irregular teeth in his fury. “And, Father Abbot, surely your guard upon his captivity has been lax in the extreme, or how could any unauthorized person have gained possession of the key to his cell? I should have taken care of the matter myself rather than trust to others. But he must be pursued and taken. He has charges to answer, offences to expiate. The delinquent must not be allowed to go uncorrected.”
The abbot in evident and formidable displeasure, though whether with the absconding prisoner, his unwary guardians, or this fulminating avenger deprived of his scapegoat, there was no knowing, said acidly: “He may be sought within my premises, certainly. My writ does not presume to pursue men for punishment in the outside world.”
Earl Robert was also a guest at the abbot’s table on this last morning, but thus far he had remained seated equably in his place, saying no word, his quizzical glance proceeding silently from face to face, not omitting Cadfael, who had shot his disruptive bolt without expression and in the flattest of voices, to be backed up sturdily by the porter, still gripping the key that must have been lifted from its nail during Vespers, or so he judged, and put back again before the office ended. Since such interference with the abbatial orders here on monastic ground was unheard of, he had taken no precautions against it, though most of the time the lodge was manned, and the whole range of keys under the occupant’s eye, and safe enough. The porter excused himself manfully. His part was to see to it that the prisoners were properly fed, if austerely; with the authorities rested the overseeing of their incarceration, and the judgement of their causes.
“But there is still a suspicion of murder against him,” cried Herluin, aggressively triumphant as he recalled the secular charge. “He cannot be allowed to evade that. The king’s law has a duty to recover the criminal, if the Church has not.”
“You are mistaken,” said Radulfus, severely patient. “The sheriff has already assured me, yesterday, that he is satisfied on the proofs he holds that Brother Tutilo did not kill the young man Aldhelm. The secular law has no charge to bring against him. Only the Church can accuse him, and the Church has no sergeants to despatch about the country in pursuit of its failures.”
The word ‘failure’ had stung sharp colour into Herluin’s face, as if he felt himself personally held to blame for being unable to keep his subordinates in better control. Cadfael doubted if any such significance had been intended. Radulfus was more likely to accuse himself of inadequate leadership than to make the same charge against any other. Even now that might well be his meaning. But Herluin took to himself, while he strenuously denied, every failure that had cropped his dignity and authority, and threatened to send him home humbled and in need of tolerance and consolation.
“It may be, Father Abbot,” he said, stiffly erect and smouldering with doomladen prophecy, “that in this matter the Church will need to examine itself closely, for if it fail to contend against the evildoers wherever they may be found, its authority may fall into disrepute. Surely the battle against evil, within or without our pale, is as noble a Crusade as the contention within the Holy Land. It is not to our credit if we stand by and let the evildoer go free. This man has deserted his brotherhood and abandoned his vows. He must be brought back to answer for it.”
“If you esteem him as a creature so fallen from grace,” said the abbot coldly, “you should observe what the Rule has to say of such a case, in the twenty-eighth chapter, where it is written: “Drive out the wicked man from among you.”
“But we have not driven him out,” persisted Herluin, still incandescent with rage, “he has not waited the judgement nor answered for his offences, but taken himself off secretly in the night to our discomfiture.”
“Even so,” murmured Cadfael as to himself but very audibly, unable to resist the temptation, “in the same chapter the Rule commands us: ‘If the faithless brother leaves you, let him go.’”
Abbot Radulfus gave him a sharp glance, not altogether approving; and Robert Bossu gleamed into that brief, private, unnerving smile of his, that was gone before any target it might be aimed at could take offence.
“I am responsible to my abbot,” said Herluin, doggedly diverting the argument into a different channel, “for the novice committed to my charge, I must at least make enquiry after him as best I may.”
“I fear,” said Robert Bossu with relentless sweetness, “that time is too short even for that. If you decide to remain and pursue this quest, I fear you must resume your journey in less favourable circumstances. As soon as the early Mass is over we muster and leave. You would be wise, all the more as you are now one man short, to take advantage of our numbers and travel with us.”
“If your lordship could delay only a couple of days...” began Herluin, writhing.
“I regret, no. I have malefactors of my own needing my presence,” said the earl, gallingly gentle and considerate. “Especially if a few rogues and vagabonds like those who attacked your wagon are still making their way out of the Fens into safer fastnesses through my lands. It is high time I went back. I have lost my wager for Saint Winifred, but I don’t grudge it, for after all, it was I who brought her back here, so even if she eludes me, I must have been doing her will to the last scruple, and there will surely be a minor blessing in it for my pains. But now I’m needed nearer home. When Mass is over,” said Earl Robert firmly, and made to rise, for it was nearly time. “I would advise you join us, Father Herluin, and do as Saint Benedict bids you, let the faithless brother go.”
*
The valedictory Mass began early and was briskly conducted, for the earl, once roused for departure, somehow conveyed the ardour of his mood to all those about him. When they came out into the early sunight the bustle of loading and saddling began at once. Out they came to the muster, Nicol the steward and his fellow from Ramsey, attendant on a morose and taciturn Herluin, still very loth to abandon his stray, but even more reluctant to linger, and miss this opportunity of a safe and comfortable passage half the way home, at least, and probably a mount for the rest of the way, since Robert Bossu could be generous to churchmen, even to one he cordially disliked.
The grooms came up from the stables with the narrow carriage that had conveyed Saint Winifred’s reliquary back to its home. Stripped now of the embroidered draperies which had graced it when it carried the saint, it would now serve as baggage wagon for all the party. Loaded with the earl’s belongings, and those of his squires, the alms collected by Herluin at Worcester and Evesham, and the greater part of Rémy’s instruments and possessions, which were compact enough, it could still accommodate Nicol and his companion, and not be too heavy a load for the horse. The packhorse which had carried the earl’s baggage on the outward journey was freed now to carry Herluin.
The two young squires led the saddled horses up from the stableyard, and Bénezet followed with Rémy’s mount and his own, with a young novice leading Daalny’s stolid cob bringing up the rear. The gate already stood wide for their passage. All done with competent speed. Cadfael, looking on from the corner of the cloister, had an eye anxiously on the open gate, for things had moved a little too briskly. It was early yet to expect Hugh and his officers, but no doubt the ceremonious farewells would take some time, and as yet the principals had not appeared. In all probability the earl would not think of setting out without taking his leave of Hugh.
The brothers had dispersed dutifully about their labours, but at every approach to the great court tended to linger rather longer than was strictly necessary, to contemplate the assembly of grooms and horses shifting restively about the cobbles, ready and eager to be on their way. The schoolboys were shooed away to their morning lesson, but Brother Paul would probably loose them again at the moment of departure.
Daalny, cloaked and bareheaded, came out from the guesthall and descended the steps to join the gathering below. She marked the balanced hang of Bénezet’s saddlebags, and knew the one that held his secrets by the rubbed graze she had noted on its front below the buckles. She watched it steadily, as Cadfael was watching her. Her face was pale; so it was always, she had skin white as magnolia, but now it had the drawn ice-pallor of stress over her slight, immaculate bones. Her eyes were half-hooded, but glitteringly fixed under the long dark lashes. Cadfael observed the signs of her tension and pain, and they grieved him, but he did not quite know how to interpret them. She had done what she set out to do, sent Tutilo out into a world better suited to him than the cloister. To come to terms with her inevitable daily world without him, after this brief fantasy, must cost her dear, there was no help for it. Having made his own plans, he failed to realize that she might still have plans of her own for a final cast, the one thing she still had left to do.
One of the young squires had returned to the guesthall to report that all was ready, and to carry cloak and gloves, or whatever was still left to be carried for his lord and his lord’s new retainer, who ranked, no doubt, somewhere among the lesser gentlefolk, well above the servants, but not reverenced like the harpers of Wales. And now they appeared in the doorway, and Abbot Radulfus, punctual with every courtesy, emerged from the garden of his lodging, between the still ragged and leggy rosebushes, at the same moment, with the prior at his back, and came to salute his departing guests.
The earl was plain and elegant as ever in his sombre colourings and fine fabrics, crimson cotte cut reasonably short for riding, and deep grey-blue surcoat slashed to the thigh fore and aft. He seldom covered his head unless against wind, rain or snow, but the capuchon swung and draped his higher shoulder, concealing the hump; though it was hard to believe that he ever gave any thought to such a device, for the flaw neither embarrassed him nor hampered the fluency of his movements. At his elbow came Rémy of Pertuis in full exultant spate, breathing spirited court converse into his patron’s ear. They descended the steps together, the squire following with his lord’s cloak over his arm. Below, the assembly was complete, for abbot and prior were waiting beside the horses.
“My lord,” said the earl, “I take my leave, now the time is come, with much regret. Your hospitality has been generous, and I fear very little deserved, since I came with pretensions to your saint. But I am glad that among many who covet her the lady knows how to choose the fittest and the best. I hope I take your blessing with me on the road?”
“With all my heart,” said Radulfus. “I have had much pleasure and profit in your company, my lord, and trust to enjoy it again when time favours us.”
The group, which had for a moment the formal look of immediate parting, began to dissolve into the general civility of visitors at the last moment reluctant to go, and lingering with many last things still to be said. There was Prior Robert at his most Norman and patrician, and even his most benign, since events had finally turned out well; certainly he was unlikely to let go of a Norman earl without exercising to the last moment his eloquence and charm. There was Herluin, in no very expansive mood but not to be left out of the courtesies, and Rémy, delighted with his change of fortune, shedding his beams impartially on all. Cadfael, with long experience of such departures, was aware that it would go on for as much as a quarter of an hour before anyone actually set foot in the stirrup and made to mount.
Daalny, with no such assurance, expected haste. She could not afford to wait, and find she had waited too long. She had steeled herself to the act, and dreaded she might not have time to make good what she had to say. She approached as close to abbot and earl as was seemly, and in the first pause between them she stepped forward and said loudly and clearly:
“Father Abbot—my lord Robert, may I speak a word? Before we leave this place, I have something that must be said, for it bears on theft, and may even bear on murder. I beg you hear me, and do right, for it is too much for me, and I dare not let it pass and be put aside.”
Everyone heard, and all eyes turned upon her. There fell a silence, of curiosity, of astonishment, of disapproval that the least of all these gathered here should dare to ask for a hearing now, out of a clear sky, and publicly. Yet strangely, no one waved her away or frowned her to silence and humility. She saw both abbot and earl regarding her with sharply arrested interest, and she made a deep reverence for them to share between them. Thus far she had said nothing to make any man afraid or uneasy for himself, not even Bénezet, who stood lounging with an arm over his horse’s neck, the saddlebag hard against his side. Whatever lance she held she had not yet aimed, but Cadfael saw her purpose and was dismayed.
“Father, may I speak?”
This was the abbot’s domain. The earl left it to him to respond.
“I think,” said Radulfus, “that you must. You have said two words that have been heavy on our minds these past days, theft and murder. If there is anything you have to tell concerning these, we must listen.”
Cadfael, standing aside with an anxious eye on the gate, and praying that Hugh might ride in now, at once, with three or four sound men at his back, cast an uneasy glance at Bénezet. The man had not moved, but though his face remained merely a mask of interested but impersonal curiosity, much like all the others, the eyes fixed intently upon Daalny’s face were levelled like the points of two daggers, and his very immobility seemed now deliberate and braced, a hound pointing.
If only, Cadfael thought, if only I had warned her! I might have known she could do terrible things for cause enough. Was it what I told her of the bridle that set her foot on this trail? She never gave sign, but I should have known. And now she has struck her blow too soon. Let her be logical, let her be slow to reach the heart of it, let her recall all that has gone before, and come to this only gradually now she has won her point. But time was not on their side. Even the Mass had ended early. Hugh would keep to his time, and still come too late.
“Father, you know of Tutilo’s theft, on the night when the flood water came into the church, and how, afterwards, when Aldhelm said that he could point out the thief, and was killed on his way here to do what he had promised, reason could find none but Tutilo who had anything guilty to hide, and any cause to fear his coming, and prevent it by murder.”
She waited for him to agree thus far, and the abbot said neutrally: “So we thought, and so we said. It seemed clear. Certainly we knew of no other.”
“But, Father, I have cause to believe that there was another.”
She still had not named him, but he knew. No question now but he was looking round towards the gate, and shifting softly, careful not to draw attention to himself, but in a furtive effort to draw gradually clear of the ring of men and horses that surrounded him. But Robert Bossu’s two squires were close, hemming him in, and he could not extricate himself.
“I believe,” she said,”there is one here among us who has hidden in his saddlebag property which is not his. I believe it was stolen that same night of the flood, when all was in chaos in the church. I do not know if Aldhelm could have told of it, but even if he might have seen, was not that enough? If I am wronging an innocent man, as I may be,” said Daalny with sharp ferocity, “I will make amends by whatever means is asked of me. But search and put it to the test, Father.” And then she did turn and look at Bénezet, her face so blanched it was like a white hot flame; she turned and pointed. And he was penned into the circle so closely that only by violence could he break out; and violence would at once betray him, and he was not yet at the end of his tether.
“In the saddlebag against his side, he has something he has been hiding ever since the flood came. If it was honestly come by, or already his, he would not need to hide it. My lord, Father Abbot, do me this justice, and if I am wrong, justice also to him. Search, and see!”
It seemed that for one instant Bénezet contemplated laughing at the accusation, shrugging her off, saying contemptuously that she lied. Then he gathered himself convulsively, pricked into response by all the eyes levelled upon him. It was fatally late to cry out in the anger of innocence. He, too, had missed his time, and with it whatever chance was still left to him.
“Are you mad? It’s a black lie, I have nothing here but what is mine. Master, speak for me! Have you ever had cause to think ill of me? Why should she turn on me with such a charge?”
“I have always found Bénezet trustworthy,” said Rémy, stoutly enough and speaking up for his own, but not quite at ease. “I cannot believe he would steal. And what has been missed? Nothing, to my knowledge. Who knows of anything lost since the flood? I’ve heard no such word.”
“No complaint has been made,” agreed the abbot frowning and hesitant.
“There is a simple means,” said Daalny implacably, “to prove or disprove. Open his saddlebag! If he has nothing to hide, let him prove it and shame me. If I am not afraid, why should he be?”
“Afraid?” blazed Bénezet. “Of such calumny? What is in my baggage is mine, and there’s no anwer due from me to any false charge of yours. No, I will not display my poor belongings to satisfy your malice. Why you should utter such lies against me I cannot guess. What did I ever do to you? But you waste your lies, my master knows me better.”
“You would be wise to open, and let your virtue be seen by all,” Earl Robert said with dispassionate authority, “since not all here have such secure knowledge of you. If she lies, uncover her lie.” He had glanced for one instant at his two young men, and raised a commanding eyebrow. They drew a pace nearer to Bénezet, their faces impassive, but their eyes alert.
“There is something owed here to a dead man,” said Abbot Radulfus, “since this girl has recalled to us one most precious thing stolen. If this is indeed a matter that can shed light on that crime, and lift even the shadow of doubt from all but the guilty, I think we have a duty to pursue it. Give here your saddlebag.”
“No!” He clutched it to his side with a protective arm. “This is unworthy, humiliation... I have done no wrong, why should I submit to such indignity?”
“Take it,” said Robert Bossu.
Bénezet cast one wild, flashing glance round him as the two squires closed in and laid competent hands, not on him, but on bridle and saddlebag. There was no hope of leaping into the saddle and breaking out of the closed circle, but the young men had loosed their own bridles to pen him in, and one of the horses thus released was some yards nearer to the gate, standing docilely clear of the agitated group in the centre of the court. Bénezet plucked his hands from his gains with a sob of fury, dealt his startled mount a great blow under the belly that sent him rearing and plunging with an indignant scream, and burst out of the hampering ring. The company scattered, evading the clashing hooves, and Bénezet clutched at the bridle of the waiting horse, and without benefit of stirrups leaped and scrambled into the saddle.
No one was near enough to grasp at rein or stirrup leather. He was up and away before anyone else could mount, turning his back upon the tangle of stamping horses and shouting men. He drove, not directly at the gate, but aside in a flying curve, where Daalny had started backwards out of one danger to lay herself in the path of another. He had his short dagger out of its sheath and bared in his hand.
She saw his intent only at the last instant as he was on her. He made no sound at all, but Cadfael, running frantically to pluck her from under the flying hooves, saw the rider’s face clearly, and so did she, the once impassive countenance convulsed into a mask of hatred and rage, with drawn-back lips like a wolf at bay. He could not spare the time to ride her down, it would have slowed him too much. He leaned sidewise from the saddle in full flight, and the dagger slashed down her sleeve from the shoulder and drew a long graze down her arm. She sprang backwards and fell heavily on the cobbles, and Bénezet was gone, out at the gate already in a driven gallop, and turning towards the town.
Hugh Beringar, his deputy and three of his sergeants were just riding down from the crest of the bridge. Bénezet saw them, checked violently, and swung his mount aside into the narrow road that turned left between the mill pond and the river, southwestward into the fringes of the Long Forest, into deep cover on the quickest way into Wales.
The riders from the town were slow to understand the inferences, but a horseman hurtling out of the abbey court towards the bridge, baulking at sight of them and wheeling into a side-road at the same headlong speed, was a phenomenon to be pondered, if not pursued, and Hugh had bellowed: “Follow him!” even before the youngest squire had come running out from the gates into the Foregate, crying: “Stop him! He’s suspect as a thief!”
“Bring him back!” ordered Hugh, and his officers swung willingly into the byroad, and spurred into a gallop after the fugitive.
*
Daalny had picked herself up before Cadfael could reach her, and turned and ran blindly from the turmoil in the court, from the sick terror that had leaned to her murderously from the saddle, and from the shattering reaction after crisis, which had set her shivering now the worst was over. For this was certainty. Why else should he run for his life before ever his saddlebag was opened? Still she did not even know what he had hidden there, but she knew it must be deadly. She fled into the church like a homing bird. Let them do the rest, her part was over. She did not doubt now that it would be enough. She sat down on the steps of Saint Winifred’s alter, where everything began and everything ended, and leaned her head back to rest against the stone.
Cadfael had followed her in, but halted at sight of her sitting there open-eyed and still, her head reared erect as though she was listening to a voice, or a memory. After chaos, this calm and quietness was awesome. She had felt it on entering, Cadfael felt it on beholding her thus entranced.
He approached her softly, and spoke as softly, and for a moment was not sure she would hear him, for she was tuned to something more distant.
“He grazed you. Better let me see.”
“A scratch,” she said indifferently; but she let him draw back her loose sleeve almost to the shoulder, where it was slit for a hand’s-length. The skin was barely broken, there was only a white hair-line, beaded in two or three places with a tiny jewel of blood. “Nothing! It will not fester.”
“You took a heavy fall. I never thought he would drive at you so. You spoke too soon, I meant to spare you the need.”
“I thought he could neither love nor hate,” said Daalny with detached interest. “I never saw him moved till now. Did he get clean away?”
That he could not answer, he had not stopped to see.
“I am very well,” she said firmly, “and all is well with me. You go back and see what is still to do. Ask them... Ask them to leave me here a while alone. I need this place. I need this certainty.”
“You shall have it,” said Cadfael, and left her, for she was in command of herself and all her thoughts, words and acts as perhaps she had never been before. He turned back at the door to look at her one last time, and she sat regal and erect on the steps of the altar, her hands easy on the stone on either side, half-open, as though they held the insignia of sovereignty. There was the faintest curve of a smile on her lips, private and solitary, and yet he had the illusion—if it was an illusion?—that she was not alone.
*
They had unbuckled the saddlebag from its harness, and carried it into the gatehouse as the nearest place where a solid table offered a hospitable surface on which to spill the contents. There were six of them gathered close about the board when Cadfael joined them to make a seventh: Abbot Radulfus, Prior Robert, Sub-Prior Herluin, Robert Bossu, Rémy of Pertuis and Hugh Beringar, freshly dismounted within the gate, and very briefly appraised of all that had been happening here. It was Hugh, at the earl’s silent invitation, who brought forth from the bag the modest personal equipment of a valued body-servant, folded clothing, razor, brushes, a good belt, a pair of worn but wellmade gloves. At the bottom, but occupying half the space, Hugh grasped by its draw-string neck and hauled forth upon the table a plump, soft leather bag that gave forth an unmistakable chinking of coins settling, as it sagged together and squatted still and enigmatic before their eyes.
One thing at least was no longer secret. Three of them here recognized it at once. At the loud gasp that escaped Herluin even the lower orders, gathered avidly about the doorway, Nicol, and the squires, and the humble layman from Ramsey, drew eager anticipatory breath, and crowded closer.
“Good God!” said Herluin in a marvelling whisper. “This I know! This was in the coffer for Ramsey, on the altar of the Lady Chapel when the flood came. But how is it possible? It was put on the wagon with the load of timber. We found the coffer at Ullesthorpe, ravaged and empty, everything stolen...”
Hugh pulled open the strings of the bag, turned up the soft leather upon the table, and slid out a slithering flood of silver pence, and among the whisper and the glitter, a little bulkier and last to emerge, certain shining ornaments: a gold neckchain, twin bracelets, a torque of gold set with roughly cut gemstones, and two rings, one a man’s massive seal, the other a broad gold band, deeply engraved. Last came a large and intricate ring brooch, the fastening of a cloak, in reddish gold, fine Saxon work.
They stood and gazed, and were slow to believe or understand.
These I know, also,” said Radulfus slowly. The brooch I have seen once in the cloak of the lady Donata. The plain ring she wore always.”
“She gave them to Ramsey before her death,” said Herluin, low-voiced, marvelling at what seemed almost a miracle. “All these were in the casket I put in Nicol’s charge when he left with the wagon for Ramsey. The casket we found, broken open and discarded...”
“I well remember,” said Nicol’s voice hoarsely from the doorway. “I carried the key safe enough, but they had prized up the lid, taken the treasure, and cast the box away... So we thought!”
So they had all thought. All this goodwill, all these gifts to a ravaged monastery, had been in their casket on the altar of the Lady Chapel on the night of the flood, high enough to be clear even of the highest flood water. Safe from the river, but not from thieves coming on the pretext of helping to preserve the holy things, while taking advantage of the opportunity to help themselves to what lay temptingly to hand. The key had been in the lock, no need that time to break it open. Easy enough to lift out the leather bag, replace it with whatever offered, rags and stones, to represent the weight that had been removed. Relock the box, and leave it to be transferred to the wagon in Nicol’s care. And then, thought Cadfael, his eyes upon Donata’s bright last charity, hide the booty somewhere safe, somewhere apart, until the time comes for leaving Shrewsbury. Somewhere apart, where even if discovered it could not attach to a name; but where it was unlikely to be discovered. Bénezet had helped to move the horses from their low-lying stable within the walls. It would take no time at all to thrust his prize to the very bottom of the full cornbin, newly supplied for the few days of the horses’ stay. Small fear of their having to remain long enough to expose the alien thing beneath the corn. Safer there than in the common guesthall, where casual overnight travellers came and went, and there was little if any privacy. Even thieves can be robbed, and curious neighbours can find out things that were hidden.
“They never left Shrewsbury!” said Hugh, staring down at the pile of silver and gold. “Father Herluin, it seems God and the saints have restored you your own.”
“Under whom,” said Robert Bossu drily, “thanks are due also to this girl of yours, Rémy. She has proved her point concerning theft. Are we not forgetting her? I hope he did her no injury. Where is she now?”
“She is in the church,” said Cadfael, “and asks that you will allow her a little time in private before departing. She has nothng worse than a graze, as concerning the body, she can go and she can ride, but a while of quietness is what her spirit needs.”
“We will wait her convenience,” said the earl. “I would like, I confess, Hugh, to see the end of this. If your fellows bring back the thief alive, so much the better, for he has robbed me, in passing, of a good horse. He has much to answer for.”
“More,” said Cadfael sombrely, “than mere theft.”
He had moved aside the pile of clothes which had covered Bénezet’s plunder from sight, and thrust a hand into the depths of the saddlebag, and there was some folded garment still left undisturbed within, put away beneath all. He held it unfolded in his hands, a linen shirt, clean from fresh folds after laundering, and was gazing down at the cuff of one sleeve, turning it about in his figers with fixed attention. A very self-sufficient man, Bénezet, very orderly in his management of his affairs, needing no woman to wash and furbish for him. But not rich enough to be able to discard a shirt, even if there had been much opportunity, shut in here within monastic walls at his master’s pleasure, while Rémy pursued his quest for patronage. He had washed it and folded it deep under everything in his packing, to await its next airing miles distant from here and weeks later. But there are stains not easily washed out. Cadfael extended the cuff beneath Hugh’s wondering gaze, and Earl Robert leaned to take up the second sleeve. For about a hand’s breadth from the hem they were both thinly spattered with small round stains, no more than a faint but clear pink outline, even fainter pink within. But Cadfael had seen the like before, often enough to know it. So, he thought, had Robert Bossu.
This is blood,” said the earl.
“It is Aldhelm’s blood,” said Cadfael. “It rained that night. Bénezet would be cloaked, thick black wool swallows blood, and I am sure he was careful. But...”
But a jagged stone, raised in both hands and smashed down upon the head of a senseless man, however the act is managed, however discreetly accomplished, and with no great haste, no one to interfere, must yet threaten at least the hands and wrists of the murderer with indelible traces. The worst was trapped under the stone, and bled into the grass after, but this faint sprinkling, this fringing shower, had marked flesh and linen. And from linen, unless it can be steeped at once, it is difficult to erase the small shapes that betray.
“I remember,” said Rémy, dazed and half-incredulous, clean forgetful of himself, “I was your guest that night, Father Abbot, and he was free to his own devices. He said he was bound for the town.”
“It was he who told the girl that Aldhelm was expected,” said Cadfael, “and she who warned Tutilo to be safely out of sight. So Bénezet knew of the need, if need there was for him. But how could he be sure? It was enough that Aldhelm, required to recollect clearly, might recollect all too much of what he had seen in innocence. And therefore in innocence he is dead. And Bénezet was his murderer. And Bénezet will never know, and neither shall we, if he murdered for nothing.”
*
Alan Herbard, Hugh’s deputy in office, rode in at the gate an hour before noon.
The party was just reassembling for departure, after Earl Robert’s generous delay for Daalny’s sake, and Cadfael, self-appointed custodian of her interests, for good reason, had just been requested, very courteously, to go and call her to join the group, if by this time she felt sufficiently recovered. There had been time, also, for all the rest of them to assimilate, as best they could, the flood of revelations and shocks that bade fair to diminish their numbers and change several lives. Sub-Prior Herluin had lost a novice and his revenge for sorely-felt abuses, but recovered the treasures he thought lost for ever, and his mood, in spite of sins and deaths and violence, had brightened since his glum morning face almost into benevolence. Rémy had lost a manservant, but secured his future with a very influential patron: a manservant is easily replaced, but entry to the household of one of the foremost earls of the land is a prize for life. Rémy was not disposed to complain. He had not even lost the horse with the man, the stolen beast belonged to Robert Bossu’s squire. Bénezet’s sedate and aging roan, relieved of his saddlebags, waited now imperturbably for another rider. Nicol could ride, and leave his fellow to drive the wheeled cart. Everything was settling into the ordinary routines of life, however deflected from their course hitherto.
And suddenly there was Alan Herbard in the gateway, just dismounting, curious and a little awed at approaching Hugh in this illustrious company.
“We have the man, sir. I rode ahead to tell you. They are bringing him after. Where would you have him taken? There was no time to hear why he ran, and what he was accused of.”
“He is charged with murder,” said Hugh. “Get him safe into the castle under lock and key, and I’ll follow as soon as I may. You were quick. He cannot have got far. What happened?”
“He took us a mile or more into the Long Forest, and we were gaining on him, and he turned off the open ride to try and lose us among thick woodland. I think they started a hind, and the horse baulked, for we heard him curse, and then the horse screamed and reared. I think he used the dagger...”
The squire had drawn close to hear what had befallen his mount. Indignantly he said: “Conradin would never endure that.”
“They were well ahead, we could only judge by the sounds. But I think he reared, and swept the fellow off against a low branch, for he was lying half-stunned under a tree when we picked him up. He goes lame on one leg, but it’s not broken. He was dazed, he gave us no trouble.”
“He may yet,” said Hugh warningly.
“Will’s no prentice, he’ll keep safe hold of him. But the horse,” said Alan, somewhat apologetic on this point, “we haven’t caught. He’d bolted before we ever reached the place, and for all the searching we dared do with the man to guard, we couldn’t find him close, nor even hear anything ahead of us. Riderless, he’ll be well away before he’ll get over his fright and come to a stay.”
“And my gear gone with him,” said the unlucky owner with a grimace, but laughed the next moment. “My lord, you’ll owe me new clothes if he’s gone beyond recall.”
“We’ll make a proper search tomorrow,” promised Alan. “We’ll find him for you. But first I’ll go and see this murderer safely jailed.”
He made his reverence to the abbot and the earl, and remounted at the gate, and was gone. They were left looking at one another like people at the hour of awaking, uncertain for a moment whether what they contemplate is reality or dream.
“It is well finished,” said Robert Bossu. “If this is the end!” And he turned upon the abbot his grave, considerate glance. “It seems we have lived this farewell twice, Father, but this time it is truth, we must go. I trust we may meet at some happier occasion, but now you will be glad to have us out of your sight and out of your thoughts, with all the troubles we have brought you between us. Your household will be more peaceful without us.” And to Cadfael he said, turning to take his horse’s bridle: “Will you ask the lady if she feels able to join us? It’s high time we took the road.”
*
He was gone only a few moments, and he emerged through the south door and the cloister alone.
“She is gone,” said Brother Cadfael, his tone temperate and his face expressionless. “There is no one in the church but Cynric, Father Boniface’s verger, trimming the candles on the parish altar, and he has seen no one come or go within the past halfhour.”
Afterwards he sometimes wondered whether Robert Bossu had been expecting it. He was a man of very dangerous subtlety, and could appreciate subtlety in others, and see further into a man at short acquaintance than most people. Nor was he at all averse to loosing cats among pigeons. But no, probably not. He had not known her long enough for that. If she had ever reached his Leicester household, and been in his sight a few weeks, he would have known her very well, and been well able to assess her potentialities in other pursuits besides music. But at the least, this was no great surprise to him. It was not he, but Rémy of Pertuis, who raised the grieving outcry:
“No! She cannot be gone. Where could she go? She is mine! You are sure? No, she must be there, you have not had time to look for her...”
“I left her there more than an hour ago,” said Cadfael simply, “by Saint Winifred’s altar. She is not there now. Look for yourself. Cynric found the church empty when he came to dress the altar.”
“She has fled me!” mourned Rémy, whitefaced and stricken, not simply protesting at the loss of his most valuable property, and certainly not lamenting a creature greatly loved. She was a voice to him, but he was true Provençal and true musician, and a voice was the purest of gold to him, a treasure above rubies. To own her was to own that instrument, the one thing in her he regarded. There was nothing false in his grief and dismay. “She cannot go. I must seek her. She is mine, I bought her. My lord, only delay until I can find her. She cannot be far. Two days longer... one day...”
“Another search? Another frustration?” said the earl and shook his head decisively. “Oh, no! I have had dreams like this, they never lead to any ending, only barrier after barrier, baulk after baulk. She was indeed, she is, a very precious asset, Rémy, a lovely peal in her throat, and a light, true hand on organetto or strings. But I have been truant all too long, and if you want my alliance you had best ride with me now, and forget you paid money for what is beyond price. It never profits. There are others as gifted, you shall have the means to find them and I’ll guarantee to keep them content.”
What he said he meant, and Rémy knew it. It took him a great struggle to choose between his singer and his future security, but the end was never in doubt. Cadfael saw him swallow hard and half-choke upon the effort, and almost felt sorry for him at that moment. But with a patron as powerful, as cultivated and as durable as Robert Beaumont, Rémy of Pertuis could hardly be an object for sympathy very long.
He did look round sharply for a reliable agent here, before he gave in. “My lord abbot, or you, my lord sheriff—I would not like her to be solitary and in want, ever. If she should reappear, if you hear of her, I beg you, let me have word, and I will send for her. She has always a welcome with me.”
True enough, and not all because she was valuable to him for her voice. Probably he had never realized until now that she was more than a possession, that she was a human creature in her own right, and might go hungry, even starve, fall victim to villains on the road, come by harm a thousand different ways. It was like the flight of a nun from childhood, suddenly venturing a terrible world that gave no quarter. So, at least, he might think of her, thus seeing her whole in the instant when she vanished from his sight. How little he knew her!
“Well, my lord, I have done what I can. I am ready.”
*
They were gone, all of them, streaming out along the Foregate towards Saint Giles, Robert Beaumont, earl of Leicester, riding knee to knee with Sub-Prior Herluin of Ramsey, restored to good humour by the recovery of the fruits of his labours in Shrewsbury, and gratified to be travelling in company with a nobleman of such standing; Robert’s two squires riding behind, the younger a little disgruntled at having to make do with an unfamiliar mount, but glad to be going home; Herluin’s middle-aged layman driving the baggage cart, and Nicol bringing up the rear, well content to be riding instead of walking. Within the church their hoofbeats were still audible until they reached the corner of the enclave, and turned along the Horse Fair. Then there was a grateful silence, time to breathe and reflect. Abbot Radulfus and Prior Robert were gone about their lawful business, and the brothers had dispersed to theirs. It was over.
“Well,” said Cadfael thankfully, bending his head familiarly to Saint Winifred, “an engaging rogue, and harmless, but not for the cloister, any more than she was for servility, so why repine? Ramsey will do very well without him, and Partholan’s queen is a slave no longer. True, she’s lost her baggage, but that she would probably have rejected in any case. She told me, Hugh, she owned nothing, not even the clothes she wore. Now it will please her that she has stolen only the few things on her back.”
“And the boy,” said Hugh, “has stolen only a girl.” And he added, glancing aside at Cadfael’s contented face: “Did you know he was there, when you followed her in?”
“I swear to you, Hugh, I saw nothing, I heard nothing. There was nothing whatever even to make me think of him. But yes, I knew he was there. And so did she from the instant she came in. It was rather as though it was spoken clearly into my ear: Go softly. Say nothing. All things shall be well. She was not asking so very much, after all. A little while alone. And the parish door is always open.”
“Do you suppose,” asked Hugh, as they turned towards the south door and the cloister together, “that Aldhelm could have revealed anything against Bénezet?”
“Who knows? The possibility was enough.”
They came out into the full light of early afternoon, but after the turmoil and passion this quietness and calm left behind spoke rather of evening and the lovely lassitude of rest after labour and stillness after storm. “It was easy to get fond of the boy,” said Cadfael, “but dangerous, with such a flibbertigibbet. As well to be rid of him now rather than later. He was certainly a thief, though not for his own gain, and as certainly a liar when he felt it necessary. But he was truly kind to Donata. What he did for her was done with no thought of reward, and from an unspoiled heart.”
There was no one left in the great court as they turned towards the gatehouse. A space lately throbbing with anger and agitation rested unpeopled, as if a lesser creator had despaired of the world he had made, and erased it to clear the ground for a second attempt.
“And have you thought,” asked Hugh, “that those two will certainly be heading southwest by the same road Bénezet took? South to the place where it crosses the old Roman track, and then due west, straight as a lance, into Wales. With the luck of the saints, or the devil himself, they may happen on that lost horse, there in the forest, and leave nothing for Alan to find tomorrow.”
“And that unlucky lad’s saddlebags still there with the harness,” Cadfael realized, and brightened at the thought. “He could do with some rather more secular garments than the habit and the cowl, and from what I recall they should be much the same size.”
“Draw me in no deeper,” said Hugh hastily.
“Finding is not thieving.” And as they halted at the gate, where Hugh’s horse was tethered, Cadfael said seriously: “Donata understood him better than any of us. She told him his fortune, lightly it may be, but wisely. A troubadour, she said, needs three things, and three things only, an instrument, a horse, and a ladylove. The first she gave him, an earnest for the rest. Now, perhaps, he has found all three.”