“Yes, I will,” said Godith, “if that’s how I can best be useful to you. Yes, I will go to my morning lesson and my evening lesson, eat my dinner without a word or a look to anyone, and then make myself scarce and shut myself up here among the potions. Yes, and drop the bar on the door, if need be, and wait until I hear your voice before I open again. Of course I’ll do as you bid. But for all that, I wish I could go with you. These are my father’s people and my people, I wish I could have some small part in doing them these last services.”
“Even if it were safe for you to venture there,” said Cadfael firmly, “and it is not, I would not let you go. The ugliness that man can do to man might cast a shadow between you and the certainty of the justice and mercy God can do to him hereafter. It takes half a lifetime to reach the spot where eternity is always visible, and the crude injustice of the hour shrivels out of sight. You’ll come to it when the time’s right. No, you stay here and keep well out of Hugh Beringar’s way.”
He had even thought of recruiting that young man into his working-party of able-bodied and devoutly inclined helpers, to make sure that he spent the day away from anywhere Godith might be. Whether in a bid to acquire merit for their own souls, out of secret partisan sympathy with the dead men’s cause, or to search anxiously for friends or kin, three of the travellers in the guest house had volunteered their aid, and it might have been possible, with such an example, to inveigle others, even Beringar, into feeling obliged to follow suit. But it seemed that the young man was already out and away on horseback, perhaps dancing hopeful attendance on the king; a newcomer seeking office can’t afford to let his face be forgotten. He had also ridden out the previous evening as soon as Vespers was over, so said the lay brothers in the stables. His three men-at-arms were here, idling their day away with nothing to do once the horses were groomed, fed and exercised, but they saw no reason why they should involve themselves in an activity certainly unpleasant, and possibly displeasing to the king. Cadfael could not blame them. He had a muster of twenty, brothers, lay brothers and the three benevolent travellers, when they set out across the bridge and through the streets of the town to the castle.
Probably King Stephen had been glad enough to have a service offered voluntarily which he might otherwise have had to impose by order. Someone had to bury the dead, or the new garrison would be the first to suffer, and in an enclosed fortress in a tightly walled town disease can fester and multiply fearfully. All the same, the king would perhaps never forgive Abbot Heribert for the implied reproach, and the reminder of his Christian duty. Howbeit, the old man had brought back the needful authority; Cadfael’s party was passed through the gates without question, and Cadfael himself admitted to Prestcote’s presence.
“Your lordship will have had orders about us,” he said briskly. “We are here to take charge of the dead, and I require clean and adequate space where they may be decently laid until we take them away for burial. If we may draw water from the well, that’s all besides that we need ask. Linen we have brought with us.”
“The inner ward has been left empty,” said Prestcote indifferently. “There is room there, and there are boards you may use if you need them.”
“The king has also granted that such of these unfortunates as were men of this town, and have families or neighbours here, can be claimed and taken away for private burial. Will you have that cried through the town, when I am satisfied that all is ready? And give them free passage in and out?”
“If there are any bold enough to come,” said Prestcote drily, “they may have their kin and welcome. The sooner all this carrion is removed, the better shall I be pleased.”
“Very well! Then what have you done with them?” For the walls and towers had been denuded before dawn of their sudden crop of sorry fruit. The Flemings must have worked half the night to put the evidence out of sight, which was surely not their idea, but might well be Prestcote’s. He had approved these deaths, he did not therefore have to take pleasure in them, and he was an old soldier of strict and orderly habits, who liked a clean garrison.
“We cut them down, when they were well dead, and dropped them over the parapet into the green ditch under the wall. Go out by the Foregate, and between the towers and the road you’ll find them.”
Cadfael inspected the small ward offered him, and it was at least clean and private, and had room for all. He led his party out through the gate in the town wall, and down into the deep, dry ditch beneath the towers. Long, fruiting grasses and low bushes partially hid what on closer approach looked like a battlefield. The dead lay piled deep at one spot close under the wall, and were sprawled and scattered like broken toys for yards on either side. Cadfael and his helpers tucked up their gowns and went to work in pairs, without word spoken, disentangling the knotted skein of bodies, carrying away first the most accessible, lifting apart those shattered into boneless embraces by their fall from above. The sun climbed high, and the heat was reflected upon them from the stone of the walls. The three pious travellers shed their cottes. In the deep hollow the air grew heavy and stifling, and they sweated and laboured for breath, but never flagged.
“Pay close attention always,” said Cadfael warningly, “in case some poor soul still breathes. They were in haste, they may have cut someone down early. And in this depth of cushioning below, a man could survive even the fall.”
But the Flemings, for all their hurry, had been thorough. There was no live man salvaged out of that massacre.
They had started work early, but it was approaching noon by the time they had all the dead laid out in the ward, and were beginning the work of washing and composing the bodies as becomingly as possible, straightening broken limbs, closing and weighting eyelids, even brushing tangled hair into order, and binding fallen jaws, so that the dead face might be no horror to some unfortunate parent or wife who had loved it in life. Before he would go to Prestcote and ask for the promised proclamation to be made, Cadfael walked the range of his salvaged children, and checked that they were as presentable as they could well be made. And as he paced, he counted. At the end he frowned, and stood to consider, then went back and counted again. And that done, he began a much closer scrutiny of all those he had not himself handled, drawing down the linen wrappings that covered the worst ravages. When he rose from the last of them, his face was grim, and he marched away in search of Prestcote without a word to any.
“How many,” demanded Cadfael, “did you say you despatched at the king’s order?”
“Ninety-four,” said Prestcote, puzzled and impatient.
“Either you did not count,” said Cadfael, “or you miscounted. There are ninety-five here.”
“Ninety-four or ninety-five,” said Prestcote, exasperated, “one more or less, what does it matter? Traitors all, and condemned, am I to tear my hair because the number does not tally?”
“Not you, perhaps,” said Cadfael simply, “but God will require an accounting. Ninety-four, including Arnulf of Hesdin, you had orders to slay. Justified or not, that at least was ordered, you had your sanction, the thing is registered and understood. Any accounting for those comes later and in another court. But the ninety-fifth is not in the reckoning, no king authorised his removal out of this world, no castellan had orders to kill him, never was he accused or convicted of rebellion, treason or any other crime, and the man who destroyed him is guilty of murder.”
“God’s wounds!” exploded Prestcote violently. “An officer in the heat of fighting miscounts by one, and you would make a coram rege case out of it! He was omitted in the count delivered, but he was taken in arms and hanged like the rest, and no more than his deserts. He rebelled like the rest, he is hanged like the rest, and that’s an end of it. In God’s name, man, what do you want me to do?”
“It would be well,” said Cadfael flatly, “if you would come and look at him, to begin with. For he is not like the rest. He was not hanged like the rest, his hands were not bound like the rest—he is in no way comparable, though someone took it for granted we would all see and think as you, and omit to count. I am telling you, my lord Prestcote, there is a murdered man among your executed men, a leaf hidden in your forest. And if you regret that my eyes found him, do you think God had not seen him long before? And supposing you could silence me, do you think God will keep silence?”
Prestcote had stopped pacing by that time, and stood staring very intently. “You are in good earnest,” he said, shaken. “How could there be a man there dead in some other way? Are you sure of what you say?”
“I am sure. Come and see! He is there because some felon put him there, to pass for one among the many, and arouse no curiosity, and start no questions.”
“Then he would need to know that the many would be there.”
“Most of this town and all this garrison would know that, by nightfall. This was a deed of night. Come and see!”
And Prestcote went with him, and showed every sign of consternation and concern. But so would a guilty man, and who was better placed to know all a guilty man needed to know, to protect himself? Still, he kneeled with Cadfael beside the body that was different, there in the confines of the ward, between high walls, with the odour of death just spreading its first insidious pall over them.
A young man, this. No armour on him, but naturally the rest had been stripped of theirs, nail and plate being valuable. But his dress was such as to suggest that he had worn neither mail nor leather, he was clad in lightweight, dark cloth, but booted, the manner of dress a man would wear for a journey in summer weather, to ride light, be warm enough by night, and shed the short cotte to be cool enough by day. He looked about twenty-five years old, no more, reddish brown in colouring and round and comely of face, if the eye could make allowance for the congestion of strangulation, now partially smoothed out by Cadfael’s experienced fingers. The bulge and stare of the eyes was covered, but the lids stood large.
“He died strangled,” said Prestcote, relieved to see the signs.
“He did, but not by a rope. And not with hands bound, like these others. Look!” Cadfael drew down the folds of the capuchon from the round young throat, and showed the sharp, cruel line that seemed to sever head from body. “You see the thinness of this cord that took his life? No man ever dangled from such a noose. It runs level round his neck, and is fine as fishing line. It may well have been fishing line. You see the edges of this furrow in his flesh, discoloured, and shiny? The cord that killed him was waxed, to bite smooth and deep. And you see this pit here behind?” He raised the lifeless head gently on his arm, and showed, close to the knotted cord of the spine, a single, deep, bruised hollow, with a speck of black blood at its heart. “The mark of one end of a wooden peg, a hand-hold to twist when the cord was round the victim’s throat. Stranglers use such waxed cords, with two hand-holds at the ends—killers by stealth, highway birds of prey. Given strength of hand and wrist, it is a very easy way of seeing your enemies out of this world. And do you see, my lord, how his neck, where the thong bites, is lacerated and beaded with dried blood? Now see here, both hands—Look at his nails, black at the tips with his own blood. He clawed at the cord that was killing him. His hands were free. Did you hang any whose hands were not tied?”
“No!” Prestcote was so fascinated by the details he could not deny that the answer escaped him involuntarily. It would have been futile to snatch it back. He looked up at Brother Cadfael across the unknown young man’s body, and his face sharpened and hardened into hostility. “There is nothing to be gained,” he said deliberately, “by making public so wild a tale. Bury your dead and be content. Let the rest be!”
“You have not considered,” said Cadfael mildly, “that as yet there is no one who can put a name or a badge to this boy. He may as well be an envoy of the king as an enemy. Better treat him fairly, and keep your peace with both God and man. Also,” he said, in a tone even more cloistrally innocent, “you may raise doubts of your own integrity if you meddle with truth. If I were you, I would report this faithfully, and send out that proclamation to the townsfolk at once, for we are ready. Then, if any can claim this young man, you have delivered your soul. And if not, then clearly you have done all man can do to right a wrong. And your duty ends there.”
Prestcote eyed him darkly for some moments, and then rose abruptly from his knees. “I will send out the word,” he said, and stalked away into the hail.
*
The news was cried through the town, and word sent formally to the abbey, so that the same announcement might be made at the guest house there. Hugh Beringar, riding in from the east on his return from the king’s camp, having forded the river at an island downstream, heard the proclamation at the gate house of the abbey, and saw among those anxiously listening the slight figure of Aline Siward, who had come out from her house to hear the news. For the first time he saw her with head uncovered. Her hair was the light, bright gold he had imagined it would be, and shed a few curling strands on either side her oval face. The long lashes shadowing her eyes were many shades darker, a rich bronze. She stood listening intently, gnawed a doubtful lip, and knotted her small hands together. She looked hesitant, and burdened, and very young.
Beringar dismounted only a few paces from her, as if he had by mere chance chosen that spot in order to be still and hear to the end what Prior Robert was saying.
“—and his Grace the king gives free warranty to any who may wish, to come and claim their kin, if there be any such among the executed, and give them burial in their own place and at their own charge. Also, since there is one in particular whose identity is not known, he desires that all who come may view him, and if they can, name him. All which may be done without fear of penalty or disfavour.”
Not everyone would take that at its face value, but she did. What was troubling her was not fear of any consequences to herself, but a desperate feeling that she ought to make this dolorous pilgrimage, while equally earnestly she shrank from the horrors she might have to see. She had, Beringar remembered, a brother who had defied his father and run off to join the empress’s adherents; and though she had heard rumours that he might have reached France, she had no means of knowing if they were true. Now she was struggling to escape the conviction that wherever there were garrisons of her brother’s faction fallen victims of this civil war, she ought to go and assure herself that he was not among them. She had the most innocent and eloquent of faces, her every thought shone through.
“Madam,” said Beringar, very softly and respectfully, “if there is any way I can be of service to you, I beg you command me.”
She turned to look at him, and smiled, for she had seen him in church, and knew him to be a guest here like herself, and stress had turned Shrewsbury into a town where people behaved to one another either as loyal neighbours or potential informers, and of the latter attitude she was incapable. Nevertheless, he saw fit to establish his credentials. “You will remember I came to offer the king my troth when you did. My name is Hugh Beringar of Maesbury. It would give me pleasure to serve, you. And it seemed to me that you were finding cause for perplexity and distress in what we have just heard. If there is any errand I can do for you, I will, gladly.”
“I do remember you,” said Aline, “and I take your offer very kindly, but this is something only I can do, if it must be done. No one else here would know my brother’s face. To tell the truth, I was hesitating... But there will be women from the town, I know, going there with certain knowledge to find their sons. If they can do it, so can I.”
“But you have no good reason,” he said, “to suppose that your brother may be among these unfortunates.”
“None, except that I don’t know where he is, and I do know he embraced the empress’s cause. It would be better, wouldn’t it, to be sure? Not to miss any possibility? As often as I do not find him dead, I may hope to see him again alive.”
“Was he very dear to you?” asked Beringar gently.
She hesitated to answer that, taking it very gravely. “No, I never knew him as sister should know brother. Giles was always for his own friends and his own way, and five years my elder. By the time I was eleven or twelve he was for ever away from home, and came back only to quarrel with my father. But he is the only brother I have, and I have not disinherited him. And they’re saying there’s one there more than they counted, and unknown.”
“It will not be Giles,” he said firmly.
“But if it were? Then he needs his name, and his sister to do what’s right.” She had made up her mind. “I must go.”
“I think you should not. But I am sure you should not go alone.” He thought ruefully that her answer to that would be that she had her maid to accompany her, but instead she said at once: “I will not take Constance into such a scene! She has no kin there, and why should she have to suffer it as well as I?”
“Then, if you will have me, I will go with you.”
He doubted if she had any artifice in her; certainly at this pass she showed none. Her anxious face brightened joyfully, she looked at him with the most ingenuous astonishment, hope and gratitude. But she still hesitated. “That is kind indeed, but I can’t let you do it. Why should you be subjected to such pain, just because I have a duty?”
“Oh, come now!” he said indulgently, sure of himself and of her. “I shall not have a moment’s peace if you refuse me and go alone. But if you tell me I shall only be adding to your distress by insisting, then I’ll be silent and obey you. On no other condition.”
It was more than she could do. Her lips quivered. “No—it would be a lie. I am not very brave!” she said sadly. “I shall be grateful indeed.”
He had what he had wanted; he made the most of it. Why ride, when the walk through the town could be made to last so much longer, and provide so much more opportunity to get to know her better? Hugh Beringar sent his horse to the stables, and set out with Aline along the highway and over the bridge into Shrewsbury.
*
Brother Cadfael was standing guard over his murdered man in a corner of the inner ward, beside the archway, where every citizen who came in search of child or kinsman must pass close, and could be questioned. But all he got so far was mute shaking of heads and glances half-pitying, half-relieved. No one knew the young man. And how could he expect great concern from these poor souls who came looking, every one, for some known face, and barely saw the rest?
Prestcote had made good his word, there was no tally kept of those who came, and no hindrance placed in their way, or question asked of them. He wanted his castle rid of its grim reminders as quickly as possible. The guard, under Adam Courcelle, had orders to remain unobtrusive, even to help if that would get the unwelcome guests off the premises by nightfall.
Cadfael had persuaded every man of the guard to view his unknown, but none of them could identify him. Courcelle had frowned down at the body long and sombrely, and shaken his head.
“I never saw him before, to my knowledge. What can there possibly have been about a mere young squire like this, to make someone hate him enough to kill?”
“There can be murders without hate,” said Cadfael grimly. “Footpads and forest robbers take their victims as they come, without any feeling of liking or disliking.”
“Why, what can such a youth have had to make him worth killing for gain?”
“Friend,” said Cadfael, “there are those in the world would kill for the few coins a beggar has begged during the day. When they see kings cut down more than ninety in one sweep, whose fault was only to be in arms on the other side, is it much wonder rogues take that for justification? Or at least for licence!” He saw the colour burn high in Courcelle’s face, and a momentary spark of anger in his eye, but the young man made no protest. “Oh, I know you had your orders, and no choice but to obey them. I have been a soldier in my time, and borne the same discipline and done things I would be glad now to think I had not done. That’s one reason I’ve accepted, in the end, another discipline.”
“I doubt,” said Courcelle drily, “if I shall ever come to that.”
“So would I have doubted it, then. But here I am, and would not change again to your calling. Well, we do the best we can with our lives!” And the worst, he thought, viewing the long lines of motionless forms laid out along the ward, with other men’s lives, if we have power.
There were some gaps in the silent ranks by then. Some dozen or so had been claimed by parents and wives. Soon there would be piteous little hand-carts pushed up the slope to the gate, and brothers and neighbours lifting limp bodies to carry them away. More of the townspeople were still coming timidly in through the archway, women with shawls drawn close over their heads and faces half-hidden, gaunt old men trudging resignedly to look for their sons. No wonder Courcelle, whose duties could hardly have encompassed this sort of guard before, looked almost as unhappy as the mourners.
He was frowning down at the ground in morose thought when Aline came into view in the archway, her hand drawn protectively through Hugh Beringar’s arm. Her face was white and taut, her eyes very wide and her lips stiffly set, and her fingers clutched at her escort’s sleeve as drowning men clutch at floating twigs, but she kept her head up and her step steady and firm. Beringar matched his pace attentively to hers, made no effort to divert her eyes from the sorry spectacle in the ward, and cast only few and brief, but very intent, side-glances at her pale countenance. It would certainly have been a tactical error, Cadfael thought critically, to attempt the kind of protective ardour that claims possession; young and ingenuous and tender as she might be, this was a proud patrician girl of old blood, not to be trifled with if once that blood was up. If she had come here on her own family business, like these poor, prowling citizens, she would not thank any man to try and take it out of her hands. She might, none the less, be deeply thankful for his considerate and reticent presence.
Courcelle looked up, almost as though he had felt a breath of unease moving before them, and saw the pair emerge into the sunlight in the ward, cruel afternoon sunlight that spared no detail. His head jerked up and caught the light, his bright hair burning up like a furze fire. “Christ God!” he said in a hissing undertone, and went plunging to intercept them on the threshold.
“Aline!—Madam, should you be here? This is no place for you, so desolate a spectacle. I marvel,” he said furiously to Beringar, “that you should bring her here, to face a scene so harrowing.”
“He did not bring me,” said AIine quickly. “It was I insisted on coming. Since he could not prevent me, he has been kind enough to come with me.”
“Then, dear lady, you were foolish to impose such a penance on yourself,” said Courcelle fiercely. “Why, how can you have business here? Surely there’s none here belonging to you.”
“I pray you may be right,” she said. Her eyes, huge in the white face, ranged in fearful fascination over the shrouded ranks at her feet, and visibly the first horror and revulsion changed gradually into appalled human pity. “But I must know! Like all these others! I have only one way of being certain, and it’s no worse for me than for them. You know I have a brother—you were there when I told the king...”
“But he cannot be here. You said he was fled to Normandy.”
“I said it was rumoured so—but how can I be sure? He may have gone to France, he may have joined some company of the empress’s men nearer home, how can I tell? I must see for myself whether he chose Shrewsbury or not.”
“But surely the garrison here were known. Your name is very unlikely to have been among them.”
“The sheriff’s proclamation,” said Beringar mildly, speaking up for the first time in this encounter, “mentioned that there was one here, at least, Who was not known. One more, apparently, than the expected tally.”
“You must let me see for myself,” said AIine, gently and firmly, “or how can I have any peace?”
Courcelle had no right to prevent, however it grieved and enraged him. And at least this particular corpse was close at hand, and could bring her nothing but reassurance. “He lies here,” he said, and turned her towards the corner where Brother Cadfael stood. She gazed, and was surprised into the faint brightness of a smile, a genuine smile though it faded soon.
“I think I should know you. I’ve seen you about the abbey, you are Brother Cadfael, the herbalist.”
“That is my name,” said. Cadfael. “Though why you should have learned it I hardly know.”
“I was asking the porter about you,” she owned, flushing. “I saw you at Vespers and Compline, and—Forgive me, brother, if I have trespassed, but you had such an air—as though you had lived adventures before you came to the cloister. He told me you were in the Crusade—with Godfrey of Bouillon at the siege of Jerusalem! I have only dreamed of such service... Oh!” She had lowered her eyes from his face, half abashed by her own ardour, and seen the young, dead face exposed at his feet. She gazed and gazed, in controlled silence. The face was not offensive, rather its congestion had subsided; the unknown lay youthful and almost comely.
“This a most Christian service you are doing now,” said Aline, low-voiced, “for all these here. This is the unexpected one? The one more than was counted?”
“This is he.” Cadfael stooped and drew down the linen to show the good but simple clothing, the absence of anything warlike about the young man. “But for the dagger, which every man wears when he travels, he was unarmed.”
She looked up sharply. Over her shoulder Beringar was gazing down with frowning concentration at the rounded face that must have been cheerful and merry in life. “Are you saying,” asked AIine, “that he was not in the fight here? Not captured with the garrison?”
“So it seems to me. You don’t know him?”
“No.” She looked down with pure, impersonal compassion. “So young! It’s great pity! I wish I could tell you his name, but I never saw him before.”
“Master Beringar?”
“No. A stranger to me.” Beringar was still staring down very sombrely at the dead. They were almost of an age, surely no more than a year between them. Every man burying his twin sees his own burial.
Courcelle, hovering solicitously, laid a hand on the girl’s arm, and said persuasively: “Come now, you’ve done your errand, you should quit this sad place at once, it is not for you. You see your fears were groundless, your brother is not here.”
“No,” said Aline, “this is not he, but for all that he may—How can I be sure unless I see them all?” She put off the urging touch, but very gently. “I’ve ventured this far, and how is it worse for me than for any of these others?” She looked round appealingly. “Brother Cadfael, this is your charge now. You know I must ease my mind. Will you come with me?”
“Very willingly,” said Cadfael, and led the way without more words, for words were not going to dissuade her, and he thought her right not to be dissuaded. The two young men followed side by side, neither willing to give the other precedence. Aline looked down at every exposed face, wrung but resolute.
“He was twenty-four years old—not very like me, his hair was darker... Oh, here are all too many no older than he!”
They had traversed more than half of the dolorous passage when suddenly she caught at Cadfael’s arm, and froze where she stood. She made no outcry, she had breath only for a soft moan, audible as a word only to Cadfael, who was nearest. “Giles!” she said again more strongly, and what colour she had drained from her face and left her almost translucent, staring down at a face once imperious, wilful and handsome. She sank to her knees, stooping to study the dead face close, and then she uttered the only cry she ever made over her brother, and that very brief and private, and swooped breast to breast with him, gathering the body into her arms. The mass of her hair slipped out of its coils and spilled gold over them both.
Brother Cadfael, who was experienced enough to let her alone until she seemed to need comfort for her grief instead of decent reticence, would have waited quietly, but he was hurriedly thrust aside, and Adam Courcelle fell on his knees beside her, and took her beneath the arms to lift her against his shoulder. The shock of discovery seemed to have shaken him fully as deeply as it had Aline, his face was stricken and dismayed, his voice an appalled stammer.
“Madam!—Aline—Dear God, is this indeed your brother? If I’d known... if I’d known, I’d have saved him for you... Whatever the cost, I would have delivered him... God forgive me!”
She lifted a tearless face from the curtain of her yellow hair, and looked at him with wonder and compunction, seeing him so shattered. “Oh, hush! How can this be any fault of yours? You could not know. You did only what you were ordered to do. And how could you have saved one, and let the rest die?”
“Then truly this is your brother?”
“Yes,” she said, gazing down at the dead youth with a face now drained even of shock and grief. “This is Giles.” Now she knew the worst, and now she had only to do what was needful, what fell to her for want of father and brothers. She crouched motionless in Courcelle’s arm, earnestly regarding the dead face. Cadfael, watching, was glad he had managed to mould some form back into features once handsome, but in death fallen into a total collapse of terror. At least she was not viewing that hardly human disintegration.
Presently she heaved a short, sharp sigh, and made to rise, and Hugh Beringar, who had shown admirably judicious restraint throughout, reached a hand to her on the other side, and lifted her to her feet. She was mistress of herself as perhaps she had never been before, never having had to meet such a test until now. What was required of her she could and would do.
“Brother Cadfael, I do thank you for all you have done, not only for Giles and me, but for all these. Now, if you permit, I will take my brother’s burial into my charge, as is only fitting.”
Close and anxious at her shoulder, still deeply shaken, Courcelle asked: “Where would you have him conveyed? My men shall carry him there for you, and be at your orders as long as you need them. I wish I might attend you myself, but I must not leave my guard.”
“You are very kind,” she said, quite composed now. “My mother’s family has a tomb. at St. Alkmund’s church, here in the town. Father Elias knows me. I shall be grateful for help in taking my brother there, but I need not keep your men from their duties longer. All the rest I will do.” Her face had grown intent and practical, she had work to do, all manner of things to take into account, the need for speed, the summer heat, the provision of all the materials proper to decent preparation for the grave. She made her dispositions with authority.
“Messire Beringar, you have been kind, and I do value it, but now I must stay to see to my family’s rites. There is no need to sadden all the rest of your day, I shall be safe enough.”
“I came with you,” said Hugh Beringar, “and I shall not return without you.” The very way to talk to her now, without argument, without outward show of sympathy. She accepted his resolve simply, and turned to her duty. Two of the guards brought a narrow litter, and lifted Giles Siward’s body into it, and she herself steadied and straightened the lolling head.
At the last moment Courcelle, frowning down distressfully at the corpse, said abruptly: “Wait! I have remembered—I believe there is something here that must have belonged to him.”
He went hastily through the archway and across the outer ward to the guard-towers, and in a few moments came back carrying over his arm a black cloak. “This was among the gear they left behind in the guardroom at the end. I think it must have been his—this clasp at the neck has the same design, see, as the buckle of his belt.”
It was true enough, there was the same dragon of eternity, tail in mouth, lavishly worked in bronze. “I noticed it only now. That cannot be by chance. Let me at least restore him this.” He spread out the cloak and draped it gently over the litter, covering the dead face. When he looked up, it was into Aline’s eyes, and for the first time they regarded him through a sheen of tears.
“That was very kindly done,” she said in a low voice, and gave him her hand. “I shall not forget it.”
*
Cadfael went back to his vigil by the unknown, and continued his questioning, but it brought no useful response. In the coming night all these dead remaining must be taken on carts down the Wyle and out to the abbey; this hot summer would not permit further delay. At dawn Abbot Heribert would consecrate a new piece of ground at the edge of the abbey enclosure, for a mass grave. But this unknown, never condemned, never charged with any crime, whose dead body cried aloud for justice, should not be buried among the executed, nor should there be any rest until he could go to his grave under his own rightful name, and with all the individual honours due to him.
In the house of Father Elias, priest of St. Alkmund’s church, Giles Siward was reverently stripped, washed, composed and shrouded, all by his sister’s hands, the good father assisting. Hugh Beringar stood by to fetch and carry for them, but did not enter the room where they worked. She wanted no one else, she was quite sufficient to the task laid on her, and if she was robbed of any part of it now she would feel deprivation and resentment, not gratitude. But when all was done, and her brother laid ready for rest before the altar of the church, she was suddenly weary to death, and glad enough of Beringar’s almost silent company and ready arm back to her house by the mill.
On the following morning Giles Siward was interred with all due ceremony in the tomb of his maternal grandfather in the church of St. Alkmund, and the monks of the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul buried with due rites all the sixty-six soldiers of the defeated garrison still remaining in their charge.