Chapter next morning promised to be as dull as usual, once Brother Andrew’s readings were done, and the business of the house reached; but Cadfael, dozing gently behind his pillar, remained alert enough to prick his ears, when Brother Matthew the cellarer announced that the guest-hall was full to capacity, and more stabling space was needed for still more expected gentlefolk, so that it would be necessary to transfer some of the horses and mules belonging to the abbey to some other housing, to accommodate the travellers’ beasts within the walls. Late merchants, taking advantage of the clement autumn after the summer of siege and disorder, were now on the roads making for home for the feast, and nobles with manors in the county were seeking their own retired firesides, to celebrate Christmas away from the burden of arms and the stress of faction in the south. It was manifestly true that the stables were overcrowded, and the great court daily brighter and busier with arrivals and departures.
“There is also the matter of the horse that belonged to Master Gervase Bonel,” said Brother Matthew, “who is to be buried today. Our responsibility to provide stabling and feed is now at an end, though I know the case is in suspense until the matter of the man’s death and the disposal of his property is cleared up. But the widow as survivor is certainly not entitled to livery for a horse. She has a daughter married in the town, and doubtless will be able to make provision for the beast, and of course we must house it until she so disposes, but it need not occupy a stall in our main stables. Have I your approval to move it out with our own working beasts to the stabling under our barn in the horse-fair ground?”
Most certainly he had not Cadfael’s approval! He sat stiff with alarm and exasperation, fuming at his own unfortunate choice of hiding-place rather than Matthew’s practical dispositions. Yet how could he have foreseen this? Very seldom had it been necessary to make use of the stalls at the barn, apart from its actual purpose as temporary accommodation at the horse-fairs and St. Peter’s fair. And now how was he to get to Edwin in time to remove him from the peril of discovery? In broad daylight, and with the inescapable spiritual duties of the day confining his movements?
“That should certainly provide adequate stabling,” agreed Prior Robert. “It would be well to make the transfer at once.”
“I will give instructions to the grooms. And you agree also, Father, to the Widow Bonel’s horse being removed with them?”
“By all means!” Robert no longer had quite the same interest in the Bonel family, now that it seemed doubtful he would ever lay his hands on the manor of Mallilie, though he did not intend to give up without a struggle. The unnatural death and its consequences irked him like a thorn in his flesh, and he would gladly have removed not merely the horse but the whole household, could he have done so with propriety. He did not want murder associated with his convent, he did not want the sheriff’s officers probing among his guests, or the whiff of notoriety hanging round the monastery buildings like a bad odour. “It will be necessary to go into the legal complications on the vexed question of the charter, which inevitably lapses now unless a new lord chooses to endorse and complete it. But until after Master Bonel’s burial, of course, nothing should be done. The horse, however, can well be moved. I doubt if the widow will now have any use for a mount, but that is not yet our problem.”
He is already regretting, thought Cadfael, that in the first flush of sympathy and concern he authorised a grave for Bonel in the transept. But his dignity will not let him withdraw the concession now. God be thanked, Richildis will have whatever comfort there is in a solemn and dignified funeral, since all that Robert does must be done with grandeur. Gervase has lain in state in the mortuary chapel of the abbey, and will lie in abbey ground by nightfall. She would be soothed and calmed by that. She felt, he was sure, a kind of guilt towards the dead man. Whenever she was solitary she would be playing the ageless, debilitating game of: If only... If only I’d never accepted him... if only I had managed affairs between him and Edwin better... if only—then he might have been alive and hale today!
Cadfael closed his ears to the desultory discussion of a possible purchase of land to enlarge the graveyard, and gave his mind to the consideration of his own more pressing problem. It would not be impossible to find himself an errand along the Foregate when the grooms were stabling the horses in their new quarters, and the lay brothers would not question any movements of his. He could as well bring Edwin out of his retreat in a Benedictine habit as lead him into it, provided he took care to time the exit properly. And once out, then where? Certainly not towards the gatehouse. There were people in one or two houses along the highroad towards St. Giles who had had dealings with him when sick, some whose children he had attended in fever. They might give shelter to a young man at his recommendation, though he did not much like the idea of involving them. Or there was, at the end of this stretch of road, the leper hospital of St. Giles, where young brothers often served a part of their novitiate in attendance on those less fortunate. Something, surely, might be arranged to hide one hunted boy.
Incredulously, Cadfael heard his own name spoken, and was jerked sharply out of his planning. Across the chapter-house, in his stall as close as possible to Prior Robert, Brother Jerome had risen, and was in full spate, his meagre figure deceptively humble in stance, his sharp eyes half-hooded in holy meekness. And he had just uttered Brother Cadfael’s name, with odious concern and affection!
“...I do not say, Father, that there has been any impropriety in our dearly valued brother’s conduct. I do but appeal for aid and guidance for his soul’s sake, for he stands in peril. Father, it has come to my knowledge that many years since, before his call to this blessed vocation, Brother Cadfael was in a relationship of worldly affection with the lady who is now Mistress Bonel, and a guest of this house. By reason of the death of her husband he was drawn back into contact with her, by no fault of his, oh, no, I do not speak of blame, for he was called to help a dying man. But consider, Father, how severe a test may be imposed upon a brother’s sincere devotion, when he is again brought unexpectedly into so close touch with a long-forgotten attachment according to this world!”
To judge by Prior Robert’s loftily erected head and stretched neck, which enabled him to look from an even greater height down his nose at the imperilled brother, he was indeed considering it. So was Cadfael, with astonished indignation that congealed rapidly into cool, inimical comprehension. He had underestimated Brother Jerome’s audacity, no less than his venom. That large, sinewy ear must have been pressed lovingly to the large keyhole of Richildis’s door, to have gathered so much.
“Do you allege,” demanded Robert incredulously, “that Brother Cadfael has been in unlawful conversation with this woman? On what occasion? We ourselves know well that he attended Master Bonel’s death-bed, and did his best for the unfortunate, and that the unhappy wife was then present. We have no reproach to make upon that count, it was his duty to go where he was needed.”
Brother Cadfael, as yet unaddressed, sat grimly silent, and let them proceed, for obviously this attack came as unexpectedly to Robert as to him.
“Oh, no man of us can question that,” agreed Jerome obligingly. “It was his Christian duty to give aid according to his skills, and so he did. But as I have learned, our brother has again visited the widow and spoken with her, only last night. Doubtless for purposes of comfort and blessing to the bereaved. But what dangers may lurk in such a meeting, Father, I need not try to express. God forbid it should ever enter any mind, that a man once betrothed, and having lost his affianced wife to another, should succumb to jealousy in his late years, after abandoning the world, when he once again encounters the former object of his affections. No, that we may not even consider. But would it not be better if our beloved brother should be removed utterly even from the temptations of memory? I speak as one having his wellbeing and spiritual health at heart.”
You speak, thought Cadfael, grinding his teeth, as one at last provided with a weapon against a man you’ve hated for years with little effect. And, God forgive me, if I could wring your scrawny neck now, I would do it and rejoice.
He rose and stood forth from his retired place to be seen. “I am here, Father Prior, examine me of my actions as you wish. Brother Jerome is somewhat over-tender of my vocation, which is in no danger.” And that, at least, was heartfelt.
Prior Robert continued to look down at him all too thoughtfully for Cadfael’s liking. He would certainly fight any suggestion of misconduct among his flock, and defend them to the world for his own sake, but he might also welcome an opportunity of curbing the independent activities of a man who always caused him slight discomfort, as though he found in Cadfael’s blunt, practical, tolerant self-sufficiency a hidden vein of desire of satire and amusement. He was no fool, and could hardly have failed to notice that he was being obliquely invited to believe that Cadfael might, when confronted with his old sweetheart married to another, have so far succumbed to jealousy as to remove his rival from the world with his own hands. Who, after all, knew the properties of herbs and plants better, or the proportions in which they could be used for good or ill? God forbid it should enter any mind, Jerome had said piously, neatly planting the notion as he deplored it. Doubtful if Robert would seriously entertain any such thought, but neither would he censure it in Jerome, who was unfailingly useful and obsequious to him. Nor could it be argued that the thing was altogether impossible. Cadfael had made the monk’s-hood oil, and knew what could be done with it. He had not even to procure it secretly, he had it in his own charge; and if he had been sent for in haste to a man already sick to death, who was to say he had not first administered the poison he feigned to combat? And I watched Aelfric cross the court, thought Cadfael, and might easily have stopped him for a word, lifted the lid in curiosity at the savoury smell, been told for whom it was sent, and added another savour of my own making? A moment’s distraction, and it could have been done. How easy it is to bring on oneself a suspicion there’s no disproving!
“Is it indeed truth, brother,” asked Robert weightily, “that Mistress Bonel was intimately known to you in your youth, before you took vows?”
“It is,” said Cadfael directly, “if by intimately you mean only well and closely, on terms of affection. Before I took the Cross we held ourselves to be affianced, though no one else knew of it. That was more than forty years ago, and I had not seen her since. She married in my absence, and I, after my return, took the cowl.” The fewer words here, the better.
“Why did you never say word of this, when they came to our house?”
“I did not know who Mistress Bonel was, until I saw her. The name meant nothing to me, I knew only of her first marriage. I was called to the house, as you know, and went in good faith.”
“That I acknowledge,” conceded Robert. “I did not observe anything untoward in your conduct there.”
“I do not suggest, Father Prior,” Jerome made haste to assure him, “that Brother Cadfael has done anything deserving of blame...” The lingering ending added silently: “...as yet!” but he did not go so far as to utter it. “I am concerned only for his protection from the snares of temptation. The devil can betray even through a Christian affection.”
Prior Robert was continuing his heavy and intent study of Cadfael, and if he was not expressing condemnation, there was no mistaking the disapproval in his elevated eyebrows and distended nostrils. No inmate of his convent should even admit to noticing a woman, unless by way of Christian ministry or hard-headed business. “In attending a sick man, certainly you did only right, Brother Cadfael. But is it also true that you visited this woman last night? Why should that be? If she was in need of spiritual comfort, there is here also a parish priest. Two days ago you had a right and proper reason for going there, last night you surely had none.”
“I went there,” said Cadfael patiently, since there was no help in impatience, and nothing could mortify Brother Jerome so much as to be treated with detached forbearance, “to ask certain questions which may bear upon her husband’s death—a matter which you, Father Prior, and I, and all here, must devoutly wish to be cleared up as quickly as possible, so that this house may be in peace.”
“That is the business of the sheriff and his sergeants,” said Robert curtly, “and none of yours. As I understand it, there is no doubt whose is the guilt, and it is only a matter of laying hands upon the youth who did so vile a thing. I do not like your excuse, Brother Cadfael.”
“In due obedience,” said Cadfael, “I bow to your judgment, but also must not despise my own. I think there is doubt, and the truth will not be easily uncovered. And my reason was not an excuse; it was for that purpose I went to the house. It was my own preparation, meant to bring comfort and relief from pain, that was used to bring death, and neither this house nor I, as a brother herein, can be at peace until the truth is known.”
“In saying so, you show lack of faith in those who uphold the law, and whose business justice is, as yours it is not. It is an arrogant attitude, and I deplore it.” What he meant was that he wished to distance the Benedictine house of St. Peter and St. Paul from the ugly thing that had happened just outside its walls, and he would find a means of preventing the effective working of a conscience so inconvenient to his aims. “In my judgment, Brother Jerome is right, and it is our duty to ensure that you are not allowed, by your own folly, to stray into spiritual danger. You will have no further contact with Mistress Bonel. Until her future movements are decided, and she leaves her present house, you will confine yourself to the enclave, and your energies to your proper function of work and worship within our walls only.”
There was no help for it. Vows of obedience, voluntarily taken, cannot be discarded whenever they become inconvenient. Cadfael inclined his head—bowed would have been the wrong word, it was more like a small, solid and formidable bull lowering its armed brow for combat!—and said grimly: “I shall observe the order laid upon me, as in duty bound.”
*
“But you, young man,” he was saying to Brother Mark in the garden workshop, a quarter of an hour later, with the door shut fast to contain the fumes of frustration and revolt, rather Mark’s than his own, “you have no such order to observe.”
“That,” said Brother Mark, taking heart, “is what I was thinking. But I was afraid you were not.”
“I would not involve you in my sins, God knows,” sighed Cadfael, “if this was not urgent. And perhaps I should not... Perhaps he must be left to fend for himself, but with so much against him...”
“He!” said Brother Mark thoughtfully, swinging his thin ankles from the bench. “The he whose something, that was not a vial, we did not find? From all I gather, he’s barely out of childhood. The Gospels are insistent we should take care of the children.”
Cadfael cast him a mild, measuring and affectionate look. This child was some four years older than the other, and his childhood, since his mother’s death when he was three years old, no one had cared for, beyond throwing food and grudged shelter his way. The other had been loved, indulged and admired all his life, until these past months of conflict, and the present altogether more desperate danger.
“He is a spirited and able child, Mark, but he relies on me. I took charge of him and gave him orders. Had he been left on his own, I think he would have managed.”
“Tell me only where I must go, and what I must do,” said Mark, quite restored to cheerfulness, “and I will do it.”
Cadfael told him. “But not until after High Mass. You must not be absent, or any way put your own repute in peril. And should there be trouble, you’ll hold aloof and safe—you hear?”
“I hear,” said Brother Mark, and smiled.
*
By ten o’clock of that morning, when High Mass began, Edwin was heartily sick of obedience and virtue. He had never been so inactive for so long since he had first climbed mutinously out of his cradle and crawled into the yard, to be retrieved from among the wagon wheels by a furious Richildis. Still, he owed it to Brother Cadfael to wait in patience, as he had promised, and only in the darkest middle of the night had he ventured out to stretch his legs and explore the alleys and lanes about the horse-fair, and the silent and empty stretch of the Foregate, the great street that set out purposefully for London. He had taken care to be back in his loft well before the east began to lighten, and here he was, seated on an abandoned barrel, kicking his heels and eating one of Cadfael’s apples, and wishing something would happen. From the slit air-vents enough light entered the loft to make a close, dim, straw-tinted day.
If wishes are prayers, Edwin’s was answered with almost crude alacrity. He was used to hearing horses passing in the Foregate, and the occasional voices of people on foot, so he thought nothing of the leisurely hoof-beats and monosyllabic voices that approached from the town. But suddenly the great double doors below were hurled open, their solid weight crashing back to the wall, and the hoof-beats, by the sound of them of horses being walked on leading reins, clashed inward from the cobbles of the apron and thudded dully on the beaten earth floor within.
Edwin sat up, braced and still, listening with pricked ears. One horse... two... more of them, lighter in weight and step, small, neat hooves—mules, perhaps? And at least two grooms with them, probably three or four. He froze, afraid to stir, wary of even the crunching of his apple. Now if they were only meaning to stall these beasts during the day, all might yet be well, and all he had to do was keep quiet and sit out the time in hiding.
There was a heavy trapdoor in the cleared space of flooring, so that at need grooms could gain access to the loft without having to go outside, or carry the other key with them. Edwin slid from his barrel and went to stretch himself cautiously on the floor, and apply an ear to the crack.
A young voice chirruped soothingly to a restive horse, and Edwin heard a hand patting neck and shoulder. “Easy there, now, my beauty! A very fine fellow you are, too. The old man knew his horse-flesh, I’ll say that for him. He’s spoiled for want of work. It’s shame to see him wasted.”
“Get him into a stall,” ordered a gruff voice shortly, “and come and lend a hand with these mules.”
There was a steady to-ing and fro-ing about settling the beasts. Edwin got up quietly, and put on his Benedictine habit over his own clothes, for if by ill-luck he was seen around this building, it would be the best cover he could have. Though it seemed that everything would probably pass off safely. He went back to his listening station just in time to hear a third voice say: “Fill up the hay-racks. If there’s not fodder enough down here, there’s plenty above.”
They were going to invade his refuge, after all! There was already a foot grating on the rungs of the ladder below. Edwin scrambled up in haste, no longer troubling to be silent, and rolled his heavy barrel on its rim to settle solidly over the trapdoor, for the bolts must be on the underside. The sound of someone wrestling them back from stiff sockets covered the noise of the barrel landing, and Edwin perched on top of his barricade, and wished himself three times as heavy. But it is very difficult to thrust a weight upwards over one’s head, and it seemed that even his slight bulk was enough. The trap heaved a little under him, but nothing worse.
“It’s fast,” called a vexed voice from below. “Some fool’s bolted it on top.”
“There are no bolts on top. Use your brawn, man, you’re no such weed as all that.”
“Then they’ve dumped something heavy over the trap. I tell you it won’t budge.” And he rattled it again irritably to demonstrate.
“Oh, come down, and let a man try his arm,” said he of the gruff voice disgustedly. There was an alarming scrambling of heavier feet on the rungs, and the ladder creaked. Edwin held his breath and willed himself to grow heavier by virtue of every braced muscle. The trap shook, but lifted not an inch, and the struggling groom below panted and swore.
“What did I tell you, Will?” crowed his fellow, with satisfaction.
“We’ll have to go round to the other door. Lucky I brought both keys. Wat, come and help me shift whatever’s blocking the trap, and fork some hay down.”
Had he but known it, he needed no key, for the door was unlocked. The voice receded rapidly down the ladder, and footsteps stamped out at the stable-door. Two of them gone from below, but only a matter of moments before he would be discovered; not even time to burrow deep into the hay, even if that had been a safe stratagem when they came with forks. If they were only three in all, why not attempt the one instead of the two? Edwin as hastily rolled his barrel back to jam it against the door, and then flung himself upon the trap, hoisting mightily. It rose so readily that he was almost spilled backwards, but he recovered, and lowered himself hastily through. No time to waste in closing the trap again, all his attention was centered on the perils below.
They were four, not three! Two of them were still here among the horses, and though one of them had his back squarely turned, and was forking hay into a manger at the far end of the long stable, the other, a lean, wiry fellow with shaggy grey hair, was only a few feet from the foot of the ladder, and just striding out from one of the stalls.
It was too late to think of any change of plan, and Edwin never hesitated. He scrambled clear of the trap, and launched himself in a flying leap upon the groom. The man had just caught the sudden movement and raised his head sharply to stare at its source, when Edwin descended upon him in a cloud of overlarge black skirts, and brought him to the ground, momentarily winded. Whatever advantage the habit might have been to the boy was certainly lost after that assault. The other youth, turning at his companion’s startled yell, was baffled only briefly at the sight of what appeared to be a Benedictine brother, bounding up from the floor with gown gathered in one hand, and the other reaching for the pikel his victim had dropped. No monk the groom had ever yet seen behaved in this fashion. He took heart and began an indignant rush which halted just as abruptly when the pikel was flourished capably in the direction of his middle. But by then the felled man was also clambering to his feet, and between the fugitive and the wide open doorway.
There was only one way to go, and Edwin went that way, pikel in hand, backing into the stall nearest him. Only then did he take note, with what attention he had to spare from his adversaries, of the horse beside him, the one which had been so restive, according to the young groom, spoiling for want of work and shamefully wasted. A tall, high-spirited chestnut beast with a paler mane and tail, and a white blaze, stamping in excitement of the confusion, but reaching a nuzzling lip to Edwin’s hair, and whinnying in his ear. He had turned from his manger to face the fray, and the way was open before him. Edwin cast an arm over his neck with a shout of recognition and joy.
“Rufus... oh, Rufus!”
He dropped his pikel, knotted a fist in the flowing mane, and leaped and scrambled astride the lofty back. What did it matter that he had neither saddle nor bridle, when he had ridden this mount bareback more times than he could remember, in the days before he fell utterly out of favour with the owner? He dug in his heels and pressed with his knees, and urged an all too willing accomplice into headlong flight.
If the grooms had been ready to tackle Edwin, once they realised his vocation was counterfeit, they were less eager to stand in the way of Rufus. He shot out of his stall like a crossbow bolt, and they leaped apart before him in such haste that the older one fell backwards over a truss of hay, and measured his length on the floor a second time. Edwin lay low on the rippling shoulders, his fists in the light mane, whispering incoherent gratitude and encouragement into the laidback ears. They clattered out on to the triangle of the horse-fair, and by instinct Edwin used knee and heel to turn the horse away from the town and out along the Foregate.
The two who had mounted by the rear staircase, and had difficulty in getting the door open, not to mention finding it inexplicably unlocked in the first place, heard the stampede and rushed to stare out along the road.
“God save us!” gasped Wat, round-eyed. “It’s one of the brothers! What can he be at in such a hurry?”
At that moment the light wind filled Edwin’s cowl and blew it back on to his shoulders, uncovering the bright tangle of hair and the boyish face. Will let out a wild yell, and began to scurry down the stairs. “You see that? That’s no tonsure, and no brother, either! That’s the lad the sheriff’s hunting. Who else would be hiding in our barn?”
But Edwin was already away, nor was there a horse left in the stable of equal quality, to pursue him. The young groom had spoken the truth, Rufus was baulked and frustrated for want of exercise, and now, let loose, he was ready to gallop to his heart’s content. There was now only one obstacle to freedom. Too late Edwin remembered Cadfael’s warning not, in any circumstances, to take the London road, for there was certainly a patrol out at St. Giles, where the town suburbs ended, to check on all passing traffic in search of him. He recalled it only when he saw in the distance before him a party of four riders spread well across the road and approaching at a relaxed amble. The guard had just been relieved, and here was the off-duty party making its way back to the castle.
He could not possibly burst a way through that serried line, and the black gown would not deceive them for a moment, on a rider proceeding at this desperate speed. Edwin did the only thing possible. With pleading voice and urgent knees he checked and wheeled his displeased mount, and set off back the way he had come, at the same headlong gallop. And well behind him he heard a gleeful shout that told him he was now pursued by a posse of determined men-at-arms, fully persuaded they were on the heels of a miscreant, even if they were not yet certain of his identity.
*
Brother Mark, hurrying along the horse-fair after High Mass, primed with his part to enter the loft unobserved, so that no one should be able afterwards to swear that only one went in where two came out, arrived close to the barn just in time to hear the commotion of a hue and cry, and see Edwin on his elated war-horse come hurtling back along the Foregate, cowl and skirts streaming, head stooped low to the flying mane. He had never before set eyes on Edwin Gurney, but there was no doubt as to who this careering desperado must be; nor, alas, any doubt that Mark’s own errand came much too late. The quarry was flushed from cover, though not yet taken. But there was nothing, nothing at all, Brother Mark could do to help him.
The head groom Will, a stout-hearted man, had hastily hauled out the best of the remaining horses in his care, and prepared to pursue the fugitive, but he had no more than heaved himself into the saddle when he beheld the chestnut thundering back again in the opposite direction. He spurred forward to try and intercept it, though the prospect was daunting; but his mount’s courage failed of matching his, and it baulked and swerved aside before Rufus’s stretched neck, laidback ears and rolling eye. One of the undergrooms hurled a pikel towards the pounding hooves, but if truth be told rather half-heartedly, and Rufus merely made a startled sidewise bound, without checking speed, and was past and away towards the town.
Will might well have followed, though with small hope of keeping that yellow, billowing tail in sight; but by then the clamour of the pursuers was approaching along the Foregate, and he was only too glad to surrender the task to them. It was, after all, their business to apprehend malefactors, and whatever else this pseudo-monk had done, he had certainly stolen a horse belonging to the Widow Bonel, and in the abbey’s care. Obviously the theft should be reported at once. He rode into the path of the galloping guards, waving a delaying hand, and all three of his colleagues closed in to give their versions of what had happened.
There was a substantial audience by then. Passersby had happily declined to pass by such a promising mêlée, and people had darted out from nearby houses to discover what all the hard riding meant. During the pause to exchange information, several of the children had drawn close to listen and stare, and that in itself somewhat slowed the resumption of the chase. Mothers retrieved children, and managed to keep the way blocked a full minute more. But there seemed no reasonable explanation for the fact that at the last moment, when they were virtually launched, the horse under the captain of the guard suddenly shrieked indignantly, reared, and almost spilled his rider, who was not expecting any such disturbance, and had to spend some minutes mastering the affronted horse, before he could muster his men and gallop away after the fugitive.
Brother Mark, craning and peering with the rest of the curious, watched the guards stream away towards the town, secure that the chestnut horse had had time to get clean out of sight. The rest was up to Edwin Gurney. Mark folded his hands in his wide sleeves, drew his cowl well forward to shadow a modest face, and turned back towards the gatehouse of the abbey, with very mixed news. On the way he discarded the second pebble he had picked up by the barn. On his uncle’s manor he had been set to work for his meagre keep at four years old, following the plough with a small sack full of stones, to scare off the birds that took the seed. It had taken him two years to discover that he sympathised with the hungry birds, and did not really want to harm them; but by then he was already a dead shot, and he had not lost his skills.
*
“And you followed as far as the bridge?” Cadfael questioned anxiously. “And the bridge-keepers had not so much as seen him? And the sheriff’s men had lost him?”
“Clean vanished,” Brother Mark reported with pleasure. “He never crossed into the town, at least, not that way. If you ask me, he can’t have turned from the road by any of the alleys short of the bridge, he wouldn’t be sure he was out of sight. I think he must have dived down along the Gaye, the shoreward side where the orchard trees give some cover. But what he would do after that I can’t guess. But they haven’t taken him, that’s certain. They’ll be hounding his kin within the town, but they’ll find nothing there.” He beamed earnestly into Cadfael’s troubled face, and urged: “You know you’ll prove he has nothing to answer for. Why do you worry?”
It was more than enough worry to have someone depending so absolutely on the victory of truth, and the credit with heaven of Brother Cadfael, but it seemed that this morning’s events had cast no shadow upon young Mark, and that was matter for gratitude.
“Come to dinner,” said Cadfael thankfully, “and then take your ease, for with such a faith as yours you can. I do believe when you come to cast a pebble with intent, it must hit the mark. Whoever named you foresaw your future. And since it arises, what is your own mark? A bishopric?”
“Pope or cardinal,” said Brother Mark happily. “Nothing less.”
“Oh, no,” said Brother Cadfael seriously. “Beyond bishop, and a pastoral cure, I think you would be wasted.”
*
All that day the sheriff’s men hunted Edwin Gurney through the town, where they reckoned he must have sought help, somehow evading notice in crossing the bridge. Finding no trace there, they sent out patrols to cover all the major roads out of the peninsula. In a close loop of the Severn, Shrewsbury had only two bridges, one towards the abbey and London, by which he was thought to have entered, one towards Wales, with a fan of roads branching out westwards.
They were convinced that the fugitive would make for Wales, that being his quickest way out of their jurisdiction, though his future there might well be hazardous. So it came as a surprise when a party patrolling the abbey side of the river, where they had little expectation of picking up the trail, was accosted by an excited young person of about eleven, who ran to them through the fields to demand breathlessly if it was true the man they were looking for was in monk’s gown, and riding a bright-brown horse with a primrose mane and tail. Yes, she had seen him, and only a short time since, breaking cautiously out of that copse and trotting away eastwards, as if he wanted to cross the next loop of the river and move round to join the highroad to London, some way past St. Giles. Since he had first set out in that direction, and found the way blocked at the rim of the town, her report made sense. Evidently he had managed to find cover and lie up for a while, in the hope that the hunt would take the opposite direction, and now he felt secure in moving again. The girl said he might be making for the ford at Uffington.
They thanked her heartily, sent back one man to report the trail hot again and bring reinforcements after, and set off briskly for the ford. And Alys, having watched them out of sight, made her way back as briskly to the highroad and the bridge. No one was on the watch for eleven-year-old girls going in and out.
Beyond the ford at Uffington the hunters got their first glimpse of the quarry, jogging along almost sedately on the narrow road towards Upton. From the moment he turned and saw them, he flashed away at speed; the colour and the gait of the horse were unmistakable, and the pursuers could not but wonder why the rider had retained his purloined habit, which was now more liability than asset, for everyone in the countryside must be looking out for it.
It was then mid-afternoon, and the light beginning to dim. The chase went on for hours. The boy seemed to know every byway and every covert, and managed to lose them several times, and lead them into some unexpected and perilous places, often leaving the roads for marshy meadows where one stout man-at-arms was thrown into odorous bog, or broken places where it was soon impossible to see the easiest passage, and one horse picked up a stone and went lame. Through Atcham, Cound and Cressage he held them off, and from time to time lost them, until Rufus tired and stumbled in the woods beyond Acton, and they were on him and round him, grasping at gown and cowl and pinioning him fast. They pulled him down and tied his hands, and for the chase he had led them they gave him some rough handling, which he bore philosophically and in silence. All he asked was that the miles they had to go back to Shrewsbury should be taken at an easy pace, for the horse’s sake.
At some stage he had rigged a serviceable bridle from the rope girdle of his habit. They borrowed that back to secure him behind the lightest weight among them, for fear he should leap clear even with bound hands, and make off into the darkening woods on foot. Thus they brought their prisoner back the lengthy journey to Shrewsbury, and turned in at the abbey gatehouse late in the evening. The stolen horse might as well be returned at once where he belonged; and since that was, at present, the only crime that stood manifestly proven against the culprit, his proper place, until further examination had been made of his deeds, was in the abbey prison. There he could safely be left to kick his heels until the law was ready to proceed against him on graver charges of acts committed outside the pale, and therefore within the sheriff’s jurisdiction.
*
Prior Robert, courteously informed that the wanted youth was brought in captive, and must remain in abbey keeping at least overnight, was torn between satisfaction at the prospect of getting rid of the criminal implications of Master Bonel’s death, in order to be able to deal more skilfully with the legal ones, and the vexation of having temporarily to accommodate the criminal within his own domain. Still, an arrest for the murder must follow in the morning, the inconvenience was not so great.
“You have this youth in the gatehouse now?” he asked the man-at-arms who had brought the news to his lodging.
“We have, Father. Two of your abbey sergeants are with him there, and if you please to give orders that they hold him in charge until tomorrow, the sheriff will certainly take him off your hands on the graver count. Would it please you come and examine him for yourself on the matter of the horse? If you see fit, there could be charges of assault against your grooms, a serious matter even without the theft.”
Prior Robert was not immune to human curiosity, and was not adverse to taking a look at this youthful demon who had poisoned his own stepfather and led the sheriff’s men a dance over half the shire. “I will come,” he said. “The church must not turn its back upon the sinner, but only deplore the sin.”
In the porter’s room at the gatehouse the boy sat stolidly on a bench opposite the welcome fire, hunched defensively against the world, but looking far from cowed, for all his bruises and wariness. The abbey sergeants and the sheriff’s patrol circled him with brooding eyes and hectoring questions, which he answered only when he chose to do so, and then briefly. Several of them were soiled and mud-stained from the hunt, one or two had scratches and bruises of their own to show. The boy’s bright eyes flickered from one to another, and it even seemed that his lips twitched with the effort to suppress a smile when he contemplated the one who had gone head over heels in the meadows near Cound. They had stripped his borrowed habit from him and restored it to the porter’s care; the boy showed now slender and light-haired, smooth and fair of skin, with ingenuous-seeming hazel eyes. Prior Robert was somewhat taken aback by his youth and comeliness; truly the devil can assume fair shapes!
“So young and marred!” he said aloud. The boy was not meant to hear that, it was uttered in the doorway as Robert entered, but at fourteen the hearing is keen. “So, boy,” said the prior, drawing near, “you are the troubler of our peace. You have much upon your conscience, and I fear it is even late to pray that you may have time to amend. I shall so pray. You know, for you are old enough to know, that murder is mortal sin.”
The boy looked him in the eye, and said with emphatic composure: “I am not a murderer.”
“Oh, child, is it now of any avail to deny what is known? You might as well say that you did not steal a horse from our barn this morning, when four of our servants and many other people saw the act committed.”
“I did not steal Rufus,” the boy retorted promptly and firmly. “He is mine. He was my stepfather’s property, and I am my stepfather’s heir, for his agreement with the abbey has never been ratified, and the will that made me his heir is sound as gold. What belongs to me how could I steal? From whom?”
“Wretched child,” protested the prior, bristling at such bold defiance, and even more at a dawning suspicion that this imp, in spite of his dire situation, was daring to enjoy himself, “think what you say! You should rather be repenting while you have time. Have you not yet realised that the murderer cannot live to inherit from his victim?”
“I have said, and say again, I am not a murderer. I deny, on my soul, on the altar, on whatever you wish, that ever I did my stepfather harm. Therefore Rufus is mine. Or when the will is proven, and my overlord gives his consent as he promised, Rufus and Mallilie and all will be mine. I have committed no crime, and nothing you can do or say can make me admit to any. And nothing you can do,” he added, his eyes suddenly flashing, “can ever make me guilty of any.”
“You waste your goodwill, Father Prior,” growled the sheriff’s sergeant, “he’s an obdurate young wretch meant for the gallows, and his come-uppance will be short.” But under Robert’s august eye he refrained from clouting the impudent brat round the ears, as otherwise he might well have done. “Think no more of him, but let your servants clap him into safe hold in your cell here, and put him out of your mind as worth no more pains. The law will take care of him.”
“See that he has food,” said Robert, not altogether without compassion, and remembering that this child had been in the saddle and in hiding all the day, “and let his bed be hard, but dry and warm enough. And should he relent and ask... Boy, listen to me, and give a thought to your soul’s welfare. Will you have one of the brothers come and reason and pray with you before you sleep?”
The boy looked up with a sudden sparkle in his eye that might have been penitent hope, but looked more like mischief, and said with deceptive meekness: “Yes, and gratefully, if you could be so kind as to send for Brother Cadfael.” It was time, after all, to take thought for his own situation, he had surely done enough now.
He expected the name to raise a frown, and so it did, but Robert had offered a grace, and could not now withdraw it or set conditions upon it. With dignity he turned to the porter, who hovered at the door. “Ask Brother Cadfael to come here to us at once. You may tell him it is to give counsel and guidance to a prisoner.”
The porter departed. It was almost the hour for retirement, and most of the brothers would certainly be in the warming-room, but Cadfael was not there, nor was Brother Mark. The porter found them in the workshop in the garden, not even compounding mysteries, either, but sitting somewhat glumly, talking in low and anxious tones. The news of the capture had not yet gone round; by day it would have been known everywhere within minutes. It was common knowledge, of course, how the sheriff’s men had spent their day, but it was not yet common knowledge with what an achievement they had crowned it.
“Brother Cadfael, you’re wanted at the gatehouse,” announced the porter, leaning in at the doorway. And as Cadfael looked up at him in surprise: “There’s a young fellow there asks for you as his spiritual adviser, though if you want my view, he’s very much in command of his own spirit, and has let Prior Robert know it, too. A company of the sheriff’s men rode in towards the end of Compline with a prisoner. Yes, they’ve taken young Gurney at last.”
So that was how it had ended, after all Mark’s efforts and prayers, after all his own ineffective reasonings and seekings and faith. Cadfael got up in grieving haste. “I’ll come to him. With all my heart I’ll come. Now we have the whole battle on our hands, and little time left. The poor lad! But why have they not taken him straight into the town?” Though of that one small mercy he was glad, seeing he himself was confined within the abbey walls, and only this odd chance provided him with a brief meeting.
“Why, the only thing they can charge him with, and nobody can question, is stealing the horse he rode off on this morning, and that was from our premises and our care, the abbey court has rights in it. In the morn they’ll fetch him away on the count of murder.”
Brother Mark fell in at their heels and followed to the gatehouse, altogether cast down and out of comfort, unable to find a hopeful word to say. He felt in his heart that that was sin, the sin of despair; not despair for himself, but despair of truth and justice and right, and the future of wretched mankind. Nobody had bidden him attend, but he went, all the same, a soul committed to a cause about which, in fact, he knew very little, except the youth of the protagonist, and the absolute nature of Cadfael’s faith in him, and that was enough.
Cadfael entered the porter’s room with a heavy heart but not in despair; it was a luxury he could not afford. All eyes turned upon him, understandably, since he entered upon a heavy silence. Robert had abandoned his kindly meant but patronising exhortations, and the men of law had given up the attempt to get any admissions out of their captive, and were content to see him safely under lock and key, and get to their beds in the castle. A ring of large, well-equipped men on guard round a willowy lad in country homespun, bareheaded and cloakless on a frosty night, who sat braced and neat and alert on a bench by the wall, pleasantly flushed now from the fire, and looking, incredibly, almost complacent. His eyes met Brother Cadfael’s eyes, and danced; clear, dark-fringed, greenish eyes. His hair was light brown, like seasoned oak. He was lightly built but tall for his years. He was tired, sleepy, bruised and dirty, and behind the wary eyes and solemn face he was undoubtedly laughing.
Brother Cadfael looked long, and understood much, enough at that moment to have no great worries about what as yet he did not understand. He looked round the attentive circle, looked last and longest at Prior Robert.
“Father Prior, I am grateful that you sent for me, and I welcome the duty laid on me, to do what may be done for the prisoner. But I must tell you that these gentlemen are in some error. I cast no doubt on what they may have to report of how this boy was taken, but I do advise them to make enquiry how and where he spent this morning’s hours, when he is said to have escaped from the abbey barn on the horse belonging to Mistress Bonel. Gentlemen,” he informed the sheriff’s bewildered patrol very gravely, “this is not Edwin Gurney you have captured, but his nephew, Edwy Bellecote.”