But he was wrong, the spark had not been quenched, only blotted out from sight for the minute or so it took for a man’s form to thread the passage silently and emerge into the street. A tall, well-built man, young by his step, in a hurry by the way he hurtled out of the passage, and about some private and nefarious business by the agility and stealth with which he slid in and out of the deepest shadows as he made off along the lane, with his capuchon drawn well forward and his head lowered.
There were but two young men who habited within that burgage at night, and a man who had played and sung and tumbled a long evening away in their company had no difficulty in distinguishing between them. In any case, the fine new coat marked him out, for all his furtive procedure. Only three days married, where was Daniel Aurifaber off to in such a hurry, late at night?
Liliwin left his station at last, and went back along the narrow street towards the High Cross. He saw no more of that flitting figure. Somewhere in this maze of by-streets Daniel had vanished, about what secret business there was no knowing. Liliwin made his way down the Wyle to the gate, and was hardly shaken at being halted by a guard wider awake than his fellows.
‘Well, well, lad, you’re back soon. Wanting out again at this hour? You’re back and forth like a dog at a fair.’
‘I was seeing my girl safe home,’ said Liliwin, truth coming both welcome and easy. ‘I’m away back to the abbey now. I’m working there.’ And so he was, and would work the harder the next day for having deserted Brother Anselm on this one.
‘Oh, you’re in their service, are you?’ The guard was benevolent. ‘Take no unwary vows, lad, or you’ll lose that girl of yours. Off you go then, and goodnight to you.’
The cavern of the gateway, reflecting torchlight from its stony vault, fell behind him, the arch of the bridge, with liquid silver on either side, opened before him, and above there was a light veil of cloud pierced here and there by a stray star. Liliwin crossed, and slipped again into the bushes that fringed the roadway. The silence was daunting. When he drew nearer to the abbey gatehouse he was afraid to stir out of cover, and cross the empty street to brave the scrutiny beyond. Both the west door of the church and the open wicker of the gate seemed equally inaccessible.
He stood deep in cover, watching the Foregate, and it came back to him suddenly and temptingly that he was, indeed, out of sanctuary undetected, and the whole of the night before him to put as many miles as possible between himself and Shrewsbury, and hide himself as deeply as possible among men to whom he was unknown. He was small and weak and fearful, and very greedy for life, and the ache to escape this overhanging peril was acute. But all the time he knew he would not go. Therefore he must get back to the one place where for thirty-seven more days he was safe, here within reach of the house where Rannilt slaved and waited and prayed for him.
He had luck in the end, and not even long to wait. One of the lay servants of the abbey had had his new son christened that day, and opened his house to the assembly of his relatives and friends to celebrate the occasion. The abbey stewards, shepherds and herdsmen who had been his guests came back along the Foregate in a flock, well-fed and merry, to return to their quarters in the grange court. Liliwin saw them come, spanning the street with their loose-knit chain, and when they drew near enough, and closed at leisure on the gatehouse, those bound within taking spacious leave of those living without, so that he was sure of the destination of perhaps a third of their number, he slipped out of the bushes and mingled with the fringes of the group. One more in the dimness made no matter. He went in unquestioned by any, and in the unhurried dispersal within he slipped away silently into the cloister, and so to his deserted bed in the south porch.
He was within the fold, and it was over. He sidled thankfully into the empty church?a good hour yet before Matins?and went to retrieve his blankets from behind the altar in the chancel chapel. He was very tired, but so agonisingly awake that sleep seemed very far off. Yet when he had spread his bedding again on his pallet, tucked away under the straw his new capuchon and cotte, and stretched himself out, still trembling, along the broad stone bench, sleep came on him so abruptly that all he knew of it was the descent, fathoms deep, into a well of darkness and peace.
Brother Cadfael rose well before Prime to go to his workshop, where he had left a batch of troches drying overnight. The bushes in the garden, the herbs in the enclosed herbarium, all glimmered softly with the lingering dew of a brief shower, and reflected back the dawn sunlight from thousands of tiny facets of silver. Another fine, fresh day beginning. Excellent for planting, moist, mild, the soil finely crumbled after the intense frosts of the hard winter. There could be no better auguries for germination and growth.
He heard the bell rousing the dortoir for Prime, and went directly to the church as soon as he had put his troches safely away. And there in the porch was Liliwin, his bedding already folded tidily away, his ill-cobbled motley exchanged for his new blue cotte, and his pale hair damp and flattened from being plunged in the bowl where he had washed. Cadfael took pleasure in observing him from a distance, himself unobserved. So wherever he had been hiding himself yesterday, he was still here in safety, and, moreover, developing a wholly creditable self-respect, with which guilt, or so it seemed to Cadfael, must be incompatible.
Brother Anselm, detecting the presence of his truant in church only when a high, hesitant voice joined in the singing, was similarly reassured and comforted. Prior Robert heard the same voice, looked round in incredulous displeasure, and frowned upon a dismayed Brother Jerome, who had so misled him. They still had the thorn in the flesh, thanksgiving had been premature.
The lay brothers were planting out more seedlings in a large patch along the Gaye that day, and sowing a later field of pease for succession, to follow when those by the Meole brook were harvested. Cadfael went out after dinner to view the work. After the night’s soft shower the day was brilliant, sunlit and serene, but the earlier rains were still coming down the river from the mountains of Wales in their own good time, and the water was lapping into the grass where the meadow sloped smoothly down, and gnawing gently under the lip of the bank where it could not reach the turf. The length of a man’s hand higher since two days ago, but always with this sunlit innocence upon it, as if it would be ashamed to endanger the swimming urchins, and could not possibly be thought capable of drowning any man. And this as perilous a river as any in the land, as treacherous and as lovely.
It was pleasure to walk along the trodden path that was only a paler line in the turf, following the fast, quiet flood downstream. Cadfael went with his eyes on the half-turgid, half-clear eddies that span and mummured under the lip of green, a strong current here hugging this shore. Across the stream, so silent and so fast, the walls of Shrewsbury loomed, at the crest of a steep green slope of gardens, orchards and vineyard, and further downstream fused into the solid bulk of the king’s castle, guarding the narrow neck of land that broke Shrewsbury’s girdle of water.
On this near shore Cadfael had reached the limit of the abbey orchards, where lush copses began, fringing the abbey’s last wheatfield, and the old, disused mill jutted over the river. He passed, threading the trees and bushes, and went on a short way, to where the level of land dipped to water-level in a little cove, shallowly covered by clear water now, the driving current spinning in and out again just clear of disturbing the gravel bottom. Things tended to come in here and be cast ashore if the Severn was in spate, and enclosing shoulders of woodland screened whatever came.
