from a fierce grey eye to look closely at the pupil. He let her run on without response or encouragement, though he missed nothing of what she had to say.
‘And I expected better of the lord abbot,’ she said, curling thin, bluish lips, ‘than to take the part of a vagabond footpad, murderer and thief as he is, against honest craftsmen who pay their dues and their devotions like Christians. It’s great shame to you all to shelter such a rogue.’
‘Your son, I’m told,’ said Cadfael mildly, rummaging in his scrip for the little flask of powder dried from oak mistletoe, ‘is not dead, nor like to be yet, though the pack of your guests went baying off through the night yelling murder.’
‘He well might have been a corpse,’ she snapped. ‘And dead or no, either way this is a hanging matter, as well you know. And how if I had died, eh? Whose fault would that have been? There could have been two of us to bury, and the family left ruined into the bargain. Mischief enough for one wretched little minstrel to wreak in one night. But he’ll pay for it! Forty days or no, we shall be waiting for him, he won’t escape us.’
‘If he ran from here loaded with your goods,’ said Cadfael, shaking out a little powder into his palm, ‘he certainly brought none of them into the church with him. If he has your one miserly penny on him, that’s all.’ He turned to the young woman who stood anxiously beside the head of the bed. ‘Have you wine there, or milk? Either does. Stir this into a cup of it.’
She was a small, round, homely girl, this Margery, perhaps twenty years old, with fresh, rosy colouring and a great untidy mass of yellow hair. Her eyes were round and wary. No wonder if she felt lost in this unfamiliar and disrupted household, but she moved quietly and sensibly, and her hands were steady on pitcher and cup.
‘He had time to hide his plunder somewhere,’ the old woman insisted grimly. ‘Walter was gone above half an hour before Susanna began to wonder, and went to look for him. The wretch could have been over the bridge and into the bushes by then.’
She accepted the drink that was presented to her lips, and swallowed it down readily. Whatever her dissatisfaction with abbot and abbey, she trusted Cadfael’s remedies. The two of them were unlikely to agree on any subject under the sun, but for all that they respected each other. Even this avaricious, formidable old woman, tyrant of her family and terror of her servants, had certain virtues of courage, spirit and honesty that were not to be despised.
‘He swears he never touched your son or your gold,’ said Cadfael. ‘As I grant he may be lying, so you had better grant that you and yours may be mistaken.’
She was contemptuous. She pushed away from under her wrinkled neck the skimpy braid of brittle grey hair that irritated her skin. ‘Who else could it have been? The only stranger, and with a grudge because I docked him the value of what he broke
‘
‘Of what he says some boisterous young fellow hustled him and caused him to break.’
‘He must take a company as he finds it, wherever he hires himself out. And now I recall,’ she said, ‘we put him out without those painted toys of his, wooden rings and balls. I want nothing of his, and what he’s taken of mine I’ll have back before the end. Susanna will give you the playthings for him, and welcome. He shall not be able to say we’ve matched his thievery.’
She would give him, scrupulously, what was his, but she would see his neck wrung without a qualm.
‘Be content, you’ve already broken his head for him. One more blow like that, and you might have had the law crying murder on you. And you’d best listen to me soberly now! One more rage like that, and you’ll be your own death. Learn to take life gently and keep your temper, or there’ll be a third and worse seizure, and it may well be the last.’
She looked, for once, seriously thoughtful. Perhaps she had been saying as much to herself, even without his warning. ‘I am as I am,’ she said, rather admitting than boasting.
‘Be so as long as you may, and leave it to the young to fly into frenzies over upsets that will all pass, given time. Now here I’m leaving you this flask?it’s the decoction of heart trefoil, the best thing I know to strengthen the heart. Take it as I taught you before, and keep your bed today, and I’ll take another look at you tomorrow. And now,’ said Cadfael, ‘I’m going along to see how Master Walter fares.’
The goldsmith, his balding head swathed and his long, suspicious face fallen slack in sleep, was snoring heavily, and it seemed the best treatment to let him continue sleeping. Cadfael went down thoughtfully to find Susanna, who was out in the kitchen at the rear of the house. A skinny little girl laboured at feeding a sluggish fire and heaving a great pot to the hook over it. Cadfael had caught a glimpse of the child once before, all great dark eyes in a pale, grubby face, and a tangle of dark hair. Some poor maidservant’s by-blow by her master, or her master’s son, or a passing guest. For all the parsimony in this household, the girl could have fallen into worse hands. She was at least fed, and handed down cast-off clothing, and if the old matriarch was grim and frightening, Susanna was quiet and calm, no scold and no tyrant.
Cadfael reported on his patient, and Susanna watched his face steadily, nodded comprehension, and asked no questions.
‘And your father is asleep. I left him so. What better could anyone do for him?’
‘I fetched his own physician to him last night,’ she said, ‘when we found him. She’ll have none but you now, but father relies on Master Arnald, and he’s close. He says the blow is not dangerous, though it was enough to lay him senseless some hours. Though it may be the drink had something to do with that, too.’
‘He hasn’t yet been able to tell you what happened? Whether he saw who the man was who struck him?’
‘Not a word. When he comes to, his head aches so he can remember nothing. It may come back to him later.’
For the saving or the damning of Liliwin! But whichever way that went, and whatever else he might be, Walter Aurifaber was not a liar. Meantime, there was nothing to be learned from him, but from the rest of the household there might be, and this girl was the gravest and most reasonable of the tribe.
‘I’ve heard the general cry against this young fellow, but not the way the thing happened. I know there was some horse-play with the lads, nothing surprising at a wedding feast, and the pitcher got broken. I know your grandmother lashed out at him with her stick, and had him cast out with only one penny of his fee. His story is that he made off then, knowing it was hopeless to protest further, and he knew nothing of what followed until he heard the hunters baying after him, and ran to us for shelter.’
