Bishop Roger de Clinton was just alighting from a tall roan horse, with the vigor and spring of a man half his age. For he must, Cadfael thought, be approaching sixty. He had been bishop for fourteen years, and wore his authority as easily and forthrightly as he did his plain riding clothes, and with the same patrician confidence. He was tall, and his erect bearing made him appear taller still. A man austere, competent, and of no pretensions because he needed none, there was something about him, Cadfael thought, of the warrior bishops who were becoming a rare breed these days. His face would have done just as well for a soldier as for a priest, hawk-featured, direct and resolute, with penetrating grey eyes that summed up as rapidly and decisively as they saw. He took in the whole scene about him in one sweeping glance, and surrendered his bridle to the porter as Prior Robert bore down on him all reverence and welcome.
They moved off together towards the abbot’s lodging, and the group broke apart gradually, having lost its center. The horses were eased of their saddlebags and led away to the stables, the hovering brothers dispersed about their various businesses, the children drifted off in search of other amusement until they should be rounded up for their early supper. And Cadfael thought of Elave, who must have heard, distantly across the court, the sounds that heralded the coming of his judge. Cadfael had seen Roger de Clinton only twice before, and had no means of knowing in what mood and what mind he came to this vexed cause. But at least he had come in person, and looked fully capable of wresting back the responsibility for his diocese and its spiritual health from anyone who presumed to trespass on his writ.
Meantime, Cadfael’s immediate business was to find Fortunata. He approached the porter with his enquiry. “Where am I likely to find Girard of Lythwood’s daughter? They told me at the house she would be here.”
“I know the girl,” said the porter, nodding. “But I’ve seen nothing of her today.”
“She told them at home she was coming down here. Soon after dinner, so the mother told me.”
“I’ve neither seen nor spoken to her, and I’ve been here most of the time since noon. An errand or two to do, but I was only a matter of minutes away. Though she may have come in while my back was turned. But she’d need to speak to someone in authority. I think she’d have waited here at the gate until I came.”
Cadfael would have thought so, too. But if she’d caught sight of the prior as she waited, or Anselm, or Denis, she might very well have accosted one of them with her petition. Cadfael sought out Denis, whose duties kept him most of the time around the court, and within sight of the gate, but Denis had seen nothing of Fortunata. She was acquainted now with Anselm’s little kingdom in the north walk; she might have made her way there, seeking for someone she knew. But Anselm shook his head decidedly, no, she had not been there. Not only was she not to be found within the precinct now, but it seemed she had not set foot in it all that day.
The bell for Vespers found Cadfael hovering irresolute over what he ought to do, and reminded him sternly of his obligations to the vocation he had accepted of his own free will, and sometimes reproached himself for neglecting. There are more ways of approaching a problem than by belligerent action. The mind and the will have also something to say in the unending combat. Cadfael turned towards the south porch and joined the procession of his brothers into the dim, cool cavern of the choir, and prayed fervently for Aldwin, dead and buried in his piteous human imperfection, and for William of Lythwood, come home contented and shriven to rest in his own place, and for all those trammeled and tormented by suspicion and doubt and fear, the guilty as well as the innocent, for who needs succor more? Whether he was building a fantastic folly round a book which might not even exist, or confronting a serious peril for any who blundered on too much knowledge, one crime was hard and clear as black crystal: someone had taken the sad, inoffensive life of Aldwin the clerk, of whom the one man he had injured had said honestly: “Everything he has said that I said, I did say.” But someone else, to whom he had done nothing, had slipped a dagger very deftly between his ribs from behind and killed him.
Cadfael emerged from Vespers consoled, but not the less aware of his own responsibilities. It was still full daylight, but with the slanting evening radiance about it, and the stillness of the air that seemed to dim all colors into a diaphanous pearly sheen. There remained one enquiry he could still make, before going further. It was just possible that Fortunata, grown dubious of venturing to ask admittance to Elave so soon after a first visit, had simply asked someone at the gate, in the porter’s brief absence, to carry a message to the prisoner, nothing to which any man could raise objection, merely to remind him his friends thought of him, and begged him to keep up his courage. It might not mean anything that Cadfael had not encountered her on her way home; she might already have been back in the town, and used the time to some other purpose before returning home. At least he would have a word with the boy, and satisfy himself he was not anxious to no purpose.
He took the key from where it hung in the porch, and went to let himself into the cell. Elave swung round from his little desk, and turned a frowning face because he had been narrowing his eyes and knitting his brows in the dimming light over one of Augustine’s more humane and ecstatic sermons. The apparent cloud cleared as soon as he left poring over the cramped minuscule of the text. Other people feared for him, but it seemed to Cadfael that Elave himself was quite free from fear, and had not shown even as restive in his close confinement.
“There’s something of the monk in you,” said Cadfael, speaking his thought aloud. “You may end up under a cowl yet.”
“Never!” said Elave fervently, and laughed aloud at the notion.
“Well, perhaps it would be a waste, seeing what other ideas you have for the future. But you have the mind for it. Traveling the world or penned in a stone cell, neither of them upsets your balance. So much the better for you! Has anyone thought to tell you that the bishop’s come? In person! He pays you a compliment, for Coventry’s nearer the turmoil than we are here, and he needs to keep a close eye on his church there, so time given to your case is a mark of your importance. And it may be a short time, for he looks like a man who can make up his mind briskly.”
“I heard the to-do about someone arriving,” said Elave. “I heard the horses on the cobbles. But I didn’t know who it might be. Then he’ll be wanting me soon?” At Cadfael’s questioning glance he smiled, though seriously enough. “I’m ready. I want it, too. I’ve made good use of my time here. I’ve found that even this Augustine went through many changes of mind over the years. You could take some of his early writings, and they say the very opposite of what he said in old age. That, and a dozen changes between. Cadfael, did you ever think what a waste it would be if you burned a man for what he believed at twenty, when what he might believe and write at forty would be hailed as the most blessed of holy writ?”
“That is the kind of argument to which the most of men never listen,” said Cadfael. “Otherwise they would balk at taking any life. You haven’t been visited today, have you?”
“Only by Anselm. Why?”
“Nor had any message from Fortunata?”
“No. Why?” repeated Elave with sharper urgency, seeing Cadfael frown. “All’s well with her, I trust?”
“So I trust also,” agreed Cadfael, “and so it should be. She told her family she was coming down to the abbey to ask if she could see you again, or get word of any progress in your case, that’s why I asked. But no one has seen her. She hasn’t been here.”
