‘All we within this house share the concern and grief for a creature laid astray in abbey land without a name or the proper rites of death and absolution. To that extent, until this is resolved, none of us can be at peace.’
Radulfus was still for a long moment, eyeing Cadfael closely; then he stirred abruptly out of his stillness, and said practically: ‘Then the sooner you advance this argument the better. Take a mule from the stables, if the journey is somewhat long for going and returning in a day. Where is it you are bound? May I ask even so far?’
‘No great distance,’ said Cadfael, ‘but it will save time if I ride. It is only to the manor of Withington.’
Cadfael set out next morning, immediately after Prime, on the six-mile ride to the manor where Gunnild had found her refuge from the chances and mischances of the road. He crossed by the ferry upstream from the Longner lands, and on the further side followed the little brook that entered the Severn there, with rising fields on either side. For a quarter of a mile he could see on his right the long crest of trees and bushes, on the far side of which lay the Potter’s Field, transformed now into a plateau of new ploughland above, and the gentle slope of meadow below. What remained of the cottage would have been dismantled by now, the garden cleared, the site levelled. Cadfael had not been back to see.
The way was by open fields as far as the village of Upton, climbing very gently. Beyond, there was a well-used track the further two miles or more to Withington, through flat land, rich and green. Two brooks threaded their gentle way between the houses of the village, to merge on the southern edge and flow on to empty into the River Tern. The small church that sat in the centre of the green was a property of the abbey, like its neighbour at Upton, Bishop de Clinton’s gift to the Benedictines some years back. On the far side of the village, drawn back a little from the brook, the manor lay within a low stockade, ringed round with its barns and byres and stables. The undercroft was of timber beams, one end of the living floor of stone, and a short, steep flight of steps led up to the hall door, which was standing open at this early working hour of the day, when baker and dairymaid were likely to be running busily in and out.
Cadfael dismounted at the gate and led the mule at leisure into the yard, taking time to look about him. A woman-servant was crossing with a huge crock of milk from the byre to the dairy and halted at the sight of him, but went on about her business when a groom emerged from the stable and came briskly to take the mule’s bridle.
‘You’re early abroad, Brother. How can we serve you? My master’s ridden out towards Rodington already. Shall we send after him, if your errand’s to him? Or if you have leisure to wait his return, you’re welcome within. His door’s always open to the cloth.’
‘I’ll not disrupt the order of a busy man’s day,’ said Cadfael heartily. I’m on a simple errand of thanks to your young mistress for her kindness and help in a certain vexed business, and if 1 can pay my compliments to the lady, I’ll soon be on my way back to Shrewsbury. I don’t know her name, for I hear your lord has a flock of children. The lady I want may well be the eldest, I fancy. The one who has a maid called Gunnild.’
By the practical way the groom received the name, Gunnild’s place in this household was established and accepted, and if ever there had been whispers and grudges among the other maids over the transformation of a draggle-tailed tumbler into a favoured tirewoman, they were already past and forgotten, which was shrewd testimony to Gunnild’s own good sense.
‘Oh, ay, that’s Mistress Pernel,’ said the groom, and turned to call up a passing boy to take the mule from him and see him cared for. ‘She’s within, though my lady’s gone with my lord, at least a piece of the way; she has business with the miller’s wife at Rodington. Come within, and I’ll call Gunnild for you.’
The to and fro of voices across the yard gave place, as they climbed the steps to the hall door, to shriller voices and a great deal of children’s laughter, and two boys of about twelve and eight came darting out from the open doorway and down the steps in two or three leaps, almost bowling Cadfael over, and recovering with breathless yells to continue their flight towards the fields. They were followed in bounding haste by a small girl of five or six years, holding up her skirts in both plump hands and shrieking at her brothers to wait for her. The groom caught her up deftly and set her safely on her feet at the foot of the steps, and she was off after the boys at the fastest speed her short legs could muster. Cadfael turned for a moment on the steps to follow her flight. When he looked round again to continue mounting, an older girl stood framed in the doorway, looking down at him in smiling and wondering surprise.
Not Gunnild, certainly, but Gunnild’s mistress. Eighteen, just turned, Hugh had said. Eighteen, and not yet married or, it seemed, betrothed, perhaps because of the modesty of her dowry and of her father’s connections, but perhaps also because she was the eldest of this brood of lively chicks, and very valuable to the household. The succession was secured, with two healthy sons, and two daughters to provide for might be something of a tax on Giles Otmere’s resources, so that there was no haste.
With her gracious looks and evident warmth of nature she might need very little by way of dowry if the right lad came along.
She was not tall, but softly rounded and somehow contrived to radiate a physical brightness, as if her whole body, from soft brown hair to small feet, smiled as her eyes and lips smiled. Her face was round, the eyes wide-set and wide-open in shining candour, her mouth at once generously full and passionate, and resolutely firm, though parted at this moment in a startled smile. She had her little sister’s discarded wooden doll in her hand, just retrieved from the floor where it had been thrown.
‘Here is Mistress Pernel,’ said the groom cheerfully, and drew back a step towards the yard. ‘Lady, the good brother would like a word with you.’
‘With me?’ she said, opening her eyes wider still. ‘Come up, sir, and welcome. Is it really me you want? Not my mother?’
Her voice matched the brightness she radiated, pitched high and gaily, like a child’s, but very melodious in its singing cadences.
‘Well, at least,’ she said, laughing, ‘we can hear each other speak, now the children are away. Come into the window-bench, and rest.’
The alcove where they sat down together had the weather shutter partially closed, but the lee one left open. There was almost no wind that morning, and though the sky was clouded over, the light was good. Sitting opposite to this girl was like facing a glowing lamp. For the moment they had the hall to themselves, though Cadfael could hear several voices in busy, braided harmony from passage and kitchen, and from the yard without.
‘You are come from Shrewsbury?’ she said.
‘With my abbot’s leave,’ said Cadfael,’to give you thanks for so promptly sending your maid Gunnild to the lord sheriff, to deliver the man held in prison on suspicion of causing her death. Both my abbot and the sheriff are in your debt. Their intent is justice. You have helped them to avoid injustice.’
‘Why we could do no other,’ she said simply, ‘once we knew of the need. No one, surely, would leave a poor
