man in prison a day longer than was needful, when he had done no wrong.’
‘And how did you learn of the need?’ asked Cadfael. It was the question he had come to ask, and she answered it cheerfully and frankly, with no suspicion of its real significance.
‘I was told. Indeed, if there is credit in the matter it is not ours so much as the young man’s who told me of the case, for he had been enquiring everywhere for Gunnild by name, whether she had spent the winter of last year with some household in this part of the shire. He had not expected to find her still here, and settled, but it was great relief to him. All I did was send Gunnild with a groom to Shrewsbury. He had been riding here and there asking for her, to know if she was alive and well, and beg her to come forward and prove as much, for she was thought to be dead.’
‘It was much to his credit,’ said Cadfael,’so to concern himself with justice.’
‘It was!’ she agreed warmly. ‘We were not the first he had visited, he had ridden as far afield as Cressage before he came to us.’
‘You know him by name?’
‘I did not, until then. He told me he was Sulien Blount, of Longner.’
‘Did he expressly ask for you?’ asked Cadfael.
‘Oh, no!’ She was surprised and amused, and he could not be sure, by this time, that she was not acutely aware of the curious insistence of his questioning, but she saw no reason to hesitate in answering. ‘He asked for my father, but Father was away in the fields, and I was in the yard when he rode in. It was only by chance that he spoke to me.’
At least a pleasant chance, thought Cadfael, to afford some unexpected comfort to a troubled man.
‘And when he knew he had found the woman he sought, did he ask to speak with her? Or leave the telling to you?’
‘Yes, he spoke with her. In my presence he told her how the pedlar was in prison, and how she must come forward and prove he had never done her harm. And so she did, willingly.’
She was grave now rather than smiling, but still open, direct and bright. It was evident from the intelligent clarity of her eyes that she had recognised some deeper purpose behind his interrogation, and was much concerned with its implications, but also that even in that recognition she saw no cause to withhold or prevaricate, since truth could not in her faith be a means of harm. So he asked the final question without hesitation: ‘Did he ever have opportunity to speak with her alone?’
‘Yes,’ said Pernel. Her eyes, very wide and steady upon Cadfael’s face, were a golden, sunlit brown, lighter than her hair. ‘She thanked him and went out with him to the yard when he mounted and left. I was within with the children, they had just come in, it was near time for supper. But he would not stay.’
But she had asked him. She had liked him, was busy liking him now, and wondering, though without misgivings, what this monk of Shrewsbury might want concerning the movements and generosities and preoccupations of Sulien Blount of Longner.
‘What they said to each other, said Pernel, ‘I do not know. I am sure it was no harm.’
‘That,’ said Cadfael, ‘I think I may guess at. I think the young man may have asked her, when she came to the sheriff at the castle, not to mention that it was he who had come seeking her, but to say that she had heard of Britric’s plight and her own supposed death from the general gossip. News travels. She would have heard it in the end, but not, I fear, so quickly.’
‘Yes,’ said Pernel, flushing and glowing,’that I can believe of him, that he wanted no credit for his own goodness of heart. Why? Did she do as he wished?’
‘She did. No blame to her for that, he had the right to ask it of her.’
Perhaps not only the right, but the need! Cadfael made to rise, to thank her for the time she had devoted to him, and to take his leave, but she put out a hand to detain him.
‘You must not go without taking some refreshment in our house, Brother. If you will not stay and eat with us at midday, at least let me call Gunnild to bring us wine. Father bought some French wine at the summer fair.’ And she was on her feet and across the width of the hall to the screen door, and calling, before he could either accept or withdraw. It was fair, he reflected. He had had what he wanted from her. ungrudging and unafraid; now she wanted something from him. ‘We need say nothing to Gunnild,’ she said softly, returning. ‘It was a harsh life she used to live, let her put it by, and all reminders of it. She has been a good friend and servant to me, and she loves the children.’
The woman who came in from the kitchen and pantry with flask and glasses was tall, and would have been called lean rather than slender, but the flow of her movements was elegant and sinuous still within the plain dark gown. The oval face framed by her white wimple was olive-skinned and suave, the dark eyes that took in Cadfael with serene but guarded curiosity and dwelt with almost possessive affection upon Pernel, were still cleanly set and beautiful. She served them handily, and withdrew from them discreetly. Gunnild had come into a haven from which she did not intend to sail again, certainly not at the invitation of a vagabond like Britric. Even when her lady married, there would be the little sister to care for, and perhaps, some day, marriage for Gunnild herself, the comfortable, practical marriage of two decent, ageing retainers who had served long enough together to know they can run along cosily for the rest of their days.
‘You see,’ said Pernel, ‘how well worth it was to take her in, and how content she is here. And now,’ she said, pursuing without conceal what most interested her,’tell me about this Sulien Blount. For I think you must know him.’
Cadfael drew breath and told her all that it seemed desirable to him she should know about the sometime Benedictine novice, his home and his family, and his final choice of the secular world. It did not include any more about the history of the Potter’s Field than the mere fact that it had passed by stages from the Blounts to the abbey’s keeping, and had given up, when ploughed, the body of a dead woman for whose identity the law was now searching. That seemed reason enough for a son of the family taking a personal interest in the case, and exerting himself to extricate the innocent from suspicion, and accounted satisfactorily for the concern shown by the abbot and his envoy, this elderly monk who now sat in a window embrasure with Pernel, recounting briefly the whole disturbing history.
‘And his mother is so ill?’ said Pernel, listening with wide, sympathetic eyes and absorbed attention. ‘At least how glad she must be that he has chosen, after all, to come home.’
