‘The elder son married in the summer,’ said Cadfael,’so there is a young woman in the household to give her comfort and care. But yes, certainly she will be glad to have Sulien home again.’
‘It is not so far,’ Pernel mused, half to herself. ‘We are almost neighbours. Do you think the lady Donata is ever well enough to want to receive visitors? If she cannot go out, she must sometimes be lonely.’
Cadfael took his leave with that delicate suggestion still in his ears, in the girl’s warm, purposeful, buoyant voice, and with her bright and confident face before his eyes, the antithesis of illness, loneliness and pain. Well, why not? Even if she went rather in search of the young man who had touched her generous fancy than for such benefit as her vigour and charm could confer upon a withered gentlewoman, her presence might still do wonders.
He rode back through the autumnal fields without haste, and instead of turning in at the abbey gatehouse, went on over the bridge and into the town, to look for Hugh at the castle.
It was plain, as soon as he began to climb the ramp to the castle gatehouse, that something had happened to cause a tremendous stir within. Two empty carts were creaking briskly up the slope and in under the deep archway in the tower, and within, there was such bustle between hall, stables, armoury and stores, that Cadfael sat his mule unnoticed for many minutes in the midst of the to-ings and fro-ings, weighing up what he saw, and considering its inevitable meaning. There was nothing confused or distracted about it, everything was purposeful and exact, the ordered climax of calculated and well-planned preparations. He dismounted, and Will Warden, Hugh’s oldest and most seasoned sergeant, halted for an instant in directing the carters through to the inner yard, and came to enlighten him.
‘We’re on the march tomorrow morning. The word came only an hour past. Go in to him, Brother, he’s in the gate-tower.’
And he was gone, waving the teamster of the second cart through the arch to the inner ward, and vanishing after the cart to see it efficiently loaded. The supply column must be preparing to leave today, the armed company would ride after them at first light.
Cadfael abandoned his mule to a stable boy, and crossed to the deep doorway of the guardroom in the gate- tower. Hugh rose from a littered table at sight of him, shuffled his records together and pushed them aside.
‘It’s come, as I thought it would. The king had to move against the man, for the saving of his own face he could no longer sit and do nothing. Though he knows as well as I do,’ admitted Hugh, preoccupied and vehement,’that the chances of bringing Geoffrey de Mandeville to pitched battle are all too thin. What, with his Essex supply lines secure even if the time comes when he can wring no more corn or cattle out of the Fens? And all those bleak levels laced with water, and as familiar to him as the lines of his own hand? Well, we’ll do him what damage we can, perhaps bolt him in if we can’t flush him out. Whatever the odds, Stephen has ordered his muster to Cambridge, and demanded a company of me for a limited time, and a company he shall have, as good as any he’ll get from his Flemings. And unless he has the lightning fit on him?it takes him and us by surprise sometimes?we’ll be in Cambridge before him.’
Having thus unburdened himself of his own immediate preoccupations, concerning which there was no particular haste, since everything had been taken care of in advance, Hugh took a more attentive look at his friend’s face, and saw that King Stephen’s courier had not been the only visitor with news of moment to impart.
‘Well, well!’ he said mildly. “I see you have things on your mind, no less than his Grace the king. And here am I about to leave you hefting the load alone. Sit down and tell me what’s new. There’s time, before I need stir.’
Chapter Nine
‘CHANCE HAD NO PART in it,’ said Cadfael, leaning his folded arms upon the table. ‘You were right. History repeated itself for good reason, because the same hand thrust it where the same mind wanted it. Twice! It was in my mind, so I put it to the test. I took care the boy should know there was another man suspected of this death. It may even be that I painted Britric’s danger blacker than it was. And behold, the lad takes to heart that true word I offered him, that the folk of the roads look round for a warm haven through the winter, and off he goes, searching here and there about these parts, to find out if one Gunnild had found a corner by some manor fire. And this time, mark you, he had no possibility of knowing whether the woman was alive or dead, knowing nothing of her beyond what I had told him. He had luck, and he found her. Now, why, never having heard her name before, never seen her face, why should he bestir himself for Britric’s sake?’
‘Why,’ agreed Hugh, eye to eye with him across the board, ‘unless he knew, whatever else he did not know, that our dead woman was not and could not be this Gunnild? And how could he know that, unless he knows all too well who she really is? And what happened to her?’
‘Or believes he knows,’ said Cadfael cautiously.
‘Cadfael, I begin to find your failed brother interesting. Let us see just what we have here. Here is this youngster who suddenly, so short a while after Ruald’s wife vanished from her home, chooses most unexpectedly to desert his own home and take the cowl, not close here where he’s known, with you, or at Haughmond, the house and the order his family has always favoured, but far away at Ramsey. Removing himself from a scene now haunting and painful to him? Perhaps even dangerous? He comes home, perforce, when Ramsey becomes a robber’s nest, and it may well be true that he comes now in doubt of his own wisdom in turning to the cloister. And what does he find here? That the body of a woman has been found, buried on lands that once pertained to his family demesne, and that the common and reasonable thought is that this is Ruald’s lost wife, and Ruald her murderer. So what does he do? He tells a story to prove that Generys is alive and well. Distant too far to be easily found and answer for herself, seeing the state of that country now, but he has proof. He has a ring which was hers, a ring she sold in Peterborough, long after she was gone from here. Therefore this body cannot be hers.’
‘The ring,’ said Cadfael reasonably, ‘was unquestionably hers, and genuine. Ruald knew it at once, and was glad and grateful beyond measure to be reassured that she’s alive and well, and seemingly faring well enough without him. You saw him, as I did. I am sure there was no guile in him, and no falsity.’
‘So I believe, too. I do not think we are back to Ruald, though God knows we may be back with Generys. But see what follows! Next, a search throws up another man who may by all the signs be guilty of killing another vanished woman in that very place. And yet again Sulien Blount, when he hears of it so helpfully from you, continues to interest himself in the matter, voluntarily setting out to trace this woman also, and show that she is alive. And, by God, is lucky enough to find her! Thus delivering Britric as he delivered Ruald. And now tell me, Cadfael, tell me truly, what does all that say to you?’
‘It says,’ admitted Cadfael honestly,’that whoever the woman may be, Sulien himself is guilty, and means to battle it out for his life, yes, but not at the expense of Ruald or Britric or any innocent man. And that, I think, would be in character for him. He might kill. He would not let another man hang for it.’
‘That is how you read the omens?’ Hugh was studying him closely, black brows obliquely tilted, and a wry smile curling one corner of his expressive mouth.
“That is how I read the omens.’
