He owed her honesty, and she expected it.
‘Will you tell me,’ she said,’the whole story? For I know only what is gossiped around. Let me understand whatever danger he may be in. Guilt or no, he would not let another man be blamed unjustly.’
Cadfael told her the whole of it, from the first furrow cut by the abbey plough. She listened attentively and seriously, her round brow furrowed with thought. She could not and did not believe any evil of the young man who had visited her for so generous a purpose, but neither did she ignore the reasons why others might have doubts of him. At the end she drew breath long and softly, and gnawed her lip for a moment, pondering.
‘Do you believe him guilty?’ she asked then, pointblank.
‘I believe he has knowledge which he has not seen fit to reveal. More than that I will not say. All depends on whether he told us the truth about the ring.’
‘But Brother Ruald believes him?’ she said.
‘Without question.’
‘And he has known him from a child.’
‘And may be partial,’ said Cadfael, smiling. ‘But yes, he has more knowledge of the boy than either you or I, and plainly expects nothing less than truth from him.’
‘And so would I. But one thing I wonder at,’ said Pernel very earnestly. ‘You say that you think he knew of this matter before he went to visit his home, though he said he heard of it only there. If you are right, if he heard it from Brother Jerome before he went to ask leave to visit Longner, why did he not bring forth the ring at once, and tell what he had to tell? Why leave it until the next day? Whether he got the ring as he said, or had it in his possession from long before, he could have spared Brother Ruald one more night of wretchedness. So gentle a soul as he seems, why should he leave a man to bear such a burden an hour longer than he need, let alone a day?’
It was the one consideration which Cadfael had had at the back of his mind ever since the occasion itself, but did not yet know what to make of it. If Pernel’s mind was keeping in reserve the same doubt, let her speak for him, and probe beyond where he had yet cared to go. He said simply: ‘I have not pursued it. It would entail questioning Brother Jerome, which I should be loath to do until I am more sure of my ground. But I can think of only one reason. For some motive of his own, he wished to preserve the appearance of having heard of the case only when he paid his visit to Longner.’
‘Why should he want that?’ she challenged.
‘I suppose that he might well want to talk to his brother before he committed himself to anything. He had been away more than a year, he would want to ensure that his family was in no way threatened by a matter of which he had only just learned. Naturally he would be tender of their interests, all the more because he had not seen them for so long.’
To that she agreed, with a thoughtful and emphatic nod of her head. ‘Yes, so he would. But I can think of another reason why he delayed, and I am sure you are thinking of it, too.’
‘And that is?’
‘That he had not got it,’ said Pernel firmly, ‘and could not show it, until he had been home to fetch it.’
She had indeed spoken out bluntly and fearlessly, and Cadfael could not but admire her singlemindedness. Her sole belief was that Sulien was clean of any shadow of guilt, her sole purpose to prove it to the world, but her confidence in the efficacy of truth drove her to go headlong after it, certain that when found it must be on her side.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘I am making a case that may seem hurtful to him, but in the end it cannot be, because I am sure he has done no wrong. There is no way but to look at every possibility. I know you said that Sulien grew to love that woman, and said so himself, and if she did give her ring to another man, for spite against her husband, yes, it could have been to Sulien. But equally it could have been to someone else. And though I would not try to lift the curse from one man by throwing it upon another, Sulien was not the only young man close neighbour to the potter. Just as likely to be drawn to a woman every account claims was beautiful. If Sulien has guilty knowledge he cannot reveal, he could as well be shielding a brother as protecting himself. I cannot believe,’ she said vehemently,’that you have not thought of that possibility.’
‘I have thought of many possibilities,’ agreed Cadfael placidly, ‘without much by way of fact to support any. Yes, for either himself or his brother he might lie. Or for Ruald. But only if he knows, as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, that our poor dead lady is indeed Generys. And never forget, there is also the possibility, however diminished since his efforts for Britric, that he was not lying, that Generys is alive and well, somewhere there in the eastlands, with the man she chose to follow. And we may never, never know who was the dark-haired woman someone buried with reverence in the Potter’s Field.’
‘But you do not believe that,’ she said with certainty.
‘I think truth, like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil, however deeply sown, will make its way to the light.’
‘And there is nothing we can do to hasten it,’ said Pernel, and heaved a resigned sigh.
‘At present, nothing but wait.’
‘And pray, perhaps?’ she said.
Cadfael could not choose but wonder, none the less, what she would do next, for inaction would be unbearably irksome to her now that her whole energy was engaged for this young man she had seen only once. Whether Sulien had paid as acute attention to her there was no knowing, but it was in Cadfael’s mind that sooner or later he would have to, for she had no intention of turning back. It was also in his mind that the boy might do a good deal worse. If, that is, he came out of this web of mystery and deceit with a whole skin and a quiet mind, something he certainly did not possess at present. From Cambridge and the Fens there was no news. No one had yet expected any. But travellers from eastward reported that the weather was turning foul, with heavy rains and the first frosts of the winter. No very attractive prospect for an army floundering in watery reaches unfamiliar to them but known to the elusive enemy. Cadfael bethought him of his promise to Hugh, by this time more than a week absent, and asked leave to go up into the town and visit Aline and his godson. The sky was overclouded, the weather from the east gradually moving in upon Shrewsbury in a very fine rain, hardly more than mist, that clung in the hair and the fibres of clothing, and barely darkened the slate-grey earth of the Foregate. In the Potter’s Field the winter crop was already sown, and there would be cattle grazing the lower strip of pasture. Cadfael had not been back to see it with his own eyes, but with the inner eye he saw it very clearly, dark, rich soil soon to bring forth new life; green, moist turf and tangled briary headland under the ridge of bushes and trees. That it had once held an unblessed grave
