had known how she died, he would have told us. But he did not know, and he was too shrewd to risk guessing. He may even have realised that Hugh was setting traps for him. He chose silence. What you do not say cannot betray you. But with eyes like those in his head, even silence cannot shield him. The lad is crystal.’
‘I am sure it was truth,’ said Hugh,’that he was sick with love for the woman. He had loved her unquestioning, unthinking, like a sister or a nurse, from childhood. The very pity and anger he felt on her account when she was abandoned must have loosed all the strings of a man’s passion in him. It must be true, I think, that she did lean on him then, and gave him cause to believe himself elect, while she still thought of him as a mere boy, a child of whom she was fond, offering her a child’s comfort.’
‘True, also,’ the abbot wondered,’that she gave him the ring?’
It was Cadfael who said at once: ‘No.’
‘I was still in some doubt,’ said Radulfus mildly, ‘but you say no?’
‘One thing has always troubled me,” said Cadfael, ‘and that is the manner in which he produced the ring. You’ll recall, he came to ask you, Father, for leave to visit his home. He stayed there overnight, as you permitted, and on his return he gave us to understand that only from his brother, during that visit, had he learned of the finding of the woman’s body, and the understandable suspicion it cast upon Ruald. And then he brought forth the ring, and told his story, which we had then no cause to doubt. But I believe that already, before he came to you to ask leave of absence, he had been told of the case. That was the very reason his visit to Longner became necessary. He had to go home because the ring was there, and he must get it before he could speak out in defence of Ruald. With lies, yes, because truth was impossible. We can be sure, now, that he knew, poor lad, who had buried Generys, and where she was laid. Why else should he take flight into the cloister, and so far distant, from a place where he could no longer endure to be?’
‘There is no help for it,’ said Radulfus reflectively, ‘he is protecting someone else. Someone close and dear to him. His whole concern is for his kin and the honour of his house. Can it be his brother?’
Hugh said: ‘No. Eudo seems to be the one person who has escaped. Whatever happened in the Potter’s Field, not a shadow of it has ever fallen upon Eudo. He is happy, apart from his mother’s sickness he has no cares, he is married to a pleasant wife, and looking forward hopefully to having a son. Better still, he is wholly occupied with his manor, with the work of his hands and the fruits of his soil, and seldom looks below, for the dark things that gnaw on less simple men. No, we can forget Eudo.’
‘There were two,’ said Cadfael slowly, ‘who fled from Longner after Generys vanished. One into the cloister, one into the battlefield.’
‘His father!’ said Radulfus, and pondered in silence for a moment. ‘A man of excellent repute, a hero who fought in the king’s rearguard at Wilton, and died there. Yes, I can believe that Sulien would sacrifice his own life rather than see that record soiled and blemished. For his mother’s sake, and his brother’s, and the future of his brother’s sons, no less than for his father’s memory. But of course,’ he said simply, ‘we cannot let it lie. And now what are we to do?’
Cadfael had been wondering the same thing, ever since Hugh’s springes had caused even obstinate silences to speak with such eloquence, and confirmed with certainty what had always been persistent in a corner of Cadfael’s mind. Sulien had knowledge that oppressed him like guilt, but he carried no guilt of his own. He knew only what he had seen. But how much had he seen? Not the death, or he would have seized on every confirming detail, and offered it as evidence against himself. Only the burial. A boy in the throes of his first impossible love, embraced and welcomed into an all-consuming grief and rage, then put aside, perhaps for no worse reason than that Generys had cared for him deeply, and willed him not to be scorched and maimed by her fire more incurably than he already was, or else because another had taken his place, drawn irresistibly into the same furnace, one deprivation fused inextricably with another. For Donata was already, for several years, all too well acquainted with her interminable death, and Eudo Blount in his passionate and spirited prime as many years forced to be celibate as ever was priest or monk. Two starving creatures were fed. And one tormented boy spied upon them, perhaps only once, perhaps several times, but in any event once too often, feeding his own anguish with his jealousy of a rival he could not even hate, because he worshipped him.
It was conceivable. It was probable. Then how successful had father and son been in dissembling their mutual and mutually destructive obsession? And how much had any other in that house divined of the danger?
Yes, it could be so. For she had been, as everyone said, a very beautiful woman.
‘I think,’ Cadfael,’that with your leave, Father, I must go back to Longner.’
‘No need,’ said Hugh abstractedly. ‘We could not leave the lady waiting all night without word, certainly, but I have sent a man from the garrison.’
‘To tell her no more than that he stays here overnight? Hugh, the great error has been, throughout, telling her no more than some innocuous half-truth to keep her content and incurious. Or, worse, telling her nothing at all. Such follies are committed in the name of compassion! We must not let her get word of this! We must keep this trouble from her! Starving her courage and strength and will into a feeble shadow, as disease has eaten away her body. When if they had known and respected her as they should she could have lifted half the load from them. If she is not afraid of the monster thing with which she shares her life, there is nothing of which she can be afraid. It is natural enough,’ he said ruefully, ‘for the manchild to feel he must be his mother’s shield and defence, but he does her no service. I said so to him as we came. She would far rather have scope to fulfil her own will and purpose and be shield and defence to him, whether he understand it or not. Better, indeed, if he never understands it.’
‘You think,’ said Radulfus, eyeing him sombrely,’that she should be told?’
‘I think she should have been told long ago everything there was to tell about this matter. I think she should be told, even now. But I cannot do it, or let it be done if I can prevent. Too easily, as we came, I promised him that if the truth could still be kept from her, I would see it done. Well, if you have put off the hour for tonight, so be it. True, it is too late now to trouble them. But, Father, if you permit, I will ride back there early in the morning.’
‘If you think it necessary,’ said the abbot, ‘by all means go. If it is possible now to restore her her son with the least damage, and salve her husband’s memory for her without publishing any dishonour, so much the better.’
‘One night,’ said Hugh mildly, rising as Cadfael rose, ‘cannot alter things, surely. If she has been left in happy ignorance all this time, and goes to bed this night supposing Sulien to have been detained here by the lord abbot without a shade of ill, you may leave her to her rest. There will be time to consider how much she must know when we have reasoned the truth out of Sulien. It need not be mortal. What sense would it make now to darken a dead man’s name?’
Which was good sense enough, yet Cadfael shook his head doubtfully even over these few hours of delay. ‘Still, go I must. I have a promise to keep. And I have realised, somewhat late, that I have left someone there who has made no promises.’
