ashore until I brought this one over, and shouted them to come and help with him. Maybe you don’t know me, but these brothers here do.”
The sergeant, surely one of the few new enough to service in Shrewsbury castle to be ignorant of Madog’s special position along the river, accepted Brother Edmund’s warm assurances, and shrugged off his doubts.
“But sorry I am,” allowed Madog, mollified, “that I neither saw nor heard anything until he plumped into the water, for I was drowsing. All I can say is that he went in upstream of me, but not far I’d say someone slid him in from the cover of the water-gate.”
“A narrow, dark place, that,” said the sergeant.
“And a warren of passages above. And the light fading, though not far gone… Well, maybe when he comes round he’ll be able to tell you. something he may have seen the man that did it.”
The sergeant settled down resignedly to wait for Master William to stir, which so far he showed no sign of doing. Cadfael had cleaned and bandaged the wound, dressing it with a herbal salve, and the steward lay with eyes closed and sunken, mouth painfully open upon snoring breath. Madog reclaimed his coat, which had been drying before the fire, and shrugged into it placidly. “Let’s hope nobody’s thought the time right to help himself to my fish while my back was turned.” He had wrapped his salmon in an armful of wet grass and covered it with his upturned boat. “I’ll bid you goodnight, brothers, and wish your sick man hale again and his pouch recovered, too, though that I doubt.”
From the infirmary doorway he turned back to say: “You have a patient lad here sitting shivering on the doorstep, waiting for word. Can he not come in and see his master, he says. I’ve told him the man’s likely to live his old age out with no worse than a dunt on the head to show for it, and he’d best be off to his bed, for he’ll get nothing here as yet. Would you want him in?”
Cadfael went out with him to shoo away any such premature visits. Jacob of Bouldon, pale and anxious, was sitting with arms folded closely round his drawn-up knees, hunched against the chill of the night. He looked up hopefully as they came out to him, and opened his mouth eagerly to plead. Madog clouted him amiably on the shoulder as he passed, and made off towards the gatehouse, a squat, square figure, brown and crusty as the bole of an oak.
“You’d best be off, too, into the warm,” said Brother Cadfael, not unkindly. “Master William will recover well enough, but he’s likely to be without his wits some time yet, no call for you to catch your death here on the stone.”
“I couldn’t rest,” said Jacob earnestly. “I told him, I begged him, take me with you, you should have someone. But he said, folly, he had collected rents for the abbey many years, and never felt any need for a guard. And now, see… Could I not come in and sit by him? I’d make no sound, never trouble him… He has not spoken?”
“Nor will for some hours yet, and even then I doubt he can tell us much. I’m here with him in case of need, and Brother Edmund is on call. The fewer about him, the better.”
“I’ll wait a little while yet,” said Jacob, fretting, and hugged his knees the tighter.
Well, if he would, he would, but cramp and cold would teach him better sense and more patience. Cadfael went back to his vigil, and closed the door. Still, it was no bad thing to encounter one lad whose devotion gave the lie to Master William’s forebodings concerning the younger generation.
Before midnight there was another visitor enquiring. The porter opened the door softly and came in to whisper that Master William’s son was here, asking after his father and wanting to come in and see him. Since the sergeant, departing when it seemed certain his vigil was fruitless until morning, had pledged himself to go and reassure Mistress Rede that her man was alive, well cared for, and certain to make a good recovery, Cadfael might well have gone out to bid the young man go home and take care of his mother rather than waste his time here, if the young man had not forestalled him by making a silent and determined entry on his herald’s heels. A tall, shock-headed, dark-eyed youth, hunched of shoulder just now, and grim of face, but admittedly very quiet in movement, and low- voiced. His look was by no means tender or solicitous. His eyes went at once to the figure in the bed, sweaty- browed now, and breathing somewhat more easily and naturally. He brooded, glaring, and wasting no time on question or explanation, said in a level whisper: “I will stay.” And with aggressive composure stayed, settling himself on the bench beside his father’s bed, his two long, muscular hands gripped tightly between his knees.
The porter met Cadfael’s eye, hoisted his shoulders, and went quietly away. Cadfael sat down on the other side of the bed, and contemplated the pair, father and son. Both faces looked equally aloof and critical, even hostile, yet there they were, close and quiet together.
The young man asked but two questions, each after a long silence. The first, uttered almost grudgingly, was: “Will it be well with him?” Cadfael, watching the easing flow of breath and the faint flush of colour, said simply: “Yes. Only give him time.” The second was: “He has not spoken yet?”
“Not yet,” said Cadfael.
Now which of those, he wondered, was the more vital question? There was one man, somewhere, who must at this moment be very anxious indeed about what William Rede might have to say, when he did speak.
The young man his name was Edward, Cadfael recalled, after the Confessor Eddi Rede sat all night long almost motionless, brooding over his father’s bed. Most of that time, and certainly every time he had been aware of being watched in his turn, he had been scowling.
Well before Prime the sergeant was back again to his watch, and Jacob was again hovering unhappily about the doorway, peering in anxiously whenever it was opened, but not quite venturing to come in until he was invited. The sergeant eyed Eddi very hard and steadily, but said no word to disturb the injured man’s increasingly restful sleep. It was past seven when at last Master William stirred, opened vague eyes, made a few small sounds which were not yet words, and tried feebly to put up a hand to his painful head, startled by the sudden twinge when he moved. The sergeant stooped close, but Cadfael laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“Give him time! A knock on the head like that will have addled his wits. We’ll need to tell him things before he tells us any.” And to the wondering patient he said tranquilly: “You know me “Cadfael, Edmund will be here to relieve me as soon as Prime is over. You’re in his care, in the infirmary, and past the worst. Fret for nothing, lie still and let others do that. You’ve had a mighty dunt on the crown, and a dowsing in the river, but both are past, and thanks be, you’re safe enough now.”
The wandering hand reached its goal this time. Master William groaned and stared indignant surprise, and his eyes cleared and sharpened, though his voice was weak as he complained, with quickening memory: “He came behind me someone out of an open yard door… That’s the last I know…” Sudden realisation shook him; he gave a stricken howl, and tried to rise from his pillow, but gave up at the pang it cost him. The rents the abbey rents!”
