church being parochial. “And followed your noses, I daresay, once you were in the gardens. This syrup-boiling gives off a powerful odour.”
“It smells good,” said Edwy, and his respectful stare ranged the workshop, and the bunches and bags of dried herbs stirring and rustling gently in the rising heat from the brazier.
“Not all my medicines smell so appetising. Though myself I would not call even this unpleasant. Powerful, certainly, but a fine, clean smell.” He unstoppered the great jar of anointing oil of monk’s-hood, and tilted the neck beneath Edwin’s inquisitive nose. The boy blinked at the sharp scent, drew back his head, and sneezed. He looked up at Cadfael with an open face, and laughed at his own pricked tears. Then he leaned cautiously and inhaled again, and frowned thoughtfully.
“It smells like that stuff Meurig was using to rub the old man’s shoulder. Not this morning, the last time I came with him. There was a flask of it in the infirmary cupboard. Is it the same?”
“It is,” said Cadfael, and hoisted the jar back to its shelf. The boy’s face was quite serene, the odour meant nothing more to him than a memory blessedly removed from any connection with tragedy and guilt. For Edwin, Gervase Bonel had died, inexplicably suddenly, of some armed attack, and the only guilt he felt was because he had lost his temper, infringed his own youthful dignity, and made his mother cry. Cadfael no longer had any doubts at all. The child was honest as the day, and caught in a deadly situation, and above all, badly in need of friends.
He was also very quick and alert of mind. The diversion began to trouble him just as it was over. “Brother Cadfael …” he began hesitantly, the name new and almost reverent on his lips, not for this elderly and ordinary monk, but for the crusader Cadfael he had once been, fondly remembered even by a happy and fulfilled wife and mother, who had certainly much exaggerated his good looks, gallantry and daring. “You knew about my going to the infirmary with Meurig … you asked Edwy about it. I couldn’t understand why. Is it important? Has it something to do with my stepfather’s death? I can’t see how.”
“That you can’t see how, child,” said Brother Cadfael, “is your proof of an innocence we may have difficulty in proving to others, though I accept it absolutely. Sit down again by your nephew—dear God, shall I ever get these relationships straight?—and refrain from fighting him for a little while, till I explain to you what isn’t yet public knowledge outside these walls. Yes, your two visits to the infirmary are truly of great importance, and so is this oil you have seen used there, though I must say that many others know of it, and are better acquainted than you with its properties, both bad and good. You must forgive me if I gave you to understand that Master Bonel was hacked down in his blood with dagger or sword. And forgive me you should, since in accepting that tale you quite delivered yourselves from any guilt, at least to my satisfaction. It was not so, boys. Master Bonel died of poison, given in the dish the prior sent him, and the poison was this same oil of monk’s-hood. Whoever added it to the partridge drew it either from this workshop or from the flask in the infirmary, and all who knew of either source, and knew the peril if it was swallowed, are in suspicion.”
The pair of them, soiled and tired and harried as they were, stared in horrified understanding at last, and drew together on the bench as threatened litters of young in burrow and nest huddle for comfort. Years bordering on manhood dropped from them; they were children indeed, frightened and hunted. Edwy said strenuously: “He didn’t know! All they said was, dead, murdered. But so quickly! He ran out, and there was nobody there but those of the house. He never even saw any dish waiting …”
“I did know,” said Edwin, “about the dish. She told us, I knew it was there. But what did it matter to me? I only wanted to go home …”
“Hush, now, hush!” said Cadfael chidingly. “You speak to a man convinced. I’ve made my own tests, all I need. Now sit quiet, and trouble your minds no more about me, I know you have nothing to repent.” That was much, perhaps, to say of any man, but at least these two had nothing on their souls but the ordinary misdemeanours of the energetic young. And now that he had leisure to look at them without looking for prevarication or deceit, he was able to notice other things. “You must give me a little while for thought, but the time need not be wasted. Tell me, has either of you eaten, all these hours? The one of you, I know, made a very poor dinner.”
They had been far too preoccupied with worse problems, until then, to notice hunger, but now that they had an ally, however limited in power, and shelter, however temporary, they were suddenly and instantly ravenous.
“I’ve some oat-cakes here of my own baking, and a morsel of cheese, and some apples. Fill up the hollows, while I think what’s best to be done. You, Edwy, had best make your way home as soon as the town gates open in the morning, slip in somehow without being noticed, and make as though you’ve never been away but on some common errand. Keep a shut mouth except with those you’re sure of.” And that would be the whole united family, embattled in defence of their own. “But for you, my friend—you’re a very different matter.”
“You’ll not give him up?” blurted Edwy round a mouthful of oat-cake, instantly alarmed.
“That I certainly will not do.” Yet he might well have urged the boy to give himself up, stand fast on his innocence, and trust in justice, if he had had complete trust himself in the law as being infallibly just. But he had not. The law required a culprit, and the sergeant was comfortably convinced that he was in pursuit of the right quarry, and would not easily be persuaded to look further. Cadfael’s proofs he had not witnessed, and would shrug off contemptuously as an old fool fondly believing a cunning young liar.
“I can’t go home,” said Edwin, the solemnity of his face in no way marred by one cheek distended with apple, and a greenish smudge from some branch soiling the other. “And I can’t go to my mother’s. I should only be bringing worse trouble on her.”
“For tonight you can stay here, the pair of you, and keep my little brazier fed. There are clean sacks under the bench, and you’ll be warm and safe enough. But in the day there’s coming and going here from time to time, we must have you out early, the one of you for home, the other… . Well, we’ll hope you need stay hidden only a matter of a few days. As well close here at the abbey as anywhere, they’ll hardly look for you here.” He considered, long and thoughtfully. The lofts over the stables were always warned from the hay, and the bodies of the horses below, but too many people came and went there, and with travellers on the roads before the festival, there might well be servants required to sleep there above their beasts. But outside the enclave, at one corner of the open space used for the horse-fairs and the abbey’s summer fair, there was a barn where beasts brought to market could be folded before sale, and the loft held fodder for them. The barn belonged to the abbey, but was open to all travelling merchants. At this time of year its visitors would be few or none, and the loft well filled with good hay and straw, a comfortable enough bed for a few nights. Moreover, should some unforeseen accident threaten danger to the fugitive, escape from outside the walls would be easier than from within. Though God forbid it should come to that!
“Yes, I know a place that will serve, we’ll get you to it early in the morning, and see you well stocked with food and ale for the day. You’ll need patience, I know, to lie by, but that you must endure.”
“Better,” said Edwin fervently, “than falling into the sheriff’s clutches, and I do thank you. But … how am I bettered by this, in the end? I can’t lie hidden for ever.”
“There’s but one way,” said Cadfael emphatically, “that you can be bettered in this affair, lad, and that’s by uncovering the man who did the thing you’re charged with doing. And since you can hardly undertake that yourself,
