“That is the business of the sheriff and his sergeants,” said Robert curtly, “and none of yours. As I understand it, there is no doubt whose is the guilt, and it is only a matter of laying hands upon the youth who did so vile a thing. I do not like your excuse, Brother Cadfael.”
“In due obedience,” said Cadfael, “I bow to your judgment, but also must not despise my own. I think there is doubt, and the truth will not be easily uncovered. And my reason was not an excuse; it was for that purpose I went to the house. It was my own preparation, meant to bring comfort and relief from pain, that was used to bring death, and neither this house nor I, as a brother herein, can be at peace until the truth is known.”
“In saying so, you show lack of faith in those who uphold the law, and whose business justice is, as yours it is not. It is an arrogant attitude, and I deplore it.” What he meant was that he wished to distance the Benedictine house of St. Peter and St. Paul from the ugly thing that had happened just outside its walls, and he would find a means of preventing the effective working of a conscience so inconvenient to his aims. “In my judgment, Brother Jerome is right, and it is our duty to ensure that you are not allowed, by your own folly, to stray into spiritual danger. You will have no further contact with Mistress Bonel. Until her future movements are decided, and she leaves her present house, you will confine yourself to the enclave, and your energies to your proper function of work and worship within our walls only.”
There was no help for it. Vows of obedience, voluntarily taken, cannot be discarded whenever they become inconvenient. Cadfael inclined his head—bowed would have been the wrong word, it was more like a small, solid and formidable bull lowering its armed brow for combat!—and said grimly: “I shall observe the order laid upon me, as in duty bound.”
“But you, young man,” he was saying to Brother Mark in the garden workshop, a quarter of an hour later, with the door shut fast to contain the fumes of frustration and revolt, rather Mark’s than his own, “you have no such order to observe.”
“That,” said Brother Mark, taking heart, “is what I was thinking. But I was afraid you were not.”
“I would not involve you in my sins, God knows,” sighed Cadfael, “if this was not urgent. And perhaps I should not … Perhaps he must be left to fend for himself, but with so much against him …”
“He!” said Brother Mark thoughtfully, swinging his thin ankles from the bench. “The he whose something, that was not a vial, we did not find? From all I gather, he’s barely out of childhood. The Gospels are insistent we should take care of the children.”
Cadfael cast him a mild, measuring and affectionate look. This child was some four years older than the other, and his childhood, since his mother’s death when he was three years old, no one had cared for, beyond throwing food and grudged shelter his way. The other had been loved, indulged and admired all his life, until these past months of conflict, and the present altogether more desperate danger.
“He is a spirited and able child, Mark, but he relies on me. I took charge of him and gave him orders. Had he been left on his own, I think he would have managed.”
“Tell me only where I must go, and what I must do,” said Mark, quite restored to cheerfulness, “and I will do it.”
Cadfael told him. “But not until after High Mass. You must not be absent, or any way put your own repute in peril. And should there be trouble, you’ll hold aloof and safe—you hear?”
“I hear,” said Brother Mark, and smiled.
By ten o’clock of that morning, when High Mass began, Edwin was heartily sick of obedience and virtue. He had never been so inactive for so long since he had first climbed mutinously out of his cradle and crawled into the yard, to be retrieved from among the wagon wheels by a furious Richildis. Still, he owed it to Brother Cadfael to wait in patience, as he had promised, and only in the darkest middle of the night had he ventured out to stretch his legs and explore the alleys and lanes about the horse-fair, and the silent and empty stretch of the Foregate, the great street that set out purposefully for London. He had taken care to be back in his loft well before the east began to lighten, and here he was, seated on an abandoned barrel, kicking his heels and eating one of Cadfael’s apples, and wishing something would happen. From the slit air-vents enough light entered the loft to make a close, dim, straw- tinted day.
If wishes are prayers, Edwin’s was answered with almost crude alacrity. He was used to hearing horses passing in the Foregate, and the occasional voices of people on foot, so he thought nothing of the leisurely hoof- beats and monosyllabic voices that approached from the town. But suddenly the great double doors below were hurled open, their solid weight crashing back to the wall, and the hoof-beats, by the sound of them of horses being walked on leading reins, clashed inward from the cobbles of the apron and thudded dully on the beaten earth floor within.
Edwin sat up, braced and still, listening with pricked ears. One horse … two … more of them, lighter in weight and step, small, neat hooves—mules, perhaps? And at least two grooms with them, probably three or four. He froze, afraid to stir, wary of even the crunching of his apple. Now if they were only meaning to stall these beasts during the day, all might yet be well, and all he had to do was keep quiet and sit out the time in hiding.
There was a heavy trapdoor in the cleared space of flooring, so that at need grooms could gain access to the loft without having to go outside, or carry the other key with them. Edwin slid from his barrel and went to stretch himself cautiously on the floor, and apply an ear to the crack.
A young voice chirruped soothingly to a restive horse, and Edwin heard a hand patting neck and shoulder. “Easy there, now, my beauty! A very fine fellow you are, too. The old man knew his horse-flesh, I’ll say that for him. He’s spoiled for want of work. It’s shame to see him wasted.”
“Get him into a stall,” ordered a gruff voice shortly, “and come and lend a hand with these mules.”
There was a steady to-ing and fro-ing about settling the beasts. Edwin got up quietly, and put on his Benedictine habit over his own clothes, for if by ill-luck he was seen around this building, it would be the best cover he could have. Though it seemed that everything would probably pass off safely. He went back to his listening station just in time to hear a third voice say: “Fill up the hay-racks. If there’s not fodder enough down here, there’s plenty above.”
They were going to invade his refuge, after all! There was already a foot grating on the rungs of the ladder below. Edwin scrambled up in haste, no longer troubling to be silent, and rolled his heavy barrel on its rim to settle solidly over the trapdoor, for the bolts must be on the underside. The sound of someone wrestling them back from stiff sockets covered the noise of the barrel landing, and Edwin perched on top of his barricade, and wished himself three times as heavy. But it is very difficult to thrust a weight upwards over one’s head, and it seemed that even his slight bulk was enough. The trap heaved a little under him, but nothing worse.
“It’s fast,” called a vexed voice from below. “Some fool’s bolted it on top.”
