Cadfael entered the porter’s room with a heavy heart but not in despair; it was a luxury he could not afford. All eyes turned upon him, understandably, since he entered upon a heavy silence. Robert had abandoned his kindly meant but patronising exhortations, and the men of law had given up the attempt to get any admissions out of their captive, and were content to see him safely under lock and key, and get to their beds in the castle. A ring of large, well-equipped men on guard round a willowy lad in country homespun, bareheaded and cloakless on a frosty night, who sat braced and neat and alert on a bench by the wall, pleasantly flushed now from the fire, and looking, incredibly, almost complacent. His eyes met Brother Cadfael’s eyes, and danced; clear, dark-fringed, greenish eyes. His hair was light brown, like seasoned oak. He was lightly built but tall for his years. He was tired, sleepy, bruised and dirty, and behind the wary eyes and solemn face he was undoubtedly laughing.
Brother Cadfael looked long, and understood much, enough at that moment to have no great worries about what as yet he did not understand. He looked round the attentive circle, looked last and longest at Prior Robert.
“Father Prior, I am grateful that you sent for me, and I welcome the duty laid on me, to do what may be done for the prisoner. But I must tell you that these gentlemen are in some error. I cast no doubt on what they may have to report of how this boy was taken, but I do advise them to make enquiry how and where he spent this morning’s hours, when he is said to have escaped from the abbey barn on the horse belonging to Mistress Bonel. Gentlemen,” he informed the sheriff’s bewildered patrol very gravely, “this is not Edwin Gurney you have captured, but his nephew, Edwy Bellecote.”
CHAPTER 7
The abbey prison was two little cells attached to the rear of the gatehouse, very clean, furnished with benchbeds no worse than the novices endured, and very rarely occupied. The summer period of Saint Peter’s fair was the chief populator of the cells, since it could be relied upon to provide two happy drunken servants or lay brothers nightly, who slept off their excesses and accepted their modest fines and penances without rancour, thinking the game well worth the candle. From time to time some more serious disturbance might cast up an inmate, some ill-balanced brother who nursed a cloistered hate long enough to attempt violence, or a lay servant who stole, or a novice who offended too grossly against the imposed code. The abbey court was not a busy one.
In one of the two cells Brother Cadfael and Edwy sat side by side, warmly and companionably. There was a grille in the door, but it was most improbable that anyone was paying attention to anything that could be heard through it. The brother who held the keys was sleepy, and in any case indifferent to the cause that had brought him a prisoner. The difficulty would probably be to batter loudly enough to wake him when Cadfael wanted to leave.
“It wasn’t so hard,” said Edwy, sitting back with a grateful sigh after demolishing the bowl of porridge a tolerant cook had provided him, “there’s a cousin of father’s lives along the riverside, just beyond your property of the Gaye, he has an orchard there, and a shed for the donkey and cart, big enough to hide Rufus. His boy brought word into the town to us, and I took father’s horse and came out to meet Edwin there. Nobody was looking for a bony old piebald like our Japhet, I never got a second glance as I crossed the bridge, and I didn’t hurry. Alys came with me pillion, and kept watch in case they got close. Then we changed clothes and horses, and Edwin made off towards—”
“Don’t tell me!” said Cadfael quickly.
“No, you can truly say you don’t know. Plainly not the way I went. They were slow sighting me,” said Edwy scornfully, “even with Alys helping them. But once they had me in view it was a matter of how long I could keep them busy, to give him time to get well away. I could have taken them still further, but Rufus was tiring, so I let them have me. I had to, in the end, it kept them happy several more hours, and they sent one man ahead to call off the hunt. Edwin’s had a clear run. Now what do you think they’ll do with me?”
“If you hadn’t already been in abbey charge, and the prior by, at that,” said Cadfael frankly, “they’d have had the hide off you for leading them such a dance and making such fools of them. I wouldn’t say Prior Robert himself wouldn’t have liked to do as much, but dignity forbids, and authority forbids letting the secular arm skin you on his behalf. Though I fancy,” he said with sympathy, viewing the blue bruises that were beginning to show on Edwy’s jaw and cheekbone, “they’ve already paid you part of your dues.”
The boy shrugged disdainfully. “I can’t complain. And it wasn’t all one way. You should have seen the sergeant flop belly-down into the bog … and heard him when he got up. It was good sport, and we got Edwin away. And I’ve never had such a horse under me before, it was well worth it. But now what’s to happen? They can’t accuse me of murder, or of stealing Rufus, or even the gown, because I was never near the barn this morning, and there are plenty of witnesses to where I was, about the shop and the yard.”
“I doubt if you’ve broken any law,” agreed Cadfael, “but you have made the law look very foolish, and no man in authority and office enjoys that. They could well keep you in close hold in the castle for a while, for helping a wanted man to escape. They may even threaten you in the hope of fetching Edwin back to get you out of trouble.”
Edwy shook his head vigorously. “He need take no notice of that, he knows in the end there’s nothing criminal they can lay against me. And I can sit out threats better than he. He loses his temper. He’s getting better, but he has far to go yet.” Was he as buoyant about his prospects as he made out? Cadfael could not be quite sure, but certainly this elder of the pair had turned his four months seniority into a solid advantage, perhaps by reason of feeling responsible for his improbable uncle from the cradle. “I can keep my mouth shut and wait,” said Edwy serenely.
“Well, since Prior Robert has so firmly demanded that the sheriff come in person tomorrow to remove you,” sighed Cadfael, “I will at least make sure of being present, and try what can be got for you. The prior has given me a spiritual charge, and I’ll stand fast on it. And now you’d better get your rest. I am supposed to be here to exhort you to an amended life, but to tell the truth, boy, I find your life no more in need of amendment than mine, and I think it would be presumption in me to meddle. But if you’ll join your voice to mine in the night prayers, I think God may be listening.”
“Willingly,” said Edwy blithely, and plumped to his knees like a cheerful child, with reverently folded hands and closed eyes. In the middle of the prayers before sleeping his lips fluttered in a brief smile; perhaps he was remembering the extremely secular language of the sergeant rising dripping from the bog.
Cadfael was up before Prime, alert in case the prisoner’s escort should come early. Prior Robert had been extremely angry at last night’s comedy, but grasped readily at the plain fact that it gave him full justification for demanding that the sheriff should at once relieve him of an offender who hadturned out to be no concern of his at all. This was not the boy who had taken away a Benedictine habit and a horse in Benedictine care, he was merely the mischievous brat who had worn the one and ridden the other to the ludicrous discomfiture of several gullible law officers. They could have him, and welcome; but the prior considered that it was due to his dignity—in this mood fully abbatial—that the senior officer then in charge, sheriff or deputy, should come in person to make amends for the inconvenience to which the abbey had been subjected, and remove the troublesome element. Robert wanted a public demonstration that henceforth all responsibility lay with the secular arm, and none within his sacred walls.
