Brother Mark hovered close at Cadfael’s elbow as the escort rode in, about half past eight in the morning, before the second Mass. Four mounted men-at-arms, and a spruce, dark, lightly built young nobleman on a tall, gaunt and self-willed horse, dappled from cream to almost black. Mark heard Brother Cadfael heave a great, grateful sigh at the sight of him, and felt his own heart rise hopefully at the omen.
“The sheriff must have gone south to keep the feast with the king,” said Cadfael with immense satisfaction. “God is looking our way at last. That is not Gilbert Prestcote, but his deputy, Hugh Beringar of Maesbury.”
“Now,” said Beringar briskly, a quarter of an hour later, “I have placated the prior, promised him deliverance from the presence of this desperate bravo, sent him off to Mass and chapter in tolerable content, and retrieved you, my friend, from having to accompany him, on the grounds that you have questions to answer.” He closed the door of the room in the gatehouse from which all his men-at-arms had been dismissed to wait his pleasure, and came and sat down opposite Cadfael at the table. “And so you have, though not, quite as he supposes. So now, before we go and pick this small crab out of his shell, tell me everything you know about this curious business. I know you must know more of it than any other man, however confidently my sergeant sets out his case. Such a break in the monastic monotony could never occur, and you not get wind of it and be there in the thick of it. Tell me everything.”
And now that it was Beringar in the seat of authority, while Prestcote attended dutifully at his sovereign lord’s festal table, Cadfael saw no reason for reserve, at least so far as his own part was concerned. And all, or virtually all, was what he told.
“He came to you, and you hid him,” mused Beringar.
“I did. So I would again, in the same circumstances.”
“Cadfael, you must know as well as I the strength of the case against this boy. Who else has anything to gain? Yet I know you, and where you have doubts, I shall certainly not be without them.”
“I have no doubts,” said Cadfael firmly. “The boy is innocent even of the thought of murder. And poison is so far out of his scope, he never would or could conceive the idea. I tested them both, when they came, and they neither of them even knew how the man had died, they believed me when I said he had been cut down in his blood. I stuck the means of murder under the child’s nose, and he never paled. All it meant to him was a mild memory of sniffing the same sharp smell while Brother Rhys was having his shoulders rubbed in the infirmary.”
“I take your word for all that,” said Beringar, “and it is good evidence, but it is not in itself proof. How if we should both of us underestimate the cunning of the young, simply because they are young?”
“True,” agreed Cadfael with a wry grin, “you are none so old yourself, and of your cunning, as I know, the limit has not yet been found. But trust me, these two are not of the same make as you. I have known them, you have not; agreed? I have my duty to do, according to such lights as I see. So have you your duty to do, according to your office and commission. I don’t quarrel with that. But at this moment, Hugh, I don’t know and have no means of guessing where Edwin Gurney is, or I might well urge him to give himself up to you and rely on your integrity. You will not need me to tell you that this loyal nephew of his, who has taken some sharp knocks for him, does know where he is, or at least knows where he set out to go. You may ask him, but of course he won’t tell you. Neither for your style of questioning nor Prestcote’s.”
Hugh drummed his fingers on the table, and pondered in silence for a moment. “Cadfael, I must tell you I shall pursue the hunt for the boy to the limit, and not spare any tricks in the doing, so look to your own movements.”
“That’s fair dealing,” said Cadfael simply. “You and I have been rivals in trickery before, and ended as allies. But as for my movements, you’ll find them monstrously dull. Did Prior Robert not tell you? I’m confined within the abbey walls, I may not go beyond.”
Hugh’s agile black brows shot up to meet his hair. “Good God, for what cloistered crime?” His eyes danced. “What have you been about, to incur such a ban?”
“I spent too long in talk with the widow, and a stretched ear gathered that we had known each other very well, years ago, when we were young.” That was one thing he had not thought necessary to tell, but there was no reason to withhold it from Hugh. “You asked me, once, how it came I had never married, and I told you I once had some idea of the kind, before I went to the Holy Land.”
“I do remember! You even mentioned a name. By now, you said, she must have children and grandchildren … Is it really so, Cadfael? This lady is your Richildis?”
“This lady,” said Cadfael with emphasis, “is indeed Richildis, but mine she is not. Two husbands ago I had a passing claim on her, and that’s all.”
“I must see her! The charmer who caught your eye must be worth cultivating. If you were any other man I should say this greatly weakens the force of your championship of her son, but knowing you, I think any scamp of his age in trouble would have you by the nose. I will see her, however, she may need advice or help, for it seems there’s a legal tangle there that will take some unravelling.”
“There’s another thing you can do, that may help to prove to you what I can only urge. I told you the boy says he threw into the river an inlaid wooden box, quite small.” Cadfael described it minutely. “If that could come to light, it would greatly strengthen his story, which I, for one, believe. I cannot go out and contact the fishermen and watermen of Severn, and ask them to keep watch for such a small thing in the places they’ll know of, where things afloat do wash up. But you can, Hugh. You can have it announced in Shrewsbury and downstream. It’s worth the attempt.”
“That I’ll certainly do,” said Beringar readily. “There’s a man whose grim business it is, when some poor soul drowns in Severn, to know exactly where the body will come ashore. Whether small things follow the same eddies is more than I know, but he’ll know. I’ll have him take this hunt in charge. And now, if we’ve said all, we’d better go and see this twin imp of yours. Lucky for him you knew him, they’d hardly have believed it if he’d told them himself that he was the wrong boy. Are they really so like?”
“No, no more than a general family look about them if you know them, or see them side by side. But apart, a man might be in doubt, unless he did know them well. And your men were after the rider of that horse, and sure who it must be. Come and see!”
He was still in doubt, as they went together to the cell where Edwy waited, by this time in some trepidation, exactly what Beringar meant to do with his prisoner, though he had no fear that any harm would come to the boy. Whatever Hugh might think about Edwin’s guilt or innocence, he was not the man to lean too heavily upon Edwy’s staunch solidarity with his kinsman.
“Come forth, Edwy, into the daylight,” said Beringar, holding the cell door wide, “and let me look at you. I want to be in no doubt which of you I have on my hands, the next time you change places.” And when Edwy obediently
