upon the glimpse of sky in which, from this walled darkness within, the stars showed doubly large and bright.
Cadfael stood motionless, and heard the soft brushing of cloth as Meurig leaned back against the closed door, arms spread, drawing deep breaths to savour the moment of arrival, and anticipate the last vengeful achievement. There was no other way out, and he knew his quarry had not moved by so much as a step.
“You have branded me murderer, why should I draw back now from murder? You have ruined me, shamed me, made me a reproach to my own kin, taken from me my birthright, my land, my good name, everything that made my existence worth calling a life, and I will have your life in recompense. I cannot live now, I cannot even die, until I have been your death, Brother Cadfael.”
Strange how the simple act of giving his victim a name changed everything, even this blind relationship, like the first gleam of light. Further light could only assist the change.
“Hanging behind the door, where you are,” said Cadfael practically, “you’ll find a lantern, and on another nail there a leather bag with flint and steel and tinder in it. We may as well see each other. Take care with the sparks, you’ve nothing against our sheep, and fire would bring people running. There’s a shelf where the lantern will stand.”
“And you will make your bid to keep your forfeit life. I know!”
“I shall not move hand or foot,” said Cadfael patiently. “Why do you suppose I have made so certain the last work tonight should fall to me? Did I not say I was expecting you? I have no weapon, and if I had I would not use it. I finished with arms many years ago.”
There was a long pause, during which, though he felt that more was expected of him, he added nothing more. Then he heard the creek of the lantern as Meurig’s questing hand found it, the grating noise of the horn shutter being opened, the groping of fingers to find the shelf, and the sound of the lantern being set down there. Flint and steel tapped sharply several times, sparks flashed and vanished, and then a corner of charred cloth caught and held the tiny fire, and Meurig’s face hung ghostlike over it, blowing until the wick caught in its turn, and sent up a lengthening flame. Dim yellow light brought into being the feeding-rack, the trough, the forest of shadows in the network of beams above, and the placid, incurious ewes; and Cadfael and Meurig stood looking intently at each other.
“Now,” said Cadfael, “you can at least see to take what you came for.” And he sat down and settled himself solidly on a corner of the feeding-rack.
Meurig came towards him with long, deliberate strides through the straw-dust and chaff of the floor. His face was fixed and grey, his eyes sunken deep into his head and burning with frenzy and pain. So close that their knees touched, he advanced the knife slowly until the point pricked Cadfael’s throat; along eight inches of steel they eyed each other steadily.
“Are you not afraid of death?” asked Meurig, barely above a whisper.
“I’ve brushed elbows with him before. We respect each other. In any case there’s no evading him for ever, we all come to it, Meurig. Gervase Bonel … you … I. We have to die, every one of us, soon or late. But we do not have to kill. You and I both made a choice, you only a week or so ago, I when I lived by the sword. Here am I, as you willed it. Now take what you want of me.”
He did not take his eyes from Meurig’s eyes, but he saw at the edge of vision the tightening of the strong brown fingers and the bracing of the muscles in the wrist to strike home. But there was no other movement. All Meurig’s body seemed suddenly to writhe in an anguished attempt to thrust, and still he could not. He wrenched himself backward, and a muted animal moan came from his throat. He cast the knife out of his hand to whine and stick quivering in the beaten earth of the floor, and flung up both arms to clasp his head, as though all his strength of body and will could not contain or suppress the pain that filled him to overflowing. Then his knees gave under him, and he was crouched in a heap at Cadfael’s feet, his face buried in his arms against the hay-rack. Round yellow eyes, above placidly chewing muzzles, looked on in detached surprise at the strangeness of men.
Broken sounds came from Meurig’s buried mouth, muffled and sick with despair “Oh, God, that I could so face my death … for I owe it, I owe it, and dare not pay! If I were clean … if I were only clean again …”And in a great groan he said: “Oh, Mallilie …”
“Yes,” said Cadfael softly. “A very fair place. Yet there is a world outside it.”
“Not for me, not for me … I am forfeit. Give me up! Help me … help me to be fit to die …” He raised himself suddenly, and looked up at Cadfael, clutching with one hand at the skirts of his habit. “Brother, those things you said of me … never meant to be a murderer, you said …”
“Have I not proved it?” said Cadfael. “I live, and it was not fear that stayed your hand.”
“Mere chance that led me, you said, and that because of an act of simple kindness… . Great pity it is, you said! Pity … Did you mean all those things, brother? Is there pity?”
“I meant them,” said Cadfael, “every word. Pity, indeed, that ever you went so far aside from your own nature, and poisoned yourself as surely as you poisoned your father. Tell me, Meurig, In these last days you have not been back to your grandfather’s house, or had any word from him?”
“No,” said Meurig, very low, and shuddered at the thought of the upright old man now utterly bereft.
“Then you do not know that Edwin was fetched away from there by the sheriff’s men, and is now in prison in Shrewsbury.”
No, he had not known. He looked up aghast, seeing the implication, and shook with the fervour of his denial: “No, that I swear I did not do. I was tempted… . I could not prevent that they cast the blame on him, but I did not betray him … I sent him here, I would have seen that he got clear… . I know it was not enough, but oh, this at least don’t lay to my charge! God knows I liked the boy well.”
“I also know it,” said Cadfael, “and know it was not you who sent them to take him. No one wittingly betrayed him. None the less, he was taken. Tomorrow will see him free again. Take that for one thing set right, where many are past righting.”
Meurig laid his clasped hands, white-knuckled with tension, on Cadfael’s knees, and lifted a tormented face into the soft light of the lantern. “Brother, you have been conscience to other men in your time, for God’s sake do as much by me, for I am sick, I am maimed, I am not my own. You said … great pity! Hear me all my evil!”
“Child,” said Cadfael, shaken, and laid his own hand over the stony fists that felt chill as ice, “I am not a priest, I cannot give absolution, I cannot appoint penance …”
“Ah, but you can, you can, none but you, who found out the worst of me! Hear me my confession, and I shall be
