In the bleak space of the inner ward he jerked his head towards the anteroom of the hall, and said: ‘Bring him within.’ There was a good fire in there, and a bench to sit on. ‘Take off his chains,’ said Hugh, after one look at the wreck of a big man, ‘and let him sit by the fire. You may keep by him, but I doubt if he’ll give you any trouble.’ The prisoner could have been an imposing figure, if he had still had flesh and sinew on his long, large bones, but he was shrunken by starvation, and with nothing but rags on him in this onset of winter. He could not be old, his eyes and his shock of pale hair were those of a young man, his bones, however starting from his flesh, moved with the live vigour of youth. Close to the fire, warmed after intense cold, he flushed and dilated into something nearer approaching his proper growth. But his face, blue-eyed, hollow-cheeked, stared in mute terror upon Hugh. He was like a wild thing in a trap, braced taut, waiting for a bolthole. Ceaselessly he rubbed at his wrists, just loosed from the heavy chains.
‘What is your name?’ asked Hugh, so mildly that the creature stared and froze, afraid to understand such a tone.
‘What do men call you?’ repeated Hugh patiently.
‘Harald, my lord. I’m named Harald.’ The large frame produced a skeletal sound, deep but dry and remote. He had a cough that perforated his speech uneasily, and a name that had once belonged to a king, and that within the memory of old men still living, men of his own fair colouring.
‘Tell me how you came by this thing, Harald. For it’s a rich man’s weapon, as you must know. See the craftsmanship of it, and the jeweller’s work. Where did you find such a thing?’ ‘I didn’t steal it,’ said the wretch, trembling. ‘I swear I didn’t! It was thrown away, no one wanted it…’ ‘Where did you find it?’ demanded Hugh more sharply.
‘In the forest, my lord. There’s a place where they burn charcoal.’ He described it, stammering and blinking, voluble to hold off blame. ‘There was a dead fire there, I took fuel from it sometimes, but I was afraid to stay so near the road. The knife was lying in the ashes, lost or thrown away. Nobody wanted it. And I needed a knife…’ He shook, watching Hugh’s impassive face with frightened blue eyes. ‘It was not stealing… I never stole but to keep alive, my lord, I swear it.’ He had not been a very successful thief, even so, for he had barely kept body and soul together. Hugh regarded him with detached interest, and no particular severity.
‘How long have you been living wild?’ ‘Four months it must be, my lord. But I never did violence, nor stole anything but food. I needed a knife for my hunting…’ Ah, well, thought Hugh, the king can afford a deer here and there. This poor devil needs it more than Stephen does, and Stephen in his truest mood would give it to him freely. Aloud he said: ‘A hard life for a man, come wintertime. You’ll do better indoors with us for a while, Harald, and feed regularly, if not on venison.’ He turned to the sergeant, who was standing warily by. ‘Lock him away. Let him have blankets to wrap him. And see to it he eats-but none too much to start with or he’ll gorge and die on us.’ He had known it happen among the wretched creatures in flight the previous winter from the storming of Worcester, starving on the road and eating themselves to death when they came to shelter. ‘And use him well!’ said Hugh sharply as the sergeant hauled up his prisoner. ‘He’ll not stand rough handling, and I want him. Understood?’ The sergeant understood it as meaning this was the wanted murderer, and must live to stand his trial and take his ceremonial death. He grinned, and abated his hold on the bony shoulder he gripped. ‘I take your meaning, my lord.’ They were gone, captor and captive, off to a securely locked cell where the outlaw Harald, almost certainly a runaway villein, and probably with good reason, could at least be warmer than out in the woods, and get his meals, rough as they might be, brought to him without hunting.
Hugh completed his daily business about the castle, and then went off to find Brother Cadfael in his workshop, brewing some aromatic mixture to soothe ageing throats through the first chills of the winter. Hugh sat back on the familiar bench against the timber wall, and accepted a cup of one of Cadfael’s better wines, kept for his better acquaintances.
‘Well, we have our murderer safely under lock and key,’ he announced, straight-faced, and recounted what had emerged. Cadfael listened attentively, for all he seemed to have his whole mind on his simmering syrup.
‘Folly!’ he said then, scornfully. His brew was bubbling too briskly, he lifted it to the side of the brazier.
‘Of course folly,’ agreed Hugh heartily. ‘A poor wretch without a rag to his covering or a crust to his name, kill a man and leave him his valuables, let alone his clothes? They must be about of a height, he would have stripped him naked and been glad of such cloth. And build the clerk single-handed into that stack of timber? Even if he knew how such burnings are managed, and I doubt if he does… No, it is beyond belief. He found the dagger, just as he says. What we have here is some poor soul pushed so far by a heavy-handed lord that he’s run for it. And too timid, or too sure of his lord’s will to pursue him, to risk walking into the town and seeking work. He’s been loose four months, picking up what food he could where he could.’ ‘You have it all clear enough, it seems,’ said Cadfael, still brooding over his concoction, though it was beginning to settle in the pot, gently hiccuping. ‘What is it you want of me?’ ‘My man has a cough, and a festered wound on his forearm, I judge a dog’s bite, somewhere he lifted a hen. Come and sain it for him, and get out of him whatever you can, where he came from, who is his master, what is his trade. We’ve room for good craftsmen of every kind in the town, as you know, and have taken in several, to our gain and theirs. This may well be another as useful.’ ‘I’ll do that gladly,’ said Cadfael, turning to look at his friend with a very shrewd eye. ‘And what has he to offer you in exchange for a meal and a bed? And maybe a suit of clothes, if you had his inches, as by your own account you have not. I’d swear Peter Clemence could have topped you by a hand’s length.’ ‘This fellow certainly could,’ allowed Hugh, grinning. ‘Though sidewise even I could make two of him as he is now. But you’ll see for yourself, and no doubt be casting an eye over all your acquaintance to find a man whose cast-offs would fit him. As for what use I have for him, apart from keeping him from starving to death-my sergeant is already putting it about that our wild man is taken, and I’ve no doubt he won’t omit the matter of the dagger. No need to frighten the poor devil worse than he’s been frightened already by charging him, but if the world outside has it on good authority that our murderer is safe behind bars, so much the better. Everyone can breathe more freely-notably the murderer. And a man off his guard, as you said, may make a fatal slip.’ Cadfael considered and approved. So desirable an ending, to have an outlaw and a stranger, who mattered to nobody, blamed for whatever evil was done locally; and one week now to pass before the wedding party assembled, all with minds at ease.
‘For that stubborn lad of yours at Saint Giles,’ said Hugh very seriously, ‘knows what happened to Peter Clemence, whether he had any hand in it, or no.’ ‘Knows,’ said Brother Cadfael, equally gravely, ‘or thinks he knows.’ He went up through the town to the castle that same afternoon, bespoken by Hugh from the abbot as healer even to prisoners and criminals. He found the prisoner Harald in a cell at least dry, with a stone bench to lie on, and blankets to soften it and wrap him from the cold, and that was surely Hugh’s doing. The opening of the door upon his solitude occasioned instant mute alarm, but the appearance of a Benedictine habit both astonished and soothed him, and to be asked to show his hurts was still deeper bewilderment, but softened into wonder and hope. After long loneliness, where the sound of a voice could mean nothing but threat, the fugitive recovered his tongue rustily but gratefully, and ended in a flood of words like floods of tears, draining and exhausting him. After Cadfael left him he stretched and eased into prodigious sleep.
Cadfael reported to Hugh before leaving the castle wards.
‘He’s a farrier, he says a good one. It may well be true, it is the only source of pride he has left. Can you use such? I’ve dressed his bite with a lotion of hound’s-tongue, and anointed a few other cuts and grazes he has. I think he’ll do well enough. Let him eat little but often for a day or two or he’ll sicken. He’s from some way south, by Gretton. He says his lord’s steward took his sister against her will, and he tried to avenge her. He was not good at
