the penalty was too great for the wrong committed.
‘Tell me, Brother,’ said Rafe de Genville, the wave of passion subsiding into his customary calm, ‘was this sin?’
‘What do you need from me?’ said Cadfael. ‘Ask your confessor when you come safely to Wallingford. All I know is, time has been when I would have done as you have done.’
Whether de Genville’s secret would be preserved inviolate was a question never asked, the answer being already clearly understood between them. ‘This is better than by morning,’ said Rafe, rising. ‘Your order of hours tomorrow need not be broken, and I can be away early, and leave my place cleansed and furbished and ready for another guest, and travel the lighter because I do not go without a fair witness. I’ll say my farewell here. God be with you, Brother!’
‘And go with you,’ said Cadfael.
He was gone, out into the gathering darkness, his step firm and even on the gravel path, silent when he reached the grass beyond. And sharp upon the last slight sound of his going, the bell rang distantly for Compline.
Cadfael went down into the stables before Prime, in a morning dry and sunny but chill, a good day for riding. The bright chestnut with the white brow was gone from his stall. It seemed empty and quiet there, but for the cheerful chirpings of chatter and laughter from the last stall, where Richard had come down early to pet and make much of his pony for carrying him so bravely, with Edwin, happily restored to grace and to the company of his playmate, in loyal attendance. They were making a merry noise like a brood of young swallows, until they heard Cadfael come, and then they fell to a very prim and seemly quietness until they peeped out and saw that he was neither Brother Jerome nor Prior Robert. By way of apology they favoured him with broad and bountiful smiles, and went back to the pony’s stall to caress and admire him.
Cadfael could not but wonder if Dame Dionisia had already visited her grandson, and gone as far as such a matriarch could be expected to go to re-establish her standing with him. There would certainly be no self- abasement. Something of a self-justifying homily, rather: ‘Richard, I have been considering your future with the abbot, and I have consented to leave you in his care for the present. I was grossly deceived in Cuthred, he was not a priest, as he pretended. That episode is over, we had all better forget it.’ And she would surely end with something like: ‘If I let you remain here, sir, take care that I get good reports of you. Be obedient to your masters and attend to your books
‘ And on leaving him, a kiss perhaps a little kinder than usual, or at least a little more warily respectful, seeing all he could relate against her if he cared to. But Richard triumphant, released from all anxieties for himself and others who mattered to him, bore no grudge against anyone in the world.
By this hour Rafe de Genville, vassal and friend of Brian FitzCount and loyal servitor of the Empress Maud, must be well away from Shrewsbury on his long ride south. So quiet, unobtrusive and unremarkable a man, he had hardly been noticed even while he remained here, his stay would soon be forgotten.
‘He is gone,’ said Cadfael. ‘I would not slough off the burden of choice on to you, though I think I know what you would have done. But I have done it for you. He is gone, and I let him go.’
They were sitting together, as so often they had sat at the last ebb of a crisis, weary but eased, on the seat against the north wall of the herbarium, where the warmth of noonday lingered and the light wind was shut out. In another week or two it would be too cold and bleak for comfort here. This prolonged mild autumn could not last much longer, the weather-wise were beginning to sniff the air and foretell the first hard frost, and plentiful snow to come in December.
‘I have not forgotten,’ said Hugh, ‘that this is the tomorrow when you promised me a fitting ending. So he is gone! And you let him go! Another he, not Bosiet. You were aching for him to tire of his vengeance and depart, more likely to urge him away than try to prevent. Say on, I’m listening.’
He was always a good listener, not given to exclamation or needless questions, he could sit gazing meditatively across the dishevelled garden in receptive silence, and never trouble his companion with a glance, and never miss a word, nor need many of them for understanding.
‘I am in need of the confessional, if you will be my priest,’ said Cadfael.
‘And keep your confidences as tightly sealed?I know! My answer is yes. I never yet found you in need of absolution from me. Who is this he who is gone?’
‘His name,’ said Cadfael, ‘is Rafe de Genville, though here he called himself Rafe of Coventry, a falconer to the earl of Warwick.’
‘The quiet elder with the chestnut horse? I never saw him but the once, I think,’ said Hugh. ‘He was one guest here who had nothing to ask of me, and I was grateful for it, having my hands full of Bosiets. And what had Rafe of Coventry done, that either you or I should hesitate to let him go?’
‘He had killed Cuthred. In fair fight. He laid his sword by, because Cuthred had none. Dagger against dagger he fought and killed him.’ Hugh had said no word, only turned his head towards his friend for a moment, studied with penetrating attention the set of Cadfael’s face, and waited. ‘For good reason,’ said Cadfael. ‘You’ll not have forgotten the tale we heard of the empress’s messenger sent out of Oxford, just as King Stephen shut his iron ring round the castle. Sent forth with money and jewels and a letter for Brian FitzCount, cut off from her in Wallingford. And how they found his horse straying in the woods along the road, with blood-stained harness and empty saddlebags. The body they never found. The Thames runs close. There’s room in the woods for a grave. So the lord of Wallingford was robbed of the empress’s treasure. He has beggared himself for her long ago, ungrudging, and his garrison must eat. And the letter meant for him was stolen along with all the rest. And Rafe de Genville is vassal and devoted friend to Brian FitzCount, and loyal liegeman to the empress, and was not minded to let that crime go unavenged.
‘What traces he found along the way to bring him into these parts I never asked, and he never told me, but bring him they did. The day he came I met with him in the stables, and by chance it came out that we had Drogo Bosiet lying dead in the mortuary chapel. I recall that I had not mentioned the name, but perhaps if I had he would still have done what he did, since names can be changed. He went straightway to look at this dead man, but at a glance he lost all interest in him. He was looking for someone, a guest here, a stranger, a traveller, but it was not Bosiet. In a young fellow of twenty, like Hyacinth, he had no interest at all. It was a man of his own years and estate he was seeking. Dame Dionisia’s holy man he must surely have heard about, but dismissed him as priest and pilgrim, vouched for and above suspicion. Until he heard, as we all did, young Richard bellow that the hermit was no priest but a cheat. I looked for Rafe afterwards, and he and his horse were gone. It was an impostor and cheat he was looking for. And he found him, Hugh, that night at the hermitage. Found him, fought him, killed him. And took back all that he had stolen, jewels and coin from the casket on the altar, and the breviary that belonged to the empress, and was used to carry letters between her and FitzCount when they were apart. You’ll recall that Cuthred’s dagger was bloodied. I have dressed Rafe de Genville’s wound, I have received his confidence as I have
