long. I may be wanted here.”
“Stay as long as is needful,” said Cadfael readily. “I’ll answer for you if there should be any questions. But what could you have to tell? I know you were in the church well before Matins began.” And knew, moreover, where the boy had been later on, and probably not alone, but he said nothing about that. “Has anything been said about making provision for Mistress Hammet’s future? This leaves her very solitary, but for you, and still almost a stranger here. But I’m sure Abbot Radulfus will see to it she’s not left friendless.”
“He came himself to speak to her,” said Benet, a faint flush and gleam of his usual brightness appearing for a moment, in appreciation of such considerate usage. “He says she need not be troubled at all, for she came here in good faith to serve the church in her proper station, and the church will see to it that she is provided for. Dwell in the house and care for it, he said, until a new priest is preferred to the benefice, and then we’ll see. But in no case shall she be cast away.”
“Good! Then you and she can rest with easy minds. Terrible this may be, but it’s no fault of yours or hers, and you should not brood on it.” They were both looking at him then with still, shocked faces that expressed nothing of grief or reassurance, but only stunned acceptance. “Stay and sleep there, if you see fit,” he said to Benet. “She may be glad of having you close by, tonight.”
Benet said neither yes nor no to that, nor did the woman. They went out silently from the ante-room of the gatehouse, where they had sat out the long uncertainty of the morning together, and crossing the wide highway of the Foregate, vanished into the narrow mouth of the alley opposite, still silvered with hoar-frost between its enclosing walls.
Cadfael felt no great surprise when Benet was back within the hour, instead of taking advantage of the permission to absent himself overnight. He came looking for Cadfael in the garden, and found him, for once, virtually idle in his workshop, sitting by the glowing brazier. The boy sat down silently beside him, and heaved a glum sigh.
“Agreed!” said Cadfael, stirring out of his thoughts at the sound. “We’re none of us quite ourselves today, small wonder. But no need for you to rack your conscience, surely. Have you left your aunt all alone?”
“No,” said Benet. “There’s a neighbour with her, though I doubt if she’s all that glad of the kind attention. There’ll be more of them, I daresay, before long, bursting with curiosity and worming the whole story out of her. Not for grief, either, to judge by the one I left with her. They’ll be chattering like starlings all over the parish, and never stop until night falls.”
“They’ll stop fast enough, you’ll find,” said Cadfael drily, “as soon as Alan Herbard or one of his sergeants puts a word in. Let one officer show his face, and silence will fall. There’s not a soul in the Foregate will own to knowing anything about anything once the questions begin.”
Benet shifted uneasily on the wooden bench, as though his bones rather than his conscience felt uncomfortable. “I never understood that he was quite so blackly disliked. Do you truly think they’ll hang together so close, and never betray even if they know who brought him to his death?”
“Yes, I do think it. For there’s hardly a soul but will feel it might as easily have been his own act, but for God’s grace. But it need not fret you, one way or the other. Unless it was you who broke his head?” said Cadfael mildly. “Was it?”
“No,” said Benet as simply, staring down into his linked hands; and the next moment looked up with sharp curiosity: “But what makes you so sure of it?”
“Well, firstly, I saw you in church well before it was time for Matins, and though there’s no certainty just when Ailnoth went into the pool, I should judge it was probably after that time. Secondly, I know of no reason why you should bear him any grudge, and you said yourself it comes as a surprise to you he was so hated. But thirdly and best, from what I know of you, lad, if you took such dire offence as to up and hit a man, it would not be from behind, but face to face.”
“Well, thank you for that!” said Benet, briefly recovering his blazing smile. “But, Cadfael, what do you think happened? It was you saw him last, alive, at least as far as is known. Was there any other soul about there? Did you see anyone else? Anyone, as it might be, following him?”
“Never a creature beyond the gatehouse here. There were folk from the Foregate just coming in for the service, but none going on towards the town. Any others who may have seen Ailnoth can only have seen him before ever I did, and with nothing to show where he was bound. Unless someone had speech with him. But by the way he went scurrying past me, I doubt if he halted for any other.”
Benet considered that in silence for a long moment, and then said, rather to himself than to Cadfael: “And from his house it’s so short a way. He’d come into the Foregate just opposite the gatehouse. Small chance of being seen or stopped in that distance.”
“Leave it to the King’s officers to scratch their heads over the how and why,” Cadfael advised. “They’ll find no lack of folk who’ll pretend no sorrow at seeing the last of Ailnoth, but I doubt if they’ll get much information out of anyone, man, woman or child. No blinking it, the man generated grudges wherever he stepped. He may well have made the most perfect of clerks, where he had to deal only with documents, charters and accounts, but he had no notion how to coax and counsel and comfort common human sinners. And what else is a parish priest for?”
The frost continued that night, harder than ever, freezing over the reedy shallows in the mill-pond, and fringing the townward shore with a white shelf of ice, but not yet sealing over the deeper water or the tremulous path of the tail-race, so that the little boys who went hopefully to examine the ice in the early morning returned disappointed. No point as yet in trying to break the iron ground for Father Ailnoth’s grave, even if Herbard would have permitted an early burial, but at least the clear cold made delay acceptable.
In the Foregate a kind of breathless hush brooded. People talked much but in low voices and only among trusted friends, and yet everywhere there was a feeling of suppressed and superstitious gladness, as if a great cloud had been lifted from the parish. Even those who did not confide in one another in words did so in silent glances. The relief was everywhere, and palpable.
But so was the fear. For someone, it seemed, had rid the Foregate of its blight, and all those who had wished it away felt a morsel of the guilt sticking to their fingers. They could not but speculate on the identity of their deliverer, even while they shut their mouths and their eyes, and put away all knowledge of their own suspicions, for fear of betraying them to the law.
All through the routine of the day Cadfael pursued his own thoughts, and they centred, inevitably, on Ailnoth’s death. No one would tell Alan Herbard about Eadwin’s headland or Aelgar’s grievance, or the unconsecrated grave of Centwin’s son, or any of the dozen or more other wounds that had made Ailnoth a hated man, but there would be no need. Will Warden would know them all already, and maybe other, lesser offences of which even the abbot had not been told. Every one of those thus aggrieved would be examined as to his movements on the eve of the Nativity, and Will would know where to look for confirmation. And much as the Foregate might sympathise with
