Indeed, as I recall, she had already taken steps to get a good look at you, as you yourself told me. Maybe you’ll do for a lady’s page, after all. With a little polishing!”
Within the muffling folds of the cloak he heard Ninian laughing softly. “I never believed, that first day, that anything would really come of it. And now see?everything I owe to her. She would not be put off
You’ve seen her, you’ve talked to her, you know how splendid she is
Cadfael, I must tell you?she’s coming with me to Gloucester, she’s promised herself to me in marriage.” His voice was low and solemn now, as though he had already come to the altar. It was the first time Cadfael had known him in awe of anything or anyone.
“She is a very valiant lady,” said Cadfael slowly, “and knows her own mind very well, and I, for my part, wouldn’t say a word against her choice. But, lad, is it right to let her do this for you? Is she not abandoning property, family, everything? Have you considered that?”
“I have, and urged her to consider it, too. How much do you know, Cadfael, of her situation? She has no land to abandon. Her father’s manor was taken from him after the siege here, because he supported FitzAlan and the Empress. Her mother is dead. Her step-father?she has no complaint of him, he has always cared for her in duty bound, but not gladly. He has a son by his first marriage to inherit from him, he will be only too pleased to have an estate undivided, and to escape providing her a dowry. But from her mother she has a good provision in jewels, undeniably her own. She says she loses nothing by coming with me, and gains what she most wants in the world. I do love her!” said Ninian with abrupt and moving gravity. “I will make a fit place for her. I can! I will!”
Yes, thought Cadfael on reflection, on balance she may be getting none so bad a bargain. Giffard himself lost certain lands for his adherence to the Empress, no wonder he wants all he has left to go to his son. It may even be more for his son’s sake than his own that he has so ruthlessly severed himself now from any lingering devotion to his former overlord, and even sought to buy his own security with this boy’s freedom. Men do things far out of their nature when deformed by circumstances. And the girl knew a good lad when she saw one, she’ll be his fair match.
“Well, I wish you a fortunate journey through Wales, with all my heart,” he said. “You’ll need horses for the journey, is that already arranged?”
“We have them, she procured them. They’re stabled where I’m in hiding,” said Ninian, candid and thoughtless, “out by?”
Cadfael clapped a hand hastily over the boy’s mouth, fumbling in the dark but effectively silencing him out of sheer surprise. “No, hush, tell me nothing! Better I know nothing of where you are, or where you got your horses. What I don’t know I can’t even be expected to tell.”
“But I can’t go,” said Ninian firmly, “while there’s a shadow hanging over me. I won’t be remembered, here or anywhere, as a fugitive murderer. Still less can I go while there’s such a shadow hanging over Diota. I owe her more already than I know how to repay, I must see her secure and protected before I go.”
“The more credit to you, and we must try by any means we have for a resolution. As it seems we’ve both been doing tonight, though with very sorry success. But now, had you not best be getting back to your hiding place? How if Sanan should send to you, and you not there?”
“And you?” retorted Ninian. “How if Prior Robert should make a round of the dortoir, and you not there?”
They rose together, and unwound the cloak from about them, drawing in breath sharply at the invading cold.
“You haven’t told me,” said Ninian, opening the heavy door on the comparative light outside, “just what thought brought you here tonight?though I’m glad it did. I was not happy at leaving you without a word. But you can hardly have been hunting for me! What were you hoping to find?”
“I wish I knew. This morning I found a gaggle of goslings playing in the snow with a black skullcap that surely belonged to Ailnoth, for the boys had found it here in the shallows of the pool, among the reeds. And I had seen him wearing it that evening, and clean forgotten so small a thing. And it’s been nagging at me all day long since then that there was something else I had noted about him, and likewise never missed and never looked for afterwards. I don’t know that I came here with any great expectation of finding anything. Perhaps I simply hoped that being here might bring the thing back to mind. Did ever you get up to do something, and then clean forget what it was?” wondered Cadfael. “And have to go back to where you first thought of it, to bring it back to mind? No, surely not, you’re too young, for you to think of doing a thing is to do it. But ask the elders like me, they’ll all admit to it.”
“And it still hasn’t come back to you?” asked Ninian, delicately sympathetic towards the old and forgetful.
“It has not. Not even here. Have you fared any better?”
“It was a thin hope to find what I came for,” said Ninian ruefully,”though I did risk coming before the light was quite gone. But at least I know what I came looking for. I was there with Diota when you brought him back on Christmas Day, and I never thought what was missing until later. After all, it’s a thing that could well go astray, not like the clothes he was wearing. But I knew he had it with him when he came stamping along the path and stabbing at the ground. Coming all this way through England in his company, I got to know it very well. That great staff he was always so lungeous with?ebony, tall as his elbow, with a stag’s-horn handle?that’s what I came to look for. And somewhere here it must still be.”
They had emerged on to the low shore, dappled now with moist dark patches of grass breaking through the tattered snow. The dull, pale level of the water stretched away to the dark slope of the further bank. Cadfael had stopped abruptly, staring over the shield of pallor in startled enlightenment.
“So it must!” he said devoutly. “So it must! Child, that’s the will-o’-the-wisp I’ve been chasing all this day. You get back to your refuge and keep snug within, and leave this search to me now. You’ve read my riddle for me.”
By morning half the snow had melted and vanished, and the Foregate was like a coil of tattered and threadbare lace. The cobbles of the great court shone moist and dark, and in the graveyard east of the church Cynric had broken the turf for Father Ailnoth’s grave.
Cadfael came from the last chapter of the year with a strong feeling that more things than the year were ending. No word had yet been said of who was to succeed to the living of Holy Cross, no word would be said until Ailnoth was safely under the ground, with every proper rite and as much mourning as brotherhood and parish could muster between them. The next day, the birth of another year, would see the burial of a brief tyranny that would soon be gratefully forgotten. God send us, thought Cadfael, a humble soul who thinks himself as fallible as his flock, and labours modestly to keep both from falling. If two hold fast together they stand steadily, but if one holds aloof the other may find his feet betraying him in slippery places. Better a limping prop than a solid rock for ever out of reach of the stretched hand.
