“Of course she did, she was rightly afraid for him. Yes, she told truth. Yes, he was out all that night, it was nothing new. But not murdering anyone! No, on that she was insistent, he would not hurt a fly. He’s done his worst by a poor wretch of a wife, however! All he’d been about, she said, was bedding his latest fancy girl, and that was the bold little bitch who’s maidservant to the old woman who lives next to the miller, by the pool.”
“Ah, now that’s a far more likely thing,” said Cadfael, enlightened. “That rings true! We talked to her,” he recalled, fascinated, “next morning, when we were looking for Ailnoth.” A pretty slut of about eighteen, with a mane of dark hair and bold, inquisitive eyes, saying: “Not a soul that I know of came along here in the night, why should they?” No, she had not been lying. She had never thought of her covert lover as counting among the furtive visitors to the mill in the darkness. His errand was known, and if not innocent, entirely natural and harmless. She spoke according to her understanding.
“And she never said word of Jordan! No, why should she? She knew what he’d been up to, it was not about him you were asking. Oh, no, I’ve nothing against the girl. But I would stake much that she knows nothing of time, and has no notion exactly when he came or when he left, except by the beginning of light. He could have killed a man before ever he whispered at the deaf woman’s door, for ears that were forewarned and sharp enough.”
“I doubt if he did,” said Cadfael.
“So do I. But see how beautiful a case I can make against him! His wife has admitted that he went there. The shepherd saw him leaving. We know that Father Ailnoth went along that same path. After Mistress Hammet had fled from him, still he waited for his prey. And how if he saw a parishioner of his, already in dispute with him, and whose reputation he may well have heard before then, whispering his way furtively into a strange house, and being let in by a young woman? How then? His nose was expert at detecting sinners, he might well be distracted from his first purpose to flush out an evil-doer on the spot. The old woman is stone deaf. The girl, if she witnessed such a collision, and saw its end, would hold her tongue and tell a good story. In such a case, Cadfael, old friend, the priest might well have started too hot a hare, and got the worst of it, ending in the pool.”
“The blow to Ailnoth’s head,” said Cadfael, jolted, “was deep to the back. Men in conflict go face to face.”
“True, but one may easily be spun aside and involuntarily turn his back for an instant. But you know how the wound lay, and I know. But do the commons know?”
“And you will really do this?” marvelled Cadfael.
“Most publicly, my friend, I will do it. Tomorrow morning, at Ailnoth’s funeral?even those who most hated him will be there to make sure he’s safely underground, what better occasion could there be? If it bears fruit, then we have our answer, and the town can be at peace, once the turmoil’s over. If not, Jordan will be none the worse for a short-lived fright, and a few nights, perhaps,” pondered Hugh, gleaming mischief, “on a harder bed than usual with him, and lying alone. He may even learn that his own bed is the safest from this on.”
“And how if no man speaks up to deliver him,” said Cadfael with mild malice, “and the thing happened just as you have pictured it to me a minute ago, and Jordan really is your man? What then? If he keep his head and deny all, and the girl bears witness for him, you’ll have trailed your bait in vain.”
“Ah, you know the man better than that,” said Hugh, undisturbed. “Big-boned and hearty, but no great stiffening in his back. If he did it, deny it as loudly as he may when he’s first accused, a couple of nights on stone and he’ll be blabbing out everything, how he did no more than defend himself, how it was mere accident, and he could not haul the priest out of the water, and took fright, and dared not speak, knowing that the bad blood between them was common knowledge. A couple of nights in a cell won’t hurt him. And if he holds out stoutly any longer than that,” said Hugh, rising, “then he deserves to get away with it. The parish will think so.”
“You are a devious creature,” said Cadfael, in a tone uncertain between reproach and admiration. “I wonder why I bear with you?”
Hugh turned in the doorway to give him a flashing glance over his shoulder. “Like calling to like, I daresay!” he suggested, and went striding away along the gravel path, to disappear into the gathering dusk.
At Vespers the psalms had a penitential solemnity, and at Collations in the chapter house after supper the readings were also of a funereal colouring. The shadow of Father Ailnoth hung over the death of the year, and it seemed that the year of Our Lord 1142 would be born, not at midnight, but only after the burial service was over, and the grave filled in. The morrow might, according to the Church’s calendar, be the octave of the Nativity and the celebration of the Circumcision of Our Lord, but to the people of the Foregate it was rather the propitiatory office that would lift their incubus from them. A wretched departure for any man, let alone a priest.
“On the morrow,” said prior Robert, before dismissing them to the warming room for the blessed last half-hour of ease before Compline, “the funeral office for Father Ailnoth will follow immediately after the parish Mass, and I myself shall preside. But the homily will be delivered by Father Abbot, at his desire.” The prior’s incisive and well- modulated voice made this statement with a somewhat ambiguous emphasis, as if in doubt whether to welcome the abbot’s decision as a devout compliment to the dead, or to regret and perhaps even resent it as depriving him of an opportunity to exercise his own undoubted eloquence. “Matins and Lauds will be said according to the Office of the Dead.”
That meant that they would be long, and prudent brothers would be wise to make straight for their beds after Compline. Cadfael had already turfed down his brazier to burn slowly through the night, and keep lotions and medicines from freezing and bottles from bursting, should a hard frost set in again in the small hours. But the air was certainly not cold enough yet for frost, and he thought by the slight wind and lightly overcast sky that they would get through the night safely. He went thankfully to the warming room with his brothers, and settled down to half an hour of pleasant idleness.
This was the hour when even the taciturn relaxed into speech, and not even the prior frowned upon a degree of loquacity. And inevitably the subject of their exchanges tonight was the brief rule of Father Ailnoth, his grim death, and the coming ceremonial of his burial.
“So Father Abbot means to pronounce the eulogy himself, does he?” said Brother Anselm in Cadfael’s ear. “That will make interesting listening.” Anselm’s business was the music of the Divine Office, and he had not quite the same regard for the spoken word, but he appreciated its power and influence. “I had thought he’d be only too glad to leave it to Robert. Nil nisi bonum.
Or do you suppose he looks upon it as a fitting penance for bringing the man here in the first place?”
“There may be something in that,” admitted Cadfael. “But more, I think, in a resolve that only truth shall be told. Robert would be carried away into paeans of praise. Radulfus intends clarity and honesty.”
“No easy task,” said Anselm. “Well for me no one expects words from me. There’s been no hint yet of who’s to follow in the parish. They’ll be praying for a man they know, whether he has any Latin or not. Even a man they did not much like would be welcomed, if he belongs here, and knows them. You can deal with the devil you know.”
