“You could have kept it against future need, with all my goodwill,” said Cadfael, accepting the offering.
“Well, should I ever have need again, I hope I shall still be here, and able to send to you,” said Diota.
She made him a small, dignified reverence, and turned back towards the church. Over her shoulder Cadfael caught Sanan’s confiding blue gaze, harebell-soft and sky-bright, almost as intimate as a signal between conspirators. Then she, too, turned, taking the older woman’s arm, and the two of them walked away from him, across the court to the gate, and in at the west door of the church.
Ninian awoke when it was full daylight, thick-headed and slow to collect his wits from having lain half the night wakeful, and then fallen into too profound a slumber. He rose, and swung himself down from the loft without using the ladder, and went out into the fresh, chill, moist morning to shake off the lingering cobwebs. The stalls below were empty. Sanan’s man Sweyn had been here already from his own cottage nearer the town, and turned out the two horses into the fenced paddock. They needed a little space for exercise, after the harder frosts when they had been kept indoors, and they were making good use of their freedom, glad of the air and the light. Young and high- spirited and short of work, they would not easily let themselves be caught and bridled, but it was unlikely they would be needed this day.
The cattle byre was still peopled, they would not be let out to the grazing along the riverside until Sweyn was near to keep an eye on them. The byre and stable stood in a large clearing between slopes of woodland, with an open side only to the river, pleasantly private, and under the western stand of trees a little stream ran down to the Severn. Ninian made for it sleepily, stripped off coat and shirt, shivering a little, and plunged head and arms into the water, flinching and drawing in hissing breath at the instant coldness, but taking pleasure in feeling his wits start into warm wakefulness. Shaking off drops from his face and wringing his hands through his thick thatch of curls, he ran a couple of circuits of the open grass at full gallop, caught up his discarded clothes and ran back with them into the shelter of the stable, to scrub himself vigorously with a clean sack until he glowed, and dress himself to face the day. Which might be long and lonely and full of anxieties, but at this moment felt bracing and hopeful.
He had combed his hair into such order as his fingers could command, and was sitting on a bale of straw eating a hunk of bread and an apple from the store Sanan had provided, when he heard the herdsman come along the rough path towards the door. Or was this some other man, and not Sweyn at all? Ninian stiffened to listen, with his cheek bulging with apple, and his jaws motionless. No whistling, and Sweyn always whistled, and these feet came in unusual haste, clearly audible in the rough grass and small stones. Ninian was up in still greater haste, and swung himself up into the loft and hung silent over the hatch, ready for whoever should come.
“Young master
” called a voice in the open doorway, without any suggestion of caution. Sweyn, after all, but a Sweyn who had been hurrying, was a little out of breath, and had no thought to spare for whistling this morning. “Lad, where are you? Come down!”
Ninian let out his breath in a great gust, and slid back through the hatch to hang at arm’s length and drop beside the herdsman. “God’s love, Sweyn, you had me reaching for a knife then! I never thought it was you. I thought I had you by heart, by this time, but you came like a stranger. What is it?” He flung an arm about his friend and ally boisterously in his relief, and as quickly held him off to look him up and down from head to foot. “Lord, lord, in your best, too! In whose honour?”
Sweyn was a thickset, grizzled man of middle age, with a ragged brown beard and a twinkling glance. Whatever warm clothing he put on against the winter he must have put on underneath, for he had but the one stout pair of cloth hose, and Ninian had never yet seen him in any coat but the much-mended drab brown, but evidently he possessed another, for this morning he had on a green coat, unpatched, and a dark brown capuchon protecting head and shoulders.
“I’ve been into Shrewsbury,” he said shortly, “fetching a pair of shoes my wife left to be clouted at Provost Corviser’s. I was here at first light and let out the horses, they’ve been penned long enough, and then I went back to fettle myself for the town, and I’ve had no time to put on my working gear again. There’s word going round the town, master, that the sheriff means to attend the Foregate priest’s funeral, and fetch a murderer away with him. I thought I’d best bring you word as fast as I could. For it may be true.”
Ninian stood gaping at him aghast for a moment in stricken silence. “No! He’s going to take her? Is that the word? Oh, God, not Diota! And she there to be seized, ?all unsuspecting. And I not there!” He clutched earnestly at Sweyn’s arm. “Is this certain?”
“It’s the common talk about the town. Folks are all agog, there’ll be a stream of them making haste over the bridge to see it done. They don’t say who?leastways, they guess at it, two or three ways, but they all agree it’s coming, be the poor wretch who he may.”
Ninian flung away the apple he had still been holding, and beat his fists together in frantic thought. “I must go! The parish Mass won’t be until ten, there’s still time
“
“You can’t go. The young mistress said?”
“I know what she said, but this is my business now. I must and will get Diota out of it. Who else can it be the sheriff means to accuse? But he shan’t have her! I won’t suffer it!”
“You’ll be known! It may not be your woman he has in mind, how then? He may have the rights of it, and know well what he’s doing. And you’ll have thrown yourself away for nothing,” urged the herdsman reasonably.
“No, I needn’t be known. One in a crowd?and only the people of the abbey and a few in the Foregate know me well by sight. In any case,” said Ninian grimly, “let anyone lay a hand on her and I will be known, and with a vengeance, too. But I can be lost among a crowd, why not? Lend me that coat and capuchon, Sweyn, who’s to know me under a hood? And they’ve never seen me but in this gear, yours is far too fine for the Benet they’ve seen about the place
“
“Take the horse,” said Sweyn, stripping off his capuchon without protest, and hoisting the loose cotte over his head.
Ninian did cast one glance out into the field where the two horses kicked up their heels, happy to be at large. “No, no time! I can do it as fast afoot. And I’d be more noticeable, mounted. How many horsemen will there be about Ailnoth’s funeral?” He thrust his way into the over-ample garment already warmed for him, and emerged ruffled and flushed. “I daren’t show a sword. But the dagger I can hide about me.” He was up into the loft to fetch it, and fasten it safely out of sight under his coat, secure in the belt of his hose.
At the doorway, poised to run, he was stricken with another qualm, and turned to clutch again at the
