“Yes, you, lad! Hold my horse while I’m within, and you shan’t be the loser. What’s afoot in there, do you know? Someone’s making a fine noise about it.”
In the exuberance of relief from his terror for Diota, Ninian rebounded into impudent glee, knuckled his forehead obsequiously, and reached willingly for the bridle, once again the penniless peasant groom Benet to the life. “I don’t rightly know, master,” he said, “but there’s some in there saying a man’s been taken up for killing the priest
” He smoothed a hand over the horse’s silken forehead and between the pricked ears, and the roan tossed his head, turned a soft, inquisitive muzzle to breathe warmth at him, and accepted the caress graciously. “A lovely beast my lord! I’ll mind him well.”
“So the murderer’s taken, is he? Rumour told truth for once.” The rider was down in a moment, and off through the quivering crowd like a sickle cutting grass, a brusque, hard shoulder forward and a masterful tongue ready to demand passage. Ninian was left with his cheek against a glossy shoulder, and a tangle of feelings boiling within him, laughter and gratitude, and the joyful anticipation of a journey now free from all regrets and reservations, but also a small, bitter jet of sadness that one man was dead untimely, and another now accused of his murder. It took him some little time to remember to pull the hood over his head again, and well forward to shadow his face, but luckily all attention was fixed avidly upon the hubbub within the cemetery garth, and no one was paying any heed to a hind holding his master’s horse in the street. The horse was excellent cover, but it did prevent him from advancing again into the wide-open doorway, and even by straining his ears he could make little sense out of the babel from within. The clamour of terrified protest went on for some time, that was plain enough, and the shrill commentary from the bystanders made a criss-cross of conflicting sounds around it. If there were saner voices speaking, Hugh Beringar’s or the abbot’s, they were drowned in the general chaos.
Ninian leaned his forehead against the warm hide that quivered gently under his touch, and offered devout thanks for so timely a deliverance.
In the heart of the tumult Abbot Radulfus raised a voice that seldom found it necessary to thunder, and thundered to instant effect.
“Silence! You bring shame on yourselves and desecrate this holy place. Silence, I say!”
And there was silence, sudden and profound, though it might as easily break out in fresh chaos if the rein was not tightened.
“So, and keep silence, all you who have nothing here to plead or deny. Let those speak and be heard who have. Now, my lord sheriff, you accuse this man Jordan Achard of murder. On what evidence?”
“On the evidence,” said Hugh, “of a witness who has said and will say again that he lies in saying he spent that night at home. Why, if he has nothing to hide, should he find it necessary to lie? On the evidence also of a witness who saw him creeping out from the mill path and making for his home at earliest light on Christmas morning. It is enough to hold him upon suspicion,” said Hugh crisply, and motioned to the two sergeants, who grasped the terrified Jordan almost tenderly by the arms. “That he had a grievance against Father Ailnoth is known to everyone.”
“My lord abbot,” babbled Jordan, quaking, “on my soul I swear I never touched the priest. I never saw him, I was not there
it’s false
they lie about me
“
“It seems there are those,” said Radulfus, “who will equally swear that you were there.”
“It was I who told that I’d seen him,” spoke up the reeve’s shepherd cousin, worried and shaken by the result he had achieved. “I could say no other, for I did see him, and it was barely light, and all I’ve told is truth. But I never intended mischief, and I never thought any harm but that he was at his games, for I knew what’s said of him
“
“And what is said of you, Jordan?” asked Hugh mildly.
Jordan swallowed and writhed, agonised between shame at owning where he had spent his night, and terror of holding out and risking worse. Sweating and wriggling, he blurted: “No evil, I’m a man well respected
If I was there, it was for no wrong purpose. I
I had business there early, charitable business there early?with the old Widow Warren who lives along there
“
“Or late, with her slut of a maidservant,” called a voice from the safe anonymity of the crowd, and a great ripple of laughter went round, hastily suppressed under the abbot’s flashing glare.
“Was that the truth of it? And by chance under Father Ailnoth’s eye?” demanded Hugh. “He would look very gravely upon such depravity, from all accounts. Did he catch you sneaking into the house, Jordan? I hear he was apt to reprove sin on the spot, and harshly. Is that how you came to kill him and leave him in the pool?”
“I never did!” howled Jordan. “I swear I never had ado with him. If I did fall into sin with the girl, that was all I did. I never went past the house. Ask her, she’ll tell you! I was there all night long
“
And all this time Cynric had gone on patiently and steadily filling in the grave, without haste, without apparently paying any great attention to all the tumult at his back. During this last exchange he had straightened up creakily, and stretched until his joints cracked. Now he turned to thrust his way into the centre of the circle, the iron-shod spade still dangling in his hand.
So strange an intrusion from so solitary and withdrawn a man silenced all voices and drew all eyes.
“Let him be, my lord,” said Cynric. “Jordan had nought to do with the man’s death.” He turned his greying head and long, sombre, deep-eyed face from Hugh to the abbot, and back again. “There’s none but I,” he said simply, “knows how Ailnoth came by his end.”
