Then there was utter silence, beyond what the abbot’s authority had been able to invoke, a silence deep enough to drown in, as Ailnoth had drowned. The verger stood tall and dignified in his rusty black, waiting to be questioned further, without fear or regret, seeing nothing strange in what he had said, and no reason why he should have said more or said it earlier, but willing to bear with those who demanded explanations.
“You know?” said the abbot, after long and astonished contemplation of the man before him. “And you have not spoken before?”
“I saw no need. There was no other soul put in peril, not till now. The thing was done, best leave well alone.”
“Are you saying,” demanded Radulfus doubtfully,”that you were there, that you witnessed it?
Was it you
?”
“No,” said Cynric with a slow shake of his long, griz zled head. “I did not touch him.” His voice was patient and gentle, as it would have been to questioning children. “I was there, I witnessed it. But I did not touch him.”
“Then tell us now,” said Hugh quietly. “Who killed him?”
“No one killed him,” said Cynric. “Those who do violence die by the same. It’s only just.”
“Tell us,” said Hugh again as softly. “Tell us how this befell. Let us all know, and be at peace again. You are saying his death was an accident?”
“No accident,” said Cynric, and his eyes burned in their deep sockets. “A judgement.”
He moistened his lips, and lifted his head to stare into the wall of the Lady Chapel, above their heads, as if he, who was illiterate, could read there the words he had to say, he who was a man of few words by nature.
“I went out that night to the pool. I have often walked there by night, when there has been no moon, and none awake to see. Between the willow trees there, beyond the mill, where she went into the water
Eluned, Nest’s girl
because Ailnoth refused her confession and the uses of the church, denounced her before all the parish and shut the door in her face. He could as well have stabbed her to the heart, it would have been kinder. All that brightness and beauty taken from us
I knew her well, she came so often for comfort while Father Adam lived, and he never failed her. And when she was not fretting over her sins she was like a bird, like a flower, a joy to see. There are not so many things of beauty in the world that a man should destroy one of them, and make no amends. And when she fell into remorse she was like a child
she was a child, it was a child he cast out
“
He fell silent for a moment, as though the words had become hard to read by reason of the blindness of grief, and furrowed his high forehead to decipher them the better, but no one ventured to speak.
“There I was standing, where Eluned went into the pool, when he came along the path. I did not know who it was, he did not come as far as where I stood?but someone, a man stamping and muttering, there by the mill. A man in a rage, or so it sounded. Then a woman came stumbling after him, I heard her cry out to him, she went on her knees to him, weeping, and he was trying to shake her off, and she would not let go of him. He struck her?I heard the blow. She made no more than a moan, but then I did go towards them, thinking there could be murder done, and therefore I saw dimly, but I had my night eyes, and I did see?how he swung his stick at her again, and she clung with both hands to the head of it to save herself, and how he tugged at it with all his strength and tore it out of her hands
The woman ran from him, I heard her stumbling away along the path, but I doubt she ever heard what I heard, or knows what I know. I heard him reel backwards and crash into the stump of the willow. I heard the withies lash and break. I heard the splash?it was not a great sound?as he went into the water.”
There was another silence, long and deep, while he thought, and laboured to remember with precision, since that was required of him. Brother Cadfael, coming up quietly behind the ranks of the awestruck brothers, had heard only the latter part of Cynric’s story, but he had the poor, draggled proof of it in his hand as he listened. Hugh’s trap had caught nothing, rather it had set everyone free. He looked across the mute circle to where Diota stood, with Sanan’s arm about her. Both women had drawn their hoods close round their faces. One of the hands torn by the sharp edges of the silver band held the folds of Diota’s cloak together.
“I went towards the place,” said Cynric, “and looked into the water. It was only then I knew him certainly for Ailnoth. He drifted at my feet, stunned or dazed
I knew his face. His eyes were open
And I turned my back and walked away from him, as he turned his back on her and walked away from her, shutting the door on her tears as he struck at this other woman’s tears
If God had willed him to live, he would have lived. Why else should it happen there, in that very place? And who am I, to usurp the privilege of God?”
All this he delivered in the same reasonable voice with which he would have rendered account of the number of candles bought for the parish altar, though the words came slowly and with effort and thought, studying to make all plain now that plainness was needed. But to Abbot Radulfus it had some distant echo of the voice of prophecy. Even if the man had wished to save, could he have saved? Might not the priest have been already past saving? And there in the dark, alone, with no time to summon help, since everyone was preparing for the night office, and with that undercut bank to contend with, and the dead weight of a big man to handle could any man, singly, have saved? Better to suppose that the thing had been impossible, and accept what to Cynric was the will of God!
“And now, with your leave, my lord abbot,” said Cynric, having waited courteously but vainly for some comment or question, “if you’ve no more need of me I’ll be getting on with filling in the grave, for I’ll need the most of the daylight to make a good job of it.”
“Do so,” said the abbot, and looked at him for a moment, eye to eye, with no shadow of blame, and saw no shadow of doubt. “Do so, and come to me for your fee when it is done.”
