Cynric went as he had come, back to his work, and those who watched him in awe-stricken silence saw no change in his long-legged walk, or in the quiet, steady rhythm with which he plied his spade.
Radulfus looked at Hugh, and then to Jordan Achard, mute and wilting with relief from terror between his guards. For a brief instant the abbot’s austere face was shaken by the merest fleeting shadow of a smile. “My lord sheriff, I think your charge against this man is already answered. What other offences he may have on his conscience,” said the abbot, fixing the demoralised Jordan with a severe eye, “I recommend him to bring to confession. And to avoid henceforward! He may well reflect on the dangers into which such a manner of life has led him, and take this day as a warning.”
“For my part, I’m glad to know the truth and find that none of us here has the guilt of murder on his soul,” said Hugh. “Master Achard, take yourself home and be glad you have a loyal and dutiful wife. Lucky for you there was one here to speak for you, for there was a strong case against you had there been no such witness. Loose him!” he said to his sergeants. “Let him be about his business. By rights he owes a gift to the parish altar, by way of thanks for a good deliverance.”
Jordan all but sagged to the ground when the two officers took their hands from him, and Will Warden was moved in good humour to lend him a supporting hand again under one arm until he got his legs to stand solid under him. And now at last it was truly over, but that every soul there was so petrified with wonder that it took another benediction by way of dismissal to start them moving.
“Go now, good people,” said the abbot, somewhat brusquely accepting the need. “Make your prayers for the soul of Father Ailnoth, and bear in mind that our neighbour’s failings should but make us mindful rather of our own. Go, and trust to us who have the grant of this parish to bestow, to consider your needs above all in whatever we determine.” And he blessed them departing, with a vigour and brevity that actually set them in motion. Silent as yet, even as they melted like snow and began to move away, but soon they would be voluble enough. Town and Foregate would ring with the many and contradictory accounts of this morning’s events, to be transmuted at last into myth, a folk memory of momentous things witnessed, once, long ago.
“And you, brothers,” said Radulfus shortly, turning to his own flock, doves with fluttered feathers now and disrupted cooing, “go now to your daily duties, and make ready for dinner.”
They broke ranks almost fearfully, and drifted apart as the rest were doing, apparently aimlessly at first, then making slowly for the places where now they should be. Like sparks from a fire, or dust scattered on a wind, they disseminated, still half-dazed with revelation. The only one who went about his business with purpose and method was Cynric, busy with his spade under the wall.
Brother Jerome, deeply disturbed by proceedings which in no way fitted in with his conception of the rule and routine of the Benedictine order, went about rounding up some of his strayed chicks towards the lavatorium and the frater, and shooing some of the lingering parishioners out of the abbey’s confines. In so doing he drew near to the wide-open doors upon the Foregate, and became aware of a young man standing in the street outside, holding the bridle of a horse, and casting an occasional brief glance over those emerging, but from within a close-drawn capuchon, so that his face was not clearly visible. But there was something about him that held Jerome’s sharp eyes. Something not quite recognised, since the coat and capuchon were strange, and the face obstinately averted, and yet something reminiscent of a certain young fellow known for a while to the brethren, and later vanished in strange circumstances. If only the fellow would once turn his face fully!
Cadfael, lingering to watch Sanan and Diota depart, saw them instead draw back into the shadow of the chapel wall, and wait there until the greater part of the throng had moved towards the Foregate. The impulse came from Sanan, he saw her restraining hand laid upon the older woman’s arm, and wondered why she should delay. Had she seen someone among the crowd whom she was anxious not to encounter? In search of such a person, he scanned the retreating backs, and saw one at least whose presence there would certainly not be too welcome to her. And had she not, like Diota, drawn the hood of her cloak closely round her face, during the time that Cadfael himself had been absent, as if to avoid being noticed and recognised by someone?
Now the two women began to move after the rest, but with cautious slowness, and Sanan’s eyes were intent upon the back of the tall man who had almost reached the open doorway. Thus both Sanan and Cadfael at the same moment also saw Brother Jerome, hovering hesitant for a moment, and then making purposefully for the street. And following the converging courses of these two very dissimilar backs, the one erect and confident, the other meagre and stooped, inevitably lighted upon the horse waiting in the Foregate, and the young man holding his bridle.
Brother Jerome was still not quite sure, though he was bent on making sure, even if it meant leaving the precinct without due reason or permission. It would be counted due reason enough if he succeeded in raising a righteous alarm, and handing over a fugitive enemy of the King to the King’s justice. A guard outside the gates, the sheriff had said. He had but to halloo the soldiers on to their quarry, who stood within arm’s reach, believing himself safe. If, of course, if this really was the youngster once known as Benet?
But if Jerome was not yet certain, Sanan was, and Cadfael was. Who, in these parts, had known that figure and stance and carriage as well as they? And there was Jerome bearing down upon him with plainly malevolent intent, before their eyes, and they had no way of preventing the disaster.
Sanan dropped Diota’s arm and started forward. Cadfael, approaching from another angle, bellowed: “Brother!” peremptorily after Jerome, in a self-righteous and scandalised voice of which Jerome himself need not have been ashamed, in the hope of diverting his attention, but vainly. Jerome nose-down on the trail of a malefactor was almost as undeflectable as Father Ailnoth himself. It was left to someone else to turn the trick.
Ninian’s horseman, long-legged and striding briskly away from a field which left him unthreatened and well satisfied, arrived at the doorway only a pace or two ahead of Jerome, indeed he brushed past him into the Foregate. Not the ending he had expected, but on the whole he was glad of it. As long as he was neither suspect of disloyalty nor threatened with loss of lands of status, he bore no grudge now against the rash young man who had caused him so much anxiety. Let him get away unscathed, provided he never came back here to make trouble for others.
Ninian had glanced round to see his patron approaching, and saw at the same time, very belatedly, the ferret countenance of Brother Jerome, all too clearly making for him with no kindly intent. There was no time to evade, he had no choice but to stand his ground. Blessedly the horseman reached him barely ahead of the hunter, and blessedly he was well content with whatever he had witnessed within, for he clapped his horse-boy on the shoulder as the bridle was surrendered into his hand. Ninian made haste to stoop to the stirrup, and hold it for the rider to mount.
It was enough! Jerome stopped so abruptly in the gateway that Erwald, coming behind, collided with him, and put him aside good-naturedly with one large hand as he passed. And by that time the horseman had dropped a careless word of thanks into Ninian’s ear and a silver penny into his hand, and set off back along the Foregate at a leisurely trot, to vanish round the corner by the horse-fair ground, with his supposed groom loping behind him on foot.
A lucky escape, thought Ninian, dropping into a walk as soon as he was round the corner of the high wall and out of sight. And he span delightedly in his hand the silver penny a satisfied and lavish patron had tossed to him as he rode away. God bless the man, whoever he may be, he’s saved my life, or at least my hide! A man of
