The sergeant hitched at his belt and laughed aloud. "I say you make as good a devil's advocate as ever I've heard. But lads in a panic after a desperate deed don't stop to think. And if it was not the vial he heaved into the Severn, you tell me, brother, what was it?" And he strode out into the chill of the early evening air, and left Cadfael to brood on the same question.

Brother Mark, who had made himself inconspicuous in a corner all this time, but with eyes and ears wide and sharp for every word and look, kept a respectful silence until Cadfael stirred at length, and moodily thumped his knees with clenched fists. Then he said, carefully avoiding questions: "There's still an hour or so of daylight left before Vespers. If you think it's worth having a look below the bridge there?"

Brother Cadfael had almost forgotten the young man was present, and turned a surprised and appreciative eye on him.

"So there is! And your eyes are younger than mine. The two of us might at least cover the available ground. Yes, come, for better or worse we'll venture."

Brother Mark followed eagerly across the court, out at the gatehouse, and along the highroad towards the bridge and the town. A flat, leaden gleam lay over the mill-pond on their left, and the house beyond it showed only a closed and shuttered face. Brother Mark stared at it curiously as they pa.s.sed. He had never seen Mistress Bonel, and knew nothing of the old ties that linked her with Cadfael, but he knew when his mentor and friend was particularly exercised on someone else's behalf, and his own loyalty and partisan fervour, after his church, belonged all to Cadfael. He was busy thinking out everything he had heard in the workshop, and making practical sense of it. As they turned aside to the right, down the sheltered path that led to the riverside and the main gardens of the abbey, ranged along the rich Severn meadows, he said thoughtfully: "I take it, brother, that what we are looking for must be small, and able to take the light, but had better not be a bottle?"

"You may take it," said Cadfael, sighing, "that whether it is or not, we must try our best to find it. But I would very much rather find something else, something as innocent as the day."

Just beneath the abutments of the bridge, where it was not worth while clearing the ground for cultivation, bushes grew thickly, and coa.r.s.e gra.s.s sloped down gradually to the lip of the water. They combed the tufted turf along the edge, where a filming of ice prolonged the ground by a few inches, until the light failed them and it was time to hurry back for Vespers; but they found nothing small, relatively heavy, and capable of reflecting a flash of light as it was thrown, nothing that could have been the mysterious something tossed away by Edwin in his flight.

Cadfael slipped away after supper, absenting himself from the readings in the chapter-house, helped himself to the end of a loaf and a hunk of cheese, and a flask of small ale for his fugitive, and made his way discreetly to the loft over the abbey barn in the horse-fair. The night was clear overhead but dark, for there was no moon as yet. By morning the ground would be silvered over, and the sh.o.r.e of Severn extended by a new fringe of ice.

His signal knock at the door at the head of the stairs produced only a profound silence, which he approved. He opened the door and went in, closing it silently behind him. In the darkness within nothing existed visibly, but the warm, fresh scent of the clean hay stirred in a faint wave, and an equally quiet rustling showed him where the boy had emerged from his nest to meet him. He moved a step towards the sound. "Be easy, it's Cadfael."

"I knew," said Edwin's voice very softly. "I knew you'd come."

"Was it a long day?"

"I slept most of it."

"That's my stout heart! Where are you...? Ah!" They moved together, uniting two faint warmths that made a better warmth between them; Cadfael touched a sleeve, found a welcoming hand. "Now let's sit down and be blunt and brief, for time's short. But we may as well be comfortable with what we have. And here's food and drink for you." Young hands, invisible, clasped his offerings gladly. They felt their way to a snug place in the hay, side by side.

"Is there any better news for me?" asked Edwin anxiously.

"Not yet. What I have for you, young man, is a question. Why did you leave out half the tale?"

Edwin sat up sharply beside him, in the act of biting heartily into a crust of bread. "But I didn't! I told you the truth. Why should I keep anything from you, when I came asking for your help?"

"Why, indeed! Yet the sheriff's men have had speech with a certain carter who was crossing the bridge from Shrewsbury when you went haring away from your mother's house, and he testifies that he saw you heave something over the parapet into the river. Is that true?"

Without hesitation the boy said: "Yes!" his voice a curious blend of bewilderment, embarra.s.sment and anxiety. Cadfael had the impression that he was even blushing in the darkness, and yet obviously with no sense of guilt at having left the incident unmentioned, rather as though a purely private folly of his own had been accidentally uncovered.

"Why did you not tell me that yesterday? I might have had a better chance of helping you if I'd known."

"I don't see why." He was a little sullen and on his dignity now, but wavering and wondering. "It didn't seem to have anything to do with what happened... and I wanted to forget it. But I'll tell you now, if it does matter. It isn't anything bad."

"It matters very much, though you couldn't have known that when you threw it away." Better tell him the reason now, and show that by this examiner, at least, he was not doubted. "For what you sent over the parapet, my lad, is being interpreted by the sheriff's man as the bottle that held the poison, newly emptied by you before you ran out of the house, and disposed of in the river. So now, I think, you had better tell me what it really was, and I'll try to convince the law they are on the wrong scent, over that and everything else."

The boy sat very still, not stunned by this blow, which was only one more in a beating which had already done its worst and left him still resilient. He was very quick in mind, he saw the implications, for himself and for Brother Cadfael. Slowly he said: "And you don't need first to be convinced?"

"No. For a moment I may have been shaken, but not longer. Now tell me!"

"I didn't know! How could I know what was going to happen?" He drew breath deeply, and some of the tension left the arm and shoulder that leaned confidingly into Cadfael's side, "No one else knew about it, I hadn't said a word to Meurig, and I never got so far as to show it even to my mother-I never had the chance. You know I'm learning to work in wood, and in fine metals, too, a little, and I had to show that I meant to be good at what I did. I made a present for my stepfather. Not because I liked him," he made haste to add, with haughty honesty, "I didn't! But my mother was unhappy about our quarrel, and it had made him hard and ill-tempered even to her-he never used to be, he was fond of her, I know. So I made a present as a peace offering... and to show I should make a craftsman, too, and be able to earn my living without him. He had a relic he valued greatly, he bought it in Walsingham when he was on pilgrimage, a long time ago. It's supposed to be a piece of Our Lady's mantle, from the hem, but I don't believe it's true. But he believed it. It's a slip of blue cloth as long as my little finger, with a gold thread in the edge, and it's wrapped in a bit of gold. He paid a lot of money for it, I know. So I thought I would make him a little reliquary just the right size for it, a little box with a hinge. I made it from pearwood, and jointed and polished it well, and inlaid the lid with a little picture of Our Lady in nacre and silver, and blue stone for the mantle. I think it was not bad." The light- ache in his voice touched Brother Cadfael's relieved heart; he had loved his work and destroyed it, he was ent.i.tled to grieve.

"And you took it with you to give to him yesterday?" he asked gently.

"Yes." He bit that off short. Cadfael remembered how he had been received, according to Richildis, when he made his difficult, courageous appearance at their table, his gift secreted somewhere upon him.

"And you had it in your hand when he drove you out of the house with his malice. I see how it could happen."

The boy burst out bitterly, shivering with resentment still: "He said I'd come to crawl to him for my manor... he taunted me, and if I kneeled to him... How could I offer him a gift, after that? He would have taken it as proof positive... I couldn't bear that! It was meant to be a gift, without any asking."

"I should have done what you did, boy, kept it clutched in my hand, and run from there without a word more."

"But not thrown it in the river, perhaps," sighed Edwin ruefully. "Why? I don't know... Only it had been meant for him, and I had it in my hand, and Aelfric was running after me and calling, and I couldn't go back... It wasn't his, and it wasn't any more mine, and I threw it over to be rid of it..."

So that was why neither Richildis nor anyone else had mentioned Edwin's peace offering. Peace or war, for that matter? It had been meant to a.s.sert both his forgiveness and his independence, neither very pleasing to an elderly autocrat. But well-meant, for all that, an achievement, considering the lad was not yet fifteen years old. But no one had known of it. No one but the maker had ever had the chance to admire-as Richildis would have done most dotingly!-the nice dove-tailing of the joints of his little box, or the fine setting of the slips of silver and pearl and lapis which had flashed just once in the light as they hurtled into the river.

"Tell me, this was a well-fitted lid, and closed when you threw it over?"

"Yes." He was very fairly visible now, and all startled eyes. He did not understand the question, but he was sure of his work. "Is that important, too, I wish now I hadn't done it, I see I've made everything worse. But how was I to know? There wasn't any hue and cry for me then, there wasn't any murder, I knew I hadn't done anything wrong."

"A small wooden box, tightly closed, will float gallantly where the river carries it, and there are men who live by the river traffic and fishing, yes, and poaching, too, and they'll know every bend and beach from here to Atcham where things fetch up on the current. Keep your heart up, lad, you may yet see your work again if I can get the sheriff to listen to me, and put out the word to the watermen to keep a watch. If I give them a description of what was thrown away-oh, be easy, I'll not reveal how I got it!-and somewhere downstream that very thing is discovered, that's a strong point in your favour, and I may even be able to get them to look elsewhere for the bottle, somewhere where Edwin Gurney was not, and therefore could not have left it. You bide yet a day or two here in quiet, if you can bear it, and if need be, I'll get you away to some more distant place, where you can wait the time out in better comfort."

"I can bear it," said Edwin st.u.r.dily. And added ruefully: "But I wish it may not be long!"

The brothers were filing out at the end of Compline when it dawned upon Cadfael that there was one important question which he and everyone else had neglected to ask, and the only person he could think of who might conceivably be able to answer it was Richildis. There was still time to ask it before night, if he gave up his final half-hour in the warming-room. Not, perhaps, a tactful time to visit, but everything connected with this business was urgent, and Richildis could at least sleep a little more easily for the knowledge that Edwin was, thus far at least, safe and provided for. Cadfael drew up his cowl, and made purposefully for the gates.

It was bad luck that Brother Jerome should be coming across the court towards the porter's lodge at the same time, probably with some officious orders for the morrow, or some sanctimonious complaint of irregularities today. Brother Jerome already felt himself to be in the exalted position of clerk to the abbot-elect, and was exerting himself to represent adequately his master Robert, now that that worthy man had availed himself of the abbot's privilege and privacy. Authority delegated to Brother Richard, and sedulously avoided by him wherever possible, would be greedily taken up by Brother Jerome. Some of the novices and boy pupils had already had cause to lament his zeal.

"You have an errand of mercy at so late an hour, brother?" Jerome smiled odiously. "Can it not wait until morning?"

"At the risk of further harm," snapped Cadfael, "it might." And he made no further halt, but proceeded on his way, well aware of the narrowed eyes following his departure. He had, within reason, authority to come and go as he thought fit, even to absent himself from services if his aid was required elsewhere, and he was certainly not going to explain himself, either truthfully or mendaciously, to Brother Jerome, however others less bold might conform for the sake of staying out of Robert's displeasure. It was unfortunate, but he had nothing ill to conceal, and to turn back would have suggested the contrary.

There was still a small light burning in the kitchen of the house beyond the mill-pond, he could see it through a tiny c.h.i.n.k in the shutter as he approached. Yes, now, there was something he had failed to take into account: the kitchen window overlooked the pond, and close, at that, closer than from the road, and yesterday it had been open because of the brazier standing under it, an outlet for the smoke. An outlet, too, for a small vial hurled out there as soon as emptied, to be lost for ever in the mud at the bottom of the pond? What could be more convenient? No odour on clothing, no stains, no dread of being discovered with the proof.

Tomorrow, thought Cadfael, elated, I'll search from that window down to the water. Who knows but this time the thing thrown may really have fallen short, and be lying somewhere in the gra.s.s by the water's edge for me to find? That would be something gained! Even if it cannot prove who threw it there, it may still tell me something.

He knocked softly at the door, expecting Aldith to answer, or Aelfric, but it was the voice of Richildis herself that called out quietly from within: "Who's there?"

"Cadfael! Open to me for a few minutes."

His name had been enough, she opened eagerly, and reached a hand to draw him into the kitchen. "Hush, softly! Aldith is asleep in my bed, and Aelfric within, in the room. I could not sleep yet, I was sitting late, thinking about my boy. Oh, Cadfael, can you give me no comfort? You will stand his friend if you can?"

"He is well, and still free," said Cadfael, sitting down beside her on the bench against the wall. "But mark me, you know nothing, should any ask. You may truly say he has not been here, and you don't know where he is. Better so!"

"But you do know!" The tiny, steady light of the rush-candle showed him her face smoothed of its ageing lines and softly bright, very comely. He did not answer; she might read that for herself, and could still say truly that she knew nothing.

"And that's all you can give me?" she breathed.

"No, I can give you my solemn word that he never harmed his stepfather. That I know. And truth must come out. That you must believe."

"Oh, I will, I do, if you'll help to uncover it. Oh, Cadfael, if you were not here I should despair. And such constant vexations, pin-p.r.i.c.ks, when I can think of nothing but Edwin. And Gervase not in his grave until tomorrow! Now that he's gone, I no longer have a claim to livery for his horse, and with so many travellers coming now before the feast, they want his stable-room, and I must move him elsewhere, or else sell him... But Edwin will want him, if..." She shook her head distractedly, and would not complete that doubt. "They told me they'll find him a stall and feed somewhere until I can arrange for him to be stabled elsewhere. Perhaps Martin could house him..."

They might, Cadfael thought indignantly, have spared her such small annoyances, at least for a few days. She had moved a little closer to him, her shoulder against his. Their whispering voices in the dimly lit room, and the lingering warmth from a brazier now mostly ash, took him back many years, to a stolen meeting in her father's outhouse. Better not linger, to be drawn deeper still!

"Richildis, there's something I came to ask you. Did your husband ever actually draw up and seal the deed that made Edwin his heir?"

"Yes, he did." She was surprised by the question, "It was quite legal and binding, but naturally this agreement with the abbey has a later date, and makes the will void now. Or it did..." She was brought back sharply to the realisation that the second agreement, too, had been superseded, more roughly even than the first. "Of course, that's of no validity now. So the grant to Edwin stands. It must, our man of law drew it properly, and I have it in writing."

"So all that stands between Edwin and his manor, now, is the threat of arrest for murder, which we know he did not do. But tell me this, Richildis, if you know it: supposing the worst happened-which it must not and will not-and he was convicted of killing your husband-then what becomes of Mallilie? The abbey cannot claim it, Edwin could not then inherit it. Who becomes the heir?"

She managed to gaze resolutely beyond the possibility of the worst, and considered what sense law would make of what was left.

"I suppose I should get my dower, as the widow. But the manor could only revert to the overlord, and that's the earl of Chester, for there's no other legitimate heir. He could bestow it where he pleased, to his best advantage. It might go to any man he favoured in these parts. Sheriff Prestcote, as like as not, or one of his officers."

It was true, and it robbed all others here, except Edwin, of any prospect of gaining by Bonel's death; or at least, of any material gain. An enemy sufficiently consumed by hate might find the death in itself gain enough, yet that seemed an excessive reaction to a man no way extreme, however difficult Edwin had found him.

"You're sure? There's no nephew, or cousin of his somewhere about the shire?"

"No, no one, or he would never have promised me Mallilie for Edwin. He set great store by his own blood."

What had been going through Cadfael's mind was the possibility that someone with his own fortune in view might have planned to remove at one stroke both Bonel and Edwin, by ensuring the boy's arrest for the man's murder. But evidently that was far from the mark. No one could have calculated with any certainty on securing for himself what the house of Bonel forfeited.

By way of comfort and encouragement, Cadfael laid his broad, gnarled hand on her slender one, and marked in the slanting tight, with roused tenderness, its enlarged knuckles and tracery of violet veins, more touching than any girlish smoothness could ever have been. Her face was beautiful, too, even in its ageing, lined, now that he saw it almost at peace, with good-humour and the long experience of happiness, which this brief ordeal of exasperation, disruption and pain could do little now to deflower. It was his youth he was lamenting, not any waste of Richildis. She had married the right man and been blessed, and a late mistake with the wrong man was over without irreparable damage, provided her darling could be extricated from his present danger. That, and only that, Cadfael thought gratefully, is my task.

The warm hand under his turned and closed, holding him fast. The still beguiling face turned to gaze at him closely and earnestly, with limpid, sympathetic eyes and a mouth with delicate, self-congratulatory guilt. "Oh, Cadfael, did you take it so hard? Did it have to be the cloister? I wondered about you so often, and so long, but I never knew I had done you such an injury. And you have forgiven me that broken promise?"

"The whole fault was mine," said Cadfael, with somewhat over-hearty fervour. "I've wished you well always, as I do now." And he made to rise from the bench, but she kept her hold on his hand and rose with him. A sweet woman, but dangerous, like all her innocent kind.

"Do you remember," she was saying, in the hushed whisper the hour demanded, but with something even more secret in its intimacy, "the night we pledged our troth? That was December, too. I've been thinking of it ever since I knew you were here-a Benedictine monk! Who would ever have dreamed it would end so! But you stayed away so long!"

It was certainly time to go. Cadfael retrieved his hand gently, made her a soothing good night, and discreetly withdrew, before worse could befall him. Let her by all means attribute his vocation to the loss of her own delightful person, for the conviction would stand by her well until her world was restored in safety. But as for him, he had no regrets whatever. The cowl both fitted and became him.

He let himself out and returned enlarged through the chill and sparkle of the frosty night, to the place he had chosen, and still and for ever now preferred.

Behind him, as he neared the gatehouse, a meagre shadow detached itself from the shelter of the eaves of Richildiss house, and slid contentedly along the road after him, keeping well to the side in case he looked back. But Brother Cadfael did not look back. He had just had a lesson in the perils of that equivocal exercise; and in any case, it was not his way.

Chapter Six.

CHAPTER NEXT MORNING PROMISED TO BE AS DULL as usual, once Brother Andrew's readings were done, and the business of the house reached; but Cadfael, dozing gently behind his pillar, remained alert enough to p.r.i.c.k his ears, when Brother Matthew the cellarer announced that the guest-hall was full to capacity, and more stabling s.p.a.ce was needed for still more expected gentlefolk, so that it would be necessary to transfer some of the horses and mules belonging to the abbey to some other housing, to accommodate the travellers' beasts within the walls. Late merchants, taking advantage of the clement autumn after the summer of siege and disorder, were now on the roads making for home for the feast, and n.o.bles with manors in the county were seeking their own retired firesides, to celebrate Christmas away from the burden of arms and the stress of faction in the south. It was manifestly true that the stables were overcrowded, and the great court daily brighter and busier with arrivals and departures.

"There is also the matter of the horse that belonged to Master Gervase Bonel," said Brother Matthew, "who is to be buried today. Our responsibility to provide stabling and feed is now at an end, though I know the case is in suspense until the matter of the man's death and the disposal of his property is cleared up. But the widow as survivor is certainly not ent.i.tled to livery for a horse. She has a daughter married in the town, and doubtless will be able to make provision for the beast, and of course we must house it until she so disposes, but it need not occupy a stall in our main stables. Have I your approval to move it out with our own working beasts to the stabling under our barn in the horse-fair ground?"

Most certainly he had not Cadfael's approval! He sat stiff with alarm and exasperation, fuming at his own unfortunate choice of hiding-place rather than Matthew's practical dispositions. Yet how could he have foreseen this? Very seldom had it been necessary to make use of the stalls at the barn, apart from its actual purpose as temporary accommodation at the horse-fairs and St. Peter's fair. And now how was he to get to Edwin in time to remove him from the peril of discovery? In broad daylight, and with the inescapable spiritual duties of the day confining his movements?

"That should certainly provide adequate stabling," agreed Prior Robert. "It would be well to make the transfer at once."

"I will give instructions to the grooms. And you agree also, Father, to the Widow Bonel's horse being removed with them?"

"By all means!" Robert no longer had quite the same interest in the Bonel family, now that it seemed doubtful he would ever lay his hands on the manor of Mallilie, though he did not intend to give up without a struggle. The unnatural death and its consequences irked him like a thorn in his flesh, and he would gladly have removed not merely the horse but the whole household, could he have done so with propriety. He did not want murder a.s.sociated with his convent, he did not want the sheriff's officers probing among his guests, or the whiff of notoriety hanging round the monastery buildings like a bad odour. "It will be necessary to go into the legal complications on the vexed question of the charter, which inevitably lapses now unless a new lord chooses to endorse and complete it. But until after Master Bonel's burial, of course, nothing should be done. The horse, however, can well be moved. I doubt if the widow will now have any use for a mount, but that is not yet our problem."

He is already regretting, thought Cadfael, that in the first flush of sympathy and concern he authorised a grave for Bonel in the transept. But his dignity will not let him withdraw the concession now. G.o.d be thanked, Richildis will have whatever comfort there is in a solemn and dignified funeral, since all that Robert does must be done with grandeur. Gervase has lain in state in the mortuary chapel of the abbey, and will lie in abbey ground by nightfall. She would be soothed and calmed by that. She felt, he was sure, a kind of guilt towards the dead man. Whenever she was solitary she would be playing the ageless, debilitating game of: If only... If only I'd never accepted him... if only I had managed affairs between him and Edwin better... if only-then he might have been alive and hale today!

Cadfael closed his ears to the desultory discussion of a possible purchase of land to enlarge the graveyard, and gave his mind to the consideration of his own more pressing problem. It would not be impossible to find himself an errand along the Foregate when the grooms were stabling the horses in their new quarters, and the lay brothers would not question any movements of his. He could as well bring Edwin out of his retreat in a Benedictine habit as lead him into it, provided he took care to time the exit property. And once out, then where? Certainly not towards the gatehouse. There were people in one or two houses along the highroad towards St. Giles who had had dealings with him when sick, some whose children he had attended in fever. They might give shelter to a young man at his recommendation, though he did not much like the idea of involving them. Or there was, at the end of this stretch of road, the leper hospital of St. Giles, where young brothers often served a part of their novitiate in attendance on those less fortunate. Something, surely, might be arranged to hide one haunted boy.

Incredulously, Cadfael heard his own name spoken, and was jerked sharply out of his planning. Across the chapter-house, in his stall as close as possible to Prior Robert, Brother Jerome had risen, and was in full spate, his meagre figure deceptively humble in stance, his sharp eyes half-hooded in holy meekness. And he had just uttered Brother Cadfael's name, with odious concern and affection!

"... I do not say, Father, that there has been any impropriety in our dearly valued brother's conduct. I do but appeal for aid and guidance for his soul's sake, for he stands in peril. Father, it has come to my knowledge that many years since, before his call to this blessed vocation, Brother Cadfael was in a relationship of worldly affection with the lady who is now Mistress Bonel, and a guest of this house. By reason of the death of her husband he was drawn back into contact with her, by no fault of his, oh, no, I do not speak of blame, for he was called to help a dying man. But consider, Father, how severe a test may be imposed upon a brother's sincere devotion, when he is again brought unexpectedly into so close touch with a long-forgotten attachment according to this world!"

To judge by Prior Robert's loftily erected head and stretched neck, which enabled him to look from an even greater height down his nose at the imperilled brother, he was indeed considering it. So was Cadfael, with astonished indignation that congealed rapidly into cool, inimical comprehension. He had underestimated Brother Jerome's audacity, no less than his venom. That large, sinewy ear must have been pressed lovingly to the large keyhole of Richildis's door, to have gathered so much.

"Do you allege," demanded Robert incredulously, "that Brother Cadfael has been in unlawful conversation with this woman? On what occasion? We ourselves know well that he attended Master Bonel's death-bed, and did his best for the unfortunate, and that the unhappy wife was then present. We have no reproach to make upon that count, it was his duty to go where he was needed."

Brother Cadfael, as yet unaddressed, sat grimly silent, and let them proceed, for obviously this attack came as unexpectedly to Robert as to him.

"Oh, no man of us can question that," agreed Jerome obligingly. "It was his Christian duty to give aid according to his skills, and so he did. But as I have learned, our brother has again visited the widow and spoken with her, only last night. Doubtless for purposes of comfort and blessing to the bereaved. But what dangers may lurk in such a meeting, Father, I need not try to express. G.o.d forbid it should ever enter any mind, that a man once betrothed, and having lost his affianced wife to another, should succ.u.mb to jealousy in his late years, after abandoning the world, when he once again encounters the former object of his affections. No, that we may not even consider. But would it not be better if our beloved brother should be removed utterly even from the temptations of memory? I speak as one having his wellbeing and spiritual health at heart."

You speak, thought Cadfael, grinding his teeth, as one at last provided with a weapon against a man you've hated for years with little effect. And, G.o.d forgive me, if I could wring your scrawny neck now, I would do it and rejoice.

He rose and stood forth from his retired place to be seen. "I am here, Father Prior, examine me of my actions as you wish. Brother Jerome is somewhat over-tender of my vocation, which is in no danger." And that, at least, was heartfelt.

Prior Robert continued to look down at him all too thoughtfully for Cadfael's liking. He would certainly fight any suggestion of misconduct among his flock, and defend them to the world for his own sake, but he might also welcome an opportunity of curbing the independent activities of a man who always caused him slight discomfort, as though he found in Cadfael's blunt, practical, tolerant self-sufficiency a hidden vein of desire of satire and amus.e.m.e.nt. He was no fool, and could hardly have failed to notice that he was being obliquely invited to believe that Cadfael might, when confronted with his old sweetheart married to another, have so far succ.u.mbed to jealousy as to remove his rival from the world with his own hands. Who, after all, knew the properties of herbs and plants better, or the proportions in which they could be used for good or ill? G.o.d forbid it should enter any mind, Jerome had said piously, neatly planting the notion as he deplored it. Doubtful if Robert would seriously entertain any such thought, but neither would he censure it in Jerome, who was unfailingly useful and obsequious to him. Nor could it be argued that the thing was altogether impossible. Cadfael had made the monk's-hood oil, and knew what could be done with it. He had not even to procure it secretly, he had it in his own charge; and if he had been sent for in haste to a man already sick to death, who was to say he had not first administered the poison he feigned to combat? And I watched Aelfric cross the court, thought Cadfael, and might easily have stopped him for a word, lifted the lid in curiosity at the savoury smell, been told for whom it was sent, and added another savour of my own making? A moment's distraction, and it could have been done. How easy it is to bring on oneself a suspicion there's no disproving!

"Is it indeed truth, brother," asked Robert weightily, "that Mistress Bonel was intimately known to you in your youth, before you took vows?"

"It is," said Cadfael directly, "if by intimately you mean only well and closely, on terms of affection. Before I took the Cross we held ourselves to be affianced, though no one else knew of it. That was more than forty years ago, and I had not seen her since. She married in my absence, and I, after my return, took the cowl." The fewer words here, the better.

"Why did you never say word of this, when they came to our house?"

"I did not know who Mistress Bonel was, until I saw her. The name meant nothing to me, I knew only of her first marriage. I was called to the house, as you know, and went in good faith."

"That I acknowledge," conceded Robert. "I did not observe anything untoward in your conduct there."

"I do not suggest, Father Prior," Jerome made haste to a.s.sure him, "that Brother Cadfael has done anything deserving of blame..." The lingering ending added silently: "... as yet!" but he did not go so far as to utter it. "I am concerned only for his protection from the snares of temptation. The devil can betray even through a Christian affection."

Prior Robert was continuing his heavy and intent study of Cadfael, and if he was not expressing condemnation, there was no mistaking the disapproval in his elevated eyebrows and distended nostrils. No inmate of his convent should even admit to noticing a woman, unless by way of Christian ministry or hard-headed business. "In attending a sick man, certainly you did only right, Brother Cadfael. But is it also true that you visited this woman last night? Why should that be? If she was in need of spiritual comfort, there is here also a parish priest. Two days ago you had a right and proper reason for going there, last night you surely had none."

"I went there," said Cadfael patiently, since there was no help in impatience, and nothing could mortify Brother Jerome so much as to be treated with detached forbearance, "to ask certain questions which may bear upon her husband's death-a matter which you, Father Prior, and I, and all here, must devoutly wish to be cleared up as quickly as possible, so that this house may be in peace."

"That is the business of the sheriff and his sergeants," said Robert curtly, "and none of yours. As I understand it, there is no doubt whose is the guilt, and it is only a matter of laying hands upon the youth who did so vile a thing. I do not like your excuse, Brother Cadfael."

"In due obedience," said Cadfael, "I bow to your judgment, but also must not despise my own. I think there is doubt, and the truth will not be easily uncovered. And my reason was not an excuse; it was for that purpose I went to the house. It was my own preparation, meant to bring comfort and relief from pain, that was used to bring death, and neither this house nor I, as a brother herein, can be at peace until the truth is known."

"In saying so, you show lack of faith in those who uphold the law, and whose business justice is, as yours it is not. It is an arrogant att.i.tude, and I deplore it." What he meant was that he wished to distance the Benedictine house of St. Peter and St. Paul from the ugly thing that had happened just outside its walls, and he would find a means of preventing the effective working of a conscience so inconvenient to his aims. "In my judgment, Brother Jerome is right, and it is our duty to ensure that you are not allowed, by your own folly, to stray into spiritual danger. You will have no further contact with Mistress Bonel. Until her future movements are decided, and she leaves her present house, you will confine yourself to the enclave, and your energies to your proper function of work and worship within our walls only."

There was no help for it. Vows of obedience, voluntarily taken, cannot be discarded whenever they become inconvenient. Cadfael inclined his head-bowed would have been the wrong word, it was more like a small, solid and formidable bull lowering its armed brow for combat!-and said grimly: "I shall observe the order laid upon me, as in duty bound."

"But you, young man," he was saying to Brother Mark in the garden workshop, a quarter of an hour later, with the door shut fast to contain the fumes of frustration and revolt, rather Mark's than his own, "you have no such order to observe."