"That," said Brother Mark, taking heart, "is what I was thinking. But I was afraid you were not."

"I would not involve you in my sins, G.o.d knows," sighed Cadfael, "if this was not urgent. And perhaps I should not... Perhaps he must be left to fend for himself, but with so much against him..."

"He!" said Brother Mark thoughtfully, swinging his thin ankles from the bench. "The he whose something, that was not a vial, we did not find? From all I gather, he's barely out of childhood. The Gospels are insistent we should take care of the children."

Cadfael cast him a mild, measuring and affectionate look. This child was some four years older than the other, and his childhood, since his mother's death when he was three years old, no one had cared for, beyond throwing food and grudged shelter his way. The other had been loved, indulged and admired all his life, until these past months of conflict, and the present altogether more desperate danger.

"He is a spirited and able child, Mark, but he relies on me. I took charge of him and gave him orders. Had he been left on his own, I think he would have managed."

"Tell me only where I must go, and what I must do," said Mark, quite restored to cheerfulness, "and I will do it."

Cadfael told him. "But not until after High Ma.s.s. You must not be absent, or any way put your own repute in peril. And should there be trouble, you'll hold aloof and safe-you hear?"

"I hear," said Brother Mark, and smiled.

By ten o'clock of that morning, when High Ma.s.s began, Edwin was heartily sick of obedience and virtue. He had never been so inactive for so long since he had first climbed mutinously out of his cradle and crawled into the yard, to be retrieved from among the wagon wheels by a furious Richildis. Still, he owed it to Brother Cadfael to wait in patience, as he had promised, and only in the darkest middle of the night had he ventured out to stretch his legs and explore the alleys and lanes about the horse-fair, and the silent and empty stretch of the Foregate, the great street that set out purposefully for London. He had taken care to be back in his loft well before the east began to lighten, and here he was, seated on an abandoned barrel, kicking his heels and eating one of Cadfael's apples, and wishing something would happen. From the slit air-vents enough light entered the loft to make a close, dim, straw-tinted day.

If wishes are prayers, Edwin's was answered with almost crude alacrity. He was used to hearing horses pa.s.sing in the Foregate, and the occasional voices of people on foot, so he thought nothing of the leisurely hoof-beats and monosyllabic voices that approached from the town. But suddenly the great double doors below were hurled open, their solid weight crashing back to the wall, and the hoof-beats, by the sound of them of horses being walked on leading reins, clashed inward from the cobbles of the ap.r.o.n and thudded dully on the beaten earth floor within.

Edwin sat up, braced and still, listening with p.r.i.c.ked ears. One horse... two... more of them, lighter in weight and step, small, neat hooves-mules, perhaps? And at least two grooms with them, probably three or four. He froze, afraid to stir, wary of even the crunching of his apple. Now if they were only meaning to stall these beasts during the day, all might yet be well, and all he had to do was keep quiet and sit out the time in hiding.

There was a heavy trapdoor in the cleared s.p.a.ce of flooring, so that at need grooms could gain access to the loft without having to go outside, or carry the other key with them. Edwin slid from his barrel and went to stretch himself cautiously on the floor, and apply an ear to the crack.

A young voice chirruped soothingly to a restive horse, and Edwin heard a hand patting neck and shoulder. "Easy there, now, my beauty! A very fine fellow you are, too. The old man knew his horse-flesh, I'll say that for him. He's spoiled for want of work. It's shame to see him wasted."

"Get him into a stall," ordered a gruff voice shortly, "and come and lend a hand with these mules."

There was a steady to-ing and fro-ing about settling the beasts. Edwin got up quietly, and put on his Benedictine habit over his own clothes, for if by ill-luck he was seen around this building, it would be the best cover he could have. Though it seemed that everything would probably pa.s.s off safely. He went back to his listening station just in time to hear a third voice say: "Fill up the hay-racks. If there's not fodder enough down here, there's plenty above."

They were going to invade his refuge, after all! There was already a foot grating on the rungs of the ladder below. Edwin scrambled up in haste, no longer troubling to be silent, and rolled his heavy barrel on its rim to settle solidly over the trapdoor, for the bolts must be on the underside. The sound of someone wrestling them back from stiff sockets covered the noise of the barrel landing, and Edwin perched on top of his barricade, and wished himself three times as heavy. But it is very difficult to thrust a weight upwards over one's head, and it seemed that even his slight bulk was enough. The trap heaved a little under him, but nothing worse.

"It's fast," called a vexed voice from below. "Some fool's bolted it on top."

"There are no bolts on top. Use your brawn, man, you're no such weed as all that."

"Then they've dumped something heavy over the trap. I tell you it won't budge." And he rattled it again irritably to demonstrate.

"Oh, come down, and let a man try his arm," said he of the gruff voice disgustedly. There was an alarming scrambling of heavier feet on the rungs, and the ladder creaked. Edwin held his breath and willed himself to grow heavier by virtue of every braced muscle. The trap shook, but lifted not an inch, and the struggling groom below panted and swore.

"What did I tell you, Will?" crowed his fellow, with satisfaction.

"We'll have to go round to the other door. Lucky I brought both keys. Wat, come and help me shift whatever's blocking the trap, and fork some hay down."

Had he but known it, he needed no key, for the door was unlocked. The voice receded rapidly down the ladder, and footsteps stamped out at the stable-door. Two of them gone from below, but only a matter of moments before he would be discovered; not even time to burrow deep into the hay, even if that had been a safe stratagem when they came with forks. If they were only three in all, why not attempt the one instead of the two? Edwin as hastily rolled his barrel back to jam it against the door, and then flung himself upon the trap, hoisting mightily. It rose so readily that he was almost spilled backwards, but he recovered, and lowered himself hastily through. No time to waste in closing the trap again, all his attention was centered on the perils below.

They were four, not three! Two of them were still here among the horses, and though one of them had his back squarely turned, and was forking hay into a manger at the far end of the long stable, the other, a lean, wiry fellow with s.h.a.ggy grey hair, was only a few feet from the foot of the ladder, and just striding out from one of the stalls.

It was too late to think of any change of plan, and Edwin never hesitated. He scrambled clear of the trap, and launched himself in a flying leap upon the groom. The man had just caught the sudden movement and raised his head sharply to stare at its source, when Edwin descended upon him in a cloud of overlarge black skirts, and brought him to the ground, momentarily winded. Whatever advantage the habit might have been to the boy was certainly lost after that a.s.sault. The other youth, turning at his companion's startled yell, was baffled only briefly at the sight of what appeared to be a Benedictine brother, bounding up from the floor with gown gathered in one hand, and the other reaching for the pikel his victim had dropped. No monk the groom had ever yet seen behaved in this fashion. He took heart and began an indignant rush which halted just as abruptly when the pikel was flourished capably in the direction of his middle. But by then the felled man was also clambering to his feet, and between the fugitive and the wide open doorway.

There was only one way to go, and Edwin went that way, pikel in hand, backing into the stall nearest him. Only then did he take note, with what attention he had to spare from his adversaries, of the horse beside him, the one which had been so restive, according to the young groom, spoiling for want of work and shamefully wasted. A tall, high-spirited chestnut beast with a paler mane and tail, and a white blaze, stamping in excitement of the confusion, but reaching a nuzzling lip to Edwin's hair, and whinnying in his ear. He had turned from his manger to face the fray, and the way was open before him. Edwin cast an arm over his neck with a shout of recognition and joy.

"Rufus... oh, Rufus!"

He dropped his pikel, knotted a fist in the flowing mane, and leaped and scrambled astride the lofty back. What did it matter that he had neither saddle nor bridle, when he had ridden this mount bareback more times than he could remember, in the days before he fell utterly out of favour with the owner? He dug in his heels and pressed with his knees, and urged an all too willing accomplice into headlong flight.

If the grooms had been ready to tackle Edwin, once they realised his vocation was counterfeit, they were less eager to stand in the way of Rufus. He shot out of his stall like a crossbow bolt, and they leaped apart before him in such haste that the older one fell backwards over a truss of hay, and measured his length on the floor a second time. Edwin lay low on the rippling shoulders, his fists in the light mane, whispering incoherent grat.i.tude and encouragement into the laidback ears. They clattered out on to the triangle of the horse-fair, and by instinct Edwin used knee and heel to turn the horse away from the town and out along the Foregate.

The two who had mounted by the rear staircase, and had difficulty in getting the door open, not to mention finding it inexplicably unlocked in the first place, heard the stampede and rushed to stare out along the road.

"G.o.d save us!" gasped Wat, round-eyed. "It's one of the brothers! What can he be at in such a hurry?"

At that moment the light wind filled Edwin's cowl and blew it back on to his shoulders, uncovering the bright tangle of hair and the boyish face. Will let out a wild yell, and began to scurry down the stairs. "You see that? That's no tonsure, and no brother, either! That's the lad the sheriff's hunting. Who else would be hiding in our barn?"

But Edwin was already away, nor was there a horse left in the stable of equal quality, to pursue him. The young groom had spoken the truth, Rufus was baulked and frustrated for want of exercise, and now, let loose, he was ready to gallop to his heart's content. There was now only one obstacle to freedom. Too late Edwin remembered Cadfael's warning not, in any circ.u.mstances, to take the London road, for there was certainly a patrol out at St. Giles, where the town suburbs ended, to check on all pa.s.sing traffic in search of him. He recalled it only when he saw in the distance before him a party of four riders spread well across the road and approaching at a relaxed amble. The guard had just been relieved, and here was the off-duty party making its way back to the castle.

He could not possibly burst a way through that serried line, and the black gown would not deceive them for a moment, on a rider proceeding at this desperate speed. Edwin did the only thing possible. With pleading voice and urgent knees he checked and wheeled his displeased mount, and set off back the way he had come, at the same headlong gallop. And well behind him he heard a gleeful shout that told him he was now pursued by a posse of determined men-at-arms, fully persuaded they were on the heels of a miscreant, even if they were not yet certain of his ident.i.ty.

Brother Mark, hurrying along the horse-fair after High Ma.s.s, primed with his part to enter the loft un.o.bserved, so that no one should be able afterwards to swear that only one went in where two came out, arrived close to the barn just in time to hear the commotion of a hue and cry, and see Edwin on his elated war-horse come hurtling back along the Foregate, cowl and skirts streaming, head stooped low to the flying mane. He had never before set eyes on Edwin Gurney, but there was no doubt as to who this careering desperado must be; nor, alas, any doubt that Mark's own errand came much too late. The quarry was flushed from cover, though not yet taken. But there was nothing, nothing at all, Brother Mark could do to help him.

The head groom Will, a stout-hearted man, had hastily hauled out the best of the remaining horses in his care, and prepared to pursue the fugitive, but he had no more than heaved himself into the saddle when he beheld the chestnut thundering back again in the opposite direction. He spurred forward to try and intercept it, though the prospect was daunting; but his mount's courage failed of matching his, and it baulked and swerved aside before Rufus's stretched neck, laidback ears and rolling eye. One of the undergrooms hurled a pikel towards the pounding hooves, but if truth be told rather half-heartedly, and Rufus merely made a startled sidewise bound, without checking speed, and was past and away towards the town.

Will might well have followed, though with small hope of keeping that yellow, billowing tail in sight; but by then the clamour of the pursuers was approaching along the Foregate, and he was only too glad to surrender the task to them. It was, after all, their business to apprehend malefactors, and whatever else this pseudo-monk had done, he had certainly stolen a horse belonging to the Widow Bonel, and in the abbey's care. Obviously the theft should be reported at once. He rode into the path of the galloping guards, waving a delaying hand, and all three of his colleagues closed in to give their versions of what had happened.

There was a substantial audience by then. Pa.s.sersby had happily declined to pa.s.s by such a promising melee, and people had darted out from nearby houses to discover what all the hard riding meant. During the pause to exchange information, several of the children had drawn close to listen and stare, and that in itself somewhat slowed the resumption of the chase. Mothers retrieved children, and managed to keep the way blocked a full minute more. But there seemed no reasonable explanation for the fact that at the last moment, when they were virtually launched, the horse under the captain of the guard suddenly shrieked indignantly, reared, and almost spilled his rider, who was not expecting any such disturbance, and had to spend some minutes mastering the affronted horse, before he could muster his men and gallop away after the fugitive.

Brother Mark, craning and peering with the rest of the curious, watched the guards stream away towards the town, secure that the chestnut horse had had time to get clean out of sight. The rest was up to Edwin Gurney. Mark folded his hands in his wide sleeves, drew his cowl well forward to shadow a modest face, and turned back towards the gatehouse of the abbey, with very mixed news. On the way he discarded the second pebble he had picked up by the barn. On his uncle's manor he had been set to work for his meagre keep at four years old, following the plough with a small sack full of stones, to scare off the birds that took the seed. It had taken him two years to discover that he sympathised with the hungry birds, and did not really want to harm them; but by then he was already a dead shot, and he had not lost his skills.

"And you followed as far as the bridge?" Cadfael questioned anxiously. "And the bridge-keepers had not so much as seen him? And the sheriff's men had lost him?"

"Clean vanished," Brother Mark reported with pleasure. "He never crossed into the town, at least, not that way. If you ask me, he can't have turned from the road by any of the alleys short of the bridge, he wouldn't be sure he was out of sight. I think he must have dived down along the Gaye, the sh.o.r.eward side where the orchard trees give some cover. But what he would do after that I can't guess. But they haven't taken him, that's certain. They'll be hounding his kin within the town, but they'll find nothing there." He beamed earnestly into Cadfael's troubled face, and urged: "You know you'll prove he has nothing to answer for. Why do you worry?"

It was more than enough worry to have someone depending so absolutely on the victory of truth, and the credit with heaven of Brother Cadfael, but it seemed that this morning's events had cast no shadow upon young Mark, and that was matter for grat.i.tude.

"Come to dinner," said Cadfael thankfully, "and then take your ease, for with such a faith as yours you can. I do believe when you come to cast a pebble with intent, it must hit the mark. Whoever named you foresaw your future. And since it arises, what is your own mark? A bishopric?"

"Pope or cardinal," said Brother Mark happily. "Nothing less."

"Oh, no," said Brother Cadfael seriously. "Beyond bishop, and a pastoral cure, I think you would be wasted."

All that day the sheriff's men hunted Edwin Gurney through the town, where they reckoned he must have sought help, somehow evading notice in crossing the bridge. Finding no trace there, they sent out patrols to cover all the major roads out of the peninsula. In a close loop of the Severn, Shrewsbury had only two bridges, one towards the abbey and London, by which he was thought to have entered, one towards Wales, with a fan of roads branching out westwards.

They were convinced that the fugitive would make for Wales, that being his quickest way out of their jurisdiction, though his future there might well be hazardous. So it came as a surprise when a party patrolling the abbey side of the river, where they had little expectation of picking up the trail, was accosted by an excited young person of about eleven, who ran to them through the fields to demand breathlessly if it was true the man they were looking for was in monk's gown, and riding a bright-brown horse with a primrose mane and tail. Yes, she had seen him, and only a short time since, breaking cautiously out of that copse and trotting away eastwards, as if he wanted to cross the next loop of the river and move round to join the highroad to London, some way past St. Giles. Since he had first set out in that direction, and found the way blocked at the rim of the town, her report made sense. Evidently he had managed to find cover and lie up for a while, in the hope that the hunt would take the opposite direction, and now he felt secure in moving again. The girl said he might be making for the ford at Uffington.

They thanked her heartily, sent back one man to report the trail hot again and bring reinforcements after, and set off briskly for the ford. And Alys, having watched them out of sight, made her way back as briskly to the highroad and the bridge. No one was on the watch for eleven-year-old girls going in and out.

Beyond the ford at Uffington the hunters got their first glimpse of the quarry, jogging along almost sedately on the narrow road towards Upton. From the moment he turned and saw them, he flashed away at speed; the colour and the gait of the horse were unmistakable, and the pursuers could not but wonder why the rider had retained his purloined habit, which was now more liability than a.s.set, for everyone in the countryside must be looking out for it.

It was then mid-afternoon, and the light beginning to dim. The chase went on for hours. The boy seemed to know every byway and every covert, and managed to lose them several times, and lead them into some unexpected and perilous places, often leaving the roads for marshy meadows where one stout man-at-arms was thrown into odorous bog, or broken places where it was soon impossible to see the easiest pa.s.sage, and one horse picked up a stone and went lame. Through Atcham, Cound and Cressage he held them off, and from time to time lost them, until Rufus tired and stumbled in the woods beyond Acton, and they were on him and round him, grasping at gown and cowl and pinioning him fast. They pulled him down and tied his hands, and for the chase he had led them they gave him some rough handling, which he bore philosophically and in silence. All he asked was that the miles they had to go back to Shrewsbury should be taken at an easy pace, for the horse's sake.

At some stage he had rigged a serviceable bridle from the rope girdle of his habit. They borrowed that back to secure him behind the lightest weight among them, for fear he should leap clear even with bound hands, and make off into the darkening woods on foot. Thus they brought their prisoner back the lengthy journey to Shrewsbury, and turned in at the abbey gatehouse late in the evening. The stolen horse might as well be returned at once where he belonged; and since that was, at present, the only crime that stood manifestly proven against the culprit, his proper place, until further examination had been made of his deeds, was in the abbey prison. There he could safely be left to kick his heels until the law was ready to proceed against him on graver charges of acts committed outside the pale, and therefore within the sheriff's jurisdiction.

Prior Robert, courteously informed that the wanted youth was brought in captive, and must remain in abbey keeping at least overnight, was torn between satisfaction at the prospect of getting rid of the criminal implications of Master Bonel's death, in order to be able to deal more skilfully with the legal ones, and the vexation of having temporarily to accommodate the criminal within his own domain. Still, an arrest for the murder must follow in the morning, the inconvenience was not so great.

"You have this youth in the gatehouse now?" he asked the man-at-arms who had brought the news to his lodging.

"We have, Father. Two of your abbey sergeants are with him there, and if you please to give orders that they hold him in charge until tomorrow, the sheriff will certainly take him off your hands on the graver count. Would it please you come and examine him for yourself on the matter of the horse? If you see fit, there could be charges of a.s.sault against your grooms, a serious matter even without the theft."

Prior Robert was not immune to human curiosity, and was not adverse to taking a look at this youthful demon who had poisoned his own stepfather and led the sheriff's men a dance over half the shire. "I will come," he said. "The church must not turn its back upon the sinner, but only deplore the sin."

In the porter's room at the gatehouse the boy sat stolidly on a bench opposite the welcome fire, hunched defensively against the world, but looking far from cowed, for all his bruises and wariness. The abbey sergeants and the sheriff's patrol circled him with brooding eyes and hectoring questions, which he answered only when he chose to do so, and then briefly. Several of them were soiled and mud-stained from the hunt, one or two had scratches and bruises of their own to show. The boy's bright eyes flickered from one to another, and it even seemed that his lips twitched with the effort to suppress a smile when he contemplated the one who had gone head over heels in the meadows near Cound. They had stripped his borrowed habit from him and restored it to the porter's care; the boy showed now slender and light-haired, smooth and fair of skin, with ingenuous-seeming hazel eyes. Prior Robert was somewhat taken aback by his youth and comeliness; truly the devil can a.s.sume fair shapes!

"So young and marred!" he said aloud. The boy was not meant to hear that, it was uttered in the doorway as Robert entered, but at fourteen the hearing is keen. "So, boy," said the prior, drawing near, "you are the troubler of our peace. You have much upon your conscience, and I fear it is even late to pray that you may have time to amend. I shall so pray. You know, for you are old enough to know, that murder is mortal sin."

The boy looked him in the eye, and said with emphatic composure: "I am not a murderer."

"Oh, child, is it now of any avail to deny what is known? You might as well say that you did not steal a horse from our barn this morning, when four of our servants and many other people saw the act committed."

"I did not steal Rufus," the boy retorted promptly and firmly. "He is mine. He was my stepfather's property, and I am my stepfather's heir, for his agreement with the abbey has never been ratified, and the will that made me his heir is sound as gold. What belongs to me how could I steal? From whom?"

"Wretched child," protested the prior, bristling at such bold defiance, and even more at a dawning suspicion that this imp, in spite of his dire situation, was daring to enjoy himself, "think what you say! You should rather be repenting while you have time. Have you not yet realised that the murderer cannot live to inherit from his victim?"

"I have said, and say again, I am not a murderer. I deny, on my soul, on the altar, on whatever you wish, that ever I did my stepfather harm. Therefore Rufus is mine. Or when the will is proven, and my overlord gives his consent as he promised, Rufus and Mallilie and all will be mine. I have committed no crime, and nothing you can do or say can make me admit to any. And nothing you can do," he added, his eyes suddenly flashing, "can ever make me guilty of any."

"You waste your goodwill, Father Prior," growled the sheriff's sergeant, "he's an obdurate young wretch meant for the gallows, and his come-uppance will be short." But under Robert's august eye he refrained from clouting the impudent brat round the ears, as otherwise he might well have done. "Think no more of him, but let your servants clap him into safe hold in your cell here, and put him out of your mind as worth no more pains. The law will take care of him."

"See that he has food," said Robert, not altogether without compa.s.sion, and remembering that this child had been in the saddle and in hiding all the day, "and let his bed be hard, but dry and warm enough. And should he relent and ask... Boy, listen to me, and give a thought to your soul's welfare. Will you have one of the brothers come and reason and pray with you before you sleep?"

The boy looked up with a sudden sparkle in his eye that might have been penitent hope, but looked more like mischief, and said with deceptive meekness: "Yes, and gratefully, if you could be so kind as to send for Brother Cadfael." It was time, after all, to take thought for his own situation, he had surely done enough now.

He expected the name to raise a frown, and so it did, but Robert had offered a grace, and could not now withdraw it or set conditions upon it. With dignity he turned to the porter, who hovered at the door. "Ask Brother Cadfael to come here to us at once. You may tell him it is to give counsel and guidance to a prisoner."

The porter departed. It was almost the hour for retirement, and most of the brothers would certainly be in the warming-room, but Cadfael was not there, nor was Brother Mark. The porter found them in the workshop in the garden, not even compounding mysteries, either, but sitting somewhat glumly, talking in low and anxious tones. The news of the capture had not yet gone round; by day it would have been known everywhere within minutes. It was common knowledge, of course, how the sheriff's men had spent their day, but it was not yet common knowledge with what an achievement they had crowned it.

"Brother Cadfael, you're wanted at the gatehouse," announced the porter, leaning in at the doorway. And as Cadfael looked up at him in surprise: "There's a young fellow there asks for you as his spiritual adviser, though if you want my view, he's very much in command of his own spirit, and has let Prior Robert know it, too. A company of the sheriff's men rode in towards the end of Compline with a prisoner. Yes, they've taken young Gurney at last."

So that was how it had ended, after all Mark's efforts and prayers, after all his own ineffective reasonings and seekings and faith. Cadfael got up in grieving haste. "I'll come to him. With all my heart I'll come. Now we have the whole battle on our hands, and little time left. The poor lad! But why have they not taken him straight into the town?" Though of that one small mercy he was glad, seeing he himself was confined within the abbey walls, and only this odd chance provided him with a brief meeting.

"Why, the only thing they can charge him with, and n.o.body can question, is stealing the horse he rode off on this morning, and that was from our premises and our care, the abbey court has rights in it. In the morn they'll fetch him away on the count of murder."

Brother Mark fell in at their heels and followed to the gatehouse, altogether cast down and out of comfort, unable to find a hopeful word to say. He felt in his heart that that was sin, the sin of despair; not despair for himself, but despair of truth and justice and right, and the future of wretched mankind. n.o.body had bidden him attend, but he went, all the same, a soul committed to a cause about which, in fact, he knew very little, except the youth of the protagonist, and the absolute nature of Cadfael's faith in him, and that was enough.

Cadfael entered the porter's room with a heavy heart but not in despair; it was a luxury he could not afford. All eyes turned upon him, understandably, since he entered upon a heavy silence. Robert had abandoned his kindly meant but patronising exhortations, and the men of law had given up the attempt to get any admissions out of their captive, and were content to see him safely under lock and key, and get to their beds in the castle. A ring of large, well-equipped men on guard round a willowy lad in country homespun, bareheaded and cloakless on a frosty night, who sat braced and neat and alert on a bench by the wall, pleasantly flushed now from the fire, and looking, incredibly, almost complacent. His eyes met Brother Cadfael's eyes, and danced; clear, dark-fringed, greenish eyes. His hair was light brown, like seasoned oak. He was lightly built but tall for his years. He was tired, sleepy, bruised and dirty, and behind the wary eyes and solemn face he was undoubtedly laughing.

Brother Cadfael looked long, and understood much, enough at that moment to have no great worries about what as yet he did not understand. He looked round the attentive circle, looked last and longest at Prior Robert.

"Father Prior, I am grateful that you sent for me, and I welcome the duty laid on me, to do what may be done for the prisoner. But I must tell you that these gentlemen are in some error. I cast no doubt on what they may have to report of how this boy was taken, but I do advise them to make enquiry how and where he spent this morning's hours, when he is said to have escaped from the abbey barn on the horse belonging to Mistress Bonel. Gentlemen," he informed the sheriff's bewildered patrol very gravely, "this is not Edwin Gurney you have captured, but his nephew, Edwy Bellecote."

Chapter Seven.

THE ABBEY PRISON WAS TWO LITTLE CELLS attached to the rear of the gatehouse, very clean, furnished with benchbeds no worse than the novices endured, and very rarely occupied. The summer period of Saint Peter's fair was the chief populator of the cells, since it could be relied upon to provide two happy drunken servants or lay brothers nightly, who slept off their excesses and accepted their modest fines and penances without rancour, thinking the game well worth the candle. From time to time some more serious disturbance might cast up an inmate, some ill-balanced brother who nursed a cloistered hate long enough to attempt violence, or a lay servant who stole, or a novice who offended too grossly against the imposed code. The abbey court was not a busy one.

In one of the two cells Brother Cadfael and Edwy sat side by side, warmly and companionably. There was a grille in the door, but it was most improbable that anyone was paying attention to anything that could be heard through it. The brother who held the keys was sleepy, and in any case indifferent to the cause that had brought him a prisoner. The difficulty would probably be to batter loudly enough to wake him when Cadfael wanted to leave.

"It wasn't so hard," said Edwy, sitting back with a grateful sigh after demolishing the bowl of porridge a tolerant cook had provided him, "there's a cousin of father's lives along the riverside, just beyond your property of the Gaye, he has an orchard there, and a shed for the donkey and cart, big enough to hide Rufus. His boy brought word into the town to us, and I took father's horse and came out to meet Edwin there. n.o.body was looking for a bony old piebald like our j.a.phet, I never got a second glance as I crossed the bridge, and I didn't hurry. Alys came with me pillion, and kept watch in case they got close. Then we changed clothes and horses, and Edwin made off towards-"

"Don't tell me!" said Cadfael quickly.

"No, you can truly say you don't know. Plainly not the way I went. They were slow sighting me," said Edwy scornfully, "even with Alys helping them. But once they had me in view it was a matter of how long I could keep them busy, to give him time to get well away. I could have taken them still further, but Rufus was tiring, so I let them have me. I had to, in the end, it kept them happy several more hours, and they sent one man ahead to call off the hunt. Edwin's had a clear run. Now what do you think they'll do with me?"

"If you hadn't already been in abbey charge, and the prior by, at that," said Cadfael frankly, "they'd have had the hide off you for leading them such a dance and making such fools of them. I wouldn't say Prior Robert himself wouldn't have liked to do as much, but dignity forbids, and authority forbids letting the secular arm skin you on his behalf. Though I fancy," he said with sympathy, viewing the blue bruises that were beginning to show on Edwy's jaw and cheekbone, "they've already paid you part of your dues."

The boy shrugged disdainfully. "I can't complain. And it wasn't all one way. You should have seen the sergeant flop belly-down into the bog... and heard him when he got up. It was good sport, and we got Edwin away. And I've never had such a horse under me before, it was well worth it. But now what's to happen? They can't accuse me of murder, or of stealing Rufus, or even the gown, because I was never near the barn this morning, and there are plenty of witnesses to where I was, about the shop and the yard."

"I doubt if you've broken any law," agreed Cadfael, "but you have made the law look very foolish, and no man in authority and office enjoys that. They could well keep you in close hold in the castle for a while, for helping a wanted man to escape. They may even threaten you in the hope of fetching Edwin back to get you out of trouble."

Edwy shook his head vigorously. "He need take no notice of that, he knows in the end there's nothing criminal they can lay against me. And I can sit out threats better than he. He loses his temper. He's getting better, but he has far to go yet." Was he as buoyant about his prospects as he made out? Cadfael could not be quite sure, but certainly this elder of the pair had turned his four months seniority into a solid advantage, perhaps by reason of feeling responsible for his improbable uncle from the cradle. "I can keep my mouth shut and wait," said Edwy serenely.

"Well, since Prior Robert has so firmly demanded that the sheriff come in person tomorrow to remove you," sighed Cadfael, "I will at least make sure of being present, and try what can be got for you. The prior has given me a spiritual charge, and I'll stand fast on it. And now you'd better get your rest. I am supposed to be here to exhort you to an amended life, but to tell the truth, boy, I find your life no more in need of amendment than mine, and I think it would be presumption in me to meddle. But if you'll join your voice to mine in the night prayers, I think G.o.d may be listening."

"Willingly," said Edwy blithely, and plumped to his knees like a cheerful child, with reverently folded hands and closed eyes. In the middle of the prayers before sleeping his lips fluttered in a brief smile; perhaps he was remembering the extremely secular language of the sergeant rising dripping from the bog.

Cadfael was up before Prime, alert in case the prisoner's escort should come early. Prior Robert had been extremely angry at last night's comedy, but grasped readily at the plain fact that it gave him full justification for demanding that the sheriff should at once relieve him of an offender who had turned out to be no concern of his at all. This was not the boy who had taken away a Benedictine habit and a horse in Benedictine care, he was merely the mischievous brat who had worn the one and ridden the other to the ludicrous discomfiture of several gullible law officers. They could have him, and welcome; but the prior considered that it was due to his dignity-in this mood fully abbatial-that the senior officer then in charge, sheriff or deputy, should come in person to make amends for the inconvenience to which the abbey had been subjected, and remove the troublesome element. Robert wanted a public demonstration that henceforth all responsibility lay with the secular arm, and none within his sacred walls.

Brother Mark hovered close at Cadfael's elbow as the escort rode in, about half past eight in the morning, before the second Ma.s.s. Four mounted men-at-arms, and a spruce, dark, lightly built young n.o.bleman on a tall, gaunt and self-willed horse, dappled from cream to almost black. Mark heard Brother Cadfael heave a great, grateful sigh at the sight of him, and felt his own heart rise hopefully at the omen.

"The sheriff must have gone south to keep the feast with the king," said Cadfael with immense satisfaction. "G.o.d is looking our way at last. That is not Gilbert Prestcote, but his deputy, Hugh Beringar of Maesbury."

"Now," said Beringar briskly, a quarter of an hour later, "I have placated the prior, promised him deliverance from the presence of this desperate bravo, sent him off to Ma.s.s and chapter in tolerable content, and retrieved you, my friend, from having to accompany him, on the grounds that you have questions to answer." He closed the door of the room in the gatehouse from which all his men-at-arms had been dismissed to wait his pleasure, and came and sat down opposite Cadfael at the table. "And so you have, though not, quite as he supposes. So now, before we go and pick this small crab out of his sh.e.l.l, tell me everything you know about this curious business. I know you must know more of it than any other man, however confidently my sergeant sets out his case. Such a break in the monastic monotony could never occur, and you not get wind of it and be there in the thick of it. Tell me everything."

And now that it was Beringar in the seat of authority, while Prestcote attended dutifully at his sovereign lord's festal table, Cadfael saw no reason for reserve, at least so far as his own part was concerned. And all, or virtually all, was what he told.

"He came to you, and you hid him," mused Beringar.

"I did. So I would again, in the same circ.u.mstances."

"Cadfael, you must know as well as I the strength of the case against this boy. Who else has anything to gain? Yet I know you, and where you have doubts, I shall certainly not be without them."

"I have no doubts," said Cadfael firmly. "The boy is innocent even of the thought of murder. And poison is so far out of his scope, he never would or could conceive the idea. I tested them both, when they came, and they neither of them even knew how the man had died, they believed me when I said he had been cut down in his blood. I stuck the means of murder under the child's nose, and he never paled. All it meant to him was a mild memory of sniffing the same sharp smell while Brother Rhys was having his shoulders rubbed in the infirmary."

"I take your word for all that," said Beringar, "and it is good evidence, but it is not in itself proof. How if we should both of us underestimate the cunning of the young, simply because they are young?"

"True," agreed Cadfael with a wry grin, "you are none so old yourself, and of your cunning, as I know, the limit has not yet been found. But trust me, these two are not of the same make as you. I have known them, you have not; agreed? I have my duty to do, according to such lights as I see. So have you your duty to do, according to your office and commission. I don't quarrel with that. But at this moment, Hugh, I don't know and have no means of guessing where Edwin Gurney is, or I might well urge him to give himself up to you and rely on your integrity. You will not need me to tell you that this loyal nephew of his, who has taken some sharp knocks for him, does know where he is, or at least knows where he set out to go. You may ask him, but of course he won't tell you. Neither for your style of questioning nor Prestcote's."