"Tell me," said Cadfael, "of last year. This man who turned you out was a pedlar come to sell at the fair? He stayed there in that cottage till the fair ended?"

"He and the woman." The old man had sharpened into the realisation that his information was here of urgent interest, and had begun to enjoy the sensation, quite apart from the hope of turning it to advantage. "A wild, black-haired creature she was, every whit as bad as her man. Every whit! She threw cold water over me to drive me away when I tried to creep back."

"Did you see them leave? The pair together?"

"No, they were still there when I went packman, with a fellow bound for Beiston who had bought more than he could manage alone."

"And this year? Did you see this same fellow at this year's fair?"

"Oh yes, he was there," said the old man indifferently. "I never had any ado with him, but I saw him there."

"And the woman still with him?"

"No, never a glimpse of her this year. Never saw him but alone or with the lads in the tavern, and who knows where he slept! The potter's place wouldn't be good enough for him now. I hear she was a tumbler and singer, on the road like him. I never did hear her name."

The slight emphasis on the "her" had not escaped Cadfael's ear. He asked, with a sense of lifting the lid from a jar which might or might not let loose dangerous revelations: "But his you do know?"

"Oh, everybody about the booths and alehouses knows his name. He's called Britric, he comes from Ruiton. He buys at the city markets, and peddles his wares round all this part of the shire and into Wales. On the move, most times, but never too far afield. Doing well, so I heard!"

"Well," said Cadfael on a long, slow breath, "wish him no worse, and do your own soul good. You have your troubles, I doubt Britric has his, no easier or lighter. You take your food and your rest, and do what Brother Oswin bids, and your burden can soon be lightened. Let's wish as much to all men."

The old man, squatting there observant and curious on his bed, watched them withdraw to the doorway. Cadfael's hand was on the latch when the voice behind them, so strangely resonant and full, called after them: "I'll say this for him, his b.i.t.c.h was handsome, if she was cursed."

Chapter Seven.

NOW THEY HAD IT, a veritable name, a charm with which to prime memory. Names are powerful magic. Within two days of Cadfael's visit to Saint Giles, faithfully reported to Hugh before the end of the day, they had detail enough about the pedlar of Ruiton to fill a chronicle. Drop the name Britric into almost any ear about the market and the horse-fair ground, and mouths opened and tongues wagged freely. It seemed the only thing they had not known about him was that he had slept the nights of last year's fair in the cottage on the Potter's Field, then no more than a month abandoned, and in very comfortable shape still. Not even the neighbouring household at Longner had known that. The clandestine tenant would be off with his wares through the day, so would his woman if she had a living to make by entertaining the crowds, and they would have discretion enough to leave the door closed and everything orderly. If, as the old man declared, they had spent much of their time fighting, they had kept their battles withindoors. And no one from Longner had gone up the field to the deserted croft once Generys was gone. A kind of coldness and desolation had fallen upon the place, for those who had known it living, and they had shunned it, turning their faces away.

Only the wretched old man hoping for a snug shelter for himself had tried his luck there, and been driven away by a prior and stronger claimant. The smith's widow, a trim little elderly body with bright round eyes like a robin, p.r.i.c.ked up her ears when she heard the name of Britric. "Oh, him, yes, he used to come round with his pack some years back, when I was living with my man at the smithy in Sutton. He started in a very small way, but he was regular round the villages, and you know a body can't be every week in the town. I got my salt from him. Doing well, he was, and not afraid to work hard, either, when he was sober, but a wild one when he was drunk. I remember seeing him at the fair last year, but I had no talk with him. I never knew he was sleeping the nights through up at the potter's croft. Well, I'd never seen the cottage myself then. It was two months later when the prior put me in. there to take care of the place. My man was dead late that Spring, and I'd been asking Haughmond to find me some work to do. Smith had worked well for them in his time, I knew the prior wouldn't turn me away."

"And the woman?" said Hugh. "A strolling tumbler, so I'm told, dark, very handsome. Did you see him with her?"

"He did have a girl with him," the widow allowed after a moment's thought, "for I was shopping at the fishmonger's booth close by Wat's tavern, at the corner of the horse fair, the one day, and she came to fetch him away before, she said, he'd drunk all his day's gain and half of hers. That I remember. They were loud, he was getting cantankerous then in his cups, but she was a match for him. Cursed each other blind, they did, but then they went off together as close and fond as you please, and her holding him about the body from stumbling, and still scolding. Handsome?" said the widow, considering, and sniffed dubiously. "Some might reckon so. A bold, striding, black-eyed piece, thin and whippy as a withy."

"Britric was at this year's fair, too, so they tell me," said Hugh. "Did you see him?"

"Yes, he was here. Doing quite nicely in the world, by the look of him. They do say there's a good living to be made in pedlary, if you're willing to work at it. Give him a year or two more, and he'll be renting a booth like the merchants, and paying the abbey fees."

"And the woman? Was she with him still?"

"Not that I ever saw." She was no fool, and there was hardly a soul within a mile of Shrewsbury who did not know by this time that there was a dead woman to be accounted for, and the obvious answer, for some reason, was not satisfactory, since enquiry was continuing, and had even acquired a sharper edge. "I was down into the Foregate only once during the three days, this year," she said. "There's others would be there all day and every day, they'll know. But I saw nothing of her. G.o.d knows what he's done with her," said the widow, and crossed herself with matronly deliberation, standing off all evil omens from her own invulnerable virtue, "but I doubt you'll find anyone here who set eyes on her since last year's Saint Peter's Fair."

"Oh, yes, that fellow!" said Master William Rede, the elder of the abbey's lay stewards, who collected their rents and the tolls due from merchants and craftsmen bringing their goods to the annual fair. "Yes, I know the man you mean. A bit of a rogue, but I've known plenty worse. By rights he should be paying a small toll for selling here, he brings in as full a man-load as Hercules could have hefted. But you know how it is. A man who sets up a booth for the three days, that's simple, you know where to find him. He pays his dues, and no time wasted. But a fellow who carries his goods on him, he sets eyes on you from a distance, and he's gone elsewhere, and you can waste more time chasing him than his small toll would be worth. Playing hoodman blind in and out of a hundred stalls, and all crowded with folk buying and selling, that's not for me. So he gets off scot-free. No great loss, and he'll come to it in time, his business is growing. I know no more about him than that."

"Had he a woman with him this year?" Hugh asked. "Dark, handsome, a tumbler and acrobat?"

"Not that I saw, no. There was a woman last year I noticed ate and drank with him, she could well be the one you mean. There were times I am sure she made him the sign when I came in sight, to make himself scarce. Not this year, though. He brought more goods this year, and I think you'll find he lay at Wat's tavern, for he needed somewhere to store them. You may learn more of him there."

Walter Renold leaned his folded arms, bared and brawny, on the large cask he had just rolled effortlessly into position in a corner of the room, and studied Hugh across it with placid professional eyes.

"Britric, is it? Yes, he put up here with me through the fair. Came heavy laden this year, I let him put his bits and pieces in the loft. Why not? I know he slips his abbey dues, but the loss of his penny won't beggar them. The lord abbot doesn't cast too harsh an eye on the small folk. Not that Britric is small in any other way, mind you. A big l.u.s.ty fellow, red-haired, a bit of a brawler sometimes, when he's drunk, but not a bad lad, take him all in all."

"Last year," said Hugh, "he had a woman with him, or so I hear. I've good cause to know he was not lodging with you then, but if he did his drinking here you must have seen something of them both. You remember her?"

Wat was certainly remembering her already, with some pleasure and a great deal of amus.e.m.e.nt. "Oh, her! Hard to forget, once seen. She could twist herself like a slip of willow, dance like a March lamb, and play on the little pipe. Easy to carry, better than a rebec unless you're a master. And she was the practical one, keeping a tight hold on the money they made between them. She talked of marriage, but I doubt she'd ever get him to the church door. Maybe she talked of it once too often, for he came alone this year round. Where he's left her there's no knowing, but she'll make her way wherever she is."

That had a very bitter ring in Hugh's ear, considering the possibility he had in mind. Wat, it seemed, had not made the connection which had already influenced the widow's thinking. But before he could ask anything further Wat surprised him by adding simply: "Gunnild, he called her. I never knew where she came from-I doubt if he knew it, either-but she's a beauty."

That, too, had its strange resonance, when Hugh recalled the naked bones. More and more, in imagination, they took on the living aspect of this wild, sinuous, hardworking-waif of the roads, darkly brilliant as the admiring gleam she could kindle in a middle-aged innkeeper's eyes after a year and more of absence.

"You have not seen her since, here or elsewhere?"

"How often am I elsewhere?" Wat responded good-humouredly. "I did my roaming early. I'm content where I am. No, I've never set eyes on the girl again. Nor heard him so much as mention her name this year, now I come to think of it. For all the thought he seemed to be giving to last year's fancy," said Wat tolerantly, "she might as well be dead."

"So there we have it," said Hugh, summing up briskly for Cadfael in the snug privacy of the workshop in the herb garden. "Britric is the one man we know to have made himself at home there in Ruald's croft. There may have been others, but none that we can learn of. Moreover, there was a woman with him, and their mating by all accounts tempestuous, she urging marriage on him, and he none too ready to be persuaded. More than a year ago, this. And this year not only does he come to the fair alone, but she is not seen there at all, she who gets her living at fairs and markets and weddings and such jollifications. It is not proof, but it requires answers."

"And she has a name," said Cadfael reflectively. "Gunnild. But not a habitation. She comes from nowhere and is gone, nowhere. Well, you cannot but look diligently for them both, but he should be the easier to find. And as I guess, you already have all your people alerted to look out for him."

"Both round the shire and over the border," said Hugh flatly. "His rounds, they say, go no further, apart from journeys to the towns to buy such commodities as salt and spices."

"And here are we into November, and the season for markets and fairs over, but the weather still fairly mild and dry. He'll be still on his travels among the villages, but I would guess," said Cadfael, pondering, "not too far afield. If he still has a base in Ruiton, come the hard frosts and snow he'll be making for it, and he'll want to be within a reasonable few miles of it when the pinch comes."

"About this time of year," said Hugh, "he remembers he has a mother in Ruiton, and makes his way back there for the winter."

"And you have someone waiting there for his coming."

"If luck serves," said Hugh, "we may pick him up before then. I know Ruiton, it lies barely eight miles from Shrewsbury. He'll time his journeys to bring bom round by all those Welsh villages and bear east through Knockin, straight for home. There are many hamlets close-set in that corner, he can go on with his selling until the weather changes, and still be near to home. Somewhere there we shall find him."

Somewhere there, indeed, they found him, only three days later. One of Hugh's sergeants had located the pedlar at work among the villages on the Welsh side of the border, and discreetly waited for him on the English side until he crossed and headed without haste for Meresbrook, on his way to Knockin and home. Hugh kept a sharp eye on his turbulent neighbours in Powys, and as he would tolerate no breach of English law his own side of the border, so he was punctilious in giving them no occasion to complain that he trespa.s.sed against Welsh law on their side, unless they had first broken the tacit compact. His relations with Owain Gwynedd, to the north-west, were friendly, and well understood on either part, but the Welsh of Powys were ill-disciplined and unstable, not to be provoked, but not to be indulged if they caused him trouble without provocation. So the sergeant waited until his unsuspecting quarry crossed over the ancient d.y.k.e that marked the boundary, somewhat broken and disregarded in these parts but still traceable. The weather was still reasonably mild, and walking the roads not unpleasant, but it seemed that Britric's pack was as good as empty, so he was making for home ahead of the frosts, apparently content with his takings. If he had stocks at home in Ruiton, he could still sell to his neighbours and as far afield as the local hamlets.

So he came striding into the shire towards Meresbrook, whistling serenely and swinging a long staff among the roadside gra.s.ses. And short of the village he walked into a patrol of two light-armed men from the Shrewsbury garrison, who closed in on him from either side and took him by either arm, enquiring without excitement if he owned to the name of Britric. He was a big, powerful fellow half a head taller than either of his captors, and could have broken away from them had he been so minded, but he knew them for what they were and what they represented, and forbore from tempting providence unnecessarily. He behaved himself with cautious discretion, owned cheerfully to his name, and asked with disarming innocence what they wanted with him.

They were not prepared to tell him more than that the sheriff required his attendance in Shrewsbury, and their reticence, together with the stolid efficiency of their handling of him, might well have inclined him to think better of his co-operation and make a break for it, but by then it was too late, for two more of their company had appeared from nowhere to join them, ambling unhurriedly from the roadside, but both with bows slung conveniently to hand, and the look of men who knew how to use them. The thought of an arrow in the back did not appeal to Britric. He resigned himself to complying with necessity. A great pity, with Wales only a quarter of a mile behind. But if the worst came to the worst, there might be a better opportunity of flight later if he remained docile now.

They took him into Knockin, and for the sake of speed found a spare horse for him, brought him into Shrewsbury before nightfall, and delivered him safely to a cell in the castle. By that time he showed signs of acute uneasiness, but no real fear. Behind a closed and unrevealing face he might be weighing and measuring whatever irregularities he had to account for, and worrying about which of them could have come to light, but if so, the results seemed to bewilder rather than enlighten or alarm him. All his efforts to worm information out of his captors had failed. All he could do now was wait, for it seemed that the sheriff was not immediately on hand.

The sheriff, as it happened, was at supper in the abbot's lodging, together with Prior Robert and the lord of the manor of Upton, who had just made a gift to the abbey of a fishery on the River Tern, which bordered his land. The charter had been drawn up and sealed before Vespers, with Hugh as one of the witnesses. Upton was a crown tenancy, and the consent and approval of the king's officer was necessary to such transactions. The messenger from the castle was wise enough to wait patiently in the ante-room until the company rose from the table. Good news will keep at least as well as bad, and the suspect was safe enough within stone walls.

"This is the man you spoke of?" asked Radulfus, when he heard what the man had to say. The one who is known to have made free with Brother Ruald's croft last year?"

"The same," said Hugh. "And the only one I can hear of who is known to have borrowed free lodging there. And if you'll hold me excused, Father, I must go and see what can be got out of him, before he has time to get his breath and his wits back."

"I am as concerned as you for justice," the abbot avowed. "Not so much that I want the life of this or any man, but I do want an accounting for the woman's. Of course, go. I hope we may be nearer the truth this time. Without it there can be no absolution."

"May I borrow Brother Cadfael, Father? He first brought me word of this man, he knows best what the old fellow at Saint Giles said of him. He may be able to pick up details that would elude me."

Prior Robert looked down his patrician nose at the suggestion, and thinned his long lips in disapproval. He considered that Cadfael was far too often allowed a degree of liberty outside the enclave that offended the prior's strict interpretation of the Rule. But Abbot Radulfus nodded thoughtful agreement.

"Certainly a shrewd witness may not come amiss. Yes, take him with you. I do know his memory is excellent, and his nose for discrepancies keen. And he has been in this business from the beginning, and has some right, I think, to continue with it to the end."

So it came about that Cadfael, coming from supper in the refectory, instead of going dutifully to Collations in the chapter-house, or less dutifully recalling something urgent to be attended to in his workshop, in order to avoid the dull, pedestrian reading of Brother Francis, whose turn it was, was haled out of his routine to go with Hugh up through the town to the castle, there to confront the prisoner.

He was as the old man had reported him, big, red-haired, capable of throwing out far more powerful intruders than a scabby old vagabond and, to an unprejudiced eye, a personable enough figure of a man to captivate a high-spirited and self-sufficient woman as streetwise as himself. At any rate for a time. If they had been together long enough to fall easily into fighting, he might well use those big, sinewy hands too freely and once too often, and find that he had killed without ever meaning to. And if ever he blazed into the real rage his bush of flaming hair suggested, he might kill with intent. Here in the cell where Hugh had chosen to encounter him, he sat with wide shoulders braced back against the wall, stiffly erect and alert, his face as stony as the wall itself, but for the wary eyes that fended off questions and questioners with an unwavering stare. A man, Cadfael judged, who had been in trouble before, and more than once, and coped with it successfully. Nothing mortal, probably, a deer poached here and there, a hen lifted, nothing that could not be plausibly talked out of court, in these somewhat disorganised days when in many places the king's foresters had little time or inclination to impose the rigours of forest law.

As for his present situation, there was no telling what fears, what speculations were going through his mind, how much he guessed at, or what feverish compilations of lies he was putting together against whatever he felt could be urged against him. He waited without protestations, so stiffly tensed that even his hair seemed to be erected and quivering. Hugh closed the door of the cell, and looked him over without haste.

"Well, Britric-that is your name? You have frequented the abbey fair, have you not, these past two years?"

"Longer," said Britric. His voice was low and guarded, and unwilling to use more words than he need. "Six years in all." A small sidelong flicker of uneasy eyes took in Cadfael's habited figure, quiet in the corner of the cell.

Perhaps he was recalling the tolls he had evaded paying, and wondering if the abbot had grown tired of turning a blind eye to the small defaulters.

"It's with last year we're concerned. Not so long past that your memory should fail you. The eve of Saint Peter ad Vincula, and the three days afterwards, you were offering your wares for sale. Where did you spend the nights?"

He was astray now, and that made him even more cautious, but he answered without undue hesitation: "I knew of a cottage was left empty. They were talking of it in the market, how the potter had taken a fancy to be a monk, and his wife was gone, and left the house vacant. Over the river, by Longner. I thought it was no harm to take shelter there. Is that why I'm brought here? But why now, after so long? I never stole anything. I left all as I found it. All I wanted was a roof over me, and a place to lay down in comfort."

"Alone?" asked Hugh.

No hesitation at all this time. He had already calculated that the same question must have been answered by others, before ever a hand was laid on him to answer for himself. "I had a woman with me. Gunnild, she was called. She travelled the fairs and markets, entertaining for her living. I met her in Coventry, we kept together a while."

"And when the fair here was over? Last year's fair? Did you then leave together, and keep company still?"

Britric's narrowed glance flickered from one face to the other, and found no helpful clue. Slowly he said: "No. We went separate ways. I was going westward, my best trade is along the border villages."

"And when and where did you part from her?"

"I left her there at the cottage where we'd slept. The fourth day of August, early. It was barely light when I started out. She was going east from there, she had no need to cross the river."

"I can find no one in the town or the Foregate," said Hugh deliberately, "who saw her again."

"They would not," said Britric. "I said, she was going east."

"And you have never seen her since? Never made effort for old kindness" sake to find her again?"

"I never had occasion." He was beginning to sweat, for whatever that might mean. "Chance met, nothing more than that. She went her way, and I went mine."

"And there was no falling out between you? Never a blow struck? No loud disputes? Ever gentle and amiable together, were you, Britric? There are some report differently of you," said Hugh. "There was another fellow, was there not, had hoped to lie snug in that cottage? An old man you drove away. But he did not go far. Not out of earshot of the pair of you, when you did battle in the nights. A stormy partnership, he made it. And she was pressing you to marry her, was she not? And marriage was not to your mind. What happened? Did she grow too wearisome? Or too violent? A hand like yours over her mouth or about her throat could very easily quiet her."

Britric had drawn his head hard back against the stone like a beast at bay, sweat standing on his forehead in quivering drops under the fall of red hair. Between his teeth he got out, in a voice so short of breath it all but strangled in his throat: "This is mad... mad... I tell you, I left her there snoring, alive and l.u.s.ty as ever she was. What is this? What are you thinking of me, my lord? What am I held to have done?"

"I will tell you, Britric, what I think you have done. There was no Gunnild at this year's fair, was there? Nor has she been seen in Shrewsbury since you left her in Ruald's field. I think you fell out and fought once too often, one of those nights, perhaps the last, and Gunnild died of it. And I think you buried her there in the night, under the headland, for the abbey plough to turn up this autumn. As it did! A woman's bones, Britric, and a woman's black hair, a mane of black hair still on the skull."

Britric uttered a small, half-swallowed sound, and let out his breath in a great, gasping sigh, as if he had been hit in the breast with an iron fist. When he could articulate, though in a strangled whisper understood rather by the shaping of his lips than by any sound, he got out over and over: "No... no... no! Not Gunnild, no!"

Hugh let him alone until he had breath to make sense, and time to consider and believe, and reason about his own situation. For he was quick to master himself, and to accept, with whatever effort, the fact that the sheriff was not lying, that this was the reason for his arrest and imprisonment here, and he had better take thought in his own defence.

"I never harmed her," he said at length, slowly and emphatically. "I left her sleeping. I have never set eyes on her since. She was well alive."

"A woman's body, Britric, a year at least in the ground. Black hair. They tell me Gunnild was black."

"So she was. So she is, wherever she may be. So are many women along these borderlands. The bones you found cannot be Gunnild's." Hugh had let slip too easily that all they had, virtually, was a skeleton, never to be identified by face or form. Now Britric knew that he was safe from too exact an accusing image. "I tell you truly, my lord," he said, with more insinuating care, she was well alive when I crept out and left her in the cottage. I won't deny she'd grown too sure of me. Women want to own a man, and that grows irksome. That was why I rose early, while she was deep asleep, and made off westward alone, to be rid of her without a screeching match. No, I never harmed her. This poor creature they found must be some other woman. It is not Gunnild."

"What other woman, Britric? A solitary place, the tenants already gone, why should anyone so much as go there, let alone die there?"

"How could I know, my lord? I never heard of the place until the eve of the fair, last year. I know nothing about the neighbourhood that side of the river. All I wanted was a place to sleep snug." He had himself well in hand now, knowing that no name could ever be confidently given to a mere parcel of female bones, however black the hair on her skull. That might not save him, but it gave him some fragile armour against guilt and death, and he would cling to it and repeat his denials as often and as tirelessly as he must. "I never hurt Gunnild. I left her alive and well."

"What did you know of her?" Cadfael asked suddenly, going off at so abrupt a tangent that for a moment Britric was thrown off-balance, and lost his settled concentration on simple denial. "If you kept company for a while, surely you learned something of the girl, where she came from, where she had kin, the usual pattern of her travelling year. You say she is alive, or at least that you left her alive. Where should she be looked for, to prove as much?"

"Why, she never told much." He was hesitant and uncertain, and plainly knew little about her, or he would have poured it out readily, as proof of his good intent towards the law. Nor had he had time to put together a neat package of lies to divert attention to some distant region where she might well be pursuing her vagabond living. "I met her in Coventry. We came from there together, but she was close-mouthed. I doubt she went further south than that, but she never said where she was from, nor a word of any kinsfolk."

"You said she was going east, after you left her. But how can you know that? She had not said so, and agreed to part there, or you need not have stolen away early to avoid her."

"I spoke too loosely," owned Britric, writhing. "I own it. I believed-I believe-she would turn eastward, when she found me gone. Small use taking her singing and tumbling into Wales, not alone. But I tell you truly, I never harmed her. I left her alive."

And that was his simple, stubborn answer to all further questions, that and the one plea he advanced between obstinate denials.

"My lord, deal fairly with me. Make it known that she is sought, have it cried in the town, ask travellers to carry the word wherever they go, that she should send word to you, and show she is still living. I have not lied to you. If she hears I am charged with her death she will come forward. I never harmed her. She will tell you so."

"And so we will have her name put about, and see if she appears," agreed Hugh, when they had locked Britric in his stone ceil and left him to his uneasy repose, and were walking back towards the castle gatehouse. "But I doubt if a lady who lives Gunnild's style of life will be too eager to come near the law, even to save Britric's neck. What do you think of him? Denials are denials, worth very little by themselves. And he has something on his conscience, and something to do with that place and that woman, too. First thing he cries when we pin him to the place is: "I never stole anything. I left all as I found it." So I take it he did steal. When it came to the mention of Gunnild dead, then he took fright, until he realised I, like a fool, had let it out that she was mere bones. Then he knew how best to deal, and only then did he begin to plead that we seek her out. It looks and sounds well, but I think he knows she will never be found. Rather, he knows all too well that she is found, a thing he hoped would never happen."

"And you'll keep him in hold?" asked Cadfael.

"Very surely! And go on following his traces wherever he's been since that time, and picking the brains of every innkeeper or potman or village customer who's had to deal with him. There must be someone somewhere who can fill in an hour or two of his life-and hers. Now I have him I'll keep him until I know truth, one way or the other. Why? Have you a thing to add that has pa.s.sed me by? I would not refuse any detail you may have in mind."

"A mere thought," said Cadfael abstractedly. "Let it grow a day or two. Who knows, you may not have to wait too long for the truth."

On the following morning, which was Sunday, Sulien Blount came riding in from Longner to attend Ma.s.s in the abbey church, and brought with him, shaken and brushed and carefully folded, the habit in which he had made his way home after the abbot dismissed him. In his own cotte and hose, linen shirt and good leather shoes, he looked, if anything, slightly less at ease than in the habit, so new was his release after more than a year of the novitiate. He had not yet regained the freedom of a young man's easy stride, unhampered by monastic skirts. Nor, strangely, did he look any the happier or more carefree for having made up his mind. There was a solemn set to his admirable jaw, and a silent crease of serious thought between his straight brows. The ring of hair that had grown over-long on his journey from Ramsey had been trimmed into tidiness, and the down of dark gold curls within it had grown into a respectable length to blend with the brown. He attended Ma.s.s with the same grave concentration he had shown when within the Order, delivered up the clothing he had abandoned, paid his reverences to Abbot Radulfus and Prior Robert, and went to find Brother Cadfael in the herb garden.

"Well, well!" said Cadfael. "I thought you might be looking in on us soon. And how do you find things out in the world? You've seen no reason to change your mind?"

"No," said the boy starkly, and for the moment had nothing more to say. He looked round the high-walled garden, its neat, patterned beds now growing a little leggy and bare with the loss of leaves, the bushy stems of thyme dark as wire. "I liked it here, with you. But no, I wouldn't turn back. I was wrong to run away. I shall not make the same mistake again."

"How is your mother faring?" asked Cadfael, divining that she might well be the insoluble grief from which Sulien had attempted flight. For the young man to live with the inescapable contemplation of perpetual pain and the infinitely and cruelly slow approach of lingering death might well be unendurable. For Hugh had reported her present condition very clearly. If that was the heart of it, the boy had braced himself now to make reparation, and carry his part of the load in the house, thereby surely lightening hers.

"Poorly," said Sulien bluntly. "Never anything else. But she never complains. It's as if she had some hungry beast for ever gnawing at her body from within. Some days are a little better than others."

"I have herbs that might do something against the pain," said Cadfael. "Some time ago she did use them for a while."

"I know. We have all told her so, but she refuses them now. She says she doesn't need them. All the same," he said, warming, "give me some, perhaps I may persuade her."

He followed Cadfael into the workshop, under the rustling bunches of dried herbs hanging from the roof beams, and sat down on the wooden bench within while Cadfael filled a flask from his supply of the syrup he made from his eastern poppies, calmer of pain and inducer of sleep.

"You may not have heard yet," said Cadfael, with his back turned, "that the sheriff has a man in prison for the murder of the woman we thought was Generys, until you showed us that was impossible. A fellow named Britric, a pedlar who works the border villages, and bedded down in Ruald's croft last year, through Saint Peter's Fair."