Now that Cadfael came to consider the early part of the November calendar, it seemed to be populated chiefly by Welsh saints. Ruald had reminded him that the sixth day was dedicated to Saint Illtud, who had obeyed his dictatorial angel with such alacrity, and so little consideration for his wife's feelings in the matter. No great devotion was paid to him in English houses, perhaps, but Saint Tysilio, whose day came on the eighth, had a rather special significance here on the borders of Powys, and his influence spilled over the frontier into the neighbouring shires. For the centre of his ministry was the chief church of Powys at Meifod, no great way into Wales, and the saint was reputed to have had military virtues as well as sacred, and to have fought on the Christian side at the battle of Maserfield, by Oswestry, where the royal saint, Oswald, was captured and martyred by the pagans. So a measure of respect was paid to his feast day, and the Welsh of the town and the Foregate came to Ma.s.s that morning in considerable numbers. But for all that, Cadfael had hardly expected the attendance of one worshipper from further afield.

She rode in at the gatehouse, pillion behind an elderly groom, in good time before Ma.s.s, and was lifted down respectfully to the cobbles of the court by the younger groom who followed on a second stout horse, with the maid Gunnild perched behind him. Both women stood shaking out their skirts for a moment before they crossed demurely to the church, the lady before, the maid attentive and dutiful a pace behind her, while the grooms spoke a word or two to the porter, and then led away the horses to the stable yard. The perfect picture of a young woman conforming to every social sanction imposing rules upon her bearing and movements, with her maid for guardian and companion, and her grooms for escort. Pernel was ensuring that this venture out of her usual ambience should be too correct in every detail to attract comment. She might be the eldest of the brood at Withington, but she was still very young, and it was imperative to temper her natural directness and boldness with caution. It had to be admitted that she did it with considerable style and grace, and had an admirable abettor in the experienced Gunnild. They crossed the great court with hands folded and eyes cast down modestly, and vanished into the church by the south door without once risking meeting the gaze of any of these celibates who moved about court and cloister round them.

Now if she has in mind what I think she has, Cadfael reflected, watching them go, she will have need of all Gunnild's worldly wisdom to abet her own good sense and resolution. And I do believe the woman is devoted to her, and will make a formidable protective dragon if ever there's need.

He caught a brief glimpse of her again as he entered the church with the brothers, and pa.s.sed through to his place in the choir. The nave was well filled with lay worshippers, some standing beside the parish altar, where they could see through to the high altar within, some grouped around the stout round pillars that held up the vault. Pernel was kneeling where the light, by chance, fell on her face through the opening from the lighted choir. Her eyes were closed, but her lips still. Her prayers were not in words. She looked very grave, thus austerely attired for church, her soft brown hair hidden within a white wimple, and the hood of her cloak drawn over all, for it was none too warm in the church. She looked like some very young novice nun, her round face more childlike than ever, but the set of her lips had a mature and formidable firmness. Close at her back Gunnild kneeled, and her eyes, though half veiled by long lashes, were open and bright, and possessively steady upon her lady. Woe betide anyone who attempted affront to Pernel Otmere while her maid was by!

After Ma.s.s Cadfael looked for them again, but they were hidden among the ma.s.s of people gathering slowly to leave by the west door. He went out by the south door and the cloisters, and emerged into the court to find her waiting quietly there for the procession of the brothers to separate to their various duties. It did not surprise him when at sight of him her face sharpened and her eyes brightened, and she took a single step towards him, enough to arrest him.

"Brother, may I speak with you? I have asked leave of the lord abbot." She sounded practical and resolute, but she had not risked the least indiscretion, it seemed. "I made so bold as to accost him just now, when he left," she said. "It seems that he already knew my name and family. That can only have been from you, I think."

"Father Abbot is fully informed," said Cadfael, "with all the matter that brought me to visit you. He is concerned for justice, as we are. To the dead and to the living. He will not stand in the way of any converse that may serve that end."

"He was kind," she said, and suddenly warmed and smiled. "And now we have observed all the proper forms, and I can breathe again. Where may we talk?"

He took them to his workshop in the herb garden. It was becoming too chilly to linger and converse outdoors, his brazier was alight but damped down within, and with the timber doors wide open, Brother Winfrid returning to the remaining patch of rough pre-winter digging just outside the enclosure wall, and Gunnild standing at a discreet distance within, not even Prior Robert could have raised his brows at the propriety of this conference. Pernel had been wise in applying directly to the superior, who already knew of the role she had played, and certainly had no reason to disapprove of it. Had she not gone far to save both a body and a soul? And she had brought the one, if not visibly the other, to show to him.

"Now," said Cadfael, tickling the brazier to show a gleam of red through its controlling turves, "sit down and be easy, the both of you. And tell me what you have in mind, to bring you here to worship, when, as I know, you have a church and a priest of your own. I know, for it belongs, like Upton, to this house of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. And your priest is a rare man and a scholar, as I know from Brother Anselm, who is his friend."

"So he is," said Pernel warmly, "and you must not think I have not talked with him, very earnestly, about this matter." She had settled herself decorously at one end of the bench against the wall of the hut, composed and erect, her face bright against the dark timber, her hood fallen back on her shoulders. Gunnild, invited by a smile and a gesture, glided out of shadow and sat down on the other end of the bench, leaving a discreet gap between the two of them to mark the difference in their status, but not too wide, to underline the depth of her alliance with her mistress. "It was Father Ambrosius," said Pernel, "who said the word that brought me here on this day of all days. Father Ambrosius studied for some years in Brittany. You know, Brother, whose day we are celebrating?"

"I should," said Cadfael, relinquishing the bellows that had raised a red glow in his brazier. "He is as Welsh as I am, and a close neighbour to this shire. What of Saint Tysilio?"

"But did you know that he is said to have gone over to Brittany to fly from a woman's persecution? And in Brittany they also tell of his life, like the readings you will hear today at Collations. But there they know him by another name. They call him Sulien."

"Oh, no," she said, seeing how speculatively Cadfael was eyeing her, "I did not take it as a sign from heaven, when Father Ambrosuis told me that. It was just that the name prompted me to act, where before I was only wondering and fretting. Why not on his day? For I think, Brother, that you believe that Sulien Blount is not what he seems, not as open as he seems. I have been thinking and asking about this matter. I think things are so inclining, that he may be suspect of too much knowledge, in this matter of the poor dead woman your plough team found under the headland in the Potter's Field. Too much knowledge, perhaps even guilt. Is it true?"

"Too much knowledge, certainly," said Cadfael. "Guilt, that is mere conjecture, yet there is ground for suspicion." He owed her honesty, and she expected it.

"Will you tell me," she said, "the whole story? For I know only what is gossiped around. Let me understand whatever danger he may be in. Guilt or no, he would not let another man be blamed unjustly."

Cadfael told her the whole of it, from the first furrow cut by the abbey plough. She listened attentively and seriously, her round brow furrowed with thought. She could not and did not believe any evil of the young man who had visited her for so generous a purpose, but neither did she ignore the reasons why others might have doubts of him. At the end she drew breath long and softly, and gnawed her lip for a moment, pondering.

"Do you believe him guilty?" she asked then, point-blank.

"I believe he has knowledge which he has not seen fit to reveal. More than that I will not say. All depends on whether he told us the truth about the ring."

"But Brother Ruald believes him?" she said.

"Without question."

"And he has known him from a child."

"And may be partial," said Cadfael, smiling. "But yes, he has more knowledge of the boy than either you or I, and plainly expects nothing less than truth from him."

"And so would I. But one thing I wonder at," said Pernel very earnestly. "You say that you think he knew of this matter before he went to visit his home, though he said he heard of it only there. If you are right, if he heard it from Brother Jerome before he went to ask leave to visit Longner, why did he not bring forth the ring at once, and tell what he had to tell? Why leave it until the next day? Whether he got the ring as he said, or had it in his possession from long before, he could have spared Brother Ruald one more night of wretchedness. So gentle a soul as he seems, why should he leave a man to bear such a burden an hour longer than he need, let alone a day?"

It was the one consideration which Cadfael had had at the back of his mind ever since the occasion itself, but did not yet know what to make of it. If Pernel's mind was keeping in reserve the same doubt, let her speak for him, and probe beyond where he had yet cared to go. He said simply: "I have not pursued it. It would entail questioning Brother Jerome, which I should be loath to do until I am more sure of my ground. But I can think of only one reason. For some motive of his own, he wished to preserve the appearance of having heard of the case only when he paid his visit to Longner."

"Why should he want that?" she challenged.

"I suppose that he might well want to talk to his brother before he committed himself to anything. He had been away more than a year, he would want to ensure that his family was in no way threatened by a matter of which he had only just learned. Naturally he would be tender of their interests, all the more because he had not seen them for so long."

To that she agreed, with a thoughtful and emphatic nod of her head. "Yes, so he would. But I can think of another reason why he delayed, and I am sure you are thinking of it, too."

"And that is?"

"That he had not got it," said Pernel firmly, "and could not show it, until he had been home to fetch it."

She had indeed spoken out bluntly and fearlessly, and Cadfael could not but admire her singlemindedness. Her sole belief was that Sulien was clean of any shadow of guilt, her sole purpose to prove it to the world, but her confidence in the efficacy of truth drove her to go headlong after it, certain that when found it must be on her side.

"I know," she said, "I am making a case that may seem hurtful to him, but in the end it cannot be, because I am sure he has done no wrong. There is no way but to look at every possibility. I know you said that Sulien grew to love that woman, and said so himself, and if she did give her ring to another man, for spite against her husband, yes, it could have been to Sulien. But equally it could have been to someone else. And though I would not try to lift the curse from one man by throwing it upon another, Sulien was not the only young man close neighbour to the potter. Just as likely to be drawn to a woman every account claims was beautiful. If Sulien has guilty knowledge he cannot reveal, he could as well be shielding a brother as protecting himself. I cannot believe," she said vehemently, "that you have not thought of that possibility."

"I have thought of many possibilities," agreed Cadfael placidly, "without much by way of fact to support any. Yes, for either himself or his brother he might lie. Or for Ruald. But only if he knows, as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, that our poor dead lady is indeed Generys. And never forget, there is also the possibility, however diminished since his efforts for Britric, that he was not lying, that Generys is alive and well, somewhere there in the eastlands, with the man she chose to follow. And we may never, never know who was the dark-haired woman someone buried with reverence in the Potter's Field."

"But you do not believe that," she said with certainty.

"I think truth, like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil, however deeply sown, will make its way to the light."

"And there is nothing we can do to hasten it," said Pernel, and heaved a resigned sigh.

"At present, nothing but wait."

"And pray, perhaps?" she said.

Cadfael could not choose but wonder, none the less, what she would do next, for inaction would be unbearably irksome to her now that her whole energy was engaged for this young man she had seen only once. Whether Sulien had paid as acute attention to her there was no knowing, but it was in Cadfael's mind that sooner or later he would have to, for she had no intention of turning back. It was also in his mind that the boy might do a good deal worse. If, that is, he came out of this web of mystery and deceit with a whole skin and a quiet mind, something he certainly did not possess at present.

From Cambridge and the Fens there was no news. No one had yet expected any. But travellers from eastward reported that the weather was turning foul, with heavy rains and the first frosts of the winter. No very attractive prospect for an army floundering in watery reaches unfamiliar to them but known to the elusive enemy. Cadfael bethought him of his promise to Hugh, by this time more than a week absent, and asked leave to go up into the town and visit Aline and his G.o.dson. The sky was overclouded, the weather from the east gradually moving in upon Shrewsbury in a very fine rain, hardly more than mist, that clung in the hair and the fibres of clothing, and barely darkened the slate-grey earth of the Foregate. In the Potter's Field the winter crop was already sown, and there would be cattle grazing the lower strip of pasture. Cadfael had not been back to see it with his own eyes, but with the inner eye he saw it very clearly, dark, rich soil soon to bring forth new life; green, moist turf and tangled briary headland under the ridge of bushes and trees. That it had once held an unblessed grave would soon be forgotten. The grey, soft day made for melancholy. It was pleasure and relief to turn in at the gate of Hugh's yard, and be met and embraced about the thighs by a small, boisterous boy yelling delighted greetings. Another month or so, and Giles would be four years old. He took a first grip on a fistful of Cadfael's habit, and towed him gleefully into the house. With Hugh absent, Giles was the man of the house, and well aware of all his duties and privileges. He made Cadfael free of the amenities of his manor with solemn dignity, seated him ceremoniously, and himself made off to the b.u.t.tery to fetch a beaker of ale, bearing it back cautiously in both still-rounded, infantile hands, overfilled and in danger of spilling, with his primrose hair erect and rumpled, and the tip of his tongue braced in the corner of his mouth. His mother followed him into the hall at a discreet distance, to avoid upsetting either his balance or his dignity. She was smiling at Cadfael over her son's fair head, and suddenly the radiant likeness between them shone on Cadfael like the sun bursting out of clouds. The round, earnest face with its full childish cheeks, and the pure oval with its wide brow and tapered chin, so different and yet so similar, shared the pale, l.u.s.trous colouring and the lily-smooth skin, the refinement of feature and steadiness of gaze. Hugh is indeed a lucky man, Cadfael thought, and then drew in cautious breath on a superst.i.tious prayer that such luck should stand by him still, wherever he might be at this moment.

If Aline had any misgivings, they were not allowed to show themselves. She sat down with him cheerfully as always, and talked of the matters of the household and the affairs at the castle under Alan Herbard, with her usual practical good sense; and Giles, instead of clambering into his G.o.dfather's lap as he might well have done some weeks previously, climbed up to sit beside him on the bench like a man and a contemporary.

"Yes," said Aline, "there is a bowman of the company has ridden in only this afternoon, the first word we've had. He got a graze in one skirmish they had, and Hugh sent him home, seeing he was fit to ride, and they had left changes of horses along the way. He will heal well, Alan says, but it weakens his drawing arm."

"And how are they faring?" Cadfael asked. "Have they managed to bring Geoffrey into the open?"

She shook her head decisively. "Very little chance of it. The waters are up everywhere, and it's still raining. All they can do is lie in wait for the raiding parties when they venture out to plunder the villages. Even there the king is at a disadvantage, seeing Geoffrey's men know every usable path, and can bog them down in the marshes only too easily. But they have picked off a few such small parties. It isn't what Stephen wants, but it's all he can get. Ramsey is quite cut off, no one can hope to fetch them out of there."

"And this tedious business of ambush and waiting," said Cadfael, "wastes too much time. Stephen cannot afford to keep it up too long. Costly and ineffective as it is, he'll have to withdraw to try some other measure. If Geoffrey's numbers have grown so great, he must be getting supplies now from beyond the Fen villages. His supply lines might be vulnerable. And Hugh? He is well?"

"Wet and muddy and cold, I daresay," said Aline, ruefully smiling, "and probably cursing heartily, but he's whole and well, or was when his archer left him. That's one thing to be said for this tedious business, as you called it, such losses as there are have been de Mandeville's. But too few to do him much harm."

"Not enough," Cadfael said consideringly, "to be worth the king's while for much longer. I think, Aline, you may not have to wait long to have Hugh home again."

Giles pressed a little closer and more snugly into his G.o.dfather's side, but said nothing. "And you, my lord," said Cadfael, "will have to hand over your manor again, and give account of your stewardship. I hope you have not let things get out of hand while the lord sheriff's been away."

Hugh's deputy made a brief sound indicative of scorn at the very idea that his strict rule should ever be challenged. "I am good at it," he stated firmly. "My father says so. He says I keep a tighter rein than he does. And use the spur more."

"Your father," said Cadfael gravely, "is always fair and ungrudging even to those who excel him." He was aware, through some alchemy of proximity and affection, of the smile Aline was not allowing to show in her face.

"Especially with the women," said Giles complacently.

"Now that," said Cadfael, "I can well believe."

King Stephen's tenacity, in any undertaking, had always been precarious. Not want of courage, certainly, not even want of determination, caused him to abandon sieges after a mere few days and rush away to some more promising a.s.sault. It was rather impatience, frustrated optimism and detestation of being inactive that made him quit one undertaking for another. On occasion, as at Oxford, he could steel himself to persist, if the situation offered a reasonable hope of final triumph, but where stalemate was obvious he soon wearied and went off to fresh fields. In the wintry rains of the Fens anger and personal hatred kept him constant longer than usual, but his successes were meagre, and it was borne in upon him by the last week of November that he could not hope to finish the work. Floundering in the quagmires of those bleak levels, his forces had certainly closed in with enough method and strength to compress de Mandeville's territory, and had picked off a fair number of his rogue troops when they ventured out on to drier ground, but it was obvious that the enemy had ample supplies, and could hold off for a while even from raiding. There was no hope of digging them out of their hole. Stephen turned to changed policies with the instant vigour he could find at need. He wanted his feudal levies, especially any from potentially vulnerable regions, such as those neighbour to the Welsh, or to dubious friends like the Earl of Chester, back where they were most useful. Here in the Fens he proposed to marshal an army rather of builders than soldiers, throw up a ring of hasty but well-placed strongpoints to contain the outlaw territory, compress it still further wherever they could, and menace Geoffrey's outside supply lines when his stores ran low. Manned by the experienced Flemish mercenaries, familiar with fighting in flat lands and among complex waterways, such a ring of forts could hold what had been gained through the winter, until conditions were more favourable to open manoeuvring.

It was nearing the end of November when Hugh found himself and his levy briskly thanked and dismissed. He had lost no men killed, and had only a few minor wounds and grazes to show, and was heartily glad to withdraw his men from wallowing in the quagmires round Cambridge and set out with them north-westward towards Huntingdon, where the royal castle had kept the town relatively secure and the roads open. From there he sent them on due west for Kettering, while he rode north, heading for Peterborough.

He had not paused to consider, until he rode over the bridge of the Nene and up into the town, what he expected to find there. Better, perhaps, to approach thus without expectations of any kind. The road from the bridge brought him up into the marketplace, which was alive and busy. The burgesses who had elected to stay were justified, the town had so far proved too formidable to be a temptation to de Mandeville while there were more isolated and defenceless victims to be found. Hugh found stabling for his horse, and went afoot to look for Priestgate.

The shop was there, or at least a flourishing silversmith's shop was there, open for business and showing a prosperous front to the world. That was the first confirmation. Hugh went in, and enquired of the young fellow sitting at work in the back of the shop, under a window that lit his workbench, for Master John Hinde. The name was received blithely, and the young man laid down his tools and went out by a rear door to call his master. No question of any discrepancy here, the shop and the man were here to be found, just as Sulien had left them when he made his way west from Ramsey.

Master John Hinde, when he followed his a.s.sistant in from his private quarters, was plainly a man of substance in the town, one who might well be a good patron to his favoured religious house, and on excellent terms with abbots. He was perhaps fifty, a lean, active, upright figure in a rich furred gown. Quick dark eyes in a thin, decisive face summed up Hugh in a glance.

"I am John Hinde. How can I help you?" The marks of the wearisome lurking in wet, windswept ambushes, and occasional hard riding in the open, were there to be seen in Hugh's clothes and harness. "You come from the king's muster? We have heard he's withdrawing his host. Not to leave the field clear for de Mandeville, I hope?"

"No such matter," Hugh a.s.sured him, "though I'm sent back to take care of my own field. No, you'll be none the worse for our leaving, the Flemings will be between you and danger, with at least one strong-point well placed to pen them into their island. There's little more or better he could do now, with the winter coming."

"Well, we live as candles in the breath of G.o.d," said the silversmith philosophically, "wherever we are. I've known it too long to be easily frightened off. And what's your need, sir, before you head for home?"

"Do you remember," said Hugh, "about the first or second day of October, a young monk sheltering here with you overnight? It was just after the sack of Ramsey, the boy came from there, commended to you, he said, by his abbot. Abbot Walker was sending him home to the brother house at Shrewsbury, to take the news of Ramsey with him along the way. You remember the man?"

"Clearly," said John Hinde, without hesitation. "He was just at the end of his novitiate. The brothers were scattering for safety. None of us is likely to forget that time. I would have lent the lad a horse for the first few miles, but he said he would do better afoot, for they were all about the open countryside like bees in swarm then. What of him? I hope he reached Shrewsbury safely?"

"He did, and brought the news wherever he pa.s.sed. Yes, he's well, though he's left the Order since, and returned to his brother's manor."

"He told me then he was in doubts if he was on the right way," agreed the silversmith. "Walter was not the man to hold on to a youngster against his inclination. So what is it I can add, concerning this youth?"

"Did he," asked Hugh deliberately, "notice a particular ring in your shop? And did he remark upon it, and ask after the woman from whom you had bought it, only ten days or so earlier? A plain silver ring set with a small yellow stone, and bearing initials engraved within it? And did he beg it of you, because he had known the woman well from his childhood, and kept a kindness for her? Is any part of this truth?"

There was a long moment of silence while the silversmith looked back at him, eye to eye, with intelligent speculation sharpening the lean lines of his face. It is possible that he was considering retreat from any further confidence, for want of knowing what might result from his answers for a young man perhaps innocently entrammelled in some misfortune no fault of his own. Men of business learn to be chary of trusting too many too soon. But if so, he discarded the impulse of denial, after studying Hugh with close attention and arriving, it seemed, at a judgement.

"Come within!" he said then, with equal deliberation and equal certainty. And he turned towards the door from which he had emerged, inviting Hugh with a gesture of his hand. "Come! Let me hear more. Now we have gone so far, we may as well go further together."

Chapter Eleven.

SULIEN HAD PUT OFF THE HABIT, but the hourly order that went with it was not so easy to discard. He found himself waking at midnight for Matins and Lauds, and listening for the bell, and was shaken and daunted by the silence and isolation where there should have been the sense of many brothers stirring and sighing, a soft murmur of voices urging the heavy sleepers, and in the dimness at the head of the night stairs the glow of the little lamp to light them down safely to the church. Even the freedom of his own clothes sat uneasily on him still, after a year of the skirted gown. He had put away one life without being able to take up the old where he had abandoned it, and making a new beginning was unexpected effort and pain. Moreover, things at Longner had changed since his departure to Ramsey. His brother was married to a young wife, settled in his lordship, and happy in the prospect of an heir, for Jehane was pregnant. The Longner lands were a very fair holding, but not great enough to support two families, even if such sharing had ever promised well, and a younger son would have to work out an independent life for himself, as younger sons had always had to do. The cloister he had sampled and abandoned. His family bore with him tolerantly and patiently until he should find his way. Eudo was the most open and amiable of young men, and fond of his brother. Sulien was welcome to all the time he needed, and until he made up his mind Longner was his home, and glad to have him back.

But no one could quite be sure that Sulien was glad. He filled his days with whatever work offered, in the stables and byres, exercising hawk and hound, lending a hand with sheep and cattle in the fields, carting timber for fence repairs and fuel, whatever was needed he was willing and anxious to do, as though he had stored within him such a tension of energy that he must at all costs grind it out of his body or sicken with it.

Withindoors he was quiet company, but then he had always been the quiet one. He was gentle and attentive to his mother, and endured stoically hours of her anguished presence, which Eudo tended to avoid when he could. The steely control with which she put aside every sign of pain was admirable, but almost harder to bear than open distress. Sulien marvelled and endured with her, since there was nothing more he could do for her. And she was gracious and dignified, but whether she was glad of his company or whether it added one more dimension to her burden, there was no telling. He had always supposed that Eudo was her favourite and had the lion's share of her love. That was the usual order of things, and Sulien had no fault to find with it.

His abstraction and quietness were hardly noticed by Eudo and Jehane. They were breeding, they were happy, they found life full and pleasant, and took it for granted that a youth who had mistakenly wasted a year of his life on a vocation of which he had thought better only just in time, should spend these first weeks of freedom doing a great deal of hard thinking about his future. So they left him to his thoughts, accommodated him with the hard labour he seemed to need, and waited with easy affection for him to emerge into the open in his own good time.

He rode out one day in mid November with orders to Eudo's herdsman in the outlying fields of Longner land to eastward, along the River Tern, almost as far afield as Upton, and having discharged his errand, turned to ride back, and then instead wheeled the horse again and rode on very slowly, leaving the village of Upton on his left hand, hardly knowing what it was he had in mind. There was no haste, all his own industry could not convince him that he was needed at home, and the day, though cloudy, was dry, and the air mild. He rode on, gradually drawing a little further from the river bank, and only when he topped the slight ridge which offered the highest point in these flat, open fields did he realise where he was heading. Before him, at no great distance, the roofs of Withington showed through a frail filigree of naked branches, and the squat, square tower of the church just rose above the grove of low trees.

He had not realised how constantly she had been in his mind since his visit here, lodged deep in his memory, un.o.btrusive but always present. He had only to close his eyes now, and he could see her face as clearly as when she had first caught the sound of his horse's hooves on the hard soil of the courtyard, and turned to see who was riding in. The very way she halted and turned to him was like a flower swaying in the lightest of winds, and the face she raised to him was open like a flower, without reserve or fear, so that at that first glance he had seemed to see deep into her being. As though her flesh, though rounded and full and firm, had been translucent from without and luminous from within. There had been a little pale sunshine that day, and it had gained radiance from her eyes, russet-gold eyes, and reflected light from her broad brow under the soft brown hair. She had smiled at him with that same ungrudging radiance, shedding warmth about her to melt the chill of anxiety from his mind and heart, she who had never set eyes on him before, and must not be made ever to see him or think of him again.

But he had thought of her, whether he willed it or not.

He had hardly realised now that he was still riding towards the further edge of the village, where the manor lay. The line of the stockade rose out of the fields, the steep pitch of the roof within, the pattern of field strips beyond the enclosure, a square plot of orchard trees, all gleaned and almost leafless. He had splashed through the first stream almost without noticing, but the second, so close now to the wide-open gate in the manor fence, caused him to baulk suddenly and consider what he was doing, and must not do, had no right to do.

He could see the courtyard within the stockade, and the elder boy carefully leading a pony in decorously steady circles, with the small girl on its back. Regularly they appeared, pa.s.sed and vanished, to reappear at the far rim of their circle and vanish again, the boy giving orders importantly, the child with both small fists clutched in the pony's mane. Once Gunnild came into view for a moment, smiling, watching her youngest charge, astride like a boy, kicking round bare heels into the pony's fat sides. Then she drew back again to clear their exercise ground, and pa.s.sed from his sight. With an effort, Sulien came to himself, and swung away from them towards the village.

And there she was, coming towards him from the direction of the church, with a basket on her arm under the folds of her cloak, and her brown hair braided in a thick plait and tied with a scarlet cord. Her eyes were on him. She had known him before ever he was aware of her, and she approached him without either hastening or lingering, with confident pleasure. Just as he had been seeing her with his mind's eye a moment earlier, except that then she had worn no cloak, and her hair had been loose about her shoulders. But her face had the same open radiance, her eyes the same quality of letting him into her heart.

A few paces from where he had reined in she halted, and they looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Then she said: "Were you really going away again, now that you've come? Without a word? Without coming in?"

He knew that he ought to claw out of some astute corner of his mind wit enough and words enough to show that his presence here had nothing to do with her or his former visit, some errand that would account for his having to ride by here, and make it urgent that he should be on his way home again without delay. But he could not find a single word, however false, however rough, to thrust her away from him.

"Come and be acquainted with my father," she said simply. "He will be glad, he knows why you came before. Of course Gunnild told him, how else do you think she got horse and groom to bring her into Shrewsbury, to the sheriff? None of us need ever go behind my father's back. I know you asked her to leave you out of it with Hugh Beringar, and so she did, but in this house we don't have secrets, we have no cause."

That he could well believe. Her nature spoke for her sire, a constant and carefree inheritance. And though he knew it was none the less inc.u.mbent upon him to draw away from her, to avoid her and leave her her peace of mind, and relieve her parents of any future grief on her behalf, he could not do it. He dismounted, and walked with her, bridle in hand and still mute and confounded, in at the gate of Withington.

Brother Cadfael saw them in church together at the sung Ma.s.s for Saint Cecilia's day, the twenty-second of November. It was a matter for conjecture why they should choose to attend here at the abbey, when they had parish churches of their own. Perhaps Sulien still kept a precarious fondness for the Order he had left, for its stability and certainty, not to be found in the world outside, and still felt the need to make contact with it from time to time, while he reorientated his life. Perhaps she wanted Brother Anselm's admired music, especially on this day of all the saints' days. Or perhaps, Cadfael reflected, they found this a convenient and eminently respectable meeting-place for two who had not yet progressed so far as to be seen together publicly nearer home. Whatever the reason, there they were in the nave, close to the parish altar where they could see through into the choir and hear the singing unmarred by the mute spots behind some of the ma.s.sive pillars. They stood close, but not touching each other, not even the folds of a sleeve brushing, very still, very attentive, with solemn faces and wide, clear eyes. Cadfael saw the girl for once grave, though she still shone, and the boy for once eased and tranquil, though the shadow of his disquiet still set its finger in the small furrow between his brows.

When the brothers emerged after service Sulien and Pernel had already left by the west door, and Cadfael went to his work in the garden wondering how often they had met thus, and how the first meeting had come about, for though the two had never looked at each other or touched hands during worship, or given any sign of being aware each of the other's presence, yet there was something about their very composure and the fixity of their attention that bound them together beyond doubt.

It was not difficult, he found, to account for this ambivalent aura they carried with them, so clearly together, so tacitly apart. There would be no resolution, no solving of the dichotomy, until the one devouring question was answered. Ruald, who knew the boy best, had never found the least occasion to doubt that what he told was truth, and the simplicity of Ruald's acceptance of that certainty was Ruald's own salvation. But Cadfael could not see certainty yet upon either side. And Hugh and his lances and archers were still many miles away, their fortune still unknown, and nothing to be done but wait.

On the last day of November an archer of the garrison, soiled and draggled from the roads, rode in from the east, pausing first at Saint Giles to cry the news that the sheriff's levy was not far behind him, intact as it had left the town, apart from a few grazes and bruises, that the king's shire levies, those most needed elsewhere, were dismissed to their own garrisons at least for the winter, and his tactics changed from the attempt to dislodge and destroy his enemy to measures to contain him territorially and limit the damage he could do to his neighbours. A campaign postponed rather than ended, but it meant the safe return of the men of Shropshire to their own pastures. By the time the courier rode on into the Foregate the news was already flying ahead of him, and he eased his speed to cry it again as he pa.s.sed, and answer some of the eager questions called out to him by the inhabitants. They came running out of their houses and shops and lofts, tools in hand, the women from their kitchens, the smith from his forge, Father Boniface from his room over the north porch of the abbey church, in a great buzz of relief and delight, pa.s.sing details back and forth to one another as they had s.n.a.t.c.hed them by chance from the courier's lips.

By the time the solitary rider was past the abbey gatehouse and heading for the bridge, the orderly thudding of hooves and the faint jingle of harness had reached Saint Giles, and the populace of the Foregate stayed to welcome the returning company. Work could wait for an hour or two. Even within the abbey pale the news was going round, and brothers gathered outside the wall unreproved, to watch the return. Cadfael, who had risen to see them depart, came thankfully to see them safely home again.

They came, understandably, a little less immaculate in their accoutrements than they had departed. The lance pennants were soiled and frayed, even tattered here and there, some of the light armour dinted and dulled, a few heads bandaged, one or two wrists slung for support, and several beards where none had been before. But they rode in good order and made a very respectable show, in spite of the travel stains and the mud imperfectly brushed out of their garments. Hugh had overtaken his men well before they reached Coventry, and made a sufficient halt there to allow rest and grooming to men and horses alike. The baggage carts and the foot bowmen could take their time from Coventry on, where the roads were open and good, and word of their safety had gone before them.

Riding at the head of the column, Hugh had discarded his mail to ride at ease in his own coat and cloak. He looked alert and stimulated, faintly flushed with pleasure from the hum and babel of relief and joy that accompanied him along the Foregate, and would certainly be continued through the town. Hugh would always make a wry mock of praise and plaudits, well aware of how narrowly they were separated from the rumblings of reproach that might have greeted him had he lost men, in however desperate an encounter. But it was human to take pleasure in knowing he had lost none. The return from Lincoln, almost three years ago, had not been like this; he could afford to enjoy his welcome.

At the abbey gatehouse he looked for Cadfael among the bevy of shaven crowns, and found him on the steps of the west door. Hugh said a word into his captain's ear, and drew his grey horse out of the line to rein in alongside, though he did not dismount. Cadfael reached up to the bridle in high content.

"Well, lad, this is a welcome sight if ever there was. Barely a scratch on you, and not a man missing! Who would want more?"

"What I wanted," said Hugh feelingly, "was de Mandeville's hide, but he wears it still, and devil a thing can Stephen do about it until we can flush the rat out of his hole. You've seen Aline? All's well there?"

"All's well enough, and will be better far when she sees your face in the doorway. Are you coming in to Radulfus?"

"Not yet! Not now! I must get the men home and paid, and then slip home myself. Cadfael, do something for me!"

"Gladly," said Cadfael heartily.

"I want young Blount, and want him anywhere but at Longner, for I fancy his mother knows nothing about this business he's tangled in. She goes nowhere out to hear the talk, and the family would go out of their way to keep every added trouble from her. If they've said no word to her about the body you found, G.o.d forbid I should shoot the bolt at her now, out of the blue. She has grief enough. Will you get leave from the abbot, and find some means to bring the boy to the castle?"

"You've news, then!" But he did not ask what. "An easier matter to bring him here, and Radulfus will have to hear, now or later, whatever it may be. He was one of us, he'll come if he's called. Radulfus can find a pretext. Concern for a sometime son. And no lie!"