by Ellis Peters
“That will be great pleasure for me,” said Cadfael. “The walk is very shortbut perhaps you’ll be needing some more herbs for your kitchen? I have ample supplies, you may come in and take what you wish.”
She did give him a very sharp glance for that, and as suddenly dimpled, and to hide laughter turned to embrace Diota, kissing her thin cheek like a daughter. Then she drew her cloak about her and led the way out into the alley, and together they walked the greater part of the way out into the Foregate in silence.
“Do you know,” she said then, “why I went to see Mistress Hammet?”
“Out of womanly sympathy, surely,” said Cadfael, “with her loss. Loss and lonelinessstill a virtual stranger here
“
“Oh, come!” said Sanan bluntly. “She worked for the priest, I suppose it was a secure life for a widow woman, but loss
? Lonely she may well be.”
“I was not speaking of Father Ailnoth,” said Cadfael.
She gave him another straight glance of her startling blue eyes, and heaved a thoughtful sigh. “Yes, you’ve worked with him, you know him. He told you, didn’t he, that she was his nurse, no blood kin? She never had children in her own marriage, he’s as dear as a son to her. I
have talked with him, tooby chance. You know he sent a message to my step-father. Everyone knows that now. I was curious to see this young man, that’s all.”
They had reached the abbey gatehouse. She stood hesitant, frowning at the ground.
“Now everyone is saying that hethis Ninian Bachiler killed Father Ailnoth, because the priest was going to betray him to the sheriff. I knew she must have heard it. I knew she would be alone, afraid for him, now he’s fled, and hunted for his lifefor it is his life, now!”
“So you came to bear her company,” said Cadfael, “and reassure her. Come through into the garden, and if you have all the pot-herbs you want, I daresay we can find another good reason. You won’t be any the worse for having something by you to cure the cough that may be coming along in a week or two.”
She looked up with a flashing smile. “The same remedy you gave me when I was ten? I’ve changed so much you can hardly have known me again. Such excellent health I have, I need you only once every seven or eight years.”
“If you need me now,” said Cadfael simply, leading the way across the great court towards the gardens, “that’s enough.”
She followed demurely, lowering her eyes modestly in this male seclusion, and in the safe solitude of the workshop she allowed herself to be installed comfortably with her small feet towards the brazier before she drew breath again and went on talking, now more freely, having left all other ears outside the door.
“I came to see Mistress Hammet because I was afraid that, now that he is so threatened, she might do something foolish. She is devoted to Ninian, in desperation she might do anythinganything!to ensure that he goes free. She might even come forward with some mad story about being to blame herself. She would, I am sure, for him! If she thought it would clear him of all guilt, she would confess to murder.”
“So you came,” said Cadfael, moving about his private world quietly to leave her the illusion that she was not closely observed, “to urge her to hold her peace and wait calmly, for he’s still at liberty and in no immediate danger. Is that it?”
“Yes. And if you go to see her again, or she comes to you, please urge the same upon her. Don’t let her do anything to harm herself.”
“Did he send you, to see her and tell her this?” asked Cadfael directly.
She was not yet quite ready to be drawn into the open, though fleetingly she smiled. “It’s simply that I know, I understand, how anxious he must be now about her. He would be glad if he knew I had talked to her.”
As he will know, before many hours are out, thought Cadfael. Now I wonder where she has hidden him? There could well be old retainers of her own father here in Shrewsbury, or close by, men who would do a great deal for Berničres’s daughter.
“I know,” said Sanan with slow solemnity, following Cadfael’s movements with intent eyes, “that you discovered Ninian before even my step-father betrayed him. I know he told you freely who he is and what he’s about, and you said you had nothing against any honest man of either party, and would do nothing to harm him. And you’ve kept his secret until now, when it’s no longer a secret. He trusts you, and I am resolved to trust you.”
“No,” said Cadfael hastily, “tell me nothing! If I don’t know where the boy is now, no one can get it out of me, and I can declare my ignorance with a good conscience. I like a gallant lad, even if he is too rash for his own good. He tells me his whole aim now is to reach the Empress, at whatever cost, and offer her his services. He has a right to dispose of his own efforts as he pleases, and I wish him a safe arrival and long life. Such a madcap deserves to have luck on his side.”
“I know,” she said, flushing and smiling, “he is not very discreet
“
“Discreet? I doubt if he knows the meaning of the word! To write and send such a letter, open as the day, signed with his own name and telling where and under what pretence he’s to be found! No, never tell me where he is now, but wherever you’ve hidden him, keep a weather eye on him, for there’s no knowing what breathless foolishness he’ll be up to next.” He had been busy filling a small flask, to provide her with a respectable reason for emerging from his herbarium. He sealed it with a wooden stopper and tied it down at the neck under a wisp of thin parchment before wrapping it in a piece of linen and putting it into her hands. “There, madam, is your permit to be here. And my advice is, get him away as soon as you can.”
“But he won’t go,” she said, sighing, but with pride rather than exasperation, “not while this matter is unresolved. He won’t budge until he knows Diota is safe. And there are preparations to makemeans to provide
” She shook herself bracingly, tossed her brown head, and made briskly for the door.
“His first need,” said Cadfael thoughtfully after her, “will be a good horse.”
She turned about abruptly in the doorway, and gave him a blazing smile, throwing aside all reservations.
“Two horses!” she said in a soft, triumphant whisper. “I am of the Empress’s party, too. I am going with him!”
Chapter Nine
Cadfael was uneasy in his mind all that day, plagued on the one hand by misgivings about Sanan’s revelation, and on the other by the elusive gnat that sang in the back of his consciousness, telling him persistently that he had failed to notice the loss of one item that should have been sought with Ailnoth, and might very well have missed another. There was certainly something he should have thought of, something that might shed light, if only he could discover what it was, and go, belatedly, to look for it.
In the meantime, he pursued the round of his duties through Vespers and supper in the refectory, and tried in vain to concentrate upon the psalms for this thirtieth day of December, the sixth day in the octave of Christmas.
Cynric had been right about the thaw. It came furtively and grudgingly, but it was certainly on its way by mid afternoon. The trees were shedding their tinkling filigree of frozen rime and standing starkly black against a low sky. Drips perforated the whiteness under the eaves with small dark pockmarks, and the black of the road and the green of grass were beginning to show through the covering of snow. By morning it might even be possible to break the ground, in that chosen spot sheltered under the precinct wall, and dig Father Ailnoth’s grave.
Cadfael had examined the skullcap closely, and could make no great sense of it. Yet it fretted him simply because he had failed to think of it when the body was found.
As for the damage to it, that suggested a connection with the blow to the head, and yet at the same time contradicted that connection, since in that event the cap would surely have fallen on land, when the blow was struck. True, the assailant might very well have thrown it into the water after the priest, but in the da
rk would he have noticed or thought of it, and if he had, would he necessarily have been able to find it? A small black thing in tufted grass not yet white with rime not easy to see, and unlikely to be remembered as too dangerous to leave, when murder had been committed. Who was going to grope around in the dark in rough grass, when he had just killed a man? His one thought would be to get well away from the scene as quickly as possible.
Well, if Cadfael had missed this one thing, he might have missedhis demon was nagging at him that he had missed!another as important. And if he had, it was still there by the mill, either along the bank or in the water, or even within the mill itself. No use looking for it elsewhere.
There was half an hour left before Compline, and most of the brothers, very sensibly, were in the warming room, getting the chill out of their bones. It was folly to think of going near the mill at this hour, in the dark, but for all that Cadfael could not keep away, his mind so dwelt upon the place, as though the very ambience of the pool, the mill and the solitary night might reproduce the events of Christmas Eve, and prod his memory into recapturing the lost factor. He crossed the great court to the retired corner by the infirmary, where the wicket in the precinct wall led through directly to the mill.
Outside, with no moon and only ragged glimpses of stars, he stood until his eyes grew accustomed to the night, and the shapes of things grew out of obscurity. The rough grass of the field, the dark bulk of the mill to his right, with the little wooden bridge at the corner of the building immediately before him, crossing the head-race to the overhanging bank of the pool. He crossed, his feet making a small, clear, hollow sound on the planks, and walked across the narrow strip of grass to the bank. The expanse of the water opened beneath him, pale, leaden-still, dappled with patches of open water, rimmed round with half-thawed ice.
Nothing moved here but himself, there was nothing to be heard, not even a breath of wind stirring in the lissome naked shoots of the pollarded willows at his left hand along the bank. A few yards along there, just past the nearest stump, cut down to hip-height and bristling with wands like hair on the giant head of a terrified man, they had drawn Ailnoth’s body laboriously along under the eroded bank, and brought him to shore where the meadow sloped down more gently to the outflow of the tail-race.
In his recollection of the morning every detail stood sharply defined, but shed no light at all on what had happened in the night. He turned from the high bank and walked back across the bridge, and for no good reason that he could see continued round the mill, and down the sloping bank to the big doors where the grain was carried in. Only an outer bar fastened the door, and that, he saw dimly by the faint reflection from bleached timber, was drawn back from its socket. There was a small door on the higher level, giving quick access to the wicket in the precinct wall. That could be fastened within. But why should this heavy bar be drawn back unless someone had made entry from without?
Cadfael set his hand to the closed but unbarred door, eased it open by a hand’s breadth, and stiffened to listen with an ear to the chink. Nothing but silence from within. He opened it a little wider, slid quietly through, and eased the door back again behind him. The warm scents of flour and grain tickled his nostrils. He had a nose sharp as fox or hound, and trusted to it in the dark, and there was another scent here, very faint, utterly familiar. In his own workshop he was unaware of it from long and constant acquaintance, but in any other place it pricked his consciousness with a particular insistence, as of a stolen possession of his own, and a valued one, that had no business to stray. A man cannot be in and out of a workshop saturated with years of harvesting herbs, and not carry the scent of them about in his garments. Cadfael froze with his back against the closed door, and waited.
The faintest stir reached his ears, as of a foot carefully placed in dust and husk that could not choose but rustle, however cautiously trodden. Somewhere above him, on the upper floor. So the hatch was open, and someone was leaning there, carefully shifting his stance to drop through. Cadfael moved obligingly in that direction, to give him encouragement. Next moment a body dropped neatly behind him, and an arm clamped about his neck, bracing him back against his assailant, while its fellow embraced him about chest and arms, pinning him close. He stood slack within the double grip, and continued to breathe easily, and with wind to spare.
“Not badly done,” he said with mild approval. “But you have no nose, son. What are four senses, without the fifth?”
“Have I not?” breathed Ninian’s voice in his ear, shaken by a quaver of suppressed laughter. “You came in at the door so like a waft of wind through your eaves, I was back there with that oil I had to abandon. I hope it took no harm.” Hard and vehement young arms hugged Cadfael close, let him loose gently, and turned him about at arm’s length, as though to view him, where there was no light to see more than a shape, a shadow. “I owed you a fright. You had the wits scared out of me when you eased the door ajar,” said Ninian reproachfully.
“I was none too easy in my own mind,” said Cadfael, “when I found the bar out of its socket. Lad, you take far too many chances. For God’s sake and Sanan’s, what are you doing here?”
“I could as well ask you that,” said Ninian. “And might get the same answer, too. I ventured here to see if there was anything more to be found, though after so many days, heaven knows why there should be. But how can any of us be easy until we know? “I know I never laid hands on the man, but what comfort is that when everyone else lays it at my door? I should be loth to leave here until it’s shown I’m no murderer, even if there were nothing more in it than that, but there is. There’s Diota! Wanting the chance to get at me, how long before they begin to turn on her, if not for murder, then for treason in helping me to escape the hunt in the south, and cover my guilt here?”
“If you think Hugh Beringar has any ill intent against Mistress Hammet, or will suffer anyone else to make her a victim,” said Cadfael firmly, “you may put that out of your mind at once. Well, now, since we’re both here, and the time and place as good as any, we may as well sit down somewhere in the warmest corner we can find, and put together whatever we have to share. Two heads may make more of it than my one has been able to do. There should be plenty of sacks here somewherebetter than nothing
“
Evidently Ninian had been here long enough to know his way about, for he took Cadfael by the arm, and drew him confidently into a corner where a pile of clean, coarse bags was folded and stacked against the timber wall. They settled themselves close there, flank by flank for warmth, and Ninian drew round them both a thick cloak which had certainly never been in Benet’s possession.
“Now,” said Cadfael briskly, “I should first tell you that this very morning I’ve spoken with Sanan, and I know what you and she are planning. Probably she’s told you as much. I’m half in and half out of your confidence and hers, and if I’m to be of any help to you in putting an end to this vexatious business that holds you here, you had better let me in fully. I do not believe you guilty of the priest’s death, and I have no reason in the world to stand in your way. But I do believe that you know more of what happened here that night than you have told. Tell the rest, and let me know where we really stand. You did come here to the mill, did you not?”
Ninian blew out a gusty, rueful breath that warmed Cadfael’s leaning cheek for a moment. “I did. I had to. I got no more answer from Giffard than that he’d received and understood the message I sent. I’d no means of knowing whether he meant to come or not. But I came very early, to view the place and find a corner to hide in until I saw what came of it. I stayed there in the doorway in the abbey wall, with the wicket ajar, so that I could watch for whoever came. I had to make haste round the corner of the infirmary, I can tell you, when the miller came bustling through on his way to church, but I had the place to myself after that, to keep watch on the path.”
“And it was Ailnoth who came?” said Cadfael.
“Storming along the path like a bolt fr
om God. Dark as it was, there was no mistaking him, he had a gait all his own. There was no possible reason he should be there at such an hour, unless he’d got wind of what I was up to, and meant all manner of mischief. He was striding up and down and round the mill and along the bank, thumping the ground like a cat lashing its tail. And I’d perhaps got another man into the mud with me, and must make some shift to get him, at least, out of it, even if I was still stuck in the mire.”
“So what did you do?”
“It was still early. I couldn’t leave Giffard to come to the meeting all unsuspecting, could I? I didn’t know if he meant to come at all, but still he might, I couldn’t take the risk. I hared away back through the court and out at the gatehouse, and went to earth among the bushes close by the end of the bridge. If he came at all, he had to come that way from the town. And I didn’t even know what the man looked like, though I knew his name and his allegiance from others. But I thought there’d be very few men coming out from the town at that hour, and I could risk accosting any who looked of his age and quality.”
“Ralph Giffard had already come over the bridge,” said Cadfael, “a good hour earlier, to visit the priest and send him hot-foot to confront you at the mill, but you could hardly know that. I fancy he was already back in his own house while you were watching for him in the bushes. Did you see any others pass by you there?”
“Only one, and he was too young, and too poor and simple in his person and gear to be Giffard. He went straight along the Foregate and turned in at the church.”
Centwin, perhaps, thought Cadfael, coming from pay ing his debt, to have his mind free and at peace, owing no man, as he went to celebrate the birth of Christ. Well for him if it proved that Ninian could speak for him, and show clearly that his own bitter debt had gone unreclaimed.
