The Sanctuary Sparrow

by Ellis Peters

  “So I think, also,” said Cadfael.

  “Should he be left alone?” They were both thinking of the pack recently expelled from this place, still hungry and ripe for mischief, and surely not gone far.

  The brothers had withdrawn, led back to the dortoir by Prior Robert, very erect and deeply displeased. The choir had grown silent and dark. Whether the brethren, particularly the younger and more restless, would sleep, was another matter. The smell of the dangerous outer world was in their nostrils, and the tremor of excitement quivering like an itch along their skins.

  “I shall have work with him a while,” said Cadfael, eyeing the smears of blood that marked brow and cheek, and the painful list with which the man stood. A young, willowy body, accustomed to going lightly and lissomely. “If you permit, Father, I will stay here with him, and take his care upon me. Should there be need, I can call.”

  “Very well, do so, brother. You may take whatever is necessary for his provision.” The weather was mild enough, but the hours of the night would be cold, in this sanctified but stony place. “Do you need a helper to fetch and carry for you? Our guest should not be left unfellowed.”

  “If I may borrow Brother Oswin, he knows where to find all the things I may need,” said Cadfael.

  “I will send him to you. And should this man wish to tell his own side of this unhappy story, mark it well. Tomorrow, no doubt, we shall have his accusers here in proper form, with one of the sheriff’s officers, and both parties will have to render account.”

  Cadfael understood the force of that. A small discrepancy in the accused youth’s story between midnight and morning could be revealing indeed. But by morning the voluble accusers might also have cooled their heads, and come with a slightly modified tale, for Cadfael, who knew most of the inhabitants of the town, had by this time recalled the reason for their being up so late in their best clothes, and well gone in drink. The young cockerel in the festival finery should by rights have been bedding a bride rather than pursuing a wretched wisp of manhood over the bridge with hunting cries of murder and robbery. Nothing less than the marriage of the heir could have unloosed the purse-strings of the Aurifaber household enough to provide such a supply of wine.

  “I leave the watch to you,” said Radulfus, and departed to hale out Brother Oswin from his cell, and send him down to join the vigil. He came so blithely that it was plain he had been hoping for just such a recall. Who but Brother Cadfael’s apprentice should be admitted to his nocturnal ministrations? Oswin came all wide eyes and eager curiosity, as excited as a truant schoolboy at being footloose at midnight, and attendant on the fringes of a sensational villainy. He hung over the shivering stranger, between fascinated horror at viewing a murderer close, and surprised pity at seeing so miserable a human being, where a brutal monster should have been.

  Cadfael gave him no time to marvel. “I want water, clean linen, the ointment of centaury and cleavers, and a good measure of wine. Hop to it, sharp! Better light the lamp in the workshop, we may need more things yet.”

  Brother Oswin plucked out a candle from its socket, and departed in such a gust of dutiful enthusiasm that it was a marvel his light was not blown out in the doorway. But the night was still, and the flame recovered, streaming smokily across the great court towards the gardens.

  “Light the brazier!” called Cadfael after him, hearing his wretched charge’s teeth begin to chatter. A close brush with death is apt to leave a man collapsing like a pricked bladder, and this one had little flesh or strength about him to withstand the shock. Cadfael got an arm about him before he folded like an empty coat, and slid to the stones.

  “Here, come… Let’s get you into a stall.” The weight was slight as a child’s, he hoisted it bodily, and made to withdraw round the parish altar to the somewhat less draughty confines of the choir, but the skinny fist that had all this time held fast to the altar-cloth would not let go. The thin body jerked in his arms.

  “If I loose, they’ll kill me…”

  “Not while I have hands or voice,” said Cadfael. “Our abbot has held his hand over you, they’ll make no further move tonight. Leave go of the cloth and come within. There are relics enough there, trust me, holier even than this.”

  The grubby fingers, with black and bitten nails, released the cloth reluctantly, the flaxen head drooped resignedly on Cadfael’s shoulder. Cadfael bore him round into the choir and laid him in the nearest and most commodious stall, which was that of Prior Robert. The usurpation was not unpleasing. The young man was shivering violently from head to toe, but relaxed into the stall with a huge sigh, and was still.

  “They’ve hunted you into the ground,” Cadfael allowed, settling him into shelter, “but at least into the right earth. Abbot Radulfus won’t give you up, never think it. You can draw breath, you have a home here for some days to come. Take heart! Nor are that pack out there so bad as you suppose, once the drink’s out of them they’ll cool. I know them.”

  “They meant to kill me,” said the youth, trembling.

  No denying that. So they would have done, had they got their hands on him out of this enclave. And there was a note of simple bewilderment in the high voice, of terror utterly at a loss, that caught Cadfael’s leaning ear. The lad was far gone in weakness, and relief from fear, and truly it sounded as if he did not know why he had ever been threatened. So the fox must feel, acting innocently after his kind, and hearing the hounds give tongue.

  Brother Oswin came, burdened with a scrip full of wine-flask and unguent-jar, a roll of clean linen under one arm, and a bowl of water in both hands. His lighted candle he must have stuck to the bench in the porch, where a tiny, flickering light played. He arrived abrupt, urgent and glowing, the light-brown curls round his tonsure erected like a thorn-hedge. He laid down his bowl, laid out his linen, and leaned eagerly to support the patient as Cadfael drew him to the light.

  “Be thankful for small mercies, I see no sign of broken bones in you. You’ve been trampled and hacked, and I make no doubt you’re a lump of bruises, but that we can deal with. Lean here your head—so! That’s a nasty welt across your temple and cheek. A cudgel did that. Hold still, now!”

  The fair head leaned submissively into his hands. The weal grazed the crest of the left cheekbone, and broke the skin along the left side of his head, oozing blood into the pale hair. As Cadfael bathed it, stroking back the tangled locks, the skin quivered under the cold water, and the muck of dust and drying blood drained away. This was not the newest of his injuries. The smoothing of the linen over brow, cheek and chin uncovered a thin, pure, youthful face.

  “What’s your name, child?” said Cadfael.

  “Liliwin,” said the young man, still eyeing him warily.

  “Saxon. So are your eyes, and your hair. Where born? Not here along the borders.”

  “How should I know?” said the youth, listless. “In a ditch, and left there. The first I know is being taught to tumble, as soon as I walked.”

  He was past fending for himself; perhaps he was even past lying. As well to get out of him whatever he was willing to tell, now, while he was forced to surrender himself to the hands of others, with his own helplessness like a weight of black despair on him.

  “Is that how you’ve lived? Travelling the road, cutting capers at fairs, doing a little juggling and singing for your supper? It’s a hard life, with more kicks than kindnesses, I dare say. And from a child?” He could guess at the manner of training that went to school a childish body to the sort of contortions a fairground crowd would gape at. There were ways of hurting, by way of punishment, without spoiling the agility of growing limbs. “And solitary now? They’re gone, are they, that picked you out of your ditch and bent you to their uses?”

  “I ran from them as soon as I was half-grown,” said the soft, weary voice. “Three mummers padding the road, a lad come by for nothing was a gift to them, they had their worth out of me. All I owed them was kicks and blows. I work for myself now.”

  “At t
he same craft?”

  “It’s all I know. But that I know well,” said Liliwin, suddenly raising his head proudly, and not wincing from the sting of the lotion bathing his grazed cheek.

  “And that’s what brought you to Walter Aurifaber’s house last night,” said Cadfael mildly, stripping back a torn sleeve from a thin, sinewy forearm marked by a long slash from a knife. “To play at his son’s wedding-feast.”

  One dark-blue eye peered up at him sidelong. “You know them?”

  “There are few people in the town that I don’t know. I tend many folk within the walls, the old Aurifaber dame among them. Yes, I know that household. But it had slipped my mind that the goldsmith was marrying his son yesterday.” Knowing them as well as he did, he was sure that for all their wish to make an impressive show, they would not pay out money enough to attract the better sort of musicians, such as the nobility welcomed as guests. But a poor vagrant jongleur trying his unpromising luck in the town, that they might consider. All the more if his performance outdid his appearance, and genuine music could be had dead cheap. “So you heard of the celebration, and got yourself hired to entertain the guests. Then what befell, to bring the jollity to such a grim ending? Reach me here a pad of cloth, Oswin, and hold the candle nearer.”

  “They promised me three pence for the evening,” said Liliwin, trembling now as much with indignation as fear and cold, “and they cheated me. It was none of my fault! I played and sang my best, did all my tricks… The house was full of people, they crowded me, and the young fellows, they were drunk and lungeous, they hustled me! A juggler needs room! It was not my fault the pitcher was broken. One of the youngsters jumped to catch the balls I was spinning, he knocked me flying, and the pitcher went over from the table, and smashed. She said it was her best . . the old beldame… she screeched at me, and hit out with her stick…”

  “She did this?” questioned Cadfael gently, touching the swathed wound on the jongleur’s temple.

  “She did! Lashed out like a fury, and swore the thing was worth more than I’d earned, and I must pay for it. And when I complained, she threw me a penny, and told them to put me out!”

  So she would, thought Cadfael ruefully, seeing her life-blood spilled if a prized possession was broken, she who hoarded every groat that was not spent on her perverse tenderness for her soul, which brought alms flowing to the abbey altars, and rendered Prior Robert her cautious friend.

  “And they did it?” It would not have been a gentle ejection, they would all have been inflamed and boisterous by them. “How late was that? An hour before midnight?”

  “More. None of them had left, then. They tossed me out of door, and wouldn’t let me in again.” He had long experience of his own helplessness in similar circumstances, his voice sagged despondently. “I couldn’t even pick up my juggling balls, I’ve lost them all.”

  “And you were left chill in the night, thrown out of the burgage. Then how came this hunt after you?” Cadfael smoothed a turn of his linen roll round the thin arm that jerked in his hands with frustrated rage. “Hold still, child, that’s right! I want this slit well closed, it will knit clean if you take ease. What did you do?”

  “Crept away,” said Liliwin bitterly. “What else could I do? The watch let me out of the wicket in the town gate, and I crossed the bridge and slipped into the bushes this side, meaning to make off from this town in the morning, and make for Lichfield. There’s a decent grove above the path down to the river, the other side the highroad from the abbey here, I went in there and found me a good place in the grass to sleep the night out.” But with his grievance boiling and festering in him, and his helplessness over and above, if what he told was truth. And long acquaintance with injustice and despite does not reconcile the heart.

  “Then how comes it the whole pack of them should be hunting you an hour or so later, and crying murder and theft on you?”

  “As God sees me,” blurted the youth, quaking, “I know no more than you! I was near to sleeping when I heard them come howling across the bridge. I’d no call to suppose it was ought to do with me, not until they were streaming down into the Foregate, but it was a noise to make any man afraid, whether he’d anything on his conscience or no. And then I could hear them yelling murder and vengeance, and crying it was the mumper who did it, and baying for my blood. They spread out and began to beat the bushes, and I ran for my life, being sure they’d find me. And all the pack of them came roaring after. They were all but plucking at my hair when I stumbled in here at the door. But God strike me blind if I know what I’m held to have done—and dead if I’m lying to you now!”

  Cadfael completed his bandage, and drew the tattered sleeve down over it. “According to young Daniel, it seems his father’s been struck down and his strong-box emptied. A poor way of rounding off a wedding night! Do you tell me all this can have happened after you were put out without your pay? On the face of it, that might turn their minds to you and your grievance, if they were casting about for a likely felon.”

  “I swear to you,” insisted the young man vehemently, “the goldsmith was hale and well the last time I set eyes on him. There was no quarrelling, no violence but what they used on me, they were laughing and drinking and singing still. What’s happened since I know no more than you. I left the place—what use was there in staying? Brother, for God’s sake believe me! I’ve touched neither the man nor his money.”

  “Then so it will be found,” said Cadfael sturdily. “Here you’re safe enough in the meantime, and you must needs put your trust in justice and Abbot Radulfus, and tell your tale as you’ve told it to me when they question you. We have time, and given time, truth will out. You heard Father Abbot—stay here within the church tonight, but if they come to a decent agreement tomorrow you may have the run of the household.” Liliwin was very cold to the touch, with fear and shock, and still trembling. “Oswin,” said Cadfael briskly, “go and fetch me a couple of brychans from the store, and then warm me up another good measure of wine on the brazier, and spice it well. Let’s get some warmth into him.”

  Oswin, who had held his tongue admirably while his eyes devoured the stranger, departed in a flurry of zeal to do his errands. Liliwin watched him go, and then turned to watch Cadfael no less warily. Small wonder if he felt little trust in anyone just now.

  “You won’t leave me? They’ll be peering in at the door again before the night’s out.”

  “I won’t leave you. Be easy!”

  Advice difficult to follow, he admitted wryly, in Liliwin’s situation. But with enough mulled wine in him he might sleep. Oswin came again glowing with haste and the flush of bending over the brazier, and brought two thick, rough blankets, in which Liliwin thankfully wound himself. The spiced draught went down gratefully. A little colour came back to the gaunt, bruised face.

  “You go to your bed, lad,” said Cadfael, leading Oswin towards the night stairs. “You can, now, he’ll do till morning. Then we shall see.”

  Brother Oswin looked back in some wonder at the swaddled body almost swallowed up in Prior Robert’s capacious stall, and asked in a whisper: “Do you think he can really be a murderer, though?”

  “Child,” said Cadfael, sighing, “until we get some sensible account of what’s happened in Walter Aurifaber’s burgage tonight, I doubt if there’s been murder done at all. With enough drink in them, the fists may well have started flying, and a few noses been bloodied, and some fool may very well have started a panic, with other fools ready enough to take up the cry. You go to your bed, and wait and see.”

  And so must I wait and see, he thought, watching Oswin obediently climb the stair. It was all very well distrusting the alarms of the moment, but for all that, not all those voluble accusers had been drunk. And something unforeseen had certainly happened in the goldsmith’s house, to put a violent end to the celebrations of young Daniel’s marriage. How if Walter Aurifaber had really been struck dead? And his treasury robbed? By that woebegone scrap of humanity huddled in his brych
ans, half-drunk with the wine they had poured into him, half asleep but held alert by terror? Would he dare, even with a bitter grievance? Could he have managed the affair, even if he had dared? One thing was certain, if he had robbed he must have disposed of his gains in short order in the dark, in a town surely none too well known to him. In those scanty garments of his, that threadbare motley, there was barely room to conceal the single penny the old dame had thrown at him, much less the contents of a goldsmith’s coffer.

  When he approached the stall, however quietly, the bruised eyelids rolled wide from the dark blue eyes, and they fixed on him in instant dread.

  “Never shrink, it’s I. No one else will trouble you this night. And my name, if you need it, is Cadfael. And yours is Liliwin.” A name strangely right for a vagabond player, very young and solitary and poor, and yet proud of his proficiency in his craft, tumbler, contortionist, singer, juggler, dancer, purveying merriment for others while he found little cause to be merry himself. “How old are you, Liliwin?”

  Half asleep and afraid to give way and sleep in earnest, he looked ever younger, dwindling into a swaddled child, reassuringly flushed now as the chill ebbed out of him. But he himself did not know the answer. He could only knit his fair brows and hazard doubtfully: “I think I may be turned twenty. It could be more. The mummers may have said I was less than I was—children draw more alms.”

  So they would, and the boy was lightly built, spare and small. He might be as much as two and twenty, perhaps, surely no more.

  “Well, Liliwin, if you can sleep do so, it will be aid and comfort, and you have need of it. You need not watch, I shall be doing that.”

  Cadfael sat down in the abbot’s stall, and trimmed the attendant candles, so that he might have a fair view of his charge. The quiet came in, on the heels of their silence, very consolingly. The night without might well have its disquiets, but here the vault of the choir was like linked hands sheltering their threatened and precarious peace. It was strange to Cadfael to see, after prolonged calm, two great tears welling from beneath Liliwin’s closed eyelids, and rolling slowly over the jut of his gaunt cheek-bone, to fall into the brychan.