by Ellis Peters
“I swear to you, Hugh, I saw nothing, I heard nothing. There was nothing whatever even to make me think of him. But yes, I knew he was there. And so did she from the instant she came in. It was rather as though it was spoken clearly into my ear: Go softly. Say nothing. All things shall be well. She was not asking so very much, after all. A little while alone. And the parish door is always open.”
“Do you suppose,” asked Hugh, as they turned towards the south door and the cloister together, “that Aldhelm could have revealed anything against Bénezet?”
“Who knows? The possibility was enough.”
They came out into the full light of early afternoon, but after the turmoil and passion this quietness and calm left behind spoke rather of evening and the lovely lassitude of rest after labor and stillness after storm. “It was easy to get fond of the boy,” said Cadfael, “but dangerous, with such a flibbertigibbet. As well to be rid of him now rather than later. He was certainly a thief, though not for his own gain, and as certainly a liar when he felt it necessary. But he was truly kind to Donata. What he did for her was done with no thought of reward, and from an unspoiled heart.”
There was no one left in the great court as they turned towards the gatehouse. A space lately throbbing with anger and agitation rested unpeopled, as if a lesser creator had despaired of the world he had made, and erased it to clear the ground for a second attempt.
“And have you thought,” asked Hugh, “that those two will certainly be heading southwest by the same road Bénezet took? South to the place where it crosses the old Roman track, and then due west, straight as a lance, into Wales. With the luck of the saints, or the devil himself, they may happen on that lost horse, there in the forest, and leave nothing for Alan to find tomorrow.”
“And that unlucky lad’s saddlebags still there with the harness,” Cadfael realized, and brightened at the thought. “He could do with some rather more secular garments than the habit and the cowl, and from what I recall they should be much the same size.”
“Draw me in no deeper,” said Hugh hastily.
“Finding is not thieving.” And as they halted at the gate, where Hugh’s horse was tethered, Cadfael said seriously: “Donata understood him better than any of us. She told him his fortune, lightly it may be, but wisely. A troubadour, she said, needs three things, and three things only, an instrument, a horse, and a ladylove. The first she gave him, an earnest for the rest. Now, perhaps, he has found all three.”
The End
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