Potter's Field bc-17

by Ellis Peters

  ‘So I believe, too. I do not think we are back to Ruald, though God knows we may be back with Generys. But see what follows! Next, a search throws up another man who may by all the signs be guilty of killing another vanished woman in that very place. And yet again Sulien Blount, when he hears of it so helpfully from you, continues to interest himself in the matter, voluntarily setting out to trace this woman also, and show that she is alive. And, by God, is lucky enough to find her! Thus delivering Britric as he delivered Ruald. And now tell me, Cadfael, tell me truly, what does all that say to you?’

  ‘It says,’ admitted Cadfael honestly,’that whoever the woman may be, Sulien himself is guilty, and means to battle it out for his life, yes, but not at the expense of Ruald or Britric or any innocent man. And that, I think, would be in character for him. He might kill. He would not let another man hang for it.’

  ‘That is how you read the omens?’ Hugh was studying him closely, black brows obliquely tilted, and a wry smile curling one corner of his expressive mouth.

  “That is how I read the omens.’

  ‘But you do not believe it!’

  It was a statement rather than a question, and voiced without surprise. Hugh was well enough versed in Cadfael by now to discern in him tendencies of which he himself was still unaware. Cadfael considered the implications very seriously for a few moments of silence. Then he said judicially: ‘On the face of it, it is logical, it is possible, it is even likely. If, after all, this is Generys, as now again seems all too likely, by common consent she was a very beautiful woman. Nearly old enough to be the boy’s mother, true, and he had known her from infancy, but he himself as good as said that he fled to Ramsey because he found himself guiltily and painfully in love with her. It happens to many a green boy, to suffer his first disastrous experience of love for a woman long familiarly known, and loved in another fashion, a woman out of his generation and out of his reach. But how if there was more to it than mere flight to escape from insoluble problems and incurable pain? Consider the situation, when a husband she had loved and trusted was wrenching himself away from her as it were in blood, her blood, and yet leaving her bound and lonely! In her rage and bitterness at such a desertion a passionate woman might well have set herself to take revenge on all men, even the vulnerable young. Taken him up, comforted herself in his worshipping dog’s eyes, and then cast him off. Such affronts the young in their first throes feel mortally. But the death may have been hers. Reason enough to fly from the scene and from the world into a distant cloister, out of sight even of the trees that sheltered her home.’

  ‘It is logical,’ said Hugh, echoing Cadfael’s own words, ‘it is possible, it is credible.’

  ‘My only objection,’ agreed Cadfael, ‘is that I find I do not credit it. Nor cannot, for good sound reasons—simply do not.’

  ‘Your reservations,’ said Hugh philosophically, ‘always have me reining in and treading very carefully. Now as ever! But I have another thought: How if Sulien had the ring in his possession all along, ever since he parted with Generys—living or dead? How if she herself had given it to him? Tossed away her husband’s love gift in bitterness at his desertion,- upon the most innocent and piteous lover she could ever have had. And she did say that she had a lover.’

  ‘If he had killed her,’ said Cadfael, ‘would he have kept her token?’

  ‘He might! Oh, yes, he very well might. Such things have been known, when love at its most devilish raises hate as another devil, to fight it out between them. Yes, I think he would keep her ring, even through a year of concealing it from abbot and confessor and all, in Ramsey.’

  ‘As he swore to Radulfus,’ remarked Cadfael, suddenly reminded,’that he did not. He could lie, I think, but would not lie wantonly, for no good reason.’

  ‘Have we not attributed to him good reason enough for lying? Then, if all along he had the ring, the time came when it was urgent, for Ruald’s sake, to produce it in evidence, with this false story of how he came by it. If indeed it is false. If I had proof it is not,’ said Hugh, fretting at the frustration of chance, ‘I could put Sulien almost—almost—out of my mind.’

  ‘There is also,’ said Cadfael slowly,’the question of why he did not tell Ruald at once, when they met, that he had heard news of Generys in Peterborough, and she was alive and well. Even if, as he says, his intent was to keep the ring for himself, still he could have told the man what he must have known would come as great ease and relief to him. But he did not.’

  ‘The boy did not know, then,’ Hugh objected fairly,’that we had found a dead woman, nor that any shadow lay over Ruald. He knew of no very urgent need to give him news of his wife, not until he heard the whole story at Longner. Indeed, he might well have thought it better to leave well alone, since the man is blessedly happy where he is.’

  ‘I am not altogether sure,’ Cadfael said slowly, peering back into the brief while he had spent with Sulien as helper in the herbarium,’that he did not know of the case until he went home. The same day that he asked leave to visit Longner and see his family again, Jerome had been with him in the garden, for I met him as he left, and he was at once in haste, and a shade more civil and brotherly than usual. And I wonder now if something had not been said of a woman’s bones discovered, and a man’s reputation under threat. That same evening Sulien went to the lord abbot, and was given leave to ride to Longner. When he came back next day, it was to declare his intent to leave the Order, and to bring forth the ring and the story of how he got it.’

  Hugh was drumming his fingers softly on the table, his eyes narrowed in thought. ‘Which first?’ he demanded.

  ‘First he asked and obtained his dismissal.’

  ‘Would it, you think, be easier, to a man usually truthful, to lie to the abbot after that than before?’

  ‘You have thoughts not unlike mine,’ said Cadfael glumly.

  ‘Well,’ said Hugh, shaking off present concerns from his shoulders,’two things are certain. The first, that whatever the truth about Sulien himself, this second deliverance is proven absolutely. We have seen and spoken with Gunnild. She is alive, and thriving, and very sensibly has no intent in the world to go on her travels again. And since we have no cause to connect Britric with any other woman, away he goes in safety, and good luck to them both. And the second certainty, Cadfael, is that the very fact of this second deliverance casts great doubt upon the first. Generys we have not seen. Ring or no ring, I am in two minds now whether we ever shall see her again. And yet, and yet—Cadfael does not credit it! Not as it stands, not as we see it now.’

  There is one more certainty,’ Cadfael reminded him seriously,’that you are bound away from here tomorrow morning, and the king’s business will not wait, so our business here must. What, if anything, do you want done until you can take the reins again? Which, God willing, may not be too long.’

  They had both risen at the sound of the loaded carts moving briskly out under the archway, the hollow sound of the wheels beneath the stone echoing back to them as from a cavern. A detachment of archers on foot went with the supplies on this first stage of their journey, to pick up fresh horses at Coventry, where the lances would overtake them.

  ‘Say no word to Sulien or any,’ said Hugh, ‘but watch whatever follows. Let Radulfus know as much as you please, he knows how to keep a close mouth if any man does. Let young Sulien rest, if rest he can. I doubt if he’ll sleep too easily, even though he has cleared the field of murderers for me, or hopes, believes, prays he has. Should I want him, when time serves, he’ll be here.’

  They went out together in the outer ward, and there halted to take leave. ‘If I’m gone long,’ said Hugh, ‘you’ll visit Aline?’ There had been no mention, and would be none, of such small matters as that men get killed even in untidy regional skirmishes, such as the Fens were likely to provide. As Eudo Blount the elder had died in the rearguard after the messy ambush of Wilton, not quite a year ago. No doubt Geoffrey de Mandeville, expert at turning his coat and stil
l making himself valuable and to be courted, would prefer to keep his devious options open by evading battle with the king’s forces if he could, and killing none of baronial status, but he might not always be able to dictate the terms of engagement, even on his own watery ground. And Hugh was not a man to lead from behind.

  ‘I will,’ said Cadfael heartily. ‘And God keep the both of you, yes, and the lads who’re going with you.’

  Hugh went with him to the gate, a hand on his friend’s shoulder. They were much of a height, and could match paces evenly. Under the shadow of the archway they halted.

  ‘One more thought has entered my mind,’ said Hugh, ‘one that has surely been in yours all this while, spoken or not. It’s no very great distance from Cambridge to Peterborough.’

  ‘So it has come!’ said Abbot Radulfus sombrely, when Cadfael gave him the full report of his day’s activities, after Vespers. ‘The first time Hugh has been called on to join the king’s muster since Lincoln. I hope it may be to better success. God grant they need not be absent about this business very long.

  Cadfael could not imagine that this confrontation would be over easily or quickly. He had never seen Ramsey, but Sulien’s description of it, an island with its own natural and formidable moat, spanned by only one narrow causeway, defensible by a mere handful of men, held out little hope of an easy conquest. And though de Mandeville’s marauders must sally forth from their fortress to do their plundering, they had the advantage of being local men, used to all the watery fastnesses in that bleak and open countryside, and able to withdraw into the marshes at any hostile approach.

  ‘With November already here,’ he said, ‘and winter on the way, I doubt if more can be done than penning these outlaws into their own Fens, and at least limiting the harm they can do. By all accounts it’s already more than enough for the poor souls who live in those parts. But, with the Earl of Chester our neighbour here, and so dubious in his loyalty, I fancy King Stephen will want to send Hugh and his men home again, to secure the shire and the border, as soon as they can be spared. He may well be hoping for a quick stroke and a quick death. I see no other end to de Mandeville now, however nimbly he may have learned to turn his coat. This time he has gone too far for any recovery.’

  ‘Bleak necessity,’ said Radulfus grimly,’to be forced to wish for any man’s death, but this one has been the death of so many others, souls humble and defenceless, and by such abominable means, I could find it in me to offer prayers for his ending, as a needful mercy to his neighbours. How else can there ever be peace and good husbandry in those desolated lands? In the meantime, Cadfael, we are left for a while unable to move in the matter of this death nearer home. Hugh has left Alan Herbard as castellan in his absence?’

  Hugh’s deputy was young and ardent, and promised well. He had little experience as yet in managing a garrison, but he had hardened sergeants of the older generation at his back, to strengthen his hand if their experience should be needed.

  ‘He has. And Will Warden will be keeping an ear open for any word that may furnish a new lead, though his orders, like mine, are to keep a still tongue and a placid face, and let sleeping dogs lie as long as they will. But you see, Father, how the very fact of this woman coming forward at Sulien’s prompting, as she has, casts doubts on the story he first told us. Once, we said, yes, that’s wholly credible, why question it? But twice, by the same hand, the same deliverance? No, that is not chance at work, nor can it be easily believed. No! Sulien will not suffer either Ruald or Britric to be branded as a murderer, and goes to great pains to prove it impossible. How can he be so certain of their innocence, unless he knows who is really guilty? Or at least, believes he knows?’

  Radulfus looked back at him with an impenetrable countenance, and said outright what as yet neither Cadfael nor Hugh had put into words:

  ‘Or is himself the man!’

  ‘It is the first and logical thought that came to me,’ Cadfael owned. ‘But I found I could not admit it. The farthest I dare go as yet is to acknowledge that his behaviour casts great doubts on his ignorance, if not his innocence, of this death. In the case of Britric there is no question. This time it is not a matter of any man’s bare word, the woman came forward in the flesh and spoke for herself. Living she is, fortunate and thankful she is, no one need look for her in the grave. It’s at the first deliverance we must turn and look again. That Generys is still in this world alive, for that we have only Sulien’s word. She has not come forward. She has not spoken. Thus far, all we have is hearsay. One man’s word for the woman, the ring, and all.’

  ‘From such small knowledge of him as I have,’ said Radulfus, ‘I do not think that Sulien is by nature a liar.’

  ‘Neither do I. But all men, even those not by nature liars, may be forced to lie where they see overwhelming need. As I fear he did, to deliver Ruald from the burden of suspicion. Moreover,’ said Cadfael confidently, harking back to old experience with fallible men outside this enclave, ‘if they lie only for such desperate cause they will do it well, better than those who do it lightly.’

  ‘You argue,’ said Radulfus drily, but with the flicker of a private smile, ‘as one who speaks from knowledge. Well, if one man’s word is no longer acceptable without proof, I do not see how we can advance our enquiries beyond your “thus far”. As well we should let well alone while Hugh is absent. Say nothing to any man from Longner, nothing to Brother Ruald. In stillness and quietness whispers are heard clearly, and the rustle of a leaf has meaning.’

  ‘And I have been reminded,’ said Cadfael, rising with a gusty sigh to make his way to the refectory, ‘by the last thing Hugh said to me, that it is not too far from Cambridge to Peterborough.’

  The next day was sacred to Saint Winifred, and therefore an important feast in the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, though the day of her translation and installation on her present altar in the church, the twenty-second of June, was accorded greater ceremonial. A midsummer holiday provides better weather and longer daylight for processions and festivities than the third of November, with the days closing in and winter approaching.

  Cadfael rose very early in the morning, long before Prime, took his sandals and scapular; and stole out from the dark dortoir by the night stairs, where the little lamp burned all night long to light stumbling feet uncertain from sleep down into the church for Matins and Lauds. The long room, lined with its low partitions that separated cell from cell, was full of small human sounds, like a vault peopled with gentle ghosts, soft, sighing breath, the involuntary catch in the throat, close to a sob, that saluted a nostalgic dream, the uneasy stirring of someone half awake, the solid, contented snoring of a big body sleeping without dreams, and at the end of the long room the deep, silent sleeping of Prior Robert, worshipfully satisfied with all his deeds and words, untroubled by doubts, unintimidated by dreams. The prior habitually slept so soundly that it was easy to rise and slip away without fear of disturbing him. In his time, Cadfael had done it for less approved reasons than on this particular morning. So, possibly, had several of these innocent sleepers around him.

  He went silently down the stairs and into the body of the church, dark, empty and vast, lit only by the glowworm lamps on the altars, minute stars in a vaulted night. His first destination, whenever he rose thus with ample time in hand, was always the altar of Saint Winifred, with its silver reliquary, where he stopped to exchange a little respectful and affectionate conversation with his countrywoman. He always spoke Welsh to her, the accents of his childhood and hers brought them into a welcome intimacy, in which he could ask her anything and never feel rebuffed. Even without his advocacy, he felt, her favour and protection would go with Hugh to Cambridge, but there was no harm in mentioning the need. It did not matter that Winifred’s slender Welsh bones were still in the soil of Gwytherin, many miles away in North Wales, where her ministry had been spent. Saints are not corporeal, but presences, they can reach and touch wherever their grace and generosity desire.

  It
came into Cadfael’s mind, on this particular morning, to say a word also for Generys, the stranger, the dark woman who was also Welsh, and whose beautiful, disturbing shadow haunted the imaginations of many others besides the husband who had abandoned her. Whether she lived out the remnant of her life somewhere far distant from her own country, in lands she had never thought to visit, among people she had never desired to know, or was lying now in that quiet corner of the cemetery here, removed from abbey land to lie in abbey land, the thought of her touched him nearly, and must surely stir the warmth and tenderness of the saint who had escaped a like exile. Cadfael put forward her case with confidence, on his knees on the lowest step of Winifred’s altar, where Brother Rhun, when she had led him by the hand and healed his lameness, had laid his discarded crutches.

  When he rose, the first faint pre-dawn softening of the darkness had grown into a pallid, pearly hint of light, drawing in the tall shapes of the nave windows clearly, and conjuring pillar and vault and altar out of the gloom. Cadfael passed down the nave to the west door, which was never fastened but in time of war or danger, and went out to the steps to look along the Foregate towards the bridge and the town.

  They were coming. An hour and more yet to Prime, and only the first dim light by which to ride out, but he could already hear the hooves, crisp and rapid and faintly hollow on the bridge. He heard the change in their tread as they emerged upon the solid ground of the Foregate, and saw as it were an agitation of the darkness, movement without form, even before faint glints of lambent light on steel gave shape to their harness and brought them human out of the obscurity. No panoply, only the lance-pennants, two slung trumpets for very practical use, and the workmanlike light arms in which they rode. Thirty lances and five mounted archers. The remainder of the archers had gone ahead with the supplies. Hugh had done well by King Stephen, they made a very presentable company and numbered, probably, more than had been demanded.