Potter's Field bc-17

by Ellis Peters

  ‘Good!’ said Hugh. ‘It will do! Bring him, and keep him until I come.’

  He dug his heels into the grey, dappled hide, and Cadfael released the bridle. Hugh was away at a canter after his troop, towards the bridge and the town. Their progress could be followed by the diminishing sound of their welcome, a wave rolling into the distance, while the contented and grateful hum of voices here along the Foregate had levelled into a murmur like bees in a flowering meadow, Cadfael turned back into the great court, and went to ask audience with the abbot.

  It was not so difficult to think of a plausible reason for paying a visit to Longner. There was a sick woman there who at one time had made use of his skills at least to dull her pain, and there was the younger son newly returned, who had consented to take a supply of the same syrup, and try to persuade her to employ it again, after a long while of refusing all solace. To enquire after the mother’s condition, while extending the abbot’s fatherly invitation to the son, so recently in his care, should not strain belief. Cadfael had seen Donata Blount only once, in the days when she was still strong enough to go out and about and willing, then, to ask and take advice. Just once she had come to consult Brother Edmund, the infirmarer, and been led by him to Cadfael’s workshop. He had not thought of that visit for some years, and during that time she had grown frailer by infinitely slow and wasting degrees, and was no longer seen beyond the courtyard of Longner, and seldom even there of late. Hugh was right, her menfolk had surely kept from her every ill thing that could add another care to the all-too-grievous burden she already bore. If she must learn of evil in the end, at least let it be only after proof and certainty, when there was no escape.

  He remembered how she had looked, that sole time that ever he had set eyes on her, a woman a little taller than his own modest height, slender as a willow even then, her black hair already touched with some strands of grey, her eyes of a deep,-lustrous blue. By Hugh’s account she was now shrunk to a dry wand, her every movement effort, her every moment pain. At least the poppies of Lethe could procure for her some interludes of sleep, if only she would use them. And somewhere deep within his mind Cadfael could not help wondering if she abstained in order to invite her death the sooner and be free.

  But what he was concerned with now, as he saddled the brown cob and set out eastward along the Foregate, was her son, who was neither old nor ailing, and whose pains were of the mind, perhaps even of the soul.

  It was early afternoon, and a heavy day. Clouds had gathered since morning, sagging low and blotting out distances, but there was no wind and no sign of rain, and once out of the town and heading for the ferry he was aware of a weighty silence, oppressive and still, in which not even a leaf or a blade of grass moved to disturb the leaden air. He looked up towards the ridge of trees above the Potter’s Field as he passed along the meadows. The rich dark ploughland was beginning to show the first faint green shadow of growth, elusive and fragile as a veil. Even the cattle along the river levels were motionless, as if they slept.

  He came through the belt of tidy, well-managed woodland beyond the meadows, and up the slight slope of the clearing into the open gates of Longner. A stable boy came running to the cob’s bridle, and a maidservant, crossing the yard from the dairy, turned back to enquire his business here, with some surprise and curiosity, as though unexpected visitors were very rare here. As perhaps they were, for the manor was off the main highways where travellers might have need of a roof for the night, or shelter in inclement weather. Those who came visiting here came with a purpose, not by chance.

  Cadfael asked for Sulien, in the abbot’s name, and she nodded acceptance and understanding, her civility relaxing into a somewhat knowing smile. Naturally the monastic orders do not much like letting go of a young man, once he has been in their hands, and it might be worth a solicitous visit, so soon after his escape, while judgement is still awkward and doubtful, to see if persuasion can coax him back again. Something of the sort she was thinking, but indulgently. It would do very well. Let her say as much to the other servants of the household, and Sulien’s departure at the abbot’s summons would only confirm the story, perhaps even put the issue in doubt.

  ‘Go in, sir, you’ll find them in the solar. Go through, freely, you’ll be welcome.’

  She watched him climb the first steps to the hall door, before she herself made for the undercroft, where the wide cart-doors stood open and someone was rolling and stacking barrels within. Cadfael entered the hall, dim after the open courtyard, even dimmer by reason of the overcast day, and paused to let his eyes adjust to the change. At this hour the fire was amply supplied and well alight, but turfed down to keep it burning slowly until evening, when the entire household would be gathered within here and glad of both warmth and light. At present everyone was out at work, or busy in the kitchen and store, and the hall was empty, but the heavy curtain was drawn back from a doorway in the far comer of the room, and the door it shielded stood half open. Cadfael could hear voices from within the room, one a man’s young and pleasantly low. Eudo or Sulien? He could not be certain. And the woman’s

  No, the women’s, for these were two, one steady, deep, slow and clear in utterance, as though an effort was needed to form the words and give them sound; one young, fresh and sweet, with a candid fullness about it. That one Cadfael did recognise. So they had progressed this far, that somehow she or circumstances or fate itself had prevailed upon Sulien to bring her home. Therefore this must be Sulien in the solar with her.

  Cadfael drew back the curtain fully, and rapped on the door as he opened it wide, pausing on the threshold. The voices had ceased abruptly, Sulien’s and Pernel’s with instant recognition and instant reserve, the Lady Donata’s with the slightly startled but gracious tolerance of her kind. Intruders here were few and surprising, but her durable, worn dignity would never be disrupted.

  ‘Peace on all here!’ said Cadfael. The words had come naturally, a customary benediction, but he felt the instant stab of guilt at having used them, when he was all too conscious that what he brought them might be anything but peace. ‘I am sorry, you did not hear me come. I was told to come through to you. May I enter?’

  ‘Enter and be warmly welcome, Brother!’ said Donata.

  Her voice had almost more body than her flesh, even though it cost her effort and care to use it. She was installed on the wide bench against the far wall, under a single torch that spilled wavering light from its sconce over her. She was propped in cushions carefully piled to support her upright, with a padded footstool under her feet. The thin oval of her face was the translucent bluish colour of shadows in untrodden snow, lit by huge, sunken eyes of the deep, lustrous blue of bugloss. The hands that lay at rest on the pillows were frail as cobweb, and the body within her dark gown and brocaded bliaut little but skin and bone. But she was still the mistress here, and equal to her role.

  ‘You have ridden from Shrewsbury? Eudo and Jehane will be sorry to have missed you, they have ridden over to Father Eadmer at Atcham. Sit here, Brother, close to me. The light’s feeble. I like to see my visitor’s faces, and my sight is not quite so sharp as it used to be. Sulien, bring a draught of ale for our guest. I am sure,’ she said, turning upon Cadfael the thin, tranquil smile that softened the stoical set of her lips,’that your visit must really be to my son. It is one more pleasure his return has brought me.’

  Pernel said nothing at all. She was sitting at Donata’s right hand, very quiet and still, her eyes upon Cadfael. It seemed to him that she was quicker even than Sulien to sense a deeper and darker purpose beyond this unexpected visit. If so, she suppressed what she knew, and continued composed and dutiful, the well-conditioned young gentlewoman being respectful and attentive to her elder. A first visit here? Cadfael thought so, by the slight tension that possessed both the young people.

  ‘My name is Cadfael. Your son was my helper in the herb gardens at the abbey, for the few days he spent with us. I was sorry to lose him,’ said Cadfael, ‘but not sorry
that he should return to the life he chose.’

  ‘Brother Cadfael was an easy master,’ said Sulien, presenting the cup to him with a somewhat strained smile.

  ‘So I believe,’ she said, ‘from all that you have told me of him. And I do remember you, Brother, and the medicines you made for me, some years ago. You were so kind as to send a further supply by Sulien, when he came to see you. He has been persuading me to use the syrup. But I need nothing. You see I am very well tended, and quite content. You should take back the flask, others may need it.’

  ‘It was one of the reasons for this visit,’ said Cadfael,’to enquire if you had found any benefit from the draught, or if there is anything besides that I could offer you.’

  She smiled directly into his eyes, but all she said was: ‘And the other reason?’

  “The lord abbot,’ said Cadfael,’sent me to ask if Sulien will ride back with me and pay him a visit.’

  Sulien stood fronting him with an inscrutable face, but betrayed himself for a second by moistening lips suddenly dry. ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’ The word fell too heavily, it needed leavening. ‘He would take it kindly of you. He thought of your son,’ said Cadfael, turning to Donata, ‘for a short while as his son. He has not withdrawn that paternal goodwill. He would be glad to see and to know,’ he said with emphasis, looking up again into Sulien’s face,’that all is well with you. There is nothing we want more than that.’ And whatever might follow, that at least was true. Whether they could hope to have and keep what they wanted was another matter.

  ‘Would an hour or two of delay be allowed me?’ asked Sulien steadily. ‘I must escort Pernel home to Withington. Perhaps I should do that first.’ Meaning, for Cadfael, who knew how to interpret: It may be a long time before I come back from the abbey. Best to clear up all unfinished business.

  ‘No need for that,’ said Donata with authority. ‘Pernel shall stay here with me over the night, if she will be so kind. I will send a boy over to Withington to let her father know that she is safe here with me. I have not so many young visitors that I can afford to part with her so soon. You go with Brother Cadfael, and we shall keep company very pleasantly together until you come back.’

  That brought a certain wary gleam to Sulien’s face and Pernel’s. They exchanged the briefest of glances, and Pernel said at once: ‘I should like that very much, if you’ll really let me stay. Gunnild is there to take care of the children, and my mother, I’m sure, will spare me for a day.’

  Was it possible, Cadfael wondered, that Donata, even in her own extremity, was taking thought for her younger son, and welcomed this first sign in him of interest in a suitable young woman? Mothers of strong nature, long familiar with their own slow deaths, may also wish to settle any unfinished business.

  He had just realised what it was that most dismayed him about her. This wasting enemy that had greyed her hair and shrunk her to the bone had still not made her look old. She looked, rather, like a frail waif of a young girl, blighted, withered and starved in her April days, when the bud should just have been unfolding. Beside Pernel’s radiance she was a blown wisp of vapour, the ghost of a child. Yet in this or any room she would still be the dominant.

  ‘I’ll go and saddle up, then,’ said Sulien, almost as lightly as if he had been contemplating no more than a canter through the woods for a breath of air. He stooped to kiss his mother’s fallen cheek, and she lifted a hand that felt like the flutter of a dead leaf’s filigree skeleton as it touched his face. He said no farewells, to her or to Pernel. That might have spilled over into something betrayingly ominous. He went briskly out through the hall, and Cadfael made his own farewells as gracefully as he could, and hurried down to join him in the stables.

  They mounted in the yard, and set out side by side without a word being spoken, until they were threading the belt of woodland.

  ‘You will already have heard,’ said Cadfael then,’that Hugh Beringar and his levy came back today? Without losses!’

  ‘Yes, we heard. I did grasp,’ said Sulien, wryly smiling, ‘whose voice it was summoning me. But it was well done to let the abbot stand for him. Where are we really bound? The abbey or the castle?’

  ‘The abbey. So much was truth. Tell me, how much does she know?’

  ‘My mother? Nothing. Nothing of murder, nothing of Gunnild, or Britric, or Ruald’s purgatory. She does not know your plough team ever turned up a woman’s body, on what was once our land. Eudo never said a word to her, nor has any other. You have seen her,’ said Sulien simply. “There is not a soul about her who would let one more grief, however small, be added to her load. I should thank you for observing the same care.’

  ‘If that can be sustained,’ said Cadfael, ‘it shall. But to tell the truth, I am not sure that you have done her any service. Have you ever considered that she may be stronger than any one of you? And that in the end, to worse sorrow, she may have to know?’

  Sulien rode beside him in silence for a while, his head was raised, his eyes fixed steadily ahead, and his profile, seen clearly against the open sky with its heavy clouds, pale and set with the rigidity of a mask. Another stoic, with much of his mother in him.

  What I most regret,’ he said at last, with deliberation, ‘is that I ever approached Pernel. I had no right. Hugh Beringar would have found Gunnild in the end, she would have come forward when she heard of the need, without any meddling. And now see what mischief I have done!’

  ‘I think,’ said Cadfael, with respectful care,’that the lady played as full a part as you. And I doubt if she regrets it.’

  Sulien splashed ahead of his companion into the ford. His voice came back to Cadfael’s ears clear and resolute. ‘Something may be done to undo what we have done. And as to my mother, yes, I have considered the ending. Even for that I have made provision.’

  Chapter Twelve

  IN THE ABBOT’S parlour the four of them were gathered after Vespers, with the window shuttered and the door fast closed against the world. They had had to wait for Hugh. He had a garrison to review, levies newly dismissed from feudal service to pay and discharge home to their families, a few wounded to see properly tended, before he could even dismount stiffly in his own courtyard, embrace wife and son, shed his soiled travelling clothes and draw breath at his own table. The further examination of a doubtful witness, however low his credit stood now, could wait another hour or two without disadvantage.

  But after Vespers he came, eased and refreshed but weary. He shed his cloak at the door, and made his reverence to the abbot. Radulfus closed the door, and there was a silence, brief but deep. Sulien sat still and mute on the bench built against the panelled wall. Cadfael had drawn aside into the corner by the shuttered window.

  ‘I must thank you, Father,’ said Hugh, ‘for providing us this meeting place. I should have been sorry to impose upon the family at Longner, and by all counts you have also an interest in this matter, as valid as mine.’

  ‘We have all an interest in truth and justice, I trust,’ said the abbot. ‘Nor can I discard all responsibility for a son because he has gone forth into the world. As Sulien knows. Proceed as you choose, Hugh.’

  He had made room for Hugh beside him behind his desk, cleared now of its parchments and the business of the day. Hugh accepted the place and sat down with a great sigh. He was still cramped from the saddle and had stiffening grazes newly healed, but he had brought back his company intact from the Fens, and that was achievement enough. What else he had brought back with him he was about to sift, and these three in company with him here were about to learn.

  ‘Sulien, I need not remind you, or these who were witnesses, of the testimony you gave concerning Ruald’s wife’s ring, and how you came by it at the shop of John Hinde, in Priestgate, in Peterborough. Name and place I asked, and you told me. From Cambridge, when we were discharged from service, I went to Peterborough. Priestgate I found. The shop I found. John Hinde I found. I have talked to him, Sulien, and I report his testimony as I heard it
from him. Yes,’ said Hugh with deliberation, his eyes on Sulien’s blanched but composed face, ‘Hinde remembers you well. You did come to him with the name of Abbot Walter to commend you, and he took you in for a single night, and set you on your way home next day. That is truth. That he confirms.’

  Recalling how readily Sulien had supplied the jeweller’s name and the place where his shop was to be found, Cadfael had had little doubt of the truth of that part of the story. It had not seemed likely, then, that the rest of it would ever be tested. But Sulien’s face continued as marble-blank as resolution could make it, and his eyes never left Hugh’s face.

  ‘But when I asked him of the ring, he asked, what ring was that? And when I pictured it to him, he was absolute that he had never seen such a ring, never bought that or anything else from such a woman as I described. So recent a transaction he could not possibly forget, even if he did not keep good records, as he does. He never gave you the ring, for he never had the ring. What you told us was a fabric of lies.’

  The new silence fell like a stone, and seemed to be arrested in Sulien’s braced stillness. He neither spoke nor lowered his eyes. Only the small, spasmodic movement of Radulfus’s muscular hand upon the desk broke the tension within the room. What Cadfael had foreseen from the moment he had conveyed the abbot’s summons, and observed the set of Sulien’s face as he received it, came as a shock to Radulfus. There was not much of human behaviour he had not encountered in his life. Liars he had known and dealt with, without surprise, but this one he had not expected.

  ‘Yet you produced the ring,’ Hugh continued steadily, ‘and Ruald recognised and verified the ring. Since you did not get it from the silversmith, how did you come by it? One story you told is shown to be false. Now you have your chance to tell another and a truer. Not all liars have that grace. Now say what you have to say.’

  Sulien opened his lips with a creaking effort, like one turning a key in a lock unwilling to respond.