Potter's Field bc-17

by Ellis Peters

  It was conceivable. It was probable. Then how successful had father and son been in dissembling their mutual and mutually destructive obsession? And how much had any other in that house divined of the danger?

  Yes, it could be so. For she had been, as everyone said, a very beautiful woman.

  ‘I think,’ Cadfael,’that with your leave, Father, I must go back to Longner.’

  ‘No need,’ said Hugh abstractedly. ‘We could not leave the lady waiting all night without word, certainly, but I have sent a man from the garrison.’

  ‘To tell her no more than that he stays here overnight? Hugh, the great error has been, throughout, telling her no more than some innocuous half-truth to keep her content and incurious. Or, worse, telling her nothing at all. Such follies are committed in the name of compassion! We must not let her get word of this! We must keep this trouble from her! Starving her courage and strength and will into a feeble shadow, as disease has eaten away her body. When if they had known and respected her as they should she could have lifted half the load from them. If she is not afraid of the monster thing with which she shares her life, there is nothing of which she can be afraid. It is natural enough,’ he said ruefully, ‘for the manchild to feel he must be his mother’s shield and defence, but he does her no service. I said so to him as we came. She would far rather have scope to fulfil her own will and purpose and be shield and defence to him, whether he understand it or not. Better, indeed, if he never understands it.’

  ‘You think,’ said Radulfus, eyeing him sombrely,’that she should be told?’

  ‘I think she should have been told long ago everything there was to tell about this matter. I think she should be told, even now. But I cannot do it, or let it be done if I can prevent. Too easily, as we came, I promised him that if the truth could still be kept from her, I would see it done. Well, if you have put off the hour for tonight, so be it. True, it is too late now to trouble them. But, Father, if you permit, I will ride back there early in the morning.’

  ‘If you think it necessary,’ said the abbot, ‘by all means go. If it is possible now to restore her her son with the least damage, and salve her husband’s memory for her without publishing any dishonour, so much the better.’

  ‘One night,’ said Hugh mildly, rising as Cadfael rose, ‘cannot alter things, surely. If she has been left in happy ignorance all this time, and goes to bed this night supposing Sulien to have been detained here by the lord abbot without a shade of ill, you may leave her to her rest. There will be time to consider how much she must know when we have reasoned the truth out of Sulien. It need not be mortal. What sense would it make now to darken a dead man’s name?’

  Which was good sense enough, yet Cadfael shook his head doubtfully even over these few hours of delay. ‘Still, go I must. I have a promise to keep. And I have realised, somewhat late, that I have left someone there who has made no promises.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  CADFAEL SET OUT with the dawn, and took his time over the ride, since there was no point in arriving at Longner before the household was up and about. Moreover, he was glad to go slowly, and find time for thought, even if thought did not get him very far. He hardly knew whether to hope to find all as he had left it when he rode away with Sulien, or to discover this morning that he was already forsworn, and all secrecy had been blown away overnight. At the worst, Sulien was in no danger. They were agreed that he was guilty of nothing but suppressing the truth, and if the guilt in fact belonged to a man already dead, what need could there be to publish his blemish to the world? It was out of Hugh’s writ or King Stephen’s now, and no advocates were needed where next his case must be brought to the bar. All that could be said in accusation or extenuation was known to the judge already.

  So all we need, Cadfael thought, is a little ingenuity in dealing with Sulien’s conscience, and a little manipulating of truth in gradually laying the case to rest, and the lady need never know more or worse than she knew yesterday. Given time, gossip will tire of the affair, and turn to the next small crisis or scandal around the town, and they will forget at last that their curiosity was never satisfied, and no murderer ever brought to book.

  And there, he realised, was where he came into headlong collision with his own unsatisfied desire to have truth, if not set out before the public eye, at least unearthed, recognised and acknowledged. How, otherwise, could there be real reconciliation with life and death and the ordinances of God?

  Meantime, Cadfael rode through an early morning like any other November morning, dull, windless and still, all the greens of the fields grown somewhat blanched and dried, the filigree of the trees stripped of half their leaves, the surface of the river leaden rather than silver, and stirred by only rare quivers where the currents ran faster. But the birds were up and singing, busy and loud, lords of their own tiny manors, crying their rights and privileges in defiance of intruders.

  He left the highroad at Saint Giles, and rode by the gentle, upland track, part meadow, part heath and scattered trees, that crossed the rising ground towards the ferry. All the bustle of the awaking Foregate, the creaking of carts, the barking of dogs and interlacing of many voices fell away behind him, and the breeze which had been imperceptible among the houses here freshened into a brisk little wind. He crested the ridge, between the fringing trees, and looked down towards the sinuous curve of the river and the sharp rise of the shore and the meadows beyond. And there he halted sharply and sat gazing down in astonishment and some consternation at the ferryman’s raft in mid-passage below him. The distance was not so great that he could not distinguish clearly the freight it was carrying towards the near shore.

  A narrow litter, made to stand on four short, solid legs, stood squarely placed in the middle of the raft to ride as steadily as possible. A linen awning sheltered the head of it from wind and weather, and it was attended on one side by a stockily built groom, and on the other by a young woman in a brown cloak, her head uncovered, her russet hair ruffled by the breeze. At the rear of the raft, where the ferryman poled his load through placid waters, the second porter held by a bridle a dappled cob that swam imperturbably behind. Indeed, he had to swim only in mid-stream, for the water here was still fairly low. The porters might have been servants from any local household, but the girl there was no mistaking. And who would be carried in litters over a mere few miles and in decent weather but the sick, the old, the disabled or the dead?

  Early as it was, he had set out on this journey too late. The Lady Donata had left her solar, left her hall, left, God alone knew on what terms, her careful and solicitous son, and come forth to discover for herself what business abbot and sheriff in Shrewsbury had with her second son, Sulien.

  Cadfael nudged his mule out through the crest of trees, and started down the long slope of the track to meet them, as the ferryman brought his raft sliding smoothly in to the sandy level below.

  Pernel left the porters leading the horse ashore and lifting the litter safely to land, and came flying to meet Cadfael as he dismounted. She was flushed with the air and her own haste and the improbable excitement of this most improbable expedition. She caught him anxiously but resolutely by the sleeve, looking up earnestly into his face.

  ‘She wills it! She knows what she is doing! Why could they never understand? Did you know she has never been told anything of all this business? The whole household

  Eudo would have her kept in the dark, sheltered and wrapped in down. All of them, they did what he wanted. All out of tenderness, but what does she want with tenderness? Cadfael, there has been no one free to tell her the truth, except for you and me.’

  ‘I was not free,’ said Cadfael shortly. ‘I promised the boy to respect his silence, as they have all done.’

  ‘Respect!’ breathed Pernel, marvelling. ‘Where has been the respect for her? I met her only yesterday, and it seems to me I know her better than ail these who move all day and every day under the same roof. You have seen her! Nothing but a handful of slender bone
s covered with pain for flesh and courage for skin. How dare any man look at her, and say of any matter, however daunting: We mustn’t let this come to her ears, she could not bear it!’

  ‘I have understood you,’ said Cadfael, making for the strip of sand where the porters had lifted the litter ashore. ‘You were still free, the only one.’

  ‘One is enough! Yes, I have told her, everything I know, but there’s more that I don’t know, and she will have all. She has a purpose now, a reason for living, a reason for venturing out like this, mad as you may think it—better than sitting waiting for her death.’

  A thin hand drew back the linen curtain as Cadfael stooped to the head of the litter. The shell was plaited from hemp, to be light of weight and give with the movement, and within it Donata reclined in folded rugs and pillows. Thus she must have travelled a year and more ago, when she had made her last excursions into the world outside Longner. What prodigies of endurance it cost her now could hardly be guessed. Under the linen awning her wasted face showed livid and drawn, her lips blue-grey and set hard, so that she had to unlock them with an effort to speak. But her voice was still clear, and still possessed its courteous but steely authority.

  ‘Were you coming to me, Brother Cadfael? Pernel supposed your errand might be to Longner. Be content, I am bound for the abbey. I understand that my son has involved himself in matters of moment both to the lord abbot and the sheriff. I believe I may be able to set the record straight, and see an account settled.’

  ‘I will gladly ride back with you,’ said Cadfael, ‘and serve you in whatever way I can.’

  No point now in urging caution and good sense upon her, none in trying to turn her back, none in questioning how she had eluded the anxious care of Eudo and his wife to undertake this journey. The fierce control of her face spoke for her. She knew what she was doing, no pain, no risk could have daunted her. Brittle energy had burned up in her as in a stirred fire. And a stirred fire was what she was, too long damped down into resignation.

  ‘Then ride before, Brother,’ she said, ‘if you will be so good, and ask Hugh Beringar if he will come and join us at the abbot’s lodging. We shall be slower on the road, you and he may be there before us. But not my son!’ she added, with a lift of her head and a brief, deep spark in her eyes. ‘Let him be! It is better, is it not, that the dead should carry their own sins, and not leave them for the living to bear?’

  ‘It is better,’ said Cadfael. ‘An inheritance comes more kindly clear of debts.’

  ‘Good!’ she said. ‘What is between my son and me may remain as it is until the right time comes. I will deal. No one else need trouble.’

  One of her porters was busy rubbing down the cob’s saddle and streaming hide for Pernel to remount. At foot pace they would be an hour yet on the way. Donata had sunk back in her pillows braced and still, all the fleshless lines of her face composed into stoic endurance. On her deathbed she might look so, and still never let one groan escape her. Dead, all the tension would have been wiped away, as surely as the passage of a hand closes the eyes for the last time.

  Cadfael mounted his mule, and set off back up the slope, heading for the Foregate and the town.

  ‘She knows?’ said Hugh in blank astonishment. “The one thing Eudo insisted on, from the very day I went to him first, the one person he would not have drawn into so grim a business! The last thing you said yourself, when we parted last night, was that you were sworn to keep the whole tangle from her. And now you have told her?’

  ‘Not I,’ said Cadfael. ‘But yes, she knows. Woman to woman she heard it. And she is making her way now to the abbot’s lodging, to say what she has to say to authority both sacred and secular, and have to say it but once.’

  ‘In God’s name,’ demanded Hugh, gaping, ‘how did she contrive the journey? I saw her, not so long since, every movement of a hand tired her. She had not been out of the house for months.’

  ‘She had not compelling reason,’ said Cadfael. ‘Now she has. She had no cause to fight against the care and anxiety they pressed upon her. Now she has. There is no weakness in her will. They have brought her these few miles in a litter, at cost to her, I know it, but it is what she would have, and I, for one, would not care to deny her.’

  ‘And she may well have brought on her death,’ Hugh said, ‘in such an effort.’

  ‘And if that proved so, would it be so ill an ending?’

  Hugh gave him a long, thoughtful look, and did not deny it.

  ‘What has she said, then, to you, to justify such a wager?’

  ‘Nothing, as yet, except that the dead should carry their own sins, and not leave them a legacy to the living.’

  ‘It is more than we have got out of the boy,’ said Hugh. ‘Well, let him sit and think a while longer. He had his father to deliver, she has her son. And all of this while sons and household and all have been so busy and benevolent delivering her. If she’s calling the tune now, we may hear a different song. Wait, Cadfael, and make my excuses to Aline, while I go and saddle up.’

  They had reached the bridge, and were riding so slowly that they seemed to be eking out time for some urgent thinking before coming to this conference, when Hugh said: ‘And she would not have Sulien brought in to hear?’

  ‘No. Very firmly she said: Not my son! What is between them, she said, let it rest until the right time. Eudo she knows she can manipulate, lifelong, if you say no word. And what point is there in publishing the offences of a dead man? He cannot be made to pay, and the living should not.’

  ‘But Sulien she cannot deceive. He witnessed the burial. He knows. What can she do but tell him the truth? The whole of it, to add to the half he knows already.’

  Not until then had it entered Cadfael’s mind to wonder if indeed they knew, or Sulien knew, even the half of it. They were being very sure, because they thought they had discounted every other possibility, that what they had left was truth. Now the doubt that had waited aside presented itself suddenly as a world of unconsidered possibilities, and no amount of thought could rule out all. How much even of what Sulien knew was not knowledge at all, but assumption? How much of what he believed he had seen was not vision, but illusion?

  They dismounted in the stable yard at the abbey, and presented themselves at the abbot’s door.

  It was the middle of the morning when they assembled at last in the abbot’s parlour. Hugh had waited for her at the gatehouse, to ensure that she should be carried at once the length of the great court to the very door of Radulfus’s lodging. His solicitude, perhaps, reminded her of Eudo, for when he handed her out among the tattered autumnal beds of the abbot’s garden she permitted all with a small, tight but tolerant smile, bearing the too-anxious assiduities of youth and health with the hard-learned patience of age and sickness. She accepted the support of his arm through the anteroom where normally Brother Vitalis, chaplain and secretary, might have been working at this hour, and Abbot Radulfus took her hand upon the other side, and led her within, to a cushioned place prepared for her, with the support of the panelled wall at her back.

  Cadfael, watching this ceremonious installation without attempting to take any part in it, thought that it had something of the enthronement of a sovereign lady about it. That might even amuse her, privately. The privileges of mortal sickness had almost been forced upon her, what she thought of them might never be told. Certainly she had an imperishable dignity, and a large and tolerant understanding of the concern and even unease she caused in others and must endure graciously. She had also, thus carefully dressed for an ordeal and a social visit, a fragile and admirable elegance. Her gown was deep blue like her eyes, and like her eyes a little faded, and the bliaut she wore over it, sleeveless and cut down to either hip, was the same blue, embroidered in rose and silver at the hems. ‘The whiteness of her linen wimple turned her drawn cheeks to a translucent grey in the light almost of noon.

  Pernel had followed silently into the anteroom, but did not enter the parlour. She stood waiting i
n the doorway, her golden-russet eyes round and grave.

  Pernel Otmere has been kind enough to bear me company all this way,’ said Donata, ‘and I am grateful to her for more than that, but she need not be put to the weariness of listening to the long conference I fear I may be forcing upon you, my lords. If I may ask, first

  where is my son now?’

  ‘He is in the castle,’ said Hugh simply.

  ‘Locked up?’ she asked pointblank, but without reproach or excitement. ‘Or on his parole?’

  ‘He has the freedom of the wards,’ said Hugh, and added no further enlightenment.

  ‘Then, Hugh, if you would be kind enough to provide Pernel with some token that would let her in to him, I think they might spend the time more pleasantly together than apart, while we confer? Without prejudice,’ she said gently,’to any proceedings you may have in mind later.’

  Cadfael saw Hugh’s black, betraying brows twitch, and lift into oblique appreciation, and thanked God devoutly for an understanding rare between two so different.

  ‘I will give her my glove,’ said Hugh, and cast one sharp, enjoying glance aside at the mute girl in the doorway. ‘No one will question it, no need for more.’ And he turned and took Pernel by the hand, and went out with her.