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+ + +This is a twelve column section in a row. Each of these includes a div.callout element so you can see where the columns are - it's not required at all for the grid.
+Six columns
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""", content_type="text/html") + response['WWW-Authenticate'] = 'Basic realm="OPDS"' + response.status_code = 401 + return response + + def process_request(self,request): + if not settings.AUTH: + return + + # AuthenticationMiddleware is required so that request.user exists. + if not hasattr(request, 'user'): + raise ImproperlyConfigured( + "The Django remote user auth middleware requires the" + " authentication middleware to be installed. Edit your" + " MIDDLEWARE setting to insert" + " 'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware'" + " before the BasicAuthMiddleware class.") + try: + authentication = request.META[self.header] + except KeyError: + return self.unauthed() + + (auth_meth, auth_data) = authentication.split(' ',1) + if 'basic' != auth_meth.lower(): + return self.unauthed() + auth_data = base64.b64decode(auth_data.strip()).decode('utf-8') + username, password = auth_data.split(':',1) + + user = auth.authenticate(username=username, password=password) + if user and user.is_active: + request.user = user + auth.login(request, user) + return + + return self.unauthed() \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/opds_catalog/opdsdb.py b/opds_catalog/opdsdb.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..7cf6935587a2fc4ff254962e9cbedb36093fc253 --- /dev/null +++ b/opds_catalog/opdsdb.py @@ -0,0 +1,159 @@ +import os + +from django.db.models import Q + +from opds_catalog.models import Book, Catalog, Author, Genre, Series, bseries, bauthor, bgenre, bookshelf, Counter, LangCodes + +########################################################################## +# типы каталогов (cat_type) +# +CAT_NORMAL=0 +CAT_ZIP=1 +CAT_GZ=2 + +########################################################################## +# Как будем искать дубликаты +# +CMP_NONE=0 +CMP_NORMAL=1 +CMP_STRONG=2 +CMP_CLEAR=3 +CMP_TITLE_FTYPE_FSIZE=2 +CMP_TITLE_AUTHORS=1 + +########################################################################## +# разные константы +# +unknown_genre='Неизвестный жанр' + + +def clear_all(): + Book.objects.all().delete() + Catalog.objects.all().delete() + Author.objects.all().delete() + Genre.objects.all().delete() + Series.objects.all().delete() + bseries.objects.all().delete() + bauthor.objects.all().delete() + bseries.objects.all().delete() + bookshelf.objects.all().delete() + Counter.objects.all().delete() + +# Книги где avail=0 уже известно что удалены +# Книги где avail=2 это только что прверенные существующие книги +# Устанавливаем avail=1 для книг которые не удалены. Во время проверки +# если они не удалены им присвоится значение 2 +# Книги с avail=0 проверятся не будут и будут убраны из всех выдач и всех обработок. +# +# три позиции (0,1,2) сделаны для того чтобы сделать возможным корректную работу +# cgi-скрипта во время сканирования библиотеки +# +def getlangcode(s): + langcode = 9 + if len(s)==0: + return langcode + for k in LangCodes.keys(): + if s[0] in LangCodes[k]: + langcode = k + + return langcode + +def avail_check_prepare(): + Book.objects.filter(~Q(avail=0)).update(avail=1) + +def books_del_logical(): + row_count = Book.objects.filter(avail=1).update(avail=0) + return row_count + +def books_del_phisical(): + row_count = Book.objects.filter(avail__lte=1).delete() + # TODO: Разобратся нужно ли удалять записи в таблицах связи ManyToMany или они сами удалятся? + # sql='delete from '+TBL_BAUTHORS+' where book_id in (select book_id from '+TBL_BOOKS+' where avail<=1)' + # sql='delete from '+TBL_BGENRES+' where book_id in (select book_id from '+TBL_BOOKS+' where avail<=1)' + return row_count + +def zipisscanned(zipname,setavail=0): + row_count = Book.objects.filter(path=zipname).update(avail=2) + return row_count + +def findcat(cat_name): + (head,tail)=os.path.split(cat_name) + try: + catalog = Catalog.objects.get(cat_name=tail, path=cat_name) + except Catalog.DoesNotExist: + catalog = None + + return catalog + +def addcattree(cat_name, archive=0): + catalog = findcat(cat_name) + if catalog: + return catalog + if cat_name in ("","."): + return Catalog.objects.get_or_create(parent=None, cat_name=".", path=".", cat_type=0)[0] + (head,tail)=os.path.split(cat_name) + parent=addcattree(head) + new_cat = Catalog.objects.create(parent=parent, cat_name=tail, path=cat_name, cat_type=archive) + + return new_cat + +def findbook(name, path, setavail=0): + # Здесь специально не делается проверка avail, т.к. если удаление было логическим, + # а книга была восстановлена в своем старом месте + # то произойдет восстановление записи об этой книги а не добавится новая + try: + book = Book.objects.get(filename=name, path=path) + except Book.DoesNotExist: + book = None + + if book and setavail: + book.avail=2 + book.save() + + return book + +def addbook(name, path, cat, exten, title, annotation, docdate, lang, size=0, archive=0): + format=exten[1:] + format=format.lower() + book = Book.objects.create(filename=name,path=path,catalog=cat,filesize=size,format=format, + title=title,annotation=annotation,docdate=docdate,lang=lang, + cat_type=archive,avail=2, lang_code=getlangcode(title)) + return book + +def findauthor(first_name,last_name): + try: + author = Author.objects.filter(last_name=last_name, first_name=first_name)[:1] + except Author.DoesNotExist: + author = None + + return author + +def addauthor(first_name, last_name): + author, created = Author.objects.get_or_create(last_name=last_name, first_name=first_name, lang_code=getlangcode(last_name)) + return author + +def addbauthor(book, author): + ba = bauthor(book=book, author=author) + ba.save() + #book.authors.add(author) + +def addgenre(genre): + genre, created = Genre.objects.get_or_create(genre=genre, defaults={'section':unknown_genre, 'subsection':genre}) + return genre + +def addbgenre(book, genre): + bg = bgenre(book=book, genre=genre) + bg.save() + #book.genres.add(genre) + +def addseries(ser): + series, created = Series.objects.get_or_create(ser=ser, lang_code=getlangcode(ser)) + return series + +def addbseries(book, ser, ser_no): + bs = bseries(book=book, ser=ser, ser_no=ser_no) + bs.save() + +def commit(): + #self.cnx.commit() + pass \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/opds_catalog/settings.py b/opds_catalog/settings.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..77624fc78aabf919f1f62c94d17a47f0038adb54 --- /dev/null +++ b/opds_catalog/settings.py @@ -0,0 +1,70 @@ +import logging +import os +from django.conf import settings + +loglevels={'debug':logging.DEBUG,'info':logging.INFO,'warning':logging.WARNING,'error':logging.ERROR,'critical':logging.CRITICAL,'none':logging.NOTSET} + +VERSION = "0.33b" + +# Main SOPDS Book Collection Directory +ROOT_LIB = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_ROOT_LIB", "books/") +BOOK_EXTENSIONS = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_BOOK_EXTESIONS", ['.pdf', '.djvu', '.fb2', '.epub']) + +# Количество выдаваемых строк на одну страницу +MAXITEMS = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_MAXITEMS", 60) +DOUBLES_HIDE = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_DOUBLES_HIDE", True) +FB2PARSE = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_FB2PARSE", True) +FB2HSIZE = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_FB2HSIZE", 0) +COVER_SHOW = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_COVER_SHOW", True) +ZIPSCAN = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_ZIPSCAN", True) +ZIPRESCAN = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_ZIPRESCAN", False) +ZIPCODEPAGE = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_ZIPCODEPAGE", "cp866") +DELETE_LOGICAL = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_DELETE_LOGICAL", False) +SPLITITEMS = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SPLITITEMS", 300) +FB2TOEPUB = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_FB2TOEPUB", "") +FB2TOMOBI = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_FB2TOMOBI", "") +TEMP_DIR = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_TEMP_DIR", os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR,'tmp')) +SINGLE_COMMIT = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SINGLE_COMMIT", True) +TITLE_AS_FILENAME = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_TITLE_AS_FILENAME", True) +ALPHABET_MENU = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_ALPHABET_MENU", True) +NOCOVER_PATH = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_NOCOVER_PATH", os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR,'static/images/nocover.jpg')) +AUTH = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_AUTH", False) +SERVER_LOG = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SERVER_LOG", os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR,'opds_cataog/log/sopds_server.log')) +SCANNER_LOG = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SCANNER_LOG", os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR,'opds_cataog/log/sopds_scanner.log')) +SERVER_PID = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SERVER_PID", os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR,'opds_cataog/tmp/sopds_server.pid')) +SCANNER_PID = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SCANNER_PID", os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR,'opds_cataog/tmp/sopds_scanner.pid')) +SCAN_SHED_MIN = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SCAN_SHED_MIN", '0') +SCAN_SHED_HOUR = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SCAN_SHED_HOUR", '0') +SCAN_SHED_DAY = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SCAN_SHED_DAY", '*') +SCAN_SHED_DOW = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SCAN_SHED_DOW", '*') + +TITLE = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_TITLE", "SimpleOPDS") +SUBTITLE = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_SUBTITLE", "SimpleOPDS Catalog by www.sopds.ru. Version %s."%VERSION) +ICON = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_ICON", "/static/images/favicon.ico") + +loglevel = getattr(settings, "SOPDS_LOGLEVEL", "info") +if loglevel.lower() in loglevels: + LOGLEVEL=loglevels[loglevel.lower()] +else: + LOGLEVEL=logging.NOTSET + +# Переопределяем некоторые функции для SQLite, которые работают неправлено +from django.db.backends.signals import connection_created +from django.dispatch import receiver + +def sopds_upper(s): + return s.upper() + +def sopds_substring(s,i,l): + i = i - 1 + return s[i:i+l] + +def sopds_concat(s1='',s2='',s3=''): + return "%s%s%s"%(s1,s2,s3) + +@receiver(connection_created) +def extend_sqlite(connection=None, **kwargs): + if connection.vendor == "sqlite": + connection.connection.create_function('upper',1,sopds_upper) + connection.connection.create_function('substring',3,sopds_substring) + connection.connection.create_function('concat',3,sopds_concat) diff --git a/opds_catalog/sopdscan.py b/opds_catalog/sopdscan.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..749cc3397bb41b2cb482d69aea0283dcd5a5cc8f --- /dev/null +++ b/opds_catalog/sopdscan.py @@ -0,0 +1,197 @@ +# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- + +import os +import time +import datetime +import base64 +import opds_catalog.zipf as zipfile +import logging + +from opds_catalog import fb2parse, settings, opdsdb + + +class opdsScanner: + def __init__(self, logger=None): + self.fb2parser=None + self.init_parser() + + if logger: + self.logger = logger + else: + self.logger = logging.getLogger('') + self.logger.setLevel(logging.CRITICAL) + self.init_stats() + + def init_stats(self): + self.t1=datetime.timedelta(seconds=time.time()) + self.t2=self.t1 + self.t3=self.t1 + self.books_added = 0 + self.books_skipped = 0 + self.books_deleted = 0 + self.arch_scanned = 0 + self.arch_skipped = 0 + self.bad_archives = 0 + self.bad_books = 0 + self.books_in_archives = 0 + + def init_parser(self): + self.fb2parser=fb2parse.fb2parser(False) + + def log_options(self): + self.logger.info(' ***** Starting sopds-scan...') + self.logger.debug('OPTIONS SET') + if settings.ROOT_LIB!=None: self.logger.debug('root_lib = '+settings.ROOT_LIB) + if settings.FB2TOEPUB!=None: self.logger.debug('fb2toepub = '+settings.FB2TOEPUB) + if settings.FB2TOMOBI!=None: self.logger.debug('fb2tomobi = '+settings.FB2TOMOBI) + if settings.TEMP_DIR!=None: self.logger.debug('temp_dir = '+settings.TEMP_DIR) + + def log_stats(self): + self.t2=datetime.timedelta(seconds=time.time()) + self.logger.info('Books added : '+str(self.books_added)) + self.logger.info('Books skipped : '+str(self.books_skipped)) + self.logger.info('Bad books : '+str(self.bad_books)) + if settings.DELETE_LOGICAL: + self.logger.info('Books deleted : '+str(self.books_deleted)) + else: + self.logger.info('Books DB entries deleted : '+str(self.books_deleted)) + self.logger.info('Books in archives: '+str(self.books_in_archives)) + self.logger.info('Archives scanned : '+str(self.arch_scanned)) + self.logger.info('Archives skipped : '+str(self.arch_skipped)) + self.logger.info('Bad archives : '+str(self.bad_archives)) + + t=self.t2-self.t1 + seconds=t.seconds%60 + minutes=((t.seconds-seconds)//60)%60 + hours=t.seconds//3600 + self.logger.info('Time estimated:'+str(hours)+' hours, '+str(minutes)+' minutes, '+str(seconds)+' seconds.') + + def scan_all(self): + self.init_stats() + self.log_options() + + opdsdb.avail_check_prepare() + + for full_path, dirs, files in os.walk(settings.ROOT_LIB, followlinks=True): + for name in files: + file=os.path.join(full_path,name) + (n,e)=os.path.splitext(name) + if (e.lower() == '.zip'): + if settings.ZIPSCAN: + self.processzip(name,full_path,file) + else: + file_size=os.path.getsize(file) + self.processfile(name,full_path,file,None,0,file_size) + + opdsdb.commit() + + if settings.DELETE_LOGICAL: + self.books_deleted=opdsdb.books_del_logical() + else: + self.books_deleted=opdsdb.books_del_phisical() + self.log_stats() + + def processzip(self,name,full_path,file): + rel_file=os.path.relpath(file,settings.ROOT_LIB) + if settings.ZIPRESCAN or (not opdsdb.zipisscanned(rel_file,1)): + zip_process_error = 0 + try: + z = zipfile.ZipFile(file, 'r', allowZip64=True) + filelist = z.namelist() + cat = opdsdb.addcattree(rel_file, 1) + for n in filelist: + try: + self.logger.debug('Start process ZIP file = '+file+' book file = '+n) + file_size=z.getinfo(n).file_size + self.processfile(n,file,z.open(n),cat,1,file_size) + except zipfile.BadZipFile: + self.logger.warning('Error processing ZIP file = '+file+' book file = '+n) + zip_process_error = 1 + z.close() + self.arch_scanned+=1 + except zipfile.BadZipFile: + self.logger.warning('Error while read ZIP archive. File '+file+' corrupt.') + zip_process_error = 1 + self.bad_archives+=zip_process_error + else: + self.arch_skipped+=1 + self.logger.debug('Skip ZIP archive '+rel_file+'. Already scanned.') + + def processfile(self,name,full_path,file,cat,archive=0,file_size=0): + (n,e)=os.path.splitext(name) + if e.lower() in settings.BOOK_EXTENSIONS: + rel_path=os.path.relpath(full_path,settings.ROOT_LIB) + self.logger.debug("Attempt to add book "+rel_path+"/"+name) + #self.logger.debug(" full_path = "+full_path) + #self.logger.debug(" settings.ROOT_LIB = "+settings.ROOT_LIB) + #self.logger.debug(" rel_path = "+rel_path) + + self.fb2parser.reset() + if opdsdb.findbook(name,rel_path,1)==None: + if archive==0: + cat=opdsdb.addcattree(rel_path,archive) + title='' + lang='' + annotation='' + docdate='' + book_is_valid = True + + if e.lower()=='.fb2' and settings.FB2PARSE: + if isinstance(file, str): + f=open(file,'rb') + else: + f=file + self.fb2parser.parse(f,settings.FB2HSIZE) + f.close() + + if len(self.fb2parser.lang.getvalue())>0: + lang=self.fb2parser.lang.getvalue()[0].strip(' \'\"') + if len(self.fb2parser.book_title.getvalue())>0: + title=self.fb2parser.book_title.getvalue()[0].strip(' »«\'\"\&\n-.#\\\`') + if len(self.fb2parser.annotation.getvalue())>0: + annotation=('\n'.join(self.fb2parser.annotation.getvalue()))[:10000] + if len(self.fb2parser.docdate.getvalue())>0: + docdate=self.fb2parser.docdate.getvalue()[0].strip(); + + if self.fb2parser.parse_error!=0: + errormsg='' + self.logger.warning(rel_path+' - '+name+' fb2 parse error ['+errormsg+']') + book_is_valid = False + self.bad_books+=1 + + if book_is_valid: + if title=='': title=n + + book=opdsdb.addbook(name,rel_path,cat,e,title,annotation,docdate,lang,file_size,archive) + self.books_added+=1 + + if archive==1: + self.books_in_archives+=1 + self.logger.debug("Book "+rel_path+"/"+name+" Added ok.") + + idx=0 + for l in self.fb2parser.author_last.getvalue(): + last_name=l.strip(' \n\'\"\&-.#\\\`') + first_name=self.fb2parser.author_first.getvalue()[idx].strip(' \n\'\"\&-.#\\\`') + author=opdsdb.addauthor(first_name,last_name) + opdsdb.addbauthor(book,author) + idx+=1 + for l in self.fb2parser.genre.getvalue(): + opdsdb.addbgenre(book,opdsdb.addgenre(l.lower().strip(' \n\'\"'))) + for l in self.fb2parser.series.attrss: + ser_name=l.get('name') + if ser_name: + ser=opdsdb.addseries(ser_name.strip()) + sser_no=l.get('number','0').strip() + if sser_no.isdigit(): + ser_no=int(sser_no) + else: + ser_no=0 + opdsdb.addbseries(book,ser,ser_no) + + if not settings.SINGLE_COMMIT: + opdsdb.commit() + + else: + self.books_skipped+=1 + self.logger.debug("Book "+rel_path+"/"+name+" Already in DB.") diff --git a/opds_catalog/static/images/nocover.jpg b/opds_catalog/static/images/nocover.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..5fae8b701f12b915474bf5f1fbecb4b9f4be18aa Binary files /dev/null and b/opds_catalog/static/images/nocover.jpg differ diff --git a/opds_catalog/templates/book_description.html b/opds_catalog/templates/book_description.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..525c774423c084a4cc0ef272ea969f3e6e5671a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/opds_catalog/templates/book_description.html @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +{% load i18n %} + +{% autoescape off %} +{% if obj.cat_name %} + {{ obj.cat_name }} +{% else %} + {% trans "Book name:" %} {{ obj.title }}+ {% if obj.authors %}{% trans "Authors:" %} {% for a in obj.authors %}{{ a.last_name }} {{ a.first_name }}; {% endfor %}
{% endif %} + {% if obj.genres %}{% trans "Genres:" %} {% for g in obj.genres %}{{ g.subsection }}; {% endfor %}
{% endif %} + {% if obj.series %}{% trans "Series:" %} {% for s in obj.series %}{{s.ser}}; {% endfor %}
{% endif %} + {% trans "File:" %} {{ obj.filename }}
+ {% trans "File size:" %} {{ obj.filesize }}
+ {% trans "Changes date:" %} {{ obj.docdate }}
+ {% if obj.doubles %}{% trans "Doubles count:" %} {{ obj.doubles }}
{% endif %} +
{{ obj.annotation }}
+{% endif %} +{% endautoescape %} diff --git a/opds_catalog/templates/book_description_cat.html b/opds_catalog/templates/book_description_cat.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..bb781b727322fd71fe5194e641f41ec6ace95158 --- /dev/null +++ b/opds_catalog/templates/book_description_cat.html @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +{% load i18n %} + +{% autoescape off %} +{% if obj.cat_name %} + {{ obj.cat_name }} +{% else %} + {% trans "Book name:" %} {{ obj.title }}+ {% trans "Authors:" %} {% for a in obj.authors.all %}{{ a.last_name }} {{ a.first_name }}; {% endfor %}
+ {% trans "Genres:" %} {% for g in obj.genres.all %}{{ g.subsection }}; {% endfor %}
+ {% trans "Series:" %} {% for s in obj.series.all %}{{s.ser}}; {% endfor %}
+ {% trans "File:" %} {{ obj.filename }}
+ {% trans "File size:" %} {{ obj.filesize }}
+ {% trans "Changes date:" %} {{ obj.docdate }}
+
{{ obj.annotation }}
+{% endif %} +{% endautoescape %} diff --git a/opds_catalog/templates/opensearch.html b/opds_catalog/templates/opensearch.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..9383ed964e2c45e10b517b739ecf10942af436d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/opds_catalog/templates/opensearch.html @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +{% autoescape off %} + +The Sanctuary Sparrow
+v1.0 released in #bookz October 7, 2002
+v1.5 EBook Design Group December 06, 2002
+v2.0 December 31,2002
+Contents
+ +^
+ ++ +Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
+Chapter One
+ +« ^ »
+ +It began, +as the greatest of storms do begin, as a mere tremor in the air, a thread of +sound so distant and faint, yet so ominous, that the ear that was sharp enough +to catch it instantly pricked and shut out present sounds to strain after it +again, and interpret the warning. Brother Cadfael had a hare’s hearing, readily +alerted and sharply focused. He caught the quiver and bay, at this point surely +still on the far side of the bridge that crossed Severn from the town, and +stiffened into responsive stillness, braced to listen.
+ +It could have been an innocent sound enough, or if not innocent of murderous +intent, at any rate natural, the distant voices of hunting owls, and the +predatory bark of a dog-fox prowling his nocturnal barony. Certainly the +ferocious note of the hunt sounded clearly in it to Cadfael’s ear. And even +Brother Anselm the precentor, wholly absorbed into his chanting of the office, +wavered and slipped off-key for an instant, and took up the cadence jealously, +composing his mind sternly to duty.
+ +For there could not be anything in it to trouble the midnight rite of +Matins, here in this kindly spring, barely four weeks past Easter of the year +of Our Lord 1140, with Shrewsbury and all this region secure within the king’s +peace, whatever contentions raged farther south between king and empress, +cousins at odds for the throne. The winter had been hard indeed, but was +blessedly over, the sun had shone on Easter Day, and continued shining ever +since, with only light, scattered showers to confirm the blessing. Only +westward in Wales had there been heavy spring rains, swelling the river level. +The season promised well, the town enjoyed fair rule under a dour but just +sheriff, and defended stoutly by a sensible provost and council. In a time of +civil war, Shrewsbury and its shire had good cause to thank God and King +Stephen for relative order. Not here, surely, should the conventual peace of +Matins fear any disruption. And yet Brother Anselm, for one instant, had +faltered.
+ +In the dim space of the choir, partially shut off from the nave of the +church by the parish altar and lit only by the constant lamp and the candles on +the high altar, the brothers in their stalls showed like carven copies, in this +twilight without age or youth, comeliness or homeliness, so many matched +shadows. The height of the vault, the solid stone of the pillars and walls, +took up the sound of Brother Anselm’s voice, and made of it a disembodied +magic, high in air. Beyond where the candlelight reached and shadows ended, +there was darkness, the night within, the night without. A benign night, mild, +still and silent.
+ +Not quite silent. The tremor on the air became a faint, persistent murmur. +In the dimness under the rood loft, to the right of the entrance to the choir, +Abbot Radulfus stirred in his stall. To the left, Prior Robert’s habit rustled +briefly, with an effect of displeasure and reproof rather than uneasiness. The +merest ripple of disquiet shivered along the ranks of the brothers, and again +subsided.
+ +But the sound was drawing nearer. Even before it grew so loud as to compel +notice there was no mistaking the anger in it, the menace and the dangerous +excitement, all the marks of the hunt. It sounded as if the pursuit had reached +the point where the van chasseours had run the quarry to exhaustion, and the +parfytours were closing in for the kill. Even at this distance it was clear +that some creature’s life was in peril.
+ +The sound drew nearer now very rapidly, hard to ignore, though the precentor +continued valiantly leading his flock in the office, and raised his voice and +quickened his tempo to ride over the challenge. The younger brothers and +novices were shifting uneasily, even whispering, half stimulated, half +affrighted. The murmur had become a ferocious, muted howl, as if gigantic bees +were in swarm after an intruder. Even abbot and prior had leaned forward ready +to rise from their stalls, and were exchanging questioning looks in the +dimness.
+ +With obstinate devotion Brother Anselm lifted the first phrase of Lauds. He +got no farther. At the west end of the church the unlatched leaf of the great +parish door was suddenly hurled open to crash against the wall, and something +unseen came hurtling and scrabbling and gasping down the length of the nave, +reeling and fumbling and fending itself off from wall and pillar, heaving at +breath as though run to death already.
+ +They were on their feet, every man. The younger ones broke out in frightened +exclamation and wonder, nudging and wavering in doubt what to do. Abbot +Radulfus in his own domain was hampered by no such hesitation. He moved with +speed and force, plucked a candle from the nearest sconce, and went striding +out round the parish altar in great, loping strides that sent his gown billowing +out behind him. After him went Prior Robert, more tender of his dignity, and +therefore slower to reach the scene of need, and after Robert all the brothers +in jostling agitation. Before they reached the nave they were met by a great, +exultant bellow of triumph, and a rushing and scrambling of dozens of frenzied +bodies, as the hunt burst in at the west door after its prey.
+ +Brother Cadfael, once well accustomed to night alarms by land and by sea, +had surged out of his stall as soon as the abbot moved, but took time to grasp +a double candelabrum to light his way. Prior Robert in full sail was already +blocking the right-hand way round the parish altar, too patrician to make +enough haste to ruffle his silvery beauty. Cadfael doubled round to the left and +emerged into the nave before him, with his light thrust out ahead, as much +weapon as illumination.
+ +The hounds were streaming in by then, a quarter of the town, and not the +best quarter, though not necessarily the worst either; decent craftsmen, +merchants, traders, jostled with the riff-raff always ready for any brawl, and +all of them beyond themselves either with drink or excitement or both together, +howling for blood. And blood there was, slippery on the tiles of the floor. On +the three steps to the parish altar lay sprawled some poor wretch flattened +beneath a surge of trampling, battering foes, all hacking away with fist and +boot, happily in such a tangle that comparatively few of their kicks and blows +got home. All Cadfael could see of the quarry was a thin arm and a fist hardly +bigger than a child’s, that reached out of the chaos to grip the edge of the +altar-cloth with life-and-death desperation.
+ +Abbot Radulfus, all the long, lean, muscular length of him, with his gaunt, +authoritative lantern head blazing atop, sailed round the altar, smoky candle +in hand, slashed the skirts of his habit like a whip across the stooping +beast-faces of the foremost attackers, and with a long bony leg bestrode the +fallen creature that clawed at the fringes of the altar.
+ +“Rabble, stand off! Blasphemers, quit this holy place, and be ashamed. Back, +before I blast your souls eternally!”
+ +He had no need to raise his voice to a shout, he had only to unsheathe it +like a knife, and it sliced through the babble as through cheese. They recoiled +as though his nearness seared, but they did not go far, only out of range of +the burning. They hopped and hovered and clamoured, indignant, aggrieved, but +wary of tempting Heaven. They drew off from a miserable fragment of a man, flat +on his face up the altar steps, soiled and crumpled and bloodied, and no bigger +than a boy fifteen years old. In the brief, daunted silence before they +screamed their charge against him, every soul present could hear how his breath +heaved and laboured and clapped in his ribs, toiling for dear life, threatening +to break his meagre frame apart. Flaxen hair dabbled with dust and blood +spilled against the fringes of the altar-cloth he gripped so frantically. +Skinny arms and legs hugged the stone as if his life depended upon the contact. +If he could speak, or lift his head, he had too much sense left in him to +venture the attempt.
+ +“How dare you so affront the house of God?” demanded the abbot, darkly +smouldering. He had not missed the steely flash of reflected light in the hand +of one squat fellow who was sliding roundabout to get at his victim privily. “Put +up that knife or court your soul’s damnation!”
+ +The hunters recovered breath and rage together. A dozen at least gave +tongue, crying their own justification and the hunted man’s offences, so +variously that barely a word conveyed any meaning. Radulfus brandished a +daunting arm, and their clamour subsided into muttering. Cadfael, observing +that the armed man had done no more than slide his weapon out of sight, took +his stand firmly between, and advanced his candles with a flourish in the +direction of a fine bushy beard.
+ +“Speak one, if you have anything of worth to say,” ordered the abbot. “The +rest be silent. You, young man, you would seem to put yourself forward…”
+ +The young man who had taken a pace ahead of his supporters, and whose prior +right they seemed to acknowledge, stood forth flushed and important, an +unexpected figure enough to be out man-hunting at midnight. He was tall and +well-made and assured of manner, a little too well aware of a handsome face, +and he was very elegant in festival finery, even if his best cotte was now +somewhat crumpled and disordered from the turmoil of pursuit, and his +countenance red and slack from the effects of a good deal of wine drunk. Without +that induced courage, he would not have faced the lord abbot with quite so much +impudence.
+ +“My lord, I will speak for all, I have the right. We mean no disrespect to +the abbey or your lordship, but we want that man for murder and robbery done +tonight. I accuse him! All here will bear me out. He has struck down my father +and plundered his strong-box, and we are come to take him. So if your lordship +will allow, we’ll rid you of him.”
+ +So they would, never a doubt of it. Radulfus kept his place, the brothers +crowding close to complete the barrier.
+ +“I had thought to hear you make some amend,” said the abbot sharply, “for +this intrusion. Whatever this fellow may or may not have done, it is not he who +has shed blood and drawn steel here within the church on the very steps of the +altar. Violence he may have done elsewhere, but here none, he does but suffer +it. The crime of sacrilege is yours, all of you here breaking our peace. You +had best be considering on the health of your own souls. And if you have a lawful +complaint against this person, where is the law? I see no sergeant here among +you. I see no provost, who could at least make a case for the town. I see a +rabble, as far at fault in law as robber and murderer can be. Now get hence, +and pray that your offence may be pardoned. Whatever charges you have to make, +take them to the law.”
+ +Some among them were drawing back stealthily by then, sobering and thinking +better of their invasion, and only too anxious to sneak away to their homes and +beds. But the vagabonds, always ready for mischief, stood their ground with +sullen, sly faces, and had no intention of going far, and the more respectable, +if they abated their noisy ardour, kept their bitter indignation. Cadfael knew +most of them. Perhaps Radulfus himself, though no Shrewsbury man by birth, was +better-read in them than they supposed. He kept his place, and bent his steady, +menacing brow against them, forbidding action.
+ +“My lord abbot,” ventured the fine young man, “if you will let us take him +hence we will deliver him up to the law.”
+ +To the nearest tree, thought Cadfael. And there were trees in plenty between +here and the river. He snipped at the wicks of his candles and let them flare +afresh. The beard was still hovering in the shadows.
+ +“That I cannot do,” said the abbot crisply. “If the law itself were here, +there is no power can now take away this man from the sanctuary he has sought. +You should know the right of it as well as I, and the peril, body and soul, to +any who dare to breach that sanctuary. Go, take the pollution of your violence +out of this holy place. We have duties here which your presence in hatred +defiles. Go! Out!”
+ +“But my lord,” bleated the angry young man, tossing his curled head but +keeping his distance, “you have not heard us as to the crime…”
+ +“I will hear you,” said Radulfus with a snap, “by daylight, when you come +with sheriff or sergeant to discuss this matter calmly, and in proper form. But +I warn you, this man has claimed sanctuary, and the rights of sanctuary are +his, according to custom, and neither you nor any other shall force him away +out of these walls until the time of his respite is over.”
+ +“And I warn you, my lord,” flared the youth, blazing red, “that should he +venture a step outside, we shall be waiting for him, and what falls out of your +lordship’s lordship will be no concern of yours, or the church’s.” Yes, +unquestionably he was moderately drunk, or he would never have gone so far, an +ordinary young burgess of the town, if a wealthy one. Even with an evening’s +wine in him, he blenched at his own daring, and shuffled back a pace or two.
+ +“Or God’s?” said the abbot coldly. “Go hence in peace, before his bolt +strike you.”
+ +They went, shadows edging backwards into shadow, through the open west door +and out into the night, but always with their faces turned towards the +miserable bundle prostrate clutching the altar-cloth. Mob madness is not so +easily subdued, and even if their grievance proved less than justified, it was +real enough to them. Murder and robbery were mortal crimes. No, they would not +all go away. They would set a watch on the parish door and the gatehouse, with +a rope ready.
+ +“Brother Prior,” said Radulfus, running an eye over his shaken flock, “and +Brother Precentor, will you again begin Lauds? Let the office proceed, and the +brothers return to their beds according to the order. The affairs of men +require our attention, but the affairs of God may not be subordinated.” He +looked down at the motionless fugitive, too tensely still not to be aware of +everything that passed above him, and again looked up to catch Brother +Cadfael’s concerned and thoughtful eye. “We two, I think, are enough to take +what confession this guest of ours wills to make, and tend his needs. They are +gone,” said the abbot dispassionately to the prone figure at his feet. “You may +get up.”
+ +The thin body stirred uneasily, keeping one hand firmly on the fringe of the +altar-cloth. He moved as if every flinching movement hurt, as well it might, +but it seemed that he had at least escaped broken bones, for he used his free +arm to help him up to his knees on the steps, and raised to the light a gaunt, +bruised face smeared with blood and sweat and the slime of a running nose. +Before their eyes he seemed to dwindle both in years and size. They might have +been gazing at some unlucky urchin of the Foregate who had been set upon by a +dozen or more of his capricious fellows for some trivial offence, and left +howling in a ditch, but for the desperation of fear that emanated from him, and +the memory of the pack that had been beaten off from his heels just in time.
+ +A poor little wretch enough to be credited with murder and robbery. On his +feet he might perhaps be about as tall as Cadfael, who was below the middle +height, but width-ways Cadfael would have made three of him. His cotte and hose +were ragged and threadbare, and had several new rents in them now from clawing +hands and trampling feet, besides the dust and stains of long use, but +originally they had been brightly-coloured in crude red and blue. He had a +decent width of shoulder, better feeding might have made a well-proportioned +man of him, but as he moved stiffly to look up at them he seemed all gangling +limbs, large of elbow and knee, and very low in flesh to cover them. Seventeen +or eighteen years old, Cadfael guessed. The eyes raised to them in such +desolate entreaty were hollow and evasive, and one of them half-closed and +swelling, but in the light of the candles they flared darkly and brilliantly +blue as periwinkle flowers.
+ +“Son,” said Radulfus, with chill detachment, for murderers come in all +shapes, ages and kinds, “you heard what is charged against you by those who +surely sought your life. Here you have committed body and soul to the care of +the church, and I and all here are bound to keep and succour you. On that you +may rely. As at this moment, I offer you only one channel to grace, and ask of +you but one question. Whatever the answer, here you are safe as long as the +right of sanctuary lasts. I promise it.”
+ +The wretch crouched on his knees, watching the abbot’s face as though he +numbered him among his enemies, and said no word.
+ +“How do you answer to this charge?” asked Radulfus. “Have you this day +murdered and robbed?”
+ +Distorted lips parted painfully to loose a light, high, wary voice like a +frightened child’s. “No, Father Abbot, I swear it!”
+ +“Get up,” said the abbot, neither trusting nor judging. “Stand close, and +lay your hand upon this casket on the altar. Do you know what it contains? Here +within are the bones of the blessed Saint Elerius, the friend and director of +Saint Winifred. On these holy relics, consider and answer me once again, as God +hears you: are you guilty of that which they charge you?”
+ +With all the obstinate, despairing fervour so slight a body could contain, +and without hesitation, the light voice shrilled: “As God sees me, I am not! I +have done no wrong.”
+ +Radulfus considered in weighty silence an unnerving while. Just so would a +man answer who had nothing to hide and nothing to fear from being heard in Heaven. +But no less, so would a godless vagabond answer for his hide’s sake, having no +faith in Heaven, and no fear of anything beyond the terrors of this world. Hard +to decide between the two. The abbot suspended judgement.
+ +“Well, you have given a solemn word, and whether it be true or no, you have +the protection of this house, according to law, and time to think on your soul, +if there is need.” He looked at Cadfael, and eye to eye they considered the +needs that came before all. “He had best keep to the church itself, I think, +until we have spoken with the officers of law, and agreed on terms.”
+ +“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 the 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 brychans, 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.
+ +“What is it? What troubles you?” For himself he had shivered, argued, +burned, but not wept.
+ +“My rebec—I had it with me in the bushes, in a linen bag for my shoulder. +When they flushed me out—I don’t know how, a branch caught in the string, and +plucked it away. And I dared not stop to grope for it in the dark… And now I +can’t go forth! I’ve lost it!”
+ +“In the bushes, this side the bridge—across the highway from here?” It was a
+grief Cadfael could comprehend. “You cannot go forth lad, no, not yet, true
+enough. But
One startled blue eye opened at him, he caught the gleam of the candles in +it before it closed again. There was silence. Cadfael lay back in the abbot’s +stall, and resigned himself to a long watch. Before Prime he must rouse himself +to remove the interloper to a less privileged place, or Prior Robert would be +rigid with offence. Until then, let God and his saints take charge, there was +nothing more mere man could do.
+ +As soon as the first light of dawn began to pluck colours out of the dark, +on this clear May morning, Griffin, the locksmith’s boy who slept in the shop +as a watchman, got up from his pallet and went to draw water from the well in +the rear yard. Griffin was always the first up, from either household of the +two that shared the yard, and had usually kindled the fire and made all ready +for the day’s work before his master’s journeyman came in from his home two +streets away. On this day in particular Griffin took it for granted that all +those who had kept it up late at the wedding would be in no condition to rise +early about their work. Griffin himself had not been invited to the feast, +though Mistress Susanna had sent Rannilt across to bring him a platter of meats +and bread, a morsel of cake and a draught of small ale, and he had eaten his +fill, and slept innocently through whatever uproar had followed at midnight.
+ +Griffin was thirteen years old, offspring of a maidservant and a passing +tinker. He was well-grown, comely, of contented nature and good with his hands, +but he was a simpleton. Baldwin Peche the locksmith preened himself on his +goodness in giving house-room to such an innocent, but the truth was that Griffin, +for all his dimness of wit, had a gift for picking up practical skills, and far +more than earned his keep.
+ +The great wooden bucket, its old boards worn and fretted within and without +from long use, came up out of the depths sparkling in the first slanting ray of +the rising sun. Griffin filled his two pails, and was slinging the bucket back +over the shaft when the gleam caught a flash of silver between two of the +boards, lodged edgeways in the crevice. He balanced the bucket on the stone rim +of the well, and leaned and fished out the shining thing, tugging it free +between finger and thumb, and shaking off a frayed shred of blue cloth that +came away with it. It lay in his palm shining, a round disc of silver prettily +engraved with a head, and some strange signs he did not know for letters. On +the reverse side there was a round border and a short cross within it, and more +of the mysterious signs. Griffin was charmed. He took his prize back with him +to the workshop, and when Baldwin Peche finally arose from his bed and came +forth blear-eyed and cross-grained, the boy presented him proudly with what he +had found. Whatever belonged here belonged to his master.
+ +The locksmith clapped eyes on it and kindled like a lighted lamp, head and +eyes clearing marvellously. He turned it in his fingers, examining both sides +closely, and looked up with a curious, private grin and a cautious question:
+ +“Where did you find this, boy? Have you shown it to anyone else?”
+ +“No, master, I brought it straight in for you. It was in the bucket of the +well,” said Griffin, and told him how it had lodged between the boards.
+ +“Good, good! No need to let others know I have such. Stuck fast in the +boards, was it?” mused Baldwin, brooding gleefully over his treasure. “You’re a +good lad! A good lad! You did right to bring it straight to me, I set a great +value on this! A great value! He was grinning to himself with immense +satisfaction, and Griffin reflected his content proudly. I’ll give you some +sweetmeats to your dinner I got from last night’s feast. You shall see I can be +grateful to a dutiful boy.”
+Chapter Two
+ +« ^ »
+ +Brother Cadfael +had Liliwin awake and made as presentable as possible before the brothers came +down to Prime. He had risked helping him out at first light to the necessary +offices, where he might at least wash his battered face and relieve himself, +and return to stand up before the assembled convent at Prime with some sad +dignity. Not to speak of the urgent need to have Prior Robert’s stall vacant +and ready for him, for Robert’s rigid disapproval of the intrusion and the +intruder was already sufficiently clear, and there was no need to aggravate his +hostility. The accused had enough enemies already.
+ +And in they came at the gatehouse, just as the +brothers emerged from Prime, a solid phalanx of citizens intent on lodging +their accusations this time in due and irreproachable form. Sheriff Prestcote +had deputed the enquiry and negotiations to his own sergeant, having more +important items of the king’s business on his hands than a passing assault and +robbery in a town dwelling. He was newly back from his Easter attendance at +King Stephen’s court and the delivery of the shire accounts and revenues, and +his early summer survey of the county’s royal defences was about to begin. +Already Hugh Beringar, his deputy, was in the north of the shire about the same +necessary business, though Cadfael, who relied on Hugh’s good sense in all +matters of poor souls fetched up hard against the law, hoped fervently that he +would soon be back in Shrewsbury to lend a shrewd eye and willing ear to both +sides in the dispute. The accusers had always the advantage without a healthy +sceptic in attendance.
+ +Meantime, here was the sergeant, large, +experienced and sharp enough, but disposed to the accusers rather than the +accused, and with a formidable array of townsmen behind him, led by the +provost, Geoffrey Corviser. A decent, stout, patient man, and in no hurry to +condemn without conscientious probing, but already primed with the complaints +of several equally solid citizens, in addition to the aggrieved family. A +wedding party provides at once large numbers of witnesses, and a powerful +argument for doubting the half of their evidence.
+ +Behind the authorities of shire and town came +young Daniel Aurifaber, slightly the worse for wear after his hectic and +unorthodox wedding night, and in his working clothes this time, but still +belligerent. Surely, however, not so disturbed as a young man should be at his +father’s untimely slaying? Even slightly sheepish, and all the surlier because +of it.
+ +Cadfael withdrew to the rear of the brothers, +between the citizen army and the church, and prepared to block the doorway if +any of the witnesses should again lose his head and dare the abbot’s thunder. +It did not seem likely, with the sergeant there in control, and well aware of +the necessity of dealing civilly and amicably with a mitred abbot. But in any +dozen men there may well be one incorrigible idiot capable of any folly. +Cadfael cast a glance over his shoulder, and glimpsed a pallid, scared face, +but a body still, silent and intent, whether trusting in his ecclesiastical +shelter, or simply resigned, there was no knowing.
+ +“Keep within, out of sight, lad,” said Cadfael +over his shoulder, “unless you’re called for. Leave all to the lord abbot.”
+ +Radulfus greeted the sergeant composedly, and +after him the provost.
+ +“I expected your visit, after the night’s alarm. I +am acquainted with the charges then made against a man who has appealed to +sanctuary within our church, and been received according to our duty. But the +charges have no force until made in due form, through the sheriff’s authority. +You are very welcome, sergeant, I look to you to inform me truly how this +matter stands.”
+ +He had no intention, Cadfael thought, watching, of +inviting them withindoors into chapterhouse or hall. The morning was fine and +sunny, and the matter might be agreed more briskly here, standing. And the +sergeant had already recognised that he had no power to take the fugitive out +of the hands of the church, and was intent only on agreeing terms, and hunting +his proofs elsewhere.
+ +“There is a charge lodged with me,” he said +practically, “that the jongleur Liliwin, who was employed last night to play at +a wedding in the house of Master Walter Aurifaber, struck down the said Walter +in his workshop, where he was then laying away certain valuable wedding gifts +in his strong-box, and robbed the strong-box of a treasure in coins and +goldsmith’s work to a great value. This is sworn to by the goldsmith’s son, here +present, and by ten of the guests who were at the feast.”
+ +Daniel braced his feet, stiffened his neck, and +nodded emphatic confirmation. Several of the neighbours at his back murmured +and nodded with him.
+ +“And you have satisfied yourself,” said Radulfus briskly, +“that the charges are justified? At least, whoever did them, that these deeds +were done?”
+ +“I have viewed the workshop and the strong-box. +The box is emptied of all but heavy items of silverware that would be ill to +carry undetected. I have taken sworn witness that it held a great sum in silver +pence and small, fine works of jewellery. All are gone. And as to the act of +violence against Master Aurifaber, I have seen the marks of his blood close to +the coffer, where he was found, and I have seen how he lies still out of his +senses.”
+ +“But
“Dead?” The sergeant, an honest man, gaped at the +suggestion. “Not he! He’s knocked clean out of his wits, but it was not so +desperate a blow as all that. If he hadn’t had a fair wash of drink in him he +might have been fit to speak up for himself by now, but he’s still addled. It +was a fair dunt someone gave him, but with a good hard head… No, he’s well +alive, and will live his proper span if I’m a judge.”
+ +The witnesses, solid and sullen at his back, +shifted their feet and looked elsewhere, but covertly came back to eyeing the +abbot and the church door, and if they were discomfited at having their largest +claims refuted, nonetheless held fast to their mortal grievance, and wanted a +neck stretched for it.
+ +“It seems, then,” said the abbot composedly, “that +the man we have in sanctuary is accused of wounding and robbing, but not of +murder.”
+ +“So it stands. The evidence is that he was docked +of his full fee because he broke a pitcher in his juggling, and complained +bitterly when he was put out. And some time after that, this assault upon +Master Aurifaber was made, while most of those invited were still there in the +house, and vouched for.”
+ +“I well understand,” said the abbot, “that on such +a charge you must enquire, and may justice be done. But I think you also know +well the sacredness of sanctuary. It is not shelter against sin, it is the +provision of a time of calm, when the guilty may examine his soul, and the +innocent confide in his salvation. But it may not be violated. It has a period, +but until that time is spent it is holy. For forty days the man you seek on +this charge is ours—no, he belongs to God!—and he may not be haled forth, nor +persuaded forth, nor any way removed against his will from these premises. He +is ours to feed, to care for and to shelter, for those forty days.”
+ +“That I grant,” said the sergeant. “But there are +conditions. He came of his own will within, he may enjoy only the allowance of +food those within here enjoy.” Less than he did, by his lusty bulk, but surely +more than Liliwin had ever enjoyed as his regular provision. “And when the +respite is over, he may not again be supplied with food, but must come forth +and submit himself to trial.”
+ +He was as iron-sure of his case here as was +Radulfus in the days of grace, he voiced his mandate coldly. There would be no +extension of the time allowed, after that they would make sure he starved until +he came forth. It was fair. Forty days is consideration enough.
+ +“Then during that time,” said the abbot, “you +agree that the man may rest here and study on his soul. My concern for justice +is no less than yours, you know I will keep to terms, and neither make nor +allow others to make any offer to help the man away out of hold and out of your +reach. But it would be seemly to agree that he need not confine himself to the +church, but have the freedom of the whole enclosure here, so that he may make +use of the lavatorium and necessarium, take some exercise in the open air, and +keep himself decent among us.”
+ +To that the sergeant agreed without demur. “Inside +your pale, my lord, he may make free. But if he step one pace outside, my men +will be ready and waiting for him.”
+ +“That is understood. Now, if you so wish, you may +speak with the accused youth, in my presence, but without these witnesses. +Those who charge him have told their story, it is fair that he should also tell +his just as freely. After that, the matter must wait for trial and judgement hereafter.”
+ +Daniel opened his mouth as if to make furious +protest, caught the abbot’s cold eye, and thought better of it. The henchmen at +his back shuffled and muttered, but did not venture to be clearly heard. Only +the provost spoke up, in the interests of the town in general.
+ +“My lord, I was not a guest at yesterday’s +marriage, I have no direct knowledge of what befell. I stand here for the fair +mind of Shrewsbury, and with your leave I would wish to hear what the young man +may say for himself.”
+ +The abbot agreed to that willingly. “Come, then, +into the church. And you, good people, may disperse in peace.” So they did, +still with some reluctance at not getting their hands immediately on their +prey. Only Daniel, instead of withdrawing, stepped forward hastily to arrest +the abbot’s attention, his manner now anxious and ingratiating, his grievance +put away in favour of a different errand.
+ +“Father Abbot, if you please! It’s true we all ran +wild last night, finding my poor father laid flat as he was, and bleeding. Truly +we did believe him murdered, and cried it too soon, but even now there’s no +knowing how badly he’s hurt. And my old grandmother, when she heard it, fell in +a seizure, as she has once before, and though she’s better of it now, she’s +none too well. And from the last fit she had, she puts more faith in Brother +Cadfael’s remedies than in all the physicians. And she bid me ask if he may +come back with me and medicine her, for he knows what’s needed when this +breathlessness takes her, and the pains in her breast.”
+ +The abbot looked round for Cadfael, who had come +forth from the shadow of the cloister at hearing this plea. There was no +denying he felt a distinct quiver of anticipation. After the night he had spent +beside Liliwin, he could not help being consumed with curiosity as to what had +really happened at Daniel Aurifaber’s wedding supper.
+ +“You may go with him, Brother Cadfael, and do what +you can for the woman. Take whatever time you need.”
+ +“I will, Father,” said Cadfael heartily, and went +off briskly into the garden, to fetch what he thought might be required from +his workshop.
+ +The goldsmith’s burgage was situated on the street +leading to the gateway of the castle, where the neck of land narrowed, so that +the rear plots of the houses on either side the street ran down to the town +wall, while the great rondel of Shrewsbury lay snug to the south-west in the +loop of the
+ +Severn. It was one of the largest plots in the +town, as its owner was thought to be one of the wealthiest men; a right-angled +house with a wing on the street, and the hall and main dwelling running +lengthwise behind. Aurifaber, ever on the lookout for another means of making +money, had divided off the wing and let it as a shop and dwelling to the +locksmith Baldwin Peche, a middle-aged widower without children, who found it +convenient and adequate to his needs. A narrow passage led through between the +two shops to the open yard behind, with its well, and the separate kitchens, +byres and privies. Rumour said of Walter Aurifaber that he even had his cesspit +stone-lined, which many considered to be arrogating to himself the privileges +of minor nobility. Beyond the yard the ground fell away gradually in a long +vegetable-garden and fowl-run to the town wall, and the family holding extended +even beyond, through an arched doorway to an open stretch of smooth grass going +down to the riverside.
+ +Cadfael had paid several visits to the house at +the old woman’s insistence, for she was now turned eighty years old, and held +that her gifts to the abbey entitled her to medical care in this world, as well +as purchasing sanctity for the next. At eighty there is always something ailing +the body, and Dame Juliana was given to ulcers of the leg if she suffered any +slight wound or scratch, and stirred very little from her own chamber, which +was one of the two over the hall. If she had presided at Daniel’s wedding +supper, as clearly she had, it must have been with her walking-stick ready to +hand—unluckily for Liliwin! She was known to be willing to lash out with it +readily if anything displeased her.
+ +The only person on whom she doted, people said, +was this young sprig of a grandson of hers, and even he had never yet found a +way to get her to loose her purse-strings. Her son Walter was made in her own +image, as parsimonious as the dame, but either surer of his own virtue as +admitting him by right to salvation, or else not yet so old as to be worrying +about the after-life, for the abbey altars owed no great benefits to him. There +would have been an impressive show for the heir’s wedding, but the pence that +paid for it would be screwed out of the housekeeping for the next few months. +It was a sour joke among those who did not like the goldsmith that his wife had +died of starvation as soon as she had borne him a son, spending on her keep +being no longer necessary.
+ +Cadfael followed a glum and taciturn Daniel +through the passage between the shops. The hall door stood wide open on the +yard, at this hour in long shadow, but with a pale blue sky radiant overhead. +Within, timber-scented gloom closed on them. There was a chamber door on the +right, the daughter’s room, and beyond that the household stores over which she +presided. Beyond that doorway the stairs went up to the upper floor. Cadfael +climbed the broad, unguarded wooden steps, needing no guidance here. Juliana’s +chamber was the first door off the narrow gallery that ran along the side wall. +Daniel, without a word, had slouched back out of the hall below, and made for +the shop. For a few days, at least, he was the goldsmith. A good workman, too, +they said, when he chose, or when his elders could hold him to it.
+ +A woman came out of the room as Cadfael approached +it. Tall, like her young brother, of the same rich brown colouring, past thirty +years old and mistress of this household for the last fifteen of those years, +Walter’s daughter Susanna had a cool dignity about her that went very ill with +violence and crime. She had stepped into the shoes of her mother, whom she was +said to resemble, as soon as Dame Juliana began to ail. The keys were hers, the +stores were hers, the pillars and the roof of the house were held up by her, +calmly and competently. A good girl, people said. Except that her girlhood was +gone.
+ +She smiled at Brother Cadfael, though even her +smile was distant and cool. She had a pale, clear oval face with wide-set grey eyes, +that went very strangely with her wealth of russet hair, braided and bound +austerely on her head. Her housewifely gown was neat, dark and plain. The keys +at her waist were her only jewellery.
+ +They were old acquaintances. Cadfael could not +claim more or better than that.
+ +“No call to fret,” said the girl briskly. “She’s +over it already, though frightened. In good case to take advice, I hope. +Margery is in there with her.”
+ +Margery? Of course, the bride! Strange office for +a bride, the day after the wedding, to be nursing her bridegroom’s grandam. +Margery Bele, Cadfael recalled, daughter to the cloth-merchant Edred Bele, had +a very nice little fortune in line for her some day, since she had no brother, +and brought with her a very proper dowry even now. Well worth a miserly +family’s purchase for their heir. But was she, then, so bereft of suitors that +this one offer must buy her? Or had she already seen and wanted that +curly-haired, spoiled, handsome brat now no doubt frowning and fretting over +his losses in the shop here?
+ +“I must leave her to you and God,” said Susanna. “She +takes no notice of anyone else. And I have the dinner to prepare.”
+ +“And what of your father?”
+ +“He’ll do well enough,” she said practically. “He
+was very mellow, it did him good service, he fell soft as a cushion. Go along
+and see him, when
If Dame Juliana’s attack had affected her speech +at all on this occasion, she had made a remarkable recovery. Flat on her +pillows she might be, and indeed had better remain for a day or so, but her +tongue wagged remorselessly all the time Cadfael was feeling her forehead and +the beat of her heart, and drawing back an eyelid from a fierce grey eye to +look closely at the pupil. He let her run on without response or encouragement, +though he missed nothing of what she had to say.
+ +“And I expected better of the lord abbot,” she said, +curling thin, bluish lips, “than to take the part of a vagabond footpad, +murderer and thief as he is, against honest craftsmen who pay their dues and +their devotions like Christians. It’s great shame to you all to shelter such a +rogue.”
+ +“Your son, I’m told,” said Cadfael mildly, +rummaging in his scrip for the little flask of powder dried from oak mistletoe, +“is not dead, nor like to be yet, though the pack of your guests went baying +off through the night yelling murder.”
+ +“He well might have been a corpse,” she snapped. “And +dead or no, either way this is a hanging matter, as well you know. And how if I +had died, eh? Whose fault would that have been? There could have been two of us +to bury, and the family left ruined into the bargain. Mischief enough for one +wretched little minstrel to wreak in one night. But he’ll pay for it! Forty +days or no, we shall be waiting for him, he won’t escape us.”
+ +“If he ran from here loaded with your goods,” said +Cadfael, shaking out a little powder into his palm, “he certainly brought none +of them into the church with him. If he has your one miserly penny on him, +that’s all.” He turned to the young woman who stood anxiously beside the head +of the bed. “Have you wine there, or milk? Either does. Stir this into a cup of +it.”
+ +She was a small, round, homely girl, this Margery, +perhaps twenty years old, with fresh, rosy colouring and a great untidy mass of +yellow hair. Her eyes were round and wary. No wonder if she felt lost in this +unfamiliar and disrupted household, but she moved quietly and sensibly, and her +hands were steady on pitcher and cup.
+ +“He had time to hide his plunder somewhere,” the +old woman insisted grimly. “Walter was gone above half an hour before Susanna +began to wonder, and went to look for him. The wretch could have been over the +bridge and into the bushes by then.”
+ +She accepted the drink that was presented to her +lips, and swallowed it down readily. Whatever her dissatisfaction with abbot +and abbey, she trusted Cadfael’s remedies. The two of them were unlikely to +agree on any subject under the sun, but for all that they respected each other. +Even this avaricious, formidable old woman, tyrant of her family and terror of +her servants, had certain virtues of courage, spirit and honesty that were not +to be despised.
+ +“He swears he never touched your son or your +gold,” said Cadfael. “As I grant he may be lying, so you had better grant that +you and yours may be mistaken.”
+ +She was contemptuous. She pushed away from under +her wrinkled neck the skimpy braid of brittle grey hair that irritated her +skin. “Who else could it have been? The only stranger, and with a grudge +because I docked him the value of what he broke…”
+ +“Of what he says some boisterous young fellow +hustled him and caused him to break.”
+ +“He must take a company as he finds it, wherever +he hires himself out. And now I recall,” she said, “we put him out without +those painted toys of his, wooden rings and balls. I want nothing of his, and +what he’s taken of mine I’ll have back before the end. Susanna will give you +the playthings for him, and welcome. He shall not be able to say we’ve matched +his thievery.”
+ +She would give him, scrupulously, what was his, +but she would see his neck wrung without a qualm.
+ +“Be content, you’ve already broken his head for
+him. One more blow like that, and you might have had the law crying murder on
She looked, for once, seriously thoughtful. +Perhaps she had been saying as much to herself, even without his warning. “I am +as I am,” she said, rather admitting than boasting.
+ +“Be so as long as you may, and leave it to the +young to fly into frenzies over upsets that will all pass, given time. Now here +I’m leaving you this flask—it’s the decoction of heart trefoil, the best thing +I know to strengthen the heart. Take it as I taught you before, and keep your +bed today, and I’ll take another look at you tomorrow. And now,” said Cadfael, +“I’m going along to see how Master Walter fares.”
+ +The goldsmith, his balding head swathed and his +long, suspicious face fallen slack in sleep, was snoring heavily, and it seemed +the best treatment to let him continue sleeping. Cadfael went down thoughtfully +to find Susanna, who was out in the kitchen at the rear of the house. A skinny +little girl laboured at feeding a sluggish fire and heaving a great pot to the +hook over it. Cadfael had caught a glimpse of the child once before, all great +dark eyes in a pale, grubby face, and a tangle of dark hair. Some poor +maidservant’s by-blow by her master, or her master’s son, or a passing guest. +For all the parsimony in this household, the girl could have fallen into worse +hands. She was at least fed, and handed down cast-off clothing, and if the old +matriarch was grim and frightening, Susanna was quiet and calm, no scold and no +tyrant.
+ +Cadfael reported on his patient, and Susanna +watched his face steadily, nodded comprehension, and asked no questions.
+ +“And your father is asleep. I left him so. What better +could anyone do for him?”
+ +“I fetched his own physician to him last night,” +she said, “when we found him. She’ll have none but you now, but father relies +on Master Arnald, and he’s close. He says the blow is not dangerous, though it +was enough to lay him senseless some hours. Though it may be the drink had something +to do with that, too.”
+ +“He hasn’t yet been able to tell you what +happened? Whether he saw who the man was who struck him?”
+ +“Not a word. When he comes to, his head aches so +he can remember nothing. It may come back to him later.”
+ +For the saving or the damning of Liliwin! But +whichever way that went, and whatever else he might be, Walter Aurifaber was +not a liar. Meantime, there was nothing to be learned from him, but from the +rest of the household there might be, and this girl was the gravest and most +reasonable of the tribe.
+ +“I’ve heard the general cry against this young +fellow, but not the way the thing happened. I know there was some horse-play with +the lads, nothing surprising at a wedding feast, and the pitcher got broken. I +know your grandmother lashed out at him with her stick, and had him cast out +with only one penny of his fee. His story is that he made off then, knowing it +was hopeless to protest further, and he knew nothing of what followed until he +heard the hunters baying after him, and ran to us for shelter.”
+ +“He would say so,” she agreed reasonably.
+ +“Every man’s saying may as well be true as +untrue,” said Cadfael sententiously. “How long after his going was it when Master +Walter went to his workshop?”
+ +“Nearly an hour it must have been. Some of the +guests were leaving then, but the more lively lads would stay to see Margery +bedded, a good dozen of them were up the stair to the chamber. The wedding +gifts were on the table to be admired, but seeing the night was ending, father +took them and went to lock them away safely in his strong-box in the workshop. +And it must have been about half an hour later, with all the merriment above, +that I began to wonder that he hadn’t come back. There was a gold chain and +rings that Margery’s father gave her, and a purse of silver links, and a breast +ornament of silver and enamel—fine things. I went out by the hall door and +round to the shop, and there he was, lying on his face by the coffer, and the +lid open, and all but the heavy pieces of plate gone.”
+ +“So the singing lad had been gone a full hour +before this happened. Did anyone see him lurking after he was put out?”
+ +She smiled, shaking a rueful head. “There was +darkness enough to hide a hundred loiterers. And he did not go so tamely as you +suppose. He knows how to curse, too, he cried us names I’d never heard before, +I promise you, and howled that he’d have his own back for the wrong we did him. +And I won’t say but he was hard done by, for that matter. But who else should +it be? People we’ve known lifelong, neighbours here in the street? No, you may +be sure he hung about the yard in the dark until he saw my father go alone to +the shop, and he stole in there, and saw what wealth there was in the open +coffer. Enough to tempt a poor man, I grant you. But even poor men must needs +resist temptation.”
+ +“You are very sure,” said Cadfael.
+ +“I am sure. He owes a life for it.”
+ +The little maidservant turned her head sharply, +gazing with lips parted. Such eyes, huge and grieved. She made a very small +sound like a kitten’s whimper.
+ +“Rannilt is daft about the boy,” said Susanna +simply, scornfully tolerant of folly. “He ate with her in the kitchen, and +played and sang for her. She’s sorry for him. But what’s done is done.”
+ +“And when you found your father lying so, of +course you ran back here to call help for him?”
+ +“I couldn’t lift him alone. I cried out what had +happened, and those guests who were still here came running, and Iestyn, our +journeyman, came rushing up the stairs from the undercroft where he sleeps—he’d +gone to bed an hour or more earlier, knowing he’d have to man the shop alone +this morning…” Of course, in expectation of the goldsmith’s thick head and his +son’s late tarrying with his bride. “We carried father up to his bed, and +someone—I don’t know who was the first—cried out that this was the jongleur’s +doing, and that he couldn’t be far, and out they all went streaming, every man, +to hunt for him. And I left Margery to watch by father, while I ran off to +fetch Master Arnald.”
+ +“You did what was possible,” Cadfael allowed. “Then +when was it Dame Juliana took her fit?”
+ +“While I was gone. She’d gone to her chamber, she +may even have been asleep, though with the larking and laughing in the gallery +I should doubt it. But I was hardly out of the door when she hobbled along to +father’s room, and saw him lying, with his bloody head, and senseless. She +clutched at her heart, Margery says, and fell down. But it was not such a bad +fit this time. She was already wake and talking,” said Susanna, “when I came +back with the physician. We had help then for both of them.”
+ +“Well, they’ve both escaped the worst,” said +Cadfael, brooding, “for this time. Your father is a strong, hale man, and +should live his time out without harm. But for the dame, more shocks of the +kind could be the death of her, and so I’ve told her.”
+ +“The loss of her treasury,” said Susanna drily, “was +shock enough to kill her. If she lives through that, she’s proof against all +else until her full time comes. We are a durable kind, Brother Cadfael, very +durable.”
+ +Cadfael turned aside from leaving by the passage +to the street, and entered Walter Aurifaber’s workshop by the side door. Here +Walter would have let himself in, when he came burdened with several choice +items in gold and silver, enamel and fine stones, to lock them up with his +other wealth in the strong-box; from which, in all likelihood, Mistress Margery +would have had much ado to get them out again for her wearing. Unless, of +course, that soft and self-effacing shape concealed a spirit of unsuspected +toughness. Women can be very deceptive.
+ +As he entered the shop from the passage, the +street door was on his left, there was a trestled show-table, cloth-covered, and +the rear part of the room was all narrow shelving, the small furnace, cold, and +the work-benches, at which Daniel was working on a setting for a clouded mossa +gate, brows locked in a gloomy knot. But his fingers were deft enough with the +fine tools, for all his preoccupation with the family misfortunes. The +journeyman was bent over a scale on the bench beside the furnace, weighing +small tablets of silver. A sturdy, compact person, this Iestyn, by the look of +him about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with cropped, straight dark +hair in a thick cap. He turned his head, hearing someone entering, and his face +was broad but bony, dark-skinned, thick-browed, deep-eyed, wholly Welsh. A +better-humoured man than his master, though not so comely.
+ +At sight of Cadfael, Daniel put his tools aside. “You’ve +seen them both? How is it with them?”
+ +“The pair of them will do well enough for this +time,” said Cadfael. “Master Walter is under his own physician, and held to be +out of any danger, if his memory is shaken. Dame Juliana is over this fit, but +any further shock could be mortal, it’s only to be expected. Few reach such an +age.”
+ +By the young man’s face, he was pondering whether +any ever should. But for all that, he knew she favoured him, and had a use for +her indulgence. He might even be fond of her, after his fashion, and as far as +affection was possible between sour age and impatient youth. He did not seem +altogether a callous person, only spoiled. Sole heirs of merchant houses can be +as deformed by their privilege as those of baronies.
+ +In the far corner of the shop Walter’s pillaged +strong-box stood, a big, iron-banded wooden coffer, securely bolted to floor +and wall. Intent on impressing the magnitude of the crime upon any +representative of the abbey that insisted on sheltering the felon, Daniel +unlocked the double locks and heaved up the lid to display what was left +within, a few heavy dishes of plate, too cumbersome to be concealed about the +person. The tale he told, and would tell and retell indignantly as often as he +found a listener, matched Susanna’s account. Iestyn, called to bear witness at +every other aggrieved sentence, could only nod his black head solemnly, and +confirm every word.
+ +“And you are all sure,” said Cadfael, “that the +jongleur must be the guilty man? No thought of any other possible thief? Master +Walter is known to be a wealthy man. Would a stranger know how wealthy? I +daresay there are some here in the town may well envy a craftsman better-off +than themselves.”
+ +“That’s a true word,” agreed Daniel darkly. “And +there’s one no farther away than the width of the yard that I might have +wondered about, if he had not been there in my eye every minute of the time. +But he was, and there’s an end. I fancy he was the first to hit on it that it +was the jongleur we wanted.”
+ +“What, your tenant the locksmith? A harmless soul +enough, I should have thought. Pays his rent and minds his shop, like the +rest.”
+ +“His man John Boneth minds the shop,” said Daniel, +with a snort of laughter, “and the daft lad helps him. Peche is more often out +poking his long nose into other people’s business, and carrying the gossip +round the ale-houses than tending to his craft. A smiling, sneaking toady of a +man to your face, and back-biting as soon as you turn away. There’s no sneak-thievery +I’d put past him, if you want to know. But he was there in the hall the whole +time, so it was not he. No, make no mistake, we were on the right trail when we +set the pack after that rogue Liliwin, and so it will be proved in the end.”
+ +They were all in the same story, and the story +might well be true. There was but one point to be put to them counter: where +would a stranger to the town, and out in the dark, stow away so valuable a +booty safely enough and secretly enough to hide it from all others, and yet be +able to recover it himself? The aggrieved family might brush that aside. +Cadfael found it a serious obstacle to belief.
+ +He was withdrawing by the same door at which he +had entered, and drawing it closed after him by the iron latch, when the draught +of the movement and the lengthening shaft of sunlight piercing the passage +fluttered and illumined a single primrose-coloured thread, waving at the level +of his eyes from the doorpost. The doorpost now on his right, on his left when +he entered, but then out of range of the sun’s rays. Pale as flax, and long and +shining. He took it between finger and thumb, and plucked it gently from the +wood, and a little blotch of dark, brownish red which had gummed it to the post +came away with it, a second, shorter hair coiled and stuck in the blot. Cadfael +stared at it for an instant, and cast one glance back over his shoulder before +he closed the door. From here the coffer in the far corner was plainly in view, +and so would a man be, bending over it.
+ +A small thing, to make so huge a hole in the +defence a man put up for his life. Someone had stood pressed against that +doorpost, looking in, someone about Cadfael’s own height—a small man with +flaxen hair, and a bloodied graze on the left side of his head.
+Chapter Three
+ +« ^ »
+ +Cadfael was +still standing with the tiny, ominous speck in his palm when he heard his name +called from the hall door, and in the same moment a freshening puff of wind +took the floating hairs and carried them away. He let them go. Why not? They +had already spoken all too eloquently, they had nothing to add. He turned to +see Susanna withdrawing into the hall, and the little maidservant scurrying +towards him, with a knotted bundle of cloth held out before her.
+ +“Mistress Susanna says, Dame Juliana wants these out of the house.” She +opened the twist of cloth, and showed a glimpse of painted wood, scarred from +much use. “They belong to Liliwin. She said you would take them to him.” The +great dark eyes that dwelt unwaveringly on Cadfael’s face dilated even more. “Is +it true?” she asked, low and urgently. “He’s safe, there in the church? And +you’ll protect him? You won’t let them fetch him away?”
+ +“He’s with us, and safe enough,” said Cadfael. “No one dare touch him now.”
+ +“And they haven’t hurt him?” she questioned earnestly.
+ +“No worse than will mend now, in peace. No need to fret for a while. He has +forty days grace. I think,” he said, studying the thin face, the delicate, +staring cheekbones under the wide-set eyes, “you like this young man.”
+ +“He made such lovely music,” said the child wistfully. “And he spoke me +gently, and was glad of being with me in the kitchen. It was the best hour I +ever spent. And now I’m frightened for him. What will happen to him when the +forty days are up?”
+ +“Why, if it goes so far—for forty days is time enough to change many +things—but even if it goes so far, and he must come forth, it will be into the +hands of the law, not into the hands of his accusers. Law is grim enough, but +tries to be fair. And by then those who accuse him will have forgotten their +zeal, but even if they have not, they cannot touch him. If you want to help +him, keep eyes and ears open, and if you learn of anything to the purpose, then +speak out.” Clearly the very thought terrified her. Who ever listened to +anything she might say? “To me you may speak freely,” he said. “Do you know +anything of what went on here last night?”
+ +She shook her head, casting wary glances over her shoulder. “Mistress +Susanna sent me away to my bed. I sleep in the kitchen, I never even heard… I +was very tired.” The kitchen was set well apart from the house for fear of +fire, as was customary with these close-set and timber-framed town houses, she +might well sleep through all the alarm after her long hours of labour. “But I +do know this,” she said, and lifted her chin gallantly, and he saw that for all +her youth and frailty it was a good chin, with a set to it that he approved. “I +know Liliwin never harmed anyone, not my master nor any other man. What they +say of him is not true.”
+ +“Nor ever stole?” asked Cadfael gently. She was no way put down, she held +him steadily in her great lamps of eyes. “To eat, yes, perhaps, when he was +hungry, an egg from under a hen somewhere, a partidge in the woods, even a +loaf… that may be. He has been hungry all his life.” She knew, for much of her +life so had she. “But steal more than that? For money, for gold? What good +would that do him? And he is not like that… never!”
+ +Cadfael was aware of the head emerging from the hall door before Rannilt +was, and warned her softly: “There, run! Say I kept you with questions, and you +knew no answers.”
+ +She was very quick, she had whirled and was speeding back when Susanna’s +voice pealed impatiently: “Rannilt!”
+ +Cadfael did not wait to see her vanish within on the heels of her mistress, +but turned at once to resume his way along the passage to the street.
+ +Baldwin Peche was sitting with a pot of ale on the steps of his shop. The +fact that the street was narrow, and the frontages here faced north-west and +were in deep shadow, suggested that he had a reason beyond idleness and ease +for being where he was at this hour. No doubt all those townsmen who had been guests +at the Aurifaber wedding were up and alert this morning, as soon as they could +shake off the effects of their entertainment, roused and restored by the +sensational gossip they had to spread, and the possibility of further +revelations.
+ +The locksmith was a man in his fifties; short, sturdy, but beginning to grow +a round paunch, a noted fisherman along the Severn, but a weak swimmer, +unusually for this river-circled town. He had, truly enough, a long nose that +quivered to every breath of scandal, though he was cautious in the use he made +of it, as though he enjoyed mischief for its own sake rather than for any +personal profit. A cold, inquisitive merriment twinkled in his pale-blue eyes, +set in, a round, ruddy and smiling face. Cadfael knew him well enough to pass +the time of day, and gave him good morrow as though making the approach +himself, whereas he was well apprised Peche had been waiting to make it.
+ +“Well, Brother Cadfael,” said the locksmith heartily, “you’ll have been +tending these unlucky neighbours of mine. I trust you find them bearing up +under their griefs? The lad tells me they’ll make good recoveries, the both of +them.”
+ +Cadfael said what was required of him, which was rather enquiry than +response, and kept his mouth shut and his ears open to listen to the tale all +over again, with more and richer detail, since this was Peche’s chosen craft. +The journeyman locksmith, a fine-looking young man who lived with his widowed +mother a street or two away in the town, looked out once from the shop doorway, +cast a knowledgeable eye on his master, and withdrew, assured of having work to +himself, as he preferred it. By this time John Boneth knew everything his +skilled but idle tutor could teach him, and was quite capable of running the +business single-handed. There was no son to inherit it, he was trusted and +depended on, and he could wait.
+ +“A lucky match, mark,” said Peche, prodding a knowing finger into Brother +Cadfael’s shoulder, “especially if this treasury of Walter’s is really lost, +and can’t be recovered. Edred Bele’s girl has money enough coming to her to +make up the half, at least. Walter’s worked hard to get her for his lad, and +the old dame’s done her share, too. Trust them!” He rubbed finger and thumb +together suggestively, and nudged and winked. “And the girl no beauty and +without graces—neither sings nor dances well, and dumb in company. No monster, +though, she’ll pass well enough, or that youngster would never have been +brought to… not with what he has in hand!”
+ +“He’s a fine-looking lad,” said Cadfael mildly, “and they say not unskilled. +And a good inheritance waiting for him.”
+ +“Ah, but short
It occurred to Cadfael, rather belatedly, that it was hardly becoming +behaviour in one of his habit to listen avidly to local scandal, but if he did +nothing to encourage confidences, he certainly did not stop listening. +Encouragement, in any case, was unnecessary. Peche had every intention of +making the most of his probings.
+ +“I wouldn’t say,” he breathed into Cadfael’s ear, “but he’s had his fingers +in her purse a time or two, for all her sharpness. His present fancy comes +expensive, not to speak of the game there’ll be if ever her husband gets to +know of their cantrips. It’s a fair guess the bride’s dowry, as much of it as +he can get his hands on, will go to deck out another wench’s neck. Not that he +had any objections to this match—not he, he likes the girl well enough, and he +likes her money a good deal better. But he likes somebody else best of all. No +names, no revenges! But you should have seen her as a guest last night! Bold as +a royal whore, and the old man puffed up beside her, proud of owning the +handsomest thing in the hall, and she and the bridegroom eyeing each other fit +to laugh out loud at the old fool. As well I was the only one there had sharp +enough eyes to see the sparks pass!”
+ +“As well, indeed!” said Cadfael almost absently, for he was busy reflecting +how understandable it was that Daniel should view his father’s tenant with such +ill-will. No need to doubt Peche’s information, really devoted pryers make sure +of their facts. Doubtless, though never a word need have been said, certain quiverings +of that inquisitive nose and knowing glances from those coldly merry eyes had +warned Daniel, evidently not quite a fool, that his gallivantings were no +secret.
+ +And the other, the old fool, welcome guest at the wedding—of consequence, +therefore, among the merchants of Shrewsbury and with a young, bold, handsome +wife… A second marriage, then, on the man’s part? The town was not so great +that Cadfael had to look very far. Ailwin Corde, widowed a few years ago and +married again, against his grown son’s wishes, to a fine, flaunting beauty a +third his age, called Cecily…
+ +“I’d keep your tongue within your teeth,” he advised amiably. “Wool +merchants are a power in this town, and not every husband will thank you for +opening his eyes.”
+ +“What, I? Speak out of turn?” The merry eyes sparkled with all the +cordiality of ice, and the long nose twitched. “Not I! I have a decent landlord +and a snug corner, and no call to overturn what suits me well. I take my fun +where I find it, Brother, but quietly and privately. No harm in what does +none.”
+ +“None in the world,” agreed Cadfael, and took his leave peaceably, and went
+on towards the winding descent of the Wyle, very thoughtful, but none too sure
+of what he should be thinking. For what had he learned? That Daniel Aurifaber
+was paddling palms, and probably more, with mistress Cecily Corde, whose
+wool-merchant husband collected fleeces from the bordering district of Wales,
+and traded them into England, and therefore was often absent for some days at a
+time, and that the lady, however fond, was accustomed to gifts, and did not
+come cheaply, whereas the young man was baulked by equally parsimonious father
+and grandmother, and was reputed already to be filching such small sums as he
+could get his fingers on. And no easy matter, either! And had his father not
+gone to lock up at least half of the bride’s dowry out of reach? Out of reach
+now in good earnest—or had last night’s events snugged it away well
What else? That Daniel held no good opinion, reasonably enough, of the +tenant who spent his leisure so inconveniently, and claimed he would have held +him to be a prime suspect, if he had not been in full view throughout the time +when the deed was done.
+ +Well, time would show. They had forty days in hand.
+ +High Mass was over when Cadfael had crossed the bridge and made his way back +to the gatehouse and the great court. Prior Robert’s shadow, Brother Jerome, +was hovering in the cloister to intercept him when he came.
+ +“The lord abbot asks that you will wait upon him before dinner.” Jerome’s +pinched, narrow nose quivered with a suggestion of deprecation and distaste +which Cadfael found more offensive than Baldwin Peche’s full-blooded enjoyment +of his own mischief. “I trust, Brother, that you mean to let time and law take +their course, and not involve our house beyond the legal obligations of +sanctuary, in so sordid a matter. It is not for you to take upon yourself the burdens +that belong to justice.”
+ +Jerome, if he had not explicit orders, had received his charge from Prior +Robert’s knotted brow and quivering nostril. So low and ragged and miserable a +manifestation of humanity as Liliwin, lodged here within the pale, irked Robert +like a burr working through his habit and fretting his aristocratic skin. He +would have no peace while the alien body remained, he wanted it removed, and +the symmetry of his life restored. To be fair, not merely his own life, but the +life of this house, which fretted and itched with the infection thus hurled in +from the world without. The presence of terror and pain is disruptive indeed.
+ +“All the abbot wants from me is an account of how my patients fare,” said +Cadfael, with unwonted magnanimity towards the narrow preoccupations of +creatures so uncongenial to him as Robert and his clerk. For their distress, +however strange to him, was still comprehensible. The walls did, indeed, +tremble, the sheltered souls did quake. “And I have burdens enough with them, +and am hardly looking for any others. Is that lad fed and doctored? That’s all +my business with him.”
+ +“Brother Oswin has taken care of him,” said Jerome.
+ +“That’s well! Then I’ll go pay my respects to the lord abbot, and get to my +dinner, for I missed breakfast, and those up there in the town are too +distraught to think of offering a morsel.”
+ +He wondered, however, as he crossed the court to the abbot’s lodging, how +much of what he had gleaned he was about to impart. Salacious gossip can be of +no interest to abbatial ears, nor was there much to be said about a tiny plaque +of dried blood tethering a couple of flaxen hairs; not, at least, until the +vagabond, with every hand against him and his life at stake, had exercised the +right to answer for himself.
+ +Abbot Radulfus received without surprise the news that the entire wedding +party was united in insisting on the jongleur’s guilt. He was not, however, +quite convinced that Daniel, or any other of those attending could be certain +who had, or had not, been in full view throughout.
+ +“With a hall full of so many people, so much being drunk, and over so many +hours of celebration, who can say how any man came and went? Yet so many voices +all in one tale cannot be disregarded. Well, we must do our part, and leave the +law to deal with the rest. The sergeant tells me his master the sheriff is gone +to arbitrate in a dispute between neighbour knights in the east of the shire, +but his deputy is due in the town before night.”
+ +That was good news in Cadfael’s ear. Hugh Beringar would see to it that the +search for truth and justice should not go sliding down the easiest way, and +erase such minor details as failed to fit the pattern. Meantime, Cadfael had +just such a detail to take up with Liliwin, besides restoring him the tools of +his juggling trade. After dinner he went to look for him, and found him sitting +in the cloister, with borrowed needle and thread, trying to cobble together the +rents in his coat. Beneath the bandaged brow he had washed his face scrupulously, +it showed pale and thin but clear-skinned, with good, even delicate features. +And if he could not yet wash the dust and mire from his fair hair, at least he +had combed it into decent order.
+ +The sop first, perhaps, and then the switch! Cadfael sat down beside him, +and dumped the cloth bundle in his lap. “Here’s a part of your property restored +you, for an earnest. There, open it!”
+ +But Liliwin already knew the faded wrapping. He sat gazing down for a moment +in wonder and disbelief, and then untied the knotted cloth and sank his hand +among his modest treasures with affection and pleasure, faintly flushing and +brightening, as though for the first time recovering faith that some small +comforts and kindnesses existed for him in the world.
+ +“But how did you get them? I never thought I should see them again. And you +thought to ask for them… for me… That was kind!”
+ +“I did not even have to ask. That old dame who struck you, terror though she +may be, is honest. She won’t keep what is not hers, if she won’t forgo a groat +of what is. She sends them back to you.” Not graciously, but no need to go into +that. “There, take it for a good sign. And how do you find yourself today? Have +they fed you?”
+ +“Very well! I’m to fetch my food from the kitchen at breakfast, dinner and +supper.” He sounded almost incredulous, naming three meals a day. “And they’ve +given me a pallet in the porch here. I’m afraid to be away from the church at +night.” He said it simply and humbly. “They don’t all like it that I’m here. I +stick in their craw like a husk.”
+ +“They’re accustomed to calm,” said Cadfael sympathetically. “It is not calm +you bring. You must make allowances, as they must. At least from tonight you +may sleep secure. The deputy sheriff should be in town by this evening. In his +authority, I promise you, you can trust.”
+ +Trust would still come very hardly to Liliwin, after all he had experienced +in a short life, but the toys he had tucked away so tenderly under his pallet +were a promise. He bent his head over his patient stitching, and said no word.
+ +“And therefore,” said Cadfael briskly, “You’d best consider on the half-tale +you told me, and own to the part you left out. For you did not creep away so +docilely as you let us all think, did you? What were you doing, hugging the +door-post of Master Walter’s workshop, long after you claim you had made off +into the night? With the door open, and your head against the post, and the +goldsmith’s coffer in full view… and also open? And he bending over it!”
+ +Liliwin’s needle had started in his fingers and pricked his left hand. He +dropped needle, thread and coat, and sat sucking his pierced thumb, and staring +at Brother Cadfael with immense, frightened eyes. He began to protest shrilly: +“I never went there… I know nothing about it…” Voice and eyes sank together. He +blinked down at his open hands, lashes long and thick as a well-bred cow’s brushing +his staring cheekbones.
+ +“Child,” said Cadfael, sighing, “you were there in the doorway, peering in. +You left your mark there. A lad your size, with a bloodied head, leaned long +enough against that door-post to leave a little clot of his blood, and two +flax-white hairs gummed into it. No, no other has seen it, it’s gone, blown +away on the wind, but I saw it, and I know. Now tell me truth. What passed +between you and him?”
+ +He did not ask why Liliwin had lied in omitting this part of his story, +there was no need. What, place himself there on the spot, there were the blow +had been struck? Innocence would have avoided admission every bit as +desperately as guilt.
+ +Liliwin sat and shivered, fluttering like a leaf in that same wind which had +carried off his stray hairs. Here in the cloister the air was still chilly, and +he had only a patched shirt and hose on him, the half-mended coat lying on his +knees. He swallowed hard and sighed.
+ +“It’s true, I did wait… It was not fair!” he blurted, shaking. “I stayed +there in the dark. They were not all as hard as she, I thought I might plead… I +saw him go to the shop with a light and I followed. He was not so furious when +the pitcher was broken, he did try to calm her, I dared approach him. I went in +and pleaded for the fee I was promised, and he gave me a second penny. He gave +it to me and I went. I swear it!”
+ +He had sworn the other version, too. But fear does so, the fear bred of a +lifetime’s hounding and battering.
+ +“And then you left? And you saw no more of him? More to the point still, did +you see ought of any other who may have been lurking as you did, and entered to +him afterwards?”
+ +“No, there was no one. I went, I was glad to go, it was all over. If he +lives, he’ll tell you he gave me the second penny.”
+ +“He lives, and will,” said Cadfael. “It was not a fatal blow. But he’s said +nothing yet.”
+ +“But he will, he will, he’ll tell you how I begged him, and how he took pity +on me. I was afraid,” he said quivering, “I was afraid! If I’d said I went +there, it would have been all over with me.”
+ +“Well, but consider,” said Cadfael reasonably, “when Walter is his own man +again, and comes forth with that very tale, how would it look if he brought it +out when you had said no word of it? And besides, when his wits settle and he +recalls what befell, it may well be that he’ll be able to name his attacker, +and clear you of all blame.”
+ +He was watching closely as he said it, for to an innocent man that notion +would come as powerful comfort, but to a guilty one as the ultimate terror; and +Liliwin’s troubled countenance gradually cleared and brightened into timid +hope. It was the first truly significant indication of how far he should be +believed.
+ +“I never thought of that. They said murdered. A murdered man can’t accuse or +deliver. If I’d known then he was well alive I would have told the whole truth. +What must I do now? It will look bad to have to own I lied.”
+ +“What you should do for the best,” Cadfael said after some thought, “is let +me take this word myself to the lord abbot, not as my discovery—for the +evidence is gone with a puff of wind—but as your confession. And if Hugh +Beringar comes tonight, as I hope and hear he may, then you may tell the tale +over again to him in full, yourself. Whatever follows then, you may rest out +your days of grace here with a clear conscience and truth will speak on your +side.”
+ +Hugh Beringar of Maesbury, deputy sheriff of the shire, reached the abbey +for Vespers, after a long conference with the sergeant concerning the lost +treasury. In search of it, every yard of ground between the goldsmith’s house +and the bushes from which Liliwin had been flushed at midnight had been scoured without result. Every voice in the town declared confidently that the +jongleur was the guilty man, and had successfully hidden his plunder before he +was sighted and pursued.
+ +“But you, I think,” said Beringar, walking back towards the gatehouse with +Cadfael beside him and twitching a thin dark eyebrow at his friend, “do not +agree. And not wholly because this enforced guest of yours is young and hungry +and in need of protection. What is it convinces you? For I do believe you are +convinced he’s wronged.”
+ +“You’ve heard his story,” said Cadfael. “But you did not see his face when I +put it into his head that the goldsmith may get back his memory of the night in +full, and be able to put a name or a face to his assailant. He took that hope +to him like a blessed promise. The guilty man would hardly do so.”
+ +Hugh considered that gravely and nodded agreement. “But the fellow is a +player, and has learned hard to keep command of his face in all circumstances. +No blame to him, he has no other armour. To appear innocent of all harm must +now be his whole endeavour.”
+ +“And you think I am easily fooled,” said Cadfael drily.
+ +“Far from it. Yet it is well to remember and admit the possibility.” And +that was also true, and Hugh’s dark smile, slanted along his shoulder, did +nothing to blunt the point. “Though I grant it would be nothing new for you to +be the only creature who holds against the grain, and makes his wager good.”
+ +“Not the only one,” said Cadfael almost absently, with Rannilt’s wan, elfin +face before his mind’s eye. “There’s one other more certain than I.” They had +reached the arch of the gatehouse, the broad highway of the Foregate crossed +beyond, and the evening was just greening and dimming towards twilight. “You +say you found the place where the lad bedded down for the night? Shall we take +a look there together?”
+ +They passed through the arch, an odd pair to move so congenially side by +side, the monk squat and square and sturdy, rolling in his gait like a seaman, +and well launched into his sixtieth year, the sheriff’s deputy more than thirty +year younger and half a head taller, but still a small man, of graceful, nimble +movements and darkly saturnine features. Cadfael had seen this young man win +his appointment fairly, and a wife to go with it, and had witnessed the +christening of their first son only a few months ago. They understood each +other better than most men ever do, but they could still take opposing sides in +a matter of the king’s justice.
+ +They turned towards the bridge that led into the town, but turned aside +again on the right, a little way short of the riverside, into the belt of trees +that fringed the road. Beyond, towards the evening gleam of the Severn, the +ground declined to the lush level of the main abbey gardens, along the meadows +called the Gaye. They could see the green, clear light through the branches as +they came to the place where Liliwin had settled down sadly to sleep before +leaving this unfriendly town. And it was a nest indeed, rounded and coiled into +the slope of thick new grass, and so small, like the haunt of a dormouse.
+ +“He started up in alarm, in one leap clear of his form, like a flushed +hare,” said Hugh soberly. “There are young shoots broken here—do you see?—where +he crashed through. This is unquestionably the place.” He looked round +curiously, for Cadfael was casting about among the bushes, which grew thickly +here for cover. “What are you seeking?”
+ +“He had his rebec in a linen bag on his shoulder,” said Cadfael. “In the +dark a branch caught the string and jerked it away, and he dared not stop to +grope after it. So he told me, like a man bereaved. I am sure that was truth. I +wonder what became of it?”
+ +He found the answer that same evening, but not until he had parted from Hugh +and was on his way back to the gatehouse. It was a luminous evening and Cadfael +was in no hurry to go in, and had plenty of time before Compline. He stood to +watch the leisurely evening walk of the Foregate worthies, and the prolonged +games of the urchins of the parish of Holy Cross reluctant to go home to their +beds, just as he was. A dozen or so of them swept by in a flurry of yelling and +laughter, shrill as starlings, some still half-naked from the river, but not +yet so cold that they must make for the home hearth. They were kicking a +shapeless rag ball among them, and some of them swiping at it with sticks, and +one with something broader and shorter. Cadfael heard the impact of hollow +wood, and the thrumming reverberation of one surviving string. A lamentable +sound, like a cry for help with little expectation that the plea would be +heard.
+ +The imp with this weapon loitered, dragging his implement in the dust. +Cadfael pursued, and drew alongside like a companion ship keeping station +rather than a pirate boarding. The brat looked up and grinned, knowing him. He +had but a short way to go home, and was tired of his plaything.
+ +“Now what in the world have you found there?” said Cadfael amicably. “And +where did you happen on such an odd thing?”
+ +The child waved a hand airily back towards the trees that screened the Gaye. +“It was lying in there, in a cloth bag, but I lost that down by the water. I +don’t know what it is. I never saw a thing like it. But it’s no use that I can +see.”
+ +“Did you find,” asked Cadfael, eyeing the wreckage, “a stick, with fine +hairs stretched along it, that went with this queer thing?”
+ +The child yawned, halted, and abandoned his hold on his toy, letting it drop +into the dust. “I hit Davey with that when he tripped me in the water, but it +broke. I threw it away.” So he would, having proved its uselessness, just as he +walked away from this discarded weapon, leaving it lying, and went off +scrubbing at sleepy eyes with the knuckles of a grimy fist.
+ +Brother Cadfael picked up the sorry remnant and examined ruefully its +stove-in ribs and trailing, tangled strings. No help for it, this was all that +remained of the lost rebec. He took it back with him, only too well aware of +the grief he was about to cause its luckless owner. Say that Liliwin came alive +in the end out of his present trouble, still he must emerge penniless, and +deprived now even of his chief means of livelihood. But there was more in it +even than that. He knew it even before he presented the broken instrument to +Liliwin’s appalled hands, and watched the anguish and despair mantle like bleak +twilight over his face. The boy took the ruin in his hands and fondled it, +rocked it in his arms, bowed his head to its splintered frame, and burst into +tears. It was not the loss of a possession so much as the death of a +sweetheart.
+ +Cadfael sat down apart, in the nearest carrel of the scriptorium, and kept +decently silent until the storm passed, and Liliwin sat drained and motionless, +hugging his broken darling, his thin shoulders hunched against the world.
+ +“There are men,” said Cadfael then mildly, “who understand such arts as +repairing instruments of music. I am not one of them, but Brother Anselm, our +precentor, is. Why should we not ask him to look at your fiddle and see what +can be done to make it sing again?”
+ +“
“Do you know that? Do I? What’s lost by asking the man who may? And if this +is past saving, Brother Anselm can make one new.”
+ +Bitter disbelief stared back at him. Why should he credit that anyone would +go out of his way to do a kindness to sod espised and unprofitable a creature +as himself? Those within here held that they owed him shelter and food, but +nothing more, and even that as a duty. And no one without had ever offered him +any benefit that cost more than a crust.
+ +“As if I could ever pay for a new one! Don’t mock me!”
+ +“You forget, we do not buy and sell, we have no use for money. But show +Brother Anselm a good instrument damaged, and he’ll want to heal it. Show him a +good musician lost for want of an instrument, and he’ll be anxious to provide +him a new voice. Are you a good musician?”
+ +Liliwin said: “Yes!” with abrupt and spirited pride. In one respect, at +least, he knew his worth.
+ +“Then show him you are, and he’ll give you your due.”
+ +“You mean it?” wondered Liliwin, shaken between hope and doubt. “You will +truly ask him? If he would teach me, perhaps I could learn the art.” He +faltered there, losing his momentary brightness with a suddenness that was all +too eloquent. Whenever he took heart for the future, the bleak realisation came +flooding over him afresh that he might have no future. Cadfael cast about +hurriedly in his mind for some crumb of distraction to ward off the recurrent +despair.
+ +“Never suppose that you’re friendless, that’s black ingratitude when you +have forty days of grace, a fair-minded man like Hugh Beringar enquiring into +your case, and one creature at least who stands by you stoutly and won’t hear a +word against you.” Liliwin kindled a little at that, still doubtfully, but at +least it had put the gallows and the noose out of his mind for the moment. “You’ll +remember her—a girl named Rannilt.”
+ +Liliwin’s face at once paled and brightened. It was the first smile Cadfael +had yet seen from him, and even now tentative, humble, frightened to reach for +anything desired, for fear it should vanish like melting snow as he clutched +it.
+ +“You’ve seen her? Talked to her? And she does not believe what they all say +of me?”
+ +“Not a word of it! She affirms—she
Liliwin sat cradling his broken rebec, as gently and shyly as if he clasped +a sweetheart indeed. His faint, frightened smile shone in the dimming light +within the cloister.
+ +“She is the first girl who ever looked kindly at me. You won’t have heard +her sing—such a small, sweet voice, like a reed. We ate in the kitchen +together. It was the best hour of my life, I never thought… And it’s true? +Rannilt believes in me?”
+Chapter Four
+ +« ^ »
+ +Liliwin folded +away his brychans and made himself presentable before Prime on the sabbath, +determined to cause as little disruption as possible in the orderly regime +within these walls. In his wandering life he had had little opportunity to +become familiar with the offices of the day, and Latin was a closed book to +him, but at least he could attend and pay his reverences, if that would make +him more acceptable.
+ +After breakfast Cadfael dressed the gash in the young man’s arm again, and +unwound the bandage from the graze on his head. “This is healing well,” he said +approvingly. “We’d best leave it uncovered, and let in the air to it now. Good +clean flesh you have, boy, if something too little of it. And you’ve lost that +limp that had you going sidewise. How is it with all those bruises?”
+ +Liliwin owned with some surprise that most of his aches and pains were all +but gone, and performed a few startling contortions to prove it. He had not +lost his skills. His fingers itched for the coloured rings and balls he used +for his juggling, safely tucked away in their knotted cloth under his bed, but +he feared they would be frowned on here. The ruin of his rebec also reposed in +the corner of the porch next the cloister. He returned there after his +breakfast to find Brother Anselm turning the wreck thoughtfully in his hands, +and running a questing finger along the worst of the cracks.
+ +The precentor was past fifty, a vague, slender, shortsighted person who peered +beneath an untidy brown tonsure and bristling brows to match, and smiled +amiably and encouragingly at the owner of this disastrous relic.
+ +“This is yours? Brother Cadfael told me how it had suffered. This has been a +fine instrument. You did not make it?”
+ +“No. I had it from an old man who taught me. He gave it to me before he +died. I don’t know,” said Liliwin, “how to make them.”
+ +It was the first time Brother Anselm had heard him speak since the shrill +terror of the first invasion. He looked up alertly, tilting his head to listen. +“You have the upper voice, very true and clear. I could use you, if you sing? +But you must sing! You have not thought of taking the cowl, here among us?” He +recalled with a sigh why that was hardly likely under present circumstances. “Well, +this poor thing has been villainously used, but it is not beyond help. We may +try. And the bow is lost, you say.” Liliwin had said no such thing, he was mute +with wonder. Evidently Brother Cadfael had given precise information to a +retentive enthusiast. “The bow, I must say, is almost harder to perfect than +the fiddle, but I have had my successes. Have you skills on other instruments?”
+ +“I can get a tune out of most things,” said Liliwin, charmed into eagerness.
+ +“Come,” said Brother Anselm, taking him firmly by the arm, “I will show you +my workshop and you and I between us, after High Mass, will try what can best +be done for this rebec of yours. I shall need a helper to tend my resins and +gums. But this will be slow and careful work, mind, and matter for prayer, not +to be hastened for any cause. Music is study for a lifetime, son—a lifetime +however long.”
+ +He blew so like a warm gale that Liliwin went with him in a dream, +forgetting how short a lifetime could also be.
+ +Walter Aurifaber woke up that morning with a lingering headache, but also +with a protesting stiffness in his limbs and restless animation in his mind +that made him want to get up and stretch, and stamp, and move about briskly +until the dullness went out of him. He growled at his patient, silent daughter, +enquired after his journeyman, who had had the sense to make sure of his Sunday +rest by vanishing from both shop and town for the day, and sat down to eat a +substantial breakfast and stare his losses in the face.
+ +Things were coming back to him, however foggily, including one incident he +would just as soon his mother should not hear about. Money was money, of +course, the old woman had the right of it there, but it’s not every day a man +marries off his heir, and marries him, moreover, to a most respectable further +amount of money. A little flourish towards a miserable menial might surely be +forgiven a man, in the circumstances. But would she think so? He regretted it +bitterly himself, now, reflecting on the disastrous result of his rare impulse +of generosity. No, she must not hear of it!
+ +Walter nursed his thick head and vain regrets, and took some small comfort +in seeing his son and his new daughter-in-law off to church at Saint Mary’s, in +their best clothes and properly linked, Margery’s hand primly on Daniel’s arm. +The money Margery had brought with her, and would eventually bring, mattered +now more than anything else until the lost contents of his strong-box could be +recovered. His head ached again fiercely when he thought of it. Whoever had +done that to the house of Aurifaber should and must hang, if there was any +justice in this world.
+ +When Hugh Beringar came, with a sergeant in attendance, to hear for himself +what the aggrieved victim had to tell, Walter was ready and voluble. But he was +none too pleased when Dame Juliana, awaiting Brother Cadfael’s visit, and +foreseeing more strictures as to her behaviour if she wanted to live long, took +it into her head to forestall the lecture by being downstairs when her mentor +came and stumped her way down, cane in hand, prodding every tread before her +and scolding Susanna away from attempting to check her. She was firmly settled +on her bench in the corner, propped with cushions, when Cadfael came, and +challenged him with a bold, provocative stare. Cadfael chose not to gratify her +with homilies, but delivered the ointment he had brought for her, and reassured +himself of the evenness of her breathing and heart, before turning to a Walter +grown unaccountably short of words.
+ +“I’m glad to see you so far restored. The tales they told of you were twenty +years too soon. But I’m sorry for your loss. I hope it may yet be recovered.”
+ +“Faith, so do I,” said Walter sourly. “You tell me that rogue you have in +sanctuary has no part of it on him, and while you hold him fast within there he +can hardly unearth and make off with it. For it must be somewhere, and I trust +the sheriff’s men here to find it.”
+ +“You’re very certain of your man, then?” Hugh had got him to the point where +he had taken his valuables and gone to stow them away in the shop, and there he +had suddenly grown less communicative. “But he had already been expelled some +time earlier, as I understand it, and no one has yet testified to seeing him +lurking around your house after that.”
+ +Walter cast a glance at his mother, whose ancient ears were pricked and her +faded but sharp eyes alert. “Ah, but he could well have stayed in hiding, all +the same. What was there to prevent it in the dark of the night?”
+ +“So he could,” agreed Hugh unhelpfully, “but there’s no man so far claims he
+did. Unless you’ve recalled something no one else knows? Did
Walter shifted uneasily, looked ready to blurt out a whole indictment, and +thought better of it in Juliana’s hearing. Brother Cadfael took pity on him.
+ +“It might be well,” he said guilelessly, “to take a look at the place where +this assault was made. Master Walter will show us his workshop, I am sure.”
+ +Walter rose to it thankfully, and ushered them away with alacrity, along the +passage and in again at the door of his shop. The street door was fast, the day +being Sunday, and he closed the other door carefully behind them, and drew +breath in relief.
+ +“Not that I’ve anything to conceal from you, my lord, but I’d as lief my +mother should not have more to worry her than she has already.” Plausible +cover, at any rate, for the awe of her in which he still went. “For this is +where the thing happened, and you see from this door how the coffer lies in the +opposite corner. And there was I, with the key in the lock and the lid laid +back against the wall, wide open, and my candle here on the shelf close by. The +light shining straight down into the coffer—you see?—and what was within in +plain view. And suddenly I hear a sound behind me, and there’s this minstrel, +this Liliwin, creeping in at the door.”
+ +“Threateningly?” asked Hugh, straight-faced. If he did not wink at Cadfael, +his eyebrow was eloquent. “Armed with a cudgel?”
+ +“No,” admitted Walter, “rather humbly, to all appearance. But then I’d heard +him and turned. He was barely into the doorway, he could have dropped his +weapon outside when he saw I was ware of him.”
+ +“But you did not hear it fall? Nor see any sign of such?”
+ +“No, that I own.”
+ +“Then what had he to say to you?”
+ +“He begged me to do him right, for he said he had been cheated of two thirds +of his promised fee. He said it was hard on a poor man to be so blamed and +docked of his money, and pleaded with me to make it good as promised.”
+ +“And did you?” asked Hugh.
+ +“I tell you honestly, my lord, I could not say he had been hardly used, +considering the worth of the pitcher, but I did think him a poor, sad creature +who had to live, whatever the rights or wrongs of it. And I gave him another +penny—good silver, minted in this town. But not a word of this to Dame Juliana, +if you’ll be so good. She’ll have to know, now it’s all come back to me, that +he dared creep in and ask, but no need for her to know I gave him anything. She +would be affronted, seeing she had denied him.”
+ +“Your thought for her does you credit,” said Hugh gravely. “What then? He took +your bounty and slunk out?”
+ +“He did. But I wager
“You mistake, for he has. He has told us this very same tale that you now +tell. And confided to the abbey’s keeping, while he remains there, the two +silver pence which is all he has on him. Tell me, had you closed the lid of the +coffer as soon as you found yourself observed?”
+ +“I did!” said Walter fervently. “And quickly! But he had seen. I never gave +him another thought at the time but—see here, my lord, how it follows! As soon +as he was gone, or I thought he was gone, I opened the coffer again, and was +bending over it laying Margery’s dowry away, when I was clouted hard from +behind, and that’s the last I knew till I opened an eye in my own bed, hours +later. If it was two minutes after that fellow crept out of the door, when +someone laid me flat, it was not a moment more. So who else could it be?”
+ +“But you did not actually
“Never a chance.” Walter might be vindictive, but he was honest. “See, I was +stooping over the coffer when it seemed the wall fell on me, and I pitched +asprawl, head-down into the box, clean out of the world. I heard nothing and +saw nothing, not even a shadow, no—the last thing I recall was the candle +flickering, but what is there in that? No, depend on it, that rogue had seen +what I had in my store before I clapped down the lid. Was he going tamely away +with his penny, with all that money there to take? Not he! Nor hide nor hair of +any other did I see in here that night. You may be certain of it, the jongleur +is your man.”
+ +“And it may still be so,” admitted Hugh, parting from Cadfael on the bridge +some twenty minutes later. “Enough to tempt any poor wretch with but two coins +to rub together. Whether he had any such thought in his head before the candle +shone on our friend’s hoard or no. Equally, I grant the lad may not even have +realised what lay beneath his hand, or seen anything but his own need and the +thin chance of getting a kinder reception from the goldsmith than from that +ferocious mother of his. He may have crept away thanking God for his penny and +never a thought of wrong. Or he may have picked up a stone or a stave and +turned back.”
+ +At about that same time, in the street outside Saint Mary’s church, which +was the common ground for exchanging civilities and observing fashions on a +fine Sunday morning after Mass, Daniel and Margery Aurifaber in their +ceremonial progression, intercepted by alternate well-wishers and +commiserators—wedding and robbery being equally relished subjects of comment +and speculation in Shrewsbury—came face to face with Master Ailwin Corde, the +wool-merchant, and his wife, Cecily, and halted by general consent to pass the +time of day as befitted friends and neighbours.
+ +This Mistress Cecily looked more like a daughter to the merchant, or even a +granddaughter, than a wife. She was twenty-three years old to his sixty, and +though small and slender of stature, was so opulent in colouring, curvature and +gait, and everything that could engage the eye, that she managed to loom large +as a goddess and dominate whatever scene she graced with her presence. And her +elderly husband took pleasure in decking her out with sumptuous fabrics and +fashions the gem he should rather have shrouded in secretive, plain linens. A +gilt net gathered on her head its weight of auburn hair, and a great ornament +of enamel and gemstones jutted before her, calling attention to a resplendent +bosom.
+ +Faced with this richness, Margery faded, and knew that she faded. Her smile +became fixed and false as a mask, and her voice tended to sharpen like a singer +forced off-key. She tightened her clasp on Daniel’s arm, but it was like trying +to hold a fish that slid through her fingers without even being aware of +restraint.
+ +Master Corde enquired solicitously after Walter’s health, was relieved to +hear that he was making a good recovery, was sad, nonetheless, to know that so +far nothing had been found of all that had been so vilely stolen. He sent his +condolences, while thanking God for life and health spared. His wife echoed all +that he said, modest eyes lowered, and voice like distant wood-doves.
+ +Daniel, his eyes wandering more often to Mistress Cecily’s milk-and-roses +face than to the old man’s flabby and self-satisfied countenance, issued a +hearty invitation to Master Corde to bring his wife and take a meal with the +goldsmith as soon as might be, and cheer him by his company. The wool-merchant +thanked him, and wished it no less, but must put off the pleasure for a week or +more, though he sent his sympathetic greetings and promised his prayers.
+ +“You don’t know,” confided Mistress Cecily, advancing a small hand to touch +Margery’s arm, “how fortunate you are in having a husband whose trade is rooted +fast at home. This man of mine is for ever running off with his mules and his +wagon and his men, either west into Wales or east into England, over business +with these fleeces and cloths of his, and I’m left lonely days at a time. Now +tomorrow early he’s off again, if you please, as far as Oxford, and I shall +lack him for three or four days.”
+ +Twice she had raised her creamy eyelids during this complaint, once ruefully +at her husband, and once, with a miraculously fleeting effect which should have +eluded Margery, but did not, at Daniel, eyes blindingly bright in the one flash +that shot from them, but instantly veiled and serene.
+ +“Now, now, sweet,” said the wool-merchant indulgently, “you know how I shall +hurry back to you.”
+ +“And how long it will take,” she retorted, pouting. “Three or four nights +solitary. And you’d better bring me something nice to sweeten me for it when +you return.”
+ +As she knew he would. He never came back from any journey but he brought her +a gift to keep her sweet. He had bought her, but there was enough of cold sense +in him, below his doting, to know that he had to buy her over and over again if +he wanted to keep her. The day he acknowledged it, and examined the +implications, she might well go in fear for her slender throat, for he was an +arrogant and possessive man.
+ +“You say very truly, madam!” said Margery, stiff-lipped. “I do know, indeed, +how fortunate I am.”
+ +Only too well! But every man’s fortune, and every woman’s too, can be +changed given a little thought, perseverance and cunning.
+ +Liliwin had spent his day in so unexpected and pleasant a fashion that for +an hour and more at a time he had forgotten the threat hanging over him. As +soon as High Mass was over, the precentor had hustled him briskly away to the +corner of the cloister where he had already begun to pick apart, with a surgeon’s +delicacy and ruthlessness, the fractured shards of the rebec. Slow, devoted +work that demanded every particle of the pupil’s attention, if he was to assist +at a resurrection. And excellent therapy against the very idea of death.
+ +“We shall put together what is here broken,” said Brother Anselm, intent and +happy, “for an avowal on our part. No matter if the product, when achieved, +turns out to be flawed, yet it shall speak again. If it speaks with a +stammering voice, then we shall make another, as one generation follows its +progenitor and takes up the former music. There is no absolute loss. Hand me +here that sheet of vellum, son, and mark in what order I lay these fragments +down.” Mere splinters, a few of them, but he set them carefully in the shape +they should take when restored. “Do you believe you will play again upon this +instrument?”
+ +“Yes,” said Liliwin, fascinated, “I do believe.”
+ +“That’s well, for faith is necessary. Without faith nothing is +accomplished.” He mentioned this rare tool as he would have mentioned any other +among those laid out to his hand. He set aside the fretted bridge. “Good workmanship, +and old. This rebec had more than one master before it came to you. It will not +take kindly to silence.”
+ +Neither did he. His brisk, gentle voice flowed like a placid stream while he +worked, and its music lulled like the purling of water. And when he had picked +apart and set out in order all the fragments of the rebec, and placed the +vellum that held them in a safe corner, covered with a linen cloth, to await +full light next day, he confronted Liliwin at once with his own small portative +organ, and demanded he should try his hand with that. He had no need to +demonstrate its use, Liliwin had seen one played, but never yet had the chance +to test it out for himself.
+ +He essayed the fingering nimbly enough at his first attempt, but +concentrated so totally on the tune he was playing that he forgot to work the +little bellows with his left hand, and the air ran out with a sigh into +silence. He caught himself up with a startled laugh, and tried again, too +vigorously, his playing hand slow on the keys. At the third try he had it. He +played with it, entranced, picked out air after air, getting the feel of it, +balancing hand against hand, growing ambitious, attempting embellishments. Five +fingers can do only so much.
+ +Brother Anselm presented to him a curious, figured array of signs upon +vellum, matched by written symbols which he knew to be words. He could not read +them, since he could not read in any tongue. To him this meant nothing more +than a pleasing pattern, such as a woman might draw for her embroidery.
+ +“You never learned this mystery? Yet I think you would pick it up readily. +This is music, set down so that the eye, no less than the ear, may master it. +See here, this line of neums here! Give me the organ.”
+ +He took it and played a long line of melody. “That—what you have heard—that +is written down here. Listen again!” And again he plucked it jubilantly forth. +“There, now sing me that!”
+ +Liliwin flung up his head and paid him back the phrase.
+ +“Now, follow me still… answer as I go.”
+ +It was an intoxication, line after line of music to copy and toss back. +Within minutes Liliwin had begun to embellish, to vary, to return a higher echo +that chorded with the original.
+ +“I could make of you a singer,” said Brother Anselm, sitting back in high +content.
+ +“I
“I do believe it. Your music and mine go different ways, but both of them +are made up of these same small signs here, and the sounds they stand for. If +you stay a little, I shall teach you how to read them,” promised Anselm, +pleased with his pupil. “Now, take this, practise some song of your own with +it, and then sing it to me.”
+ +Liliwin reviewed his songs, and was somewhat abashed to discover how many of +them must be suppressed here as lewd and offensive. But not all were so. He had +a favourite, concerned with the first revelation of young love, and recalling +it now, he recalled Rannilt, as poor as himself, as unconsidered, in her smoky +kitchen and coarse gown, with her cloud of black hair and pale, oval face lit +by radiant eyes. He fingered out the tune, feeling his way, his left hand now +deft and certain on the bellows. He played and sang it, and grew so intent upon +the singing that he scarcely noticed how busily Brother Anselm was penning +signs upon his parchment.
+ +“Will you believe,” said Anselm, delightedly proffering the leaf, “that what +you have just sung to me is written down here? Ah, not the words, but the air. +This I will explain to you hereafter, you shall learn both how to inscribe and +how to decypher. That’s a very pleasant tune you have there. It could be used +for the ground of a Mass. Well, now, that’s enough for now, I must go and +prepare for Vespers. Let be until tomorrow.”
+ +Liliwin set the organetto tenderly back on its shelf, and went out, dazed, +into the early evening. A limpid, pale-blue day was drifting away into a deeper +blue twilight. He felt drained and gentle and fulfilled, like the day itself, +silently and hopefully alive. He thought of his battered wooden juggling rings +and balls, tucked away under his folded brychans in the church porch. They +represented another of his skills, which, if not practised, would rust and be +damaged. He was so far buoyed up by his day that he went to fetch them, and +carried them away hopefully into the garden, which opened out level below level +to the pease-fields that ran down to the Meole brook. There was no one there at +this hour, work was over for the day. He untied the cloth, took out the six +wooden balls and the rings after them, and began to spin them from hand to +hand, testing his wrists and the quickness of his eye.
+ +He was still stiff from bruises and fumbled at first, but after a while the +old ease began to return to him, and his pleasure in accomplishment. This might +be a very humble skill, but it was still an achievement, and his, and he +cherished it. Encouraged, he put the balls and rings away, and began to try out +the suppleness of his thin, wiry body, twisting himself into grotesque knots. +That cost him some pain from muscles trampled and beaten, but he persisted, +determined not to give up. Finally he turned cartwheels all along the headland +across the top of the pease-fields, coiled himself into a ring and rolled down +the slope to the banks of the brook, and made his way up again, the slope being +gentle enough, in a series of somersaults.
+ +Arrived again at the level where the vegetable gardens and the enclosed herbarium +began, he uncurled himself, flushed and pleased, to find himself gazing up at a +couple of yards distance into the scandalised countenance of a sour-faced +brother almost as meagre as himself. He stared, abashed, into eyes rounded and +ferocious with outrage.
+ +“Is this how you reverence this holy enclave?” demanded Brother Jerome, +genuinely incensed. “Is such foolery and lightmindedness fit for our abbey? And +have you, fellow, so little gratitude for the shelter afforded you here? You do +not deserve sanctuary, if you value it so lightly. How dared you so affront +God’s enclosure?”
+ +Liliwin shrank and stammered, out of breath and abased to the ground. “I +meant no offence. I am grateful, I do hold the abbey in reverence. I only +wanted to see if I could still master my craft. It is my living, I must +practise it! Pardon if I’ve done wrong!” He was easily intimidated, here where +he was in debt, and in doubt how to comport himself in a strange world. All his +brief gaiety, all the pleasure of the music, ebbed out of him. He got to his +feet almost clumsily, who had been so lissome only moments ago, and stood +trembling, shoulders bowed and eyes lowered.
+ +Brother Jerome, who seldom had business in the gardens, being the prior’s +clerk and having no taste for manual labour, had heard from the great court the +small sound, strange in these precincts, of wooden balls clicking together in +mid-air, and had come to investigate in relative innocence. But once in view of +the performance, and himself screened by bushes fringing Brother Cadfael’s +herb-garden, he had not called a halt at once and warned the offender of his +offence, but remained in hiding, storing up a cumulative fund of indignation +until the culprit uncoiled at his feet. It may be that a degree of guilt on his +own part rendered more extreme the reproaches he loosed upon the tumbler.
+ +“Your
Liliwin felt the terror of the outer world close in on him: it could not be +long evaded. As some within here wore hovering haloes, so he wore a noose, +invisible but ever-present.
+ +“I meant no harm,” he whispered hopelessly and turned, half-blind with +misery, to grope for his poor bundle of toys and blunder hastily away.
+ +“Tumbling and juggling, there in our gardens,” Jerome reported, still +burning with offence, “like a vagabond player at a fair. How can it be excused? +Sanctuary is lawful for those who come in proper deference, but this… I +reproved him, of course. I told him he should be thinking rather of his eternal +part, having so mortal a charge against him. ‘My living,’ he says! And he with a +life owing!”
+ +Prior Robert looked down his patrician nose, and maintained the fastidious +and grieved calm of his noble countenance. “Father Abbot is right to observe +the sanctity of sanctuary, it may not be discarded. We are not to blame, and +need not be concerned, for the guilt or innocence of those who lay claim to it. +But we are, indeed, concerned for the good order and good name of our house, +and I grant you this present guest is little honour to us. I should be happier +if he took himself off and submitted himself to the law, that is true. But +unless he does so, we must bear with him. To reprove where he offends is not +only our due, but our duty. To use any effort to influence or eject him is far +beyond either. Unless he leaves of his own will,” said Prior Robert, “both you +and I, Brother Jerome, must succour, shelter and pray for him.”
+ +How sincerely, how resolutely. But how reluctantly!
+Chapter Five
+ +« ^ »
+ +Sunday passed, +clear and fine, and Monday came up no less sunnily, a splendid washing day, +with a warm air and a light breeze, and bushes and turf dry and springy. The +Aurifaber household was always up and active early on washing days, which were +saved up two or three weeks at a time, to make but one upheaval of the heating +of so much water, and such labour of scrubbing and knuckling with ash and lye. +Rannilt was up first, to kindle the fire under the brick and clay boiler and +hump the water from the well. She was stronger than she looked and used to the +weight. What burdened her far more, and to that she was not used, was the +terror she felt for Liliwin.
+ +It was with her every moment. If she slept, she dreamed of him, and awoke +sweating with fear that he might be hunted out already and taken and she none +the wiser. And while she was awake and working, his image was ever in her mind, +and a great stone of anxiety hot and heavy in her breast. Fear for yourself +crushes and compresses you from without, but fear for another is a monster, a +ravenous rat gnawing within, eating out your heart.
+ +What they said of him was false, could not under any circumstances be true.
+And it was his life at stake! She could not help hearing all that was said of
+him among them, how they all united to accuse him, and promised themselves he
+should hang for what he had done. What she was certain in her heart and soul he
+had
The locksmith, up early for him, heard her drawing up the bucket from the +well, and came out from his back door to stroll down into the garden in the +sunlight and pass the time of day. Rannilt did not think he would have troubled +if he had known it was only the maidservant. He made a point of being attentive +to his landlord’s family, and never missed the common neighbourly courtesies, +but his notice seldom extended to Rannilt. Nor did he linger on this fine +morning, but took a short turn about the yard and returned to his own door. +There he looked back, eyeing for a moment the obvious preparations at the +goldsmith’s house, the great mound of washing in hand, and the normal bustle +just beginning.
+ +Susanna came down with her arms full of linen, and went to work with her +usual brisk, silent competence. Daniel ate his breakfast and went to his +workshop, leaving Margery solitary and irresolute in the hall. Too much had +happened on her wedding night, she had had no time to grow used to house and +household, or consider her own place in it. Wherever she turned to make herself +useful, Susanna had been before her. Walter lay late, nursing his sore head, +and Dame Juliana kept her own chamber, but Margery was too late to carry food +and drink to either, it was already done. There was no need yet to think of +cooking, and in any case all the household keys were on Susanna’s girdle. +Margery turned her attention to the one place where she felt herself and her +own wishes to be dominant, and set to work to rearrange Daniel’s bachelor chamber +to her own taste, and clear out the chest and press which must now make room +for her own clothes and stores of linen. In the process she discovered much +evidence of Dame Juliana’s noted parsimony. There were garments which must have +belonged to Daniel as a growing boy, and could certainly never again be worn by +him. Neatly mended again and again, they had all been made to last as long as +possible, and even when finally outgrown, had still been folded away and kept. +Well, she was now Daniel’s wife, she would have this chamber as she wanted it, +and be rid of these useless and miserly reminders of the past. Today the +household might still be running on its customary wheels, as though she had no +part to play, but it would not always be so. She was in no haste, she had a +great deal of thinking to do before she took action.
+ +On her knees in the yard, Rannilt scrubbed and pummelled, her hands sore +from the lye. By mid-morning the last of the washing was wrung and folded and +piled into a great wicker basket. Susanna hoisted it on her hip and bore it +away down the slope of the garden, and through the deep arch in the town wall, +to spread it out on the bushes and the smooth plane of grass that faced almost +due south to the sun. Rannilt cleared away the tub and mopped the floor, and +went in to tend the fire and set the salt beef simmering for dinner.
+ +Here quiet and alone, she was suddenly so full of her pain on Liliwin’s +account that her eyes spilled abrupt tears into the pot, and once the flow +began she could not dam it. She groped blindly about the kitchen, working by +touch, and shedding helpless tears for the first man who had caught her fancy, +and the first who had ever fancied her.
+ +Absorbed into her misery, she did not hear Susanna come quietly into the +doorway behind her, and halt there at gaze, watching the fumbling hands feeling +their way, and the half-blind eyes still streaming.
+ +“In God’s name, girl, what is it with you now?”
+ +Rannilt started and turned guiltily, stammering that it was nothing, that +she was sorry, that she was getting on with her work, but Susanna cut her off +sharply:
+ +“It is not nothing! I’m sick of seeing you thus moping and useless. You’ve +been limp as a sick kitten this two days past, and I know why. You have that +miserable little thief on your mind—I know! I know he wound about you with his +soft voice and his creeping ways, I’ve watched you. Must you be fool enough to +fret over a guilty wretch the like of that?”
+ +She was not angry; she was never angry. She sounded impatient, even +exasperated, but still contemptuously kind, and her voice was level and +controlled as ever. Rannilt swallowed the choking residue of tears, shook the +mist from her eyes, and began to be very busy with her pots and pans, looking +hurriedly about her for a distraction which would turn attention from herself +at any cost. “It came over me just for a minute: I’m past it now. Why, you’ve +got your feet and the hem of your gown wet,” she exclaimed, seizing gratefully +on the first thing that offered. “You should change your shoes.”
+ +Susanna shrugged the diversion scornfully aside. “Never mind my wet feet. +The river’s up a little, I was not noticing until I went too near the edge, +leaning to hang a shirt on the bushes. What of your wet eyes? That’s more to +the point. Oh, fool girl, you’re wasting your fancy! This is a common rogue of +the roads, with many a smaller deed of the kind behind him, and he’ll get +nothing but his due in the noose that’s waiting for him. Get sense, and put him +out of your mind.”
+ +“He is not a rogue,” said Rannilt, despairingly brave. “He did not do it, I
+know it, I know
“So I see,” said Susanna resignedly. “So I’ve seen ever since they ran him +to ground. I tire of him and of you. I want you in your wits again. God’s +truth, must I carry this household on my back without even your small help?” +She gnawed a thoughtful lip, and demanded abruptly: “Will it cure you if I let +you go see for yourself that the tumbler is alive and whole, and out of our +reach for a while, more’s the pity? Yes, and likely to worm his way out of even +this tangle in the end!”
+ +She had spoken magical words. Rannilt was staring up at her dry-eyed, bright +as a candle-flame. “See? See him? You mean I could go there?”
+ +“You have legs,” said Susanna tartly. “It’s no distance. They don’t close
+their gates against anyone. You may even come back in your right senses, when
+you see how little store he sets by
“You mean it?” whispered Rannilt, stricken by such generosity. “I may go? +But who will see to the broth here, and the meat?”
+ +“I will. I have often enough, God knows! I tell you, go, go quickly, before +I change my mind, stay away all day long, if that will send you back cured. I +can very well do without you this once. But wash your face, girl, and comb your +hair, and do yourself and us credit. You can take some of those oat-cakes in a +basket, if you wish, and whatever scraps were left from yesterday. If he felled +my father,” said Susanna roughly, turning away to pick up the ladle and stir +the pot simmering on the hob, “there’s worse waiting for him in the end, no +need to grudge him a mouthful while he is man alive.” She looked back over a +straight shoulder at Rannilt, who still hovered in a daze. “Go and visit your +minstrel, I mean it, you have leave. I doubt if he even remembers your face! Go +and learn sense.”
+ +Lost in wonder, and only half believing in such mercies, Rannilt washed her +face and tidied her tangle of dark hair with trembling hands, seized a basket +and filled it with whatever morsels were brusquely shoved her way, and went out +through the hall like a child walking in its sleep. It was wholly by chance +that Margery was coming down the stairs, with a pile of discarded garments on +her arm. She marked the small, furtive figure flitting past below, and in +surprised goodwill, since this waif was alien and lonely here as she was, +asked: “Where are you sent off to in such a hurry, child?”
+ +Rannilt halted submissively, and looked up into Margery’s rounded, fresh countenance. +“Mistress Susanna gave me leave. I’m going to the abbey, to take this provision +to Liliwin.” The name, so profoundly significant to her, meant nothing to +Margery. “The minstrel. The one they say struck down Master Walter. But I’m +sure he did not! She said I may go, see for myself how he’s faring—because I +was crying…”
+ +“I remember him,” said Margery. “A little man, very young. They’re sure he’s +the guilty one, and you are sure he is not?” Her blue eyes were demure. She +hunted through the pile of garments on her arm, and very faintly and fleetingly +she smiled. “He was not too well clothed, I recall. There is a cotte here that +was my husband’s some years ago, and a capuchon. The little man could wear +them, I think. Take them with you. It would be a pity to waste them. And +charity is approved of in Heaven, even to sinners.”
+ +She sorted them out gravely, a good dark-blue coat outgrown while it was +still barely patched, and a much-mended caped hood in russet brown. “Take them! +They’re of no use here.” None, except for the satisfaction it gave her to +despatch them to the insignificant soul condemned by every member of her new +family. It was her gesture of independence.
+ +Rannilt, every moment more dazed, took the offerings and tucked them into +her basket, made a mute reverence, and fled before this unprecedented and +hardly credible vein of good will should run out, and food, clothing, holiday +and all fall to ruin round her.
+ +Susanna cooked, served, scoured and went about her circumscribed realm with +a somewhat grim smile on her lips. The provisioning of the house under her +governance was discreetly more generous than ever it had been under Dame +Juliana, and on this day there was enough and to spare, even after she had +carried his usual portion to Iestyn in the workshop, and sat with him for +company while he ate, to bring back the dish to the kitchen afterwards. What +remained was not worth keeping to use up another day, but there was enough for +one. She shredded the remains of the boiled salt beef into it, and took it +across to the locksmith’s shop, as she had sometimes done before when there was +plenty.
+ +John Boneth was at work at his bench, and looked up as she entered, bowl in +hand. She looked about her, and saw everything in placid order, but no sign of +Baldwin Peche, or the boy Griffin, probably out on some errand.
+ +“We have a surfeit, and I know your master’s no great cook. I brought him +his dinner, if he hasn’t eaten already.”
+ +John had come civilly to his feet, with a deferential smile for her. They +had known each other five years, but always at this same discreet distance. The +landlord’s daughter, the rich master-craftsman’s girl, was no meat for a mere +journeyman.
+ +“That’s kind, mistress, but the master’s not here. I’ve not seen him since +the middle of the morning, he’s left me two or three keys to cut. I fancy he’s +off for the day. He said something about the fish rising.”
+ +There was nothing strange in that. Baldwin Peche relied on his man to take +charge of the business every bit as competently as he could have done himself, +and was prone to taking holidays whenever it suited his pleasure. He might be +merely making the round of the ale-houses to barter his own news for whatever +fresh scandal was being whispered, or he might be at the butts by the +riverside, betting on a good marksman, or out in his boat, which he kept in a +yard near the Watergate, only a few minutes down-river. The young salmon must +be coming up the Severn by this time. A fisherman might well be tempted out to +try his luck.
+ +“And you don’t know if he’ll be back?” Susanna read his face, shrugged and +smiled. “I know! Well, if he’s not here to eat it… I daresay you have still +room to put this away, John?” He brought with him, usually, a hunk of bread and +a strip of salt bacon or a piece of cheese, meat was festival fare in his +mother’s house. Susanna set down her bowl before him on the bench, and sat down +on the customer’s stool opposite, spreading her elbows comfortably along the +boards. “It’s his loss. In an ale-house he’ll pay more for poorer fare. I’ll +sit with you, John, and take back the bowl.”
+ +Rannilt came down the Wyle to the open gate of the town, and passed through +its shadowed arch to the glitter of sunlight on the bridge. She had fled in +haste from the house, for fear of being called back, but she had lingered on +the way through the town for fear of what lay before her. For the course was +fearful, to one unschooled, half-wild, rejected by Wales and never welcomed in England +but as a pair of labouring hands. She knew nothing of monks or monasteries, and +none too much even of Christianity. But there inside the abbey was Liliwin, and +thither she would go. The gates, Susanna had said, were never closed against +any.
+ +On the far side of the bridge she passed close by the copse where Liliwin +had curled up to sleep, and been hunted out at midnight. On the other side of +the Foregate lay the mill pool, and the houses in the abbey’s grant, and +beyond, the wall of the enclave began, and the roofs of infirmary and school +and guest-hall within, and the tall bulk of the gatehouse. The great west door +of the church, outside the gates, confronted her in majesty. But once timidly +entering the great court, she found reassurance. Even at this hour, perhaps the +quietest of the day, there was a considerable bustle of coming and going within +there, guests arriving and departing, servants ambling about on casual errands, +petitioners begging, packmen taking a midday rest, a whole small world of +people, some of them as humble as herself. She could walk in there among them, +and never be noticed. But still she had to find Liliwin, and she cast about her +for the most sympathetic source of information.
+ +She was not blessed in her choice. A small man, in the habit of the house, +scurrying across the court; she chose him because he was as small and slight as +Liliwin, and his shoulders had a discouraged droop which reminded her of +Liliwin, and because someone who looked so modest and disregarded must surely +feel for others as insignificant as himself. Brother Jerome would have been +deeply offended if he had known. As it was, he was not displeased at the low +reverence this suppliant girl made to him, and the shy whisper in which she +addressed him.
+ +“Please, sir, I am sent by my lady with alms for the young man who is here +in sanctuary. If you would kindly teach me where I may find him.”
+ +She had not spoken his name because it was a private thing, to be kept +jealously apart. Jerome, however he might regret that any lady should be so +misguided as to send alms to the offender, was somewhat disarmed by the +approach. A maid on an errand was not to be blamed for her mistress’s errors.
+ +“You will find him there, in the cloister, with Brother Anselm.” He +indicated the direction grudgingly, disapproving of Brother Anselm’s complacent +usage with an accused man, but not censuring Rannilt, until he noted the +brightening of her face and the lightness of her foot as she sprang to follow +where he pointed. Not merely an errand-girl, far too blithe! “Take heed, child, +what message you have to him must be done decorously. He is on probation of a +most grave charge. You may have half an hour with him, you may and you should +exhort him to consider on his soul. Do your errand and go!”
+ +She looked back at him with great eyes, and was very still for one instant +in her flight. She faltered some words of submission, while her eyes flamed +unreadably, with a most disquieting brilliance. She made a further deep +reverence, to the very ground, but sprang from it like an angel soaring, and +flew to the cloister whither he had pointed her.
+ +It seemed vast to her, four-sided in stony corridors about an open garden, +where spring flowers burst out in gold and white and purple on a grassy ground. +She flitted the length of one walk between terror and delight, turned along the +second in awe of the alcove cells furnished with slanted tables and benches, +empty but for one absorbed scholar copying wonders, who never lifted his head +as she passed by. At the end of this walk, echoing from such another cell, she +heard music. She had never before heard an organ played, it was a magical sound +to her, until she heard a sweet, lofty voice soar happily with it, and knew it +for Liliwin’s.
+ +He was bending over the instrument, and did not hear her come. Neither did +Brother Anselm, equally absorbed in fitting together the fragments of the +rebec’s back. She stood timidly in the opening of the carrel, and only when the +song ended did she venture speech. At this vital moment she did not know what +her welcome would be. What proof had she that he had thought of her, since that +hour they had spent together, as she had thought ceaselessly of him? It might +well be that she was fooling herself, as Susanna had said.
+ +“If you please…” began Rannilt humbly and hesitantly.
+ +Then they both looked up. The old man viewed her with mildly curious eyes, +unastonished and benign. The young one stared, gaped and blazed, in incredulous +joy, set aside his strange instrument of music blindly on the bench beside him, +and came to his feet slowly, warily, all his movements soft almost to stealth, +as though any sudden start might cause her to quiver and dissolve into light, +vanishing like morning mist.
+ +“Rannilt… It was you?”
+ +If this was indeed foolery, then she was not the only fool. She looked +rather at Brother Anselm, whose devoted fingers were held poised, not to divert +by the least degree the touch he had suspended on his delicate operations.
+ +“If you please, I should like to speak with Liliwin. I have brought him some +gifts.”
+ +“By all means,” said Brother Anselm amiably. “You hear, boy? You have a +visitor. There, go along and be glad of her. I shall not need you now for some +hours. I’ll hear your lesson later.”
+ +They moved towards each other in a dream, wordless, took hands and stole +away.
+ +“I swear to you, Rannilt, I never struck him, I never stole from him, I +never did him wrong.” He had said it at least a dozen times, here in the +shadowy porch where his brychans were folded up, and his thin pallet spread, +and the poor tools of his craft hidden away in a corner of the stone bench as though +some shame attached to them. And there had never been any need to say it even +once, as she a dozen times had answered him.
+ +“I know, I know! I never believed for a moment. How could you doubt it? I +know you are good. They will find it out, they will have to own it.”
+ +They trembled together and kept fast hold of hands in a desperate clasp, and +the touch set their unpractised bodies quivering in an excitement neither of +them understood.
+ +“Oh, Rannilt, if you knew! That was the worst of all, that you might shrink
+from me and believe me so vile…
“No,” she said stoutly, “I’m not so sure. The brother who comes to physic +Dame Juliana, the one who brought back your things… And that kind brother who +is teaching you… Oh, no, you are not abandoned. You must not think it!”
+ +“No!” he owned thankfully. “Now I do believe, I do trust, if
Not for the gifts of food, orts to her, delicacies to him. No, but for this +nearness that clouded his senses in a fevered warmth and delight and disquiet +he had never before experienced, and which could only be love, the love he had +sung by rote for years, while his body and mind were quite without +understanding.
+ +Brother Jerome, true to what he felt to be his duty, had marked the passing +of time, and loomed behind them, approaching inexorably along the walk from the +great court. His sandals silent on the flagstones, he observed as he came the +shoulders pressed close, the two heads, the flaxen and the black, inclined +together with temples almost touching. Certainly it was time to part them, this +was no place for such embraces.
+ +“It will all be well in the end,” said Rannilt, whispering. “You’ll see! +Mistress Susanna—she says as they say, and yet she let me come. I think she +doesn’t really believe… She said I might stay away all day long…”
+ +“Oh, Rannilt… Oh, Rannilt, I do so love you…”
+ +“Maiden,” said Brother Jerome, harshly censorious behind them, “you have had +time enough to discharge your mistress’s errand. There can be no further stay. +You must take your basket and depart.”
+ +A shadow no bigger than Liliwin’s, there behind them black against the +slanting sun of mid-afternoon, and yet he cast such a darkness over them as +they could hardly bear. They had only just linked hands, barely realised the +possibilities that lie within such slender bodies, and they must be torn apart. +The monk had authority, he spoke for the abbey, and there was no denying him. +Liliwin had been granted shelter, how could he then resist the restrictions +laid upon him?
+ +They rose, tremulous. Her hand in his clung convulsively, and her touch ran +through him like a stiffening fire, drawn by a great, upward wind that was his +own desperation and anger.
+ +“She is going,” said Liliwin. “Only give us, for pity’s sake, some moments +in the church together for prayer.”
+ +Brother Jerome found that becoming, even disarming, and stood back from them +as Liliwin drew her with him, the basket in his free hand, in through the porch +to the dark interior of the church. Silence and dimness closed on them. Brother +Jerome had respected their privacy and remained without, though he would not go +far until he saw one of them emerge alone.
+ +And it might be the last time he would ever see her! He could not bear it +that she should go so soon, perhaps to be lost for ever, when she had leave to +be absent all day long. He closed his hand possessively on her arm, drawing her +deep into the shadowy, stony recesses of the transept chapel beyond the parish +altar. She should not go like this! They were not followed, there was no one +else here within at this moment, and Liliwin was well acquainted now with every +corner and cranny of this church, having prowled it restlessly and fearfully on +his first night here alone, when his ears were still pricked for sounds of +pursuit, and he was afraid to sleep on his pallet in the porch.
+ +“Don’t go, don’t go!” His arms were clasped tightly about her as they +pressed together into the darkest corner, and his lips were whispering +agitatedly against her cheek. “Stay with me! You can, you can, I’ll show you a +place… No one will know, no one will find us.”
+ +The chapel was narrow, the altar wide, all but filling the space between its +containing columns, and stood out somewhat from the niche that tapered behind +it. There was a little cavern there, into which only creatures as small and +thin as they could creep. Liliwin had marked it down as a place to which he +might retreat if the hunters broke in, and he knew his own body could negotiate +the passage, so for her it would be no barrier. And within there was darkness, +privacy, invisibility.
+ +“Here, slip in here! No one will see. When he’s satisfied, when he goes +away, I’ll come to you. We can be together until Vespers.”
+ +Rannilt went where he urged her; she would have done anything he asked, her +hunger was as desperate as his. The empty basket was drawn through the narrow +space after her. Her wild whisper breathed back from the darkness: “You will +come? Soon?”
+ +“I’ll come! Wait for me…”
+ +Invisible and still, she made no murmur nor rustle. Liliwin turned, +trembling, and went back past the parish altar, and out at the south porch into +the east walk of the cloisters. Brother Jerome had had the grace to withdraw +into the garth, to keep his jealous watch a little less blatantly, but his +sharp eyes were still on the doorway, and the emergence of the solitary figure, +head drooping and shoulders despondent, appeared to satisfy him. Liliwin did +not have to feign dejection, he was already in tears of excitement, compounded +of joy and grief together. He did not turn along the scriptorium to go back to +Brother Anselm, but went straight past the bench in the porch, where the gifts of +food and clothing lay on his folded brychans, and out into the court and the +garden beyond. But not far, only into cover among the first bushes, where he +could look back and see Brother Jerome give over his vigil, and depart briskly +in the direction of the grange court. The girl was gone, from the west door of +the church; the disturbing presence was removed, monastic order restored, and +Brother Jerome’s authority had been properly respected.
+ +Liliwin flew back to his pallet in the porch, rolled up food and clothing in +his blankets, and looked round carefully to make sure there was now no one +paying any attention to him, either within or without the church. When he was +certain, he slipped in with his bundle under his arm, darted into the chapel, +and slid as nimbly as an eel between altar and pillar into the dark haven +behind. Rannilt’s hands reached out for him, her cheek was pressed against his, +they shook together, almost invisible even to each other, and by that very +mystery suddenly loosed from all the restraints of the outer world, able to +speak without speech, delivered from shyness and shame, avowed lovers. This was +something quite different even from sitting together in the porch, before +Jerome’s serpent hissed into their Eden. There they had never got beyond +clasping hands, and even those clasped hands hidden between them, as if a +matter for modesty and shame. Here there was neither, only a vindicated candour +that expanded in darkness, giving and receiving passionate, inexpert caresses.
+ +There was room there to make a nest, with the blankets and the basket and +Daniel’s outgrown clothes, and if the stone floor was thick with a generation +or more of soft, fine dust, that only helped to cushion the couch they laid +down for themselves. They sat huddled together with their backs against the +stone wall, sharing their warmth, and the morsels Susanna had discarded, and +holding fast to each other for reassurance, until they drifted into a +dream-like illusion of safety where reassurance was unnecessary.
+ +They talked, but in few and whispered words.
+ +“Are you cold?”
+ +“No.”
+ +“Yes, you’re trembling.” He shifted and drew her into his arm, close against +his breast, and with his free hand plucked up a corner of the blanket over her +shoulder, binding her to him. She stretched up her arm within the rough wool, +slipped her hand about his neck, and embraced him with lips and cheek and +nestling forehead, drawing him down with her until they lay breast to breast, +heaving as one to great, deep-drawn sighs.
+ +There was some manner of lightning-stroke, as it seemed, that convulsed them +both, and fused them into one without any coherent action on their part. They +were equally innocent, equally knowing. Knowing by rote is one thing. What they +experienced bore no resemblance to what they had thought they knew. Afterwards, +shifting a little only to entwine more closely and warmly, they fell asleep in +each other’s arms, to quicken an hour or more later to the same compulsion, and +love again without ever fully awaking. Then they slept again, so deeply, in +such an exhaustion of wonder and fulfilment, that even the chanting of Vespers +in the choir did not disturb them.
+ +“Shall I fetch in the linen for you?” Margery offered in the afternoon, +making a conciliatory foray into Susanna’s domain, and finding that composed +housekeeper busy with preparations for the evening’s supper.
+ +“Thank you,” said Susanna, hardly looking up from her work, “but I’ll do
+that myself.” Not one step is she going to advance towards me, thought Margery,
+damped.
Margery was silenced and disarmed. “I will,” she said heartily, and went +away to do her best with the old woman, who, true enough, undoubtedly curbed +her malevolence with the newcomer.
+ +Only later in the evening, viewing Daniel across the trestle table, mute, +inattentive and smugly glowing with some private satisfaction, did she return +to brooding on her lack of status here, and reflecting at whose girdle the keys +were hung, and whose voice bound or loosed the maidservant who was still +absent.
+ +“I marvel,” said Brother Anselm, coming out from the refectory after supper, +“where my pupil can have got to. He’s been so eager, since I showed him the +written notes. An angel’s ear, true as a bird, and a voice the same. And he has +not even been to the kitchen for his supper.”
+ +“Nor come to have his arm dressed,” agreed Brother Cadfael, who had spent +the whole afternoon busily planting, brewing and compounding in his herbarium. +“Though Oswin did look at it earlier, and found it healing very well.”
+ +“There was a maidservant here bringing him a basket of dainties from her +mistress’s table,” said Jerome, one ear pricked in their direction. “No doubt +he felt no appetite for our simple fare. I had occasion to admonish them. He +may have taken some grief, and be moping solitary.”
+ +It had not occurred to him, until then, that he had not seen the unwanted +guest since the boy had come out of the church alone; now it seemed, moreover, +that Brother Anselm, who had had more reason to expect to spend time with his +pupil, had not seen hide or hair of him, either. The abbey enclave was +extensive, but not so great that a man virtually a prisoner should disappear in +it. If, that is, he was still within it?
+ +Jerome said no word more to his fellows, but spent the final half-hour +before Compline making a rapid search of every part of the enclave, and ended +at the south porch. The pallet on the stone bench was bare and unpressed, the +brychans unaccountably missing. He did not notice the small cloth bundle tucked +under a corner of the straw. As far as he could see, there was no sign left of +Liliwin’s presence.
+ +He reported as much to Prior Robert, returning breathless just before +Compline was due to begin. Robert did not exactly smile, his ascetic face +remained benign and bland as ever, but he did somehow radiate an air of relief +and cautious pleasure.
+ +“Well, well!” said Robert. “If the misguided youth has been so foolish as to +quit his place of safety on account of a woman, it is his own choice. A sad +business, but no blame lights upon any within here. No man can be wise for +another.” And he led the procession into the choir with his usual impressive +gait and saintly visage, and breathed the more easily now that the alien burr +had been dislodged from his skin. He did not warn Jerome to say no word yet to +anyone else within here; there was no need, they understood each other very +well.
+Chapter Six
+ +« ^ »
+ +Liliwin awoke +with a jolting shock to darkness, the unmistakable sound of Brother Anselm’s +voice leading the chanting in the choir, a wild sense of fear, and the total +remembrance of the wonderful and terrible thing he and Rannilt had done +together, that revelation of bliss that was at the same time so appalling and +unforgivable a blasphemy. Here, behind the altar, in the presence of relics so +holy, the sin of the flesh, natural and human as it might be out in some meadow +or coppice, became mortal and damning. But the immediate terror was worse than +the distant smell of hellfire. He remembered where he was, and everything that +had passed, and his senses, sharpened by terror and dismay, recognised the +office. Not Vespers! Compline! They had slept for hours. Even the evening was +spent, the night closing in.
+ +He groped with frantic gentleness along the brychan, to lay a hand over +Rannilt’s lips, and kissed her cheek to awaken her. She started instantly and +fully out of the depths of sleep. He felt her lips move, smiling, against his +palm. She remembered, but not as he did; she felt no guilt and she was not +afraid. Not yet! That was still to come.
+ +With his lips close to her ear, in the tangle of her black hair, he +breathed: “We’ve slept too long… it’s night, they’re singing Compline.”
+ +She sat up abruptly, braced and listening with him. She whispered: “Oh +mercy! What have we done? I must go… I shall be so late…”
+ +“No, not alone… you can’t. All that way in the dark!”
+ +“I’m not afraid.”
+ +“But I won’t let you! There are thieves and villains in the night. You +shan’t go alone, I’m coming with you.”
+ +She put him off from her with a hand flattened against his breast, her +fluttering whisper agitated but still soft on his cheek: “You can’t! You can’t, +you mustn’t leave here, they’re watching outside, they’d take you.”
+ +“Wait… wait here a moment, let me look.” The faint light from the choir, +shut off by stone walls from their cranny, but feebly reflected into the +chapel, had begun to show in a pallid outline the shape of the altar behind +which they crouched. Liliwin slipped round it, and padded across to peer round +a sheltering column into the nave. There were a number of elderly women of the +Foregate who attended even non-parochial services regularly, having their souls +in mind, their homes only a few paces distant, and nothing more interesting to +do with their evenings in these declining years. Five of them were present on +this fine, mild night, kneeling in the dimness just within Liliwin’s view, and +one of them must have brought a young grandson with her, while another, fragile +enough to need or demand a prop, had a young man in his twenties attendant on +her. Enough of them to provide a measure of cover, if God, or fate, or whatever +held the dice, added the requisite measure of luck.
+ +Liliwin fled back into the dark chapel, and reached a hand to draw Rannilt +out from their secret nest.
+ +“Quick, leave the brychans,” he whispered feverishly, “but give me the +clothes—the cotte and capuchon. No one has ever seen me but in these rags…”
+ +Daniel’s old coat was ample for him, and worn over his own clothes gave him +added bulk, as well as respectability. The nave was lit by only two flares +close to the west door, and the rust-brown capuchon, with its deep +shoulder-cape, widened his build and hid his face to some extent even before he +could hoist it over his head on quitting the church.
+ +Rannilt clung to his arm, trembling and pleading. “No, don’t… stay here, I’m +afraid for you…”
+ +“Don’t be afraid! We shall go out with all those people, no one will notice +us.” And whether in terror or no, they would be together still a while longer, +arms linked, hands clasped.
+ +“But how will you get in again?” she breathed, lips against his cheek.
+ +“I will. I’ll follow someone else through the gate.” The office was ending, +in a moment the brothers would be moving in procession down the opposite aisle +to the night stairs. “Come, now, close to the people there…”
+ +The ancient, holy women of the Foregate waited on their knees, faces turned +towards the file of monks as they passed, shadowy, towards their beds. Then +they rose and began their leisurely shuffle towards the west door, and after +them, emerging unquestioned from shadow, went Liliwin and Rannilt, close and +quiet, as though they belonged.
+ +And it was unbelievably easy. The sheriff’s officers had a guard of two men +constantly outside the gatehouse, where they could cover both the gate itself +and the west door of the church, and they had torches burning, but rather for +their own pleasure and convenience than as a means of noting Liliwin’s +movements, since they had to while away the hours somehow on their watch, and +you cannot play either dice or cards in the dark. By this time they did not believe +that the refugee would make any attempt to leave his shelter, but they knew +their duty and kept their watch faithfully enough. They stood to watch in +silence as the worshippers left the church, but they had no orders to +scrutinise those who went in, and so had not either counted them or observed +them closely, and noted no discrepancy in the numbers leaving. Nor was there +any sign here of the jongleur’s faded and threadbare motley, but neat, plain +burgess clothing. Having no knowledge that a young girl had made her way in, +intent on seeing the accused man, they thought nothing of watching her make her +way out in his company. Two insignificant young people passed and dwindled into +the night on the heels of the old women. What was there in that?
+ +They were out, they were past, the lights of the torches dimmed behind them, +the cool darkness closed round them, and the hearts that had fluttered up +wildly into their throats, like terrified birds shut into a narrow room, +settled back gradually into their breasts, still beating heavily. By luck two +of the old women, and the young man who supported the elder, inhabited two of +the small houses by the mill, as pensioners of the abbey, and so had to turn +towards the town, and Liliwin and Rannilt did not have to go that way alone +from the gate, or they might have been more conspicuous. When the women had +turned aside to their own doors, and they two alone were stealing silently +between mill-pool on one hand and the copses above the Gaye on the other, and +the stone rise of the bridge showed very faintly before them, Rannilt halted +abruptly, drawing him round face to face with her in the edge of the trees.
+ +“Don’t come into the town! Don’t! Turn here, to the left, this side the +river, there’s a track goes south, they won’t be watching there. Don’t come +through the gate! And don’t go back! You’re out now, and none of them know. +They won’t, not until tomorrow. Go, go, while you can! You’re free, you can +leave this place…” Her whisper was urgent, resolute with hope for him, desolate +with dismay on her own account. Liliwin heard the one as clearly as the other, +and for a moment he, too, was torn.
+ +He drew her deeper into the trees, and shut his arms about her fiercely. “No! +I’m coming with you, it isn’t safe for you alone. You don’t know what things +can happen by night in a dark alley. I’ll see you to your own yard. I must, I +will!”
+ +“But don’t you see…” She beat a small fist against his shoulder in +desperation. “You could go now, escape, put this town behind you. A whole night +to get well away. There’ll be no second chance like this.”
+ +“And put you behind me, too? And make myself seem what they say I am?” He
+put a shaking hand under her chin, and turned up to him none too gently the
+face he saw only as a pale oval in the darkness. “Do you
She heaved a huge sigh, and embraced him in passionate silence. In a moment
+she breathed: “No! No… I want you safe…
She wept briefly, while he held her and made soft, inarticulate sounds of +comfort and dismay; and then they went on, for that was settled, and would not +lightly be raised again. Over the bridge, with lambent light flickering up from +the Severn’s dimpling surface on either side, and the torches burning down +redly in the side-pillars of the town gate before them. The watchmen at the +gate were easy, bestirring themselves only when brawlers or obstreperous drunks +rolled in upon them. Two humble but respectable young people hurrying home got +only a glance from them, and an amiable goodnight.
+ +“You see,” said Liliwin, on their way up the dark slope and curve of the +Wyle, “it was not so hard.” Very softly she said: “No.”
+ +“I shall go in again just as simply. Late travellers come, I shall tread in +on their heels. If there are none, I can sleep rough over the night, and in +these clothes I can slip in when the morning traffic begins.”
+ +“You could still go from here,” she said, “when you leave me.”
+ +“But I will not leave you. When I go from here, you will go with me.”
+ +He was flying his small pennon of defiance against the wind, and knew it, +but he meant it with all his heart. It might all end ignominiously, he might +still fall like the heron to the fowler, but he had had until now a name, +however humble, never traduced with accusation of theft and violence, and it +was worth a venture to keep that; and now he had a still dearer stake to win or +lose. He would not go. He would abide to win or lose all.
+ +At the High Cross they turned to the right, and were in narrower and darker +places, and once, at least, something furtive and swift turned aside from their +path, perhaps wary of two, where one might cry out loud enough to rouse others, +even if the second could be laid out with the first blow. Shrewsbury was well +served in its watchmen, but every solitary out at night is at the mercy of +those without scruples, and the watch cannot be everywhere. Rannilt did not +notice. Her fear for Liliwin was not of any immediate danger to him here.
+ +“Will they be angry with you?” he wondered anxiously, as they drew nearer to +Walter Aurifaber’s shop-front, and the narrow passage through into the yard.
+ +“She said I might stay all day, if it would cure me.” She smiled invisibly +in the night, far from cured, but armed against any questioning. “She was kind, +I’m not afraid of her, she’ll stand by me.”
+ +In the deep darkness of a doorway opposite he drew her to him, and she +turned and clung. It came upon them both alike that this might be the last time, +but they clung, and kissed and would not believe it.
+ +“Now go, go quickly! I shall watch until you’re within.” They stood where he +could gaze deep into the passage, and mark the faint glow from an unshuttered +window within. He put her away from him, turned her about, and gave her a push +to start her on her way. “Run!”
+ +She was gone, across the street and into the passage, scurrying obediently, +blotting out for a moment the inner glow. Then she was into the yard, and the +small light picked out the shape of her for one instant as she flew past the +hall door and was gone indeed.
+ +Liliwin stood motionless in the dark doorway, staring after her for a long +time. The night was very still and quiet about him. He did not want to move +away. Even when the dull spark within the yard was quenched, he still stood +there, straining blindly after the way she had gone.
+ +But he was wrong, the spark had not been quenched, only blotted out from +sight for the minute or so it took for a man’s form to thread the passage +silently and emerge into the street. A tall, well-built man, young by his step, +in a hurry by the way he hurtled out of the passage, and about some private and +nefarious business by the agility and stealth with which he slid in and out of +the deepest shadows as he made off along the lane, with his capuchon drawn well +forward and his head lowered.
+ +There were but two young men who habited within that burgage at night, and a +man who had played and sung and tumbled a long evening away in their company +had no difficulty in distinguishing between them. In any case, the fine new +coat marked him out, for all his furtive procedure. Only three days married, +where was Daniel Aurifaber off to in such a hurry, late at night?
+ +Liliwin left his station at last, and went back along the narrow street +towards the High Cross. He saw no more of that flitting figure. Somewhere in +this maze of by-streets Daniel had vanished, about what secret business there +was no knowing. Liliwin made his way down the Wyle to the gate, and was hardly +shaken at being halted by a guard wider awake than his fellows.
+ +“Well, well, lad, you’re back soon. Wanting out again at this hour? You’re +back and forth like a dog at a fair.”
+ +“I was seeing my girl safe home,” said Liliwin, truth coming both welcome +and easy. “I’m away back to the abbey now. I’m working there.” And so he was, +and would work the harder the next day for having deserted Brother Anselm on +this one.
+ +“Oh, you’re in their service, are you?” The guard was benevolent. “Take no +unwary vows, lad, or you’ll lose that girl of yours. Off you go then, and +goodnight to you.”
+ +The cavern of the gateway, reflecting torchlight from its stony vault, fell +behind him, the arch of the bridge, with liquid silver on either side, opened +before him, and above there was a light veil of cloud pierced here and there by +a stray star. Liliwin crossed, and slipped again into the bushes that fringed +the roadway. The silence was daunting. When he drew nearer to the abbey +gatehouse he was afraid to stir out of cover, and cross the empty street to +brave the scrutiny beyond. Both the west door of the church and the open wicker +of the gate seemed equally inaccessible.
+ +He stood deep in cover, watching the Foregate, and it came back to him +suddenly and temptingly that he was, indeed, out of sanctuary undetected, and +the whole of the night before him to put as many miles as possible between +himself and Shrewsbury, and hide himself as deeply as possible among men to +whom he was unknown. He was small and weak and fearful, and very greedy for life, +and the ache to escape this overhanging peril was acute. But all the time he +knew he would not go. Therefore he must get back to the one place where for +thirty-seven more days he was safe, here within reach of the house where +Rannilt slaved and waited and prayed for him.
+ +He had luck in the end, and not even long to wait. One of the lay servants +of the abbey had had his new son christened that day, and opened his house to +the assembly of his relatives and friends to celebrate the occasion. The abbey +stewards, shepherds and herdsmen who had been his guests came back along the +Foregate in a flock, well-fed and merry, to return to their quarters in the +grange court. Liliwin saw them come, spanning the street with their loose-knit +chain, and when they drew near enough, and closed at leisure on the gatehouse, +those bound within taking spacious leave of those living without, so that he +was sure of the destination of perhaps a third of their number, he slipped out +of the bushes and mingled with the fringes of the group. One more in the +dimness made no matter. He went in unquestioned by any, and in the unhurried +dispersal within he slipped away silently into the cloister, and so to his +deserted bed in the south porch.
+ +He was within the fold, and it was over. He sidled thankfully into the empty +church—a good hour yet before Matins—and went to retrieve his blankets from +behind the altar in the chancel chapel. He was very tired, but so agonisingly +awake that sleep seemed very far off. Yet when he had spread his bedding again +on his pallet, tucked away under the straw his new capuchon and cotte, and +stretched himself out, still trembling, along the broad stone bench, sleep came +on him so abruptly that all he knew of it was the descent, fathoms deep, into a +well of darkness and peace.
+ +Brother Cadfael rose well before Prime to go to his workshop, where he had +left a batch of troches drying overnight. The bushes in the garden, the herbs +in the enclosed herbarium, all glimmered softly with the lingering dew of a +brief shower, and reflected back the dawn sunlight from thousands of tiny +facets of silver. Another fine, fresh day beginning. Excellent for planting, +moist, mild, the soil finely crumbled after the intense frosts of the hard +winter. There could be no better auguries for germination and growth.
+ +He heard the bell rousing the dortoir for Prime, and went directly to the +church as soon as he had put his troches safely away. And there in the porch +was Liliwin, his bedding already folded tidily away, his ill-cobbled motley exchanged +for his new blue cotte, and his pale hair damp and flattened from being plunged +in the bowl where he had washed. Cadfael took pleasure in observing him from a +distance, himself unobserved. So wherever he had been hiding himself yesterday, +he was still here in safety, and, moreover, developing a wholly creditable +self-respect, with which guilt, or so it seemed to Cadfael, must be +incompatible.
+ +Brother Anselm, detecting the presence of his truant in church only when a +high, hesitant voice joined in the singing, was similarly reassured and +comforted. Prior Robert heard the same voice, looked round in incredulous +displeasure, and frowned upon a dismayed Brother Jerome, who had so misled him. +They still had the thorn in the flesh, thanksgiving had been premature.
+ +The lay brothers were planting out more seedlings in a large patch along the +Gaye that day, and sowing a later field of pease for succession, to follow when +those by the Meole brook were harvested. Cadfael went out after dinner to view +the work. After the night’s soft shower the day was brilliant, sunlit and +serene, but the earlier rains were still coming down the river from the +mountains of Wales in their own good time, and the water was lapping into the +grass where the meadow sloped smoothly down, and gnawing gently under the lip +of the bank where it could not reach the turf. The length of a man’s hand +higher since two days ago, but always with this sunlit innocence upon it, as if +it would be ashamed to endanger the swimming urchins, and could not possibly be +thought capable of drowning any man. And this as perilous a river as any in the +land, as treacherous and as lovely.
+ +It was pleasure to walk along the trodden path that was only a paler line in +the turf, following the fast, quiet flood downstream. Cadfael went with his +eyes on the half-turgid, half-clear eddies that span and mummured under the lip +of green, a strong current here hugging this shore. Across the stream, so +silent and so fast, the walls of Shrewsbury loomed, at the crest of a steep +green slope of gardens, orchards and vineyard, and further downstream fused +into the solid bulk of the king’s castle, guarding the narrow neck of land that +broke Shrewsbury’s girdle of water.
+ +On this near shore Cadfael had reached the limit of the abbey orchards, +where lush copses began, fringing the abbey’s last wheatfield, and the old, +disused mill jutted over the river. He passed, threading the trees and bushes, +and went on a short way, to where the level of land dipped to water-level in a +little cove, shallowly covered by clear water now, the driving current spinning +in and out again just clear of disturbing the gravel bottom. Things tended to +come in here and be cast ashore if the Severn was in spate, and enclosing +shoulders of woodland screened whatever came.
+ +And something wholly unforeseen had come, and was lying here in uneasy +repose, sprawled face-down, head butted into the gravelly calm of the bank. A +solid body in good homespun cloth, shortish and sturdy, a round bullish head +with floating, grizzled brown hair, thinning at the crown. Splayed arms, +languidly moving in the gentle stir of the shallows, clear of the deadly +purposeful central flow, fingered and fumbled vaguely at the fine gravel. Squat +legs, but drawn out by the hungry current tugging at their toes, stretched +towards open water. Cast up dead, all four limbs stirred and strained to prove +him living.
+ +Brother Cadfael kilted his habit to the knee, plunged down the gentle slope +into the water, took the body by the bunched capuchon swaying at his neck and +the leather belt at his waist, and hoisted him gradually clear of the surface, +to disturb as little as possible the position in which he had been swept +ashore, and whatever traces the river had spared in his clothing, hair and +shoes. No haste to feel for any life here, it had been gone for some time. Yet +he might have something to tell even in his final silence.
+ +The dead weight sagged from Cadfael’s hands. He drew it, streaming, up the +first plane of grass, and there let it sink in the same shape it had had in the +river. Who knew where it had entered the water and how?
+ +As for naming him, there was no need to turn up that sodden face to the +light of day, not yet. Cadfael recognised the russet broadcloth, the sturdy +build, the round, turnip head with its thinning crown and bushy brown hedge of +hair all round the shiny island of bone. Only two mornings ago he had passed +the time of day with this same silenced tongue, very fluent and roguish then, +enjoying its mischief without any great malice.
+ +Baldwin Peche had done with toothsome scandal, and lost his last tussle with +the river that had provided him with so many fishing sorties, and hooked him to +his death in the end.
+ +Cadfael hoisted him by the middle, marked the derisory flow from his mouth, +barely moistening the grass, and let him down carefully in the same form. He +was a little puzzled to find so meagre a flow, since even the dead may give +back the water they have swallowed, for at least a brief while after their +death. This one had left a shallow shape scooped in the gravel of the cove, +which was hardly disturbed by currents. His outlines in the grass now +duplicated the outline he had abandoned there.
+ +Now how had Baldwin Peche come to be beached here like a landed fish? Drunk +and careless along the riverside at night? Spilled out of a boat while fishing? +Or fallen foul of a footpad in one of the dark alleys and tipped into the water +for the contents of his purse? Such things did occasionally happen even in a +well-regulated town on dark enough nights, and there did seem to be a thicker +and darker moisture in the grizzled hair behind Peche’s right ear, as though +the skin beneath was broken. Scalp wounds tend to bleed copiously, and even +after some hours in the water or cast up here traces might linger. He was +native-born, he knew the river well enough to respect it, all the more as he +acknowledged he was a weak swimmer.
+ +Cadfael threaded the belt of bushes to have a clear view over the Severn, +upstream and down, and was rewarded by the sight of a coracle making its way +against the current, turning and twisting to make use of every eddy, bobbing +and dancing like a shed leaf, but always making progress. There was only one +man who could handle the paddle and read the river with such ease and skill, +and even at some distance the squat, dark figure was easily recognisable. Madog +of the Dead-Boat was as Welsh as Cadfael himself, and the best-known waterman +in twenty miles of the Severn’s course, and had got his name as a result of the +cargo he most often had to carry, by reason of his knowledge of all the places +where missing persons, thought to have been taken by the river whether in flood +or by felony, were likely to fetch up. This time he had no mute passenger +aboard; his natural quarry was here waiting for him.
+ +Cadfael knew him well and for no ascertainable reason, except the customary +association of Madog with drowned men, took for granted that even in this case +the connection must hold good. He raised a hail and waved an arm as the coracle +drew nearer, picking its feathery way across the mid-stream current where it +was diffused and moderate. Madog looked up, knew the man who beckoned him in, +and with a sweep of his paddle brought his boat inshore, clear of the +deceitfully silent and rapid thrust that sped down-river, leaving this cove so +placid and clear. Cadfael waded into the shallows to meet him, laying a hand to +the rim of hide as Madog hopped out nimbly to join him, his brown feet bare.
+ +“I thought I knew that shaven sconce of yours,” he said heartily, and +hoisted his cockle-shell of withies and hide on to his shoulder to heft it +ashore. “What is it with you? When you call me, I take it there’s a sound +reason.”
+ +“Sound enough,” said Cadfael. “I think I may have found what you were +looking for.” He jerked his head towards the plane of grass above, and led the +way up without more words. They stood together over the prone body in +thoughtful silence for some moments. Madog had taken note in one glance of the +position of the head, and looked back to the gravelled shore under its liquid +skin of water. He saw the shadowy shape left in the fine shale, and the mute, +contained violence of the current that swept past only a man’s length away from +that strange calm.
+ +“Yes. I see. He went into the water above. Perhaps not far above. There’s a +strong tow under that bank, upstream from here a piece, under the castle. Then +it could have brought him across and thrown him up here just as he lies. A +good, solid weight, head-first into the bank. And left him stranded.”
+ +“So I thought,” said Cadfael. “You were looking for him?” People along the +waterside who had kin go missing usually sought out Madog before they notified +the provost or the sheriff’s sergeant.
+ +“That journeyman of his sent after me this morning. It seems his master went +off yesterday before noon, but nobody wondered, he did the like whenever he +chose, they were used to it. But this morning he’d never been back. There’s a +boy sleeps in his shop, he was fretting over it, so when Boneth came to work +and no locksmith he sent the lad to me. This one here liked his bed, even if he +sometimes came to it about dawn. Not the man to go hungry or dry, either, and +the ale-house he favoured hadn’t seen him.”
+ +“He has a boat,” said Cadfael. “A known fisherman.”
+ +“So I hear. His boat was not where he keeps it.”
+ +“But you’ve found it,” said Cadfael with conviction.
+ +“A half-mile down-river, caught in the branches where the willows overhang. And +his rod snagged by the hook and trailing. The boat had overturned. He ran a +coracle, like me. I’ve left it beached where I found it. A tricky boat,” said +Madog dispassionately, “if he hooked a lusty young salmon. The spring ones are +coming. But he knew his craft and his sport.”
+ +“So do many and take the one chance that undoes them.”
+ +“We’d best get him back,” said Madog, minding his business like any good +master-craftsman. “To the abbey? It’s the nearest. And Hugh Beringar will have +to know. No need to mark this place, you and I both know it well, and his marks +will last long enough.”
+ +Cadfael considered and decided. “You’ll get him home best afloat, and it’s +your right. I’ll follow ashore and meet you below the bridge, we shall make +much the same time of it. Keep him as he lies, Madog, face-down, and note what +signs he leaves aboard.”
+ +Madog had at least as extensive a knowledge of the ways of drowned men as +Cadfael. He gave his friend a long, thoughtful look, but kept his thoughts to +himself, and stooped to lift the shoulders of the dead man, leaving Cadfael the +knees. They got him decently disposed into the light craft. There was a fee for +every Christian body Madog brought out of the river, he had indeed a right to +it. The duty had edged its way in on him long ago, almost unaware, but other +men’s dying was the better part of his living now. And an honest, useful, +decent man, for which many a family had been thankful.
+ +Madog’s paddle dipped and swung him across the contrary flow, to use the +counter-eddies in moving up-river. Cadfael took a last look at the cove and the +level of grass above it, memorised as much of the scene as he could, and set +off briskly up the path to meet the boat at the bridge.
+ +The river was fast and self-willed, and by hurrying, Cadfael won the race, +and had time to recruit three or four novices and lay brothers by the time +Madog brought his coracle into the ordered fringes of the Gaye. They had an +improvised litter ready, they lifted Baldwin Peche onto it, and bore him away +up the path to the Foregate and across to the gatehouse of the abbey. A nimble +and very young novice had been sent in haste to carry word to the +deputy-sheriff to come to the abbey at Brother Cadfael’s entreaty.
+ +But for all that, no one knew how, somehow the word had gone round. By the +time Madog arrived, so had a dozen idle observers, draped over the downstream +parapet of the bridge. By the time the bearers had got their burden to the +level of the Foregate and turned towards the abbey, the dozen had become a +score, and drifted in ominous quietness towards the end of the bridge, and +there were a dozen more gradually gathering behind them, emerging from the town +gate. When they reached the abbey gatehouse, which could not well be closed +against any who came in decorous silence and apparent peace, they had between +forty and fifty souls hovering at their heels and following them within. The +weight of their foreboding, accusation and self-righteousness lay heavy on the +nape of Cadfael’s neck as the litter was set down in the great court. When he +turned to view the enemy, for no question but they were the enemy, the first face +he saw, the first levelled brow and vengeful eye, was that of Daniel Aurifaber.
+Chapter Seven
+ +« ^ »
+ +They came +crowding close, peering round Madog and Cadfael to confirm what they already +knew. They passed the word back to those behind, in ominous murmurs that +swelled into excited speculation in a matter of moments. Cadfael caught at the +sleeve of the first novice who came curiously to see what was happening.
+ +“Get Prior Robert and sharp about it. We’re likely to need some other +authority before Hugh Beringar gets here.” And to the litter-bearers, before +they could be completely surrounded: “Into the cloister with him, while you +can, and stand ready to fend off any who try to follow.”
+ +The sorry cortege obediently made off into cover in some haste, and though +one or two of the younger fellows from the town were drawn after by gaping +curiosity to the threshold of the cloister, they did not venture further, but +turned back to rejoin their friends. An inquisitive ring drew in about Cadfael +and Madog.
+ +“That was Baldwin Peche the locksmith you had there,” said Daniel, not +asking, stating. “Our tenant. He never came home last night. John Boneth has +been hunting high and low for him.”
+ +“So have I,” said Madog, “at that same John’s urging. And between the two of +us here we’ve found both the man and his boat.”
+ +“Dead.” That was not a question either.
+ +“Dead, sure enough.”
+ +By that time Prior Robert had been found, and came in haste with his dutiful +shadow at his heels. Of the interruptions to his ordered, well-tuned life +within here, it seemed, there was to be no end. He had caught an unpleasant +murmur of ‘Murder!’ as he approached, and demanded in dismay and displeasure +what had happened to bring this inflamed mob into the great court. A dozen +voices volunteered to tell him, disregarding how little they themselves knew +about it.
+ +“Father Prior, we saw our fellow-townsman carried in here, dead…”
+ +“No one had seen him since yesterday…”
+ +“My neighbour and tenant, the locksmith,” cried Daniel. “Father robbed and +assaulted, and now Master Peche fetched in dead!”
+ +The prior held up a silencing hand, frowning them down. “Let one speak. +Brother Cadfael, do you know what this is all about?”
+ +Cadfael saw fit to tell the bare facts, without mention of any speculations +that might be going on in his own mind. He took care to be audible to them all, +though he doubted if they would be setting any limits to their own +speculations, however careful he might be. “Madog here has found the man’s boat +overturned, down-river past the castle,” he concluded. “And we have sent to +notify the deputy-sheriff, the matter will be in his hands now. He should be +here very soon.”
+ +That was for the more excitable ears. There were some wild youngsters among +them, the kind who are always at leisure to follow up every sensation, who +might well lose their heads if they sighted their scapegoat. For the +implication was already there, present in the very air. Walter robbed and +battered, now his tenant dead, and all evil must light upon the same head.
+ +“If the unfortunate man drowned in the river, having fallen from his boat,” +said Robert firmly, “there can be no possibility of murder. That is a foolish +and wicked saying.”
+ +They began to bay from several directions. “Father Prior, Master Peche was +not a foolhardy man…”
+ +“He knew the Severn from his childhood…”
+ +“So do many,” said Robert crisply, “who fall victim to it in the end, men no +more foolhardy than he. You must not attribute evil to what is natural +misfortune.”
+ +“And why should natural misfortune crowd so on one house?” demanded an +excited voice from the rear. “Baldwin was a guest the night Walter was struck +down and his coffer emptied.”
+ +“And next-door neighbour, and liked to nose out whatever was hidden. And +who’s to say he didn’t stumble on some proof that would be very bad news to the +villain that did the deed, and lurks here swearing to his innocence?”
+ +It was out, they took it up on all sides. “That’s how it was! Baldwin found +out something the wretch wouldn’t have been able to deny!”
+ +“And he’s killed the poor man to stop his mouth…”
+ +“A knock on the head and souse into the river…”
+ +“No trick to turn his boat loose for the river to take down after him…”
+ +Cadfael was relieved to see Hugh Beringar riding briskly in at the gatehouse +then with a couple of officers behind him. This was getting all too +predictable. When men have elected a villain, and one from comfortably outside +their own ranks, without roots or kin, they need feel nothing for him, he is +hardly a man, has no blood to be shed or heart to be broken, and whatever else +needs a scapegoat will be laid on him heartily and in the conviction of +righteousness. Nor will reason have much say in the matter. But he raised his +voice powerfully to shout them down: “The man you accuse is absolutely clear of +this, even if it were murder. He is in sanctuary here, dare not leave the +precinct, and has not left it. The king’s officers wait for him outside, as you +all know. Be ashamed to make such senseless charges!”
+ +He said afterwards, rather resignedly than bitterly, that it was a precise +measure of Liliwin’s luck that he should appear innocently from the cloister at +that moment, bewildered and shocked by the incursion of a dead body into the +pale, and coming anxiously to enquire about it, but utterly ignorant of any +connection it might be thought to have with him. He came hastening out of the +west walk, solitary, apart, marked at once by two or three of the crowd. A howl +went up, hideously triumphant. Liliwin took it like a great blast of cold wind +in his face, shrank and faltered, and his countenance, healing into smooth +comeliness these last two days, collapsed suddenly into the disintegration of +terror.
+ +The wildest of the young bloods moved fast, hallooing, but Hugh Beringar +moved faster. The raw-boned grey horse, his favourite familiar, clattered +nimbly between quarry and hounds, and Hugh was out of the saddle with a hand on +Liliwin’s shoulder, in a grip that could have been ambiguously arrest or +protection, and his neat, dark, saturnine visage turned blandly towards the +threatening assault. The foremost hunters froze discreetly, and thawed again +only to draw back by delicate inches from challenging his command.
+ +The nimble young novice had acquitted himself well, and shown an excellent +grasp of his charge, for Hugh had the half of it clear in his mind already and +understood its perilous application here. He kept his hold—let them read it +however they would—on Liliwin throughout the questioning that followed, and +listened as narrowly to Daniel Aurifaber’s heated witness as to Cadfael’s +account.
+ +“Very well! Father Prior, it would be as well if you yourself would convey +this in due course to the lord abbot. The drowned man I must examine, as also +the place where he was cast ashore and that where his boat came to rest. I must +call upon the help of those who found out these matters. For the rest of you, +if you have anything to say, say it now.”
+ +Say it they did, intimidated but still smouldering, and determined to pour +out their heat. For this was no chance death in the river, of that they were +certain. This was the killing of a witness, close, curious, likely of all men +to uncover some irrefutable evidence. He had found proof of the jongleur’s +strenuously-denied guilt, and he had been slipped into the Severn to drown +before he could open his mouth. They began by muttering it, they ended by +howling it. Hugh let them rave. He knew they were no such monsters as they made +themselves out to be, but knew, too, that given a following wind and a rash +impulse, they could be, to their own damage and that of every other man.
+ +They ran themselves out of words at length, and dwindled like sails bereft +of wind.
+ +“My men have been camped outside the gates here,” said Hugh then, calmly, “all +this while and have seen no sign of this man you accuse. To my knowledge he has +not set foot outside these walls. How, then, can he have had any hand in any +man’s death?”
+ +They had no answer ready to that, though they sidled and exchanged glances +and shook their heads as though they knew beyond doubt that there must be an +answer if they could only light on it. But out of the prior’s shadow the +insinuating voice of Brother Jerome spoke up mildly:
+ +“Pardon, Father Prior, but is it certain that the young man has been every +moment within here? Only recall, last night Brother Anselm was enquiring after +him and had not seen him since just after noon, and remarked, moreover, that he +did not come to the kitchen for his supper as is customary. And being concerned +for any guest of our house, I felt it my duty to look for him and did so +everywhere. That was just when twilight was falling. I found no trace of him +anywhere within the walls.”
+ +They took it up gleefully on the instant and Liliwin, as Cadfael observed +with a sigh, shook and swallowed hard, and could not get out a word, and drops +of sweat gathered on his upper lip and ran down, to be licked off feverishly.
+ +“You see, the good brother says it! He was not here! He was out about his +foul business!”
+ +“Say rather,” Prior Robert reproached gently, “that he could not be found.” +But he was not altogether displeased.
+ +“And go without his supper? A half-starved rat scorn his food unless he had +urgent business elsewhere?” cried Daniel fiercely.
+ +“Very urgent! He took his life in his hands to make sure Baldwin should not +live to speak against him.”
+ +“Speak up!” said Hugh drily, shaking Liliwin by the shoulder. “You have a +tongue, too. Did you leave the abbey enclave at any time?”
+ +Liliwin gulped down gall, hung in anguished silence a moment, and got out in +a great groan: “No!”
+ +“You were within here yesterday, when you were sought and could not be +found?”
+ +“I didn’t want to be found. I hid myself.” His voice was firmer when he had +at least a morsel of truth to utter. But Hugh pressed him still.
+ +“You have not once set foot outside this pale since you took refuge here?”
+ +“No, never!” he gasped, and dragged in breath as though he had run a great +way.
+ +“You hear?” said Hugh crisply, putting Liliwin aside and behind him. “You +have your answer. A man penned securely here cannot have committed murder +outside, even if this proves to be murder, as at this moment there is no proof +whatsoever. Now go, get back to your own crafts, and leave to the law what is +the law’s business. If you doubt my thoroughness, try crossing me.” And to his +officers he said simply: “Clear the court of those who have no business here. I +will speak with the provost later.”
+ +In the mortuary chapel Baldwin Peche lay stripped naked, stretched now on +his back, while Brother Cadfael, Hugh Beringar, Madog of the Dead-Boat and +Abbot Radulfus gathered about him attentively. In the corners of his eyes, now +closed, traces of ingrained mud lingered, drying, like the pigments vain women +use to darken and brighten their eyes. From his thick tangle of grizzled brown +hair Cadfael had coaxed out two or three strands of water crowfoot, cobweb-fine +stems with frail white flowers withering into veined brown filaments as they +died, and a broken twig of alder leaves. There was nothing strange in either of +those. Alders clustered in many places along the riverside, and this was the +season when delicate rafts of crowfoot swayed and trembled wherever there were +shallows or slower water.
+ +“Though the water where I found him,” said Cadfael, “runs fast, and will not +anchor these flowers. The opposite bank I fancy, harbours them better. That is +reasonable—if he launched his boat to go fishing it would be from that bank. +And now see what more he has to show us.”
+ +He cupped a palm under the dead man’s cheek, turned his face to the light, +and hoisted the bearded chin. The light falling into the stretched cavities of +the nostrils showed them only as shallow hollows silted solid with river mud. +Cadfael inserted the stem of the alder twig into one of them, and scooped out a +smooth, thick slime of fine gravel and a wisp of crowfoot embedded within it.
+ +“So I thought, when I hefted him to empty out the water from him and got +only a miserable drop or two. The drainings of mud and weed, not of a drowned +man.” He inserted his fingers between the parted lips, and showed the teeth +also parted, as if in a grimace of pain or a cry. Carefully he drew them wider. +Tendrils of crowfoot clung in the large, crooked teeth. Those peering close +could see that the mouth within was clogged completely with the debris of the +river.
+ +“Give me a small bowl,” said Cadfael, intent, and Hugh was before Madog in +obeying. There was a silver saucer under the unlighted lamp on the altar, the +nearest receptacle, and Abbot Radulfus made no move to demur. Cadfael eased the +stiffening jaw wider, and with a probing finger drew out into the bowl a thick +wad of mud and gravel, tinted with minute fragments of vegetation. “Having +drawn in this, he could not draw in water. No wonder I got none out of him.” He +felt gently about the dead mouth, probing out the last threads of crowfoot, +fine as hairs, and set the bowl aside.
+ +“What you are saying,” said Hugh, closely following, “is that he did not +drown.”
+ +“No, he did not drown.”
+ +“But he did die in the river. Why else these river weeds deep in his +throat?”
+ +“True. So he died. Bear with me, I am treading as blindly as you. I need to +know, like you, and like you, I must examine what we have.” Cadfael looked up at +Madog, who surely knew all these signs at least as well as any other man +living. “Are you with me so far?”
+ +“I am before you,” said Madog simply. “But tread on. For a blind man you +have not gone far astray.”
+ +“Then, Father, may we now turn him again on his face, as I found him?”
+ +Radulfus himself set his two long, muscular hands either side of the head, +to steady the dead man over, and settled him gently on one cheekbone.
+ +For all his self-indulgent habits of life, Baldwin Peche showed a strong, +hale body, broad-shouldered, with thick, muscular thighs and arms. The +discolorations of death were beginning to appear on him now, and they were +curious enough. The broken graze behind his right ear, that was plain and +eloquent, but the rest were matter for speculation.
+ +“That was never got from any floating branch,” said Madog with certainty, “nor +from being swept against a stone, either, not in that stretch of water. Up here +among the islands I wouldn’t say but it might be possible, though not likely. +No, that was a blow from behind, before he went into the water.”
+ +“You are saying,” said Radulfus gravely, “that the charge of murder is +justified.”
+ +“Against someone,” said Cadfael, “yes.”
+ +“And this man was indeed next-door neighbour to the household that was +robbed, and may truly have found out something, whether he understood its +meaning or not, that could shed light on that robbery?”
+ +“It is possible. He took an interest in other men’s business,” agreed +Cadfael cautiously.
+ +“And that would certainly be a strong motive for his removal, if the guilty +man got to know of it,” said the abbot, reflecting. “Then since this cannot be +the work of one who was here within our walls throughout, it is strong argument +in favour of the minstrel’s innocence of the first offence. And somewhere at +large is the true culprit.”
+ +If Hugh had already perceived and accepted the same logical consequence, he +made no comment on it. He stood looking down at the prone body in frowning +concentration. “So it would seem he was hit on the head and tossed into the +river. And yet he did not drown. What he drew in, in his fight for breath—in +his senses or out—was mud, gravel, weed.”
+ +“You have seen,” said Cadfael. “He was smothered. Held down somewhere in the +shallows, with his face pressed into the mud. And set afloat in the river +afterwards, with the intent he should be reckoned as one more among the many +drowned in Severn. A mistake! The current cast him up before the river had time +to wash away all these evidences of another manner of death.”
+ +He doubted, in fact, if they would ever have been completely washed away, +however long the body had been adrift. The stems of crowfoot were very +tenacious. The fine silt clung tightly where it had been inhaled in the +struggle for breath. But what was more mysterious was the diffused area of +bruising that spread over Peche’s back at the shoulder-blades, and the two or +three deep indentations in the swollen flesh there. In the deepest the skin was +broken, only a tiny lesion, as though something sharp and jagged had pierced him. +Cadfael could make nothing of these marks. He memorised them and wondered.
+ +There remained the contents of the silver bowl. Cadfael took it out to the +stone basin in the middle of the garth and carefully sluiced away the fine +silt, drawing aside and retaining the fragments of weed. Fine threads of +crowfoot, a tiny, draggled flower, a morsel of an alder leaf. And something +else, a sudden speck of colour. He picked it out and dipped it into the water +to wash away the dirt that clouded it, and there it lay glistening in the palm +of his hand, a mere scrap, two tiny florets, the tip of a head of flowers of a +reddish purple colour, speckled at the lip with a darker purple and a torn +remnant of one narrow leaf, just large enough to show a blackish spot on its green.
+ +They had followed him out and gathered curiously to gaze. “Fox-stones, we +call this,” said Cadfael, “for the two swellings at its root like pebbles. The +commonest of its kind, and the earliest, but I don’t recall seeing it much +here. This, like the broken twig of alder, he took down with him when he was +pushed into the water. It might be possible to find that place somewhere on the +town bank—where crowfoot and alder and fox-stones all grow together.”
+ +The place where Baldwin Peche had been cast ashore had little to tell beyond +what it had already told. The spot where Madog had turned down the dead man’s +coracle on the meadow grass was well down-river, and so feather-light a boat, +loose without a man’s weight aboard, might well have gone on bobbing gaily +downstream a mile or more beyond, before the first strong curve and encroaching +sandbank would inevitably have arrested it. They would have to comb the town +bank, Madog reckoned, from below the Watergate, to establish where he had been +assaulted and killed. A place where crowfoot grew inshore under alders, and +fox-stones were in flower close to the very edge of the water.
+ +The first two could be found together all along the reach. The third might +occur in only one place.
+ +Madog would search the riverside, Hugh would question the Aurifaber +household and the immediate neighbours, as well as the tavern-keepers of the +town, for everything they knew about the recent movements of Baldwin Peche: +where he had last been seen, who had spoken with him, what he had had to say. +For someone, surely, must have seen him after he left his shop about +mid-morning of the previous day, which was the last John Boneth knew of him.
+ +Meantime, Cadfael had business of his own, and much to think about. He came +back from the riverside too late for Vespers, but in time to visit his workshop +and make sure all was in order there before supper. Brother Oswin, left in +charge alone, was developing a deft touch and a proprietorial pride. He had not +broken or burned anything for several weeks.
+ +After supper Cadfael went in search of Liliwin, and found him sitting in +deep shadow in the darkest corner of the porch, drawn up defensively against +the stone with his arms locked about his knees. At this hour the light was too +far gone for work to proceed on the mending of his rebec, or his new studies +under Brother Anselm, and it seemed that the day’s alarms had driven him back +into distrust and despair, so that he hunched himself as small as possible into +his corner and kept a wary face against the world. Certainly he gave Cadfael a +bright, nervous, sidelong flash of his eyes as the monk hitched his habit +comfortably and sat down beside him.
+ +“Well, young man, have you fetched your supper tonight?” said Cadfael +placidly.
+ +Liliwin acknowledged that with a silent nod, watching him warily.
+ +“It seems you did not yesterday, and Brother Jerome tells us that a +maidservant came to visit you in the afternoon and brought you a basket of food +from her lady’s table. He had, he said, occasion to admonish you both.” The silence +beside him was charged and uneasy. “Now, granted Brother Jerome is uncommonly +good at finding grounds for admonishment, yet I fancy there is but one +maidservant whose presence here would have caused him qualms for the propriety +of your conduct—let alone the well-being of your soul.” It was said with a +smile in his voice, but he did not miss the slight shudder that convulsed the +thin body beside him or the stiffening of the hands that were clasped so +tightly round Liliwin’s knees. Now why in the world should the lad quake at the +mention of his soul’s health, just when Cadfael was becoming more and more +convinced that he had no guilt whatever upon his conscience, bar an +understandable lie or two.
+ +“Was it Rannilt?”
+ +“Yes,” said Liliwin, just audibly.
+ +“She came with good leave? Or of her own accord?”
+ +Liliwin told him, in as few words as possible.
+ +“So that was how it befell. And Jerome bade her do her errand and go, and
+stood over you to make sure she obeyed. And it was from that hour, as I
+understand—after he had witnessed her going—that no one saw
“No,” said Liliwin, none too happily. Not speech, exactly, but a small, +shamed sound hurriedly suppressed.
+ +“You let her go somewhat tamely, did you not?” remarked Cadfael critically. +“Seeing the magnitude of the step she had taken for you.”
+ +The evening was closing down tranquilly all round them, there was no one +else to hear, and Liliwin had spent much of the day wrestling alone with the +belated conviction of his mortal sin. Terror of men was surely enough to bear, +without being suddenly visited by the terror of damnation, let alone the awful +sense of having brought about the damnation of another person as dear to him as +himself. He uncurled abruptly from his dark corner, slid his legs over the edge +of the stone bench, and clutched Cadfael impulsively by the arm.
+ +“Brother Cadfael, I want to tell you… I must tell someone! I did—
Brother Cadfael said no word either to help or check him, but waited in +silence.
+ +“I couldn’t think of anything but that she would go away, and I might never +be with her again,” blurted Liliwin miserably, “and I knew she was in the +selfsame pain. We never intended evil, but we committed a terrible sacrilege. +Here in the church, behind one of the holy altars—We couldn’t bear it… We lay +together as lovers do!”
+ +He had said it, it was out, the very worst of it. He sat humbly waiting for +condemnation, resigned to whatever might come, even relieved at having shifted +the burden to other shoulders. There was no exclamation of horror, but this +brother was not so given to prodigal admonishment as that sour one who had +frowned on Rannilt.
+ +“You love this girl?” asked Cadfael after some thought, and very placidly.
+ +“Yes, I
“I think,” said Cadfael, “she would rather have the man she has already +chosen. Where mutual love is, I find it hard to consider any place too holy to +house it. Our Lady, according to the miracles they tell of her, has been known +to protect even the guilty who sinned out of love. You might try a few prayers +to her, that will do no harm. Don’t trouble too much for what was done under +such strong compulsion and pure of any evil intent. And how long, then,” +enquired Cadfael, eyeing his penitent tolerantly, “did you remain hidden there? +Brother Anselm was worried about you.”
+ +“We fell asleep, both of us.” Liliwin shook again at the memory. “When we +roused, it was late and dark, they were singing Compline. And she had to go back +all that way into the town in the night!”
+ +“And you let her go alone?” demanded Cadfael with deceitful indignation.
+ +“I did not! What do you take me for?” Liliwin had flared and fallen into the +snare before he stopped to think, and it was too late to take it back. He sat +back with a deflated sigh, stooping his face into deeper shadow.
+ +“What do I take you for?” Cadfael’s smile was hidden by the dusk. “A bit of +a rogue, perhaps, but no worse than the most of us. A bit of a liar when the +need’s great enough, but who isn’t? So you did slip out of here to take the +child home. Well, I think the better of you for it, it must have cost you some +terrors.” And provided a salutary stiffening of self-respect, he thought but +did not say.
+ +In a small and perversely resentful voice Liliwin asked: “How did you know?”
+ +“By the effort it cost you to get the denial out. For you will never make a
+really
Liliwin took heart and told him, how the new clothes had got him past the +guards on the heels of the worshippers, and how he had taken Rannilt to her +very doorway, and made his way back under cover of the returning lay servants. +What had passed between himself and Rannilt on the way he kept to himself, and +it did not enter his mind to say any word of what else he had noticed, until +Cadfael took him up alertly on that very subject.
+ +“So you were there, outside the shop, about an hour after Compline?” Night +is the favoured time for ridding oneself of enemies, and this was the one night +that had passed since Baldwin Peche was last seen alive.
+ +“Yes, I watched her safe into the courtyard. Only I fret,” said Liliwin, “over +what sort of welcome she may have found. Though her lady did say she might stay +the day out. I hope no one was angry with her.”
+ +“Well, since you were there, did you see ought of anything or anyone +stirring about the place?”
+ +“I did see one man who was out and about,” said Liliwin, remembering. “It +was after Rannilt had gone in. I was standing opposite, in a dark doorway, and +Daniel Aurifaber came out through the passage, and went away to the left along +the lane. He can’t have gone far without turning aside, for when I went back to +the Cross and down the Wyle he was gone already, I never saw sign of him +after.”
+ +“Daniel? You’re sure it was he?” That young man had been very prompt and +present this afternoon, as soon as the usual idlers saw a body being lifted +ashore under the bridge. Very prompt and very forward to lead the accusers who +made haste to fling this, like the other offences, on the stranger’s head, +reason or no reason, sanctuary or no sanctuary.
+ +“Oh, yes, there’s no mistaking him.” He was surprised that such a point +should be made of it. “Is it important?”
+ +“It may be. But no matter now. One thing you haven’t said,” pointed out +Cadfael gravely, “and yet I’m sure you are not so dull but you must have +thought on it. Once you were out of here and no alarm, and the night before +you, you might have made off many miles from here, and got clean away from your +accusers. Were you not tempted?”
+ +“So
“Why did you not?”
+ +Because she did not truly want me to, thought Liliwin, with a joyful lift of
+the heart for all his burdens. And because if ever she does come to me, it
+shall not be to an accused felon, but to a man acknowledged honest before the world.
+Aloud he voiced only the heart of that revelationary truth: “Because now I
+won’t go without her. When I leave—
Chapter Eight
+ +« ^ »
+ +Hugh sought +out Cadfael after chapter the next morning for a brief conference in his +workshop in the herbarium.
+ +“They’re all in a tale,” said Hugh, leaning back with a cup of Cadfael’s
+latest-broached wine under the rustling bunches of last year’s harvest of
+herbs. “All insistent that this death must be linked to what happened at the
+young fellow’s wedding feast. But since they’re all of them obsessed with
+money,
“There’s a boy runs the errands and sleeps there in the shop,” said Cadfael. +“Has he ought to say?”
+ +“The dark boy, the simpleton? I wouldn’t say his memory goes back farther +than a day or so, but he’s positive his master did not come back to his shop +after he looked in at mid-morning, the day before he was fished out of the Severn. +They were used to his absences by day, but the boy was anxious when there was +no return at twilight. He didn’t sleep. I would take his word for it there was +no disturbance, no prowling about that burgage during the night. Nor are we the +nearer knowing just when the man died, though the night would seem to be when +he was set adrift, and the boat, too. There was no overturned coracle sighted +down the Severn during the day—either day.”
+ +“You’ll be going back there, I suppose,” said Cadfael. There had been very +little time the previous day for hunting out all the neighbours to testify. “I’ve +an errand there myself to the old dame tomorrow, but no occasion to go that way +today. Give an eye for me to the little Welsh girl, will you, see in what +spirits she is, and whether they’re being rough or smooth with her.”
+ +Hugh cocked a smiling eye at him. “Your countrywoman, is she? To judge by +the way I heard her singing away about her pot-scouring, last night, she’s in +good enough heart.”
+ +“Singing, was she?” That would come as very welcome news to that draggled +sparrow in his sanctuary cage here. Evidently no hardship more than normal had +fallen upon Rannilt for her day of freedom. “Good, that answers me very +properly. And, Hugh, if you’ll take a nudge from me without asking any +questions as to where I picked up the scent—probe around as to whether anyone +on that street saw Daniel Aurifaber slipping out in the dark an hour past +Compline, when he should have been snug in bed with his bride.”
+ +Hugh turned his black head sharply, and gave his friend a long and quizzical
+look. “
“That night.”
+ +“Three days married!” Hugh grimaced and laughed. “I’d heard the young man +has the name for it. But I take your meaning. There may be other reasons for leaving +a new wife to lie cold.”
+ +“When I spoke with him,” said Cadfael, “he made no secret of it that he +heartily disliked the locksmith. Though had his dislike had a solid core, and +gone as far as congealing into hate, I think he might have been less voluble +about it.”
+ +“I’ll bear that in mind, too. Tell me, Cadfael,” said Hugh, eyeing him
+shrewdly, “how strong is the scent you got wind of? Say I find no such
+witness—no
“In your shoes,” said Cadfael cheerfully,
“You seem to have found your witness in very short order,” remarked Hugh +drily, “and without leaving the precinct. So you got it out of him—whatever it +was that had him choking on a simple lie. I thought you would.” He rose, +grinning, and set down his cup. “I’ll take your confession later, I’m away now +to see what I can get out of the new wife.” He clouted Cadfael amiably on the +shoulder in passing, and looked back from the doorway. “No need to fret for +that weedy lad of yours, I’m coming round to your opinion. I doubt if he ever +did worse in his life than sneak a few apples from an orchard.”
+ +The journeyman, Iestyn, was working alone in the shop, repairing the broken +clasp of a bracelet, when Hugh came to the Aurifaber burgage. It was the first +time Hugh had spoken with this man alone, and in company Iestyn kept himself +silent and apart. Either he was taciturn by nature, thought Hugh, or the family +had taken care to make his status clear to him, and it was not theirs, and +there should be no stepping over the line that divided them.
+ +In answer to Hugh’s question he shook his head, smiling and hoisting +impassive shoulders.
+ +“How would I see what goes on in the street after dark or who’s on the prowl +when decent folks are in bed? I sleep in the back part of the undercroft, +beneath the rear of the hall, my lord. Those outside stairs go down to my bed, +as far from the lane as you can get. I neither see nor hear anything from +there.”
+ +Hugh had already noted the stairs that dived below the house at the rear, a +shallow flight, since the ground dropped steadily away from the street level, +and the undercroft, completely below-ground at the street end, was half +above-ground at the back. From there, certainly, a man would be cut off from +the world outside.
+ +“At what hour did you go there, two nights ago?”
+ +Iestyn knotted his thick black brows and considered. “I’m always early, +having to rise early. I reckon about eight that night, as soon as my supper had +settled.”
+ +“You had no late errands to do? Nothing that took you out again after that?”
+ +“No, my lord.”
+ +“Tell me, Iestyn,” said Hugh on impulse, “are you content in your work here? +With Master Walter and his family? You have fair treatment, and a good +relationship?”
+ +“One that suits me well enough,” said Iestyn cautiously. “My wants are +simple, I make no complaint. I never doubt time will bring me my due. First to +earn it.”
+ +Susanna met Hugh in the hall doorway, and bade him in with the same +practical composure she would have used with any other. Questioned, she +shrugged away all knowledge with a rueful smile.
+ +“My chamber is here, my lord, between hall and store, the length of the +house away from the street. Baldwin’s boy did not come to us with his trouble, +though he well could have done. At least he would have had company. But he +didn’t come, so we knew nothing of his master being still astray until the +morning, when John came. I was sorry poor Griffin worried out the night alone.”
+ +“And you had not seen Master Peche during the day?”
+ +“Not since morning, when we were all about the yard and the well. I went +across to his shop at dinner with a bowl of broth, having plenty to spare, and +it was then John told me he’d gone out. Gone since mid-morning and said +something about the fish rising. To the best I know, that’s the last known word +of him.”
+ +“So Boneth has told me. And no report of him from any shop or ale-house or +friend’s house since. In a town where every man knows every man, that’s +strange. He steps over his door-sill and is gone.” He looked up the broad, +unguarded stairs that led up from beyond her door to the gallery and the rooms +above. “How are these chambers arranged? Who has the one on the street, above +the shop?”
+ +“My father. But he sleeps heavily. Yet ask him, who knows but he may have +heard or seen something. Next to him my brother and his wife. Daniel is away to +Frankwell, but Margery you’ll find in the garden with my father. And then my +grandmother has the nearest chamber. She keeps her room today, she’s old and +has had some trying seizures, perilous at her age. But she’ll be pleased if you +care to visit her,” said Susanna, with a brief, flashing smile, “for all the +rest of us grow very tedious to her, she’s worn us out long ago, we no longer +amuse her. I doubt if she can tell you anything that will help you, my lord, +but the change would do marvels for her.”
+ +She had wide eyes at once distant and brilliant, fringed with lashes russet +as her coil of lustrous hair. A pity there should be grey strands in the +russet, and fine wrinkles, whether of laughter or long-sighted pain, at the +corners of the grey eyes, and drawn lines, like cobweb, about her full, firm +mouth. She was, Hugh judged, at least six or seven years older than he, and +seemed more. A fine thing spoiled for want of a little spending. Hugh had come +by what was his as an only child, but he did not think a sister of his would +have been left thus used and unprovided, to furnish a brother richly forth.
+ +“I’ll gladly present myself to Dame Juliana,” he said, “when I have spoken +with Master Walter and Mistress Margery.”
+ +“That would be kind,” she said. “And I could bring you wine, and that would +give me the chance to bring her, with it, a dose she might otherwise refuse to +take, even though Brother Cadfael comes tomorrow and she minds him more than +any of us. Go down this way, then, my lord. I’ll look for you returning.”
+ +Either the goldsmith had nothing to tell, or else could not bring himself to +spend even words. The one thing that haunted him day and night was his lost +treasury, of which he had rendered an inventory piece by piece, almost coin by +coin, in loving and grieving detail. The coins in particular were notable. He +had silver pieces from before Duke William ever became King William, fine +mintage not to be matched now. His father and grandfather, and perhaps one +progenitor more, must have been of the same mind as himself, and lived for +their fine-struck wealth. Walter’s head might be healed now without, but his +loss might well have done untold harm to the mind within.
+ +Hugh stood patiently under the apple and pear trees of the orchard, pressing +his few questions concerning the vanishing of Baldwin Peche. Almost it seemed +to him that the name no longer struck any spark, that Walter had to blink and +shake himself and think hard before he could recall the name or the face of his +dead tenant. He could not see the one or remember the other for brooding on his +voided coffer.
+ +One thing was certain, if he knew of anything that could help to recover his +goods, he would pour it out in a hurry. Another man’s death, by comparison, +meant little to him. Nor did it seem that he had yet hit upon one possibility +that was hovering in Hugh’s mind. If there was indeed a connection between the +robbery and this death, need it be the one to which the town had jumped so +nimbly? Robbers can also be robbed, and may even be killed in the robbing. +Baldwin Peche had been a guest at the wedding, he had made the locks and keys +for the strong-box, and who knew the house and shop better than he?
+ +Margery had been feeding the fowls that scratched in an arrow run under the +town wall, at the bottom of the garden. Until a year previously Walter had even +kept his two horses here within the town, but recently he had acquired a +pasture and an old stable across the river, westward from Frankwell, where +Iestyn was regularly sent to see that they were fed and watered and groomed, +and exercise them if they were short of work. The girl was coming up the slope +of the garden with the morning’s eggs in a basket, the bulk of the wall in +shadow behind her, and the narrow door in it closed. A short, rounded, +insignificant young person to the view, with an untidy mass of fair hair. She +made Hugh a wary reverence, and raised to him a pair of round, unwavering eyes.
+ +“My husband is out on an errand, sir, I’m sorry. In half an hour or so he +may be back.”
+ +“No matter,” said Hugh truly, “I can speak with him later. And you may well +be able to speak for both, and save the time. You know on what business I’m +engaged. Master Peche’s death seems likely to prove no accident, and though he +was missing most of the day, yet the night is the most favourable time for +villainies such as murder. We need to know what every man was doing two nights +ago, and whether he saw or heard anything that may help us lay hands on the +culprit. I understand your chamber is the second one, back from the street, yet +you may have looked out and seen someone lurking in the alley between the +houses, or heard some sound that may have meant little to you then. Did you +so?”
+ +She said at once: “No. It was a quiet night, like any other.”
+ +“And your husband made no mention of noticing anything out of the way? No +one out and about on the roads when law-abiding people are fast at home? Had he +occasion to be in the shop late? Or any errand outside?”
+ +Her rose and white countenance flushed very slowly a deeper rose, but her +eyes did not waver, and she found a ready excuse for her colour. “No, we +retired in good time. Your lordship will understand—we are only a few days +married.”
+ +“I understand very well!” said Hugh heartily. “Then I need hardly ask you if +your husband so much as left your side.”
+ +“Never for a moment,” she agreed, and voice and flush were eloquent, whether +they told truth or no.
+ +“The idea would never have entered my mind,” Hugh assured her urbanely, “if +we had not the testimony of a witness who says he saw your husband creeping out +of the house and making off in haste about an hour after Compline that night. +But of course, more’s the unwisdom, not all witnesses tell the truth.”
+ +He made her a civil bow, and turned and left her then, neither lingering nor +hurrying, and strolled back up the garden path to the house. Margery stood +staring after him with her underlip caught between her teeth, and the basket of +eggs dangling forgotten from her hand.
+ +She was waiting and watching for Daniel when he came back from Frankwell. +She drew him aside into a corner of the yard, where they could not be +overheard, and the set of her chin and brows stopped his mouth when he began to +blurt out loud, incautious wonder at being thus waylaid. Instead, he questioned +in an uneasy undertone, impressed by her evident gravity: “What is it? What’s +the matter with you?”
+ +“The sheriff’s deputy has been here asking questions. Of all of us!”
+ +“Well, so he must, what is there in that? And what, of all people, could you +tell him?” The implied scorn did not escape her; that would change, and soon.
+ +“I
Daniel was gaping at her, white-faced and aghast, and gripping her hand as
+if his senses at that moment had no other anchor. “Dear God, they can’t think
+that!
“I don’t know you at all! You pay me no attention, you’re nothing but a +stranger to me, you steal out at night and leave me in tears, and what do you +care?”
+ +“Oh, God!” babbled Daniel in a frantic whisper, “What am I to do? And you +told him? You told him I went out—the whole night?”
+ +“No, I did not. I’m a loyal wife, if you’re no proper husband to me. I told +him you were with me, that you never left my side.”
+ +Daniel drew breath deep, gawping at her in idiot relief, and began to smile, +and jerk out praise and thanks incoherently while he wrung her hand, but +Margery measured out her moment like a fencer, and struck the grin ruthlessly from +his face.
+ +“But he knows it is not true.”
+ +“What?” He collapsed again into terror. “But how can he? If you told him I +was with you…”
+ +“I did. I’ve perjured myself for you and all to no purpose.
“I never had ought to do with it,” he wailed softly. “I told you truth…”
+ +“You told me you had things to do that were no concern of mine. And +everybody knows you had no love for the locksmith.”
+ +“Oh, God!” moaned Daniel, gnawing his knuckles. “Why did I ever go near the +girl? I was mad! But I swear to you, Margery, that was all, it was to Cecily I +went… and never again, never! Oh, girl, help me… what am I to do?”
+ +“There’s only one thing you can do,” she said forcefully. “If that’s truly +where you were, you must go to this woman, and get her to speak up for you, as +she ought. Surely she’ll tell the truth, for your sake, and then the sheriff’s +men will let you alone. And I’ll confess that I lied. I’ll say it was for shame +of being so slighted, though it was truly for love of you—however little you +deserve it.”
+ +“I will!” breathed Daniel, weak with fear and hope and gratitude all +mingled, and stroking and caressing her hand as he had never done before. “I’ll +go to her and ask her. And never see her again, I promise you, I swear to you, +Margery.”
+ +“Go after dinner,” said Margery, securely in the ascendancy, “for you must +come and eat and put a good face on it. You can, you must. No one else knows of +this, no one but I, and I’ll stand by you whatever it cost me.”
+ +Mistress Cecily Corde did not brighten or bridle at the sight of her lover +creeping in at the back door of her house early in the afternoon. She scowled +as blackly as so golden a young woman could, hauled him hastily into a closed +chamber where they could not possible be overlooked by her maidservant, and +demanded of him, before he had even got his breath back, what he thought he was +doing there in broad daylight, and with the sheriff’s men about the town as +well as the usual loiterers and gossips. In a great, gasping outpour Daniel +told her what he was about, and why, and what he needed, entreated, must have +from her, avowal that he had spent Monday night with her from nine of the +evening until half an hour before dawn. His peace of mind, his safety, perhaps +his life, hung on her witness. She could not deny him, after all they had meant +to each other, all he had given her, all they had shared.
+ +Once she had grasped what he was asking of her, Cecily disengaged violently +from the embrace she had permitted as soon as the door was closed, and heaved +him off in a passion of indignation.
+ +“Are you mad? Throw my good name to the four winds to save your skin? I’ll +do no such thing, the very idea of asking it of me! You should be ashamed! +Tomorrow or the next day my man will be home, and very well you know it. You +would not have come near me now, if you had any thought for me. And like this, +in daylight, with the streets full! You’d better go, quickly, get away from +here.”
+ +Daniel clung, aghast, unable to believe in such a reception. “Cecily, it may
+be my life! I
“If you dare,” she hissed, backing violently out of his desperate attempt at +an embrace, “I shall deny it. I shall swear that you lie, that you’ve pestered +me, and I’ve never encouraged you. I mean it! Dare mention my name and I’ll +brand you liar, and bring witness enough to bear me out. Now go, go, I never +want to see you again!”
+ +Daniel fled back to Margery. She had the shrewd sense to be watching for +him, having known very well what his reception must be, and spirited him +competently away to their own chamber where, if they kept their voices down, +they could not be heard. Dame Juliana, next door, slept in the afternoon and +slept soundly. Their private business was safe from her.
+ +In agitated whispers he poured out everything though he was telling her +nothing she did not already know. She judged it time to soften against his +shoulder, while keeping the mastery firmly in her own hands. He had been +shocked out of his male complacency, and almost out of his skin, she felt pity +and affection for him, but that was a luxury she could not yet afford.
+ +“Listen, we’ll go together. You have a confession to make, but so have I. +We’ll not wait for the Lord Beringar to come to us, we’ll go to him. I’ll own +that I lied to him, that you left me alone all that night, knowing you were +gone to a paramour. You’ll tell him the same. I shall not know her name. And +you will refuse to give it. You must say she is a married woman, and it would +be her ruin. He’ll respect you for it. And we’ll say that we start anew, from +this hour.”
+ +She had him in her hand. He would go with her, he would swear to whatever +she said. They would start anew from that hour; and she would be holding the +reins.
+ +In bed that night she clasped a devout, grateful husband, who could not fawn +on her enough. Whether Hugh Beringar had believed their testimony or not, he +had received it with gravity, and sent them away solemnly admonished but +feeling themselves delivered. A Daniel eased of all fear that the eye of the +law was turned ominously upon him would sit still where a hand could be laid on +him at any moment.
+ +“It’s over,” Margery assured him, fast in his arms, and surprisingly +contented there, considering all things. “I’m sure you need not trouble any +more. No one believes you ever harmed the man. I’ll stand with you, and we have +nothing to fear.”
+ +“Oh, Margery, what should I have done without you?” He was drifting +blissfully towards sleep, after extreme fear and the release of correspondingly +great pleasure. Never before had he felt such devotional fervour, even to his +mistresses. This might have been said to be his true wedding night. “You’re a +good girl, loyal and true…”
+ +“I’m your wife, who loves you,” she said, and more than half believed it, to
+her own mild surprise. “And loyal you’ll find me, whenever you call upon me.
“Surely you have your place,” he protested tenderly. “The place of honour, +mistress of the house. What else? We all bear with my grandmother, she’s old +and set in her ways, but she doesn’t meddle with the housekeeping.”
+ +“No, I don’t complain of her, of course we must reverence the elders. But +your wife should be granted her due in responsibilities as well as privilege. +If your mother still lived it would be different. But Dame Juliana has given up +her direction of the household, being so old, to our generation. I am sure your +sister has done her duty nobly by you all all these years…”
+ +Daniel hugged her close, his thick curls against her brow. “Yes, so she has, +and you can keep your hands white and take your ease, and be the lady of the +house, why should you not?”
+ +“That is not what I want,” said Margery firmly, gazing up into the dark with
+wide-open eyes. “You’re a man, you don’t understand. Susanna works hard, no one
+could complain of her, she keeps a good table without waste, and all the linen
+and goods and provisions in fine order, I know. I give her all credit. But that
+is the
“Love, why should you not work together? Half the load is lighter to bear, +and I don’t want my wife worn out with cares,” he murmured smugly into the +tangle of her hair. And thought himself very cunning, no doubt, wanting peace +as men always want it, far before justice or propriety; but she would not let +him get away with that sop.
+ +“She won’t give up any part of the load, she has had her place so long, she
+stands off any approach. Only on Monday I offered to fetch in the washing for
+her, and she cut me off sharply,
“Whatever you want,” he said with sleepy fervour, “you shall have. I do see +that my sister ought now to give up her office to you, and should have done so +willingly, of her own accord. But she has held the reins here so long, she has +not yet considered that I’m now a married man. Susanna is a sensible woman, +she’ll see reason.”
+ +“It is not easy for a woman to give up her place,” Margery pointed out +sternly. “I shall need your support, for it’s your status as well as mine in +question. Promise me you will stand with me to get my rights.”
+ +He promised readily, as he would have promised her anything that night. Of +the two of them, she had certainly been the greater gainer from the day’s +crises and recoveries. She fell asleep knowing it, and already marshalling her +skills to build on it.
+Chapter Nine
+ +« ^ »
+ +Dame Juliana +tapped her way down the broad wooden treads of the stairs to the hall in good +time on the following morning, determined to greet Brother Cadfael when he came +after breakfast with all the presence and assurance of a healthy old lady in +full command of her household, even if she had to prepare her seat and +surroundings in advance and keep her walking-stick handy. He knew that she was +no such matter, and she knew that he knew it. She had a foot in the grave, and +sometimes felt it sinking under her and drawing her in. But this was a final +game they played together, in respect and admiration if not in love or even liking.
+ +Walter was off to his workshop with his son this morning. Juliana sat +enthroned in her corner by the stairs, cushioned against the wall, eyeing them +all, tolerant of all, content with none. Her long life, longer than any woman +should be called upon to sustain, trailed behind her like a heavy bridal train +dragging at the shoulders of a child bride, holding her back, weighing her +down, making every step a burden.
+ +As soon as Rannilt had washed the few platters and set the bread-dough to +rise, she brought some sewing to a stool in the hall doorway, to have the full +light. A decent, drab brown gown, with a jagged tear above its hem. The girl +was making a neat job of mending it. Her eyes were young. Juliana’s were very +old, but one part of her that had not mouldered. She could see the very +stitches the maid put in, small and precise as they were.
+ +“Susanna’s gown?” she said sharply. “How did she come to get a rent like +that? And the hems washed out too! In my day we made things last until they +wore thin as cobweb before we thought of discarding them. No such husbandry +these days. Rend and mend and throw away to the beggars! Spendthrifts all!”
+ +Plainly nothing was going to be right for the old woman today, she was +determined to make her carping authority felt by everyone. It was better, on +such days, to say nothing, or if answers were demanded, make them as short and +submissive as possible.
+ +Rannilt was glad when Brother Cadfael came in through the passage with +dressings in his scrip for the ulcer that was again threatening to erupt on the +old woman’s ankle. The thin, eroded skin parted at the least touch or graze. He +found his patient reared erect and still in her corner, waiting for him, silent +and thoughtful for once, but at his coming she roused herself to maintain, in +the presence of this friendly enemy, her reputation for tartness, obstinacy and +grim wit, and for taking always, with all her kin, the contrary way. Whoever +said black, Juliana would say white.
+ +“You should keep this foot up,” said Cadfael, cleaning the small but ugly +lesion with a pad of linen, and applying a new dressing. “As you know very +well, and have been told all too often. I wonder if I should not rather be +telling you to stamp about upon it day-long—then you might do the opposite and +let it heal.”
+ +“I kept my room yesterday,” she said shortly, “and am heartily sick of it +now. How do I know what they get up to behind my back while I’m shut away up +there? Here at least I can see what goes on and speak up if I see cause—as I +will, to the end of my days.”
+ +“Small doubt!” agreed Cadfael, rolling his bandage over the wound and +finishing it neatly. “I’ve never known you baulk your fancy yet, and never +expect to. Now, how is it with your breathing? No more chest pains? No +giddiness?”
+ +She would not have considered she had had her full dues unless she had +indulged a few sharp complaints of a pain here, or a cramp there, and she did +not grudge it that most of them he brushed away no less bluntly. It was all a +means of beguiling the endless hours of the day that seemed so long in passing, +but once past, rushed away out of mind like water slipping through the fingers.
+ +Rannilt finished her mending, and carried off the gown into Susanna’s +chamber, to put it away in the press; and presently Susanna came in from the +kitchen and stopped to pass the time of day civilly with Cadfael, and enquire +of him how he thought the old woman did, and whether she should continue to +take the draught he had prescribed for her after her seizure.
+ +They were thus occupied when Daniel and Margery came in together from the +shop. Side by side they entered, and there was something ceremonious in their +approach, particularly in their silence, where they had certainly been talking +together in low, intent tones on the threshold. They barely greeted Cadfael, +not with any incivility, but rather as if their minds were fixed on something +else, and their concentration on it must not be allowed to flag for a moment. +Cadfael caught the tension and so, he thought, did Juliana. Only Susanna seemed +to notice nothing strange, and did not stiffen in response.
+ +The presence of someone not belonging to the clan was possibly an +inconvenience, but Margery did not intend to be deflected or to put off what +she was braced to say.
+ +“We have been discussing matters, Daniel and I,” she announced, and for a +person who looked so soft and pliable her voice was remarkably firm and +resolute. “You’ll understand, Susanna, that with Daniel’s marriage there are +sure to be changes in the order here. You have borne the burden of the house +nobly all these years…” That was unwise, perhaps; it was all those years that +had dried and faded what must once have been close to beauty, their signature +was all too plain in Susanna’s face. “But now you can resign it and take your +leisure and no reproach to you, it’s well earned. I begin to know my way about +the house, I shall soon get used to the order of the day here, and I am ready +to take my proper place as Daniel’s wife. I think, and he thinks too, that I +should take charge of the keys now.”
+ +The shock was absolute. Perhaps Margery had known that it would be. Every +trace of colour drained out of Susanna’s face, leaving her dull and opaque as +clay, and then as swiftly the burning red flooded back, rising into her very +brow. The wide grey eyes stared hard and flat as steel. For long moments she +did not speak; Cadfael thought she could not. He might have stolen silently +away and left them to their fight, if he had not been concerned for its +possible effect on Dame Juliana. She was sitting quite still and mute, but two +small, sharp points of high colour had appeared on her cheek bones, and her +eyes were unusually bright. Or again, he might in any case have stayed, +unobtrusive in the shadows, having more than his fair share of human curiosity.
+ +Susanna had recovered her breath and the blood to man her tongue. Fire +kindled behind her eyes, like a vivid sunset through a pane of horn.
+ +“You are very kind, sister, but I do not choose to quit my charge so
+lightly. I have done nothing to be displaced, and I do not give way. Am I a
+slave, to be put to work as long as I’m needed, and then thrown out at the
+door? With nothing?
The quarrels of women are at all times liable to be bitter, ferocious and +waged without quarter, especially when they bear upon the matriarchal +prerogative. Yet Cadfael found it surprising that Susanna should have been so +shaken out of her normal daunting calm. Perhaps this challenge had come earlier +than she had expected, but surely she could have foreseen it and need not, for +that one long moment, have stood so mute and stricken. She was ablaze now, +claws bared and eyes sharp as daggers.
+ +“I understand your reluctance,” said Margery, growing sweet as her opponent +grew bitter. “Never think there is any implied complaint, oh, no, I know you +have set me an exemplary excellence to match. But see, a wife without a +function is a vain thing, but a daughter who has borne her share of the burden +already may relinquish it with all honour, and leave it to younger hands. I +have been used to working, I cannot go idle. Daniel and I have talked this +over, and he agrees with me. It is my right!” If she did not nudge him in the +ribs, the effect was the same.
+ +“So we have talked it over and I stand by Margery,” he said stoutly. “She is +my wife, it’s right she should have the managing of this house which will be +hers and mine. I’m my father’s heir, shop and business come to me, and this +household comes to Margery just as surely, and the sooner she can take it upon +her, the better for us all. Good God, sister, you must have known it. Why +should you object?”
+ +“Why should I object? To be dismissed all in a moment like a thieving +servant? I, who have carried you all, fed you, mended for you, saved for you, +held up the house over you, if you had but the wit to know it or the grace to +admit it. And my thanks is to be shoved aside into a corner to moulder, is it, +or to fetch and carry and scrub and scour at the orders of a newcomer? No, that +I won’t do! Let your wife clerk and count for you, as she claims she did for her +father, and leave my stores, my kitchen, my keys to me. Do you think I’ll +surrender tamely the only reason for living left to me? This family has denied +me any other.”
+ +Walter, if he had anticipated any of this, had been wise to keep well away +from it, safe in his shop. But the likelihood was that he had never been warned +or consulted, and was expendable until this dispute was settled.
+ +“But you knew,” cried Daniel, impatiently brushing aside her lifelong +grievance, seldom if ever mentioned so plainly before, “you knew I should be +marrying, and surely you had the sense to know my wife would expect her proper +place in the house. You’ve had your day, you’ve no complaint. Of course the +wife has precedence and requires the keys. And shall have them, too!”
+ +Susanna turned her shoulder on him and appealed with flashing eyes to her +grandmother, who had sat silent this while, but followed every word and every +look. Her face was grim and controlled as ever, but her breathing was rapid and +shallow, and Cadfael had closed his fingers on her wrist to feel the beat of +her blood there, but it remained firm and measured. Her thin grey lips were set +in a somewhat bitter smile.
+ +“Madam grandmother, do you speak up! Your word still counts here as mine, it +seems, cannot. Have I been so useless to you that you, also, want to discard +me? Have I not done well by you all, all this while?”
+ +“No one has found fault with you,” said Juliana shortly. “That is not the +issue. I doubt if this chit of Daniel’s can match you, or do the half as well, +but I suppose she has the goodwill and the perseverance to learn, if it has to +be by her errors. What she has, and so I tell you, girl, is the right of the +argument. The household rule is owing to her, and she will have to have it. I +can say no other, like it or lump it. You may as well make it short and final, +for it must happen.” And she rapped her stick sharply on the floor to make a +period to the judgement.
+ +Susanna stood gnawing at her lips and looking from face to face of all these +three who were united against her. She was calm now, the anger that filled her +had cooled into bitter scorn.
+ +“Very well,” she said abruptly. “Under protest I’ll do what’s required of +me. But not today. I have been the mistress here for years, I will not be +turned out in the middle of my day’s work, without time to make up my accounts. +She shall not be able to pick flies here and there, and say, this was left +unfinished, or, she never told me there was a new pan needed, or, here’s a +sheet was left wanting mending. No! Margery shall have a full inventory +tomorrow, when I’ll hand over my charge. She shall have it listed what stocks +she inherits, to the last salt fish in the last barrel. She shall start with a +fair, clean leaf before her. I have my pride, even if no other regards it.” She +turned fully to Margery, whose round fair face seemed distracted between +satisfied complacency and discomfort, as if she did not quite know, at this +moment, whether to be glad or sorry of her victory. “Tomorrow morning you shall +have the keys. Since the store-room is entered through my chamber, you may also +wish to have me move from there, and take that room yourself. Then you may. +From tomorrow I won’t stand in your way.”
+ +She turned and walked away out of the hall door and round towards the kitchen, +and the bunch of keys at her waist rang as if she had deliberately set them +jangling in a last derisive spurt of defiance. She left a charged silence +behind her, which Juliana was the first one bold enough to break.
+ +“Well, children, make yourselves content,” she said, eyeing her grandson and +his bride sardonically. “You have what you wanted, make the most of it. There’s +hard work and much thought goes into running a household.”
+ +Margery hastened to ingratiate herself with thanks and promises. The old woman +listened tolerantly, but with that chill smile so unnervingly like Susanna’s +still on her lips. “There, be off now, and let Daniel get back to his work. +Brother Cadfael, I can see, is none too pleased with seeing me roused. I’m +likely to be getting some fresh potion poured into me to settle me down, +through the three of you and your squabbles.”
+ +They went gladly enough, they had much to say to each other privately. +Cadfael saw the spreading grey pallor round Juliana’s mouth as soon as she +relaxed her obstinate self-control and lay back against her cushions. He +fetched water from the cooling jar, and shook out a dose of the powdered oak +mistletoe for her to take. She looked up at him over the cup with a sour grin.
+ +“Well, say it! Tell me my granddaughter has been shabbily used!”
+ +“There is no need for me to say it,” said Cadfael, standing back to study her +the better and finding her hands steady, her breath even, and her countenance +as hardy as ever, “since you know it yourself.”
+ +“And too late to mend it. But I’ve allowed her the one day she wanted. I +could have denied her even that. When I gave her the keys, years ago, you don’t +think they were the only ones? What, leave myself unfurnished? No, I can still +poke into corners, if I choose. And I do, sometimes.”
+ +Cadfael was packing his dressings and unguents back into his scrip, but with +an eye still intent on her. “And do you mean to give up both bunches to +Daniel’s wife now? If you had meant mischief, you could have handed them to her +before your granddaughter’s face.”
+ +“My mischief is almost over,” said Juliana, suddenly sombre. “All keys will +be wrested from me soon, if I don’t give them up willingly. But these I’ll keep +yet a day or two. I still have a use for them.”
+ +This was her house, her family. Whatever boiled within it, ripe for +eruption, was hers to deal with. No outsider need come near.
+ +In the middle of the morning, when Susanna and Rannilt were both busy in the +kitchen, and would certainly be occupied for some time, and the men were at +work in the shop, Juliana sent the only remaining witness, Margery, to fetch +her a measure of a strong wine she favoured for mulling from a vintner’s a +satisfactory distance away across the town. When she had the hall to herself, +she rose, bearing down heavily on her stick, and felt beneath her full skirt +for the keys she kept hidden in a bag-pocket there.
+ +Susanna’s chamber door was open. A narrow rear door gave quick access here +to the strip of yard which separated the kitchen from the house. Faintly +Juliana could hear the voices of the two women, their words indistinguishable, +their tones revealing. Susanna was cool, short and dry as always. The girl +sounded anxious, grieved, solicitous. Juliana knew well enough about that +truant day when the chit had come home hastily and in the dark. No one had told +her, but she knew. The sharpness of her senses neither denied nor spared her +anything. Shabbily used, and too late to mend! The girl had been listening, +appalled, to the quarrel in the hall, and felt for the mistress who had shown +her kindness. Young things are easily moved to generous indignation and +sympathy. The old have no such easy grace.
+ +The store-room with its heavy vats of salted food, jars of oil, crocks of +flour and oatmeal and dry goods, tubs of fat, bunches of dried herbs, shared +the width of the hall with Susanna’s chamber, and opened out of it. This door +was locked. Juliana fitted the key Baldwin Peche had cut for her before ever +she gave up the original, and opened the door and went in, into the myriad fat, +spicy, aromatic, salt smells of the pantry.
+ +She was within for perhaps ten minutes, hardly more. She was ensconced in +her cushioned corner under the staircase and the door locked again securely by +the time Margery came back with her wine, and the spices needed to mull it to +her liking for her indulgence at bedtime.
+ +“I have been telling this youngster,” said Brother Anselm, fitting together +curved shards of wood with the adroit delicacy appropriate to the handling of +beloved flesh wounded, “that should he consider taking vows as a novice here, +his tenure would be assured. A life of dedication to the music of worship—what +better could he seek, gifted as he is? And the world would withdraw its hand from +him, and leave him in peace.”
+ +Liliwin kept his fair head bent discreetly over the small mortar in which he +was industriously grinding resins for the precentor’s gum, and said never a +word, but the colour rose in his neck and mounted his cheek and brow to the +hair-line. What was offered might be a life secured and at peace, but it was +not the life he wanted. Whatever went on inside that vulnerable and anxious +head of his, there was not the ghost of a vocation for the monastic life there. +Even if he escaped his present peril, even if he won his Rannilt and took her away +with him, after more of the world’s battering he might end as a small vagrant rogue, +and she as what? His partner in some enforced thievery, picking pockets at fair +and market in order to keep them both alive? Or worse, as his breadwinner by +dubious means when all else failed? We have more to answer for here, thought +Brother Cadfael, watching the work in silence, than the rights and wrongs of +one local charge of robbery and assault. What we send out from here, in the +end, must be armed against fate in something better than motley.
+ +“A fast learner, too,” said Anselm critically, “and very biddable.”
+ +“Where he’s busy with what he loves, no doubt,” agreed Cadfael, and grinned +at seeing Liliwin’s brief, flashing glance, which met his eyes and instantly +avoided them, returning dutifully to the work in hand. “Try teaching him his +letters instead of the neums, and he may be less ardent.”
+ +“No, you mistake, he has an appetite for either. I could teach him the +elements of Latin if I had him for one year.”
+ +Liliwin kept his head down and his mouth shut, grateful enough, and from the +heart, for such praise, greedy to benefit by such generous teaching, enlarged +and comforted by such simple kindness, and desirous of gratifying his tutor in +return, if only he could. Now that his innocence began to be accepted as a +probability, however uncertain as yet, these good people began also to make +plans for his future. But his place was not here, but with his little dark +girl, wherever their joint wanderings might take them about the world. Either +that or out of the world, if the forty days of grace ebbed out without true +vindication.
+ +When the light faded too far to allow the fine work to continue, Brother +Anselm bade him take the organetto and play and sing by ear to show off his +skills to Brother Cadfael. And when Liliwin somewhat forgot himself and +launched into a love song, innocent enough but disturbing within these walls, +Anselm showed no sign of perturbation, but praised the melody and the verses, +but the melody above all, and noted it down briskly to be translated to the +glory of God.
+ +The Vesper bell silenced their private pleasure. Liliwin put away the +organetto with hasty gentleness, and followed to pluck Cadfael by the sleeve.
+ +“Did you see her? Rannilt? She came to no harm by me?”
+ +“I saw her. She was mending a gown, altogether composed and in no trouble. +You did her no harm. Yesterday, I hear, she was singing at her work.”
+ +Liliwin released him with a thankful sigh and a whisper of gratitude for +such news. And Cadfael went in to Vespers reflecting that he had told but the +more welcome half of truth, and wondering if Rannilt felt much like singing +this evening. For she had overheard the battle that sent Susanna away defeated, +displaced, robbed of the only realm a parsimonious grandmother and sire had +left her. And Susanna was the mistress who, if she had never shown her much +warmth, had nevertheless kept her from cold, hunger and blows and, above all, +had sent her to her strange marriage, so heretically blessed, and witnessed only +by the saints whose relics sanctified her marriage bed. Tomorrow Susanna would +give up the keys of her realm to a young rival. The little Welsh girl had a +partisan heart, quicker to grief even than to joy. No, she would not feel like +singing until tomorrow was over.
+ +Rannilt crouched unsleeping on her pallet in the kitchen until all the house +lights had been put out, except one, on which her attention was fixed. A +miserly household goes early to bed to save lights and fuel, banking down the +hearth-fire in the hall under small rubble, and snuffing all the candles and +lamps. It was barely Compline, only just dark, but the young pair, quite full +of each other now and cooing like doves, were happy enough to withdraw to their +bed, and the others habitually fell asleep with the sun and awoke with it. Only +in the store-room, showing a narrow chink of light downhill towards the +kitchen, was there a candle still burning.
+ +Rannilt had taken off neither shoes nor gown, but sat hugging herself for +warmth and watching that meagre slit of light. When it was the only waking sign +remaining, she got up and stole out across the few yards of hard-stamped earth +between, and pressed herself against the narrow door that led into Susanna’s +chamber.
+ +Her lady was there within awake, tireless, proud, going between her chamber +and the store, hard at work as she had sworn, resolute to render account of +every jar of honey, every grain of flour, every drop of oil or flake of fat. +Rannilt burned and bled for her, but also she went in awe of her, she dared not +go in and cry aloud her grief and indignation.
+ +The steps that moved about within were soft, brisk and purposeful. All +Susanna’s movements were so, she did everything quickly, nothing in apparent +haste, but now it did seem to Rannilt’s anxious ear that there was something of +bridled desperation about the way she took those few sharp paces here and +there, about her last housewifely survey in this burgage. The slight went deep +with her, as well it might.
+ +The faint gleam of light vanished from the slit window of the store-room, +and reappeared at the chink of the shutter of the bed-chamber. Rannilt heard +the door between closed, and the key turned in the lock. Even on this last +night Susanna would not sleep without first securing the safety of her charge. +But surely now she had finished, and would go to her bed and take what rest she +could.
+ +The light went out. Rannilt froze into stillness in the listening silence, +and after a long moment heard the inner door into the hall opened.
+ +On the instant there was a sharp, brief sound, a subdued cry that was barely +audible, but so charged with dismay and anger that Rannilt put a hand to the +latch of the door against which she stood pressed, half in the desire to hold +fast to something solid and familiar, half wishful to go in and see what could +have provoked so desolate and frustrated a sound. The door gave to her touch. +Distant within the hall she heard a voice, the words indistinguishable, but the +grim tones unmistakably those of Dame Juliana. And Susanna’s voice replying, +bitter and low. Two muted murmurs, full of resentment and conflict, but private +as pillow confidences between man and wife.
+ +Trembling, Rannilt pushed open the door, and crept across towards the open +door into the hall, feeling her way in the dark. There was a feeble gleam of +light high within the hall, it seemed to her to be shining from the head of the +stairs. The old woman would not let anything happen in this house without +prying and scolding. As though she had not done enough already, discarding her +granddaughter and siding with the newcomer!
+ +Susanna had half-closed the door of her room behind her, and Rannilt could +see only the shadowy outline of her left side, from shoulder to hems, where she +stood some three or four paces into the hall. But the voices had words now.
+ +“Hush, speak low!” hissed the old woman, fiercely peremptory. “No need to +wake the sleepers. You and I are enough to be watching out the night.”
+ +She must be standing at the head of the stairs, with her small night-lamp in +one hand and shielded by the other, Rannilt judged. She did not want to rouse +any other member of the household.
+ +“One more, madam, than is needed!”
+ +“Should I leave you lone to your task, and you still hard at work so late? +Such diligence! So strict in your accounting, and so careful in your providing!”
+ +“Neither you nor she, grandmother, shall be able to claim that I left one +measure of flour or one drop of honey unaccounted for,” said Susanna bitingly.
+ +“Nor one grain of oatmeal?” there was a small, almost stealthy quiver of +laughter from the head of the stairs. “Excellent housewifery, my girl, to find +your crock still above half-full, and Easter already past! I give you your due, +you have managed your affairs well.”
+ +“I learned from you, grandmother.” Susanna had vanished from the chink of +the door, taking a step towards the foot of the staircase. It seemed to Rannilt +that she was now standing quite still, looking up at the old woman above her, +and spitting her soft, bitter protest directly into the ancient face peering +down at her in the dimness. What light the small lamp gave cast her shadow +along the boards of the floor, a wide black barrier across the doorway. By the +shape of the shadow, Susanna had wrapped her cloak about her, as well she +might, working late in the chill of the night. “It is at your orders, +grandmother,” she said, low and clearly, “that I am surrendering my affairs. +What did you mean to do with me now? Had you still a place prepared for me? A +nunnery, perhaps?”
+ +The shadow across the doorway was suddenly convulsed, as though she had +flung out her arms and spread the cloak wide.
+ +After those bitterly discreet exchanges the screech that tore the silence +was so terrifying that Rannilt forgot herself, and started forward, hurling the +inner door wide and bursting into the hall. She saw Dame Juliana, at the head +of the stairs, shaken and convulsed as the black shadow had been, the lamp +tilting and dripping oil in her left hand, her right clutching and clawing at +her breast. The mouth that had just uttered that dreadful shriek was wrenched +side long, the cheek above drawn out of shape. All this Rannilt saw in one +brief glimpse, before the old woman lurched forward and fell headlong down the +stairs, to crash to the floor below, and the lamp, flying from her hand, spat a +jet of burning oil along the boards at Susanna’s feet, and went out.
+Chapter Ten
+ +« ^ »
+ +Rannilt sprang +to smother the little serpent of fire that had caught something burnable and +sent up a spurt of flame. Blindly, fumbling, her hands found the hard corner of +a cloth-wrapped bundle, there on the floor near the wall, and beat out the fire +that had caught at the fraying end of the cord that bound it. A few sparks +floated and found splinters of wood, and she followed on her knees and quenched +them with the hem of her skirt, and then it was quite dark. Not for long, for +everyone in the house must be awake now; but for this moment, utterly dark. +Rannilt groped about her blindly on the floor, trying to find where the old +woman lay.
+ +“Stay still,” said Susanna, in the gloom behind her. “I’ll make light.”
+ +She was gone, quick and competent again as ever, back into her own room, +where she could lay her hands instantly on flint and tinder, always ready by +her bed. She came with a candle, and lit the oil-lamp in its bracket on the +wall. Rannilt got up from her knees and darted to where Juliana lay on her face +at the foot of the stairs. But Susanna was before her, kneeling beside her +grandmother and running rapid hands over her in search of broken bones from her +fall, before venturing to lift her over on to her back. Old bones are brittle, +but it had not been a sheer fall, rather a rolling tumble from stair to stair.
+ +Then they were all coming, clutching candles, gaping, crying questions, +Daniel and Margery with one gown thrown hastily round the two of them, Walter +bleared and querulous with sleep, Iestyn scurrying up the outdoor stairs from +the undercroft and in by the rear door of Susanna’s chamber, which Rannilt had +left standing open. Light on light sprang up, the usual frugal rule forgotten.
+ +They came crowding, demanding, incoherent with sleep, and alarm and +bewilderment. The smoky flames and flickering shadows filled the hall with +changing shapes that danced about the two figures quiet on the floorboards. +What had happened? What was all the noise? What was the old woman doing out of +her bed? Why the smell of burning? Who had done this?
+ +Susanna slid an arm under her grandmother’s body, cradled the grey head with +her other palm, and turned her face-upward. She cast up at the clamouring +circle of her kin one cold, glittering glance in which Rannilt saw, as none of +them did, the scorn in which she held all members of her family but this spent +and broken one on her arm.
+ +“Hold your noise, and make yourselves useful. Can you not see? She came out +with her light to see how I was fairing, and she took another seizure like the +last, and fell, and the last it may very well be. Rannilt can tell you. Rannilt +saw her fall.”
+ +“I did,” said Rannilt, quivering. “She dropped the lamp and caught at her +breast, and then she fell. The oil spilled and took fire, I put it out…” She +looked towards the wall for the bundle, whatever it had been, that had offered +an end of tow to the spark, but there was nothing there now. “She’s not dead… +look, she’s breathing… Listen!”
+ +Certainly she was, for as soon as they hushed their clamour the air shook to +her shallow-drawn, rattling breath. All one side of her face was dragged askew, +the mouth grossly twisted, the eyes half-open and glaring whitely; and all her +body on that side lay stiff as a board, the fingers of her hand contorted and +rigid.
+ +Susanna looked round them all, and made her dispositions, and no one now +challenged her right. “Father, and Daniel, carry her to her bed. She has no +broken bones, she feels nothing. We cannot give her any of her draught, she +could not swallow it. Margery, feed the little brazier in her room. I will get +wine to mull for when she revives—if she does revive.”
+ +She looked over Rannilt’s shoulder to Iestyn, standing dumb and at a loss in +the shadows. Her face was set as marble and as cold, but her eyes shone clear. +“Run to the abbey,” she said. “Ask for Brother Cadfael to come to her. +Sometimes he works late, if he has medicines making. But even if he has gone to +his cell, the porter will call him. He said he would come if he was needed. He +is needed now.”
+ +Iestyn looked back at her without a word, and then turned as silently as he +had come and ran as she had bade him.
+ +It was not so late as all that. At the abbey the dortoir was still half +awake, an uneasy stirring in certain cells, where the brothers found sleep +difficult or remembrance all too strong. Brother Cadfael, having stayed late in +his workshop to pound herbs for a decoction to be made next day, was just at +his private prayers before sleep when the porter came edging along the passage +between the cells to find him. He rose at once, and went silently down the +night stairs and through the church, to confer with the messenger at the +gatehouse.
+ +“The old dame, is it?” He had no need to fetch anything from the herbarium, +the best of what he could give her was already supplied and Susanna knew how to +use it, if its use was still of any avail. “We’d best hurry, then, if it’s so +grave.”
+ +He set a sharp pace along the Foregate and over the bridge, and asked such +questions as were necessary as they went.
+ +“How did she come to be up and active at this hour? And how did this fit come +on?”
+ +Iestyn kept station at his side and answered shortly. He had never many +words to spare. “Mistress Susanna was up late seeing to her stores, for she’s +forced to give up her keys. And Dame Juliana rose up, belike, to see what she +was still about. The fit took her at the top of the stairs and she fell.”
+ +“But the seizure came first? And caused the fall?”
+ +“So the women say.”
+ +“The women?”
+ +“The maid was there and saw it.”
+ +“What’s her state now, then? The old dame? Has she bones broken? Can she +move freely?”
+ +“The mistress says nothing broken, but one side of her stiff as a tree, and +her face drawn all on a skew.”
+ +They were let in at the town gate without question. Cadfael occasionally had +much later errands and was well known. They climbed the steep curve of the Wyle +in silence, the gradient making demands on their breath.
+ +“I warned her the last time,” said Cadfael, when the slope eased, “that if +she did not keep her rages in check the next fit might be the last. She was +well in command of herself and all about her this morning, for all the mischief +that was brewing in the house, but I had my doubts… What can have upset her +tonight?”
+ +But if Iestyn had any answer to that, he kept it to himself. A taciturn man, +who did his work and kept his own counsel.
+ +Walter was hopping about uneasily at the entrance to the passage, watching +for them with a horn lantern in his hand. Daniel was huddled into his gown in +the hall, with the spendthrift candles still burning unheeded around him, until +Walter entered with the newcomers, and having seen them within, suddenly became +aware of gross waste, and begun to go round and pinch out two out of three, +leaving the smell of their hot wicks on the air.
+ +“We carried her up to bed,” said Daniel, restless and wretched in this +upheaval that disrupted his new content. “The women are there with her. Go up, +they’re anxious for you.” And he followed, drawn to a trouble that must be +resolved before he could take any comfort, and hovered in the doorway of the +sick-chamber, but did not step within, Iestyn remained at the foot of the +stairs. In all the years of service here, most likely, he had never climbed +them.
+ +A brazier burned in an iron basket set upon a wide stone, and a small lamp +on a shelf jutting out from the wall. Here in the upper rooms there were no +ceilings, the rooms went up into the vault of the roof, dark wood on all sides +and above. On one side of the narrow bed Margery, mute and pale, drew hastily +back into the shadows to let Brother Cadfael come close. On the other, Susanna +stood erect and still, and her head turned only momentarily to ascertain who it +was who came.
+ +Cadfael sank to his knees beside the bed. Juliana was alive, and if one +sense had been snatched from her, the others she still had, at least for a +brief while. In the contorted face the ancient eyes were alive, alert and +resigned. They met Cadfael’s and knew him. The grimace could almost have been +her old, sour smile. “Send Daniel for her priest,” said Cadfael after one look +at her, and without conceal. “His errand here is more now than mine.” She would +appreciate that. She knew she was dying.
+ +He looked up at Susanna. No question now who held the mastery here; no +matter how they tore each other, she of all these was Juliana’s blood, kin and +match. “Has she spoken?”
+ +“No. Not a word.” Yes, she even looked as this woman must have looked fifty +years ago as a comely, resolute, able matron, married to a man of lesser fibre +than her own. Her voice was low, steady and cool. She had done what could be +done for the dying woman, and stood waiting for whatever broken words might +fall from that broken mouth. She even leaned to wipe away the spittle that ran +from its deformed lips at the downward corner.
+ +“Have the priest come, for I am none. She is already promised our prayers, +that she knows.” And that was for her, to ensure that she was alive within this +dead body, and need not regret all her gifts to the abbey, doled out so +watchfully. Her faded eyes had still a flash within them; she understood. +Wherever she was gone, she knew what was said and done about her. But she had +said no word, nor even attempted speech.
+ +Margery had stolen thankfully out of the room, to send her husband for the +priest. She did not come back. Walter was below, pinching out candles and +fretting over the few that must remain. Only Cadfael on one side of the bed and +Susanna on the other kept watch still by Dame Juliana’s death.
+ +The old woman’s live eyes in her dead carcase clung to Cadfael’s face, yet +not, he thought, trying to convey to him anything but her defiant reliance on +her own resources. When had she not been mistress of her own household? And +these were still her family, no business of any other judge. Those outside must +stay outside. This monk whom she had grown to respect and value, for all their +differences, she admitted halfway, close enough to know and acknowledge her +rights of possession. Her twisted mouth suddenly worked, emitted an audible +sound, looked for a moment like a mouth that might speak memorable things. +Cadfael stooped his ear close to her lips.
+ +A laborious murmur, indistinguishable, and then: “It was I bred them…” she +said thickly, and again struggled with incommunicable thoughts, and rested with +a rattling sigh. A tremor passed through her rigid body. A thread of utterance +emerged almost clearly: “But for all that… I should have liked to hold… my +great-grandchild…”
+ +Cadfael had barely raised his head when she closed her eyes. No question but +it was by her will they closed, no crippling weakness. But for the priest, she +had done.
+ +Even with the priest she did not speak again. She bore with his urgings, and +made the effort to respond with her eyelids when he made his required probings +into her sense of sin and need and hope for absolution. She died as soon as he +had pronounced it, or only moments later.
+ +Susanna stood by her to the end and never uttered a word. When all was done, +she stooped and kissed the leather cheek and chilling brow somewhat better than +dutifully, and still with that face of marble calm. Then she went down to see +Brother Cadfael courteously out of the house, and thank him for all his +attentions to the dead.
+ +“She gave you, I know, more work than ever she repaid you for,” said +Susanna, with the slight, bitter curl to her lips and the wry serenity in her +voice.
+ +“And is it you who tell me so?” he said, and watched the hollows at the +corners of her lips deepen. “I came to have a certain reverence for her, short +of affection. Not that she ever required that of me. And you?”
+ +Susanna stepped from the bottom stair, close to where Rannilt huddled +against the wall, afraid to trespass, unwilling to abandon her devoted watch. +Since Susanna had emerged from her room with the light, her cloak shed within +now there was work to do, Rannilt had hovered attentive, waiting to be used.
+ +“I doubt,” said Brother Cadfael, considering, “whether there was any here +who loved her half so well as you.”
+ +“Or hated her half so well,” said Susanna, lifting her head with one +measured flash of grey eyes.
+ +“The two are often bed-fellows,” he said, unperturbed. “You need not +question either.”
+ +“I will not. Now I must go back to her. She is my charge, I’ll pay her +what’s due.” She looked round and said quite gently: “Rannilt, take Master +Walter’s lantern, and light Brother Cadfael out. Then go to your bed, there is +no more for you to do here.”
+ +“I’d rather stay and watch with you,” said Rannilt timidly. “You’ll need hot +water and cloths, and a hand to lift her, and to run errands for you.” As if +there were not enough of them, up there now about the bed, son, grandson, and +grandson’s woman, and how much grief among the lot of them? For Dame Juliana +had outstayed her time by a number of years and was one mouth less to feed once +her burial was accomplished; not to speak of the whiplash tongue and the +too-sharp eye removed from vexing.
+ +“So you may, then,” said Susanna, gazing long upon the small, childlike +figure regarding her with great eyes from the shadows, where Walter had +quenched all but one candle, but inadvertently left his lantern burning. “You +shall sleep tomorrow in the day, you’ll be ready then for your bed and your +mind quiet. Come up, when you’ve shown Brother Cadfael out to the lane. You and +I will care for her together.”
+ +“You were there?” asked Cadfael mildly, walking on the girl’s heels along +the pitch-dark passage. “You saw what happened?”
+ +“Yes, sir. I couldn’t sleep. You were there this morning when they all +turned against her, and even the old woman said she must yield her place… You +know…”
+ +“I know, yes. And you were aggrieved for her.”
+ +“She—was never unkind to me…” How was it possible to say that Susanna had +been kind, where the chill forbade any such word? “It was not fair that they +should turn and elbow her out, like that.”
+ +“And you were watching and listening, and grieving. And you went in. When +was that?”
+ +She told him, as plainly as if she lived it again. She told him, as far as +she could recall it, and that was almost word for word, what she had heard pass +between grandmother and grandchild, and how she had heard the shriek that +heralded the old woman’s seizure, and burst in to see her panting and swaying +and clutching her bosom, the lamp tilting out of her hand, before she rolled +headlong down the stairs.
+ +“And there was no other soul stirring then? No one within hand’s-touch of +her, there above?”
+ +“Oh no, no one. She dropped the lamp just as she fell.” The little snake of +fire, spitting sparks and sudden leaping flame as it found the end of tow, +seemed to Rannilt to have nothing to do with what had happened. “And then it +was dark, and the mistress said keep still, and went for a light.”
+ +Certain, then, yes quite certain she fell. No one was there to help her +fall, the only witnesses were below. And if they had not gone to her aid at +once, and sent as promptly for him, he would never have arrived here in time to +see Dame Juliana die. Let alone hear the only words she had spoken before dying. +For what they were worth! “I bred them all… For all that, I should have liked +to hold my great-grandchild…”
+ +Well, her grandson, the only being she was reported to dote upon, was now a +husband, her proud old mind might well strain forward to embrace a future +generation.
+ +“No, don’t come out into the lane, child, time for you to be withindoors, +and I know my way.”
+ +She went, shy, wild and silent. And Cadfael made his way back thoughtfully +to his own cell in the dortoir and took what comfort he might, and what +enlightenment, but it was not much. In this death, at least, there was no +question of foul play. Juliana had fallen when no other person was near by, and +in an unquestionable seizure such as she had suffered twice before. The +dissensions within the house, moreover, had broken out in a disturbing form +that same day, cause enough for an old woman’s body and heart and irascible +nature to fail her. The wonder was this had not happened earlier. Yet for all +he could do, Cadfael’s mind could not separate this death from the first, nor +that from the felony of which Liliwin stood accused. There was, there must be, +a thread that linked them all together. Not by freakish chance was an ordinary +burgess household thus suddenly stricken with blow after blow. A human hand had +set off the chain; from that act all these later events stemmed, and where the +impetus would finally run out and the sequence of fatalities end was a +speculation that kept Cadfael awake half the night.
+ ++ +In Dame Juliana’s death chamber the single lamp burned, a steady eye of +fire, at the head of the bed. The night hung deep and silent over the town, +past the mid-point between dusk and dawn. On a stool on one side Susanna sat, +her own hands folded in her lap, quiet at last. Rannilt crouched at the foot of +the bed, very weary but unwilling to go to her humble place, and certain that +sleep would not come to her if she did. The lofty timbers of the roof soared +above them into deep darkness. The three women, two living and one dead, were +drawn together into a close, mute intimacy, for these few hours islanded from +the world.
+ +Juliana lay straight and austere, her grey hair combed into smooth order, +her face uncovered, the sheet folded at her chin. Already the contortion was +beginning to ease out of her features, and leave her at peace.
+ +Neither of the two who watched beside her had spoken a word since their work +was finished. Susanna had made no bones about dismissing Margery’s reluctant +offer of help, and had no difficulty in getting rid of all three of her kin. +They were not sorry to return to their beds and leave all to her. Mistress and +maid had the vigil to themselves.
+ +“You’re cold,” said Rannilt, breaking the silence very softly as she saw +Susanna shiver. “Shall I fetch up your cloak? You felt the want of it even +about the store, when you were on the move, and now we sit here, and the night +chiller than then. I’ll creep down for it.”
+ +“No,” said Susanna absently. “It was a goose walking over my grave. I’m warm +enough.” She turned her head and gave the girl a long, sombre stare. “Were you +so vexed for me that you must wake and watch into the night with me? I thought +you came very quickly. Did you see and hear all?”
+ +Rannilt trembled at the thought of having intruded uninvited, but Susanna’s +voice was equable and her face calm. “No. I wasn’t listening, but some part I +couldn’t help hearing. She praised your providing. Perhaps she was sorry then… +It was strange she should take to thinking on such things, and suddenly take +pride that you should still have the oatmeal crock above half-full… That I +heard. Surely she was sorry in the end that you should be so misprised. She +thought better of you than of any other.”
+ +“She was returning to the days when she ruled all,” said Susanna, “and had +all on her shoulders, as I have had. The old go back, before the end.” Her +eyes, large and intent upon Rannilt’s face, gleamed in the dim, reflected light +from the lamp. “You’ve burned your hand,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
+ +“It’s nothing,” said Rannilt, removing her hands hurriedly from sight into +her lap. “I was clumsy. The tow flared. It doesn’t hurt.”
+ +“The tow…?”
+ +“Tied round the bundle that was lying there. It had a frayed end and took +the flame before I was aware.”
+ +“A pity!” said Susanna, and sat silent for some moments, watching her +grandmother’s dead face. The corners of her lips curved briefly in what hardly +had time to become a smile. “There was a bundle there, was there? And I was +wearing my cloak… yes! You noticed much, considering the fright we must have +given you, between us.”
+ +In the prolonged silence Rannilt watched her lady’s face and went in great +awe, having trodden where she had no right to go, and feeling herself detected +in a trespass she had never intended.
+ +“And now you are wondering what was in that bundle, and where it vanished to +before ever we began lighting candles. Along with my cloak!” Susanna fixed her +austere, half-smiling regard upon Rannilt’s daunted face. “It is only natural +you should wonder.”
+ +“Are you angry with me?” ventured Rannilt in a whisper.
+ +“No. Why should I be angry? I believe, I do believe, you have sometimes felt +for me as a woman for a woman. Is that true, Rannilt?”
+ +“This morning…” faltered Rannilt, half-afraid, “I could not choose but +grieve…”
+ +“I know. You have seen how I am despised here.” She went very gently and +quietly, a woman speaking with a child, but a child whose understanding she +valued. “How I have always been despised. My mother died, my grandmother grew +old, I was of value until my brother should take a wife. Yes, but barely a day +longer. All those years gone for nothing, and I am left here husbandless and +barren and out of office.”
+ +There was another silence, for though Rannilt felt her breast bursting with +indignant sympathy, her tongue was frozen into silence. In the lofty darkness +of the roof-beams the faint, soft light quivered in a passing draught.
+ +“Rannilt,” said Susanna gravely and softly, “can you keep a secret?”
+ +“Your secret I surely can,” whispered Rannilt.
+ +“Swear never to breathe a word to any other, and I’ll tell you what no one +else knows.”
+ +Rannilt breathed her vow devotedly, flattered and warmed at having such +trust placed in her.
+ +“And will you help me in what I mean to undertake? For I should welcome your +help… I need your help!”
+ +“I’ll do anything in my power for you.” No one had ever expected or required +of her such loyalty, no one had ever considered her as better than menial and +impotent, no wonder her heart responded.
+ +“I believe and trust you.” Susanna leaned forward into the light. “My bundle +and my cloak I made away out of sight before I brought the candle, and hid them +in my bedchamber. Tonight, Rannilt, but for this mortal stay, I meant to leave +this place, to quit this house that has never done me right, and this town in +which I have no honourable place. Tonight God prevented. But tomorrow night… +tomorrow night I am going! If you will help me I can take with me more of my +poor possessions than I can carry the first short piece of the way alone. Come +nearer, child, and I’ll tell you.” Her voice was very low and soft, a confiding +breath in Rannilt’s ear. “Across the bridge, at my father’s stable beyond +Frankwell, someone who sets a truer value on me will be waiting…”
+Chapter Eleven
+ +« ^ »
+ +Susanna came +to the table as the subdued household assembled next morning, with the keys at +her girdle, and with deliberation unfastened the fine chain that held them, and +laid them before Margery.
+ +“These are now yours, sister, as you wished. From today the management of +this house belongs to you, and I will not meddle.”
+ +She was pale and heavy-eyed from a sleepless night, though none of them were +in much better case. They would all be glad to make an early night of it as +soon as the day’s light failed, to make up for lost rest.
+ +“I’ll come round kitchen and store with you this morning, and show you what +you have in hand, and the linen, and everything I’m handing over to you. And I +wish you well,” she said.
+ +Margery was almost out of countenance at such magnanimity, and took pains to +be conciliatory as she was conducted remorselessly round her new domain.
+ +“And now,” said Susanna, shaking off that duty briskly from her shoulders, “I +must go and bring Martin Bellecote to see about her coffin, and father will be +off to visit the priest at Saint Mary’s. But then—you’ll hold me excused—I +should like to get a little sleep, and so must the girl there, for neither of +us has closed an eye.”
+ +“I’ll manage well enough alone,” said Margery, “and take care not to disturb +you in that chamber for today. If I may take out what’s needed for the dinner now, +then you can get your rest.” She was torn between humility and exultation. +Having death in the house was no pleasure, but the gloom would lie heavy for +only a few days, and then she was rid of all barriers to her own plans, free of +the old, censorious eyes watching and disparaging her best efforts, free of +this ageing virgin, who would surely absent herself from all participation in +the running of the house hereafter, and mistress of a tamed husband who would +dance henceforth to her piping.
+ ++ +Brother Cadfael spent the early part of that afternoon in the herb-garden, +and having seen everything left in order there, went out to view the work along +the Gaye. The weather continued sunny and warm, and the urchins of the town and +the Foregate, born and bred by the water and swimmers almost before they could +walk, were in and out of the shallows, and the bolder and stronger among them +even venturing across where the Severn ran smoothly. The spring spate from the +mountains was over now, the river showed a bland face, but these water-children +knew its tricks, and seldom trusted it too far.
+ +Cadfael walked through the flowering orchard, very uneasy in his mind after +the night’s alarms, and continued downstream until he stood somewhere opposite +the gardens of the burgages along the approach to the castle. Halfway up the +slope the tall stone barrier of the town wall crossed, its crest crumbled into +disrepair in places, not yet restored after the rigours of the siege two years +ago. Within his vision it was pierced by two narrow, arched doorways, easily +barred in dangerous times. One of the two must be in the Aurifaber grounds, but +he could not be sure which. Below the wall the greensward shone fresh and +vivid, and the trees were in pale young leaf and snowy flower. The alders leaned +over the shallows lissome and rosy with catkins. Willow withies shone gold and +silver with the fur-soft flowers. So sweet and hopeful a time to be threatening +a poor young man with hanging or bludgeoning a single household with loss and +death.
+ +The boys of the Foregate and the boys of the town were rivals by tradition, +earring into casual warfare the strong local feeling of their sires. Their +water-games sometimes became rough, though seldom dangerous, and if one rash +spirit overstepped the mark, there was usually an older and wiser ally close +by, to clout him off and haul his victim to safety. There was some horse-play +going on in the shallows opposite as Cadfael watched. An imp of the Foregate +had ventured the crossing, plunged into a frolic of town children before they +were aware, and ducked one of them spluttering below the surface. The whole +incensed rout closed on him and pursued him some way downstream, until he +splashed ashore up a slope of grass to escape them, falling flat in the +shallows in his haste, and clawing and scrambling clear in a flurry of spray. +From a smooth greensward where he certainly had no right to be, he capered and +crowed at them as they drew off and abandoned the chase.
+ +It seemed that he had fished something up with him out of the shallow water +and gravel under the bushes. He sat down and scrubbed at it in his palm, intent +and curious. He was still busy with it when another boy hardly older than +himself came naked out of the orchard above, dropping his shirt into the grass, +and trotting down towards the water. He saw the intruder, and checked at gaze, +staring.
+ +The distance was not so great but Cadfael knew him, and knew, in +consequence, at whose extended burgage he was looking. Thirteen years old, +well-grown and personable; Baldwin Peche’s simpleton boy, Griffin, let loose +from his labours for an hour to run down through the wicket in the wall, and +swim in the river like other boys.
+ +Griffin had seen, far better than Cadfael across the river could hope to +see, whatever manner of trophy the impudent invader from the Foregate had +discovered in the shallows. He let out an indignant cry, and came running down +the grass to snatch at the cupped hand. Something dropped, briefly glinting, +into the turf, and Griffin fell upon it like a hawk swooping and caught it up +jealously. The other boy, startled, leaped to his feet and made to grab at it +in his turn, but gave back before a taller challenger. He was not greatly +disturbed at losing his toy. There was some exchange, light-hearted on his side, +slow and sober on Griffin’s. The two youthful voices floated light, excited +sounds across the water. The Foregate urchin shrilled some parting insult, +dancing backwards towards the river, jumped in with a deliberate splash, and +struck out for his home waters, sudden and silvery as a trout.
+ +Cadfael moved alertly to where the child must come ashore, but kept one eye +on the slope opposite also, and saw how Griffin, instead of plunging in after +his repulsed rival, went back to lay his trophy carefully in the folds of the +shirt he had discarded by the bushes. Then he slid down the bank and waded out +into the water, and lay facedown upon the current in so expert and easy a +fashion that it was plain he had been a swimmer from infancy. He was rolling +and playing in the eddies when the other boy hauled himself ashore into the +grass of Cadfael’s bank, shedding water and glowing from his play, and began to +caper and clap his arms about his slender body in the sunny air. Grown men +would hardly be trying that water for a month or so yet, but the young have +energy enough to keep them warm, and as old men tend to say tolerantly, where +there’s no sense there’s no feeling.
+ +“Well, troutling,” said Cadfael, knowing this imp as soon as he drew close, +“what was that you fished out of the mud over yonder? I saw you take to the +land. Not many yards ahead of the vengeance, either! You picked the wrong +haven.”
+ +The boy had aimed expertly for the place where he had left his clothes. He +darted for his cotte, and slung it round his nakedness, grinning. “I’m not +afeared of all the town hobbledehoys. Nor of that big booby of the locksmith’s, +neither, but he’s welcome to his bit of trumpery. Knew it for his master’s, he +said! Just a little round piece, with a man’s head on it with a beard and a +pointed hat. Nothing to fall out over.”
+ +“Besides that Griffin is bigger than you,” said Cadfael innocently.
+ +The imp made a scornful face, and having scrubbed his feet and ankles +through the soft grass, and slapped his thighs dry, set to work to wriggle into +his hose. “But slow, and hasn’t all his wits. What was the thing doing drifted +under the gravel in the water there, if there was any good in it? He can have +it for me!”
+ +And he was off at an energetic run to rejoin his friends, leaving Cadfael +very thoughtful. A coin silted into the gravel under the bank there, where the +river made a shallow cove, and clawed up in the fist of a scrambling urchin who +happened to sprawl on his face there in evading pursuit. Nothing so very +strange in that. All manner of things might turn up in the waters of Severn, +queerer things than a lost coin. All that made it notable was that this one +should turn up in that particular place. Too many cobweb threads were tangling +around the Aurifaber burgage, nothing that occurred there could any longer be +taken as ordinary or happening by chance. And what to make of all these +unrelated strands was more than Cadfael could yet see.
+ +He went back to his seedlings, which at least were innocent of any mystery, +and worked out the rest of the afternoon until it drew near the time to return +for Vespers; but there was still a good half-hour in hand when he was hailed +from the river, and looked round to see Madog rowing upstream, and crossing the +main current to come to shore where Cadfael was standing. He had abandoned his +coracle for a light skiff, quite capable, as Cadfael reflected with a sudden +inspiration, of ferrying an inquisitive brother across to take a look for himself +at that placid inlet where the boy had dredged up the coin of which he thought +so poorly.
+ +Madog brought his boat alongside, and held it by an oar dug into the soft +turf of the bank. “Well, Brother Cadfael, I hear the old dame’s gone, then. +Trouble broods round that house. They tell me you were there to see her set +out.”
+ +Cadfael owned it. “After fourscore years I wonder if death should be +accounted troublous. But yes, she’s gone. Before midnight she left them.” +Whether with a blessing or a curse, or only a grim assertion of her dominance +over them and defence of them, loved or unloved, was something he had been +debating in his own mind. For she could have spoken, but had said only what she +thought fit to say, nothing to the point. The disputes of the day, surely +relevant, she had put clean away. They were her people. Whatever needed +judgement and penance among them was her business, no concern of the world +outside. And yet those few enigmatic words she had deliberately let him hear. +Him, her opponent, physician and—was friend too strong a word? To her priest +she had responded only with the suggested movements of her eyelids saying yea +and nay, confessing to frailties, agreeing to penitence, desiring absolution. But +no words.
+ +“Left them at odds,” said Madog shrewdly, his seamed oak face breaking into +a wry smile. “When have they been anything else? Avarice is a destroying thing, +Cadfael, and she bred them all in her own shape, all get and precious little +give.”
+ +“I bred them all,” she had said, as though she admitted a guilt to which her +eyelids had said neither yea nor nay for the priest.
+ +“Madog,” said Cadfael, “row me over to the bank under their garden, and as +we go I’ll tell you why. They hold the strip outside the wall down to the +waterside. I’d be glad to have a look there.”
+ +“Willingly!” Madog drew the skiff close. “For I’ve been up and down this +river from the water-gate, where Peche kept his boat, trying to find any man +who can give me word of seeing it or him after the morning of last Monday, and +never a glimpse anywhere. And I doubt Hugh Beringar has done better enquiring +in the town after every fellow who knew the locksmith, and every tavern he ever +entered. Come inboard, then, and sit yourself down steady, she rides a bit +deeper and clumsier with two aboard.”
+ +Cadfael slid down the overhanging slope of grass, stepped nimbly upon the +thwart, and sat. Madog thrust off and turned into the current. “Tell, then! +What is there over there to draw you?”
+ +Cadfael told him what he had witnessed, and in the telling it did not seem +much. But Madog listened attentively enough, one eye on the surface eddies of +the river, running bland and playful now, the other, as it seemed, on some +inward vision of the Aurifaber household from old matriarch to new bride.
+ +“So that’s what’s caught your fancy! Well, whatever it may mean, here’s the +place. That Foregate lad left his marks, look where he hauled his toes up after +him, and the turf so moist and tender.”
+ +A quiet and almost private place it was, once the skiff was drawn in until +its shallow draught gravelled. A little inlet where the water lay placid, clean +speckled gravel under it, and even in that clear bottom the boy’s clutching +hands had left small indentations. Out of one of those hollows—the right hand, +Cadfael recalled—the small coin had come, and he had brought it ashore with him +to examine at leisure. Withies of both willow and alder grew out from the very +edge of the water on either side of the plane of grass which opened out above +into a broad green slope, steep enough to drain readily, smooth enough to +provide an airy cushion for bleaching linen. Only from across the river could +this ground be viewed, on this town shore it was screened both ways by the +bushes. Clean, washed, white pebbles, some of considerable size, had been piled +inshore of the bushes for weighting down the linens spread here to dry on +washing days when the weather was favourable. Cadfael eyed them and noted the +one larger stone, certainly fallen from the town wall, which had not their +water-smoothed polish, but showed sharp corners and clots of mortar still +adhering. Left here as it had rolled from the crest, perhaps used sometimes for +tying up boats in the shallows.
+ +“D’you see ought of use to you?” asked Madog, holding his skiff motionless +with an oar braced into the gravel. The boy Griffin had long since enjoyed his +bathe, dried and clothed himself, and carried away his reclaimed coin to the +locksmith’s shop where John Boneth now presided. He had known John for a long +time as second only to his master; for him John was now his master in +succession.
+ +“All too much!” said Cadfael.
+ +There were the boy’s traces, clutching hands under the clear water, +scrabbling toes above in the grass. Down here he had found his trophy, above he +had sat to burnish and examine it, and had it snatched from him by Griffin. Who +knew it as his master’s, and was honest as only the simple can be. Here all +round the boat the withies crowded, there above in the sward lay the pile of +heavy pebbles and the fallen stone. Here swaying alongside danced the little +rafts of water-crowfoot, under the leaning alders. And most ominous of all, +here in the sloping grass verge, within reach of his hand, not one, but three +small heads of reddish purple blossoms stood up bravely in the grass, the +fox-stones for which they had hunted in vain downstream.
+ +The piled pebbles and the one rough stone meant nothing as yet to Madog, but +the little spires of purple blossoms certainly held his eyes. He looked from +them to Cadfael’s face, and back to the sparkling shallow where a man could not +well drown, if he was in his senses.
+ +“Is
The fragile, shivering white rafts of crowfoot danced under the alders, +delicately anchored. The little grooves left by the boy’s fingers very +gradually shifted and filled, the motes of sand and gravel sliding down in the +quiver of water to fill them. “Here at the foot of their own land?” said Madog, +shaking his head. “Is it certain? I’ve found no other place where this third +witness joins the other two.”
+ +“Under the certainty of Heaven,” said Cadfael soberly, “nothing is ever
+quite certain, but this is as near as a man can aim. Had he stolen and been
+found out? Or had he found out too much about the one who
Madog took him, unquestioning, except that he kept his deep-browed and +sharp-sighted old eyes fixed on Cadfael’s face all the way across to the Gaye.
+ +“You’re going now to render account to Hugh Beringar at the castle?” asked +Cadfael.
+ +“At his own house, rather. Though I doubt if he’ll be there yet to expect +me.”
+ +“Tell him all that we have seen there,” said Cadfael very earnestly. “Let +him look for himself, and make what he can of it. Tell him of the coin—for so I +am sure it was—that was dredged up out of the cove there, and how Griffin +claimed it for his master’s property. Let Hugh question him on that.”
+ +“I’ll tell him all,” said Madog, “and more than I understand.”
+ +“Or I, either, as yet. But ask him, if his time serves for it, to come down +and speak with me, when he has made what he may of all this coil. For I shall +be worrying from this moment at the same tangle and may, who knows?—God +aiding!—may arrive at some understanding before night.”
+ ++ +Hugh came late home from his dogged enquiries round the town which had +brought him no new knowledge, unless their cumulative effect turned probability +into certainty, and it could now be called knowledge that no one, in his +familiar haunts or out of them, had set eyes on Baldwin Peche since Monday noon. News of Dame Juliana’s death added nothing, she being so old, and yet there was +always the uncomfortable feeling that misfortune could not of itself have +concentrated such a volley of malice against one household. What Madog had to +tell him powerfully augmented this pervading unease.
+ +“There within call of his own shop? Is it possible? And all present, the +alders, the crowfoot, the purple flower… Everything comes back, everything +comes home, to that burgage. Begin wherever we may, we end there.”
+ +“That is truth,” said Madog. “And Brother Cadfael is cudgelling his wits +over the same tangle, and would be glad to consider it along with you, my lord, +if you can spare him the needed hour tonight, however late.”
+ +“I’ll do that thankfully,” said Hugh, “for God knows it wants more cunning +that I have alone, and sharper vision, to see through this murk. Do you go home +and get your rest, Madog, for you’ve done well by us. And I’ll go knock up +Peche’s lad, and have out of him whatever he can tell us about this coin he +claims for his master’s.”
+ +By this same hour Brother Cadfael had eased his own mind by imparting, after +supper, all that he had discovered to Abbot Radulfus, who received it with +thoughtful gravity.
+ +“And you have sent word already to Hugh Beringar? You think he may wish to take +counsel with you further in the matter?” He was well aware that there was a +particular understanding between them, originating in events before he himself +took office at Shrewsbury. “You may take whatever time you need if he comes +tonight. Certainly this affair must be concluded as soon as possible, and it +does increasingly appear that our guest in sanctuary may have very little to do +with any of these offences. He is within here, but the evil continues without. If +he is innocent of all, in justice that must be shown to the world.”
+ +Cadfael left the abbot’s lodging with time still for hard thought, and the +twilight just falling. He went faithfully to Compline and then, turning his +back on the dortoir, went out to the porch where Liliwin spread his blankets +and made his bed. The young man was still wide awake, sitting with his knees +drawn up and his back braced comfortably into the corner of the stone bench, a +small, hunched shadow in the darkness, singing over to himself the air of a +song he was making and had not yet completed to his satisfaction. He broke off +when Cadfael appeared, and made room beside him on his blankets.
+ +“A good tune, that,” said Cadfael, settling himself with a sigh. “Yours? +You’d best keep it to yourself, or Anselm will be stealing it for the ground of +a Mass.”
+ +“It is not ready yet,” said Liliwin. “There lacks a proper soft fall for the
+ending. It is a love song for Rannilt.” He turned his head to look his companion
+earnestly in the eyes. “I
“She would hardly be grateful to you for that,” said Cadfael. “But God +willing you shall not have to make any such choice.” The boy himself, though he +still went in suspense and some fear, was well aware that every day now cast +further doubt upon the case against him. “Things move there without, if in +impenetrable ways. To tell truth, the law is coming round very sensibly to my +opinion of you.”
+ +“Well, maybe… But what if they found that I did leave here that night? They +wouldn’t believe my story as you did…” He cast a doubtful glance at Brother +Cadfael, and saw something in the bland stare that met him that caused him to +demand in alarm: “You haven’t told the sheriff’s deputy? You promised… for +Rannilt’s sake…”
+ +“Never fret, Rannilt’s good name is as safe with Hugh Beringar as with me.
+He has not even called on her as a witness for you, nor will not unless the
+affair goes to the length of trial. Tell him? Well, so I did, but only after he
+had made it plain he guessed the half. His nose for a reluctant liar is at
+least as keen as mine, he never believed that ‘No’ he wrung out of you. So the
+rest of it he wrung out of me. He found you more convincing telling truth than
+lying. And then there is always Rannilt, if ever you need her witness, and the
+watchmen who saw you pass in and out. No need to trouble too much about
Hesitantly Liliwin cast his mind back, and told over again the brief story +of his connection with the goldsmith’s house. The host at a tavern where he had +played and sung for his supper had told him of the marriage to be celebrated +next day, he had gone there hopefully, and been engaged for the occasion, he +had done his best to earn his money and been cast out, and hunted as a thief +and murderer here into the church. All of it known already.
+ +“How much of that burgage did you ever see? For you went first in daylight.”
+ +“I went to the shop and they sent me in through the passage to the hall +door, to the women. It was they who hired me, the old woman and the young one.”
+ +“And in the evening?”
+ +“Why, as soon as I came there they sent me to eat with Rannilt in the +kitchen, and I was there with her until they sent out for me to come and play +and sing while they feasted, and afterwards I played for dancing, and did my +acrobatics, and juggled—and you know how it ended.”
+ +“So you never saw more than the passage and the yard. You never were down +the length of the garden, or through the town wall there to the waterside?”
+ +Liliwin shook his head firmly. “I didn’t even know it went beyond the wall +until the day Rannilt came here. I could see as far as the wall when I went +through to the hall in the morning, but I thought it ended there. It was +Rannilt told me the drying-ground was beyond there. It was their washing day, +you see, she’d done all the scrubbing and rinsing, and had it all ready to go +out by mid-morning. But usually she has the dinner to prepare as well, and +watches the weather, and fetches the clothes in before evening. But that day +Mistress Susanna had said she would see to everything, and let Rannilt come +here to visit me. That was truly kind!”
+ +Strange how sitting here listening to the boy’s recollections brought up +clearly the picture of that drying-ground he had never seen but through +Rannilt’s eyes, the slope of grass, the pebbles for anchors, the alders +screening the riverside, the town wall shielding the sward from the north and +leaving it open to the south…
+ +“And I remember she said Mistress Susanna had her shoes and the hems of her +skirts wet when she came in from putting out the washing and found Rannilt +crying. But still she took note first for my girl being so sad… Never mind my +wet feet, she said, what of your wet eyes? Rannilt told me so!”
+ +All ready to go out by mid-morning… As Baldwin Peche had gone out in +mid-morning for the last time. The fish rising… Cadfael, away pursuing his own +thoughts, suddenly baulked, realising, belatedly, what he had heard.
+ +“What was that you said? She had her feet and skirts wet?”
+ +“The river was a little high then,” explained Liliwin, undisturbed. “She’d +slipped on the smooth grass into the shallows. Hanging out a shirt on the +alders…”
+ +And she came in calmly, and sent the maidservant away so that none other but +herself should go to bring in the linen. What other reason would any have for +passing through the wicket in the wall? And only yesterday Rannilt had been +sitting in the doorway to have the light on her work, mending a rent in the +skirt of a gown. And the brown at the hem had been mottled and faded, leaving a +tide-mark of dark colour round the pallor…
+ +“Brother Cadfael,” called the porter softly from the archway into the +cloister, “Hugh Beringar is here for you. He said you would be expecting him.”
+ +“I am expecting him,” said Cadfael, recalling himself with an effort from +the Aurifaber hall. “Bid him come through here. I think we have word for each +other.”
+ +It was not quite dark, the sky being so clear, and Hugh knew his way +everywhere within these walls. He came briskly, made no objection to Liliwin’s +presence, and sat down at once in the porch to show the silver coin in his +palm.
+ +“I’ve already viewed it in a better light. It’s a silver penny of the +sainted Edward, king before the Normans came, a beautiful piece minted in this +town. The moneyer was one Godesbrond, there are a few of his pieces to be +found, but few indeed in the town where they were struck. Aurifaber’s inventory +listed three such. And this was stuck between the boards of the bucket in their +well the morning after the theft. A scrap of coarse blue cloth, the lad says, +was caught in with it, but he thought nothing of that. But it seems to me that +whoever emptied Aurifaber’s coffer tipped all into a blue cloth bag and dropped +it into that bucket—the work of a mere few moments—to be retrieved later at +leisure in the dark hours, before the earliest riser went to draw water.”
+ +“And whoever hoisted it out again,” said Cadfael, “snagged a corner of the +bag on a splinter… a small tear, just enough to let through one of the smaller +coins. It could be so. And Peche’s boy had found this?”
+ +“He
So he well might, if it meant to him that someone there in that very +household must be the thief, and could be milked of the half of his gains in +return for silence. The fish were rising! Now Cadfael began gradually to +comprehend all that had happened. He forgot the young man hugging his knees and +stretching his amazed ears in the corner of the bench close to them. Hugh had +hardly given the boy a thought, so silent and so still he was.
+ +“I think,” said Cadfael, picking his way without too much haste, for there +might yet be pitfalls, “that when he saw this he knew, or could divine with +very fair certainty, which of that household must be the robber. He foresaw +good pickings. What would he ask? A half-share in the booty? But it would not +have made any difference had he been far more modest than that, for the one he +approached had the force and the passion and the ruthlessness to act at once +and waste no time on parley. Listen to me, Hugh, and remember that night. They +sought Master Walter, found him stunned in his shop, and carried him up to his bed. +And then someone—no one seems certain who—cried that it must be the jongleur who +had done this, and sent the whole mob haring out after him, as we here +witnessed. Who, then, was left there to tend the stricken man, and the old +woman threatened by her fit?”
+ +“The women,” said Hugh.
+ +“The women. Of whom the bride was left to care for the victims upstairs in +their own chambers. It was Susanna who ran for the physician. Very well, so she +did. But did she run for him at once, or take but a few moments to run first to +the well and place what she found there in safer hiding?”
+ +In a brief and awed silence they sat staring at each other.
+ +“Is it possible?” said Hugh marvelling. “
“Among humankind all things are possible. Consider! This locksmith had the key +to the mystery put into his hands. If he had been honest he would have gone +straight to Walter or to Daniel and showed it, and told what he knew. He did +not, for he was not honest. He meant to gain by what he had found out. If he +did not approach the one he believed guilty until the Monday, it was because he +had no chance until then of doing so in private. He was as able as we to +remember how all the menfolk had gone baying after Liliwin here, and to reason +that it was a woman who reclaimed the treasury from the well and put it safely +away until all the hue and cry should be over, and a stray lad, with luck, +hanged for the deed. And who kept the keys of the house and had the best +command over all its hiding-places? He chose Susanna. And on Monday his time +came, when she took her basket of linen and went down through the wall to +spread it out in the drying-ground. About mid-morning Baldwin Peche was last +seen in his shop, and went off with some remark about the fish rising. No one +saw him, living, ever again.”
+ +Liliwin, hitherto mute in his corner, leaned forward with a soft, protesting
+cry: “You can’t mean it! She… But she was the only one, the only one who showed
+Rannilt some kindness. She let her come to me for her comfort… She did not
+truly believe that
“She had good reason to
“I cannot believe,” whispered Liliwin, shaking, “that she could, even if she +would, do such a thing. A woman… kill?”
+ +“You underrate Susanna,” said Cadfael grimly. “So did all her kin. And women +have killed, many a time.”
+ +“Granted, then, that he followed her down to the river,” said Hugh. “You had +better go on. Tell us what you believe happened there, and how this thing came +about.”
+ +“I think he came down after her to the brink, showed her the coin, and +demanded a share in her gains to pay for his silence. I think he, of all +people, had worst underestimated her. A mere woman! He expected prevarication, +lies, delay, perhaps pleading, some labour to convince her he knew what he knew +and meant what he said. He had greatly mistaken her. He had not bargained for a +woman who could accept danger instantly, with no outcry, make up her mind, and +act, stamping out the threat as soon as it arose. I think she spoke him fair +while she went on laying out the washing, and as he stood by the water’s edge +with the coin in his hand she so arranged that she passed behind him with a +stone in her hand, reaching to a corner of linen, and struck him down.”
+ +“Go on,” said Hugh, “you cannot leave it there. There was more done than +that.”
+ +“I think you already know. Whether the blow quite stunned him or not, it +flung him face-down into the shallow water. I think she did not wait to give +him time to recover his wits and try to rise, but went on acting instantly. Her +skirt and shoes were wet! I have only just learned it. And remember the bruises +on his back. I think she stepped upon him in the water, almost as he fell, and +held him down until he was dead.”
+ +Hugh sat silent. It was Liliwin who uttered a small whimper of horror at +hearing it, and shook as if the night had turned cold.
+ +“And then considered calmly the possibility that the river might find force +enough to float him away, and took steps to pin him down where he was, under +the alders, under the water, until he could be conveyed away by night, to be +discovered elsewhere, a drowned man. Do you recall the pitted bruise on his +shoulders? There is a jagged stone fallen from the town wall, beside the +pebbles there. As for the coin, it was under his body, she did not try to +recover it.”
+ +Hugh drew deep breath. “It could be so! But it was
“Two are implied. One to strike and steal and hide, the other to retrieve +the goods by night and secrete them in a safer place. One to destroy the +extortioner as soon as he declared himself, and the other to take away the body +and dispose of it by night. Yes, surely two.”
+ +“Then who is the second? Certainly brother and sister who suffered from such +parsimonious elders might compound together to get their hands on what was +withheld from them, and certainly Daniel was abroad that night and furtive +about it. And for all his tale of a married woman’s bed rings likely enough, I +have still had an eye on him. Even shallow men can learn to lie.”
+ +“I have not forgotten Daniel. But you may, for of all men living, her +brother is the least likely to have had any part in Susanna’s plans.” Cadfael +was recalling, as in a storm-flash of illumination, small, unremarkable, +unremarked things, Rannilt repeating the words she had overheard, Juliana’s +improbable praise of her granddaughter’s excellent housewifery, in preserving +her oatmeal crock half-full past Easter, and Susanna’s bitter taunt: “Had you +still a place prepared for me? A nunnery, perhaps?” And then the old woman +shrieked and fell down…
+ +No, wait! There was more to it, he saw it now. The old woman at the head of +the stairs, the only light that of the little lamp she carried, a falling +light, pricking Susanna’s form and features into sharpest light and shade, +every curve or hollow magnified… Yes! She saw what she saw, she shrieked and +clutched her breast, and then fell, letting fall the revealing lamp from her +hand. Somehow she had known the half of it, and come forth by night to confront +her only, her best antagonist. She, too, must have seen the torn skirt, the +stained hem, and made her own connections. And she had still, she had said, a +use for those concealed keys of hers before she surrendered them at last. Yes, +and the last words she ever spoke: “For all that, I should have liked to hold +my great-grandchild…” Words better understood now than when first he had heard +them.
+ +“No, now I see! Nothing now could have held her back. The man who compounded
+with her to steal was no kinsman, nor one they would ever have admitted as kin.
+They made their plans perforce, those two, to vanish from here together at the
+first favourable time, and make a life somewhere far away from this town. Her
+father grudged her a dowry, she has taken it for her herself. Whatever his name
+may be, this man, we know now
Chapter Twelve
+ +« ^ »
+ +Hugh was +on his feet before the last words were spoken. “If you’re right, after what has +happened they won’t wait for a better time. They’ve left it late as it is and +so, by God, have I.”
+ +“You’re going there now? I am coming with you.” Cadfael was not quite easy +about Rannilt. In all innocence she had spoken out things that meant nothing +evil to her, but might uncover much evil to those who listened. Far better to +have her away before she could further threaten Susanna’s purposes. And it +seemed that the same fear had fallen upon Liliwin, for he scrambled hastily out +of the shadows to catch at Hugh’s arm before they could leave the cloister.
+ +“Sir, am I free now? I need not hide here any longer? Then take me with you! +I want to fetch my girl away out of that house. I want her with me. How if they +take fright at her too much knowledge? How if they do her harm? I’m coming to +bring her away, whether or no it’s safe for me!”
+ +Hugh clapped him heartily on the shoulder. “Come, and welcome. Free as a +bird, and I’ll ensure my men shall know it and hold you safe enough. Tomorrow +the town shall know it, too.”
+ +There were no lights in the Aurifaber house when Hugh’s sergeant hammered at +the hall door. The household was already abed, and it took some time to rouse +any of the family. No doubt Dame Juliana, by this time, was shrouded and ready +for her coffin.
+ +It was Margery who at last came down to enquire quaveringly through the +closed door who was without, and what was the matter at this time of night. At +Hugh’s order she opened and let them in, herself surprised and vexed that +Susanna, who slept downstairs, had not saved her the trouble. But it soon +became clear that Susanna was not there to hear any knocking. Her room was empty, +the bed undisturbed, the chest that had held her clothes now contained only a +few discarded and well-worn garments.
+ +The arrival of the sheriff’s deputy and others, with several officers of the +law, very soon brought out all the inhabitants, Walter coming down blear-eyed +and suspicious, Daniel hurrying solicitously to his wife’s side, the boy Griffin +peering uncertainly from the other side of the yard. A curiously shrunken and +unimpressive gathering, without its two dominant members, and every one of +these few who remained utterly at a loss, staring about and at one another in +consternation, as though somewhere among the shadows of the hall they might +still discover Susanna.
+ +“My daughter?” croaked Walter, looking about him helplessly. “But is she not +here? She must be… she was here as always, she put out the lights as she always +does, the last to her bed. Not an hour since! She cannot be gone!”
+ +But she was gone. And so, as Cadfael found when he took a lantern and +slipped away by the outdoor stairs at the rear of the house and into the +undercroft, was Iestyn. Iestyn the Welshman, without money or family or +standing, who would never for a moment have been considered as fit for his +master’s daughter, even now she had ceased to be necessary to the running of +his master’s house, and was of no further value.
+ +The undercroft ran under stone-vaulted ceilings the length of the house. On +impulse Cadfael left the cold, abandoned bed, and lit himself through to the +front, where a narrow stair ran up to a door into the shop. Directly opposite +to him, as he opened it, stood the pillaged coffer where Walter had kept his +wealth. There had been no shadow that night, no sound, only the candle had +flickered as the door was silently opened.
+ +A few yards away, when Cadfael retraced his steps and again climbed the +outdoor stair, lay the well. And on his right hand, the door into Susanna’s +chamber, by which she could pass quickly between hall and kitchen, and a young +man from below-stairs could as well enter when all was dark.
+ +They were gone, as they had surely planned to go one night earlier and been +detained by death. Acting on another thought, Cadfael went in by Susanna’s +door, and asked Margery to open for him the locked door of the store. The big +stone crock in which Susanna had kept her stock of oatmeal stood in one corner. +Cadfael lifted the lid, and held his lantern over it. There was still a +respectable quantity of grain left in the bottom of it, enough to hide quite a +large bundle, suitably disposed, but bereft of that padding it showed much less +than a quarter full. Juliana with her keys had been before him, and left what +she found there, intending, as always, to manage the fortunes of her own clan +with no interference from any other. She had known, and she had held her peace +when she could have spoken. And that stark girl, her nearest kin, all +desperation and all iron calm, had tended her scrupulously, and waited to learn +her fate without fear or complaint. The one as strong as the other, for good or +for evil, neither giving nor asking quarter.
+ +Cadfael replaced the lid, went out and relocked the door. In the hall they +were fluttering and bleating, anxious to insist on their own innocence and +respectability at all costs, distracted at the thought that a kinswoman should +be suspect of such an enormity as robbing her own family. Walter stammered out +his answers, aghast at such treachery, almost incoherent with grief for his +lost money, lost to his own child. Hugh turned rather to Daniel.
+ +“If she intended a long journey tonight, to take her out of our writ, or at +least out of our hold, where would she run? They would need horses. Have you +horses they may have taken?”
+ +“Not here in the town,” said Daniel, pale-faced and tousled from bed, his +comeliness looking almost idiot at this pass, “but over the river we have a +pasture and a stable. Father keeps two horses there.”
+ +“Which way? In Frankwell?”
+ +“Through Frankwell and along the westward road.”
+ +“And the westward road may well be our road,” said Cadfael, coming in from +the store, “for there’s a Welshman missing from under here, and what little he +had gone with him, and once well into Wales he can thumb his nose at the +sheriff of Shropshire. Whatever he may have taken with him.”
+ +He had barely got it out, to indignant and disbelieving protests from +Walter, outraged at the mere suggestion of such a depraved alliance, when +Liliwin came bursting in from the rear quarters, his small person stiff and +quivering with alarm.
+ +“I’ve been to the kitchen—Rannilt is not there. Her bed’s cold, she’s left +her things just as they are, nothing taken.” How little she must have to take, +but he knew the value, to one with virtually nothing, of the poor possessions +she had left behind. “They’ve taken her with them—they’re afraid of what she +knows and may tell. That woman has taken her,” he cried, challenging the +household, the law and all; “and she has killed and will kill again if she sees +need. Where will they have gone? For I am going after them!”
+ +“So are we all,” said Hugh, and turned on Walter Aurifaber. Let the father +sweat for his own, as the lover did for his love. For his own by blood or by +greed. “You, sir, come with us. You say she had but an hour’s start of us and +on foot. Come, then, let’s be after them mounted. I sent for horses from the +castle, they’ll be in the lane by now. You best know the way to your own +stable, bring us there fast.”
+ +The night was dark, clear and still young, so that light lingered in +unexpected places, won from a smooth plane of the river, a house-front of pale +stone, a flowering bush, or scattered stars of windflowers under the trees. The +two women had passed through the Welsh gate and over the bridge without +question. Owain Gwynedd, the formidable lord of much of Wales, withheld his +hand courteously from interfering in England’s fratricidal war, and very +cannily looked after his own interests, host to whoever fled his enemy, friend +to whoever brought him useful information. The borders of Shrewsbury he did not +threaten. He had far more to gain by holding aloof. But his own firm border he +maintained with every severity. It was a good night, and a good time of night, +for fugitives to ride to the west, if their tribal references were good.
+ +Through the dark streets of the suburb of Frankwell they passed like +shadows, and Susanna turned westward, keeping the river still in view, along a +path between fields. The smaller bundle, but the heavier, Susanna carried. The +large and unwieldy one that held all her good clothes they carried between +them. It would have been too clumsy for one to manage alone. If I had not your +help, she had said, I must have left half my belongings behind, and I shall +have need of them.
+ +“Shall you get far tonight?” wondered Rannilt, hesitant but anxious for +assurance.
+ +“Out of this land, I hope. Iestyn, who is nobody here, has a kinship of his +own, and a place of his own, in his own country. There we shall be safe enough +together. After tonight, if we make good speed, we cannot be pursued. You are +not afraid, Rannilt, coming all this way with me in the dark?”
+ +“No,” said Rannilt sturdily, “I’m not afraid. I wish you well, I wish you happy, +I’m glad to carry your goods for you, and to know that you don’t go +unprovided.”
+ +“No,” agreed Susanna, with a curious twist to her voice that suggested +laughter, “not quite penniless. I have earned my future, have I not? Look back +now,” she said, “over your left shoulder, at that mole-hill of the town.” It +showed as a hunched shadow in the shadowy night, stray flickers of light cast +up the pale stone of the wall from the silver of the river in between. “A last +glimpse,” said Susanna, “for we have not far now to go. Has the load been +heavy? You shall soon lay it down.”
+ +“Not heavy at all,” said Rannilt. “I would do more for you if I could.”
+ +The track along the headlands was rough and rutted, but Susanna knew it +well, and stepped securely. On their right the ground rose, its darkness furred +and fragrant with trees. On their left the smooth green meadows swept down to +the lambent, murmuring Severn. Ahead, a roof heaved dimly out of the night, +bushes banked about it, rough ground sheltering it to northwards, the pasture +opening serenely to the south.
+ +“We are there,” said Susanna, and hastened her step, so that Rannilt hurried +to keep up with her and balance their burden.
+ +Not a large building, this one that loomed out of the night, but stout in +its timbers, and tall enough to show that above the stable it had a loft for +hay and fodder. There was a double door set wide upon deep darkness, out of +which the scent of horseflesh and hay and grainy, dusty warmth came to meet +them. A man emerged, a dark shape, tensed to listen for any approaching foot. +Susanna’s step he knew at once and he came with spread arms; she dropped her +end of the bundle and opened her arms to him. Not a word, not a sound had +passed between them. Rannilt stood clutching her end of the load, and shook as +though the earth had trembled under her, as they came together in that silent, +exultant embrace, laced arms straining. Once at least, if never again, she had +experienced a small spark of this devouring flame. She closed her eyes, and +stood quivering.
+ +Their breaking apart was as abrupt and silent as their coming together. +Iestyn looked over Susanna’s shoulder, and fixed his black glance on Rannilt. “Why +did you bring the girl? What do we want with her?”
+ +“Come within,” said Susanna, “and I’ll tell you. Have you saddled up? We +should get away quickly.”
+ +“I was about it when I heard you.” He picked up the roll of clothing, and +drew her with him into the warm darkness of the stable and Rannilt followed +timidly, only too aware how little need they now had of her. Iestyn closed the +doors, but did not fasten them. “Who knows, there may still be some soul awake +along the river, no need to let them see any movement here until we’re away.”
+ +She heard and felt them embrace again in the dark, even in this brief contact +becoming one by passionate consent. She knew then that they had lain together +as she and Liliwin had lain, but many times and with no better hope. She +remembered the rear door of Susanna’s chamber and the stair to the undercroft +not many yards distant. Every temptation lavishly offered, and all countenance +denied.
+ +“This child here,” said Iestyn softly, “what’s your intent with her? Why did +you bring her all this way?”
+ +“She sees too clear and notices too much,” said Susanna shortly. “She has +said to me, poor fool innocent, things she had better not have said, and had +better not say to any other, for if they understood more than she by it, they +might yet be the death of us. So I brought her. She can go with us—a part of +the way.”
+ +Iestyn demanded, after a brief, deep silence: “What do you mean by that?”
+ +“What do you suppose? There are woods enough and wild places your side the +border. Who’s to look for her? A kinless kitchen slave.” The voice was so +calmly and reasonably Susanna’s voice that Rannilt could not take in what it +was saying, and stood utterly lost and feeling herself forgotten, even while +they spoke of her.
+ +A horse stamped and shifted in the dark, the warmth of its big body +tempering the night air. Shapes began to emerge faintly, shadow separating +itself from shadow, while Iestyn breathed long and deeply, and suddenly +shuddered. Rannilt felt him quake, and still did not understand.
+ +“No!” he said in a muted cry just below his breath. “No, that we cannot, +that I will not. Good God, what harm has she ever done us, a poor soul even +less happy than we?”
+ +“You need not,” said Susanna simply. “I can! There is nothing now I cannot +do to have you mine, to belong to you, to go by your side through this world. +After what I’ve done already, what is there I dare not do?”
+ +“No, not this! Not this offence, not if you love me. The other was forced on +you, what loss was he, as mean as your kin! But not this child! I will not let +you! Nor’s there no need,” he said, turning from ordering to persuading. “Here +are we, well out of the town, leave her here and go, you and I together, what +else matters here? Let her make her way back by daylight. Where shall we be? +Far past pursuit, over the border into Welsh land, safe. What harm can she do +us, who has never done any yet, nor ever willed any?”
+ +“They
“No, no, no! You shall not so despoil my love, I will not have you so changed. +I want you as you are now…”
+ +The horses shifted and blew, uneasy at having disturbing company at this +hour, yet wakeful and ready. Then there was a silence, brief and fathoms deep, +and ending in a long-drawn sigh.
+ +“My heart, my love,” Susanna said in a melting whisper, “as you will, as you +order… Have it your way, then… Yes, let her be! What if we are hunted? There’s +nothing I can refuse you—not my life…”
+ +And whatever it had been between them, and concerning her, it was over. +Rannilt stood helpless in the corner of the stable, trying to understand, +willing them away, westward into Wales, where Iestyn was a man and a kinsman +instead of a menial, and Susanna might be an honourable wife, who had been +hitherto a household servant, baulked of her rights, grudged her dowry, a +discard woman.
+ +Iestyn plucked up the clothing roll, and by the stirring and trampling of +one of the horses, he was busy strapping it into balance behind the saddle. The +other bundle, the heavy one, gave forth again its soft, metallic sound as +Susanna hoisted it, to be stowed behind the second mount. They were still +barely visible, those horses. An occasional splinter of light glanced from +their coats and was lost again; their warmth breathed on the air with every +movement.
+ +A hand swung wide the half of the double door, and a sector of sky peered +in, lighter than the darkness, bluer than the blackness, growing luminous with +the rising of a half-moon. One of the horses stirred into motion, led towards +that paler interstice.
+ +There was a short, sharp cry, so soft and desolate that the air ached with +it. The opened half-door slammed to again, and Rannilt heard hasty hands +fumbling with heavy bars, hoisting and dropping them into solid sockets. Two +such beams guarding the door had the force and assurance of a fortress.
+ +“What is it?” Susanna’s voice pealed sharply out of the dusk within. She was +holding the bridle, the abrupt halt made the horse stamp and snort.
+ +“Men, a good number, coming down from the headland! There are horses, led +behind! They’re coming here—they know!”
+ +“They cannot know!” she cried.
+ +“They do know. They’re spreading, to ring us round, I saw the ranks part. +Get up the ladder! Take her with you. She may be worth all to us yet. What +else,” he cried, suddenly raging, “have we between ourselves and the +judgement?”
+ +Rannilt, bewildered and frightened, stood trembling in the darkness, stunned +by the confusing turmoil of hooves stamping round her, and bodies in violent, +blind motion, warm stable smells eddying on the air and pricking her nostrils +as the stirrings of terror prickled her skin. The doors were barred, and Iestyn +between her and that way out, even if she could have lifted the beams. And +still she could not believe, could not take in what was happening to her, or +relate these two desperate people with the Susanna and the Iestyn she had +known. When a hand gripped her wrist and tugged her towards the rear corner of +the stable, she went helplessly with the urgent compulsion. What else could she +do? Her ankle struck against the lowest rung of a ladder, the hand dragged her +upwards. Fumbling and panting, she went where she was hauled, and was tossed face-down +into a pile of hay that enveloped her in dust and dry sweetness. Dimly she was +aware of punctures of sky shining through the hay, distinguishably paler in the +timber darkness before her, where whoever built this stable and loft had placed +a ventilation lattice to air his store.
+ +Somewhere behind her, at the door end of the loft, a larger square of sky +looked in, the hatch by which the hay harvest was forked in here for storage, +high above the barred doors below. She heard the rungs of the ladder creak at +Iestyn’s weight as he climbed in haste, and ran to fling himself on his knees +beside that outlet, to watch his enemies close about his refuge. She heard, and +suddenly was able to comprehend what she heard. The thud of fists hammering on +the barred doors, the challenge of the law without.
+ +“Open and come forth, or we’ll hack you out with axes. We know you there +within and know what you have to answer for!”
+ +Not a voice she knew, for an eager sergeant had outrun his lord and his +fellows when he heard the bars slam home, and had come well first to the doors. +But she knew the import of what he bellowed to the night, and understood fully +at last into what peril she had been brought.
+ +“Stand back!” Iestyn’s voice rang loud and hard. “Or answer to God for a life, +you also! Well away from those doors, and don’t venture back, for I see you +clearly. And I’ll speak no more with you, underling, but only with your master. +Tell him I have a girl here between my hands, and a knife at my belt, and so +sure as axe strikes at these timbers, my knife slits her throat. Now bring me +here someone with whom I can parley.”
+ +There was a sharp command without and then silence. Rannilt drew herself +back as far as she dared into the remaining store of hay, towards the faint +pattern of stars. Between here and the head of the ladder by which she had +climbed there was a silent, motionless presence which she knew for Susanna, on +guard over her lover’s only weapon.
+ +“What did I ever do to you?” said Rannilt, without rancour or hope.
+ +“You fell foul,” said Susanna, with unblaming bitterness. “Your misfortune +and ours.”
+ +“And will you truly kill me?” She asked it in pure wonder, even her terror +momentarily forgotten.
+ +“If we must.”
+ +“But dead,” said Rannilt, in a moment of desperately clear vision putting
+her finger on the one disastrous weakness in the holding of hostages, “I am of
+no more use to you. It’s only
“If I must pull the roof down upon myself,” said Susanna with cold ferocity, +“I’ll pull it down also upon as many of the innocent as I can contrive to crush +with me and not go alone into the ark.”
+Chapter Thirteen
+ +« ^ »
+ +Hugh had +halted his men instantly at Iestyn’s challenge, drawn back those who had +reached the stable doors, and enjoined silence, which is more unnerving than violent +assault or loud outcry. Moving men could be detected, stillness made them only +dubiously visible. The rising ground to the headland bore several small clumps +of trees and a hedge of bushes, cover enough for men to make their way halfway +round the stable, and the rest of the circle they closed at a greater distance, +completing a ring all round the building. The sergeant came back from his +survey, shadowy from tree to tree down the slope to the meadow, to report the +stable surrounded.
+ +“There’s no other way out, unless he has the means to hew a way through a +wall, and small good that would do him. And if he boasts of a knife, I take it +he has no other weapon. What would a common workman carry but his knife for all +purposes?”
+ +“And we have archers,” mused Hugh, “if they have no light to show them a +target as yet. Wait—nothing in haste! If we have them securely, it’s we who can +afford to wait, not they. No need to drive them to madness.”
+ +“But they have Rannilt in there—they’re threatening her life,” whispered +Liliwin, quivering at Brother Cadfael’s shoulder.
+ +“They’re offering to spend her for their own ends,” said Hugh, “therefore +all the more they’ll keep her safe to bargain with, short of the last despair, +and I’ll take good care not to drive them over the edge. Keep still a while, +and let’s see if we can tire them out or talk them out. But you, Alcher, find +yourself the best place in cover to command that hatch above the doors, and +keep it in your eye and a shaft always ready, in case of the worst. I’ll try to +hold the fellow there in the frame for you.” The loading door where Iestyn +kneeled to watch them was no more than a faint shape darker still in the dark +timber wall and the deep-blue light, but like the doors it faced due east, and +the first predawn light, however many hours away yet, would find it early. “No +shooting unless I bid. Let’s see what patience can do.”
+ +He went forward alone, fixing the square of darkness with intent eyes, and +stood some twenty paces distant from the stable. Behind him in the bushes +Liliwin held his breath, and Brother Cadfael felt the boy’s slight body +quivering and taut, like a leashed hound, and laid a cautioning hand on his arm +in case he slipped his leash and went baying after his quarry. But he need not +have feared. Liliwin turned a white face and nodded him stiff reassurance. “I +know. I trust him, I must. He knows his business.”
+ +At their backs, unable to be still, Walter Aurifaber sidled and writhed +about the tree that sheltered him, biting his nails and agonising over his +losses, and saying never a word to any but himself, and that in a soft, whining +undertone that was half malediction and half prayer. At least all was not yet +lost. The malefactors had not escaped, and could not and must not break loose +now and run for it westward.
+ +“Iestyn!” called Hugh, gazing steadily upward. “Here am I, Hugh Beringar, +the sheriff’s deputy. You know me, you know why I am here, you best know I am +about what it is my duty to do. My men are all round you, you have no way of +escape. Be wise, come down from there and give yourself—yourselves—into my +hands, without more damage and worse offence, and look for what mercy such good +sense can buy you. It’s your best course. You must know it and take heed.”
+ +“No!” said Iestyn’s voice harshly. “We have not come so far to go tamely to +judgement now. I tell you, we have the girl, Rannilt, here within. If any man +of yours comes too near these doors, I swear I will kill her. Bid them keep +back. That’s my first word.”
+ +“Do you see any man but myself moving within fifty paces of your doors?” +Hugh’s voice was calm, equable and clear. “You have, then, a girl at your +mercy. What then? With her you have no quarrel. What can you gain by harming +her but a hotter place in hell? If you could reach my throat, I grant you it +might possibly avail you, but it can neither help you nor give you satisfaction +to slit hers. Nor does it suit with what has been known of you heretofore. You +have no blood-guilt on your hands thus far, why soil them now?”
+ +“You may talk sweet reason from where you stand,” cried Iestyn bitterly, “but +we have all to lose, and see no let to making use of what weapons we have. And +I tell you, if you press me, I will kill her, and if then you break in here after +me by force, I will kill and kill as many as I can before the end. But if you +mean such soft, wise talk, yes, you may have the girl, safe and sound—at a +price!”
+ +“Name your price,” said Hugh.
+ +“A life for a life is fair. Rannilt’s life for my woman’s. Let my woman go +free from here, with her horse and goods and gear and all that is hers, +unpursued, and I will send out the girl to you unharmed.”
+ +“And you would take my word there should be no pursuit?” Hugh pressed, +angling after at least a small advantage.
+ +“You’re known for a man of your word.”
+ +Two voices had let out sharp gasps at the mention of such terms, and two
+voices cried out: “No!” in the same breath. Walter, frantic for his gold and
+silver, darted out a few steps towards where Hugh stood, until Cadfael caught
+him by the arm and plucked him back. He wriggled and babbled indignantly: “No,
+no such infamous bargain!
There was a shadowy flurry of movement in the hatch above, and Susanna’s
+voice pealed sharply: “What, have you my loving father there? He wants his
+money, and my neck wrung, like that of any other who dared lay hands on his
+money. Poor judgement in you, if you expected
“She’s lying,” cried Iestyn hoarsely. “I am the guilty man. Whatever she did +she did only for me…”
+ +“Hush, love, they know better! They know which of us two planned and acted. +Me they may do as they like with—you they shall not have!”
+ +“Oh, fool girl, my dearest, do you think I would leave you? Not for all the +world’s treasures…”
+ +Those below were forgotten in this wild contention above. Nothing was to be +seen but the agitated tremor of certain pallors within the dark frame, that +might have been faces and hands, faces pressed despairingly cheek to cheek, +hands embracing and caressing. Next moment Iestyn’s voice lifted sharply: “Stop +her! Quickly, stir! Mind your fawn!” And the shadowy embrace broke apart, and a +faint, frustrated cry from deep within made Liliwin shiver and start against +Cadfael’s arm.
+ +“That was Rannilt. Oh, God, if I could but reach her…” But he spoke only in +a whisper, aware of a tension that ought not to be broken, that was spun out +here like the threatened thread of Rannilt’s young life, and his own hope of +happiness. His desperation and pain was something he must bear, and keep +silent.
+ +“Since she cries out,” whispered Cadfael firmly into his ear, “she is alive. +Since she made a bid to slip away out of reach while they were beset, she is +unharmed and unbound. Keep that in mind.”
+ +“Yes, true! And they don’t, they can’t hate her or want to harm her…” But +still he heard the extreme anger and pain of those two voices crying defiance, +and knew, as Cadfael knew, that two so driven might do terrible things even +against their own natures. More, he understood their suffering, and was wrung +with it as though it matched his own.
+ +“No comfort for you,” shouted Iestyn from his lair. “We have her still. Now +I offer you another choice. Take back the girl and the gold and silver, give us +the two horses and this night free of pursuit, together.”
+ +Walter Aurifaber broke free with a whimper of half-eager, half-doubtful hope +and approval, and darted some yards into the open. “My lord! My lord, that +might be acceptable. If they restore my treasury…” Even his lawful revenge did +not count for much by comparison.
+ +“There is a life they cannot restore,” said Hugh curtly, and motioned him +back so sternly that the goldsmith recoiled, chastened.
+ +“Are you listening, Iestyn?” called Hugh, raising his eyes once again to the +dark hatch. “You mistake my office. I stand here for the king’s law. I am +willing to stand here all night long. Take thought again, and better, and come +down with unbloodied hands. There is no better thing you can do.”
+ +“I am here. I am listening. I have not changed,” Iestyn responded grimly
+from above. “If you want my woman and me, come and fetch us forth, and fetch
+away first this little carcase—
“Have I raised a hand?” said Hugh reasonably. “Or loosened my sword in the +scabbard? You see me, clearer than I can see you. We have the night before us. +Whenever you have ought to say, speak up, I shall be here.”
+ +The night dragged with fearful slowness over besiegers and besieged, for the +most part in mourn silence, though if silence continued too long Hugh would +deliberately break it, to test whether Iestyn remained awake and watchful, +though with care not to alarm him, for fear he should be driven to panic action +in expectation of an attack. There was no remedy but to outwait and out endure +the enemy. In all likelihood they had very little food or water with them. They +could as easily be deprived of rest. Even in such tactics there was the danger +of sudden and utter despair, which might bring on a massacre, but if all was +done very gradually and softly that might yet be avoided. Weariness has +sometimes broken down spirits braced implacably to defy torture, and inaction +sucked away all the resolution armed for action.
+ +“Try if you can do better,” said Hugh softly to Cadfael, some time well past + midnight. “They cannot know you’re here, not yet, you may find a chink in their +mail that’s proof against me.”
+ +In those small hours when the heart is low, the least surprise may prick +home as it could not do by day, in the noon of the body’s vigour. Cadfael’s +very voice, deeper and rougher than Hugh’s, startled Iestyn into leaning out +from his watch-tower for one incautious stare at this new visitant.
+ +“Who’s that? What trick are you playing now?”
+ +“No trick, Iestyn. I am Brother Cadfael of the abbey, who came sometimes to +the house with medicines. You know me, I dare not say well enough to trust me. +Let me speak with Susanna, who knows me better.”
+ +He had thought that she might refuse either to speak or to hear him. When +she had set her mind upon one course, she might well be stone to any who sought +to divert her or stand in her way. But she did come to the hatch, and she did +listen. At least that was a further respite. Those two lovers changed places in +the loft. Cadfael felt them pass, and now they passed without touching or +caressing, for there was no need. They were two halves of one whole, living or +dead. One of them, it was clear from the earlier outcry, must keep an eye on +their prisoner. They could not bind her, then, or else they had not thought it +needful. Perhaps they had not the means. They were trapped in the instant of +flight. Was it unpardonable to wish they had ridden away half an hour earlier?
+ +“Susanna, it is not too late to make restitution. I know your wrongs, my +voice shall speak for you. But murder is murder. Never think there is any +escape. Though you elude the judgement here, there is another you cannot avoid. +Better far to make what amends can be made and be at peace.”
+ +“What peace?” she said, bitter and chill. “There is none for me. I am a +stunted tree, denied the ground to grow, and now, when I am in fruit, in +despite of this world, do you think I will abate one particle of my hate or +love? Leave me be, Brother Cadfael,” she said more gently. “Your concern is +with my soul, mine is all with my body, the only heaven I’ve ever known or ever +hope to know.”
+ +“Come down and bring Iestyn with you,” said Cadfael simply, “and I take it +upon myself to promise you, as I must answer to God, that your child and his +shall be born and cared for as befits every human soul brought innocent into +the world. I will invoke the lord abbot to ensure it.”
+ +She laughed. It was a fresh, wild and yet desolate sound. “This is not Holy Church’s +child, Brother Cadfael. It belongs to me, and to Iestyn my man, and there is +none other shall ever cradle or care for it. Yet I do thank you for your goodwill +to my son. And after all,” she said, with bitter derision in her voice, “how do +we know the creature would ever be brought forth living and whole? I am old, +Brother Cadfael, old for childbirth. The thing may be dead before me.”
+ +“Make the assay,” said Cadfael stoutly. “He is not wholly yours, he is his +own, your maybe child. Do him justice! Why should he pay for your sins? It was +not he trampled Baldwin Peche into the gravel of Severn.”
+ +She made a dreadful, muted sound, as if she had choked upon her own rage and +grief, and then she was calm and resolved again, and immovable. “Three are here +together and made one,” she said, “the only trinity I acknowledge now. No +fourth has any part in us. What do we owe to any man living?”
+ +“You forget there is a fourth,” said Cadfael strongly, “and you are making +shameful use of her. One who is none of yours and has never done you wrong. She +also loves—I think you know it. Why destroy another pair as little blessed as +you?”
+ +“Why not?” said Susanna. “I am all destruction. What else is left to me +now?”
+ +Cadfael persisted, but after a while, talking away doggedly there past the +mid of the night, he knew that she had risen and left him, unconvinced, +unreconciled, and that it was Iestyn who now leaned in the hatch. He waited a +considering while, and then took up his pleading for this perhaps more +vulnerable ear. A Welshman, less aggrieved than the woman, for all his +hardships; and all Welsh are kin, even if they slit one another’s throats now +and then, and manure their sparse and stony fields with fratricidal dead in +tribal wars. But he knew he had little hope. He had already spoken with the +domina of that pair. There was no appeal to this one now that she could not +wipe out with a gesture of her hand.
+ +He was eased, if not verily glad, when Hugh came back to relieve him of his +watch.
+ +He sat slack and discouraged in the spring grass under the hedge of bushes, +and Liliwin came plucking softly but urgently at his sleeve. “Brother Cadfael, +come with me! Come!” The whisper was excited and hopeful, where hope was in no +very lavish supply.
+ +“What is it? Come with you where?”
+ +“He said there’s no other way out,” whispered Liliwin, tugging at the sleeve +he held, “and by that token none in, but there is… there could be. Come and +see!”
+ +Cadfael went where he was led, up through the bushes on the headland, and +along the slope in cover, just below the level of the stable roof and at no +great distance from it, to the western end of the building. The timbers of the +roof projected above the low gable, the fellow to the eastern one in which +Iestyn crouched on watch. “See there—the starlight shows dappling. They let in +a lattice there for air.”
+ +Peering narrowly, Cadfael could just discern a square shape that might well +be what Liliwin described, but measured barely the span of hand and forearm +either way, as close as he could estimate. The interstices between the slats, +which the straining eye could either discern or imagine for a moment, only to +lose them again, were surely too small even to admit a fist. Nor was there any +way of reaching them, short of a ladder or the light weight and claws of a cat, +even though the timbers of the wall below were rough and uneven.
+ +“That?” breathed Cadfael, aghast. “Child, a spider might get up there and +get in, but scarcely a man.”
+ +“Ah, but I’ve been down there, I know. There are toe-holds enough. And I +think one of the slats is hanging loose already, and there’ll be others ready +to give way. If a man could get in there, while you hold them busy at the other +end… She is up there, I know it! You heard, when they ran to hold her, how far +it was to run.”
+ +It was true. Moreover, if she had any choice she would be huddled as far +away from her captors as she could get.
+ +“But, boy, even if you stripped away two or three of the boards—could you do +more, unheard? I doubt it! There’s not a man among us could get through that +keyhole to her. No, not if you had time to strip the whole square.”
+ +“Yes,
“Wait!” said Cadfael. “Sit you here in cover, and I’ll go broach it to Hugh +Beringar and get you your rope, and make ready to hold them fast in talk, as +far as may be away from you. Not a word, not a movement until I come back.”
+ +“No madder than whatever else we may do to break this dam,” said Hugh when he +had listened and considered. “If you put some trust in it, I’ll go with you. +Can he really creep in there, do you think? Is it possible?”
+ +“I’ve seen him tie himself in a knot a serpent might be proud of,” said +Cadfael, “and if he says there’s room enough there for him to pass, I say he’s +the better judge of that than I. It’s his profession, he takes pride in it. +Yes, I put my trust in him.”
+ +“We’ll send to fetch him his rope, and a chisel, too, to pry loose the +slats, but he must wait for them. We’ll make good certain they stay wakeful and +watchful at this end, and try a feint or two, if need be, short of driving them +to panic. And let him take his time, for I think we might be advised to wait +for the first light, to give Alcher a clear view of that hatch and whatever +body fills it, and a shaft fitted and aimed in case of need. If we must let a +decent poor lad risk his life, at least we’ll stand ready with all the cover we +can give him.”
+ +“I had rather,” said Cadfael sadly, “there should be no killing at all.”
+ +“So would I,” agreed Hugh grimly, “but if there must be, rather the guilty +than the innocent.”
+ +The dawn was still more than an hour and a half away when they brought the +rope Liliwin needed, but already the eastern sky had changed, turned from +deepest blue to paler blue-green, and a faint line of green paler still +outlined the curves of the fields behind them, and the towered hill of the +town.
+ +“Rather round my waist than my neck,” whispered Liliwin hardily, as Cadfael +fastened the rope about him among the bushes.
+ +“There, I see you have the true spirit in you. God keep you, the pair of +you! But can she come down the rope, even if you reach her? Girls are not such +acrobats as you.”
+ +“I can guide her. She’s so light and small, she can hold by the rope and +walk backwards down the wall… Only keep them busy there at the far end.”
+ +“But go slowly and quietly, no haste,” cautioned Cadfael, anxious as for a +son going into battle. “I shall be running messenger between. And daylight will +be on our side, not on theirs.”
+ +Liliwin kicked off his shoes. He had holes in the toes of both feet of his +hose, Cadfael saw. Perhaps none the worse for this enterprise, but when he came +to be sent out into the world—God so willing, as surely God must—he must go +better provided.
+ +The boy slid silently down from the headland to the foot of the stable wall, +felt with stretched arms above his head, found grips a heavier man would never +have considered, set a toe to a first hold, and drew himself up like a squirrel +on to the timbers.
+ +Cadfael waited and watched until he had seen the rope slipped through the +firmest boards of the lattice and made fast, and the first rotten slat prised +free, slowly and carefully, and let fall silently at arm’s-length into the +thick grass below. More than half an hour had passed by then. From time to time +he caught the sound of voices in weary but alert exchanges to eastward. The +criss-cross of boards at the air-vent showed perceptibly now. The removal of +one board had uncovered a space big enough to let a cat in and out, but surely +nothing larger or less agile. The vault of the sky lightened very gradually +before there was any visible source of light.
+ +Liliwin worked with a bight of the tethered rope fast round him, and +half-naked toes braced into the timbers of the wall. He had begun patiently +prising loose the second slat, when Cadfael made his way back in cover to +report what he knew.
+ +“God knows it looks impossible, but the lad knows his business, and if he is +sure he can pass, as a cat knows by its whiskers, then I take his word for it. +But for God’s sake keep this parley alive.”
+ +“Take it over for me,” said Hugh, drawing back with eyes still fixed on the +hatch. “Only some few moments… A fresh voice causes them to prick their ears +afresh.”
+ +Cadfael took up the vain pleas he had used before. The voice that answered +him was hoarse with weariness, but still defiant.
+ +“We shall not go from here,” said Cadfael, roused out of his own weariness +by a double anxiety, “until all these troubled here, body and soul, have +freedom and quiet, whether in this world or another. And who so prevents to the +last, on him the judgement fall! Nevertheless, God’s mercy is infinite to those +who seek it, However late, however feebly.”
+ +“The light will not be long,” Hugh was saying at that same moment to Alcher, +who was the finest marksman in the castle garrison, and had long since chosen +his ground with the dawn in view, and found no reason to change it. “Be ready, +the instant I shall call, to put an arrow clean into that hatch, and through +whoever lurks there. But no shooting unless I do call. And pray God I am not +forced to it.”
+ +“That’s understood,” said Alcher, nursing his strung bow and fitted shaft, +and never shifting his eyes from their aim, dead-centre of the dark opening, +now growing clearly visible above the stable doors.
+ +When Cadfael again made his way along the headland, the lattice was a +lattice no longer, but a small square opening under the eaves, and the +dislodged slats lay cushioned in the thick grass below. Liliwin had one arm +stretched within, to ease aside the hay cautiously, with as little sound as +possible, and make room to creep within. Now if only Rannilt could keep from +starting or crying out when she found herself approached thus from behind! It +was high time to make as much and as menacing ado before the stable doors as +possible. Yet Cadfael could not help standing with held breath to watch, until +Liliwin slid head and shoulders through the space that seemed barely passable +even for his slenderness, and drew the rest of himself after in one coiling, +rapid movement, vanishing in a smooth somersault, and without a sound.
+ +Cadfael made his way back in haste to a point still out of sight from the +hatch, and signalled urgently to Hugh that the time of greatest danger was +come. Alcher saw the waving arm before Hugh did, and drew his bow halfway to +the ear, narrowing his eyes upon the moving blurs of drab brown coat and paler +face that showed as his target. Behind him the sun was just showing a rim over +the horizon, and its first ray gleamed along the ridge of the roof. In a +quarter of an hour it would be high enough for the light to reach the hatch, +and the shot would be an easy matter.
+ +“Iestyn,” called Hugh sharply, mustering those of his men nearest him into +plain sight, though not too near to the doors, “you have had a night’s grace to +consider, now show decent sense, and come forth of your own will, for you see you +cannot escape us, and you are mortal like others, and must eat to live. You are +not in sanctuary there, there are no forty days of respite for you.”
+ +“There’s nothing but a halter for us,” shouted Iestyn savagely, “and well we +know it. But if that’s our end, I swear to you the girl shall go before us, and +her blood be on your head.”
+ +“So you say, big talk from a small man! Your woman may not be so ready +either to kill or to die. Have you asked her? Or have you the only voice in the +matter? Here, master goldsmith,” called Hugh, beckoning, “come and speak to +your daughter. However late in the day, she may still listen to you.”
+ +He was bidding to sting her, to bring them both flying to the hatch to spit +their joint defiance and leave their prisoner unwatched. But oh, not too fast, +not too fast, prayed Cadfael, gnawing his knuckles on the headland. The boy +needs a few more minutes yet…
+ +Liliwin tunnelled stealthily through the stored hay, as much in terror of +sneezing, as the odorous dust tickled his nostrils, as he was of making too +audible a rustling and betraying himself all too soon. Somewhere before him, +very close now, he could hear the faint stirrings Rannilt made in her nest, and +prayed that they would cover whatever sound he was making. After a while, pausing +to peer through the thinning screen, he caught the shape of her shrinking +shoulders and head against the dim morning light. Carefully he enlarged the +passage he had hollowed out, so that he might have room to draw to one side of +her, and have her creep past him, to come first to the frame of the lattice. +Iestyn was leaning out at the far end of the loft, shouting angry curses now at +those without, threatening still but not looking this way.
+ +There was a woman to fear, for wherever she was now, she was silent. But +surely if those without were pressing, half at least of her care must be with +her lover. And here in the loft it was still blessedly dark.
+ +His hand, probing delicately ahead, found and touched Rannilt’s bare +forearm. She flinched sharply, but made no sound at all, and in a moment he +slid his hand down to find hers, and clung. Then she knew. All he heard was a +faint, long sigh, and her fingers closed on his. He drew her gently, and by +slow inches she shifted and drew nearer, into the cavity he opened for her. She +was beside him, the fragile screen of hay hiding him and already half shielding +her, and still no outcry. He urged her on past him with the pressure of his +hand, to come first to the lattice and the rope as he covered her going. +Outside the stable doors the circling voices were raised and peremptory, and +Iestyn, wild with weariness and anger, roared back at them incoherent defiance. +Then, blessedly, Sussana’s voice, surely close there at her lover’s shoulder, +soared above the clamour:
+ +“Fools, do you think there’s any power can separate us now? I hold as Iestyn +holds, I despise your promises and your threats as he does. Bring my father to +plead with me, would you? Let him hear, then, what I owe him, and what I wish +him. Of all men on earth, I hate him! As he has made me of no worth, so I set +no value on him. Dare he say I am no longer his daughter? He is no longer my father, +he never was a father to me. May he be fed molten gold in hell until belly and +throat burn to furnace ashes…”
+ +Under the fury of that raging voice, clear and steely as a sword, Liliwin +hustled Rannilt past him and thrust her bodily through his dusty tunnel towards +the lattice and the rope, all caution cast to the winds, for if this momemt +escaped them, there might be no other.
+ +It was Iestyn’s quick ear that caught, even through Susanna’s malediction, +the sudden frenzied rustling of hay. He swung round with a great cry of rage at +what he saw, and lunged away to prevent it. The first ray of light entering +caught the flash of the naked knife.
+ +Hugh was quick to understand and act. “Shoot!” he cried, and Alcher, who had +that first finger of sunlight now bright on Iestyn’s body, loosed his shaft. +Meant for the breast, it would have been no less mortal in the back, if +Susanna, for all her bitter passion, had not taken in all these signs in one +breath. She uttered a shriek rather of rage than fear, and flung herself into +the opening of the hatch, arms spread and braced to ward off her lover’s death.
+ +At the first cry Liliwin had thrust Rannilt towards the way of escape, and +sprung erect out of the hay to put his own slight body between her and harm. +Iestyn bore down on him, the brandished dagger caught the levelled ray of sun +and sent splinters of light dancing about the roof. The blade hung over +Liliwin’s heart when Susanna’s shriek caused Iestyn to baulk and shudder where +he stood, straining backwards like a horse suddenly reined in, and the point of +the knife slid wildly down, slicing along the boy’s parrying forearm, and +drawing a fine spray of blood into the hay.
+ +She was melting, she was dissolving into herself, as a man of snow folds +into himself gradually when the thaw comes. The impact of the arrow, striking +full into her left breast, had spun her round, she sank slowly with her hands +clutching the shaft where it had pierced her, and her eyes fixed, huge and +clouded, upon Iestyn, for whom the death had been intended. Liliwin, dazedly +watching as the man sprang back to clasp her, said afterwards that she was +smiling. But his recollections were confused and wild, what he chiefly recalled +was a terrible howl of grief and despair that filled and echoed through the +loft. The knife was flung aside, and stuck quivering in the boards of the +floor. Iestyn embraced his love, moaning, and sank with her in his arms. Round +the fearful barrier of the arrow she essayed to lift her failing arms to clasp +him. Their kiss was a contortion the trained contortionist in Liliwin +remembered lifelong with pity and pain.
+ +Liliwin came to himself soon, because he must. He drew Rannilt up by the +hand, away from the lattice of which they had no more need, and coaxed her +after him down the ladder to the stable floor where the loaded horses stamped +and shifted uneasily after all these nightlong alarms. He hoisted the heavy +bars that held the doors, and it took all the strength he had left to lift +them. The eastern light reached his face but no lower, as he pushed open both +heavy doors, and led Rannilt out into the green meadow.
+ +They were aware of men flowing in as they came gladly out. Their part was +done. Brother Cadfael, breathing prayers of gratitude, took them both in his +arms, and swept them aside to a grassy knoll at the foot of the headland, where +they dropped together thankfully into the spring turf, and drew in the May air +and the morning light, and gradually turned and stared and smiled, like +creatures in a dream, waking to be glad of each other.
+ +Hugh was first up the ladder and into the loft, the sergeant hard on his +heels. In the shaft of sunlight, bolder and broader now, and blindingly bright +above the lingering dimness of the hay-strewn floor, Iestyn kneeled with +Susanna in his arms, tenderly holding her up from the boards, for the shaft had +pierced clean through her, and jutted at her shoulder. Her eyes were already +filmed over as though with sleep, but still kept their fixed regard upon her +lover’s face, a mask of grief and despair. When the sergeant made to lay a hand +on Iestyn’s shoulder, Hugh waved him away.
+ +“Let him alone,” he said quietly, “he will not run.” There was no future +left to run for, nowhere to run to, no one to run with. Everything he cared for +was in his arms, and would not be with him long.
+ +Her blood was on his hands, on the lips and cheek that had caressed her +frantically for a moment, as though caresses could make all whole again. He had +given over that now, he only crouched and clasped her, and watched her lips +trying to form words to take all upon herself, and deliver him, but making no +sound, and presently ceasing to attempt it. He saw the light go out behind the +glassy grey of her eyes.
+ +Not until then did Hugh touch him. “She is gone, Iestyn. Lay her down now +and come with us. I promise you she shall be brought home decently.”
+ +Iestyn laid her in the piled hay, and got to his feet slowly. The climbing +sun fingered the knotted binding of the one bundle they had brought up here +with them. His dulled eyes fell upon it, and flamed. He plucked it from the +floor, and hurled it out through the hatch, to burst asunder in the grass of +the meadow, scattering its contents in a shower of sparks as the level beams +crept across the pasture.
+ +A great howl of desolation and loss welled up out of Iestyn’s throat to bay +at the cloudless and untroubled sky:
+ +“And I would have taken her barefoot in her shift!”
+ +Outside in the pasture another aggrieved wail arose like an echo, as Walter +Aurifaber grovelled in the grass on his hands and knees, frantically clawing up +from among the tussocks his despised gold and silver.
+Chapter Fourteen
+ +prev ^
+ +They took back +the living and the dead alike into Shrewsbury in the radiant, slanting light of +morning, Iestyn, mute now and indifferent to his fate, to a lodging in the +castle; Susanna, safe from any penalty in this world, to the depeopled +household from which three generations together would shortly be carried to the +grave. Walter Aurifaber followed dazedly, hugging his recovered wealth, and +regarding his daughter’s body with a faint frown of bewilderment, as though, +tugged between his loss and his gain, he could not yet determine what he should +be feeling. For after all, she had robbed him and vilified him at the end, and +if he had been deprived of a competent housekeeper, that was his sole serious +loss, and there was another woman at home now to take her place. And with +Daniel surely maturing and taking a pride in his own craftsmanship, he might +very well manage without having to pay a journeyman. Whatever conflict +disrupted Walter would soon be resolved in favour of satisfaction.
+ +As for the two delivered lovers, bereft of words, unable to unlock eyes or +hands, Cadfael took them in charge and, mindful of the proprieties, of Prior +Robert’s chaste disapproval and Abbot Radulfus’ shrewd regard for the ordered +peace of the rule, thought well to speak a word in Hugh’s ear and enlist the +ready sympathy of Hugh’s lady. Aline welcomed Rannilt into her care with +delight, and undertook to provide and instruct her in everything a bride should +possess and know, to feed her plump and rosy, and coax into full light those +beauties in her which hitherto had gone veiled and unregarded.
+ +“For if you intend to take her away with you,” said Cadfael, propelling the +half-reluctant Liliwin back over the bridge towards the abbey gatehouse, “you’d +best marry her here, where there’ll be shame-faced folk enough anxious to set +you up with small favours, to pay for their misuse of you earlier. No need to +despise the gifts of this world when they come honestly. And you’ll be doing +the givers a kindness, they’ll have made their peace with their consciences. +You come back to us, and don’t grudge a week’s waiting to make ready for your +marriage. You could hardly bring your girl back to share your bed in the +porch.” Or behind an altar, he thought but did not say. “She’ll be safe there +with Hugh’s lady, and come to you with every man’s goodwill.”
+ +Cadfael was right. Shrewsbury had a bad conscience about Liliwin, as soon as +word of the scandalous truth was being passed round over market-stalls and shop +counters and traded along the streets. All those who had been too hasty in +hunting him took care to proffer small favours by way of redress. The provost, +who had taken no part, noted the sad state of the young man’s only pair of +shoes, and set an example by making him a fine new pair in which to resume his +travels. Other members of the guild merchant took the hint. The tailors +combined to clothe him decently. He bade fair to emerge better provided than +ever before in his life.
+ +But the best gift of all came from Brother Anselm.
+ +“Well, since you won’t stay and be celibate here among us,” said the +precentor cheerfully, “here is your own rebec ready for playing, and a good +leather bag to carry it in. I’m pleased with my work, it came out better than I +dared hope, and you’ll find it still has a very sweet voice, after all its +misadventures.” And he added sternly, while Liliwin embraced his recovered +treasure with a joy far more profound than if it had been gold and silver: “Now +bear in mind what you’ve learned here concerning the reading and writing of +music. Never lose your skills. Let me not be ashamed of my pupil when you come +this way and visit us again.”
+ +And Liliwin poured out fervent thanks, and promises he might never be able +to keep, though he meant them with all his heart.
+ +They were married at the parish altar, where Liliwin had first taken refuge, +by Father Adam, priest of the Foregate parish, in the presence of Hugh and +Aline Beringar, Brother Cadfael, Brother Oswin, Brother Anselm, and several +more of the brothers who felt a sympathetic interest in their departing guest. +Abbot Radulfus himself gave them his blessing.
+ +Afterwards, when they had packed up their wedding clothes and put on the +everyday homespun in which they meant to set out together, they sought out Hugh +Beringar, who was sitting with Brother Cadfael in the ante-chamber of the +guest-hall.
+ +“We should be off soon,” said Liliwin, speaking for both, “to get the best +of the day on the road to Lichfield. But we wanted to ask, before we go… His +trial must be weeks away, we might never hear. He won’t hang, will he?”
+ +So little they had, those two, even if it was more than ever they had +possessed before, and yet they had so much that they could afford pity. “You +don’t want him to hang?” said Hugh. “He would have killed you, Rannilt. Or do +you not believe that, now it’s all past?”
+ +“Yes,” she said simply, “I do believe it. I think he would have done it. I +know she would. But I don’t want his death. I never wanted hers. He won’t hang, +will he?”
+ +“Not if my voice is heard. Whatever he may have done, he did not kill, and +all that he stole has been restored. Whatever he did was done at her wish. I +think you may set out with quiet minds,” said Hugh gently. “He’ll live. He’s +younger than she. He may yet take another, even if it must be a second-best.”
+ +For whatever else might be called in question about those two unhappy +sinners, Rannilt had been a witness to the devoted and desperate love between +them.
+ +“He may end as a decent craftsman, settled with wife and children,” said +Hugh. Children who would be born in peace, not buried still in the womb, like +Susanna’s child. Three months gone, was the physician’s estimate. Even if she +had not seized the opportunity of her brother’s wedding feast, she would have +had to make her bid for freedom very soon.
+ +“He would have given himself up for her sake,” said Liliwin seriously, “and +so would she for him. And she did die for him. I saw. We both saw. She knew +what she did. Surely that must count?”
+ +So it might, and so, surely, must the pity and prayers of two young +creatures so misused and so magnanimous. Who should more certainly prevail?
+ +“Come,” said Brother Cadfael, “we’ll bring you through the gate and see you +on your way. And God go with you!”
+ +And forth they went, hopefully and happily, the new leather bag slung +proudly on Liliwin’s shoulder. To a life that could never be less than hard and +insecure, he the wandering entertainer at fairs and markets and small manors, +she, no doubt, soon just as adept with that pure, small voice of hers, and a +dance or two to her husband’s playing. In all weathers, at all seasons, but +with luck finding a decent patron for the winter, and a good fire. And at the +very worst, together.
+ +“Do you truly believe,” asked Cadfael, when the two little figures had +vanished along the Foregate, “that Iestyn also may have a life before him?”
+ +“If he can make the effort. No one is going to press for his death. He is +coming back to life, not willingly, but because he must. There is a vigour in +him he can’t shift all on to the past. It will be a minor love, but he’ll marry +and breed yet.”
+ +“And forget her?”
+ +“Have I said so?” said Hugh, and smiled.
+ +“Whatever she did of worst,” said Cadfael soberly, “came of that in her that +might have been best, if it had not been maimed. She was much wronged.”
+ +“Old friend,” said Hugh, shaking his head with rueful affection, “I doubt if +even you can get Susanna into the fold among the lambs. She chose her way, and +it’s taken her far out of reach of man’s mercy, if ever she’d lived to face +trial. And now, I suppose,” he said, seeing his friend’s face still thoughtful +and undismayed, “you will tell me roundly that God’s reach is longer than +man’s.”
+ +“It had better be,” said Brother Cadfael very solemnly, “otherwise we are all +lost.”
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' - self.document_entry_acq_infobook_userdata='' - self.document_entry_acq_infobook_finish='' - diff --git a/py/sopdswrap.py b/py/sopdswrap.py deleted file mode 100644 index 8f06cb1b20b36d2b86d4f813680c96c786d68fc7..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 --- a/py/sopdswrap.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,221 +0,0 @@ -import sys -import sopdscfg -import sopdstempl -import datetime - -def websym(s,attr=False): - """Replace special web-symbols""" - result = s - if attr: - table = {'"':'\'','&':'&'} - else: - table = {'&':'&','<':'<'} - for k in table.keys(): - result = result.replace(k,table[k]) - return result; - -def dictmerge(a,b={},c={}): - data=a.copy() - data.update(b) - data.update(c) - return data - -####################################################################### -# -# Базовый класс формирующий вывод -# -class baseWrapper(): - def __init__(self, cfg, template, site_data): - self.cfg=cfg - self.site_data=site_data - self.template=template - self.response_status='200 Ok' - self.response_headers=[] - self.response_body=[] - - def resetParams(self): - self.response_status='200 Ok' - self.response_headers=[] - self.response_body=[] - - def add_response_body(self, string='', encoding='utf8'): - self.response_body+=[(string + "\n").encode(encoding)] - - def add_response_binary(self, data): - self.response_body+=[data] - - def add_response_header(self,list): - self.response_headers+=list - - def set_response_status(self,status): - self.response_status=status - - def write_response_headers(self, encoding='utf8'): - sys.stdout.buffer.write(b'Status: '+self.response_status.encode(encoding)+ b'\n') - for header in self.response_headers: - (a,b)=header - sys.stdout.buffer.write(a.encode(encoding)+b': '+b.encode(encoding) + b'\n') - sys.stdout.buffer.write(b'\n') - - def write_response(self): - for element in self.response_body: - sys.stdout.buffer.write(element + b'\n') - - def document_header(self,page_data): - self.add_response_header([self.template.response_header]) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_header%dictmerge(self.site_data, page_data, {'style':self.template.document_style})) - - def document_footer(self,page_data): - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_footer%dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data)) - - def page_top(self, page_data): - data=dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_top_start%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_top_linkstart%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_top_linkself%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_top_linksearch%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_top_finish%data) - - def page_bottom(self, page_data): - data=dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_bottom_start%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_bottom_info%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_bottom_finish%data) - - def page_title(self, page_data): - data=dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_title_start%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_title_info%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.page_title_finish%data) - - def main_menu(self,USER,DBINFO): - if self.cfg.ALPHA: am='30' - else: am='' - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_mainmenu_std%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'cat_num':DBINFO[2][1],'book_num':DBINFO[0][1],'author_num':DBINFO[1][1],'genre_num':DBINFO[3][1],'series_num':DBINFO[4][1],'alphabet_id':am})) - if self.cfg.NEW_PERIOD!=0: - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_mainmenu_new%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'new_period':self.cfg.NEW_PERIOD})) - if self.cfg.BOOK_SHELF and USER!=None: - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_mainmenu_shelf%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'user':USER,'shelf_book_num':DBINFO[5][1]})) - - def new_menu(self,NEWINFO): - if self.cfg.ALPHA: am='30' - else: am='' - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_newmenu%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'new_period':self.cfg.NEW_PERIOD,'newbook_num':NEWINFO[0][1],'alphabet_id':am})) - - def authors_submenu(self,author_id): - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_authors_submenu%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'author_id':author_id})) - - def get_authors(self,tupleAUTHORS): - authors="" - authors_link="" - for (author_id,first_name,last_name) in tupleAUTHORS: - authors_link+=self.template.agregate_authors_link%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'author_id':author_id,'last_name':websym(last_name,True),'first_name':websym(first_name,True)}) - authors+=self.template.agregate_authors%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'author_id':author_id,'last_name':websym(last_name,True),'first_name':websym(first_name,True)}) - return (authors, authors_link) - - def get_genres(self,tupleGENRES): - genres="" - genres_link="" - for (genre_id,section,genre) in tupleGENRES: - genres_link+=self.template.agregate_genres_link%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'genre_id':genre_id,'genre':websym(genre)}) - genres+=self.template.agregate_genres%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'genre_id':genre_id,'genre':websym(genre)}) - return (genres, genres_link) - - def get_series(self,tupleSERIES): - series="" - series_link="" - for (ser_id,ser,ser_no) in tupleSERIES: - series_link+=self.template.agregate_series_link%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'ser_id':ser_id,'ser':websym(ser),'ser_no':ser_no}) - series+=self.template.agregate_series%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'ser_id':ser_id,'ser':websym(ser),'ser_no':ser_no}) - return (series, series_link) - - def entry_navigation(self,nav_data): - data=dictmerge(self.site_data,nav_data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_nav_start%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_nav_title%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_nav_link%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_nav_info%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_nav_finish%data) - - def entry_acq_link_book(self,acq_data): - data=dictmerge(self.site_data,acq_data) - if data['e_date']==None: - data['e_date']=datetime.datetime(2001,9,9,0,0,0) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_book_title%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_book_link_alternate%data) - data['id']=91 - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_book_link%data) - if data['format'].lower()!='epub': - data['id']=92 - data['format']=data['format']+'+zip' - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_book_link%data) - if acq_data['format'].lower()=='fb2' and self.cfg.FB2TOEPUB: - data['id']=93 - data['format']='epub' - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_book_link%data) - if acq_data['format'].lower()=='fb2' and self.cfg.FB2TOMOBI: - data['id']=94 - data['format']='mobi' - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_book_link%data) - - def entry_acq_info_book(self,acq_data): - data=dictmerge(self.site_data,acq_data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_start%data) - if acq_data['e_title']!='': - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_title%data) - if acq_data['authors']!='': - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_authors%data) - if acq_data['genres']!='': - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_genres%data) - if acq_data['series']!='': - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_series%data) - if acq_data['filename']!='': - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_filename%data) - if acq_data['filesize']>0: - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_filesize%data) - if acq_data['docdate']!='': - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_docdate%data) - if acq_data['annotation']!='': - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_annotation%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_userdata%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_infobook_finish%data) - - def entry_acq_rel_doubles(self,acq_data): - data=dictmerge(self.site_data,acq_data) - if data['dcount']>0: - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_rel_doubles%acq_data) - - def entry_acquisition(self,acq_data): - data=dictmerge(self.site_data,acq_data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_start%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_link_start%data) - self.entry_acq_link_book(data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_link_finish%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_info_start%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_info_cover%data) - self.entry_acq_info_book(data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_rel_start%data) - self.entry_acq_rel_doubles(data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_rel_authors%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_rel_genres%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_rel_finish%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_info_finish%data) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_entry_acq_finish%data) - - def page_control(self, page_data): - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_page_control_start%dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data)) - if page_data['page_prev']>=0: - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_page_control_prev%dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data)) - if page_data['page_next']>=0: - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_page_control_next%dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data)) - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_page_control_finish%dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data)) - - def alphabet_menu(self,iid_value,nl): - self.add_response_body(self.template.document_alphabet_menu%dictmerge(self.site_data,{'iid':iid_value,'nl':nl})) - - def opensearch(self): - self.add_response_header([self.template.response_header]) - self.add_response_body(self.template.opensearch%self.site_data) - - def opensearch_forms(self, page_data): - self.add_response_body(self.template.opensearch_forms%dictmerge(self.site_data,page_data)) diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..d510bdfb6b6e6f27190efd29a3a2bebfe5b5080a --- /dev/null +++ b/requirements.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +Django>=1.8 +Pillow>=2.9.0 +apscheduler>=3.3.0 \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/sopds/__init__.py b/sopds/__init__.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..e69de29bb2d1d6434b8b29ae775ad8c2e48c5391 diff --git a/sopds/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..1c564d270648ec4177e8204efc6c1d0aea3f52f3 Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds/__pycache__/settings.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds/__pycache__/settings.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..df7202747772a97e9d78bc6251a8c175884c9e63 Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds/__pycache__/settings.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds/__pycache__/urls.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds/__pycache__/urls.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..14ecb61236708e72c5f5b8b881bcb502325011fb Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds/__pycache__/urls.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds/__pycache__/wsgi.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds/__pycache__/wsgi.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..05d02a21e34268d7fc269662c4e1d6ea3d2fab7a Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds/__pycache__/wsgi.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds/settings.py b/sopds/settings.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..6a711e72f41228e13c14f4aac59cdfb63001ae2a --- /dev/null +++ b/sopds/settings.py @@ -0,0 +1,149 @@ +""" +Django settings for sopds project. + +Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 1.9.2. + +For more information on this file, see +https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/settings/ + +For the full list of settings and their values, see +https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/ +""" + +import os +import sys + +# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...) +BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))) + +# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production +# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/deployment/checklist/ + +# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret! +SECRET_KEY = 'm4l1c#nq6*zs!c3ri4dg4(54_7bvrl5uintni6p20tijlaxv!x' + +# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production! +DEBUG = True + +# Конфигурация для ведения разработки на разных хостах +# убрать при окончании разработки +import socket +HOSTNAME=socket.gethostname().upper() + +ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*'] + + +# Application definition + +INSTALLED_APPS = [ + 'django.contrib.admin', + 'django.contrib.auth', + 'django.contrib.contenttypes', + 'django.contrib.sessions', + 'django.contrib.messages', + 'django.contrib.staticfiles', + 'opds_catalog', + 'sopds_web_backend', +] + +MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = [ + 'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware', + 'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware', + 'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware', + 'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware', + 'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware', + 'django.contrib.auth.middleware.SessionAuthenticationMiddleware', + 'opds_catalog.opds_middleware.BasicAuthMiddleware', + 'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware', + 'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware', +] + +ROOT_URLCONF = 'sopds.urls' + +TEMPLATES = [ + { + 'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates', + 'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')] + , + 'APP_DIRS': True, + 'OPTIONS': { + 'context_processors': [ + 'django.template.context_processors.debug', + 'django.template.context_processors.request', + 'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth', + 'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages', + 'sopds_web_backend.views.sopds_processor', + ], + }, + }, +] + +WSGI_APPLICATION = 'sopds.wsgi.application' + + +# Database +# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/#databases + +#DATABASES = { +# 'default': { +# 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', +# 'NAME': 'sopds', +# 'HOST': 'localhost', +# 'USER': 'sopds', +# 'PASSWORD' : 'sopds' +# } +#} + +DATABASES = { + 'default': { + 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3', + 'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'), + } +} + +# Password validation +# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators +AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [ + { + 'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator', + }, + { + 'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator', + }, + { + 'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator', + }, + { + 'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator', + }, +] + + +# Internationalization +# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/i18n/ + +LANGUAGE_CODE = 'ru-RU' +#LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-US' + +TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/Moscow' +USE_I18N = True +USE_L10N = True +USE_TZ = True + +# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images) +# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/static-files/ +STATIC_URL = '/static/' +STATIC_ROOT = 'static' + +SOPDS_ROOT_LIB = 'Z:\\КНИГИ\\TEST\\' +#SOPDS_ROOT_LIB = '/mnt/SATA1TB-1/КНИГИ/BOOKS/' +SOPDS_AUTH = True +SOPDS_SCAN_SHED_MIN ='0' +SOPDS_SCAN_SHED_HOUR ='0,12' + +#Конвертеры EPUB и MOBI +#SOPDS_FB2TOEPUB = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'convert/fb2toepub/unix_dist/fb2toepub') +#SOPDS_FB2TOEPUB = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'convert/fb2conv/fb2epub') +#SOPDS_FB2TOMOBI = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'convert/fb2conv/fb2mobi') +SOPDS_FB2TOEPUB = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'convert\\fb2epub\\fb2epub.cmd' if sys.platform =='win32' else 'convert/fb2epub/fb2epub' ) + diff --git a/sopds/urls.py b/sopds/urls.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..18166ac1d469ebb892e9288576f94adf4a177d63 --- /dev/null +++ b/sopds/urls.py @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +"""sopds URL Configuration + +The `urlpatterns` list routes URLs to views. For more information please see: + https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/http/urls/ +Examples: +Function views + 1. Add an import: from my_app import views + 2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: url(r'^$', views.home, name='home') +Class-based views + 1. Add an import: from other_app.views import Home + 2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: url(r'^$', Home.as_view(), name='home') +Including another URLconf + 1. Import the include() function: from django.conf.urls import url, include + 2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: url(r'^blog/', include('blog.urls')) +""" +from django.conf.urls import url, include +from django.contrib import admin +from django.contrib.auth.views import logout + +urlpatterns = [ + url(r'^opds/', include('opds_catalog.urls', namespace='opds', app_name='opds_catalog')), + url(r'^web/', include('sopds_web_backend.urls', namespace='web', app_name='opds_web_backend')), + url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls), + url(r'^logout/$', logout, {'next_page':'/web/'},name='logout'), + url(r'^', include('sopds_web_backend.urls', namespace='web', app_name='opds_web_backend')), +] diff --git a/sopds/wsgi.py b/sopds/wsgi.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..7b5f2c2cfbb52ca965c40864809fd1c99c3e45c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/sopds/wsgi.py @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +""" +WSGI config for sopds project. + +It exposes the WSGI callable as a module-level variable named ``application``. + +For more information on this file, see +https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/deployment/wsgi/ +""" + +import os + +from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application + +os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "sopds.settings") + +application = get_wsgi_application() diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/__init__.py b/sopds_web_backend/__init__.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..e69de29bb2d1d6434b8b29ae775ad8c2e48c5391 diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..12d702eeab449880e0a6e3623c49dea8fa9ab763 Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/admin.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/admin.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..c1a0c0e59e53120300fdf9c668a3bda1eb264194 Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/admin.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/models.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/models.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..d1f4f669d62f1ad04d01e673c413942a22006177 Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/models.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/settings.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/settings.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..3b423b7a4df6f44845242b6f4d5cd5b2432fa1f2 Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/settings.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/urls.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/urls.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..2cb0add4c791414cb286c3aa10b4115c2216affb Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/urls.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/views.cpython-35.pyc b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/views.cpython-35.pyc new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..a4e17c69d32c4d7e4ffdedcf572d17aec3f03c12 Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds_web_backend/__pycache__/views.cpython-35.pyc differ diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/admin.py b/sopds_web_backend/admin.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..694323fa4c8382f9effc636c7062ef168bb62da2 --- /dev/null +++ b/sopds_web_backend/admin.py @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +from django.contrib import admin diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/apps.py b/sopds_web_backend/apps.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..168c581023b8d051bcd379c3d0ce5eaa13f44bd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/sopds_web_backend/apps.py @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +from django.apps import AppConfig + + +class SopdsWebBackendConfig(AppConfig): + name = 'sopds_web_backend' diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/django.mo b/sopds_web_backend/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/django.mo new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..134072baf01c0d169d551f64777a5870aa72cb8a Binary files /dev/null and b/sopds_web_backend/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/django.mo differ diff --git a/sopds_web_backend/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/django.po b/sopds_web_backend/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/django.po new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..fd342d27d0615ce6c2b5034484b1c177161d8461 --- /dev/null +++ b/sopds_web_backend/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/django.po @@ -0,0 +1,237 @@ +# SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE. +# Copyright (C) YEAR THE PACKAGE'S COPYRIGHT HOLDER +# This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package. +# FIRST AUTHOR