The Sanctuary Sparrow Part 5

Monday night to Tuesday afternoon .

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 d.a.m.ning. But the immediate terror was worse than the distant smell of h.e.l.lfire. He remembered where he was, and everything that had pa.s.sed, 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 wors.h.i.+ppers 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s, 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 want me to go? Do you want never to see me again? If that's what you want, say it, and I'll go. But say truth! Don't lie to me!"

She heaved a huge sigh, and embraced him in pa.s.sionate silence. In a moment she breathed: "No! No... I want you safe... But I want you!"

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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage, 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 pa.s.sage, 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage, 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 distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sembly 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 s.p.a.cious 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 un.o.bserved. 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 rea.s.sured 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 gra.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sed, 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 ash.o.r.e 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 b.u.t.ted into the gravelly calm of the bank. A solid body in good homespun cloth, shortish and st.u.r.dy, 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 gra.s.s, 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 st.u.r.dy build, the round, turnip head with its thinning crown and bushy brown hedge of hair all round the s.h.i.+ny island of bone. Only two mornings ago he had pa.s.sed 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s 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 fis.h.i.+ng? 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 pa.s.senger aboard; his natural quarry was here waiting for him.

Cadfael knew him well and for no ascertainable reason, except the customary a.s.sociation 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 insh.o.r.e, 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 c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l of withies and hide on to his shoulder to heft it ash.o.r.e. "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 gra.s.s above, and led the way up without more words. They stood together over the p.r.o.ne 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 sh.o.r.e 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 n.o.body 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 dispa.s.sionately, "if he hooked a l.u.s.ty 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 ash.o.r.e 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 gra.s.s 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.

Tuesday: from afternoon to night .

THEY CAME CROWDING CLOSE, peering round Madog and Cadfael to confirm what they already knew. They pa.s.sed 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 a.s.saulted, 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.