The Leper of Saint Giles

3

Like a flung stone in a placid pool, this violent invasion cast out flurries of ripples in all directions, to beat against gatehouse and guest-hall and cloister. Brother Denis fluttered uncertainly at gaze, unaware even of the identity of this large and very angry youth, and desirous only of restoring peace in the court, but without the least notion of how to set about it. Picard, brought up almost breast to breast with the solid young body and grim face, flamed red to the cheekbones, and then blanched white with answering fury. He could not go forward, he would not go aside, and even if the startled cluster of servants had not been pressing close behind, he would not have given back an inch. Agnes glared outrage, and quickly reached to grip Iveta by the arm, for the girl had started forward with a faint, desolate cry, the subdued stillness of her face broken, and for one moment sparkling with frantic emotion, as shattered ice takes the light and dazzles. Just for that instant she would have forgotten everything but the boy, sprung to his side without conceal, flung her arms round him, if her aunt’s grasp had not plucked her back without gentleness, drawn her close to a rigid, somberly gowned side, and held her there with steely fingers. Whether from long submission or from newly alerted wit, she shrank and was still, and the light, but not the pain, ebbed out of her face. Cadfael saw it, and was inextricably caught. No young thing hardly out of her nurse’s care should so suffer.

He remembered that look later. At this moment he was held by the impact of Joscelin Lucy’s wildly unwise youth and Godfrid Picard’s subtle, experienced maturity. It was not so unequal a combat as might have been expected. The boy was above himself, and unquestionably a man of his hands, and a son of confident, if minor, privilege.

“I may not ask you to draw, here,” he said high and clearly. Anger raised his voice, as though to reach a marshal in the lists. “I challenge you to name the place and time where we may draw, to good effect. You have done me an offense, I am cast off by reason of your persuasion, do me right, and stand to what you have urged against me.”

“Insolent rogue!” Picard spat back at him disdainfully. “I am more likely to set my hounds on you than dignify you by crossing swords with you. If you are dismissed for a profitless, treacherous, meddling, ill-conditioned wretch, you are rightly served, be thankful your lord did not have you whipped from his door. You have got off lightly. Take care you don’t provoke worse usage than you already have. Now stand out of my way, and get you gone homewards, as you were ordered.”

“Not I!” vowed Joscelin through his teeth. “Not until I have said all that I have to say, here before all these witnesses. Nor will I go for being ordered. Does Huon de Domville own the ground I stand on and the air I breathe? His service he can keep, there are other households at least as honorable as his. But to run with mean tales to him, and blacken my name, was that fair dealing?”

Picard gave vent to a wordless bellow of impatient rage, and turned to snap imperious fingers at his menservants, half a dozen of whom, solid men-at-arms of an age to be experienced in rough play, came forth blithely enough, three on either side, closing in a half-circle.

“Take this wastrel out of my sight. The river is handy. Put him to cool in the mud!”

The women drew back in a flurry of skirts. Agnes and the maid dragging Iveta away by both wrists. The men-at-arms advanced, grinning but wary, and Joscelin was obliged to take some paces back, to avoid being encircled.

“Stand clear!” he warned, glaring. “Let the coward do his own work, for if you lay hand on me there’ll be blood let.”

He had so far forgotten himself as to lay hand to hilt, and draw the blade some inches from the scabbard. Cadfael judged that it was high time to intervene, before the young man put himself hopelessly in the wrong, and both he and Brother Denis were starting forward to thrust between the antagonists, when from the cloister surged the tall presence of Prior Robert, monumentally displeased, and from the direction of the abbot’s lodging, swift and silent and thus far unnoticed, the equally tall and far more daunting figure of Abbot Radulfus himself, hawk-faced, shrewd-eyed, and coldly but composedly angry.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Robert spread long, elegant hands between. “You do yourselves and our house great dishonor. Think shame to touch weapon or threaten violence within these walls!”

The men-at-arms recoiled thankfully into the crowd. Picard stood smouldering but controlled. Joscelin shot his sword very hastily back into the sheath, but stood breathing heavily and cherishing his fury. He was not an easy young men to abash, and harder still to silence. He made a half-turn that brought him eye to eye with the abbot, who had reached the borders of the dispute, and stood lofty, dark and calm, considering all the offenders at leisure. There fell a silence.

“Within the bounds of this abbey,” said Radulfus at last, without raising his voice, “men do not brawl. I will not say we never hear an angry word. We are also men. Sir Godfrid, keep your men at heel on these premises. And you, young man, so much as touch your hilt again, and you shall lie in a penitent’s cell overnight.”

Joscelin bent head and knee, though the abbot might well have thought the gesture somewhat perfunctory. “My lord abbot, I ask your pardon! Threatened or no, I was at fault.” But owning his fault, he kept his rage. A close observer might even have wondered if he was not contemplating the possible advantages of offending again, and being cast as promised into a cell within these walls. Locks may be picked, lay brothers suborned or tricked - yes, there were possibilities! He was disadvantaged, however, by a fair-minded disposition not to offend those who had committed no offense against him. “I stand in your mercy,” he said.

“Good, we understand each other. Now, what is this dispute that troubles the peace here?”

Both Joscelin and Picard began to talk at once, but Joscelin, for once wise, drew back and left the field to his elder. He stood biting a resolute lip and regarding the abbot’s face, as Picard brushed him contemptuously aside in the terms he had expected.

“Father, this impertinent squire has been turned off by his lord for a negligent, ill-conditioned fellow, and he credits me with so advising my lord Domville, as indeed I felt it my duty to do. For I have found him presumptuous, pressing his company upon my niece, and in all ways a troubler of the peace. He came here to brawl with me, resenting his well-deserved dismissal. He has no more than his due, but he will not be schooled. And that is all the matter,” he said scornfully.

Brother Cadfael marvelled how Joscelin kept his mouth shut on the flood of his grievance, and his eyes fixed respectfully upon Radulfus, until he was invited to speak. He must surely have acquired in these few moments a healthy respect for the abbot’s fairness and shrewd sense, so to contain himself. He had confidence that he would not be judged unheard, and it was worth an effort at self-control to manage his defense aright.

“Well, young sir?” said Radulfus. It could not be asserted that he smiled, his countenance remained judicially remote and calm; but there might have been the suggestion of indulgence in his voice.

“Father Abbot,” said Joscelin, “all of us of these two houses came here to see a marriage performed. The bride you have seen.” She had been hustled away out of sight, into the guest-hall, long before this. “She is eighteen years old. My lord - he that was my lord! - is nearing sixty. She has been these last eight years orphaned and in her uncle’s care, and she has great lands, long in her uncle’s administration.” Some indication of his unexpected drift had penetrated by then, Picard was boiling and voluble. But Radulfus dipped a frowning brow, and raised a silencing hand, and they gave way perforce.

“Father Abbot, I pray your help for Iveta de Massard!” Joscelin had gained his moment, and could not hold back. “Father, the honor of which she is lady spans four counties and fifty manors, it is an earl’s portion. They have farmed it between them, uncle and bridegroom, they have parceled it out, she is bought and sold, without her will - Oh, God, she has no will left, she is tamed! - against her will! My offense is that I love her, and I would have taken her away out of this prison…”

The latter half of this, though Cadfael had drawn close enough to hear all, was certainly lost to most others under a shrill clamor of refutation, in which Agnes played the loudest part. She had a voice that rode high over opposition, Joscelin could not cry her down. And in the midst of the hubbub, suddenly there were crisp hoofbeats in the gatehouse, and horsemen pacing into the court with the authority of office, and in numbers calculated to draw ear and eye. The thread alike of Joscelin’s appeal and Picard’s refutation was broken abruptly; every eye turned to the gate.

First came Huon de Domville, the muscles of his face set like a wrestler’s biceps, his small, black, malevolent eyes alertly bright. Close at his elbow rode Gilbert Prestcote, sheriff of Shropshire under King Stephen, a lean, hard, middle-aged knight browed and nosed like a falcon, his black, forked beard veined with gray. He had a sergeant and seven or eight officers at his back, an impressive array. He halted them within the gage, and dismounted as they did.

“And there he stands!” blared Domville, eyes glittering upon Joscelin, who stood startled and gaping. “The rascal himself! Did I not say he’d be stirring up trouble everywhere possible before he took himself off? Seize him, sheriff! Lay hold on the rogue and make him fast!”

He had been so intent on his quarry that he had not immediately observed that the abbot himself was among those present. His eye lit on the austere and silent figure belatedly, and he dismounted and doffed in brusque respect. “By your leave, Father Abbot! We have dire business here, and I am all the sorrier that this young rogue should have brought it within your walls.”

“Such disturbance as he has so far caused us,” said Radulfus coolly, “does not seem of a sort to require the attendance of sheriff and sergeant. I gather that if he has offended, he has also been brought to book for it. To dismiss him your service is your right. To pursue him further seems somewhat excessive. Unless you have further complaint to make against him?” He looked to Prestcote for his answer.

“There is indeed more,” said the sheriff. “I am instructed by my lord Domville that since this squire was ordered to pack and go, a thing of great value has been missed, and looked for in vain within the household. There is ground for suspicion that this man may have stolen it in despite of his lord, and in revenge for his dismissal. He stands so charged.”

Joscelin was staring in astonished derision, not yet even angry on this count, and certainly not afraid. “I, steal?” he gasped in huge contempt. “I would not touch the meanest thing that belonged to him, I would not willingly take away on my shoes the dust of his courtyard. Go, he bade me, and so I did, out of his house, and have not even stopped to gather together everything that was mine there. All that I brought away is here on my body or in the saddle-bags there.”

The abbot raised a restraining hand. “My lord, what is this valuable thing which is lost? How does it bulk? When was it missed?”

“It is the wedding gift I intended for my bride,” said the baron, “a collar of gold and pearls. It could lie in the palm of a man’s hand, once out of its case. I meant to bring it to the girl today, after Mass, but when I went to take it, and looked within the case, I found it empty. Nigh on an hour ago, I suppose, for we wasted time hunting for it, though the leaving of the empty case should have told us it was not lost, but stolen. And but for this turbulent boy, who was turned off for good reason and took it very defiantly, no one else has left my household. I charge him with the theft, and I will have the remedy of law, to the last particle.”

“But did this young man know of this collar, and where to lay hand on it?” demanded the abbot.

“I did, Father,” Joscelin acknowledged readily. “So did all three of us who served him as squires.”

Still more horsemen had appeared in the gateway, several of Domville’s outridden retinue, and among them Simon and Guy, by the look of their faces by no means eager to be noticed or take any part in this encounter. They looked on from the background, uncertain and unhappy, as well they might.

“But I have not touched it,” Joscelin went on firmly. “And here am I, just as I left the house, take me away and strip me if you will, you’ll find never a thread that is not mine. And there is my horse and my saddle-bags, turn out whatever you find, and let the lord abbot be witness. But no,” he added vehemently, seeing Domville himself make a move toward the gray horse, “not you, my lord! I will not have my accuser’s hands pawing my belongings. Let an impartial judge do the searching. Father Abbot, I appeal to your justice!”

“That is but fair,” said the abbot. “Robert, will you do what is needful?”

Prior Robert received the request with a dignified inclination of the head, and made a solemn procession of his advance upon the duty allotted him. Two of Prestcote’s men-at-arms unbuckled the saddle-bags from their place, and when the horse, nervous at the press of people, sidled unhappily, Simon impulsively slipped down from his mount and ran to take the bridle and soothe the fidgety gray. The saddle-bags lay open on the cobbles of the court. Prior Robert plunged his hands into the first, and began to hand out the simple items of clothing and accouterment their raging owner had stuffed unceremoniously within, barely an hour previously. The sergeant received them solemnly, Prestcote standing close by. Linen shirts, crumpled in a furious fist, chausses, tunics, shoes, a few items of spare harness, gloves …

Prior Robert ran his long hand about the interior to show that it was empty. He leaned to the second. Joscelin stood braced on long, shapely legs, barely attentive, his bold brown face arrogantly smiling. Though his mother, Cadfael thought, watching, would have something pithy to say about the way he handled the shirts she made for him, when he got home. If he got home …

And how if he did? What followed then for the girl who had been hustled away and shut up somewhere with the elderly maidservant for gaoler? In all this she was the absent witness. No one asked her what she knew or what she thought. She was not a person, merely a piece of valuable merchandise.

The second bag yielded a handsome gown for best wear, villainously crumpled, sundry belts and baldrics, a blue capuchon, more shirts, a pair of soft shoes, a best pair of chausses, also blue. The mother who had made all these had had an eye fondly to her offspring’s fair coloring and blue eyes. And marvel, there was a bound book in thin, carved wooden covers, the young man’s prayer book. He had said that he was lettered.

Lastly, Prior Robert plucked out a small roll of fine linen, and began to unwrap it on his palm. He raised a wondering and approving face.

“It is a silver scallop-shell medal. Whoever owned it made the pilgrimage to Compostella, to the shrine of Saint James.”

“It is my father’s,” said Joscelin.

“And that is all. This bag is also empty.”

Domville started forward suddenly with a crow of triumph. “Ah, but what’s here? There’s something yet in the linen roll - I caught a glint…” He plucked at the dangling end of the cloth, almost wrenching it from the prior’s hand. The silver medallion fell to the ground, some inches more of its wrapping unrolled, and something flashed and fell after, uncoiling like a little golden snake, to lie in a pool of fine yellow links and creamy pearls between the cobbles at Joscelin’s feet.

He was so dumbfounded that he could not find a word to say, but stood staring at the small, precious thing that damned him. When at last he raised his eyes, and caught the intent gaze of all those other eyes, Domville gleefully content, the sheriff grimly satisfied, the abbot aloof and sad, and everywhere mute accusation, he shook violently, stirring out of his shocked stillness. He cried out passionately that he had not taken it, that it was not he who had put it there. But he uttered his denial only once, recognizing at once its inevitability and its uselessness. He had some mad thought of putting up a fight for it, but met the abbot’s stern, disillusioned eye, and deliberately put away the thought. Not here! He had pledged himself to forswear offense against this place. So here there was nothing he could do but submit. Once outside the gates it would be another matter, and the surer they were of his submission, the fewer crippling precautions they were likely to take. He stood mute and unresisting as the sergeant and his men closed in upon him.

They stripped him of sword and dagger, and kept close hold of him by both arms, but because they were many and he was but one, and seemed utterly subdued, they did not trouble to bind him. Domville stood by, vengefully grinning, and did not deign to stoop to pick up his property, leaving it for Simon to hurry forward, abandoning the gray horse’s bridle, to retrieve the collar and hand it to him. He cast a very doubtful and anxious look at Joscelin as he did so, but said never a word. The Picards looked on with evident and malicious satisfaction. A nuisance out of their way, and if Domville pleased, out of everyone’s way, for ever. Such a theft, with the additional odor of petty treason about it, even if he had already been dismissed his lord’s service, could cost a man his neck.

“I will have the full penalty of law on him,” said Domville, and fixed a commanding stare upon the sheriff.

“That will be matter for the court,” said Prestcote shortly, and turned to his sergeant. “Have him away to the castle. I must have some talk with Sir Godfrid Picard and the lord abbot, I’ll follow you.”

The prisoner went with lamb-like meekness, his fair head drooping, his arms lax and submissive in the grip of two brawny men-at-arms. Brothers and guests and servants fell away to leave him passage, and a horrified silence closed after his passing.

Brother Cadfael was left gazing as numbly as the rest. It was hard indeed to recognize the belligerent youngster who had galloped into the great court so short a time before, or the audacious lover who had penetrated into the enemy’s territory to plot something desperate with a girl too frightened to reach for what her heart desired. Cadfael could not believe in such sudden translations. On impulse he made off towards the gate in haste, to keep the sorry little procession in sight. Behind him as he went he heard Simon Aguilon’s voice asking: “Shall I take his gray back to our stable, sir? We cannot abandon the poor beast, he’s done no wrong.” It was not quite clear from the tone whether he believed the poor beast’s master had done any, but Cadfael doubted it. He could not be the only one who had reservations about that theft.

Joscelin and his guards were reaching the approaches of the bridge when Cadfael emerged into the Foregate and hastened after them. The hill of Shrewsbury, with its towers and houses cresting the long line of the wall, gleamed fitfully in a moist and feeble sunshine beyond the full flow of the Severn, and far to the right the tall bulk of the castle showed, the prison to which prisoner and escort were now bound. Since the height of the summer there had been heavy rains, and the flood coming down from Wales had swelled the flow here into a rapid high water that swallowed the lower reaches of the islands. The nearest section of the bridge, the drawbridge that could cut off approach to the town at need, was down and bearing plenteous traffic, for the last of the harvest was coming in, fruit and roots for fodder, and the provident were looking to their stores for the winter. Three horsemen rode ahead of the prisoner and his escort, three more brought up the rear, but Joscelin and those who held him went on foot, not briskly, for no prisoner in his right mind is in any haste to have a cell door slammed on him, but not slowly, either, for he was sharply prodded when he hung back. Carts and townspeople afoot drew to the side out of their way, and stood to stare, some so interested that they forgot themselves and closed in again at once, staring after, and barred the way for the following horsemen.

There had frequently been high feeling between the town and the king’s sheriff of the shire, and Prestcote’s sergeant was wary of using whip or threat on burgesses whose retaliatory sting had sometimes proved sharp. Thus it happened that when the prisoner had passed through the narrowing gate of the drawbridge tower, and the starers turned to gape and blocked the way, the following horsemen contented themselves with calling civilly for passage, and an increasing gap opened between them and their charge. Cadfael, slipping nimbly past the horses to join the curious in the gateway, had a partial view of what followed.

Still dejectedly slouching, Joscelin had reached the crown of the bridge’s central span, where the parapet was no more than waist-high. It appeared that he stumbled, allowing the three before, who were archers, to move a yard or so ahead before they realized it. There was a cart drawn aside to the left, the entire group therefore moved to the right to pass by. As they drew near to the wall, Joscelin suddenly braced the deceptively limp sinews of his fine large body, swept both the guards who held him round in a dizzying circle to the right, sweeping them off their feet before they knew what was happening, tore his arms free, and leaped one sprawling adversary to reach the wall. One of those following clawed desperately at his foot as he vaulted to the parapet, but he kicked out vigorously and sent the man staggering. Before any other could get a hand to him, he had leaped strongly out over the flood, and plunged feet-first and cleanly into the center of the river, and there vanished from sight.

It was beautifully done, and Cadfael, who saw it, could not but rejoice. For no good reason, he was suddenly sure in his own mind that Joscelin Lucy had never laid hand on Domville’s gold, that Agnes’s report to her husband of the meeting in the herb-garden, and Picard’s complaint and warning to the imperilled bridegroom, had occasioned the boy’s dismissal, and the dismissal had been expressly designed to make it possible to pursue the young man on a false charge of theft, and cast him safely into prison, out of the way of wide-ranging plans. They could not afford to leave him loose. He must go.

And he was gone, but of his own will, magnificently. Cadfael was leaning breathlessly over the downstream parapet like dozens of other eager watchers. Voices clamored, some impartial, some partisan. There would always be plenty of law-abiding citizens here to cheer on any prisoner who broke free from the sheriff’s hold.

The sergeant, who would certainly be held responsible for the loss, had leaped into action with a bellow of rage, and was roaring orders fore and aft at his men. The two horsemen ahead were sent galloping forward, to ride down to the riverside under the town walls, the three behind were turned back to perform the same service upon the abbey bank, to be ready to pick up the fugitive on whichever shore he tried to land. But both parties had to go roundabout, while the Severn, faster than any of them, went surging serenely forward, bearing away the invisible quarry downstream. The foot soldiers who were left had two archers among them, and at the sergeant’s order they strung their bows in haste and thrust their way to the parapet, clearing away the gathering crowds that might hamper their drawing arms.

“Fast as he breaks surface,” yelled the sergeant, “loose at him! Wing him if you can, kill him if you must!”

Minutes slid by, while the riders reached shore and began to wind a reckless way down to the waterside, and still there was no sign of the flaxen crest breaking the smooth-running surface.

“He’s gone!” someone lamented, and some of the women drew pitying sighs.

“Not he!” shrilled an urchin flat on his belly across the parapet. “See there? Nimble as an otter!”

Joscelin’s pale head sprang up for a moment, sleek and streaming, far downstream. An arrow struck and drew shivering ripples only a foot or so aside, but by then he was back under the water, and when he again broke clear to draw breath he was almost out of bowshot. A second shaft fell well short of him, and he stayed in mid-stream, in full view, letting the flow take him with it, apparently as much at home in the water as he was on land. The archers got a derisive cheer for their pains from the imps of the town, or such of them as were safely out of reach, while the glimpse of a long arm impudently waving farewell from downstream raised a great ripple of half-suppressed laughter.

On either bank the horsemen coursed, hopelessly outdistanced, two threading their way along the path under the town wall and the abbot’s vineyard, three now far along the rich level on the other side, where the abbey’s main vegetable gardens and orchards stretched the length of the fields called the Gaye. They had as much hope of overtaking Joscelin Lucy as of holding their own with the floating leaves that surged past on the central current. The Severn ran silently and without fuss, but deadly fast.

They were craning and straining now after a fair head no larger than a little clot of foam spun by an unexpected eddy. Now barely visible, the next moment not visible at all. He had dived again, to make sure, thought Cadfael, watching intently, that no one should see which shore he approached, or where he drew himself out of the water. He was beyond the vineyard, he had the vast bulk of the castle walls on his left hand, bushes and low trees clothing the waste ground below, and on his right, beyond the orchards, woodlands coming down to the waterside. Small doubt which he would choose, but he refrained from showing himself again until he was ashore and into the trees. Cadfael, selecting carefully what seemed the most favorable cover, thought he caught, not so much a glimpse of the man, as a momentary convulsion of the leaning branches, and a brief sparkle in the water, as Joscelin hauled himself up the bank and vanished into the woods.

There was no more to see or to do here. Cadfael recalled himself to his neglected duty, and made off back to the abbey gatehouse, turning his back upon the gratified urchins and cursing guards. Small profit now in wondering how the boy would fare, weaponless, horseless, without money or dry clothing, and with a certain hue and cry out after him from this moment. Better make himself as scarce as ever he could, on foot or however offered, and put all the space possible between himself and Shrewsbury before night. All the same, Cadfael found himself doubting very much whether he would do anything so sensible.

It came as no great surprise to find that the news had gone before him. Just as he was approaching the gatehouse, Gilbert Prestcote came cantering out with a face of thunder, his remaining men-at-arms hard on his heels. He had nothing against Joscelin Lucy, and by his bearing throughout, no particular reverence for Huon de Domville, but the incompetence of his sergeant would stick in his craw like a nutshell, and unless the prisoner was recovered in short order, there was likely to be a stormy time ahead for all the luckless guards.

The porter emerged cautiously as the dust was settling, to gaze after them, and shook a rueful head as Cadfael came up. “So the thief got away from them, after all! There’ll be the devil to pay now, he’ll turn out the whole garrison after the lad. And him on foot to outrun their horses! His own’s away back to the bishop’s house with the other young squire.”

They were gone, Huon de Domville, Simon Aguilon, Guy FitzJohn, grooms and all, and if the news of the escape had only so far reached the abbey gatehouse, they were gone in the firm belief that the thief was safe in hold.

“Who brought the word?” asked Cadfael. “He was quick off the mark. He can’t have stayed to see the play out.”

“Two lay brothers were just coming up from the Gaye with the last of the late apples. They saw him jump, and came in a hurry to tell. But you’re not far behind them.”

So as yet it was cried no further than here. There were plenty of people, brothers, servants and guests, stirring about the great court in excitement and speculation, and some sallying forth to see what was toward along the riverbank. Huon de Domville’s displeasure, when the word overtook him, would be vented elsewhere. Here Cadfael observed Godfrid and Agnes Picard in the doorway of the guest-hall, absorbed in some low-voiced and intent colloquy of their own, and their faces were taut and wary, and the way they eyed each other was all calculation and alarm. This development would not suit them at all; they wanted the troublesome boy safe behind locked doors in the castle, with a neck-charge hanging over him if Domville chose to press it to extremes.

There was no sign of Iveta. No doubt she was shut away within, with Agnes’s dragon to guard her. Nor did she appear for some hours, though her uncle and aunt were seen purposefully crossing and recrossing between the abbot’s lodging, the guest-hall and the gatehouse on several occasions, and once Picard rode out for the greater part of an hour, surely to the bishop’s house to confer with Domville. Cadfael fretted through the early afternoon over his own responsibility, neglectful of his customary watch on Oswin’s activities, and somewhat chastened to discover that, for once unregarded, his assistant had spilled nothing, burned nothing, weeded out no precious plants by mistake, and broken nothing. It might, of course, be a special dispensation of providence, a courtesy to Cadfael’s obvious preoccupation, but it might just as well be a reproof to him for keeping too unnerving an eye on his pupil.

His problem was simple to state but hard to solve. Ought he to go to Abbot Radulfus, and tell him just what he had witnessed and taken part in, the previous evening? To interfere in the affairs of complete strangers on such brief and suspect evidence may be a dangerous business, however well-meant. For all he knew, the plausible boy might be a fortune-hunter who had attempted to seduce Iveta into decamping with him for his own ends; and certainly he was quite attractive enough to have won her over. Yet however Cadfael tried to view the people concerned from all angles, without prejudice, he could not discover in the Picards any vestige of warmth or tenderness towards the girl.

The matter was solved for him when Abbot Radulfus sent for him, halfway through the afternoon. He obeyed the summons in mild speculation, and even milder apprehension, reflecting philosophically that lies may not always be so easily forgiven, even when well intended. Besides, it would be unwise to under-estimate Agnes Picard, even if he had not so far taken any steps to get in her way, beyond pouring opportunist oil on very stormy waters.

“I have received a complaint about you, Brother Cadfael,” said the abbot, turning with deliberation from his writing-desk. His voice, as always, was cool, incisive and courteous, his face unreadably calm. “Oh, not by name, but I fancy the brother who was still at work in the herb-garden after supper last night is hardly likely to be any but you.”

“I was there,” said Cadfael readily. There was but one way of dealing with Radulfus, and that was directly and openly.

“In company with the Lady Iveta, and that young man who is now being hunted among the riverside coverts? And conniving with them in so irregular a meeting?”

“Hardly the one or the other,” said Cadfael. “I walked in upon them in my own workshop, to my discomfort and theirs. So did Lady Picard only a moment later. That I put as soothing a face on it as possible, that I do avow. There was tempest threatening. Let us say I fired an arrow or two to break the clouds.”

“One version,” said the abbot serenely, “I have heard from Sir Godfrid, who no doubt had it from his lady. Let me hear yours.”

Cadfael told it, as fully as he could recall, though he stopped short of mentioning Joscelin’s reckless claim that he would not stop at murder. Hotheaded youngsters say such things, while their faces and their manner belie them. At the end of it Radulfus peered at him long and frowningly, and pondered.

“For your shufflings with truth, Brother Cadfael, I leave that to your confessor. But do you truly believe that this girl is afraid of her kinsman? That she is being enforced to courses hateful to her? I heard for myself what the accused man said. But he stood to gain greatly if he won her away from the marriage planned for her, and his motive may be as rotten as greed always is. A comely person is no warranty to a comely spirit. It may well be that her uncle has planned well for her, and it would be sin to disrupt his plans.”

“There is one particular,” said Cadfael carefully, “that troubles me most. This girl is never seen alone, but always with uncle and aunt fencing her in on either side. She barely speaks, for someone else always speaks for her. I would be satisfied in my mind if you, Father, could but once speak with her freely alone, without witnesses, and listen to her unprompted.”

The abbot considered, and admitted gravely: “There is much in what you say. It may be nothing but over-care that hems her so, yet her own voice should also be free to speak. How if I should pay a visit myself to the guest-hall, and see if I cannot make occasion to be alone with her? It would settle my mind, no less than yours. For I tell you frankly, Sir Godfrid assures me this squire has misused the entry he enjoyed as his lord’s attendant, to pay furtive court to the girl, who was content enough before, and turn her head with his attentions and compliments. If that is all, this morning’s happenings may have opened her eyes, and caused her to reconsider.”

There was no telling from his words or manner whether he accepted unquestioningly the truth of the accusation of theft, or the evidence of his eyes. He was too subtle not to have examined the alternatives.

“I intend,” he said, “to invite the bridegroom with his nephew, and Sir Godfrid Picard, to sup with me here tonight. It gives me the occasion to carry the invitation myself. Why not now?”

Why not, indeed? Cadfael went out with him into the misty autumn afternoon, cautiously pleased with the interview. Radulfus was an aristocrat and the equal of a baron, and entertained austere ideas of the duty of young people to be guided by those set in authority over them; but he was not blind to the frequent failings of elders, thus privileged, to impose benevolent order on the lives of their children. Let him but once gain some moments alone with Iveta, and he could not fail to win her confidence. She would not let slip such a chance. In this household he was master, he could stretch his hand over her and she would be protected even against kings.

They came out through the abbot’s garden into the great court, and crossed towards the guest-hall. Cadfael would have taken his leave and returned to the gardens, but instead, they both halted at gaze. For on the stone bench by the wall of the refectory Iveta was sitting, her eyes diligently lowered over the prayer book in her lap, the veiled sunlight a soft sheen over her dark-gold hair: she was alone, seated there in the open quietly reading, not another soul of her uncle’s household in sight.

Radulfus checked and gazed, and turning, made for the place where she was sitting. She heard, perhaps, the rustle of his habit; his walk was all but silent. She looked up, and her face was almost glacially calm and still. So white was her skin that it was hard to say whether she showed paler than normal, but when she saw the abbot bearing down on her she smiled, at least with her lips, and rose to make him a delicate reverence. Cadfael had drawn close at his back, hardly believing, not at all understanding, what he saw.

“Daughter,” said Radulfus gently. “I am glad to see you thus at peace. I feared this morning’s upsets must have disturbed you sadly, when you are contemplating so solemn a change in your estate, and have need of consideration and calm. You had, I think, a better opinion of that young man than he deserved, and cannot have been prepared for such a discovery. I am sure it distressed you.”

She looked up at him with clear, still face, and unblinking eyes steady but empty, and said: “Yes, Father. I never thought any evil of him. But I have put my doubts by me now. I know my duty.” Her voice was very low, but quite firm and deliberate.

“And your mind is at rest about tomorrow’s sacrament? I, too, have a duty, my child, towards all who come within my cure here. I am accessible to all. If there is anything you wish to say to me, do so freely, and there shall no one prevent or persuade but I will hear you faithfully. Your peace, your happiness, is my concern while you are within my walls, and shall have my prayers after you leave them.”

“I do believe it,” said Iveta, “and I thank you. But my mind is settled and content, Father. I see my way clear, I am not to be swayed any more.”

The abbot looked at her long and earnestly, and she met his eyes without a quiver, and maintained her pale, resolute smile. Radulfus chose to have everything plainly stated, for this might be the only opportunity. “I understand well that this marriage you will be making tomorrow is very much to the mind of your uncle and aunt, and suitable in rank and fortune. But is it also to your mind, daughter? You undertake it of your own will?”

She opened already wide eyes even wider, purple as irises, and parted innocently wondering lips, and said simply: “Yes, of course, Father. Certainly of my own will. I am doing what I know it is right and good that I should do, and I do it with all my heart.”