A Rare Benedictine

EYE WITNESS

IT WAS UNDOUBTEDLY INCONSIDERATE OF BROTHER AMBROSE to fall ill with a raging quinsy just a few days before the yearly rents were due for collection, and leave the rolls still uncopied, and the new entries still to be made. No one knew the abbey rolls as Brother Ambrose did. He had been clerk to Brother Matthew, the cellarer, for four years, during which time fresh grants to the abbey had been flooding in richly, a new mill on the Tern, pastures, assarts, messuages in the town, glebes in the countryside, a fishery up-river, even a church or two, and there was no one who could match him at putting a finger on the slippery tenant or the field-lawyer, or the householder who had always three good stories to account for his inability to pay. And here was the collection only a day away, and Brother Ambrose on his back in the infirmary, croaking like a sick raven, and about as much use.

Brother Matthew’s chief steward, who always made the collection within the town and suburbs of Shrewsbury in person, took it almost as a personal injury. He had had to install as substitute a young lay clerk who had entered the abbey service not four months previously. Not that he had found any cause to complain of the young man’s work. He had copied industriously and neatly, and shown great alertness and interest in his quick grasp of what he copied, making round, respectful eyes at the value of the rent-roll.

But Master William Rede had been put out, and was bent on letting everyone know of it. He was a querulous, argumentative man in his fifties, who, if you said white to him, would inevitably say black, and bring documentary evidence to back up his contention. He came to visit his old friend and helper in the abbey infirmary, the day before the town collection was due, but whether to comfort or reproach was matter for speculation. Brother Ambrose, still voiceless, essayed speech and achieved only a painful wheeze, before Brother Cadfael, who was anointing his patient’s throat afresh with goose-grease, and had a soothing syrup of orpine standing by, laid a palm over the sufferer’s mouth and ordered silence.

“Now, William,” he said tolerantly, “if you can’t comfort, don’t vex. This poor soul’s got you on his conscience as it is, and you know, as well as I do, that you have the whole matter at your finger-ends. You tell him so, and fetch up a smile, or out you go.” And he wrapped a length of good Welsh flannel round the glistening throat, and reached for the spoon that stood in the beaker of syrup. Brother Ambrose opened his mouth with the devoted resignation of a little bird waiting to be fed, and sucked in the dose with an expression of slightly surprised appreciation.

But William Rede was not going to be done out of his grievance so easily. “Oh, no fault of yours,” he owned grudgingly, “but very ill luck for me, as if I had not enough on my hands in any event, with the rent-roll grown so long, and the burden of scribe’s work for ever lengthening, as it does. And I have troubles of my own nearer home, into the bargain, with that rogue son of mine nothing but brawler and gamester as he is. If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a score of times, the next time he comes to me to pay his debts or buy him out of trouble, he’ll come in vain, he may sweat it out in gaol, and serve him right. A man would think he could get a little peace and comfort from his own flesh and blood. All I get is vexation.”

Once launched upon this tune, he was liable to continue the song indefinitely, and Brother Ambrose was already looking apologetic and abject, as though not William, but he, had engendered the unsatisfactory son. Cadfael could not recall that he had ever spoken with young Rede, beyond exchanging the time of day, and knew enough about fathers and sons, and the expectations each had of the other, to take all such complaints with wary reserve. Report certainly said the young man was a wild one, but at twenty-two which of the town hopefuls was not? By thirty they were most of them working hard, and minding their own purses, homes and wives. “Your lad will mend, like many another,” said Cadfael comfortably, edging the voluble visitor out from the infirmary into the sunshine of the great court. Before them on their left the great west tower of the church loomed; on their right, the long block of the guest-halls, and beyond, the crowns of the garden trees just bursting into leaf and bud, with a moist, pearly light filming over stonework and cobbles and all with a soft Spring sheen. “And as for the rents, you know very well, old humbug, that you have your finger on every line of the ledger book, and tomorrow’s affair will go like a morning walk. At any rate, you can’t complain of your prentice hand. He’s worked hard enough over those books of yours.”

“Jacob has certainly shown application,” the steward agreed cautiously. “I own I’ve been surprised at the grasp he has of abbey affairs, in so short a time. Young people nowadays take so little interest in what they’re set to do fly-by-nights and frivolous, most of them. It’s been heartening to see one of them work with such zeal. I daresay he knows the value due from every property of the house by this time. Yes, a good boy. But too ingenuous, Cadfael, there’s his flaw too affable. Figures and characters on vellum cannot baffle him, but a rogue with a friendly tongue might come over him. He cannot stand men off he cannot put frost between. It’s not well to be too open with all men.”

It was mid-afternoon; in an hour or so it would be time for Vespers. The great court had always some steady flow of activity, but at this hour it was at its quietest. They crossed the court together at leisure, Brother Cadfael to return to his workshop in the herb garden, the steward to the north walk of the cloister, where his assistant was hard at work in the scriptorium. But before they had reached the spot where their paths would divide, two young men emerged from the cloister in easy conversation, and came towards them.

Jacob of Bouldon was a sturdy, square-set young fellow from the south of the shire, with a round, amiable face, large, candid eyes, and a ready smile. He came with a vellum leaf doubled in one hand, and a pen behind his ear, in every particular the eager, hardworking clerk. A little too open to any man’s approaches, perhaps, as his master had said. The lanky, narrow-headed fellow attentive at his side had a very different look about him, weather-beaten, sharp-eyed and drab in hard-wearing dark clothes, with a leather jerkin to bear the rubbing of a heavy pack. The back of the left shoulder was scrubbed pallid and dull from much carrying, and his hat was wide and drooping of brim, to shed off rain. A travelling haberdasher with a few days’ business in Shrewsbury, no novelty in the commoners’ guest-hall of the abbey. His like were always on the roads, somewhere about the shire.

The pedlar louted to Master William with obsequious respect, said his goodday, and made off to his lodging. Early to be home for the night, surely, but perhaps he had done good business and come back to replenish his stock. A wise tradesman kept something in reserve, when he had a safe store to hand, rather than carry his all on every foray.

Master William looked after him with no great favour. “What had that fellow to do thus with you, boy?” he questioned suspiciously. “He’s a deal too curious, with that long nose of his. I’ve seen him making up to any of the household he can back into a corner. What was he after in the scriptorium?”

Jacob opened his wide eyes even wider. “Oh, he’s an honest fellow enough, sir, I’m sure. Though he does like to probe into everything, I grant you, and asks a lot of questions…”

“Then you give him no answers,” said the steward firmly.

“I don’t, nothing but general talk that leaves him no wiser. Though I think he’s but naturally inquisitive and no harm meant. He likes to curry favour with everyone, but that’s by way of his trade. A rough-tongued pedlar would not sell many tapes and laces,” said the young man blithely, and flourished the leaf of vellum he carried. “I was coming to ask you about this carucate of land in Recordine there’s an erasure in the ledger book, I looked up the copy to compare. You’ll remember, sir, it was disputed land for a while, the heir tried to recover it…”

“I do recall. Come, I’ll show you the original copy. But have as little to say to these travelling folk as you can with civility,” Master William adjured earnestly. “There are rogues on the roads as well as honest tradesmen. There, you go before, I’ll follow you.”

He looked after the jaunty figure as it departed smartly, back to the scriptorium. “As I said, Cadfael, too easily pleased with every man. It’s not wise to look always for the best in men. But for all that,” he added, reverting morosely to his private grievance, “I wish that scamp of mine was more like him. In debt already for some gambling folly, and he has to get himself picked up by the sergeants for a street brawl, and fined, and cannot pay the fine. And to keep my own name in respect, he’s confident I shall have to buy him clear. I must see to it tomorrow, one way or the other, when I’ve finished my rounds in the town, for he has but three days left to pay. If it weren’t for his mother… Even so, even so, this time I ought to let him stew.”

He departed after his clerk, shaking his head bitterly over his troubles. And Cadfael went off to see what feats of idiocy or genius Brother Oswin had wrought in the herb garden in his absence.

In the morning, when the brothers came out from Prime, Brother Cadfael saw the steward departing to begin his round, the deep leather satchel secured to his locked belt, and swinging by two stout straps. By evening it would be heavy with the annual wealth of the city rents, and those from the northern suburbs outside the walls. Jacob was there to see him go, listening dutifully to his last emphatic instructions, and sighing as he was left behind to complete the bookwork. Warm Harefoot, the packman, was off early, too, to ply his trade among the housewives either of the town or the parish of the Foregate. A pliable fellow, full of professional bows and smiles, but by the look of him all his efforts brought him no better than a meagre living.

So there went Jacob, back to his pen and inkhorn in the cloisters, and forth to his important business went Master William. And who knows, thought Cadfael, which is in the right, the young man who sees the best in all, and trusts all, or the old one who suspects all until he has probed them through and through? The one may stumble into a snare now and then, but at least enjoy sunshine along the way, between falls. The other may never miss his footing, but seldom experience joy. Better find a way somewhere between!

It was a curious chance that seated him next to Brother Eutropius at breakfast, for what did anyone know about Brother Eutropius? He had come to the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul of Shrewsbury only two months ago, from a minor grange of the order. But in two months of Brother Oswin, say, that young man would have been an open book to every reader, whereas Eutropius contained himself as tightly as did his skin, and gave out much less in the way of information. A taciturn man, thirty or so at a guess, who kept himself apart and looked solitary discontent at everything that crossed his path, but never complained. It might be merely newness and shyness, in one naturally uncommunicative, or it might be a gnawing inward anger against his lot and all the world. Rumour said, a man frustrated in love, and finding no relief in his resort to the cowl. But rumour was using its imagination, for want of fuel more reliable.

Eutropius also worked under Brother Matthew, the cellarer, and was intelligent and literate, but not a good or a quick scribe. Perhaps, when Brother Ambrose fell ill, he would have liked to be trusted to take over his books. Perhaps he resented the lay clerk being preferred before him. Perhaps! With Eutropius everything, thus far, was conjecture. Some day someone would pierce that carapace of his, with an unguarded word or a sudden irresistible motion of grace, and the mystery would no longer be a mystery, or the stranger a stranger.

Brother Cadfael knew better than to be in a hurry, where souls were concerned. There was plenty of elbow-room in eternity.

In the afternoon, returning to the grange court to collect some seed he had left stored in the loft, Cadfael encountered Jacob, his scribing done for the moment, setting forth importantly with his own leather satchel into the Foregate, “So he’s left you a parcel to clear for him,” said Cadfael.

“I would gladly have done more,” said Jacob, mildly aggrieved and on his dignity. He looked less than his twenty-five years, well-grown as he was, with that cherubic face. “But he says I’m sure to be slow, not knowing the rounds or the tenants, so he’s let me take only the outlying lanes here in the Foregate, where I can take my time. I daresay he’s right, it will take me longer than I think. I ‘m sorry to see him so worried about his son,” he said, shaking his head. “He has to see to this business with the law, he told me not to worry if he was late returning today. I hope all goes well,” said the loyal subordinate, and set forth sturdily to do his own duty towards his master, however beset he might be by other cares.

Cadfael took his seed back to the garden, put in an hour or so of contented work there, washed his hands, and went to check on the progress of Brother Ambrose, who was just able to croak in his ear, more audibly than yesterday: “I could rise and help poor William such a day for him…!

He was halted there by a large, rough palm. “Lie quiet,” said Cadfael, “like a wise man. Let them see how well they can fend without you, and they’ll value you the better hereafter. And about time, too!” And he fed his captive bird again, and returned to his labours in the garden.

At Vespers, Brother Eutropius came late and in haste, and took his place breathing rapidly, but as impenetrable as ever. And when they emerged to go to supper in the refectory, Jacob of Bouldon was just coming in at the gatehouse with his leather satchel of rents jealously guarded by one hand and looking round hopefully for his master, who had not yet returned. Nor had he some twenty minutes later, when supper was over; but in the gathering dusk Warin Harefoot trudged wearily across the court to the guest-hall, and the pack on his shoulder looked hardly lighter than when he had gone out in the morning.

Madog of the Dead-Boat, in addition to his primary means of livelihood, which was salvaging dead bodies from the River Severn at any season, had a number of seasonal occupations that afforded him sport as well as a living. Of these the one he enjoyed most was fishing, and of all the fishing seasons the one he liked best was the early Spring run up-river of the mature salmon, fine, energetic young males which had arrived early in the estuary, and would run and leap like athletes many miles upstream before they spawned. Madog was expert at taking them, and had had one out of the water this same day, before he paddled his coracle into the thick bushes under the castle’s water-gate, a narrow lane running down from the town, and dropped a lesser line into the river to pick up whatever else offered. Here he was in good, leafy cover, and could stake himself into the bank and lie back to drowse until his line jerked him awake. From above, whether castle ramparts, town wall or upper window, he could not be seen.

It was beginning to grow dusk when he was startled wide awake by the hollow splash of something heavy plunging into the water, just upstream. Alert in a moment, he shoved off a yard or so from shore to look that way, but saw nothing to account for the sound, until an eddy in midstream showed him a dun-coloured sleeve breaking surface, and then the oval pallor of a face rising and sinking again from sight. A man’s body turned slowly in the current as it sailed past. Madog was out after it instantly, his paddle plying. Getting a body from river into a coracle is a tricky business, but he had practised it so long that he had it perfect, balance and heft and all, from his first grasp on the billowing sleeve to the moment when the little boat bobbed like a cork and spun like a drifting leaf, with the drowned man in-board and streaming water. They were halfway across the river by that time, and there were half a dozen lay brothers just leaving their work in the vegetable gardens along the Gaye, on the other side, the nearest help in view. Madog made for their shore, and sent a halloo ahead of him to halt their departure and bring them running.

He had the salvaged man out on the bank by the time they reached him, and had turned him face-down into the grass and hoisted him firmly by the middle to shake the water out of him, squeezing energetically with big, gnarled hands.

“He’s been in the river no more than a breath or two, I heard him souse into the water. Did you see ought over there by the water-gate?” But they shook their heads, concerned and anxious, and stooped to the drenched body, which at that instant heaved in breath, choked, and vomited the water it had swallowed. “He’s breathing. He’ll do. But he was meant to drown, sure enough. See here!”

On the back of the head of thick, greying hair blood slowly seeped, along a broken and indented wound.

One of the lay brothers exclaimed aloud, and kneeled to turn up to the light the streaked and pallid face. “Master William! This is our steward! He was collecting rents in the town… See, the pouch is gone from his belt!” Two rubbed and indented spots showed where the heavy satchel had bruised the leather beneath, and the lower edge of the stout belt itself showed a nick from a sharp knife, where the thongs had been sliced through in haste. “Robbery and murder!”

“The one, surely, but not the other not yet,” said Madog practically. “He’s breathing, you’ve not lost him yet. But we’d best get him to the nearest and best-tended bed, and that’ll be in your infirmary, I take it. Make use of those hoes and spades of yours, lads, and here’s a coat of mine to spare, if some of you will give up yours…”

They made a litter to carry Master William back to the abbey, as quickly and steadily as they could. Their entry at the gatehouse brought out porters, guests and brothers in alarm and concern. Brother Edmund the infirmarer came running and led the way to a bed beside the fire in the sick quarters. Jacob of Bouldon, rushing to confirm his fears, set up a distressed cry, but recovered himself gallantly, and ran for Brother Cadfael. The sub-prior, once informed of the circumstances by Madog, who was too accustomed to drowned and near-drowned men to get excited, sensibly sent a messenger hot-foot into the town to tell provost and sheriff what had happened, and the hunt was up almost before the victim was stripped of his soaked clothes, rolled in blankets and put to bed.

The sheriff’s sergeant came, and listened to Madog’s tale, with only a momentary narrowing of eyes at the fleeting suspicion that the tough old Welsh waterman might be adept at putting men into the water, as well as pulling them out. But in that case he would have been more likely to make sure that his victim went under, unless he was certain he could not name or identify his attacker. Madog saw the moment of doubt, and grinned scornfully.

“I get my living better ways. But if you need to question, there must be some among those gardeners from the Gaye who saw me come downriver and drop my line in under the trees there, and can tell you I never set foot ashore until I brought this one over, and shouted them to come and help with him. Maybe you don’t know me, but these brothers here do.”

The sergeant, surely one of the few new enough to service in Shrewsbury castle to be ignorant of Madog’s special position along the river, accepted Brother Edmund’s warm assurances, and shrugged off his doubts.

“But sorry I am,” allowed Madog, mollified, “that I neither saw nor heard anything until he plumped into the water, for I was drowsing. All I can say is that he went in upstream of me, but not far I’d say someone slid him in from the cover of the water-gate.”

“A narrow, dark place, that,” said the sergeant.

“And a warren of passages above. And the light fading, though not far gone… Well, maybe when he comes round he’ll be able to tell you. something he may have seen the man that did it.”

The sergeant settled down resignedly to wait for Master William to stir, which so far he showed no sign of doing. Cadfael had cleaned and bandaged the wound, dressing it with a herbal salve, and the steward lay with eyes closed and sunken, mouth painfully open upon snoring breath. Madog reclaimed his coat, which had been drying before the fire, and shrugged into it placidly. “Let’s hope nobody’s thought the time right to help himself to my fish while my back was turned.” He had wrapped his salmon in an armful of wet grass and covered it with his upturned boat. “I’ll bid you goodnight, brothers, and wish your sick man hale again and his pouch recovered, too, though that I doubt.”

From the infirmary doorway he turned back to say: “You have a patient lad here sitting shivering on the doorstep, waiting for word. Can he not come in and see his master, he says. I’ve told him the man’s likely to live his old age out with no worse than a dunt on the head to show for it, and he’d best be off to his bed, for he’ll get nothing here as yet. Would you want him in?”

Cadfael went out with him to shoo away any such premature visits. Jacob of Bouldon, pale and anxious, was sitting with arms folded closely round his drawn-up knees, hunched against the chill of the night. He looked up hopefully as they came out to him, and opened his mouth eagerly to plead. Madog clouted him amiably on the shoulder as he passed, and made off towards the gatehouse, a squat, square figure, brown and crusty as the bole of an oak.

“You’d best be off, too, into the warm,” said Brother Cadfael, not unkindly. “Master William will recover well enough, but he’s likely to be without his wits some time yet, no call for you to catch your death here on the stone.”

“I couldn’t rest,” said Jacob earnestly. “I told him, I begged him, take me with you, you should have someone. But he said, folly, he had collected rents for the abbey many years, and never felt any need for a guard. And now, see… Could I not come in and sit by him? I’d make no sound, never trouble him… He has not spoken?”

“Nor will for some hours yet, and even then I doubt he can tell us much. I’m here with him in case of need, and Brother Edmund is on call. The fewer about him, the better.”

“I’ll wait a little while yet,” said Jacob, fretting, and hugged his knees the tighter.

Well, if he would, he would, but cramp and cold would teach him better sense and more patience. Cadfael went back to his vigil, and closed the door. Still, it was no bad thing to encounter one lad whose devotion gave the lie to Master William’s forebodings concerning the younger generation.

Before midnight there was another visitor enquiring. The porter opened the door softly and came in to whisper that Master William’s son was here, asking after his father and wanting to come in and see him. Since the sergeant, departing when it seemed certain his vigil was fruitless until morning, had pledged himself to go and reassure Mistress Rede that her man was alive, well cared for, and certain to make a good recovery, Cadfael might well have gone out to bid the young man go home and take care of his mother rather than waste his time here, if the young man had not forestalled him by making a silent and determined entry on his herald’s heels. A tall, shock-headed, dark-eyed youth, hunched of shoulder just now, and grim of face, but admittedly very quiet in movement, and low-voiced. His look was by no means tender or solicitous. His eyes went at once to the figure in the bed, sweaty-browed now, and breathing somewhat more easily and naturally. He brooded, glaring, and wasting no time on question or explanation, said in a level whisper: “I will stay.” And with aggressive composure stayed, settling himself on the bench beside his father’s bed, his two long, muscular hands gripped tightly between his knees.

The porter met Cadfael’s eye, hoisted his shoulders, and went quietly away. Cadfael sat down on the other side of the bed, and contemplated the pair, father and son. Both faces looked equally aloof and critical, even hostile, yet there they were, close and quiet together.

The young man asked but two questions, each after a long silence. The first, uttered almost grudgingly, was: “Will it be well with him?” Cadfael, watching the easing flow of breath and the faint flush of colour, said simply: “Yes. Only give him time.” The second was: “He has not spoken yet?”

“Not yet,” said Cadfael.

Now which of those, he wondered, was the more vital question? There was one man, somewhere, who must at this moment be very anxious indeed about what William Rede might have to say, when he did speak.

The young man his name was Edward, Cadfael recalled, after the Confessor Eddi Rede sat all night long almost motionless, brooding over his father’s bed. Most of that time, and certainly every time he had been aware of being watched in his turn, he had been scowling.

Well before Prime the sergeant was back again to his watch, and Jacob was again hovering unhappily about the doorway, peering in anxiously whenever it was opened, but not quite venturing to come in until he was invited. The sergeant eyed Eddi very hard and steadily, but said no word to disturb the injured man’s increasingly restful sleep. It was past seven when at last Master William stirred, opened vague eyes, made a few small sounds which were not yet words, and tried feebly to put up a hand to his painful head, startled by the sudden twinge when he moved. The sergeant stooped close, but Cadfael laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“Give him time! A knock on the head like that will have addled his wits. We’ll need to tell him things before he tells us any.” And to the wondering patient he said tranquilly: “You know me? I’m Cadfael, brother Cadfael. Brother Edmund will be here to relieve me as soon as Prime is over. You’re in his care, in the infirmary, and past the worst. Fret for nothing, lie still and let others do that. You’ve had a mighty dunt on the crown, and a dowsing in the river, but both are past, and thanks be, you’re safe enough now.”

The wandering hand reached its goal this time. Master William groaned and stared indignant surprise, and his eyes cleared and sharpened, though his voice was weak as he complained, with quickening memory: “He came behind me someone out of an open yard door… That’s the last I know…” Sudden realisation shook him; he gave a stricken howl, and tried to rise from his pillow, but gave up at the pang it cost him. The rents the abbey rents!”

“Your life’s better worth than the abbey rents,” said Cadfael heartily, “and even they may be regained.”

“The man who felled you,” said the sergeant, leaning dose, “cut your satchel loose with a knife, and made off with it. But if you can help us we’ll lay him by the heels yet. Where was this that he struck you down?”

“Not a hundred paces from my own house,” lamented William bitterly. “I went there when I had finished, to check my rolls and make all fast, and…” He shut his mouth grimly on the overriding reason. Hazily he had been aware all this time of the silent and sullen young man sitting beside him, now he fixed his eyes on him until his vision cleared. The mutual glare was spirited, and came of long practice. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Waiting to have better news of you to take to my mother,” said Eddi shortly. He looked up defiantly into the sergeant’s face. “He came home to read me all my sins over, and warn me that the fine that’s due from me in two days more is my burden now, not his, and if I can’t make shift for it on my own I may go to gaol, and pay in another coin. Or it may be,” he added with grudging fairness, “that he came rather to flay me and then pay my dues, as he’s done more than once. But I was in no mind to listen, and he was in no mind to be flouted, so I flung out and went down to the butts. And won the good half of what I owe, for what that’s worth,”

“So this was a bitter quarrel you had between you,” said the sergeant, narrowing suspicious eyes. “And not long after it you, master, went out to bring your rents home, and were set upon, robbed, and left for dead. And now you, boy, have the half of what you need to stay out of prison.”

Cadfael, watching father and son, felt that it had not even occurred to Eddi, until then, that he might fall under suspicion of this all too opportune attack; and further, that even now it had not dawned on Master William that such a thought could occur to any sane man. He was scowling at his son for no worse reason than old custom and an aching head.

“Why are you not looking after your mother at home?” he demanded querulously.

“So I will, now I’ve seen and heard you more like yourself. Mother’s well enough cared for; Cousin Alice is with her. But she’ll be the better for knowing that you’re still the same cantankerous worrit, and likely to be a plague to us twenty years yet. I’ll go,” said Eddi grimly, “when I’m let. But he wants your witness before he can leave you to your rest. Better get it said.”

Master William submitted wearily, knitting his brows in the effort to remember. “I came from the house, along the passage towards Saint Mary’s, above the water-gate. The door of the tanner’s yard was standing open, I know I’d passed it… But I never heard a step behind me. As if the wall had fallen on me! I recall nothing after, except sudden cold, deadly cold… Who brought me back, then, that I’m snug here?”

They told him, and he shook his head helplessly over the great blank between.

“You think the fellow must have been hiding behind that yard-door, lying in wait?”

“So it seems.”

“And you caught never a glimpse? Never had time to turn your head? You can tell us nothing to trace him? Not even a guess at his build? His age?”

Nothing. Simply, there had been early dusk before him, his own steps the only sound, no man in sight between the high walls of gardens, yards and warehouses going down to the river, and then the shock of the blow, and abrupt darkness. He was growing tired again, but his mind was clear enough. There would be no more to get from him.

Brother Edmund came in, eyed his patient, and silently nodded the visitors out at the door, to leave him in peace. Eddi kissed his father’s dangling hand, but brusquely, rather as though he would as lief have bitten it, and marched out to blink at the sunlight in the great court. With a face grimly defiant he waited for the sergeant’s dismissal.

“I left him as I told you, I went to the butts, and played into a wager there, and shot well. You’ll want names from me. I can give them. And I’m still short the half of my fine, for what that’s worth. I knew nothing of this until I went home, and that was late, after your messenger had been there. Can I go home? I’m at your disposal.”

“You can,” granted the sergeant, so readily that it was clear the young man would not be unwatched on the way, or on arrival. “And there stay, for I shall want more from you than merely names. I’m away to take their tales from the lay brothers who were working late at the Gaye yesterday, but I’ll not be long after you in the town.”

The workers were already assembling in the court and moving off to their day’s labour. The sergeant strode forth to find his men, and left Eddi glowering after him, and Cadfael mildly observing the wary play of thought in the dark young face. Not a bad-looking lad, if he would wear a sunnier visage; but perhaps at this moment he had little cause.

“He will truly be a hale man again?” he asked suddenly, turning his black gaze on Cadfael.

“As whole and hearty as ever he was.”

“And you’ll take good care of him?”

“So we will,” agreed Cadfael innocently, “even though he may be a cantankerous worrit and a plague.”

“I‘m sure none of you here have any call to say so,” flashed the young man with abrupt ferocity. “The abbey has had loyal and solid service from him all these years, and owes him more thanks than abuse.” And he turned his back and stalked away out of the great court, leaving Cadfael looking after him with a thoughtful face and the mere trace of a smile.

He was careful to wipe off the smile before he went back to Master William, who was in no mood to take himself, his son and his troubles anything but seriously. He lay trying to blink and frown away his headache, and fulminating about his offspring in a glum undertone.

“You see what I have to complain of, who should be able to look for comfort and support at home. A wild, unbiddable good-for-nothing, and insolent into the bargain…”

“So he is,” agreed Cadfael sympathetically, wooden-faced. “No wonder you mean to let him pay for his follies in prison, and small blame to you.” He got an acid glare as reward. “I shall do no such thing!” snapped Master William sharply. “The boy’s no worse than you or I at his age, I daresay. Nothing wrong with him that time won’t cure.”

Master William’s disaster, it seemed, had shaken the serenity of the abbey from choir to guest-hall. The enquiries were many and assiduous. Young Jacob had been hopping about outside the infirmary from dawn, unable to tear himself away even to the duties he owed his injured master, until Cadfael had taken pity on his obvious anxiety, and stopped to tell him that there was no need for such distress, for the worst was over, and all would be well with Master William.

“You are sure, brother? He has regained his senses? He has spoken? His mind is clear?”

Patiently Cadfael repeated his reassurances.

“But such villainy! Has he been able to help the sheriff’s men? Did he see his attacker? Has he any notion who it could have been?”

“Not that, no. Never a glimpse, he was struck from behind, and knew no more until he came to this morning in the infirmary. He’s no help to the law, I fear. It was not to be expected.”

“But he himself will be well and strong again?”

“As ever he was, and before long, too.”

“Thank God, brother!” said Jacob fervently, and went away satisfied to his accounts. For even with the town rents lost, there was still bookwork to be done on what remained.

More surprising it seemed to be stopped on the way to the dortoir by Warin Harefoot, the haberdasher, with a very civil enquiry after the steward’s health. Warin did not presume to display the agitation of a favoured colleague like Jacob, but rather the mannerly sympathy of a humble guest of the house, and the law-abiding citizen’s indignation at evildoing, and desire that justice should pursue the evildoer. Had his honour been able to put a name or a face to his attacker? A great pity! Yet justice, he hoped, might still be done. And would there should any man be so fortunate as to trace the missing satchel with its treasure would there be a small reward for such a service? To an honest man who restored it, Cadfael thought, there well might. Warin went off to his day’s peddling in Shrewsbury, humping his heavy pack. The back view of him, for some reason, looked both purposeful and jaunty.

But the strangest and most disturbing enquirer made, in fact, no enquiry, but came silently in, as Cadfael was paying another brief visit to the infirmary in the early afternoon, after catching up with some of his lost sleep. Brother Eutropius stood motionless and intent at the foot of the steward’s bed, staring down with great hollow eyes in a face like a stone mask. He gave never a glance to Cadfael. All he regarded was the sleeping man, now so placid and eased for all his bandaged head, a man back from the river, back from the grave. He stood there for a long time, his lips moving on inaudible formulae of prayer. Suddenly he shuddered, like someone waking from a trance, and crossed himself, and went away as silently as he had come.

Cadfael was so concerned at his manner and his closed face that he went out after him, no less quietly, and followed him at a distance through the cloisters and into the church.

Brother Eutropius was on his knees before the high altar, his marble face upraised over clasped hands. His eyelids were closed, but the dark lashes glittered. A handsome, agonised man of thirty, with a strong body and a fierce, tormented heart, his lips framing silently but readably in the altar-light. “Mea culpa… maxima mea culpa …”

Cadfael would have liked to pierce the distance and the ice between, but it was not the time. He went away quietly, and left Brother Eutropius to the remnant of his disrupted solitude, for whatever had happened to him, the shell was cracked and disintegrating, and never again would he be able to reassemble it about him.

Cadfael went into the town before Vespers, to call upon Mistress Rede, and take her the latest good word of her man. It was by chance that he met the sergeant at the High Cross, and stopped to exchange news. It had been a routine precaution to round up a few of the best-known rogues in Shrewsbury, and make them account for their movements the previous day, but that had yielded nothing. Eddi’s fellow-marksmen at the butts under the town wall had sworn to his story willingly, but seeing they were all his cronies from boyhood, that meant little enough. The one new thing, and it marked the exact spot of the attack past question, was the discovery in the passage above the water-gate of the one loop of leather from Master William’s pouch, the one which had been sliced clean through and left lying in the thief’s haste, and the dim light under the high walls.

“Right under the clothier’s cart-yard. The walls are ten feet high, and the passage narrow. Never a place from which the lane can be overlooked. No chance in the world of an eye witness. He chose his place well.”

“Ah, but there is one place, then, from which a man might have watched the deed,” said Cadfael, enlightened. “The loft above that cart-house and barn has a hatch higher than the wall, and close to it. And Roger Clothier lets Rhodri Fychan sleep up there - the old Welshman who begs at Saint Mary’s church. By that time of the evening he may have been up in the hay already, and on a fine evening he’d be sitting by the open hatch. And even if he had not come home at that time, who’s to be sure of that? It’s enough that he could have been there.

He had been right about the sergeant; the man was an incomer, not yet acquainted with the half of what went on in Shrewsbury. He had not known Madog of the Dead-Boat, he did not know Rhodri Fychan. Pure chance had cast this particular affair into the hands of such a man, and perhaps no ill chance, either.

“You have given me a notion,” said Cadfael, “that may bring us nearer the truth yet. Not that I’d let the old man run any risk, but no need for that. Listen, there’s a baited trap we might try, if you’re agreeable. If it succeeds you may have your man. If it fails, we shall have lost nothing. But it’s a matter of doing it quietly - no public proclamation, leave the baiting to me. Will you give it a trial? It’s your credit if we hook our fish, and it costs but a night-watch.”

The sergeant stared, already sniffing at the hope of praise and promotion, but cautious still. “What is it you have in mind?”

“Say you had done this thing, there between blind walls, and then suddenly heard that an old man slept above every night of the year, and may have been there when you struck. And say you were told that this old beggar has not yet been questioned but tomorrow he will be…”

“Brother,” said the sergeant, “I am with you. I am listening.”

There were two things to be done, after that, if the spring was to succeed, and imperil no one but the guilty. No need to worry, as yet, about getting permission to be absent in the night, or, failing that, making his own practised but deprecated way out without permission. Though he had confidence in Abbot Radulfus, who had, before now, shown confidence in him. Justice is a permitted passion, the just respect it. Meantime, Cadfael went up to Saint Mary’s churchyard, and sought out the venerable beggar who sat beside the west door, in his privileged and honoured place. Rhodri the Less - for his father had been Rhodri, too, and a respected beggar like his son - knew the footstep, and turned up a wrinkled and pock-marked face, brown as the soil, smiling.

“Brother Cadfael, well met, and what’s the news with you?”

Cadfael sat down beside him, and took his time. “You’ll have heard of this bad business that was done right under your bedchamber, yesterday evening. Were you there, last night?”

“Not when this befell,” said the old man, scratching his white poll thoughtfully, “and can find no one who was down there at that time, either. Last night I begged late, it was a mild evening. Vespers was over and gone here before I went home.”

“No matter,” said Cadfael. “Now listen, friend, for I’m borrowing your nest tonight, and you’ll be a guest elsewhere, if you’ll be my helper…”

“For a Welshman,” said the old man comfortably, “whatever he asks. You need only tell me.” But when it was told, he shook his head firmly. “There’s an inner loft. In the worst of the winter I move in there for the warmth, away from the frosty air. Why should not I be present? There’s a door between, and room for you and more. And I should like, Brother Cadfael, I should like of all things to be witness when Will Rede’s murderer gets his come-uppance.”

He leaned to rattle his begging-bowl at a pious lady who had been putting up prayers in the church. Business was business, and the pitch he held was the envy of the beggars of Shrewsbury. He blessed the giver, and reached a delaying hand to halt Cadfael, who was rising to depart.

“Brother, a word for you that might come helpfully, who knows! They are saying that one of your monks was down under the bridge yesterday evening, about the time Madog took up Will out of the water. They say he stood there under the stone a long time, like a man in a dream, but no good dream. One they know but very little, a man in his prime, dark-avised, solitary…”

“He came late to Vespers,” said Cadfael, remembering.

“You know I have those who tell me things, for no evil purpose a man who sits still must have the world come to him. They tell me this brother walked into the water, above his sandals, and would have gone deeper, but it was then Madog of the Dead-Boat hallooed that he had a drowned man aboard. And the strange monk drew back out of the water and fled from his devil. So they say. Does it mean anything to you?”

“Yes,” said Cadfael slowly. “Yes, it means much.”

When Cadfael had finished reassuring the steward’s brisk, birdlike little wife that she should have her man back in a day or two as good as new, he drew Eddi out with him into the yard, and told him all that was in the wind.

“And I am off back now to drop the quiet word into a few ears I can think of, where it may raise the fiercest itch. But not too early, or why should not the thought be passed on to the sheriff’s man at once for action? No, last thing, after dark, when all good brothers are making their peace with the day before bed, I shall have recalled that there’s one place from which yonder lane can be overlooked, and one man who sleeps the nights there, year round, and may have things to tell. First thing tomorrow, I shall let them know, I’ll send the sheriff the word, and let him deal. Whoever fears an eye witness shall have but this one night to act.”

The young man eyed him with a doubtful face but a glint in his glance. “Since you can hardly expect to take me in that trap, brother, I reckon you have another use for me.”

“This is your father. If you will, you may be with the witnesses in the rear loft. But mark, I do not know, no one can know yet, that the bait will fetch any man.”

“And if it does not,” said Eddi with a wry grin, “if no one comes, I can still find the hunt hard on my heels.”

“True! But if it succeeds…”

He nodded grimly. “Either way, I have nothing to lose. But listen, one thing I want amended, or I’ll spring your trap before the time. It is not I who will be in the rear loft with Rhodri Fychan and your sergeant. It is you. I shall be the sleeper in the straw, waiting for a murderer. You said rightly, brother this is my father. Mine, not yours!”

This had been no part of Brother Cadfael’s plans, but for all that, he found it did not greatly surprise him. Nor, by the set of the intent young face and the tone of the quiet voice, did he think demur would do much good. But he tried.

“Son, since it is your father, think better of it. He’ll have need of you. A man who has tried once to kill will want to make certain this time. He’ll come with a knife, if he comes at all. And you, however sharp your ears and stout your heart, still at a disadvantage, lying in a feigned sleep…”

“And are your senses any quicker than mine, and your sinews any suppler and stronger?” Eddi grinned suddenly, and clapped him on the shoulder with a large and able hand. “Never fret, brother, I am well prepared for when that man and I come to grips. You go and sow your good seed, and may it bear fruit! I’ll make ready.”

When robbery and attempted murder are but a day and a half old, and still the sensation of a whole community, it is by no means difficult to introduce the subject and insert into the speculations whatever new crumb of interest you may wish to propagate. As Cadfael found, going about his private business in the half-hour after Compline. He did not have to introduce the subject, in fact, for no one was talking about anything else. The only slight difficulty was in confiding his sudden idea to each man in solitude, since any general announcement would at once have caused some native to blurt out the obvious objection, and give the entire game away. But even that gave little trouble, for certainly the right man, if he really was among those approached, would not say one word of it to anyone else, and would have far too much to think about to want company or conversation the rest of the night. Young Jacob, emerging cramped and yawning after hours of assiduous scribing, broken only by snatched meals and a dutiful visit to his master, now sitting up by the infirmary hearth, received Brother Cadfael’s sudden idea wide-eyed and eager, and offered, indeed, to hurry to the castle even at this late hour to tell the watch about it, but Cadfael considered that hardworking officers of the law might be none too grateful at having their night’s rest disrupted; and in any case nothing would be changed by morning.

To half a dozen guests of the commoners’ hall, who came to make kind enquiry after Master William, he let fall his idea openly, as a simple possibility, since none of them was a Shrewsbury man, or likely to know too much about the inhabitants. Warin Harefoot was among the six, and perhaps the instigator of the civil gesture. He looked, as always, humble, zealous, and pleased at any motion, even the slightest, towards justice.

There remained one mysterious and troubled figure. Surely not a murderer, not even quite a self-murderer, though by all the signs he had come very close. But for Madog’s cry of ‘Drowned man!’ he might indeed have waded into the full flow of the stream and let it take him. It was as if God himself had set before him, like a lightning stroke from heaven, the enormity of the act he contemplated, and driven him back from the brink with the dazzle of hell-fire. But those who returned stricken and penitent to face this world had need also of men, and the communicated warmth of men.

Before Cadfael so much as opened the infirmary door, on a last visit to the patient within, he had a premonition of what he would find. Master William and Brother Eutropius sat companionably one on either side of the hearth, talking together in low, considerate voices, with silences as acceptable as speech, and speech no more eloquent than the silences. There was no defining the thread that linked them, but there would never be any breaking it. Cadfael would have withdrawn unnoticed, but the slight creak of the door drew Brother Eutropius’ attention, and he rose to take his leave.

“Yes, brother, I know I’ve overstayed. I’ll come.”

It was time to withdraw to the dortoir and their cells, and sleep the sleep of men at peace. And Eutropius, as he fell in beside Cadfael in the great court, had the face of a man utterly at peace. Drained, still dazed by the thunderbolt of revelation, but already, surely, confessed and absolved. Empty now, and still a little at a loss in reaching out a hand to a fellow-man.

“Brother, I think it was you who came into the church, this afternoon. I am sorry if I caused you anxiety. I had but newly looked my fault in the face. It seemed to me that my sin had all but killed another, an innocent, man. Brother, I have long known in my head that despair is mortal sin. Now I know it with my blood and bowels and heart.”

Cadfael said, stepping delicately: “No sin is mortal, if it is deeply and truly repented. He lives, and you live. You need not see your case as extreme, brother. Many a man has fled from grief into the cloister, only to find that grief can follow him there.”

“There was a woman…” said Eutropius, his voice low, laboured but calm. “Until now I could not speak of this. A woman who played me false, bitterly, yet I could not leave loving. Without her my life seemed of no worth. I know its value better now. For the years left to me I will pay its price in full, and carry it without complaint.”

To him Cadfael said nothing more. If there was one man in all this web of guilt and innocence who would sleep deeply and well in his own bed that night, it was Brother Eutropius.

As for Cadfael himself, he had best make haste to take advantage of his leave of absence, and get to the clothier’s loft by the shortest way, for it was fully dark, and if the bait had been taken the end could not long be delayed.

The steep ladder had been left where it always leaned, against the wall below Rhodri’s hatch. In the outer loft the darkness was not quite complete, for the square of the hatch stood open as always on a space of starlit sky. The air within was fresh, but warm and fragrant with the dry, heaped hay and straw, stored from the previous summer, and dwindling now from the winter’s depredations, but still ample for a comfortable bed. Eddi lay stretched out on his left side, turned towards the square of luminous sky, his right arm flung up round his head, to give him cover as he kept watch.

In the inner loft, with the door ajar between to let sounds pass, Brother Cadfael, the sergeant, and Rhodri Fychan sat waiting, with lantern, flint and steel ready to hand. They had more than an hour to wait. If he was coming at all, he had had the cold patience and self-control to wait for the thick of the night, when sleep is deepest.

But come he did, when Cadfael, for one, had begun to think their fish had refused the bait. It must have been two o’clock in the morning, or past, when Eddi, watching steadily beneath his sheltering arm, saw the level base of the square of sky broken, as the crown of a head rose into view, black against darkest blue, but clear to eyes already inured to darkness. He lay braced and still, and tuned his breathing to the long, impervious rhythm of sleep, as the head rose stealthily, and the intruder paused for a long time, head and shoulders in view, motionless, listening. The silhouette of a man has neither age nor colouring, only a shape. He might have been twenty or fifty, there was no knowing. He could move with formidable silence.

But he was satisfied. He had caught the steady sound of breathing, and now with surprising speed mounted the last rungs of the ladder and was in through the hatch, and the bulk of him cut off the light. Then he was still again, to make sure the movement had not disturbed the sleeper. Eddi was listening no less acutely, and heard the infinitely small whisper of steel sliding from its sheath. A dagger is the most silent of weapons to use, but has its own voices. Eddi turned very slightly, with wincing care, to free his left arm under him, ready for the grapple.

The bulk and shadow, a moving darkness, mere sensation rather than anything seen, drew close. He felt the leaning warmth from a man’s body, and the stirring of the air from his garments, and was aware of a left hand and arm outstretched with care to find how he lay, hovering rather than touching. He had time to sense how the assassin stooped, and judge where his right hand lay waiting with the knife, while the left selected the place to strike. Under the sacking that covered him - for beggars do not lie in good woollens - Eddi braced himself to meet the shock.

When the blow came, there was even a splinter of light tracing the lunge of the blade, as the murderer drew back to put his weight into the stroke, and uncovered half the blessed frame of sky. Eddi flung over on his back, and took the lunging dagger-hand cleanly by the wrist in his left hand. He surged out of the straw ferociously, forcing the knife away at arm’s length, and with his right hand reached for and found his opponent’s throat. They rolled out of the nest of rustling, straw and across the floor, struggling, and fetched up against the timbers of the wall. The attacker had uttered one startled, muted cry before he was half-choked. Eddi had made no sound at all but the fury of his movements. He let himself be clawed by his enemy’s flailing left hand, while he laid both hands to get possession of the dagger. With all his strength he dashed the elbow of the arm he held against the floor. A strangled yelp answered him, the nerveless fingers parted, and gave up the knife. Eddi sat back astride a body suddenly limp and gasping, and laid the blade above a face still nameless.

In the inner loft the sergeant had started up and laid hand to the door, but Cadfael took him by the arm and held him still.

The feverish whisper reached them clearly, but whispers have neither sex nor age nor character. “Don’t strike wait, listen!” He was terrified, but still thinking, still scheming. “It is you I know you, I’ve heard about you… his son! Don’t kill me why should you? It wasn’t you I expected I never meant you harm…”

What you may have heard about him, thought Cadfael, braced behind the door with his hand on the tinder-box he might need at any moment, may be as misleading as common report so often is. There are overtones and undertones to be listened for, that not every ear can catch.

“Lie still,” said Eddi’s voice, perilously calm and reasonable, “and say what you have to say where you lie. I can listen just as well with this toy at your throat. Have I said I mean to kill you?”

“But do not!” begged the eager voice, breathless and low. Cadfael knew it, now. The sergeant probably did not. In all likelihood Rhodri Fychan, leaning close and recording all, had never heard it, or he would have known it, for his ears could pick up even the shrillest note of the bat. “I can do you good. You have a fine unpaid, and only a day to run before gaol. He told me so. What do you owe him? He would not clear you, would he? But I can see you cleared. Listen, never say word of this, loose me and keep your own counsel, and the half is yours the half of the abbey rents. I promise it!”

There was a blank silence. If Eddi was tempted, it was certainly not to bargain, more likely to strike, but he held his hand, at whatever cost.

“Join me,” urged the voice, taking heart from his silence, “and no one need ever know. No one! They said there was a beggar slept here, but he’s away, however it comes, and no one here but you and I, to know what befell. Even if they were using you, think better of it, and who’s to know? Only let me go hence, and you keep a close mouth, and all’s yet well, for you as well as me.”

After another bleak silence Eddi’s voice said with cold suspicion, “Let you loose, and you the only one who knows where you’ve hidden the plunder? Do you take me for a fool? I should never see my share! Tell me the place, exact, and bring me to it with you, or I give you to the law.”

The listeners within felt, rather than heard, the faint sounds of writhing and struggling and baulking, like a horse resisting a rider, and then the sudden collapse, the abject surrender. “I put the money into my pouch with my own few marks,” owned the voice bitterly, “and threw his satchel into the river. The money is in my bed in the abbey. No one paid any heed to my entry with the Foregate dues remaining, why should they? And those I’ve accounted for properly. Come down with me, and I’ll satisfy you, I’ll pay you. More than the half, if you’ll only keep your mouth shut, and let me go free…”

“You within there,” suddenly bellowed Eddi, shaking with detestation, “come forth, for the love of God, and take this carrion away from under me, before I cut his villain throat, and rob the hangman of his own. Come out, and see what we’ve caught!”

And out they came, the sergeant to thrust across at once to bar any escape by the hatch, Cadfael to set his lantern safely on a beam well clear of the hay and straw, and tap away diligently with flint and steel until the tinder caught and glowed, and the wick burned up into a tiny flame. Eddi’s captive had uttered one despairing oath, and made one frantic effort to throw off the weight that held him down and break for the open air, but was flattened back to the boards with a thump, a large, vengeful hand splayed on his chest.

“He dares, he dares,” Eddi was grating through his teeth, “to try and buy my father’s head from me with money stolen money, abbey money! You heard? You heard?”

The sergeant leaned from the hatch and whistled for the two men he had had in hiding below in the barn. He was glad he had given the plan a hearing. The injured man live and mending well, the money located and safe - everything would redound to his credit. Now send the prisoner bound and helpless with his escort to the castle, and off to the abbey to unearth the money.

The guarded flame of the lantern burned up and cast a yellow light about the loft. Eddi rose and stood back from his enemy, who sat up slowly and sullenly, still breathless and bruised, and blinked round them all with the large, ingenuous eyes and round, youthful face of Jacob of Bouldon, that paragon of clerks, so quick to learn the value of a rent-roll, so earnest to win the trust and approval of his master, and lift from him every burden, particularly the burden of a full satchel of the abbey’s dues.

He was grazed and dusty now, and the cheerful, lively mask had shrivelled into hostile and malevolent despair. With flickering, sidelong glances he viewed them all, and saw no way out of the circle. Longest he looked at the little, spry, bowed old man who came forth smiling at Cadfael’s shoulder. For in the wrinkled, lively face the lantern-light showed two eyes that caught reflected light though they had none of their own, eyes opaque as grey pebbles and as insensitive. Jacob stared and moaned, and softly and viciously began to curse.

“Yes,” said Brother Cadfael, “you might have saved yourself so vain an effort. I fear I was forced to practise a measure of deceit, which would hardly have taken in a true-born Shrewsbury man. Rhodri Fychan has been blind from birth.”

It was in some way an apt ending, when Brother Cadfael and the sergeant arrived back at the abbey gatehouse, about first light, to find Warin Harefoot waiting in the porter’s room for the bell for Prime to rouse the household and deliver him of his charge, which he had brought here for safety in the night. He was seated on a bench by the empty hearth, one hand clutching firmly at the neck of a coarse canvas sack. “He has not let go of it all night,” said the porter, “nor let me leave sitting t’other side of it as guard.”

Warin was willing enough, however, even relieved, to hand over his responsibility to the law, with a monk of the house for witness, seeing abbot and prior were not yet up to take precedence. He undid the neck of the sack proudly, and displayed the coins within.

“You did say, brother, there might be a reward, if a man was so lucky as to find it. I had my doubts of that young clerk I never trust a too-honest face! And if it was he well, I reasoned he must hide what he stole quickly. And he had a pouch on him the like of the other, near enough, and nobody was going to wonder at seeing him wearing it, or having money in it, either, seeing he had a small round of his own. And if he came a thought late, well, he’d made a point he might make a slower job of it than he’d expected, being a novice at the collecting. So I kept my eye on him, and got my chance this night, when I saw him creep forth after dark. In his bed it was, sewn into a corner of the straw pallet. And here it is, and speak for me with the lord abbot. Trade’s none so good, and a poor pedlar must live…”

Gaping down at him long and wonderingly, the sergeant questioned at last: “And did you never for a moment consider slipping the whole into your own pack, and out through the gates with it in the morning?”

Warin cast up a shy, disarming glance. “Well, sir, for a moment it may be I did. But I was never the lucky sort if I did the like, never a once but I was found out. Wisdom and experience turned me honest. Better, I hold, a small profit come by honestly than great gains gone down the wind, and me in prison for it just the same. So here’s the abbey’s gold again, every penny, and now I look to the lord abbot to treat a poor, decent man fair.”