The Sanctuary Sparrow

Chapter Thirteen

Hugh had halted his men instantly at Iestyn’s challenge, drawn back those who had reached the stable doors, and enjoined silence, which is more unnerving than violent assault or loud outcry. Moving men could be detected, stillness made them only dubiously visible. The rising ground to the headland bore several small clumps of trees and a hedge of bushes, cover enough for men to make their way halfway round the stable, and the rest of the circle they closed at a greater distance, completing a ring all round the building. The sergeant came back from his survey, shadowy from tree to tree down the slope to the meadow, to report the stable surrounded.

‘There’s no other way out, unless he has the means to hew a way through a wall, and small good that would do him. And if he boasts of a knife, I take it he has no other weapon. What would a common workman carry but his knife for all purposes?’

‘And we have archers,’ mused Hugh, ‘if they have no light to show them a target as yet. Wait - nothing in haste! If we have them securely, it’s we who can afford to wait, not they. No need to drive them to madness.’

‘But they have Rannilt in there - they’re threatening her life,’ whispered Liliwin, quivering at Brother Cadfael’s shoulder.

‘They’re offering to spend her for their own ends,’ said Hugh, ‘therefore all the more they’ll keep her safe to bargain with, short of the last despair, and I’ll take good care not to drive them over the edge. Keep still a while, and let’s see if we can tire them out or talk them out. But you, Alcher, find yourself the best place in cover to command that hatch above the doors, and keep it in your eye and a shaft always ready, in case of the worst. I’ll try to hold the fellow there in the frame for you.’ The loading door where Iestyn kneeled to watch them was no more than a faint shape darker still in the dark timber wall and the deep-blue light, but like the doors it faced due east, and the first predawn light, however many hours away yet, would find it early. ‘No shooting unless I bid. Let’s see what patience can do.’

He went forward alone, fixing the square of darkness with intent eyes, and stood some twenty paces distant from the stable. Behind him in the bushes Liliwin held his breath, and Brother Cadfael felt the boy’s slight body quivering and taut, like a leashed hound, and laid a cautioning hand on his arm in case he slipped his leash and went baying after his quarry. But he need not have feared. Liliwin turned a white face and nodded him stiff reassurance. ‘I know. I trust him, I must. He knows his business.’

At their backs, unable to be still, Walter Aurifaber sidled and writhed about the tree that sheltered him, biting his nails and agonising over his losses, and saying never a word to any but himself, and that in a soft, whining undertone that was half malediction and half prayer. At least all was not yet lost. The malefactors had not escaped, and could not and must not break loose now and run for it westward.

‘Iestyn!’ called Hugh, gazing steadily upward. ‘Here am I, Hugh Beringar, the sheriff’s deputy. You know me, you know why I am here, you best know I am about what it is my duty to do. My men are all round you, you have no way of escape. Be wise, come down from there and give yourself - yourselves - into my hands, without more damage and worse offence, and look for what mercy such good sense can buy you. It’s your best course. You must know it and take heed.’

‘No!’ said Iestyn’s voice harshly. ‘We have not come so far to go tamely to judgement now. I tell you, we have the girl, Rannilt, here within. If any man of yours comes too near these doors, I swear I will kill her. Bid them keep back. That’s my first word.’

‘Do you see any man but myself moving within fifty paces of your doors?’ Hugh’s voice was calm, equable and clear. ‘You have, then, a girl at your mercy. What then? With her you have no quarrel. What can you gain by harming her but a hotter place in hell? If you could reach my throat, I grant you it might possibly avail you, but it can neither help you nor give you satisfaction to slit hers. Nor does it suit with what has been known of you heretofore. You have no blood-guilt on your hands thus far, why soil them now?’

‘You may talk sweet reason from where you stand,’ cried Iestyn bitterly, ‘but we have all to lose, and see no let to making use of what weapons we have. And I tell you, if you press me, I will kill her, and if then you break in here after me by force, I will kill and kill as many as I can before the end. But if you mean such soft, wise talk, yes, you may have the girl, safe and sound - at a price!’

‘Name your price,’ said Hugh.

‘A life for a life is fair. Rannilt’s life for my woman’s. Let my woman go free from here, with her horse and goods and gear and all that is hers, unpursued, and I will send out the girl to you unharmed.’

‘And you would take my word there should be no pursuit?’ Hugh pressed, angling after at least a small advantage.

‘You’re known for a man of your word.’

Two voices had let out sharp gasps at the mention of such terms, and two voices cried out: ‘No!’ in the same breath. Walter, frantic for his gold and silver, darted out a few steps towards where Hugh stood, until Cadfael caught him by the arm and plucked him back. He wriggled and babbled indignantly: ‘No, no such infamous bargain! Her goods and gear? Mine, not hers, stolen from me. You cannot strike such a bargain. Is the slut to make off into Wales with her ill-gotten gains? Never! I won’t have it!’

There was a shadowy flurry of movement in the hatch above, and Susanna’s voice pealed sharply: ‘What, have you my loving father there? He wants his money, and my neck wrung, like that of any other who dared lay hands on his money. Poor judgement in you, if you expected him to be willing to pay out a penny to save a servant-girl’s life, or a daughter’s either. Never fear, my fond father, I say no just as loudly as you. I will not accept such a bargain. Even in peril of death I would not go one step away from my man here. You hear that? My man, my lover, the father of my child! But on terms I’ll part from him, yes! Let Iestyn take the horse, and go back unmolested into his own country, and I’ll go freely, to my death or my wretched life, whichever falls on me. I am the one you want. Not he. I have killed, I tell you so open...‘

‘She’s lying,’ cried Iestyn hoarsely. ‘I am the guilty man. Whatever she did she did only for me...‘

‘Hush, love, they know better! They know which of us two planned and acted. Me they may do as they like with - you they shall not have!’

‘Oh, fool girl, my dearest, do you think I would leave you? Not for all the world’s treasures...‘

Those below were forgotten in this wild contention above. Nothing was to be seen but the agitated tremor of certain pallors within the dark frame, that might have been faces and hands, faces pressed despairingly cheek to cheek, hands embracing and caressing. Next moment Iestyn’s voice lifted sharply: ‘Stop her! Quickly, stir! Mind your fawn!’ And the shadowy embrace broke apart, and a faint, frustrated cry from deep within made Liliwin shiver and start against Cadfael’s arm.

‘That was Rannilt. Oh, God, if I could but reach her... ‘ But he spoke only in a whisper, aware of a tension that ought not to be broken, that was spun out here like the threatened thread of Rannilt’s young life, and his own hope of happiness. His desperation and pain was something he must bear, and keep silent.

‘Since she cries out,’ whispered Cadfael firmly into his ear, ‘she is alive. Since she made a bid to slip away out of reach while they were beset, she is unharmed and unbound. Keep that in mind.’

‘Yes, true! And they don’t, they can’t hate her or want to harm her... ‘ But still he heard the extreme anger and pain of those two voices crying defiance, and knew, as Cadfael knew, that two so driven might do terrible things even against their own natures. More, he understood their suffering, and was wrung with it as though it matched his own.

‘No comfort for you,’ shouted Iestyn from his lair. ‘We have her still. Now I offer you another choice. Take back the girl and the gold and silver, give us the two horses and this night free of pursuit, together.’

Walter Aurifaber broke free with a whimper of half-eager, half-doubtful hope and approval, and darted some yards into the open. ‘My lord! My lord, that might be acceptable. If they restore my treasury... ” Even his lawful revenge did not count for much by comparison.

‘There is a life they cannot restore,’ said Hugh curtly, and motioned him back so sternly that the goldsmith recoiled, chastened.

‘Are you listening, Iestyn?’ called Hugh, raising his eyes once again to the dark hatch. ‘You mistake my office. I stand here for the king’s law. I am willing to stand here all night long. Take thought again, and better, and come down with unbloodied hands. There is no better thing you can do.’

‘I am here. I am listening. I have not changed,’ Iestyn responded grimly from above. ‘If you want my woman and me, come and fetch us forth, and fetch away first this little carcase - your prey, not ours.’

‘Have I raised a hand?’ said Hugh reasonably. ‘Or loosened my sword in the scabbard? You see me, clearer than I can see you. We have the night before us. Whenever you have ought to say, speak up, I shall be here.’

The night dragged with fearful slowness over besiegers and besieged, for the most part in mourn silence, though if silence continued too long Hugh would deliberately break it, to test whether Iestyn remained awake and watchful, though with care not to alarm him, for fear he should be driven to panic action in expectation of an attack. There was no remedy but to outwait and out endure the enemy. In all likelihood they had very little food or water with them. They could as easily be deprived of rest. Even in such tactics there was the danger of sudden and utter despair, which might bring on a massacre, but if all was done very gradually and softly that might yet be avoided. Weariness has sometimes broken down spirits braced implacably to defy torture, and inaction sucked away all the resolution armed for action.

‘Try if you can do better,’ said Hugh softly to Cadfael, some time well past midnight. ‘They cannot know you’re here, not yet, you may find a chink in their mail that’s proof against me.’

In those small hours when the heart is low, the least surprise may prick home as it could not do by day, in the noon of the body’s vigour. Cadfael’s very voice, deeper and rougher than Hugh’s, startled Iestyn into leaning out from his watch-tower for one incautious stare at this new visitant.

‘Who’s that? What trick are you playing now?’

‘No trick, Iestyn. I am Brother Cadfael of the abbey, who came sometimes to the house with medicines. You know me, I dare not say well enough to trust me. Let me speak with Susanna, who knows me better.’

He had thought that she might refuse either to speak or to hear him. When she had set her mind upon one course, she might well be stone to any who sought to divert her or stand in her way. But she did come to the hatch, and she did listen. At least that was a further respite. Those two lovers changed places in the loft. Cadfael felt them pass, and now they passed without touching or caressing, for there was no need. They were two halves of one whole, living or dead. One of them, it was clear from the earlier outcry, must keep an eye on their prisoner. They could not bind her, then, or else they had not thought it needful. Perhaps they had not the means. They were trapped in the instant of flight. Was it unpardonable to wish they had ridden away half an hour earlier?

‘Susanna, it is not too late to make restitution. I know your wrongs, my voice shall speak for you. But murder is murder. Never think there is any escape. Though you elude the judgement here, there is another you cannot avoid. Better far to make what amends can be made and be at peace.’

‘What peace?’ she said, bitter and chill. ‘There is none for me. I am a stunted tree, denied the ground to grow, and now, when I am in fruit, in despite of this world, do you think I will abate one particle of my hate or love? Leave me be, Brother Cadfael,’ she said more gently. ‘Your concern is with my soul, mine is all with my body, the only heaven I’ve ever known or ever hope to know.’

‘Come down and bring Iestyn with you,’ said Cadfael simply, ‘and I take it upon myself to promise you, as I must answer to God, that your child and his shall be born and cared for as befits every human soul brought innocent into the world. I will invoke the lord abbot to ensure it.’

She laughed. It was a fresh, wild and yet desolate sound. ‘This is not Holy Church’s child, Brother Cadfael. It belongs to me, and to Iestyn my man, and there is none other shall ever cradle or care for it. Yet I do thank you for your goodwill to my son. And after all,’ she said, with bitter derision in her voice, ‘how do we know the creature would ever be brought forth living and whole? I am old, Brother Cadfael, old for childbirth. The thing may be dead before me.’

‘Make the assay,’ said Cadfael stoutly. ‘He is not wholly yours, he is his own, your maybe child. Do him justice! Why should he pay for your sins? It was not he trampled Baldwin Peche into the gravel of Severn.’

She made a dreadful, muted sound, as if she had choked upon her own rage and grief, and then she was calm and resolved again, and immovable. ‘Three are here together and made one,’ she said, ‘the only trinity I acknowledge now. No fourth has any part in us. What do we owe to any man living?’

‘You forget there is a fourth,’ said Cadfael strongly, ‘and you are making shameful use of her. One who is none of yours and has never done you wrong. She also loves - I think you know it. Why destroy another pair as little blessed as you?’

‘Why not?’ said Susanna. ‘I am all destruction. What else is left to me now?’

Cadfael persisted, but after a while, talking away doggedly there past the mid of the night, he knew that she had risen and left him, unconvinced, unreconciled, and that it was Iestyn who now leaned in the hatch. He waited a considering while, and then took up his pleading for this perhaps more vulnerable ear. A Welshman, less aggrieved than the woman, for all his hardships; and all Welsh are kin, even if they slit one another’s throats now and then, and manure their sparse and stony fields with fratricidal dead in tribal wars. But he knew he had little hope. He had already spoken with the domina of that pair. There was no appeal to this one now that she could not wipe out with a gesture of her hand.

He was eased, if not verily glad, when Hugh came back to relieve him of his watch.

He sat slack and discouraged in the spring grass under the hedge of bushes, and Liliwin came plucking softly but urgently at his sleeve. ‘Brother Cadfael, come with me!’

Come!’ The whisper was excited and hopeful, where hope was in no very lavish supply.

‘What is it? Come with you where?’

‘He said there’s no other way out,’ whispered Liliwin, tugging at the sleeve he held, ‘and by that token none in, but there is... there could be. Come and see!’

Cadfael went where he was led, up through the bushes on the headland, and along the slope in cover, just below the level of the stable roof and at no great distance from it, to the western end of the building. The timbers of the roof projected above the low gable, the fellow to the eastern one in which Iestyn crouched on watch. ‘See there - the starlight shows dappling. They let in a lattice there for air.’

Peering narrowly, Cadfael could just discern a square shape that might well be what Liliwin described, but measured barely the span of hand and forearm either way, as close as he could estimate. The interstices between the slats, which the straining eye could either discern or imagine for a moment, only to lose them again, were surely too small even to admit a fist. Nor was there any way of reaching them, short of a ladder or the light weight and claws of a cat, even though the timbers of the wall below were rough and uneven.

‘That?’ breathed Cadfael, aghast. ‘Child, a spider might get up there and get in, but scarcely a man.’

‘Ah, but I’ve been down there, I know. There are toe-holds enough. And I think one of the slats is hanging loose already, and there’ll be others ready to give way. If a man could get in there, while you hold them busy at the other end... She is up there, I know it! You heard, when they ran to hold her, how far it was to run.’

It was true. Moreover, if she had any choice she would be huddled as far away from her captors as she could get.

‘But, boy, even if you stripped away two or three of the boards - could you do more, unheard? I doubt it! There’s not a man among us could get through that keyhole to her. No, not if you had time to strip the whole square.’

‘Yes, I can! You forget,’ whispered Liliwin eagerly, I’m small and light and I’m an acrobat, bred to it from three or four years old. It’s my craft. I can reach her. Where a cat can go I can go. And she’s even smaller than I, though she may not be trained as a tumbler. If I had a rope, I could make it fast there, and take my time opening up the way for her. Oh, surely, surely it’s worth the attempt! We’ve no other way. And I can do it, and I will!’

‘Wait!’ said Cadfael. ‘Sit you here in cover, and I’ll go broach it to Hugh Beringar and get you your rope, and make ready to hold them fast in talk, as far as may be away from you. Not a word, not a movement until I come back.’

‘No madder than whatever else we may do to break this dam,’ said Hugh when he had listened and considered. ‘If you put some trust in it, I’ll go with you. Can he really creep in there, do you think? Is it possible?’

‘I’ve seen him tie himself in a knot a serpent might be proud of,’ said Cadfael, ‘and if he says there’s room enough there for him to pass, I say he’s the better judge of that than I. It’s his profession, he takes pride in it. Yes, I put my trust in him.’

‘We’ll send to fetch him his rope, and a chisel, too, to pry loose the slats, but he must wait for them. We’ll make good certain they stay wakeful and watchful at this end, and try a feint or two, if need be, short of driving them to panic. And let him take his time, for I think we might be advised to wait for the first light, to give Alcher a clear view of that hatch and whatever body fills it, and a shaft fitted and aimed in case of need. If we must let a decent poor lad risk his life, at least we’ll stand ready with all the cover we can give him.’

‘I had rather,’ said Cadfael sadly, ‘there should be no killing at all.’

‘So would I,’ agreed Hugh grimly, ‘but if there must be, rather the guilty than the innocent.’

The dawn was still more than an hour and a half away when they brought the rope Liliwin needed, but already the eastern sky had changed, turned from deepest blue to paler blue-green, and a faint line of green paler still outlined the curves of the fields behind them, and the towered hill of the town.

‘Rather round my waist than my neck,’ whispered Liliwin hardily, as Cadfael fastened the rope about him among the bushes.

‘There, I see you have the true spirit in you. God keep you, the pair of you! But can she come down the rope, even if you reach her? Girls are not such acrobats as you.’

‘I can guide her. She’s so light and small, she can hold by the rope and walk backwards down the wall... Only keep them busy there at the far end.’

‘But go slowly and quietly, no haste,’ cautioned Cadfael, anxious as for a son going into battle. ‘I shall be running messenger between. And daylight will be on our side, not on theirs.’

Liliwin kicked off his shoes. He had holes in the toes of both feet of his hose, Cadfael saw. Perhaps none the worse for this enterprise, but when he came to be sent out into the world - God so willing, as surely God must - he must go better provided.

The boy slid silently down from the headland to the foot of the stable wall, felt with stretched arms above his head, found grips a heavier man would never have considered, set a toe to a first hold, and drew himself up like a squirrel on to the timbers.

Cadfael waited and watched until he had seen the rope slipped through the firmest boards of the lattice and made fast, and the first rotten slat prised free, slowly and carefully, and let fall silently at arm’s-length into the thick grass below. More than half an hour had passed by then. From time to time he caught the sound of voices in weary but alert exchanges to eastward. The criss-cross of boards at the air-vent showed perceptibly now. The removal of one board had uncovered a space big enough to let a cat in and out, but surely nothing larger or less agile. The vault of the sky lightened very gradually before there was any visible source of light.

Liliwin worked with a bight of the tethered rope fast round him, and half-naked toes braced into the timbers of the wall. He had begun patiently prising loose the second slat, when Cadfael made his way back in cover to report what he knew.

‘God knows it looks impossible, but the lad knows his business, and if he is sure he can pass, as a cat knows by its whiskers, then I take his word for it. But for God’s sake keep this parley alive.’

‘Take it over for me,’ said Hugh, drawing back with eyes still fixed on the hatch. ‘Only some few moments... A fresh voice causes them to prick their ears afresh.’

Cadfael took up the vain pleas he had used before. The voice that answered him was hoarse with weariness, but still defiant.

‘We shall not go from here,’ said Cadfael, roused out of his own weariness by a double anxiety, ‘until all these troubled here, body and soul, have freedom and quiet, whether in this world or another. And who so prevents to the last, on him the judgement fall! Nevertheless, God’s mercy is infinite to those who seek it, However late, however feebly.’

‘The light will not be long,’ Hugh was saying at that same moment to Alcher, who was the finest marksman in the castle garrison, and had long since chosen his ground with the dawn in view, and found no reason to change it. ‘Be ready, the instant I shall call, to put an arrow clean into that hatch, and through whoever lurks there. But no shooting unless I do call. And pray God I am not forced to it.’

‘That’s understood,’ said Alcher, nursing his strung bow and fitted shaft, and never shifting his eyes from their aim, dead-centre of the dark opening, now growing clearly visible above the stable doors.

When Cadfael again made his way along the headland, the lattice was a lattice no longer, but a small square opening under the eaves, and the dislodged slats lay cushioned in the thick grass below. Liliwin had one arm stretched within, to ease aside the hay cautiously, with as little sound as possible, and make room to creep within. Now if only Rannilt could keep from starting or crying out when she found herself approached thus from behind! It was high time to make as much and as menacing ado before the stable doors as possible. Yet Cadfael could not help standing with held breath to watch, until Liliwin slid head and shoulders through the space that seemed barely passable even for his slenderness, and drew the rest of himself after in one coiling, rapid movement, vanishing in a smooth somersault, and without a sound.

Cadfael made his way back in haste to a point still out of sight from the hatch, and signalled urgently to Hugh that the time of greatest danger was come. Alcher saw the waving arm before Hugh did, and drew his bow halfway to the ear, narrowing his eyes upon the moving blurs of drab brown coat and paler face that showed as his target. Behind him the sun was just showing a rim over the horizon, and its first ray gleamed along the ridge of the roof. In a quarter of an hour it would be high enough for the light to reach the hatch, and the shot would be an easy matter.

‘Iestyn,’ called Hugh sharply, mustering those of his men nearest him into plain sight, though not too near to the doors, ‘you have had a night’s grace to consider, now show decent sense, and come forth of your own will, for you see you cannot escape us, and you are mortal like others, and must eat to live. You are not in sanctuary there, there are no forty days of respite for you.’

‘There’s nothing but a halter for us,’ shouted Iestyn savagely, ‘and well we know it. But if that’s our end, I swear to you the girl shall go before us, and her blood be on your head.’

‘So you say, big talk from a small man! Your woman may not be so ready either to kill or to die. Have you asked her? Or have you the only voice in the matter? Here, master goldsmith,’ called Hugh, beckoning, ‘come and speak to your daughter. However late in the day, she may still listen to you.’

He was bidding to sting her, to bring them both flying to the hatch to spit their joint defiance and leave their prisoner unwatched. But oh, not too fast, not too fast, prayed Cadfael, gnawing his knuckles on the headland. The boy needs a few more minutes yet

Liliwin tunnelled stealthily through the stored hay, as much in terror of sneezing, as the odorous dust tickled his nostrils, as he was of making too audible a rustling and betraying himself all too soon. Somewhere before him, very close now, he could hear the faint stirrings Rannilt made in her nest, and prayed that they would cover whatever sound he was making. After a while, pausing to peer through the thinning screen, he caught the shape of her shrinking shoulders and head against the dim morning light. Carefully he enlarged the passage he had hollowed out, so that he might have room to draw to one side of her, and have her creep past him, to come first to the frame of the lattice. Iestyn was leaning out at the far end of the loft, shouting angry curses now at those without, threatening still but not looking this way.

There was a woman to fear, for wherever she was now, she was silent. But surely if those without were pressing, half at least of her care must be with her lover. And here in the loft it was still blessedly dark.

His hand, probing delicately ahead, found and touched Rannilt’s bare forearm. She flinched sharply, but made no sound at all, and in a moment he slid his hand down to find hers, and clung. Then she knew. All he heard was a faint, long sigh, and her fingers closed on his. He drew her gently, and by slow inches she shifted and drew nearer, into the cavity he opened for her. She was beside him, the fragile screen of hay hiding him and already half shielding her, and still no outcry. He urged her on past him with the pressure of his hand, to come first to the lattice and the rope as he covered her going. Outside the stable doors the circling voices were raised and peremptory, and Iestyn, wild with weariness and anger, roared back at them incoherent defiance. Then, blessedly, Sussana’s voice, surely close there at her lover’s shoulder, soared above the clamour:

‘Fools, do you think there’s any power can separate us now? I hold as Iestyn holds, I despise your promises and your threats as he does. Bring my father to plead with me, would you? Let him hear, then, what I owe him, and what I wish him. Of all men on earth, I hate him! As he has made me of no worth, so I set no value on him. Dare he say I am no longer his daughter? He is no longer my father, he never was a father to me. May he be fed molten gold in hell until belly and throat burn to furnace ashes...‘

Under the fury of that raging voice, clear and steely as a sword, Liliwin hustled Rannilt past him and thrust her bodily through his dusty tunnel towards the lattice and the rope, all caution cast to the winds, for if this momemt escaped them, there might be no other.

It was Iestyn’s quick ear that caught, even through Susanna’s malediction, the sudden frenzied rustling of hay. He swung round with a great cry of rage at what he saw, and lunged away to prevent it. The first ray of light entering caught the flash of the naked knife.

Hugh was quick to understand and act. ‘Shoot!’ he cried, and Alcher, who had that first finger of sunlight now bright on Iestyn’s body, loosed his shaft. Meant for the breast, it would have been no less mortal in the back, if Susanna, for all her bitter passion, had not taken in all these signs in one breath. She uttered a shriek rather of rage than fear, and flung herself into the opening of the hatch, arms spread and braced to ward off her lover’s death.

At the first cry Liliwin had thrust Rannilt towards the way of escape, and sprung erect out of the hay to put his own slight body between her and harm. Iestyn bore down on him, the brandished dagger caught the levelled ray of sun and sent splinters of light dancing about the roof. The blade hung over Liliwin’s heart when Susanna’s shriek caused Iestyn to baulk and shudder where he stood, straining backwards like a horse suddenly reined in, and the point of the knife slid wildly down, slicing along the boy’s parrying forearm, and drawing a fine spray of blood into the hay.

She was melting, she was dissolving into herself, as a man of snow folds into himself gradually when the thaw comes. The impact of the arrow, striking full into her left breast, had spun her round, she sank slowly with her hands clutching the shaft where it had pierced her, and her eyes fixed, huge and clouded, upon Iestyn, for whom the death had been intended. Liliwin, dazedly watching as the man sprang back to clasp her, said afterwards that she was smiling. But his recollections were confused and wild, what he chiefly recalled was a terrible howl of grief and despair that filled and echoed through the loft. The knife was flung aside, and stuck quivering in the boards of the floor. Iestyn embraced his love, moaning, and sank with her in his arms. Round the fearful barrier of the arrow she essayed to lift her failing arms to clasp him. Their kiss was a contortion the trained contortionist in Liliwin remembered lifelong with pity and pain.

Liliwin came to himself soon, because he must. He drew Rannilt up by the hand, away from the lattice of which they had no more need, and coaxed her after him down the ladder to the stable floor where the loaded horses stamped and shifted uneasily after all these nightlong alarms. He hoisted the heavy bars that held the doors, and it took all the strength he had left to lift them. The eastern light reached his face but no lower, as he pushed open both heavy doors, and led Rannilt out into the green meadow.

They were aware of men flowing in as they came gladly out. Their part was done. Brother Cadfael, breathing prayers of gratitude, took them both in his arms, and swept them aside to a grassy knoll at the foot of the headland, where they dropped together thankfully into the spring turf, and drew in the May air and the morning light, and gradually turned and stared and smiled, like creatures in a dream, waking to be glad of each other.

Hugh was first up the ladder and into the loft, the sergeant hard on his heels. In the shaft of sunlight, bolder and broader now, and blindingly bright above the lingering dimness of the hay-strewn floor, Iestyn kneeled with Susanna in his arms, tenderly holding her up from the boards, for the shaft had pierced clean through her, and jutted at her shoulder. Her eyes were already filmed over as though with sleep, but still kept their fixed regard upon her lover’s face, a mask of grief and despair. When the sergeant made to lay a hand on Iestyn’s shoulder, Hugh waved him away.

‘Let him alone,’ he said quietly, ‘he will not run.’ There was no future left to run for, nowhere to run to, no one to run with. Everything he cared for was in his arms, and would not be with him long.

Her blood was on his hands, on the lips and cheek that had caressed her frantically for a moment, as though caresses could make all whole again. He had given over that now, he only crouched and clasped her, and watched her lips trying to form words to take all upon herself, and deliver him, but making no sound, and presently ceasing to attempt it. He saw the light go out behind the glassy grey of her eyes.

Not until then did Hugh touch him. ‘She is gone, Iestyn. Lay her down now and come with us. I promise you she shall be brought home decently.’

Iestyn laid her in the piled hay, and got to his feet slowly. The climbing sun fingered the knotted binding of the one bundle they had brought up here with them. His dulled eyes fell upon it, and flamed. He plucked it from the floor, and hurled it out through the hatch, to burst asunder in the grass of the meadow, scattering its contents in a shower of sparks as the level beams crept across the pasture.

A great howl of desolation and loss welled up out of Iestyn’s throat to bay at the cloudless and untroubled sky:

‘And I would have taken her barefoot in her shift!’

Outside in the pasture another aggrieved wail arose like an echo, as Walter Aurifaber grovelled in the grass on his hands and knees, frantically clawing up from among the tussocks his despised gold and silver.