The Raven in the Foregate (14 page)

In the afternoon of the twenty-ninth of December,
Cadfael was called out to the first sufferers from coughs and colds in the
Foregate, and extended his visits to one elderly merchant in the town itself, a
regular chest patient of his in the winter. He had left Ninian sawing and
splitting wood from the pruning of the trees, and keeping cautious watch on a
pot of herbs in oil of almonds, which had to warm on the edge of the brazier
without simmering, to make a lotion for the frost-nipped hands too tender to
endure the hog’s fat base of the ointment. The boy could be trusted to abide by
his instructions, and whatever he did he did with his might.

Cadfael’s errands had taken him rather less time than
he had expected, and the weather was not such as to encourage him to linger. He
re-entered at the gatehouse with more than an hour still in hand before
Vespers, and made his way across the great court and out into the garden,
rounding the box hedge into the alley that led to his herbarium. In the frost
he had wrapped woollen cloths about his boots to give him a grip on the icy
roads, and the same sensible precaution made his steps silent on the path. So
it happened that he heard the voices before he himself was heard, rapid and
soft and vehement from within his workshop. And one of the voices was Ninian’s,
a tone above its usual pitch by reason of some fierce but subdued excitement.
And the other was a girl’s, insistent and agitated. Curious that she, too,
should convey this same foolhardy sense of enjoyment in the experience of
danger and dread. A good match! And what other girl had had to do with this
place and this youth, but Sanan Bernières?

“Oh, but he would!” she was saying emphatically. “He’s
there by now, he’ll tell them everything, where to find you, how you sent to
him—all! You must come now, quickly, before they come to take you.”

“Impossible by the gatehouse,” said Ninian, “we should
run into their arms. But I can’t believe—why should he betray me? Surely he
knows I’d never mention his name?”

“He’s been in dread,” said the girl impatiently, “ever
since your message came, but now you’re cried publicly as a wanted man, he’ll
do anything to shake off his own danger. He’s not evil—he does as other men do,
protects his own life and lands, and his son’s, too—he lost enough before…”

“So he did,” said Ninian, penitent. “I never should
have drawn him in. Wait, I must lift this aside, I can’t leave it to boil. Cadfael…”

The shameless listener, who at least had heard one
motion of consideration towards him and his art, in that last utterance,
suddenly came to his senses, and to the awareness that in a matter of seconds
these two would be issuing forth from the hut and taking to flight, by what
ever road this resourceful girl had devised. Just as soon as Ninian had lifted
the soothing oil from the heat and laid it carefully in a secure spot. Bless
the boy, he deserved to reach Gloucester in safety! Cadfael made haste to dart
round behind the barrier of the box hedge, and freeze into stillness there. He
had not time to withdraw completely, but it is not certain, in any case, that
he would have done so.

They burst out of the workshop hand in hand, she
leading, for she knew by what route she had entered here unobserved. Through
the garden she drew him, over the rim of the slope, and down towards the Meole
Brook. A dark little figure swathed in a cloak, she vanished first, dwindling
rapidly out of sight down the field; Ninian followed. They were gone, along the
edge of the newly ploughed and manured pease fields and out of sight. So the
brook was frozen over, and so must the mill-pond be. That way she had come,
straight to where she knew he would be. Yet she might, just as easily, have
found Cadfael there as well. Which meant, surely, that she had had converse
with Ninian since he had confided in Cadfael, and saw no reason to fear the
encounter, when the need was great.

Well, they were gone. No sound came up from the hollow
of the brook, and there were trees quite close on the further side for cover,
and all they had to do after that was wait for the right moment, cross the
brook again by the bridge that carried the westward road, and make their way
discreetly to whatever hiding place she had devised for her hostage, whether in
the town or out of it. If out of it, surely to the west, since that was the way
he desired, at last, to go. But would Ninian consent to depart until he knew
that Dame Diota was safe and suspect of nothing in connection with his own
expedition? If his cover was stripped from him, then she was also exposed to
question. He would not leave her so. Cadfael had begun to know this young man
well enough to be certain of that.

It had grown profoundly quiet, as if the very air
waited for the next and inevitable alarm. Cadfael spared a moment to peer into
his workshop, saw his pot of oil placed carefully on the stone cooling slab
close to the brazier, and withdrew again in some haste to the great court, and
across it into the cloister, but hovering anxiously where he could watch for
any invasion at the gatehouse, without himself being immediately observed.

They were longer in coming than he had expected, and
for that he was grateful. Moreover, a sudden flurry of fine snow had begun to
fall, and that would soon cover up the footsteps crossing the brook, and in the
rising wind of evening even disguise any tracks left in the garden. Until this
moment he had not had time to consider the implications of what he had overheard.
Clearly Ninian’s appeal had gone to Ralph Giffard, who had turned a deaf ear,
all too conscious of his own danger if he responded. But the girl, born into
another family no less devoted to the Empress’s cause, had taken up the charge
and made it her own. And now, affrighted by the public crying of an enemy spy,
Giffard had thought it best to ensure his own position by carrying the whole
story to Hugh Beringar. Who would not be grateful for the attention, but would
be forced to act upon it, or at least to put up a fair show of doing so.

All of which left one curious point at issue: Where
had Ralph Giffard been going in such purposeful haste on Christmas Eve,
striding across the bridge towards the Foregate almost as impetuously as Father
Ailnoth had been hastening in the opposite direction an hour or so later? The
two intent figures began to look like mirror images of the same man. Giffard,
perhaps, the more afraid, Ailnoth the more malevolent. There was a link
somewhere there, though the join was missing.

And here they came, in at the gatehouse arch, all of
them on foot, Hugh with Ralph Giffard hard and erect at his elbow, Will Warden
and a couple of young officers in arms following. No need here for mounted men,
they were in search of a youngster horseless and penniless, labouring in the
abbey gardens, and the prison that waited for him was only walking distance
away.

Cadfael took his time about appearing. Others were
there first, and so much the better. Brother Jerome did not love the cold, but
kept a watchful eye on the outer world whenever he hopped into the warming room
on such frosty days, ready to appear at any moment, dutiful and devout.
Moreover, he always knew where to find Prior Robert at need. By the time
Cadfael emerged innocently from the cloister they were both there, confronting
the visitors from the secular world, and a few other brethren had noted the
gathering, and halted within earshot in pure human curiosity, forgetting their
chilled hands and feet.

“The boy Benet?” Prior Robert was saying in tones of
astonishment and disdain as Cadfael approached. “Father Ailnoth’s groom? The
good father himself asked employment for this young man. What absurdity is
this? The boy is scarcely better than a simpleton, a mere country lad! I have
often spoken with him, I know him for an innocent. My lord sheriff, I fear this
gentleman wastes your time in a mistake. This cannot be true.”

“Father Prior, by your leave,” Ralph Giffard spoke up
firmly, “it is only too true, the fellow is not what he seems. I received a
message, written in a fair hand, from this same simpleton, sealed with the seal
of the traitor and outlaw FitzAlan, the Empress’s man who is now in France, and
asking me for help in FitzAlan’s name—an appeal I rightly left unanswered. I
have kept the leaf, the lord sheriff has seen it for himself. He was here, he
said, come with the new priest, and he needed help, news and a horse, and laid
claim to my aid to get what he wanted. He begged me to meet him at the mill an
hour short of midnight on Christmas Eve, when all good folk would be making
ready for church. I did not go, I would not touch such treason against our lord
the King. But the proof I’ve given to the sheriff here, and there is not nor
cannot be any mistake. Your labourer Benet is FitzAlan’s agent Ninian Bachiler,
for so he signed himself with his own hand.”

“I fear it’s true enough, Father Prior,” said Hugh
briskly. “There are questions to be asked later, but now I must ask your leave
at once to seek out this Benet, and he must answer for himself. There need be
no disturbance for the brothers, I am asking access only to the garden.”

It was at this point that Cadfael ambled forward out
of the cloister, secure across the glazed cobbles, since his feet were still
swathed in wool. He came with ears benignly pricked and countenance open as the
air. The snow was still falling, in an idle, neglectful fashion, but every
flake froze where it fell.

“Benet?” said Cadfael guilelessly. “You’re looking for
my labouring boy? I left him not a quarter of an hour since in my workshop.
What do you want with him?”

He went with them, all concern and astonishment, as
they proceeded into the garden, and threw open the workshop door upon the soft
glow of the brazier, the pot of herbal oil drawn close on its stone slab, and
the aromatic emptiness, and from that went on to quarter the whole of the
garden and the fields down to the brook, where the helpful snow had obliterated
every footprint. He was as mystified as the best of them. And if Hugh avoided
giving him a single sidelong look, that did not mean he had not observed every
facet of this vain pursuit, rather that he had, and was in little doubt as to
the purveyor of mystification. There was usually a reason for Brother Cadfael’s
willing non-cooperation. Moreover, there were other points to be pursued before
the search was taken further.

“You tell me,” said Hugh, turning to Giffard,”that you
received this appeal for your help a day or so before Christmas Eve, when a
meeting at the mill was requested, somewhat before midnight. Why did you not
pass it on at once to my deputy? Something might have been done about it then.
Plainly he had wind of us now, since he’s fled.”

If Giffard was uneasy at this dereliction of a loyal
subject’s duty, he gave no sign of it, but stared Hugh fully and firmly in the
face. “Because he was merely your deputy, my lord. Had you been here… You got
your office first after the siege of Shrewsbury, you know how we who had taken
the oath to the Empress fared then, you know of my losses. Since then I have
submitted to King Stephen, and held by my submission faithfully. But a young
man like Herbard, new here, left in charge and liable to stand on his dignity
and status—one ignorant of the past, and what it cost me… I was afraid of being
held still as one attainted, even if I told honestly all that I knew. And
recollect, we had then heard nothing about this Bachiler being hunted in the
south, the name meant nothing to me. I thought him probably of no importance,
and with no prospect of any success in whipping up support for a lost cause. So
I held my peace, in spite of FitzAlan’s seal. There were several of his knights
held such seals in his name. Do me justice, as soon as you made public the hue
and cry, and I understood what was afoot, I came to you and told you the
truth.”

“I grant you did,” said Hugh, “and I understand your
doubts, though it’s no part of my office to hound any man for what’s past and
done.”

“But now, my lord…” Giffard had more to say, and had
plainly taken great encouragement from his own eloquence and Hugh’s
acquiescence, for he had burned into sudden hopeful fervour. “Now I see more in
this than either you or I have thought. For I have not quite told you all,
there has hardly been time to think of everything. For see, it was this young
man who came here under the protection of Father Ailnoth, vilely deceiving the
priest in the pretence that he was a harmless youth seeking work, and kin to
the woman who kept the priest’s household. And is not Father Ailnoth, who
brought him here in all innocence, now done to death and waiting for burial?
Who is more likely to stand guilty of his murder than the man who took wicked
advantage of his goodness, and made him an unwitting accomplice in treason?”

He knew very well what manner of bolt he was hurling
into the circle of listeners, he had even drawn back a pace or two to observe
the shock and to distance himself from it. There was no length to which he
would not go, now, to prove his own loyal integrity, to keep what he still had,
if he must eternally grudge and lament what he had lost by his former
allegiance. Perhaps he was secretly relieved that the boy he traduced was well
away, and need never answer, but what most troubled him was his own
inviolability.

“You’re accusing him of the priest’s murder?” said
Hugh, eyeing him narrowly. “That’s going far. On what grounds do you make such
a charge?”

“The very fact that he is fled points to him.”

“That might be valid enough, but not—mark me!—not
unless the priest had got wind of the deception practised on him. To the best
we know there was no quarrel between them, nothing had arisen to set them at
odds. Unless the priest had found out how he had been abused, there could be no
ground for any hostility between them.”