The Raven in the Foregate (15 page)

“He did know,” said Giffard.

“Go on,” said Hugh after a brief, profound silence.
“You cannot stop there. How do you know the priest had found him out?”

“For the best reason. I told him! I said there was
still more that I had not yet told you. On the eve of the Nativity I came down
here to his house, and told him how he was cheated and abused by one he had
helped. I had given it anxious thought, and though I did not go to your deputy,
I felt it only right to warn Father Ailnoth how he had harboured an enemy
unawares. Those of the Empress’s party are threatened with excommunication now,
as you, my lord sheriff, are witness. The priest had been shamefully imposed
upon, and so I told him.”

So that was the way of it! That was where he had been
bound in such determined haste before Compline. And that was why Father Ailnoth
had rushed away vengefully to keep the nocturnal tryst and confront in person
the youth who had imposed upon him. Give him his due, he was no coward, he would
not run first to the sergeants and get a bodyguard, he would storm forth by the
mill-pool to challenge his opponent face to face, denounce, possibly even
attempt to overpower him with his own hands, certainly cry him outlaw to the
abbot and to the castle if he could not himself hale him to judgement. But
things had gone very differently, for Ninian had come unharmed to church, and
Ailnoth had ended in the pool with a broken head. And who could avoid making
the simple connection now? Who that had not spent so many days in Ninian’s
blithe company as had Cadfael, and got to know him so well?

“And after you had left him,” said Hugh, eyeing
Giffard steadily, “he knew the time and place appointed for you to meet with
Bachiler, and the invitation you had rejected you think he went to accept? But
without an acceptance from you, would Bachiler keep the appointment?”

“I made no answer. I had not rejected it outright. He
was asking for help, for news, for a horse. He would come! He could not afford
not to come.”

And he would meet with a very formidable and very
angry enemy, bent on betraying him to the law, a man who verily held himself to
be the instrument of the wrath of God. Yes, death could well come of such a
meeting.

“Will,” said Hugh, turning abruptly to his sergeant,
“get back to the castle and bring down more men. We’ll get the lord abbot’s
permission to search the gardens here, and the stables and the barns, grange
court, storehouses, all. Begin with the mill, and have a watch on the bridge
and the highway. If this youngster was in the hut here not half an hour ago, as
Cadfael says, he cannot be far. And whether he has killed or not is still open,
but the first need is to lay hands on him and have him safe in hold.”

“You will not forget,” said Cadfael, alone with Hugh
in the workshop later,”that there are others, many others, who had as good
reason as Ninian, and better, to wish Ailnoth dead?”

“I don’t forget it. Far too many others,” agreed Hugh
ruefully. “And all you tell me of this boy—not that I’m dull enough, mind, to
suppose you’ve told me all you could!—shows him as one who might very well hit
out boldly in his own defence, but scarcely from behind. Yet he might, in the
heat of conflict. Who knows what any of us might do, in extremes? And by what I
hear of the priest, he would lash out with all his might and whatever weapon
came to hand. It’s the lad’s vanishing now that suggests the worst.”

“He had good reason to vanish,” pointed out Cadfael,
“if he heard that Giffard was on his way to the castle to betray him. You’d
have had to clap him into prison, guilty or innocent of the priest’s death.
Your hand’s forced. Of course he’d run.”

“If someone warned him,” agreed Hugh with a wry smile.
“You, for instance?”

“No, not I,” said Cadfael virtuously. “I knew nothing
about Giffard’s errand, or I might have dropped a word in the boy’s ear. But
no, certainly not I. I do know that Benet—Ninian we must call him now, I
suppose!—was in the church some time before midnight on Christmas Eve. If he
went to the mill at all, he went early for the meeting, and left early, also.”

“So you told me, and I believe it. But so, by your own
account, did Ailnoth go early to the meeting place, perhaps to hide himself and
spring out on Bachiler by surprise. There was still time for them to clash and
one to die.”

“The boy had not the marks of any agitation or dismay
upon him in the church. A little excitement, perhaps, but pleasurable, I would
say. And how much have you managed to worm out of the parish folk about this
business? There are a number who had justifiable grudges against Ailnoth, what
have they to say for themselves?”

“In general, as you’d expect, as little as possible.
One or two make no secret of their gratitude that the man’s gone, none at all.
Eadwin, the one whose boundary stone he moved, he’s neither forgotten nor
forgiven, even if the stone was replaced afterwards. His wife and children
swear he never left the house that night—but so do they all, and so, of course,
they would. Jordan Achard, the baker, now there’s a man who might kill in a
rage. He has a real grievance. His bread is his pride, and there was never any
amends made for that insult. It hurt far more than if the priest had denounced
him for a notorious lecher, which would at least have had the merit of being
true. There are some give him the credit for being the father of that poor
girl’s baby, the lass who drowned herself, but from all I hear it could as well
have been half the other men in the parish, for she couldn’t say no to any of
them. Our Jordan says he was home and sober every moment of Christmas Eve, and
his wife bears him out, but she’s a poor, subdued creature who wouldn’t dare
cross him. But from all accounts it’s few nights he does spend in his own bed,
and to judge by his wife’s sidelong looks and wary answers he may well have
been sleeping abroad that night. But we shall never get her to say so. She’s
both afraid of him and loyal to him.”

“The rest of his women may be less so,” said Cadfael.
“But I hardly see Jordan as a man of violence.”

“Perhaps not. But I do see Father Ailnoth as a man of
violence, whether bodily or spiritual. And consider, Cadfael, how he might
behave if he happened on one of his flock sneaking into the wrong bed. If not a
violent man, Jordan is a big and strong one, and by no means meek enough to
suffer assault tamely. He might end the fight another man began, without ever
meaning to. But Jordan is one among many, and not the most likely.”

“Your men have been diligent,” said Cadfael with a
sigh.

“They have. Alan was on his mettle, and determined to
deserve his place. There’s a decent poor soul called Centwin, who lives along
the Foregate towards the horse-fair ground. You’ll have heard his story. It was
new to me until I heard it from Alan. The babe that died un-christened because
Ailnoth could not interrupt his prayers. That sticks in the craw of every man
in the parish, worse than all.”

“You cannot have found out anything black against
Centwin?” protested Cadfael. “As quiet a creature as breathes, never a trouble
to any.”

“Never with occasion until now. But this goes deep.
And Centwin, quiet as he may be, is also deep. He keeps his own counsel, and
broods over his own grievances. I’ve spoken with him. We questioned the watch
on the town gate, Christmas Eve,” said Hugh. “They saw you go out, and you best
know the time that was, and where you met the priest. They also saw Centwin go
out not many minutes after you, on his way home, he said, from visiting a
friend in the town to whom he owed a small debt. True enough, for the tanner he
paid has confirmed it. He wanted, he said, to have all his affairs clear and
all dues paid before he went to Matins, as indeed he did go, and left before
Lauds for home. But you see how the time fits. One coming a few minutes behind
you may also have met with Ailnoth, may have seen him turn from the Foregate
along the path to the mill. There in darkness and loneliness, think, might not
even a mild, submissive man with that wound burning in his belly have seen
suddenly an opportunity to pay off yet another and a more bitter debt? And
there was the time between then and Matins for two men to clash in the
darkness, and one to die.”

“No,” said Cadfael, “I do not believe it!”

“Because it would be one cruelty piled upon another?
But such things happen. No, take heart, Cadfael, neither do I quite believe it,
but it is possible. There are too many by far who are not vouched for, or whose
guarantors cannot be trusted, too many who hated him. And there is still Ninian
Bachiler. Whatever the truth of him, you do understand that I must do my best
to find him?”

He looked down at his friend with a dark, private
smile that was more eloquent than the words. It was not the first time they had
agreed, with considerate courtesy and no need of many words, to pursue each
what he held to be his own duty, and bear no malice if the two crossed like
swords.

“Oh, yes!” said Cadfael. “Yes, that I fully
understand.”

Chapter Eight

CADFAEL HAD RETURNED TO THE CHURCH after prime to
replenish the perfumed oil in the lamp on Saint Winifred’s altar. The
inquisitive skills which might have been frowned upon if they had been employed
to make scents for women’s vanity became permissible and even praiseworthy when
used as an act of worship, and he took pleasure in trying out all manner of
fragrant herbs and flowers in many different combinations, plying the sweets of
rose and lily, violet and clover against the searching aromatic riches of rue
and sage and wormwood. It pleased him to think that the lady must take delight
in being so served, for virgin saint though she might be, she was a woman, and
in her youth had been a beautiful and desirable one.

Cynric the verger came in from the north porch with
the twig broom in his hand, from brushing away the night’s sprinkling of fine
snow from porch and steps, and went to open the great service-book on the
reading desk, and trim the candles on the parish altar ready for the communal
Mass, and set two new ones on the prickets of the wall brackets on either side.
Cadfael gave him good day as he came back into the nave, and got the usual
tranquil but brief acknowledgement.

“Freezing as hard as ever,” said Cadfael. “There’ll be
no breaking the ground for Ailnoth today.” For it would be Cynric who had to
dig the grave, in the green enclosure east of the church, where priests and
abbots and brothers were laid to rest.

Cynric sniffed the air and considered, his deep eyes
veiled. “A change by tomorrow, maybe. I smell a thaw coming.”

It could be true. He lived on close, if neutral, terms
with the elements, tolerating them as they seemed to refrain from harming him,
for it must be deathly cold in that small, stony room over the porch.

“The ground’s chosen for him?” asked Cadfael, catching
the taciturn habit.

“Close under the wall.”

“Not next to Father Adam, then? I thought Prior Robert
would have wanted to put him there.”

“He did,” said Cynric shortly. “I said the earth there
was not yet settled, and must have time to bed down.”

“A pity the hard frost came now. A dead man still
lying among us unburied makes the young ones uneasy.”

“Ay,” said Cynric. “The sooner he’s in the ground the
better for all. Now that he’s gone.” He straightened the second thick candle on
its spike, stepped back to make sure it stood erect and would not gutter, and
brushed the clinging feel of tallow from his hands, for the first time turning
his eyes in their hollow caverns upon Cadfael, and lighting up his lantern
countenance with the smile of singular if rueful sweetness that brought the
children to him with such serene confidence. “Do you go into the Foregate this
morning? I heard there’s a few folk having trouble with the cold.”

“No wonder they should!” said Cadfael. “I’m away to
have a look at one or two of the children, but there’s no great harm yet. Why,
do you know of someone who needs me? I have leave, I can as well make one more
visit. Who is sick?”

“It’s the little wooden hovel on the left, along the
back lane from the horse-fair, the widow Nest. She’s caring for her grandchild,
the poor worm, Eluned’s baby, and she’s fretted for it.” Cynric, perforce, was
unusually loquacious in explaining. “Won’t take its milk, and cries with the
wind in its belly.”

“It was born a healthy child?” asked Cadfael. For it
could not be many weeks old, and motherless, deprived of its best food. He had
not forgotten the shock and anger that had swept through the Foregate, when
they lost their favourite whore. If indeed Eluned had ever been a whore. She
never asked payment. If men gave her things, it was of their own will. She, it
seemed, had done nothing but give, however unwisely.

“A bonny girl, big and lusty, so Nest said.”

“Then she’ll have it in her, infant though she may be,
to fight her way into life,” said Cadfael comfortably. “I must go get the right
cordial for an infant’s inside. I’ll make it fresh. Who sings Mass for you
today?”

“Brother Anselm.”

“Well for you!” said Brother Cadfael, making for the
south porch and his quickest way to the garden and his workshop. “It might as
easily have been Brother Jerome.”