The Raven in the Foregate (17 page)

At this rate, thought Cadfael, mildly irritated with
his own preoccupation, I shall be looking sidewise at every comely man I see,
to try if I can find in his face any resemblance to a murderer. I’d best
concern myself with my own duties, and leave official retribution to Hugh—not
that he’ll be grateful for it!

He was approaching the gatehouse, and had just come to
the entrance to the twisting alley that led to the priest’s house. He halted
there, suddenly aware that the heavy covering cloud had lifted, and a faint
gleam of sun showed through. Not brilliantly and icily out of a pale, cold sky,
but timidly and grudgingly through untidy, wallowing shreds of cloud. The
glitter coruscating from icicles and swags of frozen snow along the eaves had
acquired a softer, moist brightness. There was even a drip here and there from
a gable end where the timorous sun fell. Cynric might be right in his
prediction, and a thaw on the way by nightfall. Then they could at least put
Ailnoth out of the chapel and under the ground, though his baleful shadow would
still be with them.

There was no haste to return to the abbey and his
workshop, half an hour more would not do any harm. Cadfael turned into the
alley and walked along to the priest’s house. He was none too sure of his own
motives in paying this visit. Certainly it was his legitimate business to make
sure that Mistress Hammet’s injuries had healed properly, and she had taken no
lingering harm from the blow to her head, but pure curiosity had a part in what
prompted him, too. Here was another woman whose attitude to Father Ailnoth
might be exceedingly ambivalent, torn between gratitude for a patronage which
had given her status and security, and desperation at his raging resentment of
the deception practised on him, if she knew how he had found it out, and his
all too probable intent to see her nurseling unmasked and thrown into prison.
Cadfael’s judgement of Diota was that she went in considerable awe and fear of
her master, but also that she would dare much for the boy she had nursed. But
any suspicion of her was quickly tempered by his recollection of her state on
Christmas morning. Almost certainly, whatever her fears after a night of
waiting in vain, she had not known that Ailnoth was dead until the searchers
returned with his body. As often as Cadfael told himself he could be deceived
in believing that, his own memory rejected the doubt.

Just beyond the priest’s house the narrow alley opened
out into a small grassy space, now a circle of trampled rime, but with the
green of grass peeping through by small, indomitable tufts here and there. To
this confined playground the house presented its fine, unbroken wall, the one
that attracted the players of ball games and the like, to their peril. There
were half a dozen urchins of the Foregate playing there now, rolling snowballs
and hurling them from an ambitiously remote mark at a target set up on an
abandoned fence-post at the corner of the green. A round black cap, with a
fluttering end of torn braid quivering in the light wind. A skull cap, such as
a priest would wear, or a monk, to cover his tonsure from cold when the cowl
was inconvenient.

One small possession of Ailnoth’s which had not been
recovered with him, nor missed. Cadfael stood and gazed, remembering sharply
the clear image of the priest’s set and formidable face as he passed the
gatehouse torches, unshadowed by any cowl, and capped, yes, certainly capped in
black, this meagre circle that cast no shadows, but left his apocalyptic rage
plain to view.

One of the marksmen, luckier or more adroit, had knocked
the target flying into the grass. The victor, without great interest now,
having prevailed, went to pick it up, and stood dangling it in one hand, while
the rest of the band, capricious as children can be, burst into a spirited
argument as to what they should do next, and like a wisp of snipe rising,
suddenly took off across the grass towards the open field beyond.

The marksman made to follow them, but with no haste,
knowing they would settle as abruptly as they had taken flight, and he could be
up with them whenever he willed. Cadfael went a few paces to intercept his
passage, and the boy halted readily enough, knowing him. A bright boy, ten
years old, the reeve’s sister’s son. He had a charming, inscrutable smile.

“What’s that you have there, Eddi?” asked Cadfael,
nodding at the dangling cap. “May I see it?”

It was handed over willingly, indifferently. No doubt
they had played various games with it for several days now, and were weary of
it. Some other brief foundling toy would take its place, and it would never be
missed. Cadfael turned it in his hands, and marked how the braid that bound its
rim was ripped clear on one side, and dangled the loose end. When he drew it
into place there was still a strand missing, perhaps the length of his little
finger, and the stitching of two of the segments that made up the circle had
been frayed apart with the lost shred. Good black cloth, carefully made, the
braid hand-plaited wool.

“Where did you find this, Eddi?”

“In the mill-pond,” said the boy readily. “Someone
threw it away because it was torn. We went down early in the morning to see if
the pond was frozen, but it wasn’t. But we found this.”

“Which morning was that?” asked Cadfael.

“Christmas Day. It was only just getting light.” The
boy was grave, demure of countenance, impenetrable as clever children can be.

“Where in the mill-pond? On the mill side?”

“No, we went along the other path, where it’s shallow.
That’s where it freezes first. The tail-race keeps it open the other side.”

So it did, the movement enough to preserve an open
channel until all froze over, and the same stream of moving water would carry a
light thing like this cap, over to lodge in the shallows.

“This was caught among the reeds there?”

The boy said yes, serenely.

“You know whose this is, do you, Eddi?

“No, sir,” said Eddi, and smiled a brief, guileless
smile. He was, Cadfael recalled, one of those unfortunate children who had been
learning their letters with Father Adam, and had fallen into less tolerant
hands after his death. And wronged and injured children are not themselves
merciful to their tyrants.

“No matter, son. Are you done with it? Will you leave
it with me? I’ll bring you a few apples to your father’s, a fair exchange. And
you may forget it.”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy, and turned and skipped away
without another glance, rid of his prize and his burden.

Cadfael stood looking down at the small, drab thing in
his hands, damp now and darkening from the comparative warmth of being handled,
but fringed with rime and still stiff. How unlike Father Ailnoth to be seen
wearing a cap with a tattered braid and a seam beginning to lose its stitches!
If, indeed, it had been in this condition when he put it on. It had been tossed
around at random since Christmas Day, and might have come by its dilapidations
at any time since it was plucked out of the frosty reeds, where the drift of
the tail-race had carried it, while the heavier body from which it had been
flung was gradually edged aside under the leaning bank.

And was there not something else that had been
forgotten, as this cap had been forgotten? Something else they should have
looked for, and had never thought of? Something nagging at the back of
Cadfael’s mind but refusing to show itself?

He thrust the cap into his scrip, and turned back to
rap at the door of the priest’s house. It was opened to him by Diota, prim and
composed in her customary black. She stepped back readily, unsmiling but
hospitable, and beckoned him at once into a small, warm room dimly lit by a
brownish light from two small windows, into the shutters of which thin sheets
of horn had been set. A bright wood fire burned on the clay hearth in the
centre of the room, and on the cushioned bench beside it a young woman was
sitting, alert and silent, and to one entering from broad daylight not
immediately recognisable.

“I came only to ask how you are,” said Cadfael as the
door was closed behind him, “and to see if you need anything more for your
grazes.”

Diota came round to face him and let herself be seen,
the palest of smiles visiting a face habitually grave and anxious. “That was
kind of you, Brother Cadfael. I am well, I thank you, quite well. You see the
wound is healed.”

She turned her injured temple docilely to the best of
the light at the urging of his hand, and let him study what had faded now to a
yellow bruise and a small dry scar.

“Yes, that’s well, there’ll be no mark left to show
for it. But I should go on using the ointment for a few days yet, in this frost
the skin dries and abrades easily. And you’ve had no headaches?”

“No, none.”

“Good! Then I’ll be off back to my work, and not take
up your time, for I see you have a visitor.”

“Oh, no,” said the visitor, rising briskly from the
bench, “I was about to take my leave.” She stepped forward, raising to the
light a rounded young face, broad at the brow and tapering gently to a resolute
chin. Challenging harebell-blue eyes, set very wide apart, confronted Cadfael
with a direct and searching stare. “If you must really go so soon,” said Sanan
Bernières, with the serene confidence of a masterful child, “I’ll walk with
you. I’ve been waiting to find a right time to talk to you.”

There was no gainsaying such a girl. Diota did not
venture to try and detain her, and Brother Cadfael, even if he had wished,
would have hesitated before denying her. Law itself, he thought with amused
admiration, might come off the loser if it collided with the will of Sanan
Bernières. In view of all that had happened, that was a distinct if as yet
distant possibility, but she would not let the prospect deter her.

“That will be great pleasure for me,” said Cadfael.
“The walk is very short—but perhaps you’ll be needing some more herbs for your
kitchen? I have ample supplies, you may come in and take what you wish.”

She did give him a very sharp glance for that, and as
suddenly dimpled, and to hide laughter turned to embrace Diota, kissing her
thin cheek like a daughter. Then she drew her cloak about her and led the way
out into the alley, and together they walked the greater part of the way out
into the Foregate in silence.

“Do you know,” she said then, “why I went to see
Mistress Hammet?”

“Out of womanly sympathy, surely,” said Cadfael, “with
her loss. Loss and loneliness—still a virtual stranger here…”

“Oh, come!” said Sanan bluntly. “She worked for the
priest, I suppose it was a secure life for a widow woman, but loss…? Lonely she
may well be.”

“I was not speaking of Father Ailnoth,” said Cadfael.

She gave him another straight glance of her startling
blue eyes, and heaved a thoughtful sigh. “Yes, you’ve worked with him, you know
him. He told you, didn’t he, that she was his nurse, no blood kin? She never
had children in her own marriage, he’s as dear as a son to her. I… have talked
with him, too—by chance. You know he sent a message to my step-father. Everyone
knows that now. I was curious to see this young man, that’s all.”

They had reached the abbey gatehouse. She stood
hesitant, frowning at the ground.

“Now everyone is saying that he—this Ninian Bachiler
killed Father Ailnoth, because the priest was going to betray him to the
sheriff. I knew she must have heard it. I knew she would be alone, afraid for
him, now he’s fled, and hunted for his life—for it is his life, now!”

“So you came to bear her company,” said Cadfael, “and
reassure her. Come through into the garden, and if you have all the pot-herbs
you want, I daresay we can find another good reason. You won’t be any the worse
for having something by you to cure the cough that may be coming along in a
week or two.”

She looked up with a flashing smile. “The same remedy
you gave me when I was ten? I’ve changed so much you can hardly have known me
again. Such excellent health I have, I need you only once every seven or eight
years.”

“If you need me now,” said Cadfael simply, leading the
way across the great court towards the gardens, “that’s enough.”

She followed demurely, lowering her eyes modestly in
this male seclusion, and in the safe solitude of the workshop she allowed
herself to be installed comfortably with her small feet towards the brazier
before she drew breath again and went on talking, now more freely, having left
all other ears outside the door.

“I came to see Mistress Hammet because I was afraid
that, now that he is so threatened, she might do something foolish. She is
devoted to Ninian, in desperation she might do anything—anything!—to ensure
that he goes free. She might even come forward with some mad story about being
to blame herself. She would, I am sure, for him! If she thought it would clear
him of all guilt, she would confess to murder.”

“So you came,” said Cadfael, moving about his private
world quietly to leave her the illusion that she was not closely observed, “to
urge her to hold her peace and wait calmly, for he’s still at liberty and in no
immediate danger. Is that it?”

“Yes. And if you go to see her again, or she comes to
you, please urge the same upon her. Don’t let her do anything to harm herself.”