The Raven in the Foregate (18 page)

“Did he send you, to see her and tell her this?” asked
Cadfael directly.

She was not yet quite ready to be drawn into the open,
though fleetingly she smiled. “It’s simply that I know, I understand, how
anxious he must be now about her. He would be glad if he knew I had talked to
her.”

As he will know, before many hours are out, thought
Cadfael. Now I wonder where she has hidden him? There could well be old
retainers of her own father here in Shrewsbury, or close by, men who would do a
great deal for Bernières’s daughter.

“I know,” said Sanan with slow solemnity, following
Cadfael’s movements with intent eyes, “that you discovered Ninian before even
my step-father betrayed him. I know he told you freely who he is and what he’s
about, and you said you had nothing against any honest man of either party, and
would do nothing to harm him. And you’ve kept his secret until now, when it’s
no longer a secret. He trusts you, and I am resolved to trust you.”

“No,” said Cadfael hastily, “tell me nothing! If I
don’t know where the boy is now, no one can get it out of me, and I can declare
my ignorance with a good conscience. I like a gallant lad, even if he is too
rash for his own good. He tells me his whole aim now is to reach the Empress,
at whatever cost, and offer her his services. He has a right to dispose of his
own efforts as he pleases, and I wish him a safe arrival and long life. Such a
madcap deserves to have luck on his side.”

“I know,” she said, flushing and smiling, “he is not
very discreet…”

“Discreet? I doubt if he knows the meaning of the
word! To write and send such a letter, open as the day, signed with his own
name and telling where and under what pretence he’s to be found! No, never tell
me where he is now, but wherever you’ve hidden him, keep a weather eye on him,
for there’s no knowing what breathless foolishness he’ll be up to next.” He had
been busy filling a small flask, to provide her with a respectable reason for
emerging from his herbarium. He sealed it with a wooden stopper and tied it
down at the neck under a wisp of thin parchment before wrapping it in a piece
of linen and putting it into her hands. “There, madam, is your permit to be
here. And my advice is, get him away as soon as you can.”

“But he won’t go,” she said, sighing, but with pride
rather than exasperation, “not while this matter is unresolved. He won’t budge
until he knows Diota is safe. And there are preparations to make—means to
provide…” She shook herself bracingly, tossed her brown head, and made briskly
for the door.

“His first need,” said Cadfael thoughtfully after her,
“will be a good horse.”

She turned about abruptly in the doorway, and gave him
a blazing smile, throwing aside all reservations.

“Two horses!” she said in a soft, triumphant whisper.
“I am of the Empress’s party, too. I am going with him!”

Chapter Nine

CADFAEL WAS UNEASY IN HIS MIND ALL THAT DAY, plagued
on the one hand by misgivings about Sanan’s revelation, and on the other by the
elusive gnat that sang in the back of his consciousness, telling him
persistently that he had failed to notice the loss of one item that should have
been sought with Ailnoth, and might very well have missed another. There was
certainly something he should have thought of, something that might shed light,
if only he could discover what it was, and go, belatedly, to look for it.

In the meantime, he pursued the round of his duties
through Vespers and supper in the refectory, and tried in vain to concentrate
upon the psalms for this thirtieth day of December, the sixth day in the octave
of Christmas.

Cynric had been right about the thaw. It came
furtively and grudgingly, but it was certainly on its way by mid afternoon. The
trees were shedding their tinkling filigree of frozen rime and standing starkly
black against a low sky. Drips perforated the whiteness under the eaves with
small dark pockmarks, and the black of the road and the green of grass were
beginning to show through the covering of snow. By morning it might even be
possible to break the ground, in that chosen spot sheltered under the precinct
wall, and dig Father Ailnoth’s grave.

Cadfael had examined the skull-cap closely, and could
make no great sense of it. Yet it fretted him simply because he had failed to
think of it when the body was found.

As for the damage to it, that suggested a connection
with the blow to the head, and yet at the same time contradicted that
connection, since in that event the cap would surely have fallen on land, when
the blow was struck. True, the assailant might very well have thrown it into
the water after the priest, but in the dark would he have noticed or thought of
it, and if he had, would he necessarily have been able to find it? A small
black thing in tufted grass not yet white with rime not easy to see, and
unlikely to be remembered as too dangerous to leave, when murder had been
committed. Who was going to grope around in the dark in rough grass, when he
had just killed a man? His one thought would be to get well away from the scene
as quickly as possible.

Well, if Cadfael had missed this one thing, he might
have missed—his demon was nagging at him that he had missed!—another as
important. And if he had, it was still there by the mill, either along the bank
or in the water, or even within the mill itself. No use looking for it
elsewhere.

There was half an hour left before Compline, and most
of the brothers, very sensibly, were in the warming room, getting the chill out
of their bones. It was folly to think of going near the mill at this hour, in
the dark, but for all that Cadfael could not keep away, his mind so dwelt upon
the place, as though the very ambience of the pool, the mill and the solitary
night might reproduce the events of Christmas Eve, and prod his memory into
recapturing the lost factor. He crossed the great court to the retired corner
by the infirmary, where the wicket in the precinct wall led through directly to
the mill.

Outside, with no moon and only ragged glimpses of
stars, he stood until his eyes grew accustomed to the night, and the shapes of
things grew out of obscurity. The rough grass of the field, the dark bulk of
the mill to his right, with the little wooden bridge at the corner of the
building immediately before him, crossing the head-race to the overhanging bank
of the pool. He crossed, his feet making a small, clear, hollow sound on the
planks, and walked across the narrow strip of grass to the bank. The expanse of
the water opened beneath him, pale, leaden—still, dappled with patches of open
water, rimmed round with half-thawed ice.

Nothing moved here but himself, there was nothing to
be heard, not even a breath of wind stirring in the lissome naked shoots of the
pollarded willows at his left hand along the bank. A few yards along there,
just past the nearest stump, cut down to hip-height and bristling with wands
like hair on the giant head of a terrified man, they had drawn Ailnoth’s body
laboriously along under the eroded bank, and brought him to shore where the
meadow sloped down more gently to the outflow of the tail-race.

In his recollection of the morning every detail stood
sharply defined, but shed no light at all on what had happened in the night. He
turned from the high bank and walked back across the bridge, and for no good
reason that he could see continued round the mill, and down the sloping bank to
the big doors where the grain was carried in. Only an outer bar fastened the
door, and that, he saw dimly by the faint reflection from bleached timber, was
drawn back from its socket. There was a small door on the higher level, giving
quick access to the wicket in the precinct wall. That could be fastened within.
But why should this heavy bar be drawn back unless someone had made entry from
without?

Cadfael set his hand to the closed but unbarred door,
eased it open by a hand’s breadth, and stiffened to listen with an ear to the
chink. Nothing but silence from within. He opened it a little wider, slid
quietly through, and eased the door back again behind him. The warm scents of
flour and grain tickled his nostrils. He had a nose sharp as fox or hound, and
trusted to it in the dark, and there was another scent here, very faint,
utterly familiar. In his own workshop he was unaware of it from long and
constant acquaintance, but in any other place it pricked his consciousness with
a particular insistence, as of a stolen possession of his own, and a valued
one, that had no business to stray. A man cannot be in and out of a workshop
saturated with years of harvesting herbs, and not carry the scent of them about
in his garments. Cadfael froze with his back against the closed door, and
waited.

The faintest stir reached his ears, as of a foot
carefully placed in dust and husk that could not choose but rustle, however
cautiously trodden. Somewhere above him, on the upper floor. So the hatch was
open, and someone was leaning there, carefully shifting his stance to drop
through. Cadfael moved obligingly in that direction, to give him encouragement.
Next moment a body dropped neatly behind him, and an arm clamped about his
neck, bracing him back against his assailant, while its fellow embraced him
about chest and arms, pinning him close. He stood slack within the double grip,
and continued to breathe easily, and with wind to spare.

“Not badly done,” he said with mild approval. “But you
have no nose, son. What are four senses, without the fifth?”

“Have I not?” breathed Ninian’s voice in his ear,
shaken by a quaver of suppressed laughter. “You came in at the door so like a
waft of wind through your eaves, I was back there with that oil I had to abandon.
I hope it took no harm.” Hard and vehement young arms hugged Cadfael close, let
him loose gently, and turned him about at arm’s length, as though to view him,
where there was no light to see more than a shape, a shadow. “I owed you a
fright. You had the wits scared out of me when you eased the door ajar,” said
Ninian reproachfully.

“I was none too easy in my own mind,” said Cadfael,
“when I found the bar out of its socket. Lad, you take far too many chances.
For God’s sake and Sanan’s, what are you doing here?”

“I could as well ask you that,” said Ninian. “And
might get the same answer, too. I ventured here to see if there was anything
more to be found, though after so many days, heaven knows why there should be.
But how can any of us be easy until we know? “I know I never laid hands on the
man, but what comfort is that when everyone else lays it at my door? I should
be loth to leave here until it’s shown I’m no murderer, even if there were
nothing more in it than that, but there is. There’s Diota! Wanting the chance
to get at me, how long before they begin to turn on her, if not for murder,
then for treason in helping me to escape the hunt in the south, and cover my
guilt here?”

“If you think Hugh Beringar has any ill intent against
Mistress Hammet, or will suffer anyone else to make her a victim,” said Cadfael
firmly, “you may put that out of your mind at once. Well, now, since we’re both
here, and the time and place as good as any, we may as well sit down somewhere
in the warmest corner we can find, and put together whatever we have to share.
Two heads may make more of it than my one has been able to do. There should be
plenty of sacks here somewhere—better than nothing…”

Evidently Ninian had been here long enough to know his
way about, for he took Cadfael by the arm, and drew him confidently into a
corner where a pile of clean, coarse bags was folded and stacked against the
timber wall. They settled themselves close there, flank by flank for warmth,
and Ninian drew round them both a thick cloak which had certainly never been in
Benet’s possession.

“Now,” said Cadfael briskly, “I should first tell you
that this very morning I’ve spoken with Sanan, and I know what you and she are
planning. Probably she’s told you as much. I’m half in and half out of your
confidence and hers, and if I’m to be of any help to you in putting an end to
this vexatious business that holds you here, you had better let me in fully. I
do not believe you guilty of the priest’s death, and I have no reason in the
world to stand in your way. But I do believe that you know more of what
happened here that night than you have told. Tell the rest, and let me know
where we really stand. You did come here to the mill, did you not?”

Ninian blew out a gusty, rueful breath that warmed
Cadfael’s leaning cheek for a moment. “I did. I had to. I got no more answer
from Giffard than that he’d received and understood the message I sent. I’d no
means of knowing whether he meant to come or not. But I came very early, to
view the place and find a corner to hide in until I saw what came of it. I
stayed there in the doorway in the abbey wall, with the wicket ajar, so that I
could watch for whoever came. I had to make haste round the corner of the
infirmary, I can tell you, when the miller came bustling through on his way to
church, but I had the place to myself after that, to keep watch on the path.”

“And it was Ailnoth who came?” said Cadfael.

“Storming along the path like a bolt from God. Dark as
it was, there was no mistaking him, he had a gait all his own. There was no
possible reason he should be there at such an hour, unless he’d got wind of
what I was up to, and meant all manner of mischief. He was striding up and down
and round the mill and along the bank, thumping the ground like a cat lashing
its tail. And I’d perhaps got another man into the mud with me, and must make
some shift to get him, at least, out of it, even if I was still stuck in the
mire.”