Edmund blinked at him for a moment, hard put to it to leave his own preoccupations for another man’s. Then he said, after some hesitation: “He grows daily feebler, but he’s resting well now, and he has been fretting over this matter of the girl, feeling his own acts brought her to this. His mind is strong and determined. I think he would certainly wish to see you. Cadfael is there with him-his wound broke again when he fell, where it was newly healed, but it’s clean. Yes, go in to him.” His face said, though his lips did not utter it: “Who knows how long his time may be? An easy mind could lengthen it.”
Hugh went back to his men. “Come, we may go in.” And to the two sergeants he said: “Wait outside the door.”
He heard the familiar tones of Cadfael’s voice as soon as he entered the infirmary with Adam docile at his heels. They had not taken Brother Humilis into the open ward, but into one of the small, quiet cells apart, and the door stood open between. A cot, a stool and a small desk to support book or candle were all the furnishings, and wide-open door and small, unshuttered window let in light and air. Brother Fidelis was on his knees by the bed, supporting the sick man in his arm while Cadfael completed the bandaging of hip and groin where the frail new scar tissue had split slightly when Humilis fell. They had stripped him naked, and the cover was drawn back, but Cadfael’s solid body blocked the view of the bed from the doorway, and at the sound of feet entering Fidelis quickly drew up the sheet to the patient’s waist. So emaciated was the long body that the young man could lift it briefly on one arm, but the gaunt face showed clear and firm as ever, and the hollow eyes were bright. He submitted to being handled with a wry and patient smile, as to a salutary discipline. It was the boy who so jealously reached to conceal the ruined body from uninitiated eyes. Having drawn up the sheet, he turned to take up and shake out the clean linen shirt that lay ready, lifted it over Humilis’s head, and very adroitly helped his thin arms into the sleeves, and lifted him to smooth the folds comfortably under him. Only then did he turn and look towards the doorway.
Hugh was known and accepted, even welcomed. Humilis and Fidelis as one looked beyond him to see who followed.
From behind Hugh’s shoulder the taller stranger looked quickly from face to face, the mere flicker of a sharp glance that touched and took flight, a lightning assessment by way of taking stock of what he might have to deal with. Brother Cadfael, clearly, belonged here and was no threat, the sick man in the bed was known by repute, but the third brother, who stood close by the cot utterly still, wide eyes gleaming within the shadow of the cowl, was perhaps not so easily placed. Adam Heriet looked last and longest at Fidelis, before he lowered his eyes and composed his face into a closed book.
“Brother Edmund said we might come in,” said Hugh, “but if we tire you, turn us out. I am sorry to hear you are not so well.”
“It will be the best of medicines,” said Humilis, “if you have any better news for me. Brother Cadfael will not grudge another doctor having a say. I am not so sick, it was only a faintness-the heat gets ever more oppressive.” His voice was a little less steady than usual, and slower in utterance, but he breathed evenly, and his eyes were clear and calm. “Who is this you have brought with you?”
“Nicholas will have told you, before he left,” said Hugh,”that we have already questioned three of the four who rode as escort to the lady Juliana when she left for Wherwell. This is the fourth-Adam Heriet, who went the last part of the way with her, leaving his fellows in Andover to wait for his return.”
Brother Humilis stiffened his frail body and sat upright to gaze, and Brother Fidelis kneeled and braced an arm about him, behind the supporting pillow, stooping his head into shadow behind his lord’s lean shoulder.
“Is it so? Then we know all those who guarded her now. So you,” said Humilis, urgently studying the stalwart figure and blunt, brow-bent face that stooped a sunburned forehead to him, like a challenged bull, “you must be that one they said loved her from a child.”
“So I did,” said Adam Heriet firmly.
“Tell him,” said Hugh, “how and when you last parted from the lady. Speak up, it is your story.”
Heriet drew breath long and deeply, but without any evidence of fear or stress, and told it again as he had told it to Hugh at Brigge. “She bade me go and leave her. And so I did. She was my lady, to command me as she chose. What she asked of me, that I did.”
“And returned to Andover?” asked Hugh mildly.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Scarcely in haste,” said Hugh with the same deceptive gentleness. “From Andover to Wherwell is but a few short miles, and you say you were dismissed a mile short of that. Yet you returned to Andover in the dusk, many hours later. Where were you all that time?”
There was no mistaking the icy shock that went through Adam, stopping his breath for an instant. His carefully hooded eyes rolled wide and flashed one wild glance at Hugh, then were again lowered. It took him a brief and perceptible struggle to master voice and thoughts, but he did it with heroic smoothness, and even the pause seemed too brief for the inspired concoction of lies.
“My lord, I had never been so far south before, and reckoned at that time I never should again. She dismissed me, and the city of Winchester was there close. I had heard tell of it, but never thought to see it. I know I had no right so to borrow time, but I did it. I rode into the town, and there I stayed all that day. It was peace there, then, a man could walk abroad, view the great church, eat at an alehouse, all without fear. And so I did, and went back to Andover only late in the evening. If they have told you so, they tell truth. We never set out for home until next morning.”
It was Humilis, who knew the city of Winchester like his own palm, who took up the interrogation there, drily and calmly, eyes and voice again alert and vigorous. “Who could blame you for taking a few hours to yourself, with your errand done? And what did you see and do in Winchester?”
Adam’s wary breathing eased again readily. This was no problem for him. He launched into a very full and detailed account of Bishop Henry’s city, from the north gate, where he had entered, to the meadows of St Cross, and from the cathedral and the castle of Wolvesey to the northwestern fields of Hyde Mead. He could describe in detail the frontages of the steep High Street, the golden shrine of Saint Swithun, and the magnificent cross presented by Bishop Henry to his predecessor Bishop Walkelin’s cathedral. No doubt but he had seen all he claimed to have seen. Humilis exchanged glances with Hugh and assured him of that. Neither Hugh nor Cadfael, who stood a little apart, taking note of all, had ever been in Winchester.
“So that is all you know of Juliana Cruce’s fate,” said Hugh at length.
“Never word of her, my lord, since we parted that day,” said Adam, with every appearance of truth. “Unless there is something you can tell me now, as you know I have asked and asked.” But he was asking no longer, even this repetition had lost all its former urgency.
“Something I can and will tell you,” said Hugh abruptly and harshly. “Juliana Cruce never entered Wherwell. The prioress of Wherwell never heard of her. From that day she has vanished, and you were the last ever to see her. What’s your answer to that?”
Adam stood mute, staring, a long minute. “Do you tell me this is true?” he said slowly.
“I do tell you so though I think there never was any need to tell you, for you knew it, none better. As you are now left, the only one who may, who must, know where she did go, since she never reached Wherwell. Where she went and what befell her, and whether she is now on this earth or under it.”