The sergeant understood it as meaning this was the wanted murderer, and must live to stand his trial and take his ceremonial death. He grinned, and abated his hold on the bony shoulder he gripped. “I take your meaning, my lord.”
They were gone, captor and captive, off to a securely locked cell where the outlaw Harald, almost certainly a runaway villein, and probably with good reason, could at least be warmer than out in the woods, and get his meals, rough as they might be, brought to him without hunting.
Hugh completed his daily business about the castle, and then went off to find Brother Cadfael in his workshop, brewing some aromatic mixture to soothe ageing throats through the first chills of the winter. Hugh sat back on the familiar bench against the timber wall, and accepted a cup of one of Cadfael’s better wines, kept for his better acquaintances.
“Well, we have our murderer safely under lock and key,” he announced, straight-faced, and recounted what had emerged. Cadfael listened attentively, for all he seemed to have his whole mind on his simmering syrup.
“Folly!” he said then, scornfully. His brew was bubbling too briskly, he lifted it to the side of the brazier.
“Of course folly,” agreed Hugh heartily. “A poor wretch without a rag to his covering or a crust to his name, kill a man and leave him his valuables, let alone his clothes? They must be about of a height, he would have stripped him naked and been glad of such cloth. And build the clerk single-handed into that stack of timber? Even if he knew how such burnings are managed, and I doubt if he does… No, it is beyond belief. He found the dagger, just as he says. What we have here is some poor soul pushed so far by a heavy-handed lord that he’s run for it. And too timid, or too sure of his lord’s will to pursue him, to risk walking into the town and seeking work. He’s been loose four months, picking up what food he could where he could.”
“You have it all clear enough, it seems,” said Cadfael, still brooding over his concoction, though it was beginning to settle in the pot, gently hiccuping. “What is it you want of me?”
“My man has a cough, and a festered wound on his forearm, I judge a dog’s bite, somewhere he lifted a hen. Come and sain it for him, and get out of him whatever you can, where he came from, who is his master, what is his trade. We’ve room for good craftsmen of every kind in the town, as you know, and have taken in several, to our gain and theirs. This may well be another as useful.”
“I’ll do that gladly,” said Cadfael, turning to look at his friend with a very shrewd eye. “And what has he to offer you in exchange for a meal and a bed? And maybe a suit of clothes, if you had his inches, as by your own account you have not. I’d swear Peter Clemence could have topped you by a hand’s length.”
“This fellow certainly could,” allowed Hugh, grinning. “Though sidewise even I could make two of him as he is now. But you’ll see for yourself, and no doubt be casting an eye over all your acquaintance to find a man whose cast-offs would fit him. As for what use I have for him, apart from keeping him from starving to death—my sergeant is already putting it about that our wild man is taken, and I’ve no doubt he won’t omit the matter of the dagger. No need to frighten the poor devil worse than he’s been frightened already by charging him, but if the world outside has it on good authority that our murderer is safe behind bars, so much the better. Everyone can breathe more freely—notably the murderer. And a man off his guard, as you said, may make a fatal slip.”
Cadfael considered and approved. So desirable an ending, to have an outlaw and a stranger, who mattered to nobody, blamed for whatever evil was done locally; and one week now to pass before the wedding party assembled, all with minds at ease.
“For that stubborn lad of yours at Saint Giles,” said Hugh very seriously, “knows what happened to Peter Clemence, whether he had any hand in it, or no.”
“Knows,” said Brother Cadfael, equally gravely, “or thinks he knows.”
He went up through the town to the castle that same afternoon, bespoken by Hugh from the abbot as healer even to prisoners and criminals. He found the prisoner Harald in a cell at least dry, with a stone bench to lie on, and blankets to soften it and wrap him from the cold, and that was surely Hugh’s doing. The opening of the door upon his solitude occasioned instant mute alarm, but the appearance of a Benedictine habit both astonished and soothed him, and to be asked to show his hurts was still deeper bewilderment, but softened into wonder and hope. After long loneliness, where the sound of a voice could mean nothing but threat, the fugitive recovered his tongue rustily but gratefully, and ended in a flood of words like floods of tears, draining and exhausting him. After Cadfael left him he stretched and eased into prodigious sleep.
Cadfael reported to Hugh before leaving the castle wards.
“He’s a farrier, he says a good one. It may well be true, it is the only source of pride he has left. Can you use such? I’ve dressed his bite with a lotion of hound’s-tongue, and anointed a few other cuts and grazes he has. I think he’ll do well enough. Let him eat little but often for a day or two or he’ll sicken. He’s from some way south, by Gretton. He says his lord’s steward took his sister against her will, and he tried to avenge her. He was not good at murder,” said Cadfael wryly, “and the ravisher got away with a mere graze. He may be better at farriery. His lord sought his blood and he ran—who could blame him?”
“Villein?” asked Hugh resignedly.
“Surely.”
“And sought, probably vindictively. Well, they’ll have a vain hunt if they hunt him into Shrewsbury castle, we can hold him securely enough. And you think he tells truth?”
“He’s too far gone to lie,” said Cadfael. “Even if lying came easily, and I think this is a simple soul who leans to truth. Besides, he believes in my habit. We have still a reputation, Hugh, God send we may deserve it.”
“He’s within a charter town, if he is in prison,” said Hugh with satisfaction, “and it would be a bold lord who would try to take him from the king’s hold. Let his master rejoice in thinking the poor wretch held for murder, if that gives him pleasure. We’ll put it about, then, that our murderer’s taken, and watch for what follows.”
The news went round, as news does, from gossip to gossip, those within the town parading their superior knowledge to those without, those who came to market in town or Foregate carrying their news to outer villages and manors. As the word of Peter Clemence’s disappearance had been blown on the wind, and after it news of the discovery of his body in the forest, so did every breeze spread abroad the word that his killer was already taken and in prison in the castle, found in possession of the dead man’s dagger, and charged with his murder. No more mystery to be mulled over in taverns and on street-corners, no further sensations to be hoped for. The town made do with what it had, and made the most of it. More distant and isolated manors had to wait a week or more for the news to reach them.
The marvel was that it took three whole days to reach Saint Giles. Isolated though the hospice was, since its inmates were not allowed nearer the town for fear of contagion, somehow they usually seemed to get word of everything that was happening almost as soon as it was common gossip in the streets; but this time the system was slow in functioning. Brother Cadfael had given anxious thought to consideration of what effect the news was likely to have upon Meriet. But there was nothing to be done about that but to wait and see. No need to make a point of bringing the story to the young man’s ears deliberately, better let it make its way to him by the common talk, as to everyone else.