“Bring me word,” said Daalny, very gravely, her eyes royally commanding.
Only when Cadfael had left her, to keep a watch on the gatehouse for Hugh’s coming, did she turn her gaze upon Bénezet. Why should he bother to tell needless lies? He might, true, prefer to let people think an improbably fine bridle belonged to his master rather than himself, if he had cause to be wary of flattering but inconvenient curiosity. But why offer any explanation at all? Why should a close-mouthed man who was sparing of words at all times go wasting words on quite unnecessary lies? And more interesting still, he certainly had not made the journey to the Horse Fair to retrieve that bridle, his own or Rémy’s. It was the excuse, not the reason. So why had he made it? To retrieve something else? Something by no means forgotten, but deliberately left there? Tomorrow they were to ride for Leicester. If he had something put away there for safekeeping, something he could not risk showing, he had to reclaim it today.
Moreover, if that was true, whatever it was had lain in hiding ever since the night of the flood, when chaos entered the church with the river water, when everything vulnerable within was being moved, when Tutilo’s ingenious theft was committed, oh, that she acknowledged, and the slow-rooting but certain seed of murder was sown. Murder of which Tutilo was not guilty. Murder, of which someone else was. Someone else who had cause to fear what Aldhelm might have to tell about that night, once his memory was stirred? What other reason could anyone have had to kill a harmless young man, a shepherd from a manor some miles away?
Daalny went on with her work without haste, since she had no intention of quitting the stableyard while Bénezet was there. She had to go back to the guesthall for the smaller instruments, but she lost as little time over that as possible, and settled down again within view of Bénezet while she cased and bestowed them with care. The earl’s younger squire, interested, came to examine the Saracen ud that had come back with Rémy’s father from the Crusade, and his presence provided welcome cover for the watch she was keeping on her fellow-servant, and delayed her packing, which would otherwise have been complete within an hour or so, and left her with no excuse for remaining. The flutes and panpipes were easily carried; rebec and mandora had their own padded bags for protection, though the bow of the rebec had to be packed with care.
It was drawing near to noon. Earl Robert’s young men piled all their baggage neatly together ready for loading next day, and took themselves off to see to their lord’s comfort withindoors, and serve his dinner. Daalny closed the last strap, and stacked the saddleroll that held the flutes beside the heavier saddlebags. “These are ready. Have you finished with the harness?”
He had brought out one of his own bags, and had it already half-filled, folding an armful of clothes within it.
What was beneath, she thought, he must have stowed away when she went back to the guesthall for the rebec and the mandora. When his back was turned she nudged the soft bulge of leather with her foot, and something within uttered the thinnest and clearest of sounds, the chink of coin against coin, very brief, as though for the thoroughness of the packing movement was barely possible. But there is nothing else that sounds quite the same. He turned his head sharply, but she met his eyes with a wide, clear stare, held her position as if she had heard nothing, and said with flat composure: “Come to dinner. He’s at table with Robert Bossu by now, you’re not needed to wait on him this time.”
Hugh listened to Cadfael’s story, and turned the little breviary in his hands meantime with a small, wry smile, between amusement and exasperation.
“I can and will answer for my shire, but within here I have no powers, as well you know. I accept that the boy never did murder, indeed I never seriously thought he had. This is proof enough for me on that count, but if I were you I would keep the circumstances even from Radulfus, let alone Herluin. You had better not appear in this. You might feel you must open the last detail to the abbot, but I doubt if even he could extricate the poor wretch in this case. Meeting a girl in a hayloft would be excellent grist to Herluin’s mill, if ever he got to hear of it. A worse charge than the sacrilegious theft, worse, at any rate, than that would have been if it had succeeded. I’ll see him clear of murder, even without being able to prove it home on someone else, but more than that I can’t promise.”
“I leave it all to you,” said Cadfael resignedly. “Do as you see fit. Time’s short, God knows. Tomorrow they’ll all be gone.”
“Well, at least,” said Hugh, rising, “Robert Bossu, with all the Beaumont heritage in Normandy and England on his mind, will hardly be greatly interested in riding gaoler on a wretched little clerk with a clerical hell waiting for him at the end of the road. I wouldn’t be greatly astonished if he left a door unlocked somewhere along the way, and turned a blind eye, or even set the hunt off in the opposite direction. There’s a deal of England between here and Ramsey.” He held out the breviary; the yellow straw still marked the place where Tutilo had recited the Office and shared the night prayers with Daalny. “Give this back to him. He’ll need it.”
And he went away to his audience with Radulfus, while Cadfael sat somewhat morosely thinking, and holding the worn book in his hands. He was not quite sure why he should so concern himself with a clever little fool who had tried to steal Shrewsbury’s saint, and in the process started a vexatious series of events that had cost several decent men hurts, troubles and hardships, and one his life. None of which, of course, had Tutilo actually committed or intended, but trouble he was, and trouble he would continue as long as he remained where he did not belong. Even his over-ardent but genuine piety was not of the kind to fit into the discipline of a monastic brotherhood. Well, at least Hugh would make it plain that the boy was no murderer, whatever else might be charged against him, and his highly enterprising theft was not such as to come within the province of the king’s sheriff. For the rest, if the worst came to the worst, the boy must do what many a recalcitrant square peg in a round hole had had to do before him, survive his penance, resign himself to his fate, and settle down to live tamed and deformed, but safe. A singing bird caged. Though of course there was still Daalny. Bring me word, she had said. And yes, he would bring her word. Of both worst and best.
In the abbot’s parlour Hugh delivered his judgement with few words. If all was not to be told, the fewer the better. “I came to tell you, Father Abbot, that I have no charge to make against the novice Tutilo. I have evidence enough now to be certain that he did no murder. The law of which I am custodian has no further interest in him. Unless, “he added mildly,” the common interest of wishing him well.”
“You have found the murderer elsewhere?” asked Radulfus.
“No, that I can’t say. But I am certain now that it is not Tutilo. What he did that night, in coming at once to give word of the slaying, was well done, and what he could do further the next day he did ungrudgingly. My law makes no complaint of him.”
“But mine must,” said Radulfus. “It is no light offence to steal, but it is worse to have involved another in the theft, and brought him into peril of his life. To his better credit he confessed it, and has shown true remorse that ever he brought this unfortunate young man into his plans. He has gifts he may yet use to the glory of God. But there is a debt to pay.” He considered Hugh in attentive silence for a while, and then he said: “Am I to know what further witness has come to your hand? Since you have not fathomed out the guilty, there must be cause why you are sure of this one’s innocence.”