“Gone?” said Cadfael, very creditably astonished. “How could he be gone, and the door locked, and the key in your lodge?”
“Look for yourself,” said the porter. “Unless the devil has fetched his own away, then someone else has laid hands on this key in the night to good purpose and turned him loose in this world. Empty as a pauper’s purse in there, and the bed hardly dented. He’ll be well away by this. Sub-Prior Herluin will be out of his mind when he hears. He’s with Father Abbot at breakfast now, I’d best go and spoil his porridge for him.” He did not sound greatly grieved about it, but not exactly eager to bear the news, either.
“I’m bound there myself,” said Cadfael, not quite mendaciously, for he had just conceived the intention. “You get rid of the tray and follow me down, I’ll go before and break the news.”
“I never knew,” observed the porter, “that you had a bent for martyrdom. But lead the way and welcome. And I’ll come. Praise God, his lordship is set to leave this day, if he wants a safe journey Herluin and his fellows would be fools to lose the chance for the sake of hunting a slippery lad like that, with a night’s start into the bargain. We’ll be rid of them all before noon.” And he went off amiably to free his hands of the tray. He was in two minds whether he should return the key to its nail, but in the end he took it with him, as some manner of corroborative evidence, and followed Cadfael down towards the abbot’s lodging, but in no haste.
It was a different matter when Herluin heard the news. He surged up from the abbot’s table in his deprivation and loss, bereft now not only of his treasure gleaned here in Shrewsbury, but of his vengeance also, enraged beyond measure at having to go back to Ramsey almost empty-handed. For a short time, even though he himself did not know the whole of it, he had been on his way back a triumphant success, with generous largesse for the restoration, and the immeasurable blessing of a miracle-working saint. All gone now, and the culprit slipped through his fingers, so that he was left to trail home a manifest failure, meagrely re-paid for his travels, and short of a novice not, perhaps, exemplary in his behaviour, but valued for his voice, and therefore also in his way profitable.
“He must be pursued!” said Herluin, biting off every word with snapping, irregular teeth in his fury. “And, Father Abbot, surely your guard upon his captivity has been lax in the extreme, or how could any unauthorized person have gained possession of the key to his cell? I should have taken care of the matter myself rather than trust to others. But he must be pursued and taken. He has charges to answer, offences to expiate. The delinquent must not be allowed to go uncorrected.”
The abbot in evident and formidable displeasure, though whether with the absconding prisoner, his unwary guardians, or this fulminating avenger deprived of his scapegoat, there was no knowing, said acidly: “He may be sought within my premises, certainly. My writ does not presume to pursue men for punishment in the outside world.”
Earl Robert was also a guest at the abbot’s table on this last morning, but thus far he had remained seated equably in his place, saying no word, his quizzical glance proceeding silently from face to face, not omitting Cadfael, who had shot his disruptive bolt without expression and in the flattest of voices, to be backed up sturdily by the porter, still gripping the key that must have been lifted from its nail during Vespers, or so he judged, and put back again before the office ended. Since such interference with the abbatial orders here on monastic ground was unheard of, he had taken no precautions against it, though most of the time the lodge was manned, and the whole range of keys under the occupant’s eye, and safe enough. The porter excused himself manfully. His part was to see to it that the prisoners were properly fed, if austerely; with the authorities rested the overseeing of their incarceration, and the judgement of their causes.
“But there is still a suspicion of murder against him,” cried Herluin, aggressively triumphant as he recalled the secular charge. “He cannot be allowed to evade that. The king’s law has a duty to recover the criminal, if the Church has not.”
“You are mistaken,” said Radulfus, severely patient. “The sheriff has already assured me, yesterday, that he is satisfied on the proofs he holds that Brother Tutilo did not kill the young man Aldhelm. The secular law has no charge to bring against him. Only the Church can accuse him, and the Church has no sergeants to despatch about the country in pursuit of its failures.”
The word ‘failure’ had stung sharp colour into Herluin’s face, as if he felt himself personally held to blame for being unable to keep his subordinates in better control. Cadfael doubted if any such significance had been intended. Radulfus was more likely to accuse himself of inadequate leadership than to make the same charge against any other. Even now that might well be his meaning. But Herluin took to himself, while he strenuously denied, every failure that had cropped his dignity and authority, and threatened to send him home humbled and in need of tolerance and consolation.
“It may be, Father Abbot,” he said, stiffly erect and smouldering with doomladen prophecy, “that in this matter the Church will need to examine itself closely, for if it fail to contend against the evildoers wherever they may be found, its authority may fall into disrepute. Surely the battle against evil, within or without our pale, is as noble a Crusade as the contention within the Holy Land. It is not to our credit if we stand by and let the evildoer go free. This man has deserted his brotherhood and abandoned his vows. He must be brought back to answer for it.”
“If you esteem him as a creature so fallen from grace,” said the abbot coldly, “you should observe what the Rule has to say of such a case, in the twenty-eighth chapter, where it is written: “Drive out the wicked man from among you.”
“But we have not driven him out,” persisted Herluin, still incandescent with rage, “he has not waited the judgement nor answered for his offences, but taken himself off secretly in the night to our discomfiture.”
“Even so,” murmured Cadfael as to himself but very audibly, unable to resist the temptation, “in the same chapter the Rule commands us: ‘If the faithless brother leaves you, let him go.’”
Abbot Radulfus gave him a sharp glance, not altogether approving; and Robert Bossu gleamed into that brief, private, unnerving smile of his, that was gone before any target it might be aimed at could take offence.
“I am responsible to my abbot,” said Herluin, doggedly diverting the argument into a different channel, “for the novice committed to my charge, I must at least make enquiry after him as best I may.”
“I fear,” said Robert Bossu with relentless sweetness, “that time is too short even for that. If you decide to remain and pursue this quest, I fear you must resume your journey in less favourable circumstances. As soon as the early Mass is over we muster and leave. You would be wise, all the more as you are now one man short, to take advantage of our numbers and travel with us.”
“If your lordship could delay only a couple of days...” began Herluin, writhing.
“I regret, no. I have malefactors of my own needing my presence,” said the earl, gallingly gentle and considerate. “Especially if a few rogues and vagabonds like those who attacked your wagon are still making their way out of the Fens into safer fastnesses through my lands. It is high time I went back. I have lost my wager for Saint Winifred, but I don’t grudge it, for after all, it was I who brought her back here, so even if she eludes me, I must have been doing her will to the last scruple, and there will surely be a minor blessing in it for my pains. But now I’m needed nearer home. When Mass is over,” said Earl Robert firmly, and made to rise, for it was nearly time. “I would advise you join us, Father Herluin, and do as Saint Benedict bids you, let the faithless brother go.”