‘In a very proper spirit,’ said Jerome wooingly. ‘Though I fear that even here there are matters that must trouble you. I wish that you could have come back to us in happier circumstances.’
‘Indeed, so do I!’ agreed Sulien warmly, still harking back in his own mind to the upheaval of Ramsey.
Jerome was encouraged. It seemed the young man might, after all, be in a mood to confide, if sympathetically prompted. ‘I feel for you,’ he said mellifluously. ‘A shocking thing it must be, after such terrible blows, to come home to yet more ill news here. This death that has come to light, and worse, to know that it casts so black a shadow of suspicion upon a brother among us, and one well known to all your family...‘
He was weaving his way so confidently into his theme that he had not even noticed the stiffening of Sulien’s body, and the sudden blank stillness of his face.
‘Death?’ said the boy abruptly. ‘What death?’
Thus sharply cut off in full flow, Jerome blinked and gaped, and leaned to peer more intently into the young, frowning face before him, suspecting deception. But the blue eyes confronted him with a wide stare of such crystal clarity that not even Jerome, himself adept at dissembling and a cause of defensive evasion in others, could doubt the young man’s honest bewilderment.
‘Do you mean,’ demanded Jerome incredulously,’that Ruald has not told you?’
‘Told me of what? Nothing of a death, certainly! I don’t know what you mean, Brother!’
‘But you walked with him to Mass this morning,’ protested Jerome, reluctant to relinquish his certainty. ‘I saw you come, you had some talk together‘
‘Yes, so we did, but nothing of ill news, nothing of a death. I have known Ruald since I could first run,’ said Sulien. ‘I was glad to meet with him, and see him so secure in his faith, and so happy. But what is this you are telling me of a death? I beg you, let me understand you!’
Jerome had thought to be eliciting information, but found himself instead imparting it. ‘I thought you must surely know it already. Our plough-team turned up a woman’s body, the first day they broke the soil of the Potter’s Field. Buried there unlawfully, without ritesthe sheriff believes killed unlawfully. The first thought that came to mind was that it must be the woman who was Brother Ruald’s wife when he was in the world. I thought you knew from him. Did he never say a word to you?’
‘No, never a word,’ said Sulien. His voice was level and almost distant, as though all his thoughts had already grappled with the grim truth of it, and withdrawn deep into his being, to contain and conceal any immediate consideration of its full meaning. His blue, opaque stare held Jerome at gaze, unwavering. ‘That it must be you said. Then it is not known! Neither he nor any can name the woman?’
‘It would not be possible to name her. There is nothing left that could be known to any man. Mere naked bones is what they found.’ Jerome’s faded flesh shrank at the mere thought of contemplating so stark a reminder of mortality. ‘Dead at least a year, so they judge. Maybe more, even as much as five years. Earth deals in many different ways with the body.’
Sulien stood stiff and silent for a moment, digesting this knowledge with a face still as a mask. At last he said: ‘Did I understand you to say also that this death casts a black shadow of suspicion upon a brother of this house? You mean by that, on Ruald?’
‘How could it be avoided?’ said Jerome reasonably. ‘If this is indeed she, where else would the law look first? We know of no other woman who frequented that place, we know that this one disappeared from there without a word to any. But whether living or dead, who can be certain?’
‘It is impossible,’ said Sulien very firmly. ‘Ruald had been a month and more here in the abbey before she vanished. Hugh Beringar knows that.’
‘And acknowledges it, but that does not make it impossible. Twice he visited her afterwards, in company with Brother Paul, to settle matters about such possessions as he left. Who can be sure that he never visited her alone? He was not a prisoner within the enclave, he went out with others to work at the Gaye, and elsewhere on our lands. Who can say he never left the sight of his fellows? At least,’ said Jerome, with mildly malicious satisfaction in his own superior reasoning,’the sheriff is busy tracing every errand Brother Ruald has had outside the gates during those early days of his novitiate. If he satisfies himself they never did meet and come to conflict, well. If not, he knows that Ruald is here, and will be here, waiting. He cannot evade.’
‘It is foolishness,’ said the boy with sudden quiet violence. ‘If there were proof from many witnesses, I would not believe he ever harmed her. I should know them liars, because I know him. Such a thing he could not do. He did not do!’ repeated Sulien, staring blue challenge-like daggers into Jerome’s face.
‘Brother, you presume!’ Jerome drew his inadequate length to its tallest, though he was still topped by almost a head. ‘It is sin to be swayed by human affection to defend a brother. Truth and justice are preferred before mere fallible inclination. In chapter sixty-nine of the Rule that is set down. If you know the Rule as you should, you know such partiality is an offence.’
It cannot be said that Sulien lowered his embattled stare or bent his head to this reproof, and he would certainly have been in for a much longer lecture if his superior’s sharp ear had not caught, at that moment, the distant sound of Cadfael’s voice, some yards away along the path, halting to exchange a few cheerful words with Brother Winfrid, who was just cleaning his spade and putting away his tools. Jerome had no wish to see this unsatisfactory colloquy complicated by a third party, least of all Cadfael, who, upon consideration, might have been entrusted with this ill-disciplined assistant precisely in order to withdraw him from too much knowledge too soon. As well leave things as they stood.
‘But you may be indulged,’ he said, with hasty magnanimity,’seeing this comes so suddenly on you, and at a time when you have already been sorely tried. I say no more!’
And forthwith he took a somewhat abrupt but still dignified leave, and was in time to be a dozen paces outside the door when Cadfael met him. They exchanged a brief word in passing, somewhat to Cadfael’s surprise. Such brotherly civility in Jerome argued a slight embarrassment, if not a guilty conscience.
Sulien was collecting his rejected beans into a bowl, to be added to the compost, when Cadfael came into the workshop. He did not look round as his mentor came in. He had known the voice, as he knew the step.
‘What did Jerome want?’ Cadfael asked, with only mild interest.
‘Onions. Brother Petrus sent him.’
No one below Prior Robert’s status sent Brother Jerome anywhere. He kept his services for where they might reflect favour and benefit upon himself, and the abbot’s cook, a red-haired and belligerent northerner, had nothing profitable to bestow, even if he had been well-disposed towards Jerome, which he certainly was not.
‘I can believe Brother Petrus wanted onions. But what did Jerome want?’
‘He wanted to know how I was faring, here with you,’ said Sulien with deliberation. ‘At least, that’s what he asked me. And, Cadfael, you know how things are with me. I am not quite sure yet how I am faring, or what I ought to do, but before I commit myself either to going or staying, I think it is time I went to see Father Abbot again. He said I might, when I felt the need.’
‘Go now, if you wish,’ said Cadfael simply, eyeing with close attention the steady hands that swept the bench clear of fragments, and the head so sedulously inclined to keep the young, austere face in shadow. ‘There’s time before Vespers.’
Abbot Radulfus examined his petitioner with a detached and tolerant eye. In three days the boy had changed in understandable ways, his exhaustion cured, his step now firm and vigorous, the lines of his face eased of their tiredness and strain, the reflection of danger and horror gone from his eyes. Whether the rest had resolved his problem for him was not yet clear, but there was certainly nothing indecisive in his manner, or in the clean jut of a very respectable jaw.