A Rare Benedictine (12 page)

The
young man eyed him with a doubtful face but a glint in his glance. “Since you
can hardly expect to take me in that trap, brother, I reckon you have another
use for me.”

“This
is your father. If you will, you may be with the witnesses in the rear loft.
But mark, I do not know, no one can know yet, that the bait will fetch any
man.”

“And
if it does not,” said Eddi with a wry grin, “if no one comes, I can still find
the hunt hard on my heels.”

“True!
But if it succeeds...”

He
nodded grimly. “Either way, I have nothing to lose. But listen, one thing I
want amended, or I’ll spring your trap before the time. It is not I who will be
in the rear loft with Rhodri Fychan and your sergeant. It is you. I shall be
the sleeper in the straw, waiting for a murderer. You said rightly, brother
this is my father. Mine, not yours!”

This
had been no part of Brother Cadfael’s plans, but for all that, he found it did
not greatly surprise him. Nor, by the set of the intent young face and the tone
of the quiet voice, did he think demur would do much good. But he tried.

“Son,
since it is your father, think better of it. He’ll have need of you. A man who
has tried once to kill will want to make certain this time. He’ll come with a
knife, if he comes at all. And you, however sharp your ears and stout your
heart, still at a disadvantage, lying in a feigned sleep...”

“And
are your senses any quicker than mine, and your sinews any suppler and
stronger?” Eddi grinned suddenly, and clapped him on the shoulder with a large
and able hand. “Never fret, brother, I am well prepared for when that man and I
come to grips. You go and sow your good seed, and may it bear fruit! I’ll make
ready.”

When
robbery and attempted murder are but a day and a half old, and still the
sensation of a whole community, it is by no means difficult to introduce the
subject and insert into the speculations whatever new crumb of interest you may
wish to propagate. As Cadfael found, going about his private business in the
half-hour after Compline. He did not have to introduce the subject, in fact,
for no one was talking about anything else. The only slight difficulty was in
confiding his sudden idea to each man in solitude, since any general
announcement would at once have caused some native to blurt out the obvious
objection, and give the entire game away. But even that gave little trouble,
for certainly the right man, if he really was among those approached, would not
say one word of it to anyone else, and would have far too much to think about
to want company or conversation the rest of the night. Young Jacob, emerging
cramped and yawning after hours of assiduous scribing, broken only by snatched
meals and a dutiful visit to his master, now sitting up by the infirmary
hearth, received Brother Cadfael’s sudden idea wide-eyed and eager, and
offered, indeed, to hurry to the castle even at this late hour to tell the
watch about it, but Cadfael considered that hardworking officers of the law
might be none too grateful at having their night’s rest disrupted; and in any
case nothing would be changed by morning.

To
half a dozen guests of the commoners’ hall, who came to make kind enquiry after
Master William, he let fall his idea openly, as a simple possibility, since
none of them was a Shrewsbury man, or likely to know too much about the
inhabitants. Warin Harefoot was among the six, and perhaps the instigator of
the civil gesture. He looked, as always, humble, zealous, and pleased at any
motion, even the slightest, towards justice.

There
remained one mysterious and troubled figure. Surely not a murderer, not even
quite a self-murderer, though by all the signs he had come very close. But for
Madog’s cry of ‘Drowned man!’ he might indeed have waded into the full flow of
the stream and let it take him. It was as if God himself had set before him,
like a lightning stroke from heaven, the enormity of the act he contemplated,
and driven him back from the brink with the dazzle of hell-fire. But those who
returned stricken and penitent to face this world had need also of men, and the
communicated warmth of men.

Before
Cadfael so much as opened the infirmary door, on a last visit to the patient
within, he had a premonition of what he would find. Master William and Brother
Eutropius sat companionably one on either side of the hearth, talking together
in low, considerate voices, with silences as acceptable as speech, and speech
no more eloquent than the silences. There was no defining the thread that
linked them, but there would never be any breaking it. Cadfael would have
withdrawn unnoticed, but the slight creak of the door drew Brother Eutropius’
attention, and he rose to take his leave.

 “Yes,
brother, I know I’ve overstayed. I’ll come.”

It
was time to withdraw to the dortoir and their cells, and sleep the sleep of men
at peace. And Eutropius, as he fell in beside Cadfael in the great court, had
the face of a man utterly at peace. Drained, still dazed by the thunderbolt of
revelation, but already, surely, confessed and absolved. Empty now, and still a
little at a loss in reaching out a hand to a fellow-man.

“Brother,
I think it was you who came into the church, this afternoon. I am sorry if I
caused you anxiety. I had but newly looked my fault in the face. It seemed to
me that my sin had all but killed another, an innocent, man. Brother, I have
long known in my head that despair is mortal sin. Now I know it with my blood
and bowels and heart.”

Cadfael
said, stepping delicately: “No sin is mortal, if it is deeply and truly
repented. He lives, and you live. You need not see your case as extreme,
brother. Many a man has fled from grief into the cloister, only to find that
grief can follow him there.”

“There
was a woman...” said Eutropius, his voice low, laboured but calm. “Until now I
could not speak of this. A woman who played me false, bitterly, yet I could not
leave loving. Without her my life seemed of no worth. I know its value better
now. For the years left to me I will pay its price in full, and carry it
without complaint.”

To
him Cadfael said nothing more. If there was one man in all this web of guilt
and innocence who would sleep deeply and well in his own bed that night, it was
Brother Eutropius.

As
for Cadfael himself, he had best make haste to take advantage of his leave of
absence, and get to the clothier’s loft by the shortest way, for it was fully
dark, and if the bait had been taken the end could not long be delayed.

The
steep ladder had been left where it always leaned, against the wall below
Rhodri’s hatch. In the outer loft the darkness was not quite complete, for the
square of the hatch stood open as always on a space of starlit sky. The air
within was fresh, but warm and fragrant with the dry, heaped hay and straw,
stored from the previous summer, and dwindling now from the winter’s
depredations, but still ample for a comfortable bed. Eddi lay stretched out on
his left side, turned towards the square of luminous sky, his right arm flung
up round his head, to give him cover as he kept watch.

In
the inner loft, with the door ajar between to let sounds pass, Brother Cadfael,
the sergeant, and Rhodri Fychan sat waiting, with lantern, flint and steel
ready to hand They had more than an hour to wait. If he was coming at all, he
had had the cold patience and self-control to wait for the thick of the night,
when sleep is deepest.

But
come he did, when Cadfael, for one, had begun to think their fish had refused
the bait. It must have been two o’clock in the morning, or past, when Eddi,
watching steadily beneath his sheltering arm, saw the level base of the square
of sky broken, as the crown of a head rose into view, black against darkest
blue, but clear to eyes already inured to darkness. He lay braced and still,
and tuned his breathing to the long, impervious rhythm of sleep, as the head
rose stealthily, and the intruder paused for a long time, head and shoulders in
view, motionless, listening. The silhouette of a man has neither age nor
colouring, only a shape. He might have been twenty or fifty, there was no
knowing. He could move with formidable silence.

But
he was satisfied. He had caught the steady sound of breathing, and now with
surprising speed mounted the last rungs of the ladder and was in through the
hatch, and the bulk of him cut off the light. Then he was still again, to make
sure the movement had not disturbed the sleeper. Eddi was listening no less
acutely, and heard the infinitely small whisper of steel sliding from its
sheath. A dagger is the most silent of weapons to use, but has its own voices.
Eddi turned very slightly, with wincing care, to free his left arm under him,
ready for the grapple.

The
bulk and shadow, a moving darkness, mere sensation rather than anything seen,
drew close. He felt the leaning warmth from a man’s body, and the stirring of
the air from his garments, and was aware of a left hand and arm outstretched
with care to find how he lay, hovering rather than touching. He had time to
sense how the assassin stooped, and judge where his right hand lay waiting with
the knife, while the left selected the place to strike. Under the sacking that
covered him for beggars do not lie in good woollens Eddi braced himself to meet
the shock.

When
the blow came, there was even a splinter of light tracing the lunge of the
blade, as the murderer drew back to put his weight into the stroke, and
uncovered half the blessed frame of sky. Eddi flung over on his back, and took
the lunging dagger-hand cleanly by the wrist in his left hand. He surged out of
the straw ferociously, forcing the knife away at arm’s length, and with his
right hand reached for and found his opponent’s throat. They rolled out of the
nest of rustling, straw and across the floor, struggling, and fetched up
against the timbers of the wall. The attacker had uttered one startled, muted
cry before he was half-choked. Eddi had made no sound at all but the fury of
his movements. He let himself be clawed by his enemy’s flailing left hand,
while he laid both hands to get possession of the dagger. With all his strength
he dashed the elbow of the arm he held against the floor. A strangled yelp
answered him, the nerveless fingers parted, and gave up the knife. Eddi sat
back astride a body suddenly limp and gasping, and laid the blade above a face
still nameless.

In
the inner loft the sergeant had started up and laid hand to the door, but
Cadfael took him by the arm and held him still.

The
feverish whisper reached them clearly, but whispers have neither sex nor age
nor character. “Don’t strike wait, listen!” He was terrified, but still
thinking, still scheming. “It is you I know you, I’ve heard about you... his
son! Don’t kill me, why should you? It wasn’t you I expected I never meant you
harm...”

What
you may have heard about him, thought Cadfael, braced behind the door with his
hand on the tinder-box he might need at any moment, may be as misleading as
common report so often is. There are overtones and undertones to be listened
for, that not every ear can catch.

“Lie
still,” said Eddi’s voice, perilously calm and reasonable, “and say what you
have to say where you lie. I can listen just as well with this toy at your
throat. Have I said I mean to kill you?”

“But
do not!” begged the eager voice, breathless and low. Cadfael knew it, now. The
sergeant probably did not. In all likelihood Rhodri Fychan, leaning close and
recording all, had never heard it, or he would have known it, for his ears
could pick up even the shrillest note of the bat. “I can do you good. You have
a fine unpaid, and only a day to run before gaol. He told me so. What do you
owe him? He would not clear you, would he? But I can see you cleared. Listen,
never say word of this, loose me and keep your own counsel, and the half is
yours the half of the abbey rents. I promise it!”

There
was a blank silence. If Eddi was tempted, it was certainly not to bargain, more
likely to strike, but he held his hand, at whatever cost.

“Join
me,” urged the voice, taking heart from his silence, “and no one need ever
know. No one! They said there was a beggar slept here, but he’s away, however
it comes, and no one here but you and I, to know what befell. Even if they were
using you, think better of it, and who’s to know? Only let me go hence, and you
keep a close mouth, and all’s yet well, for you as well as me.”

After
another bleak silence Eddi’s voice said with cold suspicion, “Let you loose,
and you the only one who knows where you’ve hidden the plunder? Do you take me
for a fool? I should never see my share! Tell me the place, exact, and bring me
to it with you, or I give you to the law.”

The
listeners within felt, rather than heard, the faint sounds of writhing and
struggling and baulking, like a horse resisting a rider, and then the sudden
collapse, the abject surrender. “I put the money into my pouch with my own few
marks,” owned the voice bitterly, “and threw his satchel into the river. The
money is in my bed in the abbey. No one paid any heed to my entry with the
Foregate dues remaining, why should they? And those I’ve accounted for
properly. Come down with me, and I’ll satisfy you, I’ll pay you. More than the
half, if you’ll only keep your mouth shut, and let me go free...”

“You
within there,” suddenly bellowed Eddi, shaking with detestation, “come forth,
for the love of God, and take this carrion away from under me, before I cut his
villain throat, and rob the hangman of his own. Come out, and see what we’ve
caught!”