Holy Thief (29 page)

“You
have the heaviest load,” said Cadfael. “Let me take it from you.”

She
smiled more warmly, but shook her head. “I am responsible, I will carry it or
let it fall myself. But it is not so heavy, only bulky. The case is within
there. Leather, soft, padded. You can help me put it in, if you will. It takes
two, one to hold the bag wide open.”

He
went with her into the stableyard, and obediently held the fitted lid of the
case braced back on his arm to allow her to slide the little organ within. She
closed the lid upon it, and buckled the straps that held it firm. About them
the earl’s young men went about their efficient business with the smooth and
pleasurable grace of youth, and at the far end of the yard Bénezet was cleaning
saddles and harness, and draping his work over a wooden frame, where the
saddlecloths were spread out in the pale sunlight that was already acquiring a
surprising degree of warmth. Rémy’s ornate bridle hung on a hook beside him.

“Your
lord likes his gear handsome,” said Cadfael, indicating it. She followed his
glance impassively.

“Oh,
that! That isn’t Rémy’s, it’s Bénezet’s. Where he got it there’s no asking.
I’ve often thought he stole it somewhere, but he’s close-mouthed, best not
question.”

Cadfael
digested that without comment. Why so needless a lie? It served no detectable
purpose that he could see, and that in itself was cause for further
consideration.

Perhaps
Bénezet thought it wise to attribute the ownership of so fine a possession to
his master, to avoid any curiosity as to how he had acquired it. Daalny had
just suggested as much. He took the matter a stage further, in a very casual
tone.

“He
takes no great care of it. He had left it in the barn at the Horse Fair all
this time since the flood. He fetched it back only this morning.”

This
time she turned a face suddenly intent, and her hands halted on the last
buckle. “He told you that? He spent half an hour cleaning and polishing that
bridle early this morning. It never left here, I’ve seen it a dozen times
since.”

Her
eyes were large, bright and sharp with speculation. Cadfael had no wish to
start her wondering too much; she was already more deeply involved than he
would have liked, and rash enough to surge into unwise action at this extreme,
when she was about to be swept away to Leicester, with nothing resolved and
nothing gained. Better by far keep her out of it, if that was any way possible.
But she was very quick; she had her teeth into this discrepancy already.
Cadfael shrugged, and said indifferently: “I must have misunderstood him. He
was along there in mid-morning, carrying it. I thought he’d been to reclaim it,
he was in the stable there. I took it for granted it was Rémy’s.”

“Well
you might,” she agreed. “I’ve wondered, myself, how he came by it. Somewhere in
Provence, most likely. But honestly? I doubt it.” The brilliance of her eyes
narrowed upon Cadfael’s face. She did not turn to glance at Bénezet, not yet.
“What was he doing at the Horse Fair?” Her tone was still casually curious, as
if neither question nor answer mattered very much, but the glitter in her eyes
denied it.

“Do
I know?” said Cadfael. “I was up in the loft when he came in. Maybe he was just
curious why the door was open.”

That
was a diversion she could not resist. Her eyes rounded eagerly, a little afraid
to hope for too much. “And what were you doing in the loft?”

“I
was looking for proof of what you told me,” said Cadfael. “And I found it. Did
you know that Tutilo forgot his breviary there after Compline?”

She
said: “No!” Almost soundlessly, on a soft, hopeful breath.

“He
borrowed mine, last night. He had no notion where he had lost his own, but I
thought of one place at least where it would be worthwhile looking for it. And
yes, it was there, and the place marked at Compline. It is hardly an
eyewitness, Daalny, but it is good evidence. And I am waiting to put it into
Hugh Beringar’s hands.”

“Will
it free him?” she asked in the same rapt whisper.

“So
far as Hugh is concerned, it well may. But Tutilo’s superior here is Herluin,
and he cannot be passed by.”

“Need
he ever know?” she asked fiercely.

“Not
the whole truth, if Hugh sees with my eyes. That there’s very fair proof the
boy never did murder, yes, that he’ll be told, but he need not know where you
were or what you did, the pair of you, that night.”

“We
did no wrong,” she said, exultant and scornful of a world where needs must
think evil, and where she knew of evil enough, but despised most of it and had
no interest in any of it. “Cannot the abbot overrule Herluin? This is his
domain, not Ramsey’s.”

“The
abbot will keep the Rule. He can no more detain the boy here and deprive Ramsey
than he could abandon one of his own. Only wait! Let’s see whether even Herluin
can be persuaded to open the door on the lad.” He did not go on to speculate on
what would happen then, though it did seem to him that Tutilo’s passionate
vocation had cooled to the point where it might slip out of sight and out of
mind by comparison with the charm of delivering Partholan’s queen from slavery.
Ah, well! Better take your hands from the ploughshare early and put them to
other decent use, than persist, and take to ploughing narrower and narrower
furrows until everything secular is anathema, and everything human doomed to
reprobation.

“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.”