The Potter's Field (10 page)

“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 rites—the 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His voice was level and almost distant, as though all his thoughts had already grappled with the grim truth of it, and withdrawn deep into his being, to contain and conceal any immediate consideration of its full meaning.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.

“Father,” he said directly. “I am here to ask your leave to go and visit my family and my home. It is only fair that I should be equally open to influences from within and without.”

“I thought,” said Radulfus mildly, “that you might be here to tell me that your trouble is resolved, and your mind made up. You have that look about you. It seems I am previous.”

“No, Father, I am not yet sure. And I would not offer myself afresh until I am sure.”

“So you want to breathe the air at Longner before you stake your life, and allow household and kin and kind to speak to you, as our life here has spoken. I would not have it otherwise,” said the abbot. “Certainly you may visit. Go freely. Better, sleep again at Longner, think well upon all you stand to gain there, and all you stand to lose. You may need even more time. When you are ready, when you are certain, then come and tell me which way you have chosen.”

“I will, Father,” said Sulien. The tone was the one he had learned to take for granted in the year and more of his novitiate in Ramsey, submissive, dutiful and reverent, but the disconcerting eyes were fixed on some distant aim visible only to himself, or so it seemed to the abbot, who was as well versed in reading the monastic face as Sulien was in withdrawing behind it.

“Go then, at once if you wish.” He considered how long a journey afoot this young man had recently had to make, and added a concession. “Take a mule from the stable, if you intend to leave now. The daylight will see you there if you ride. And tell Brother Cadfael you have leave to stay until tomorrow.”

“I will, Father!” Sulien made his reverence and departed with a purposeful alacrity which Radulfus observed with some amusement and some regret. The boy would have been well worth keeping, if that had truly been his bent, but Radulfus was beginning to judge that he had already lost him. He had been home once before, since electing for the cloister, to bring home his father's body for burial after the rout of Wilton, had stayed several days on that occasion, and still chosen to return to his vocation. He had had seven months since then to reconsider, and this sudden urge now to visit Longner, with no unavoidable filial duty this time to reinforce it, seemed to the abbot significant evidence of a decision as good as made.

Cadfael was crossing the court to enter the church for Vespers when Sulien accosted him with the news.

“Very natural,” said Cadfael heartily, “that you should want to see your mother and your brother, too. Go with all our goodwill and, whatever you decide, God bless the choice.”

His expectation, however, as he watched the boy ride out at the gatehouse, was the same that Radulfus had in mind. Sulien Blount was not, on the face of it, cut out for the monastic life, however hard he had tried to believe in his misguided choice. A night at home now, in his own bed and with his kin around him, would settle the matter.

Which conclusion left a very pertinent question twitching all through Vespers in Cadfael's mind. What could possibly have driven the boy to make for the cloister in the first place?

*

Sulien came back next day in time for Mass, very solemn of countenance and resolute of bearing, for some reason looking years nearer to a man's full maturity than when he had arrived from horrors and hardships, endured with all a man's force and determination. A youth, resilient but vulnerable, had spent two days in Cadfael's company; a man, serious and purposeful, returned from Longner to approach him after Mass. He was still wearing the habit, but his absurd tonsure, the crest of dark gold curls within the overgrown ring of darker brown hair, created an incongruous appearance of mockery, just when his face was at its gravest. High time, thought Cadfael, observing him with the beginning of affection, for this one to go back where he belongs.

“I am going to see Father Abbot,” said Sulien directly.

“So I supposed,” agreed Cadfael.

“Will you come with me?”

“Is that needful? What I feel sure you have to say is between you and your superior, but I do not think,” Cadfael allowed, “that he will be surprised.”

“There is something more I have to tell him,” said Sulien, unsmiling. “You were there when first I came, and you were the messenger he sent to repeat all the news I brought to the lord sheriff. I know from my brother that you have always access to Hugh Beringar's ear, and I know now what earlier I did not know. I know what happened when the ploughing began, I know what was found in the Potter's Field. I know what everyone is thinking and saying, but I know it cannot be true. Come with me to Abbot Radulfus. I would like you to be by as a witness still. And I think he may need a messenger, as he did before.”

His manner was so urgent and his demand so incisive that Cadfael shrugged off immediate enquiry. “As you and he wish, then. Come!”

They were admitted to the abbot's parlour without question. No doubt Radulfus had been expecting Sulien to seek an audience as soon as Mass was over. If it surprised him to find the boy bringing a sponsor with him, whether as advocate to defend his decision, or in mere meticulous duty as the mentor to whom he had been assigned in his probation, he did not allow it to show in face or voice.

“Well, my son? I hope you found all well at Longner? Has it helped you to find your way?”

“Yes, Father.” Sulien stood before him a little stiffly, his direct stare very bright and solemn in a pale face. “I come to ask your permission to leave the Order and go back to the world.”

“That is your considered choice?” said the abbot in the same mild voice. “This time you are in no doubt?”

“No doubt, Father. I was at fault when I asked admission. I know that now. I left duties behind, to go in search of my own peace. You said, Father, that this must be my own decision.”

“I say it still,” said the abbot. “You will hear no reproach from me. You are still young, but a good year older than when you sought refuge within the cloister, and I think wiser. It is far better to do whole-hearted service in another field than remain half-hearted and doubting within the Order. I see you did not yet put off the habit,” he said, and smiled.

“No, Father!” Sulien's stiff young dignity was a little affronted at the suggestion. “How could I, until I have your leave? Until you release me I am not free.”

“I do release you. I would have been glad of you, if you had chosen to stay, but I believe that for you it is better as it is, and the world may yet be glad of you. Go, with my leave and blessing, and serve where your heart is.”

He had turned a little towards his desk, where more mundane matters waited for his attention, conceiving that the audience was over, though without any sign of haste or dismissal: but Sulien held his ground, and the intensity of his gaze checked the abbot's movement, and made him look again, and more sharply, at the son he had just set free.

“There is something more you have to ask of us? Our prayers you shall certainly have.”

“Father,” said Sulien, the old address coming naturally to his lips, “now that my own trouble is over, I find I have blundered into a great web of other men's troubles. At Longner my brother has told me what was spared me here, whether by chance or design. I have learned that when ploughing began on the field my father granted to Haughmond last year, and Haughmond exchanged for more convenient land with this house two months ago now, the coulter turned up a woman's body, buried there some while since. But not so long since that the manner, the time, the cause of her death can go unquestioned. They are saying everywhere that this was Brother Ruald's wife, whom he left to enter the Order.”