"It was not for Ruald I begged it of the silversmith," said Sulien bluntly, "but for my own consolation. And as for showing it, and telling him how I got it, and where, I did not know until now that any shadow hung over him, nor that there was a dead woman, newly buried here now, who was held to be Generys. I have spoken with him only once since I came, and that was for no more than a few minutes on the way to Ma.s.s. He seemed to me wholly happy and content, why should I hurry to stir old memories? His coming here was pain as well as joy, I thought well to let his present joy alone. But now indeed he must know. It may be I was guided to bring back the ring, Father. I deliver it to you willingly. What I needed it has already done for me."
There was a brief pause, while the abbot brooded over all the implications for those present and those as yet uninvolved. Then he turned to Cadfael. "Brother will you carry my compliments to Hugh Beringar, and ask him to ride back with you and join us here? Leave word if you cannot find him at once. Until he has heard for himself, I think nothing should be said to any other, not even Brother Ruald. Sulien, you are no longer a brother of this house, but I hope you will remain as its guest until you have told your story over again, and in my presence."
Chapter Six.
HUGH WAS AT THE CASTLE, where Cadfael found him in the armoury, telling over the stores of steel, with the likelihood of a foray against the anarchy in Ess.e.x very much in mind. He had taken the omen seriously, and was bent on being ready at a day"s notice if the king should call. But Hugh"s provision for action was seldom wanting, and on the whole he was content with his preparations. He could have a respectable body of picked men on the road within hours when the summons came. There was no certainty that it would, to the sheriff of a shire so far removed from the devastated Fen country, but the possibility remained. Hugh"s sense of order and sanity was affronted by the very existence of Geoffrey de Mandeville and his like.
He greeted Cadfael with somewhat abstracted attention, and went on critically watching his armourer beating a sword into shape. He was giving only the fringes of his mind to the abbot"s pressing invitation, until Cadfael nudged him into sharp alertness by adding: "It has to do with the body we found in the Potter"s Field. You"ll find the case is changed."
That brought Hugh"s head round sharply enough. "How changed?"
"Come and hear it from the lad who changed it. It seems young Sulien Blount brought more than bad news back from the Fens with him. The abbot wants to hear him tell it again to you. If there"s a thread of significance in it he"s missed, he"s certain you"ll find it, and you can put your heads together afterwards, for it looks as if one road is closed to you. Get to horse and let"s be off."
But on the way back through the town and over the bridge into the Foregate he did impart one preliminary piece of news, by way of introduction to what was to follow. "Brother Sulien, it seems, has made up his mind to return to the world. You were right in your judgement, he was never suited to be a monk. He has come to the same conclusion, without wasting too much of his youth."
"And Radulfus agrees with him?" wondered Hugh.
"I think he was ahead of him. A good boy, and he did try his best, but he says himself he came into the Order for the wrong reasons. He"ll go back to the life he was meant for, now. You may have him in your garrison before all"s done, for if he"s quitting one vocation he"ll need another. He"s not the lad to lie idle on his brother"s lands."
"All the more," said Hugh, "as Eudo is not long married, so in a year or two there may be sons. No place there for a younger brother, with the line secured. I might do worse. He looks a likely youngster. Well made, and a good long reach, and he always shaped well on a horse."
"His mother will be glad to have him back, surely," Cadfael reflected. "She has small joy in her life, from what you told me; a son come home may do much for her."
The likely youngster was still closeted with the abbot when Hugh entered the parlour with Cadfael at his heels. The two seemed to be very easy together, but for a slight sense of tension in the way Sulien sat, very erect and braced, his shoulders flattened against the panelling of the wall. His part here was still only half done; he waited, alert and wide-eyed, to complete it.
"Sulien here," said the abbot, "has something of importance to tell you, I thought best you should hear it directly from him, for you may have questions which have not occurred to me."
That I doubt," said Hugh, seating himself where he could have the young man clear in the light from the window. It was a little past noon, and the brightest hour of an overcast day. "It was good of you to send for me so quickly. For I gather this has to do with the matter of the dead woman. Cadfael has said nothing beyond that. I am listening, Sulien. What is it you have to tell?"
Sulien told his story over again, more briefly than before, but in much the same words where the facts were concerned. There were no discrepancies, but neither was it phrased so exactly to pattern as to seem studied. He had a warm, brisk way with him, and words came readily. When it was done he sat back again with a sharp sigh, and ended: "So there can be no suspicion now against Brother Ruald. When did he ever have ado with any other woman but Generys? And Generys is alive and well. Whoever it is you have found, it cannot be she."
Hugh had the ring in his palm, the scored initials clear in the light. He sat looking down at it with a thoughtful frown. "It was your abbot commended you to take shelter with this silversmith?"
"It was. He was known for a good friend to the Benedictines of Ramsey."
"And his name? And where does his shop lie in the town?"
"His name is John Hinde, and the shop is in Priestgate, not far from the minster." The answers came readily, even eagerly.
"Well, Sulien, it seems you have delivered Ruald from all concern with this mystery and death, and robbed me of one suspect, if ever the man really became suspect in earnest. He was never a very likely malefactor, to tell the truth, but men are men-even monks are men-and there are very few of us who could not kill, given the occasion, the need, the anger and the solitude. It was possible! I am not sorry to see it demolished. It seems we must look elsewhere for a woman lost. And has Ruald yet been told of this?" he asked, looking up at the abbot.
"Not yet."
"Send for him now," said Hugh.
"Brother," said the abbot, turning to Cadfael, "will you find Ruald and ask him to come?"
Cadfael went on his errand with a thoughtful mind. For Hugh this deliverance meant a setback to the beginning, and a distraction from the king"s affairs at a time when he would much have preferred to be able to concentrate upon them. No doubt he had been pursuing a search for any other possible ident.i.ties for the dead woman, but there was no denying that the vanished Generys was the most obvious possibility. But now with this unexpected check, at least the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul could rest the more tranquilly. As for Ruald himself, he would be glad and grateful for the woman"s sake rather than his own. The wholeness of his entranced peace, so far in excess of what most fallible human brothers could achieve, was a perpetual marvel. For him whatever G.o.d decreed and did, for him or to him, even to his grief and humiliation, even to his life, was done well. Martyrdom would not have changed his mind.
Cadfael found him in the vaulted undercroft of the refectory, where Brother Matthew the cellarer had his most commodious stores. To him Ruald had been allotted, as a practical man whose skills were manual rather than scholarly or artistic. Summoned to the abbot"s parlour, he dusted his hands, abandoned his inventory, reported his errand and destination to Brother Matthew in his little office at the end of the south range, and followed Cadfael in simple, unquestioning obedience. It was not for him to ask or to wonder, though in his present circ.u.mstances, Cadfael reflected, he might well feel his heart sink a little at the sight of the secular authority closeted side by side with the monastic, and both with austerely grave faces, and their eyes fixed upon him. If the vision of this double tribunal waiting for his entry did shake his serenity on the threshold of the parlour, there was no sign of it in his bearing or countenance. He made his reverence placidly, and waited to be addressed. Behind him, Cadfael closed the door.
"I sent for you, Brother," said the abbot, "because something has come to light, something you may recognise."
Hugh held out the ring in his palm. "Do you know this, Ruald? Take it up, examine it."
It was hardly necessary, he had already opened his lips to answer at the mere sight of it in Hugh"s hand. But obediently he took it, and at once turned it to bring the light sidewise upon the entwined initials cut crudely within. He had not needed it as identification, he wanted and accepted it gratefully as a sign both of remembered accord and of hope for future reconciliation and forgiveness. Cadfael saw the faint quiver of warmth and promise momentarily dissolve the patient lines of the lean face.
"I know it well, my lord. It is my wife"s. I gave it to her before we married, in Wales, where the stone was found. How did it come here?"
"First let me be clear-you are certain this was hers? There cannot be another such?"
"Impossible. There could be other pairs having these initials, yes, but these I myself cut, and I am no engraver. I know every line, every irregularity, every fault in the work, I have seen the bright cuts dull and tarnish over the years. This I last saw on the hand of Generys. There is nothing more certain under the sun. Where is she? Has she come back? May I speak with her?"
"She is not here," said Hugh. "The ring was found in the shop of a jeweller in the city of Peterborough, and the jeweller testified that he had bought it from a woman only some ten days previously. The seller was in need of money to help her to leave that town for a safer place to live, seeing the anarchy that has broken out there in the Fens. He described her. It would seem that she was indeed the same who was formerly your wife."
The radiance of hope had made but a slow and guarded sunrise on Ruald"s plain middle-aged face, but by this time every shred of cloud was dispersed. He turned on Abbot Radulfus with such shining eagerness that the light from the window, breaking now into somewhat pale sunrays, seemed only the reflection of his joy.
"So she is not dead! She is alive and well! Father, may I question further? For this is wonderful!"
"Certainly you may," said the abbot. "And wonderful it is."
"My lord sheriff, how came the ring here, if it was bought and sold in Peterborough?"
"It was brought by one who recently came to this house from those parts. You see him here, Sulien Blount. You know him. He was sheltered overnight in his journey by the jeweller, and saw and knew the ring there in his shop. For old kindness," said Hugh with deliberation, "he wished to bring it with him, and so he has, and there you hold it in your hand."
Ruald had turned to look steadily and long at the young man standing mute and still, a little apart, as though he wished to withdraw himself from sight, and being unable to vanish in so small a room, at least hoped to escape too close observance by being motionless, and closing the shutters over his too transparent face and candid eyes. A strange and searching look it was that pa.s.sed between them, and no one moved or spoke to break its intensity. Cadfael heard within his own mind the questions that were not being asked: Why did you not show me the ring? If, for reasons I guess at, you were unwilling to do that, could you not at least have told me that you had had recent word of her, that she was alive and well? But all Ruald said, without turning away his eyes from Sulien"s face, was: "I cannot keep it. I have forsworn property. I thank G.o.d that I have seen it, and that he has pleased to keep Generys safe. I pray that he may have her in his care hereafter."
"Amen!" said Sulien, barely audibly. The sound was a mere sigh, but Cadfael saw his taut lips quiver and move.
"It is yours to give, Brother, if not to keep," said the abbot, watching the pair of them with shrewd eyes that weighed and considered, but refrained from judging. The boy had already confessed to him why he had obtained the ring, and why it was his intent to keep it. A small thing in itself, great in what it could accomplish, it had played its part, and was of no further significance. Unless, perhaps, in its disposal? "You may bestow it where you think fit," said Radulfus.
"If the lord sheriff has no further need of it," said Ruald, "I give it back to Sulien, who reclaimed it. He has brought me the best news I could have received, and that morsel of my peace of mind that even this house could not restore." He smiled suddenly, the plain, long face lighting up, and held out the ring to Sulien. The boy advanced a hand very slowly, almost reluctantly, to receive it. As they touched, the vivid colour rose in his cheeks in a fiery flush, and he turned his face haughtily away from the light to temper the betrayal.
So that is how the case goes, Cadfael thought, enlightened. No questions asked because none are needed. Ruald must have watched his lord"s younger son running in and out of his workshop and house almost since the boy was born, and seen him grow into the awkward pains of adolescence and the foreshadowing of manhood, and always close about the person of this mysterious and formidable woman, the stranger, who was no stranger to him, the one who kept her distance, but not from him, the being of whom every man said that she was very beautiful, but not for everyone was she also close and kind. Children make their way by right where others are not admitted. It touched her not at all, Sulien maintained, she never knew of it. But Ruald had known. No need now for the boy to labour his motives, or ask pardon for the means by which he defended what was precious to him.
"Very well," said Hugh briskly, "be it so. I have nothing further to ask. I am glad, Ruald, to see your mind set at rest. You, at least, need trouble no further over this matter, there remains no shadow of a threat to you or to this house, and I must look elsewhere. As I hear, Sulien, you have chosen to leave the Order. You will be at Longner for the present, should I need a word with you hereafter?"
"Yes," said Sulien, still a little stiff and defensive of his own dignity. "I shall be there when you want me."
Now I wonder, thought Cadfael, as the abbot dismissed both Ruald and Sulien with a brief motion of benediction, and they went out together, what trick of the mind caused the boy to use the word "when"? I should rather have expected "if you want me". Has he a premonition that some day, for some reason, more will be demanded of him?
"It"s plain he was in love with the woman," said Hugh, when the three of them were left alone. "It happens! Never forget his own mother has been ill some eight years, gradually wasting into the frail thing she is now. How old would this lad be when that began? Barely ten years. Though he was fond and welcome at Ruald"s croft long before that. A child dotes on a kind and handsome woman many innocent years, and suddenly finds he has a man"s stirrings in his body, and in his mind too. Then the one or the other wins the day. This boy, I fancy, would give his mind the mastery, set his love up on a pedestal-an altar, rather, if you"ll allow me the word, Father-and worship her in silence."
"So, he says, he did," agreed Radulfus drily. "She never knew of it. His words."
"I am inclined to believe it. You saw how he coloured like a peony when he realised Ruald could see clean through him. Was he never jealous of his prize, this Ruald? The world seems to be agreed she was a great beauty. Or is it simply that he was used to having the boy about the place, and knew him harmless?"
"Rather, from all accounts," Cadfael suggested seriously, "he knew his wife immovably loyal."
"Yet rumour says she told him she had a lover, at the last, when he was set on leaving her."
"Not only rumour says so," the abbot reminded them firmly. "He says so himself. On the last visit he made to her, with Brother Paul to confirm it, she told him she had a lover better worth loving, and all the tenderness she had ever had for him, her husband, he himself had destroyed."
"She said it," agreed Cadfael. "But was it true? Yet I recall she also spoke to the jeweller of herself and her man."
"Who"s to know?" Hugh threw up his hands. "She might well strike out at her husband with whatever came to hand, true or false, but she had no reason to lie to the silversmith. The one thing certain is that our dead woman is not Generys. And I can forget Ruald, and any other who might have had ado with Generys. I am looking for another woman, and another reason for murder."
"Yet it sticks in my craw," said Hugh, as he walked back towards the gatehouse with Cadfael at his side, "that he did not blurt it out the second they met that the woman was alive and well. Who had a better right to know it, even if he had turned monk, than her husband? And what news could be more urgent to tell, the instant the boy clapped eyes on him?"
"He did not then know anything about a dead woman, nor that Ruald was suspected of anything," Cadfael suggested helpfully, and was himself surprised at the tentative sound it had, even in his own ears.
"I grant it. But he did know, none better, that Ruald must have her always in his mind, wondering how she does, whether she lives or dies. The natural thing would have been to cry it out on sight: "No need to fret about Generys, she"s well enough." It was all he needed to know, and his contentment would have been complete."
"The boy was in love with her himself," Cadfael hazarded, no less experimentally. "Perhaps when it came to the point he grudged Ruald that satisfaction."
"Does he seem to you a grudging person?" demanded Hugh.
"Let"s say, then, his mind was still taken up with the sack of Ramsey and his escape from it. That was enough to put all lesser matters out of his mind."
"The reminder of the ring came after Ramsey," Hugh reminded him, "and was weighty enough to fill his mind then."
"True. And to tell the truth, I wonder about it myself. Who"s to account for any man"s reasoning under stress? What matters is the ring itself. She owned it; Ruald, who gave it to her, knew it instantly for hers. She sold it for her present needs. Whatever irregularities there may be in young Sulien"s nature and actions, he did bring the proof. Generys is alive, and Ruald is free of all possible blame. What more do we need to know?"
"Where to turn next," said Hugh ruefully.
"You have nothing more? What of the widow woman set up by Haughmond as tenant after Eudo made his gift to them?"
"I have seen her. She lives with her daughter in the town now, not far from the western bridge. She was there only a short while, for she had a fall, and her daughter"s man fetched her away and left the place empty. But she left all in good order, and never saw nor heard anything amiss while she was there, or any strangers drifting that way. It"s off the highways. But there have been tales of travelling folk bedding there at times, mainly during the fair. Eudo at Longner promised to ask all his people if ever they"d noticed things going on up there without leave, but I"ve heard nothing to the purpose from him yet."
"Had there been any rumours come to light there," said Cadfael reasonably, "Sulien would have brought them back with him, along with his own story."
"Then I must look further afield." He had had agents doing precisely that ever since the matter began, even though his own attention had certainly been, to some extent, distracted by the sudden alarming complication in the king"s affairs.
"We can at least set a limit to the time," Cadfael said consideringly. "While the widow was living there it seems highly unlikely others would be up to mischief about the place. They could not use it as a cheap lodging overnight, it is well off any highway, so a chance pa.s.serby is improbable, and a couple looking for a quiet place for a roll in the gra.s.s would hardly choose the one inhabited spot in a whole range of fields. Once the tenant was out of the place it was solitary enough for any furtive purpose, and before ever she was installed by the canons... What was the exact day when Generys walked away and left the cottage door wide and the ashes on the hearth?"
"The exact day, within three," said Hugh, halting at the open wicket in the gate, "no one knows. A cowman from Longner pa.s.sed along the river bank on the twenty-seventh day of June, and saw her in the garden. On the last day of June a neighbour from over the north side of the ridge-the nearest neighbours they had, and those best part of a mile away-came round on her way to the ferry. None too direct a way, for that matter, but I fancy she had a nose for gossip, and was after the latest news on a tasty scandal. She found the door open and the place empty and the hearth cold. After that no one saw Ruald"s wife again in these parts."
"And the charter that gave the field to Haughmond was drawn up and witnessed early in October. Which day? You were a witness."
"The seventh," said Hugh. "And the old smith"s widow moved in to take care of the place three days later. There was work to be done before it was fit, there"d been a bit of looting done by then. A cooking pot or so, and a brychan from the bed, and the doorlatch broken to let the thieves in. Oh, yes, there had been visitors in and out of there, but no great damage up to then. It was later they scoured the place clean of everything worth removing."
"So from the thirtieth of June to the tenth of October," Cadfael reckoned, pondering, "murder could well have been done up there, and the dead buried, and no one any the wiser. And when was it the old woman went away to her daughter in the town?"
"It was the winter drove her away," said Hugh. "About Christmas, in the frost, she had a fall. Lucky for her, she has a good fellow married to her girl, and when the hard weather began he kept a close eye on how she did, and when she was laid up helpless he fetched her away to the town to live with them. From that time the croft was left empty."
"So from the beginning of this year it is also true that things mortal could have been done up there, and no witness. And yet," said Cadfael, "I think, truly I think, she had been in the ground a year and more, and put there when the soil was workable quickly and easily, not in the frosts. From spring of this year? No, it is too short a time. Look further back, Hugh. Some time between the end of June and the tenth of October of last year, I think, this thing was done. Long enough ago for the soil to have settled, and the root growth to have thickened and matted through the seasons. And if there were vagabonds making use of the cottage in pa.s.sing, who was to go probing under the headland among the broom bushes? I have been thinking that whoever put her there foresaw that some day that ground might be broken for tillage, and laid her where her sleep should not be disturbed. A pace or two more cautious in the turn, and we should never have found her."
"I am tempted," admitted Hugh wryly, "to wish you never had. But yes, you found her. She lived, and she is dead, and there"s no escaping her, whoever she may be. And why it should be of so great import to restore her her name, and demand an account from whoever put her there in your field, I scarcely know, but there"ll be small rest for you or me until it"s done."
It was a well-known fact that all the gossip from the countryside around, in contrast to that which seethed merrily within the town itself, came first into the hospital of Saint Giles, the better half of a mile away along the Foregate, at the eastern rim of the suburb. Those who habitually frequented that benevolent shelter were the rootless population of the roads: beggars, wandering labourers hoping for work, pickpockets and petty thieves and tricksters determined, on the contrary, to avoid work, cripples and sick men dependent on charity, lepers in need of treatment. The single crop they gathered on their travels was news, and they used it as currency to enlist interest. Brother Oswin, in charge of the hospice under the nominal direction of an appointed layman who rarely came to visit from his own house in the Foregate, had grown used to the common traffic in and out, and could distinguish between the genuine poor and unfortunate and the small, pathetic rogues. The occasional able-bodied fake feigning some crippling disability was a rarity, but Oswin was developing an eye even for that source of trouble. He had been Cadfael"s helper in the herbarium for some time before graduating to his present service, and learned from him more skills than the mere mixing of lotions and ointments.
It was three days after Sulien"s revelation when Cadfael put together the medicaments Brother Oswin had sent to ask for, and set off with a full scrip along the Foregate to replenish the medicine cupboard at Saint Giles, a regular task which he undertook every second or third week, according to the need. With autumn now well advanced, the people of the roads would be thinking ahead to the winter weather and considering where they could find patronage and shelter through the worst of it. The number of derelicts had not yet risen, but all those on the move would be making their plans to survive. Cadfael went without haste along the highway, exchanging greetings at open house doors, and taking some abstracted pleasure in the contemplation of children playing in the fitful sunshine, accompanied by their constant camp-followers, the dogs of the Foregate. His mood was contemplative, in keeping with the autumnal air and the falling leaves. He had put away from him for the moment all thoughts of Hugh"s problem, and returned with slightly guilty zeal and devotion to the horarium of the monastic day and his own duties therein. Those small, gnawing doubts that inhabited the back of his mind were asleep, even if their sleep might be tenuous.
He reached the place where the road forked, and the long, low roof of the hospital rose beside the highway, beyond a gentle slope of gra.s.s and wattle fence, with the squat tower of its little church peering over all. Brother Oswin came out into the porch to meet him, as large, cheerful and exuberant as ever, the wiry curls of his tonsure bristling from the low branches of the orchard trees, and a basket of the late, hard little pears on his arm, the kind that would keep until Christmas. He had learned to control his own vigorous body and lively mind since he had first come to a.s.sist Cadfael in the herb-garden, no longer broke what he handled or fell over his own feet in his haste and ardour to do good. Indeed, since coming here to the hospital he had quite exceeded all Cadfael"s hopes. His big hands and strong arms were better adapted to lifting the sick and infirm and controlling the belligerent than to fashioning little tablets and rolling pills, but he was competent enough in administering the medicines Cadfael brought for him and had proved a sensible and cheerful nurse, never out of temper even with the most difficult and ungrateful of his patients.
They filled up the shelves of the medicine cupboard together, turned the key again upon its secrets, and went through into the hall. A fire was kept burning here, with November on the doorstep, and some of the guests too infirm to move about freely. Some would never leave this place until they were carried into the churchyard for burial. The able-bodied were out in the orchard, gleaning the latest of the harvest.
"We have a new inmate," said Oswin. "It would be well if you would take a look at him, and make sure I am using the right treatment. A foul old man, it must be said, and foul-mouthed, he came in so verminous I have him bedded in a corner of the barn, away from the rest. Even now that he"s cleaned and new-clothed, I think better he should be kept apart. His sores may infect others. His malignancy would certainly do harm, he has a grudge against the whole world."
"The whole world has probably done enough to him to earn it," Cadfael allowed ruefully, "but a pity to take it out on some even worse off than himself. There will always be the haters among us. Where did you get this one?"
"He came limping in four days ago. From his story, he"s been sleeping rough around the forest villages, begging his food where he could, and as like as not stealing it when charity ran short. He says he got a few bits of work to do here and there during the fair, but I doubt it was picking pockets on his own account, for by the look of him no respectable merchant would care to give him work. Come and see!"
The hospice barn was a commodious and even comfortable place, warm with the fragrance of the summer"s hay and the ripe scent of stored apples. The foul old man, undoubtedly less foul in body than when he came, had his truckle bed installed in the most draught-proof corner, and was sitting hunched upon his straw pallet like a roosting bird, s.h.a.ggy grey head sunk into once ma.s.sive shoulders. By the malignant scowl with which he greeted his visitors, there had been no great change in the foulness of his temper. His face was shrunken and lined into a mask of suspicion and despite, and out of the pitted scars of half-healed sores small, malevolent, knowing eyes glittered up at them. The gown they had put on him was over-large for a body diminishing with age, and had been deliberately chosen, Cadfael thought, to lie loosely and avoid friction upon the sores that continued down his wrinkled throat and shoulders. A piece of linen cloth had been laid between to ease the touch of wool.
"The infection is somewhat improved," said Oswin softly into Cadfael"s ear. And to the old man, as they approached: "Well, uncle, how do you feel this fine morning?"
The sharp old eyes looked up at them sidelong, lingering upon Cadfael. "None the better," said a voice unexpectedly full and robust to emerge from such a tattered sh.e.l.l, "for seeing two of you instead of one." He shifted closer on the edge of his bed, peering curiously. "I know you," he said, and grinned as though the realisation gave him, perhaps not pleasure, but an advantage over a possible opponent.
"Now you suggest it," agreed Cadfael, viewing the raised face with equal attention, "I think I also should recall seeing you somewhere. But if so, it was in better case. Turn your face to the light here, so!" It was the outbreak of sores he was studying, but he took in perforce the lines of the face, and the man"s eyes, yellowish and bright in their nests of wrinkles, watched him steadily all the while he was examining the broken rash. Round the edges of the infection showed the faint, deformed crust of sores newly healed. "Why do you complain of us, when you are warm and fed here, and Brother Oswin has done n.o.bly for you? Your case is getting better, and well you know it. If you have patience for two or three weeks more, you can be rid of this trouble."
"And then you"ll throw me out of here," grumbled the vigorous voice bitterly. "I know the way of it! That"s my lot in this world. Mend me and then cast me out to fester and rot again. Wherever I go it"s the same. If I find a bit of a roof to shelter me through the night, some wretch comes and kicks me out of it to take it for himself."
"They can hardly do that here," Cadfael pointed out placidly, restoring the protective linen to its place round the scrawny neck. "Brother Oswin will see to that. You let him cure you, and give no thought to where you"ll lie or what you"ll eat until you"re clean. After that it will be time to think on such matters."
"Fine talk, but it will end the same. I never have any luck. All very well for you," he muttered, glowering up at Cadfael, "handing out crumbs in alms at your gatehouse, when you have plenty, and a sound roof over you, and good dry beds, and then telling G.o.d how pious you are. Much you care where us poor souls lay our heads that same night."
"So that"s where I saw you," said Cadfael, enlightened. "On the eve of the fair."
"And where I saw you, too. And what did I get out of it? Bread and broth and a farthing to spend."
"And spent it on ale," Cadfael guessed mildly, and smiled. "And where did you lay your head that night? And all the nights of the fair? We had as poor as you snug enough in one of our barns."
"I"d as soon not lie inside your walls. Besides," he said grudgingly, "I knew of a place, not too far, a cottage, n.o.body living in it. I was there the last year, until that red-baked devil of a pedlar came with his wench and kicked me out of it. And where did I end? Under a hedge in the next field. Would he let me have even a corner by the kiln? Not he, he wanted the place to himself for his own cantrips with his wench. And then they fought like wild cats most nights, for I heard them at it." He subsided into morose mutterings, oblivious of Cadfael"s sudden intent silence. "But I got it this year. For what it was worth! Small use it will be now, falling to pieces as it is. Whatever I touch rots."
"This cottage," said Cadfael slowly, "that had also a kiln-where is it?"
"Across the river from here, close by Longner. There"s no one working there now. Wrack and ruin!"
"And you spent the nights of the fair there this year?"
"It rains in now," said the old man ruefully. "Last year it was all sound and good, I thought to do well there. But that"s my lot, always shoved out like a stray dog, to shiver under a hedge."