Holy Thief (19 page)

He
did not keep a watch on her; there was no necessity, and in his own mind he was
almost convinced that nothing would happen. Her own position was so vulnerable
that she would not venture. So the day passed normally, with the usual ritual
of work and reading, study and prayer punctuated by the regular round of the
hours. Cadfael went about his work all the more assiduously because a part of
his mind was elsewhere, and he felt its absence as guilt, even though his
concern was with a serious matter of justice, guilt and innocence. Tutilo must
somehow be extricated from such opprobrium as he had not earned, no matter what
penalties he might deserve for his real offences. Here in the enclave,
imprisonment was also safety from any secular threat; the Church would look
after its own, even its delinquents. Once outside, unless cleared of all
suspicion, he would be a fugitive, liable to all the rigours of the law, and the
very act of flight would be evidence against him. No, here he must remain until
he could come forth vindicated.

It
was almost time for Compline when Cadfael came from the gardens after his last
round of the evening, and saw horsemen riding in at the gate. Sulien Blount, on
a piebald gelding, leading a brown cob on a rein, saddled ready for riding, and
after him two grooms in attendance. At this hour, in twilight, an unexpected
invasion. Cadfael went to meet them as Sulien lighted down to speak hurriedly to
the porter. Only some matter of great urgency could have brought messengers
from Longner so late.

“Sulien,
what is it? What brings you here at this hour?”

Sulien
swung round to him gratefully. “Cadfael, I have a request to make of the abbot.
Or we may need the good word of this sub-prior from Ramsey, no less... My
mother asks for that young musician of his, Tutilo, the one who has played and
sung to her before, and helped her to sleep. She took kindly to him, and he to
her. This time it will be a long sleep, Cadfael. She can’t last the night
through. And there’s something she wants and needs to do... I have not
questioned. Neither would you, if you could see her...”

“The
lad you want is under lock and key,” said Cadfael, dismayed. “He’s under
suspicion of felonies since the lady sent for him, two nights ago. Is she so
near her end? The abbot can scarcely let him out to her except with guarantees
for his return.”

“I
know it,” said Sulien. “Hugh Beringar has been with us, I know how things
stand. But under escort... You see we’ll keep good hold of him, and bring him
back to you bound, if need be. At least ask! Tell Radulfus it is her last
request of him. Death’s mercy has held off all too long, but now I swear to you
this is ending. He knows all her story, he’ll listen!”

“Wait,”
said Cadfael, “and I will go and ask.”

“But,
Cadfael... two nights ago? No, we never sent for him two nights ago.”

Well,
there was no great surprise there. The possibility had been at the back of
Cadfael’s mind for some time. No, it had been too apt, too opportune. He had
found out what awaited him, and removed himself from the scene long enough, he
had hoped, to escape the judgement. It made no difference now. “No, no matter,
that’s understood,” he said. “Wait here for me!”

Abbot
Radulfus was alone in his panelled parlour. He listened to this late embassage
with drawn brows, and eyes looking inward. And having heard, he said sombrely:
“It is high time for her. How can she be denied? You say they have guards
enough to keep him safe? Yes, let him go, “

“And
Father Herluin? Should I ask his leave also?”

“No.
Tutilo is within my walls and in my charge. I give him leave. Go yourself,
Cadfael, and release him to them. If time is so short for her, waste none of
it.”

Cadfael
returned in haste to the gatehouse. “He will come. We have the abbot’s leave.
Wait, and I’ll bring the boy.”

It
scarcely surprised him to find, when he plucked the key from its nail in the
gatehouse, that the nail beside it was also vacant. Everything was happening
now with a distant, dreamlike certainty. Daalny had acted, after all; she must
have taken the second key during Vespers, from the nail where at noon she had
watched the porter hang the first one, but she had had to wait for
near-darkness before using it. Now would be her favoured time, now when the
brothers would be gathering in the church for Compline. Cadfael left the
messengers from Longner waiting uneasily within the gate, and went hurrying
round the corner of the schoolroom to the penitential cells beyond, where
deeper shadows were already filling the narrow passage to the wicket in the
enclave wall, and the mill and the pool beyond.

And
she was there. He was aware of her at once, though she was only a slender
additional shadow pressed close within the deep doorway of the cell. He heard
the key grating ineffectively in the wards of the lock it did not fit, and her
vexed, angry breathing as she wrestled to make it enter where it would not go.
He heard her stamp her foot in frustrated rage, and grit her teeth, too intent
to become aware of his approach until he reached an arm to put her aside, quite
gently.

“No
use, child!” he said. “Let me!”

She
uttered a muted cry of despair, and plucked herself furiously backward out of
his grasp. There was no sound from within the cell, though the prisoner’s
little lamp was lighted, its faint glow showed at the high, barred window.

“Wait,
now, wait!” said Cadfael. “You have a message to deliver here, and so have I.
Let’s be about it.” He stooped to pick up the wrong key, which had been jerked
out of the lock and out of her hand when she started away. “Come, and I’ll let
you in.”

The
right key turned sweetly in the heavy lock, and Cadfael opened the door. Tutilo
was standing fronting them, erect and rigid, his face a narrow, pale flame, his
amber eyes wide and wild. He had known nothing of her plans, he did not know
now what to expect, why this confining door should ever have been opened now, at
this end of the day, after all permitted visits were over.

“Say
what you came to say to him,” said Cadfael. “But briefly. Waste no time, for I
have none to waste, and neither has he.”

Daalny
stood tense and at a loss far one moment, before she flung herself bodily into
the open doorway, as though she feared the door might be slammed again before
she could prevent, though Cadfael made no move. Tutilo stood staring in
bewilderment from one of them to the other, without understanding, almost
without recognition.

“Tutilo,”
she said, low-voiced and urgent, “come away now. Through the wicket here, and
you’re free. No one will see you, once outside the walls. They’re all at
Compline. Go, quickly, while there’s time. Go west into Wales. Don’t wait here
to be made a scapegoat, go, now... quickly!”

Tutilo
came to life with a shudder and a start, golden flames kindling in his eyes.
“Free? What have you done? Daalny, they’ll only turn on you...” He turned to
stare at Cadfael, braced and quivering, unsure whether this was friend or enemy
facing him. “I do not understand!”

“That
is what she came to say to you,” said Cadfael. “I have a message for you, too.
Sulien Blount is here with a horse for you, and begs that you will come to his
mother, now, at once, for the Lady Donata is dying, and is asking to see you
again, and hear you, before she dies.”

Tutilo
stiffened into marble stillness. The yellow flames darkened and softened into
the pure glow of a steady fire. His lips moved, saying her name silently:
“Donata?”

“Go,
now!” Daalny ordered, past anger now that the contest was joined and could not
be evaded. “I have dared this for you, how dare you now cast it in my face? Go,
while there’s time. He is one and we are two. He cannot prevent!”

“I
would not prevent,” said Cadfael. “The choice is his to make.”

“Dying?”
said Tutilo, finding a voice clear, quiet and grieving. “Truly, she is dying?”

“And
asking for you,” said Cadfael. “As you said she did two nights ago. But tonight
it is true, and tonight will be the last time.”

“You
have heard,” said Daalny, smouldering but still. “The door is open. He says he
will not prevent. Choose, then! I have done.”

Tutilo
did not seem to hear her. “I used her!” he said, lamentably shaken. And to
Cadfael he said doubtfully: “And Herluin lets me go?”

“Not
Herluin, but the abbot lets you go. On your honour to return, and under
escort.”

Tutilo
took Daalny suddenly between his hands, with grieving gentleness, and moved her
aside from the doorway. He raised a hand with abrupt, convulsive passion and stroked
her cheek, long fingers smoothing eloquently from temple to chin in a gesture
of helpless apology.

“She
wants me,” he said softly. “I must go to her.”

Chapter Eight

DAALNY
HAD DISCARDED at once her anger and her pleading as soon as the choice was
made, and made in such a fashion that she knew it could not be changed. She
followed to the corner of the schoolroom, and there stood watching in silence
as Tutilo mounted, and the little cavalcade filed out at the gate and turned along
the Foregate. The broader track from the Horse Fair was better for riding; he
would not have to pass by on the narrow path where he had stumbled over
Aldhelm’s body.

The
bell for Compline rang, the time she had set herself for hounding him out at
the wicket, into a world he was, perhaps, already beginning to regret
surrendering, but which he might have found none too hospitable to a runaway
Benedictine novice. Better, at all costs, however, or so she had reasoned, to
put twenty miles and a border between him and a hanging. Now she stood
thoughtful, with the chime of the bell in her ears, and wondered. And when
Cadfael came slowly back to her across the empty court, she stood in his way
great-eyed, fronting him gravely as if she would penetrate into the most remote
recesses of his mind.

“You
do not believe it of him, either,” she said with certainty. “You know he never
harmed this poor shepherd lad. Would you really have stood by and let him go
free?”

“If
he had so chosen,” said Cadfael, “yes. But I knew he would not. The choice was
his. He made it. And now I am going to Compline.”

“I’ll
wait in your workshop,” said Daalny. “I must talk to you. Now that I’m sure,
now I will tell you everything I know. Even if none of it is proof of anything,
yet you may see something there that I have not seen. He has need of more wits
than mine, and two who will stand by him is better than one.”

“I
wonder, now,” said Cadfael, studying her thin, bright, resolute face, “whether
you would be wanting that young man for yourself, or is this pure disinterested
kindness?” She looked at him, and slowly smiled. “Well, I’ll come,” he said. “I
need a second wit, too. If it’s cold within, you may use the bellows on my
brazier. I have turfs enough there to damp it down again before we leave it.”

In
the close, timber-scented air of the hut, with the herbs rustling overhead in
the rising warmth from the brazier, she sat leaning forward to the glow, the
light gilding her high cheekbones and the broad sweep of brow beneath the
curling black hair.

“You
know now,” she said, “that he was not sent for to Longner that night. It was a
tale that could be believed, but what he wanted was to have a reason to be
somewhere else, not to be here when the shepherd came. That would not have been
the end of it, but it would have put off the worst, and Tutilo seldom looks
beyond the day. If he could have evaded meeting the poor man for even a few
days, this squabble over the saint’s bones would have been settled, one way or
another, and Herluin would have been off on his travels, and taken Tutilo with
him. Not that that promises him much of a life,” she added, jutting a doubtful
lip, “now he’s getting over his saintliness. If the biblical fates go against
him, Herluin will take all the vexation and shame out on Tutilo, with usury.
You know it as well as I do. These monastics, they are what they are born, only
with a vengeance. If they come into the world hard and cold, they end harder
and colder, if they come generous and sweet, they grow ever sweeter and more generous.
All one or all the other. And just when Tutilo is beginning to wake up to where
he belongs, and what he has it in him to be,” she said vehemently. “Well, so it
was. He lied about Longner to be out of here all the evening long. Now he owes
her a debt, and goes to pay it.”

“There
is more than a debt in it,” said Cadfael. “That lady tamed him the first time
he set eyes on her. He would have gone to her no matter what lure you could
have put in the other scale. And what you are telling me is that he knew very
well Aldhelm was to come here that night. How did he know? It never was made
known to the brothers. Only the abbot and I knew, though he may have felt that
he must tell Prior Robert.”

“He
knew,” she said simply, “because I told him.”

“And
how did you know?”

She
looked up sharply, stung into alert attention. “Yes, it’s true, few people
knew. It was quite by chance. Bénezet overheard Prior Robert and Brother Jerome
talking about it, and he came and told me. He knew I should warn Tutilo, I
think he meant me to. He knew,” said Daalny, “that I liked Tutilo.”