Monk's Hood (21 page)

“You
see, Mark, what this means? From what you say, this vial was either thrown from
the window of the inner room, or else someone walked along that path and threw
it into the pond. And neither of those things could Edwin have done. He might,
as they suppose, have halted for a moment in the kitchen, but he certainly did not
go along the path by the pond before making for the bridge, or Aelfric would
have overtaken him. No, he would have been ahead of him, or met
him
at the gate! Nor did he have the opportunity, at any time afterwards, to
dispose of the vial there. He hid with his bitter mood until Edwy found him,
and from then on they were both in hiding until they came to me. This small
thing, Mark, is proof that Edwin is as clear of guilt as you or I.”

“But
it does not prove who the guilty man is,” said Mark.

“It
does not. But if the bottle was indeed thrown from the window of that inner
room, then it was done long after the death, for I doubt if anyone was alone in
there for a moment until after the sergeant had come and gone. And if the one
responsible carried this somewhere on him all that time, as ill-stoppered as it
is now, then the marks of it will be on him. He might try to scrub the stain
away, but it will not be easily removed. And who can afford to discard cotte or
gown? No, the signs will be there to be found.”

“But
what if it was someone else, not of the household, who did the deed, and flung
the vial from the pathway? Once you did wonder, about the cook and the
scullions…

“I
won’t say it’s impossible. But is it likely? From the path a man could make
very sure the vial went into the mid-current and the deep of the pool, and even
if it did not sink—though he would have had time in that case to ensure that it
did!—it would be carried away back to the brook and the river. But you see it
fell short, and lay for us to find.”

“What
must we do now?” asked Brother Mark, roused and ready.

“We
must go to Vespers, my son, or we shall be late. And tomorrow we must get you,
and this witness with you, to Hugh Beringar in Shrewsbury.”

The
lay contingent at Vespers was always thin, but never quite absent. That evening
Martin Bellecote had come down out of the town to give a word of hearty thanks
first to God, and then to Cadfael, for his son’s safe return. After the service
ended he waited in the cloister for the brothers to emerge, and came to meet
Cadfael at the south door.

“Brother,
it’s to you we owe it that the lad’s home again, if it is with a flea in his
ear, and not lying in some den in the castle for his pains.”

“Not
to me, for I could not free him. It was Hugh Beringar who saw fit to send him
home. And take my word, in all that may happen you can rely on Beringar for a
decent, fair-minded man who’ll not tolerate injustice. In any encounter with
him, tell him the truth.”

Bellecote
smiled, but wryly. “Truth, but not all the truth, even to him—though he showed
generous indeed to my boy, I grant you. But until the other one’s as safe as
Edwy, I keep my own counsel on where he is. But to you, brother…”

“No,”
said Cadfael quickly, “not to me, either though soon, I hope, there may be no
reason left for hiding him. But that time’s not yet. Is all well, then, with
your own family? And Edwy none the worse?”

“Never
a whit the worse. Without a bruise or two he’d have valued his adventure less.
It was all his own devising. But it’s caused him to draw in his horns for a
while. I never knew him so biddable before, and that’s no bad thing. He’s
working with more zeal than he commonly shows. Not that we’re overburdened with
work, this close to the feast, but wanting Edwin, and now Meurig’s gone to keep
Christmas with his kin, I’ve enough on hand to keep my scamp busy.”

“So
Meurig goes to his own people, does he?”

“Regularly
for Christmas and Easter. He has cousins and an uncle or so up in the borders.
He’ll be back before the year ends. He sets store by his own folk, does
Meurig.”

Yes,
so he had said on the day Cadfael first encountered him. “My kinship is my
mother’s kinship, I go with my own. My father was not a Welshman.” Naturally he
would want to go home for the feast.

“May
we all be at peace for the Lord’s nativity!” said Cadfael, with heartier
optimism since the discovery of the small witness now lying on a shelf in his
workshop.

“Amen
to that, brother! And I and my household thank you for your stout aid, and if
ever you need ours, you have but to say.”

Martin
Bellecote went back to his shop with duty done, and Brother Cadfael and Brother
Mark went to supper with duty still to be done.

“I’ll
go early into the town,” said Brother Mark, earnestly whispering in Cadfael’s ear
in a corner of the chapter-house, during some very lame readings in the Latin
by Brother Francis, after the meal. “I’ll absent myself from Prime, what does
it matter if I incur penance?”

“You
will not,” Brother Cadfael whispered back firmly. “You’ll wait until after
dinner, when you are freed to your own work, as this will truly be legitimate
work for you, the best you could be about. I will not have you flout any part
of the rule.”

“As
you would not dream of doing, of course!” breathed Mark, and his plain,
diffident face brightened beautifully into a grin he might have borrowed from
Edwin or Edwy.

“For
no reason but matter of life and death. And owning my fault! And you are not
me, and should not be copying my sins. It will be all the same, after dinner or
before,” he said reassuringly. “You’ll ask for Hugh Beringar—no one else, mind,
I would not be sure of any other as I am of him. Take him and show him where
you found the vial, and I think Edwin’s family will soon be able to call him
home again.”

Their
planning was largely vain. The next morning’s chapter undid such arrangements
as they had made, and changed everything.

Brother
Richard the sub-prior rose, before the minor matters of business were dealt
with, to say that he had an item of some urgency, for which he begged the
prior’s attention.

“Brother
Cellarer has received a messenger from our sheepfold near Rhydycroesau, by
Oswestry. Lay Brother Barnabas is fallen ill with a bad chest, and is in fever,
and Brother Simon is left to take care of all the flock there alone. But more
than this, he is doubtful of his skill to tend the sick brother successfully,
and asks, if it’s possible, that someone of more knowledge should come to help
him for a while.”

“I
have always thought,” said Prior Robert, frowning, “that we should have more
than two men there. We run two hundred sheep on those hills, and it is a remote
place. But
how did Brother Simon manage to send word, since he
is the only able man left there?”

“Why,
he took advantage of the fortunate circumstances that our steward is now in
charge at the manor of Mallilie. It seems it is only a few miles from
Rhydycroesau. Brother Simon rode there and asked that word be sent, and a groom
was despatched at once. No time has been lost, if we can send a helper today.”

The
mention of Mallilie had caused the prior to prick up his ears. It had also made
Cadfael start out of his own preoccupations, since this so clearly had a
bearing on the very problems he was pondering. So Mallilie was but a few short
miles from the abbey sheepfolds near Oswestry! He had never stopped to consider
that the exact location of the manor might have any significance, and this
abrupt enlightenment started a number of mental hares out of their forms in
bewildering flight.

“Clearly
we must do so,” said Robert, and almost visibly reminded himself that the
errand could with propriety be laid upon the abbey’s most skilled herbalist and
apothecary, which would effectively remove him not only from all contact with
the Widow Bonel, but also from his meddlesome insistence on probing the
unfortunate events which had made her a widow. The prior turned his silver,
stately head and looked directly at Brother Cadfael, something he normally
preferred not to do. The same considerations had dawned upon Cadfael, with the
same pleasing effect. If I had devised this myself, he was thinking, it could
not have been more apposite. Now young Mark can leave the errand to me, and
remain here blameless.

“Brother
Cadfael, it would seem this is a duty for you, who are accomplished in
medicines. Can you at once put together all such preparations as may be needed
for our sick brother?”

“I
can and will, Father,” said Cadfael, so heartily that for a moment Prior Robert
recoiled into doubt of his own wisdom and penetration. Why should the man be so
happy at the
prospect of a long winter ride, and hard work
being both doctor and shepherd at the end of it? When he had been so
assiduously poking his nose into the affairs of the Bonel household here? But the
distance remained a guarantee; from Rhydycroesau he would be in no position to
meddle further.

“I
trust it may not be for very long. We shall say prayers for Brother Barnabas,
that he may rally and thrive. You can again send word by the grooms at Mallilie,
should there be need. And is your novice Mark well grounded, enough for minor
ailments in your absence? In cases of serious illness we may call on the
physician.”

“Brother
Mark is devoted and able,” said Cadfael, with almost paternal pride, “and can
be trusted absolutely, for if he feels himself in need of better counsel he
will say so with modesty. And he has a good supply of all those remedies that
may most be needed at this season. We have taken pains to provide against an
ill winter.”

“That’s
very well. Then in view of the need, you may leave chapter and make ready. Take
a good mule from the stables, and have food with you for the way, and make sure
you’re well provided for such an illness as Brother Barnabas seems to have
contracted. If there is any case in the infirmary you feel you should visit
before leaving, do so. Brother Mark shall be sent to you, you may have advice
for him before you go.”

Brother
Cadfael went out from the chapter-house and left them to their routine affairs.
God is still looking our way, he thought, bustling blithely into his workshop
and raking the shelves for all that he needed. Medicines for throat, chest,
head, an unguent for rubbing into the chest, goose-grease and strong herbs. The
rest was warmth and care and proper food. They had hens at Rhydycroesau, and
their own good milch cow, fed through the winter. And last, a thing he need
take only into Shrewsbury, the little green glass vial, still wrapped in its
napkin.

Brother
Mark came with a rush and out of breath, sent from his Latin studies under
Brother Paul. “They say you’re
going away, and I’m to be
custodian here. Oh, Cadfael, how shall I manage without you? And what of Hugh
Beringar, and this proof we have for him?”

“Leave
that to me now,” said Cadfael. “To go to Rhydycroesau one must go through the
town, I’ll bear it to the castle myself. You pay attention only to what you’ve
learned from me, for I know how well it’s been learned, and I shall be here
with you in spirit every moment. Imagine that you ask me, and you’ll find the
answer.” He had a jar of unguent in one hand, he reached the other with absent
affection and patted the young, smooth tonsure ringed by rough, thick, spiky
straw-coloured hair. “It’s only for a short while, we’ll have Brother Barnabas
on his feet in no time. And listen, child dear, the manor of Mallilie, I find,
is but a short way from where I shall be, and it seems to me that the answer to
what we need to know may be there, and not here.”

“Do
you think so?” said Brother Mark hopefully, forgetting his own anxieties.

“I
do, and I have a thought—no more than the gleam of an idea, that they loosed in
me at chapter… Now make yourself useful! Go and bespeak me a good mule at the
stables, and see all these things into the saddlebags for me. I have an errand
to the infirmary before I leave.”

Brother
Rhys was in his privileged place by the fire, hunched in his chair in a
contented half-doze, but awake enough to open one eye pretty sharply at every
movement and word around him. He was in the mood to welcome a visitor, and
brightened into something approaching animation when Cadfael told him that he
was bound for the north-west of the county, to the sheepfolds of Rhydycroesau.

“Your
own countryside, brother! Shall I carry your greetings to the borderland? You’ll
still have kinsfolk there, surely, three generations of them.”

“I
have so!” Brother Rhys bared toothless gums in a dreamy smile. “If you should
happen to meet with my cousin Cynfrith ap Rhys, or his brother Owain, give them
my blessings. Ay, there’s a mort of my people in those parts. Ask after
my niece Angharad, my Sister Marared’s girl—my youngest sister,
that is, the one who married Ifor ap Morgan. I doubt Ifor’s dead before this,
but if you should hear of him living, say I remember, and give him my good
word. The girl ought to come and visit me, now her lad’s working here in the
town. I remember her as a little lass no higher than a daisy, and that pretty…”

“Angharad
was the girl who went as maidservant in the house of Bonel of Mallilie?” said
Cadfael, gently prompting.

“She
did, a pity it was! But they’ve been there many years now, the Saxons. You get
used to foreigner families, in time. They never got further, though. Mallilie’s
nothing but a thorn stuck in the side of Cynllaith. Stuck far in—nigh broken
off, as some day it may be yet! It touches Saxon land barely at all, only by a
claw…”