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  Richildis shook her head vigorously. “You don’t know him! It was my peace he wanted to secure. And besides, it was no more than a few minutes before Aelfric ran out after him, to try to bring him back, and though he followed almost to the bridge, he could not overtake him.”

  “It’s true,” said Aelfric. “He surely had no time to check at all. I ran like a hare and called after him, but he would not turn back.”

  The sergeant was unconvinced. “How long does it take to empty a small vial into an open dish? One twirl of the spoon, and who was to know? And when your master was calm again, no doubt the prior’s gift made a very handy and welcome sop to his pride, and he ate it gladly.”

  “But did this boy even know,” asked Cadfael, intervening very gingerly, “that the dish left in the kitchen was meant solely for Master Bonel? He would hardly risk harm to his mother.”

  The sergeant was by that time too certain of his quarry to be impressed by any such argument. He eyed Aldith hard, and for all her resolution she paled a little.

  “With such a strange gathering to wait on, was it likely the girl would miss the chance of a pleasant distraction for her master? When you went in to serve him his meat, did you not tell him of the prior’s kind attention, and make the most of the compliment to him, and the treat in store?”

  She cast down her eyes and pleated the corner of her apron. “I thought it might sweeten him,” she said despairingly.

  The sergeant had all he needed, or so he thought, to lay his hands promptly upon the murderer. He gave a final look round the shattered household, and said: “Well, I think you may put things in order here, I’ve seen all there is to be seen. Brother Infirmarer is prepared to help you take care of your dead. Should I need to question you further, I must be sure of finding you here.”

  “Where else should we be?” asked Richildis bleakly. “What is it you mean to do? Will you at least let me know what happens, if you … if you should …” She could not put it into words. She stiffened her still straight and lissome back, and said with dignity: “My son has no part in this villainy, and so you will find. He is not yet fifteen years old, a mere child!”

  “The shop of Martin Bellecote, you said.”

  “I know it,” said one of the men-at-arms.

  “Good! Show the way, and we’ll see what this lad has to say for himself.” And they turned confidently to the door and the highway.

  Brother Cadfael saw fit to toss one disturbing ripple, at least, into the pool of their complacency. “There is the matter of a container for this oil. Whoever purloined it, whether from my store or from the infirmary, must have brought a vial to put it in. Meurig, did you see any sign of such about Edwin this morning? You came from the shop with him. In a pocket, or a pouch of cloth, even a small vial would hang in a noticeable way.”

  “Never a sign of anything such,” said Meurig stoutly.

  “And further, even well stoppered and tied down, such an oil is very penetrating, and can leave both a stain and an odour where even a drop seeps through or is left on the lip. Pay attention to the clothing of any man you think suspect in this matter.”

  “Are you teaching me my business, brother?” enquired the sergeant with a tolerant grin.

  “I am mentioning certain peculiarities about my business, which may be of help to you and keep you from error,” said Cadfael placidly.

  “By your leave,” said the sergeant over his shoulder, from the doorway, “I think we’ll first lay hands on the culprit. I doubt if we shall need your learned advice, once we have him.” And he was off along the short path to the roadway where the horses were tethered, and his two men after him.

  The sergeant and his men came to Martin Bellecote’s shop on the Wyle late in the afternoon. The carpenter, a big, comely fellow in his late thirties, looked up cheerfully enough from his work, and enquired their business without wonder or alarm. He had done work for Prestcote’s garrison once or twice, and the appearance of one of the sheriff’s officers in his workshop held no menace for him. A brown-haired, handsome wife looked out curiously from the house-door beyond, and three children erupted one by one from that quarter to examine the customers fearlessly and frankly. A grave girl of about eleven, very housewifely and prim, a small, square boy of eight or so, and an elfin miss no more than four, with a wooden doll under her arm. All of them gazed and listened. The door to the house remained open. and the sergeant had a loud, peremptory voice.

  “You have an apprentice here by the name of Edwin. My business is with him.”

  “I have,” agreed Martin loudly, rising and dusting the resin of polish from his hands. “Edwin Gurney, my wife’s young brother. He’s not yet home. He went down to see his mother in the Foregate. He should have been back before this, but I daresay she’s wanted to keep him longer. What’s your will with him?” He was still quite serene; he knew of nothing amiss.

  “He left his mother’s house above two hours since,” said the sergeant flatly. “We are come from there. No offence, friend, if you say he’s not here, but it’s my duty to search for him. You’ll give us leave to go through your house and yard?”

  Martin’s placidity had vanished in an instant, his brows drew into a heavy frown. His wife’s beech-brown head appeared again in the doorway beyond, her fair, contented face suddenly alert and chill, dark eyes intent. The children stared unwaveringly. The little one, voice of natural justice in opposition to law, stated firmly: “Bad man!” and nobody hushed her.

  “When I say he is not here,” said Martin levelly, “you may be assured it is true. But you may also assure yourselves. House, workshop and yard have nothing to hide. Now what are you hiding? This boy is my brother, through my wife, and my apprentice by his own will, and dear to me either way. Now, why are you seeking him?”

  “In the house in the Foregate where he visited this morning,” said the sergeant deliberately, “Master Gervase Bonel, his stepfather, who promised him he should succeed to the manor of Mallilie and then changed his mind, is lying dead at this moment, murdered. It is on suspicion of his murder that I want this young man Edwin. Is that enough for you?”

  It was more than enough for the eldest son of this hitherto happy household, whose ears were stretched from the inner room to catch this awful and inexplicable news. The law nose-down on Edwin’s trail, and Edwin should have been back long ago if everything had gone even reasonably well! Edwy had been uneasy for some time, and was alert for disaster where his elders took it for granted all must be well. He let himself out in haste by the back window on to the yard, before the officers could make their way into the house, clambered up the stacked timber and over the wall like a squirrel, and was away at a light, silent run towards the slope that dived riverwards, and one of the tight little posterns through the town wall, open now in time of peace, that gave on to the steep bank, not far from the abbot’s vineyard. Several of the businesses in town that needed bulky stores had fenced premises here for their stock, and among them was Martin Bellecote’s woodyard where he seasoned his timber. It was an old refuge when either or both of the boys happened to be in trouble, and it was the place Edwin would make for if … oh, no, not if he had killed; because that was ridiculous! … but if he had been rejected, affronted, made miserably unhappy and madly angry. Angry almost to murder, but never, never quite! It was not in him.

  Edwy ran, confident of not being followed, and fell breathless through the wicket of his father’s enclosure, and headlong over the splayed feet of a sullen, furious, tear-stained and utterly vulnerable Edwin.

  Edwin, perhaps because of the tear-stains, immediately clouted Edwy as soon as he had regained his feet, and was clouted in his turn just as indignantly. The first thing they did, at all times of stress, was to fight. It meant nothing, except that both were armed and on guard, and whoever meddled with them in the matter afterwards had better be very careful, for their practice on each other would be perfected on him. Within minutes Edwy was pounding his message home into bewildered, unrecept
ive, and finally convinced and dismayed ears. They sat down cheek by jowl to do some frantic planning.

  Aelfric appeared in the herb-gardens an hour before Vespers. Cadfael had been back in his solitude no more than half an hour then, after seeing the body cleansed, made seemly, and borne away into the mortuary chapel, the bereaved house restored to order, the distracted members of the household at least set free to wander and wonder and grieve as was best for them. Meurig was gone, back to the shop in the town, to tell the carpenter and his family word for word what had befallen, for what comfort or warning that might give them. By this time, for all Cadfael knew, the sheriff’s men had seized young Edwin … Dear God, he had even forgotten the name of the man Richildis had married, and Bellecote was only her son-in-law.

  “Mistress Bonel asks,” said Aelfric earnestly, “that you’ll come and speak with her privately. She entreats you for old friendship, to stand her friend now.”

  It came as no surprise. Cadfael was aware that he stood on somewhat perilous ground, even after forty years. He would have been happier if the lamentable death of her husband had turned out to be no mystery, her son in no danger, and her future none of his business, but there was no help for it. His youth, a sturdy part of the recollections that made him the man he was, stood in her debt, and now that she was in need he had no choice but to make generous repayment.

  “I’ll come,” he said. “You go on before, and I’ll be with her within a quarter of an hour.”

  When he knocked at the door of the house by the millpond, it was opened by Richildis herself. There was no sign either of Aelfric or Aldith, she had taken good care that the two of them should be able to talk in absolute privacy. In the inner room all was bare and neat, the morning’s chaos smoothed away, the trestle table folded aside. Richildis sat down in the great chair which had been her husband’s, and drew Cadfael down on the bench beside her. It was dim within the room, only one small rush-light burning; the only other brightness came from her eyes, the dark, lustrous brightness he was remembering more clearly with every moment.

  “Cadfael…” she said haltingly, and was silent again for some moments. “To think it should really be you! I never got word of you, after I heard you were back home. I thought you would have married, and been a grandsire by this. As often as I looked at you, this morning, I was searching my mind, why I should be so sure I ought to know you … And just when I was in despair, to hear your name spoken!”

  “And you,” said Cadfael, “you came as unexpectedly to me. I never knew you’d been widowed from Eward Gurney—I remember now that was his name!—much less that you’d wed again.”

  “Three years ago,” she said, and heaved a sigh that might have been of regret or relief at the abrupt ending of this second match. “I mustn’t make you think ill of him, he was not a bad man, Gervase, only elderly and set in his ways, and used to being obeyed. A widower he was, many years wifeless, and without any children, leastways none by the marriage. He courted me a long time, and I was lonely, and then he promised, you see… Not having a legitimate heir, he promised if I’d have him he’d make Edwin his heir. His overlord sanctioned it. I ought to tell you about my family. I had a daughter, Sibil, only a year after I married Eward, and then, I don’t know why, time went on and on, and there were no more. You’ll remember, maybe, Eward had his business in Shrewsbury as a master-carpenter and carver. A good workman he was, a good master and a good husband.”

  “You were happy?” said Cadfael, grateful at hearing it in her voice. Time and distance had done well by the pair of them, and led them to their proper places, after all.

  “Very happy! I couldn’t have had a better man. But there were no more children then. And when Sibil was seventeen she married Eward’s journeyman, Martin Bellecote, and a good lad he is, too, and she’s as happy in her match as I was in mine, thank God! Well, then, in two years the girl was with child, and it was like being young again myself—the first grandchild!—it’s always so. I was so joyful, looking after her and making plans for the birth, and Eward was as proud as I was, and what with one thing and another, you’d have thought we old folk were young newlyweds again ourselves. And I don’t know how it happens, but when Sibil was four months gone, what should I find but I was carrying, too!

  After all those years! And I in my forty-fourth year—it was like a miracle! And the upshot is, she and I both brought forth boys, and though there’s the four months between them, they might as well be twins as uncle and nephew—and the uncle the younger, at that! They even look very much like, both taking after my man. And from the time they were first on their feet they’ve been as close as any brothers, and closer than most, and both as wild as fox-cubs. So that’s my son Edwin and my grandson Edwy. Not yet turned fifteen, either of them. It’s for Edwin I’m praying your help, Cadfael. For I swear to you he never did nor even could do such wicked harm, but the sheriff’s man has it fixed fast in his head that it was Edwin who put poison in the dish. If you knew him, Cadfael, if only you knew him, you’d know it’s madness.”

  And so it sounded when her fond, maternal voice spoke of it, yet sons no older than fourteen had been known to remove their fathers to clear their own paths, as Cadfael knew well enough. And this was not Edwin’s own father, and little love lost between them.

  “Tell me,” he said, “about this second marriage, and the bargain you struck.”

  “Why, Eward died when Edwin was nine years old, and Martin took over his shop, and runs it as Eward did before him, and as Eward taught him. We all lived together until Gervase came ordering some panelling for his house, and took a strong fancy to me. And he was a fine figure of a man, too, and in good health, and very attentive… . He promised if I would have him he’d make Edwin his heir, and leave Mallilie to him. And Martin and Sibil had three more children to provide for by then, so with all those mouths to feed he needed what the business can bring in, and I thought to see Edwin set up for life.”

  “But it was not a success,” said Cadfael, “understandably. A man who had never had children, and getting on in years, and a lusty lad busy growing up—they were bound to cross swords.”

  “It was ten of one and half a score of the other,” she owned, sighing. “Edwin had been indulged, I fear, he was used to his freedom and to having his own way, and he was for ever running off with Edwy, as he’d always been used to do. -And Gervase held it against him that he ran with simple folk and craftsmen—he thought that low company, beneath a young man with a manor to inherit, and that was bound to anger Edwin, who loves his kin. Not to claim that he had not some less respectable friends, too! They rubbed each other the wrong way daily. When Gervase beat him, Edwin ran away to Martin’s shop and stayed for days. And when Gervase locked him up, he’d either make his way out all the same, or else take his revenge in other ways. In the end Gervase said as the brat’s tastes obviously ran to mere trade, and running loose with all the scallywags of the town, he might as well go and apprentice himself in good earnest, it was all he was fit for. And Edwin, though he knew better, pretended to take that, word for word, as well meant, and went and did that very thing, which made Gervase more furious than ever. That was when he vowed he’d hand over his manor by charter to the abbey, and live here retired. ‘He cares nothing for the lands I-meant to leave him,’ he said, ‘why should I go on nursing them for such an ingrate?’ And he did it, there and then, while he was hot, he had this agreement drawn up, and made ready to move here before Christmas.”

  “And what did the boy say to that? For I suppose he never realised what was intended?”

  “He did not! He came with a rush, penitent but indignant, too. He swore he does love Mallilie, he never meant to scorn it, and he would take good care of it if it came to him. But my husband would not give way, though we all pleaded with him. And Edwin was bitter, too, for he had been promised, and a promise should be kept. But it was done, and nobody could make my lord undo it. Not being his own son, Edwin’s consent was never asked nor needed—it wo
uld never have been given! He went flying back to Martin and Sibil with his raging grievance, and I haven’t seen him again until this day, and I wish he’d never come near us today. But he did, and now see how the sheriff’s man is hunting him as a villain who would kill his own mother’s husband! Such a thought could never enter that child’s head, I swear to you, Cadfael, but if they take him … Oh, I can’t bear to think of it!”

  “You’ve had no word since they left here? News travels this highroad fast. I think it would have reached us before now if they had found him at home.”

  “Not a word yet. But where else would he go? He knew no reason why he should hide. He ran from here knowing nothing of what was to happen after his going, he was simply sore about his bitter welcome.”

  “Then he might not wish to take such a mood home with him, not until he’d come to terms with it. Hurt things hide until the fright and pain wears off. Tell me all that happened at this dinner. It seems Meurig has been a go-between for you, and tried to bring him to make peace. Some mention was made of a former visit …”

  “Not to me,” said Richildis sadly. “The two of them came to bring down the lectern Martin has been making for the Lady Chapel, and Meurig took my boy with him to see the old brother, his kinsman. He tried to persuade Edwin then to come and see me, but he would not. Meurig is a good fellow, he’s done his best. Today he did prevail on Edwin to come, but see what came of it! Gervase was in high glee about it, and monstrously unfair—he taunted my boy with coming like a beggar to plead to be restored, and get his inheritance back, which was never Edwin’s intent. He’d die sooner! Tamed at last, are you, says Gervase! Well, if you go down on your knees, he says, and beg pardon for your frowardness who knows, I might relent yet. Crawl, then, he says, and beg for your manor! And so it went, until Edwin blazed out that he was not and never would be tamed by a wicked, tyrannical, vicious old monster—which I grant you,” she sighed hopelessly, “Gervase was not, only a stubborn and ill-tempered one. Oh, I can’t tell you all they yelled at each other! But I do say this, it took a lot of goading today to get Edwin to blaze, and that’s credit to him. For my sake he would have borne it, but it was too much for him. So he said what he had to say, very loudly, and Gervase flung the platter at him, and a beaker, too, and then Aldith and Aelfric and Meurig came rushing in to try and help me calm him down. And Edwin stamped out—and that was all.”