Ellis Peters - The Holy Thief

Or had he simply been curious as to how much was left within? A mere idle thought? People do odd, inconsequent things by the way, digressing without reason from what is currently occupying them. But bear it in mind. Odd, inconsequent things are sometimes highly significant. Cadfael shook himself, closed and locked the heavy door, and went on towards Saint Giles.

In the great court, when he returned with his empty scrip, there was a purposeful but unhurried activity, a brisk wind blowing before a departure. No haste, they had all this day to make ready. Robert Bossu’s two squires came and went about the guesthall, assembling such clothing and equipment as their lord would not require on the journey. He travelled light, but liked meticulous service, and got it, as a rule, without having to labour the point. The steward Nicol and his younger companion, the one who had been left to make his way back from Worcester to Shrewsbury on foot, and had sensibly taken his time on the way, had very little to do by way of preparation, for this time their collected alms for their house would be carried by Earl Robert’s baggage carriage, the same which had brought Saint Winifred’s reliquary home, and was now to be baggage wagon for them all, while the earl’s packhorse could provide dignified transport for Sub-Prior Herluin. Robert Bossu was generous in small attentions to Herluin, very soothing to his dignity.

And the third of the three parties now assembled for the journey into one, had perhaps the most demanding arrangements to make. Daalny came carefully down the steps of the guesthall with a handsome portative organ in her arms, craning her slender neck to peer round her burden to find the edge of every step, for Rémy’s instruments were precious almost beyond the value he put on his singer. The organ had its own specially made case for safekeeping, but it was somewhat bulky, and since space within was limited, the case had been banished to the stable. Daalny crossed the court, nursing the instrument like a child on her arm and clasping it caressingly with her free hand, for it was an object of love to her no less than to her lord. She looked up at Cadfael, when he fell in beside her, and offered him a wary smile, as if she selected and suppressed, within her mind, such topics as might arise with this companion, but had better be denied discussion.

“You have the heaviest load,” said Cadfael. “Let me take it from you.”

She smiled more warmly, but shook her head. “I am responsible, I will carry it or let it fall myself. But it is not so heavy, only bulky. The case is within there. Leather, soft, padded. You can help me put it in, if you will. It takes two, one to hold the bag wide open.”

He went with her into the stableyard, and obediently held the fitted lid of the case braced back on his arm to allow her to slide the little organ within. She closed the lid upon it, and buckled the straps that held it firm. About them the earl’s young men went about their efficient business with the smooth and pleasurable grace of youth, and at the far end of the yard Bénezet was cleaning saddles and harness, and draping his work over a wooden frame, where the saddlecloths were spread out in the pale sunlight that was already acquiring a surprising degree of warmth. Rémy’s ornate bridle hung on a hook beside him.

“Your lord likes his gear handsome,” said Cadfael, indicating it. She followed his glance impassively.

“Oh, that! That isn’t Rémy’s, it’s Bénezet’s. Where he got it there’s no asking. I’ve often thought he stole it somewhere, but he’s close-mouthed, best not question.”

Cadfael digested that without comment. Why so needless a lie? It served no detectable purpose that he could see, and that in itself was cause for further consideration.

Perhaps Bénezet thought it wise to attribute the ownership of so fine a possession to his master, to avoid any curiosity as to how he had acquired it. Daalny had just suggested as much. He took the matter a stage further, in a very casual tone.

“He takes no great care of it. He had left it in the barn at the Horse Fair all this time since the flood. He fetched it back only this morning.”

This time she turned a face suddenly intent, and her hands halted on the last buckle. “He told you that? He spent half an hour cleaning and polishing that bridle early this morning. It never left here, I’ve seen it a dozen times since.”

Her eyes were large, bright and sharp with speculation. Cadfael had no wish to start her wondering too much; she was already more deeply involved than he would have liked, and rash enough to surge into unwise action at this extreme, when she was about to be swept away to Leicester, with nothing resolved and nothing gained. Better by far keep her out of it, if that was any way possible. But she was very quick; she had her teeth into this discrepancy already. Cadfael shrugged, and said indifferently: “I must have misunderstood him. He was along there in mid-morning, carrying it. I thought he’d been to reclaim it, he was in the stable there. I took it for granted it was Rémy’s.”

“Well you might,” she agreed. “I’ve wondered, myself, how he came by it. Somewhere in Provence, most likely. But honestly? I doubt it.” The brilliance of her eyes narrowed upon Cadfael’s face. She did not turn to glance at Bénezet, not yet. “What was he doing at the Horse Fair?” Her tone was still casually curious, as if neither question nor answer mattered very much, but the glitter in her eyes denied it.

“Do I know?” said Cadfael. “I was up in the loft when he came in. Maybe he was just curious why the door was open.”

“That was a diversion she could not resist. Her eyes rounded eagerly, a little afraid to hope for too much. “And what were you doing in the loft?”

“I was looking for proof of what you told me,” said Cadfael. “And I found it. Did you know that Tutilo forgot his breviary there after Compline?”

She said: “No!” Almost soundlessly, on a soft, hopeful breath.

“He borrowed mine, last night. He had no notion where he had lost his own, but I thought of one place at least where it would be worthwhile looking for it. And yes, it was there, and the place marked at Compline. It is hardly an eyewitness, Daalny, but it is good evidence. And I am waiting to put it into Hugh Beringar’s hands.”

“Will it free him?” she asked in the same rapt whisper.

“So far as Hugh is concerned, it well may. But Tutilo’s superior here is Herluin, and he cannot be passed by.”

“Need he ever know?” she asked fiercely.

“Not the whole truth, if Hugh sees with my eyes. That there’s very fair proof the boy never did murder, yes, that he’ll be told, but he need not know where you were or what you did, the pair of you, that night.”

“We did no wrong,” she said, exultant and scornful of a world where needs must think evil, and where she knew of evil enough, but despised most of it and had no interest in any of it. “Cannot the abbot overrule Herluin? This is his domain, not Ramsey’s.”

“The abbot will keep the Rule. He can no more detain the boy here and deprive Ramsey than he could abandon one of his own. Only wait! Let’s see whether even Herluin can be persuaded to open the door on the lad.” He did not go on to speculate on what would happen then, though it did seem to him that Tutilo’s passionate vocation had cooled to the point where it might slip out of sight and out of mind by comparison with the charm of delivering Partholan’s queen from slavery. Ah, well! Better take your hands from the ploughshare early and put them to other decent use, than persist, and take to ploughing narrower and narrower furrows until everything secular is anathema, and everything human doomed to reprobation.