Ellis Peters - The Potter's Field

‘Gossip does not necessarily speak with any authority,’ said the abbot patiently. ‘Certainly it cannot speak for the lord sheriff. If he examines the movements and actions of Brother Ruald, he is but doing his duty, and will do as much by others, as the need arises. I take it that Brother Ruald himself has said no word of this to you, or you would not have had to hear it for the first time at home in Longner. If he is untroubled, need you trouble for him?’

‘But, Father, that is what I have to tell!’ Sulien flushed into ardour and eagerness. ‘No one need be troubled for him. Truly, as you said, there is no man can say who this woman is, but here is one who can say with absolute certainty who she is not. For I have proof that Ruald’s wife Generys is alive and well—or was so, at least, some three weeks ago.’

‘You have seen her?’ demanded Radulfus, reflecting back half-incredulously the burning glow of the boy’s vehemence.

‘No, not that! But I can do better than that.’ Sulien plunged a hand deep inside the throat of his habit, and drew out something small that he had been wearing hidden on a string about his neck. He drew it over his head, and held it out to be examined in the palm of his open hand, still warm from his flesh, a plain silver ring set with a small yellow stone such as were sometimes found in the mountains of Wales and the border. Of small value in itself, marvellous for what he claimed for it. ‘Father, I know I have kept this unlawfully, but I promise you I never had it in Ramsey. Take it up, look within it!’

Radulfus gave him a long, searching stare before he extended a hand and took up the ring, turning it to catch the light on its inner surface. His straight black brows drew together. He had found what Sulien wanted him to find.

‘G and R twined together. Crude, but clear—and old work. The edges are blunted and dulled, but whoever engraved it cut deep.’ He looked up into Sulien’s ardent face. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘From a jeweller in Peterborough, after we fled from Ramsey, and Abbot Walter charged me to come here to you. It was mere chance. There were some tradesmen in the town who feared to stay, when they heard how near de Mandeville was, and what force he had about him. They were selling and moving out. But others were stouthearted, and meant to stay. It was night when I reached the town, and I was commended to this silversmith in Priestgate who would shelter me overnight. He was a stout man, who would not budge for outlaws or robbers, and he had been a good patron to Ramsey. His valuables he had hidden away, but among the lesser things in his shop I saw this ring.’

‘And knew it?’ said the abbot.

‘From old times, long ago when I was a child. I could not mistake it, even before I looked for this sign. I asked him where and when it came into his hands, and he said a woman had brought it in only some ten days earlier, to sell, because, she said, she and her man thought well to move further away from the danger of de Mandeville’s marauders, and were turning what they could into money to resettle them in safety elsewhere. So were many people doing, those who had no great stake in the town. I asked him what manner of woman she was, and he described her to me, beyond mistaking. Father, barely three weeks ago Generys was alive and well in Peterborough.’

‘And how did you acquire the ring?’ asked Radulfus mildly, but with a sharp and daunting eye upon the boy’s face. ‘And why? You had then no possible reason to know that it might be of the highest significance here.’

‘No, none.’ The faintest flush of colour had crept upward in Sulien’s cheeks, Cadfael noted, but the steady blue gaze was as wide and clear as always, even challenging question or reproof. ‘You have returned me to the world, I can and will speak as one already outside these walls. Ruald and his wife were the close friends of my childhood, and when I was no longer a child that fondness grew and came to ripeness with my flesh. They will have told you, Generys was beautiful. What I felt for her touched her not at all, she never knew of it. But it was after she was gone that I thought and hoped, I admit vainly, that the cloister and the cowl might restore me my peace. I meant to pay the price faithfully, but you have remitted the debt. But when I saw and handled the ring I knew for hers, I wanted it. So simple it is.’

‘But you had no money to buy it,’ Radulfus said, in the same placid tone, withholding censure.

‘He gave it to me. I told him what I have now told you. Perhaps more,’ said Sulien, with a sudden glittering smile that lasted only an instant in eyes otherwise passionately solemn. ‘We were but one night companions. I should never see him again, nor he me. Such a pair encountering confide more than ever they did to their own mothers. And he gave me the ring.’

‘And why,’ enquired the abbot as directly,’did you not restore it, or at least show it, to Ruald and tell him that news, as soon as you met with him here?’

‘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 Mass. 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.’

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 Essex 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.’