Ellis Peters - The Potter's Field

‘No need,’ said Hugh abstractedly. ‘We could not leave the lady waiting all night without word, certainly, but I have sent a man from the garrison.’

‘To tell her no more than that he stays here overnight? Hugh, the great error has been, throughout, telling her no more than some innocuous half-truth to keep her content and incurious. Or, worse, telling her nothing at all. Such follies are committed in the name of compassion! We must not let her get word of this! We must keep this trouble from her! Starving her courage and strength and will into a feeble shadow, as disease has eaten away her body. When if they had known and respected her as they should she could have lifted half the load from them. If she is not afraid of the monster thing with which she shares her life, there is nothing of which she can be afraid. It is natural enough,’ he said ruefully, ‘for the manchild to feel he must be his mother’s shield and defence, but he does her no service. I said so to him as we came. She would far rather have scope to fulfil her own will and purpose and be shield and defence to him, whether he understand it or not. Better, indeed, if he never understands it.’

‘You think,’ said Radulfus, eyeing him sombrely,’that she should be told?’

‘I think she should have been told long ago everything there was to tell about this matter. I think she should be told, even now. But I cannot do it, or let it be done if I can prevent. Too easily, as we came, I promised him that if the truth could still be kept from her, I would see it done. Well, if you have put off the hour for tonight, so be it. True, it is too late now to trouble them. But, Father, if you permit, I will ride back there early in the morning.’

‘If you think it necessary,’ said the abbot, ‘by all means go. If it is possible now to restore her her son with the least damage, and salve her husband’s memory for her without publishing any dishonour, so much the better.’

‘One night,’ said Hugh mildly, rising as Cadfael rose, ‘cannot alter things, surely. If she has been left in happy ignorance all this time, and goes to bed this night supposing Sulien to have been detained here by the lord abbot without a shade of ill, you may leave her to her rest. There will be time to consider how much she must know when we have reasoned the truth out of Sulien. It need not be mortal. What sense would it make now to darken a dead man’s name?’

Which was good sense enough, yet Cadfael shook his head doubtfully even over these few hours of delay. ‘Still, go I must. I have a promise to keep. And I have realised, somewhat late, that I have left someone there who has made no promises.’

CADFAEL SET OUT with the dawn, and took his time over the ride, since there was no point in arriving at Longner before the household was up and about. Moreover, he was glad to go slowly, and find time for thought, even if thought did not get him very far. He hardly knew whether to hope to find all as he had left it when he rode away with Sulien, or to discover this morning that he was already forsworn, and all secrecy had been blown away overnight. At the worst, Sulien was in no danger. They were agreed that he was guilty of nothing but suppressing the truth, and if the guilt in fact belonged to a man already dead, what need could there be to publish his blemish to the world? It was out of Hugh’s writ or King Stephen’s now, and no advocates were needed where next his case must be brought to the bar. All that could be said in accusation or extenuation was known to the judge already.

So all we need, Cadfael thought, is a little ingenuity in dealing with Sulien’s conscience, and a little manipulating of truth in gradually laying the case to rest, and the lady need never know more or worse than she knew yesterday. Given time, gossip will tire of the affair, and turn to the next small crisis or scandal around the town, and they will forget at last that their curiosity was never satisfied, and no murderer ever brought to book.

And there, he realised, was where he came into headlong collision with his own unsatisfied desire to have truth, if not set out before the public eye, at least unearthed, recognised and acknowledged. How, otherwise, could there be real reconciliation with life and death and the ordinances of God?

Meantime, Cadfael rode through an early morning like any other November morning, dull, windless and still, all the greens of the fields grown somewhat blanched and dried, the filigree of the trees stripped of half their leaves, the surface of the river leaden rather than silver, and stirred by only rare quivers where the currents ran faster. But the birds were up and singing, busy and loud, lords of their own tiny manors, crying their rights and privileges in defiance of intruders.

He left the highroad at Saint Giles, and rode by the gentle, upland track, part meadow, part heath and scattered trees, that crossed the rising ground towards the ferry. All the bustle of the awaking Foregate, the creaking of carts, the barking of dogs and interlacing of many voices fell away behind him, and the breeze which had been imperceptible among the houses here freshened into a brisk little wind. He crested the ridge, between the fringing trees, and looked down towards the sinuous curve of the river and the sharp rise of the shore and the meadows beyond. And there he halted sharply and sat gazing down in astonishment and some consternation at the ferryman’s raft in mid-passage below him. The distance was not so great that he could not distinguish clearly the freight it was carrying towards the near shore.

A narrow litter, made to stand on four short, solid legs, stood squarely placed in the middle of the raft to ride as steadily as possible. A linen awning sheltered the head of it from wind and weather, and it was attended on one side by a stockily built groom, and on the other by a young woman in a brown cloak, her head uncovered, her russet hair ruffled by the breeze. At the rear of the raft, where the ferryman poled his load through placid waters, the second porter held by a bridle a dappled cob that swam imperturbably behind. Indeed, he had to swim only in mid-stream, for the water here was still fairly low. The porters might have been servants from any local household, but the girl there was no mistaking. And who would be carried in litters over a mere few miles and in decent weather but the sick, the old, the disabled or the dead?

Early as it was, he had set out on this journey too late. The Lady Donata had left her solar, left her hall, left, God alone knew on what terms, her careful and solicitous son, and come forth to discover for herself what business abbot and sheriff in Shrewsbury had with her second son, Sulien.

Cadfael nudged his mule out through the crest of trees, and started down the long slope of the track to meet them, as the ferryman brought his raft sliding smoothly in to the sandy level below.

Pernel left the porters leading the horse ashore and lifting the litter safely to land, and came flying to meet Cadfael as he dismounted. She was flushed with the air and her own haste and the improbable excitement of this most improbable expedition. She caught him anxiously but resolutely by the sleeve, looking up earnestly into his face.

‘She wills it! She knows what she is doing! Why could they never understand? Did you know she has never been told anything of all this business? The whole household

Eudo would have her kept in the dark, sheltered and wrapped in down. All of them, they did what he wanted. All out of tenderness, but what does she want with tenderness? Cadfael, there has been no one free to tell her the truth, except for you and me.’

‘I was not free,’ said Cadfael shortly. ‘I promised the boy to respect his silence, as they have all done.’