Ellis Peters - A Rare Benedictine

The porter met Cadfael’s eye, hoisted his shoulders, and went quietly away. Cadfael sat down on the other side of the bed, and contemplated the pair, father and son. Both faces looked equally aloof and critical, even hostile, yet there they were, close and quiet together.

The young man asked but two questions, each after a long silence. The first, uttered almost grudgingly, was: “Will it be well with him?” Cadfael, watching the easing flow of breath and the faint flush of colour, said simply: “Yes. Only give him time.” The second was: “He has not spoken yet?”

“Not yet,” said Cadfael.

Now which of those, he wondered, was the more vital question? There was one man, somewhere, who must at this moment be very anxious indeed about what William Rede might have to say, when he did speak.

The young man his name was Edward, Cadfael recalled, after the Confessor Eddi Rede sat all night long almost motionless, brooding over his father’s bed. Most of that time, and certainly every time he had been aware of being watched in his turn, he had been scowling.

Well before Prime the sergeant was back again to his watch, and Jacob was again hovering unhappily about the doorway, peering in anxiously whenever it was opened, but not quite venturing to come in until he was invited. The sergeant eyed Eddi very hard and steadily, but said no word to disturb the injured man’s increasingly restful sleep. It was past seven when at last Master William stirred, opened vague eyes, made a few small sounds which were not yet words, and tried feebly to put up a hand to his painful head, startled by the sudden twinge when he moved. The sergeant stooped close, but Cadfael laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“Give him time! A knock on the head like that will have addled his wits. We’ll need to tell him things before he tells us any.” And to the wondering patient he said tranquilly: “You know me? I’m Cadfael, brother Cadfael. Brother Edmund will be here to relieve me as soon as Prime is over. You’re in his care, in the infirmary, and past the worst. Fret for nothing, lie still and let others do that. You’ve had a mighty dunt on the crown, and a dowsing in the river, but both are past, and thanks be, you’re safe enough now.”

The wandering hand reached its goal this time. Master William groaned and stared indignant surprise, and his eyes cleared and sharpened, though his voice was weak as he complained, with quickening memory: “He came behind me someone out of an open yard door… That’s the last I know…” Sudden realisation shook him; he gave a stricken howl, and tried to rise from his pillow, but gave up at the pang it cost him. The rents the abbey rents!”

“Your life’s better worth than the abbey rents,” said Cadfael heartily, “and even they may be regained.”

“The man who felled you,” said the sergeant, leaning dose, “cut your satchel loose with a knife, and made off with it. But if you can help us we’ll lay him by the heels yet. Where was this that he struck you down?”

“Not a hundred paces from my own house,” lamented William bitterly. “I went there when I had finished, to check my rolls and make all fast, and…” He shut his mouth grimly on the overriding reason. Hazily he had been aware all this time of the silent and sullen young man sitting beside him, now he fixed his eyes on him until his vision cleared. The mutual glare was spirited, and came of long practice. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Waiting to have better news of you to take to my mother,” said Eddi shortly. He looked up defiantly into the sergeant’s face. “He came home to read me all my sins over, and warn me that the fine that’s due from me in two days more is my burden now, not his, and if I can’t make shift for it on my own I may go to gaol, and pay in another coin. Or it may be,” he added with grudging fairness, “that he came rather to flay me and then pay my dues, as he’s done more than once. But I was in no mind to listen, and he was in no mind to be flouted, so I flung out and went down to the butts. And won the good half of what I owe, for what that’s worth,”

“So this was a bitter quarrel you had between you,” said the sergeant, narrowing suspicious eyes. “And not long after it you, master, went out to bring your rents home, and were set upon, robbed, and left for dead. And now you, boy, have the half of what you need to stay out of prison.”

Cadfael, watching father and son, felt that it had not even occurred to Eddi, until then, that he might fall under suspicion of this all too opportune attack; and further, that even now it had not dawned on Master William that such a thought could occur to any sane man. He was scowling at his son for no worse reason than old custom and an aching head.

“Why are you not looking after your mother at home?” he demanded querulously.

“So I will, now I’ve seen and heard you more like yourself. Mother’s well enough cared for; Cousin Alice is with her. But she’ll be the better for knowing that you’re still the same cantankerous worrit, and likely to be a plague to us twenty years yet. I’ll go,” said Eddi grimly, “when I’m let. But he wants your witness before he can leave you to your rest. Better get it said.”

Master William submitted wearily, knitting his brows in the effort to remember. “I came from the house, along the passage towards Saint Mary’s, above the water-gate. The door of the tanner’s yard was standing open, I know I’d passed it… But I never heard a step behind me. As if the wall had fallen on me! I recall nothing after, except sudden cold, deadly cold… Who brought me back, then, that I’m snug here?”

They told him, and he shook his head helplessly over the great blank between.

“You think the fellow must have been hiding behind that yard-door, lying in wait?”

“So it seems.”

“And you caught never a glimpse? Never had time to turn your head? You can tell us nothing to trace him? Not even a guess at his build? His age?”

Nothing. Simply, there had been early dusk before him, his own steps the only sound, no man in sight between the high walls of gardens, yards and warehouses going down to the river, and then the shock of the blow, and abrupt darkness. He was growing tired again, but his mind was clear enough. There would be no more to get from him.

Brother Edmund came in, eyed his patient, and silently nodded the visitors out at the door, to leave him in peace. Eddi kissed his father’s dangling hand, but brusquely, rather as though he would as lief have bitten it, and marched out to blink at the sunlight in the great court. With a face grimly defiant he waited for the sergeant’s dismissal.

“I left him as I told you, I went to the butts, and played into a wager there, and shot well. You’ll want names from me. I can give them. And I’m still short the half of my fine, for what that’s worth. I knew nothing of this until I went home, and that was late, after your messenger had been there. Can I go home? I’m at your disposal.”

“You can,” granted the sergeant, so readily that it was clear the young man would not be unwatched on the way, or on arrival. “And there stay, for I shall want more from you than merely names. I’m away to take their tales from the lay brothers who were working late at the Gaye yesterday, but I’ll not be long after you in the town.”

The workers were already assembling in the court and moving off to their day’s labour. The sergeant strode forth to find his men, and left Eddi glowering after him, and Cadfael mildly observing the wary play of thought in the dark young face. Not a bad-looking lad, if he would wear a sunnier visage; but perhaps at this moment he had little cause.

“He will truly be a hale man again?” he asked suddenly, turning his black gaze on Cadfael.