Ellis Peters - Sanctuary Sparrow

‘You’re going now to render account to Hugh Beringar at the castle?’ asked Cadfael.

‘At his own house, rather. Though I doubt if he’ll be there yet to expect me.’

‘Tell him all that we have seen there,’ said Cadfael very earnestly. ‘Let him look for himself, and make what he can of it. Tell him of the coin - for so I am sure it was - that was dredged up out of the cove there, and how Griffin claimed it for his master’s property. Let Hugh question him on that.’

‘I’ll tell him all,’ said Madog, ‘and more than I understand.’

‘Or I, either, as yet. But ask him, if his time serves for it, to come down and speak with me, when he has made what he may of all this coil. For I shall be worrying from this moment at the same tangle and may, who knows? - God aiding! - may arrive at some understanding before night.’

Hugh came late home from his dogged enquiries round the town which had brought him no new knowledge, unless their cumulative effect turned probability into certainty, and it could now be called knowledge that no one, in his familiar haunts or out of them, had set eyes on Baldwin Peche since Monday noon. News of Dame Juliana’s death added nothing, she being so old, and yet there was always the uncomfortable feeling that misfortune could not of itself have concentrated such a volley of malice against one household. What Madog had to tell him powerfully augmented this pervading unease.

‘There within call of his own shop? Is it possible? And all present, the alders, the crowfoot, the purple flower... Everything comes back, everything comes home, to that burgage. Begin wherever we may, we end there.’

‘That is truth,’ said Madog. ‘And Brother Cadfael is cudgelling his wits over the same tangle, and would be glad to consider it along with you, my lord, if you can spare him the needed hour tonight, however late.’

‘I’ll do that thankfully,’ said Hugh, ‘for God knows it wants more cunning that I have alone, and sharper vision, to see through this murk. Do you go home and get your rest, Madog, for you’ve done well by us. And I’ll go knock up Peche’s lad, and have out of him whatever he can tell us about this coin he claims for his master’s.’

By this same hour Brother Cadfael had eased his own mind by imparting, after supper, all that he had discovered to Abbot Radulfus, who received it with thoughtful gravity.

‘And you have sent word already to Hugh Beringar? You think he may wish to take counsel with you further in the matter?’ He was well aware that there was a particular understanding between them, originating in events before he himself took office at Shrewsbury. ‘You may take whatever time you need if he comes tonight. Certainly this affair must be concluded as soon as possible, and it does increasingly appear that our guest in sanctuary may have very little to do with any of these offences. He is within here, but the evil continues without. If he is innocent of all, in justice that must be shown to the world.’

Cadfael left the abbot’s lodging with time still for hard thought, and the twilight just falling. He went faithfully to Compline and then, turning his back on the dortoir, went out to the porch where Liliwin spread his blankets and made his bed. The young man was still wide awake, sitting with his knees drawn up and his back braced comfortably into the corner of the stone bench, a small, hunched shadow in the darkness, singing over to himself the air of a song he was making and had not yet completed to his satisfaction. He broke off when Cadfael appeared, and made room beside him on his blankets.

‘A good tune, that,’ said Cadfael, settling himself with a sigh. ‘Yours? You’d best keep it to yourself, or Anselm will be stealing it for the ground of a Mass.’

‘It is not ready yet,’ said Liliwin. ‘There lacks a proper soft fall for the ending. It is a love song for Rannilt.’ He turned his head to look his companion earnestly in the eyes. ‘I do love her. I’ll brave it out here and hang rather than go elsewhere without her.’

‘She would hardly be grateful to you for that,’ said Cadfael. ‘But God willing you shall not have to make any such choice.’ The boy himself, though he still went in suspense and some fear, was well aware that every day now cast further doubt upon the case against him. ‘Things move there without, if in impenetrable ways. To tell truth, the law is coming round very sensibly to my opinion of you.’

‘Well, maybe... But what if they found that I did leave here that night? They wouldn’t believe my story as you did... ” He cast a doubtful glance at Brother Cadfael, and saw something in the bland stare that met him that caused him to demand in alarm: ‘You haven’t told the sheriff’s deputy? You promised... for Rannilt’s sake...‘

‘Never fret, Rannilt’s good name is as safe with Hugh Beringar as with me. He has not even called on her as a witness for you, nor will not unless the affair goes to the length of trial. Tell him? Well, so I did, but only after he had made it plain he guessed the half. His nose for a reluctant liar is at least as keen as mine, he never believed that “No” he wrung out of you. So the rest of it he wrung out of me. He found you more convincing telling truth than lying. And then there is always Rannilt, if ever you need her witness, and the watchmen who saw you pass in and out. No need to trouble too much about your doings that night. I wish I knew as much about everyone else’s.’ He pondered, conscious of Liliwin’s intent and trusting regard. ‘There’s nothing more you’ve recalled? The smallest detail concerning that house may be of help.’

Hesitantly Liliwin cast his mind back, and told over again the brief story of his connection with the goldsmith’s house. The host at a tavern where he had played and sung for his supper had told him of the marriage to be celebrated next day, he had gone there hopefully, and been engaged for the occasion, he had done his best to earn his money and been cast out, and hunted as a thief and murderer here into the church. All of it known already.

‘How much of that burgage did you ever see? For you went first in daylight.’

‘I went to the shop and they sent me in through the passage to the hall door, to the women. It was they who hired me, the old woman and the young one.’

‘And in the evening?’

‘Why, as soon as I came there they sent me to eat with Rannilt in the kitchen, and I was there with her until they sent out for me to come and play and sing while they feasted, and afterwards I played for dancing, and did my acrobatics, and juggled - and you know how it ended.’

‘So you never saw more than the passage and the yard. You never were down the length of the garden, or through the town wall there to the waterside?’

Liliwin shook his head firmly. ‘I didn’t even know it went beyond the wall until the day Rannilt came here. I could see as far as the wall when I went through to the hall in the morning, but I thought it ended there. It was Rannilt told me the drying-ground was beyond there. It was their washing day, you see, she’d done all the scrubbing and rinsing, and had it all ready to go out by mid-morning. But usually she has the dinner to prepare as well, and watches the weather, and fetches the clothes in before evening. But that day Mistress Susanna had said she would see to everything, and let Rannilt come here to visit me. That was truly kind!’

Strange how sitting here listening to the boy’s recollections brought up clearly the picture of that drying-ground he had never seen but through Rannilt’s eyes, the slope of grass, the pebbles for anchors, the alders screening the riverside, the town wall shielding the sward from the north and leaving it open to the south

‘And I remember she said Mistress Susanna had her shoes and the hems of her skirts wet when she came in from putting out the washing and found Rannilt crying. But still she took note first for my girl being so sad... Never mind my wet feet, she said, what of your wet eyes? Rannilt told me so!’