Ellis Peters - The Sanctuary Sparrow

“You mean it?” whispered Rannilt, stricken by such generosity. “I may go? But who will see to the broth here, and the meat?”

“I will. I have often enough, God knows! I tell you, go, go quickly, before I change my mind, stay away all day long, if that will send you back cured. I can very well do without you this once. But wash your face, girl, and comb your hair, and do yourself and us credit. You can take some of those oat-cakes in a basket, if you wish, and whatever scraps were left from yesterday. If he felled my father,” said Susanna roughly, turning away to pick up the ladle and stir the pot simmering on the hob, “there’s worse waiting for him in the end, no need to grudge him a mouthful while he is man alive.” She looked back over a straight shoulder at Rannilt, who still hovered in a daze. “Go and visit your minstrel, I mean it, you have leave. I doubt if he even remembers your face! Go and learn sense.”

Lost in wonder, and only half believing in such mercies, Rannilt washed her face and tidied her tangle of dark hair with trembling hands, seized a basket and filled it with whatever morsels were brusquely shoved her way, and went out through the hall like a child walking in its sleep. It was wholly by chance that Margery was coming down the stairs, with a pile of discarded garments on her arm. She marked the small, furtive figure flitting past below, and in surprised goodwill, since this waif was alien and lonely here as she was, asked: “Where are you sent off to in such a hurry, child?”

Rannilt halted submissively, and looked up into Margery’s rounded, fresh countenance. “Mistress Susanna gave me leave. I’m going to the abbey, to take this provision to Liliwin.” The name, so profoundly significant to her, meant nothing to Margery. “The minstrel. The one they say struck down Master Walter. But I’m sure he did not! She said I may go, see for myself how he’s faring—because I was crying…”

“I remember him,” said Margery. “A little man, very young. They’re sure he’s the guilty one, and you are sure he is not?” Her blue eyes were demure. She hunted through the pile of garments on her arm, and very faintly and fleetingly she smiled. “He was not too well clothed, I recall. There is a cotte here that was my husband’s some years ago, and a capuchon. The little man could wear them, I think. Take them with you. It would be a pity to waste them. And charity is approved of in Heaven, even to sinners.”

She sorted them out gravely, a good dark-blue coat outgrown while it was still barely patched, and a much-mended caped hood in russet brown. “Take them! They’re of no use here.” None, except for the satisfaction it gave her to despatch them to the insignificant soul condemned by every member of her new family. It was her gesture of independence.

Rannilt, every moment more dazed, took the offerings and tucked them into her basket, made a mute reverence, and fled before this unprecedented and hardly credible vein of good will should run out, and food, clothing, holiday and all fall to ruin round her.

Susanna cooked, served, scoured and went about her circumscribed realm with a somewhat grim smile on her lips. The provisioning of the house under her governance was discreetly more generous than ever it had been under Dame Juliana, and on this day there was enough and to spare, even after she had carried his usual portion to Iestyn in the workshop, and sat with him for company while he ate, to bring back the dish to the kitchen afterwards. What remained was not worth keeping to use up another day, but there was enough for one. She shredded the remains of the boiled salt beef into it, and took it across to the locksmith’s shop, as she had sometimes done before when there was plenty.

John Boneth was at work at his bench, and looked up as she entered, bowl in hand. She looked about her, and saw everything in placid order, but no sign of Baldwin Peche, or the boy Griffin, probably out on some errand.

“We have a surfeit, and I know your master’s no great cook. I brought him his dinner, if he hasn’t eaten already.”

John had come civilly to his feet, with a deferential smile for her. They had known each other five years, but always at this same discreet distance. The landlord’s daughter, the rich master-craftsman’s girl, was no meat for a mere journeyman.

“That’s kind, mistress, but the master’s not here. I’ve not seen him since the middle of the morning, he’s left me two or three keys to cut. I fancy he’s off for the day. He said something about the fish rising.”

There was nothing strange in that. Baldwin Peche relied on his man to take charge of the business every bit as competently as he could have done himself, and was prone to taking holidays whenever it suited his pleasure. He might be merely making the round of the ale-houses to barter his own news for whatever fresh scandal was being whispered, or he might be at the butts by the riverside, betting on a good marksman, or out in his boat, which he kept in a yard near the Watergate, only a few minutes down-river. The young salmon must be coming up the Severn by this time. A fisherman might well be tempted out to try his luck.

“And you don’t know if he’ll be back?” Susanna read his face, shrugged and smiled. “I know! Well, if he’s not here to eat it… I daresay you have still room to put this away, John?” He brought with him, usually, a hunk of bread and a strip of salt bacon or a piece of cheese, meat was festival fare in his mother’s house. Susanna set down her bowl before him on the bench, and sat down on the customer’s stool opposite, spreading her elbows comfortably along the boards. “It’s his loss. In an ale-house he’ll pay more for poorer fare. I’ll sit with you, John, and take back the bowl.”

Rannilt came down the Wyle to the open gate of the town, and passed through its shadowed arch to the glitter of sunlight on the bridge. She had fled in haste from the house, for fear of being called back, but she had lingered on the way through the town for fear of what lay before her. For the course was fearful, to one unschooled, half-wild, rejected by Wales and never welcomed in England but as a pair of labouring hands. She knew nothing of monks or monasteries, and none too much even of Christianity. But there inside the abbey was Liliwin, and thither she would go. The gates, Susanna had said, were never closed against any.

On the far side of the bridge she passed close by the copse where Liliwin had curled up to sleep, and been hunted out at midnight. On the other side of the Foregate lay the mill pool, and the houses in the abbey’s grant, and beyond, the wall of the enclave began, and the roofs of infirmary and school and guest-hall within, and the tall bulk of the gatehouse. The great west door of the church, outside the gates, confronted her in majesty. But once timidly entering the great court, she found reassurance. Even at this hour, perhaps the quietest of the day, there was a considerable bustle of coming and going within there, guests arriving and departing, servants ambling about on casual errands, petitioners begging, packmen taking a midday rest, a whole small world of people, some of them as humble as herself. She could walk in there among them, and never be noticed. But still she had to find Liliwin, and she cast about her for the most sympathetic source of information.

She was not blessed in her choice. A small man, in the habit of the house, scurrying across the court; she chose him because he was as small and slight as Liliwin, and his shoulders had a discouraged droop which reminded her of Liliwin, and because someone who looked so modest and disregarded must surely feel for others as insignificant as himself. Brother Jerome would have been deeply offended if he had known. As it was, he was not displeased at the low reverence this suppliant girl made to him, and the shy whisper in which she addressed him.