“Yes,” she said, watching him with unwavering blue eyes.
“So in the end you had nothing against him making known how the candlesticks were stolen.” It was not an accusation, he was pursuing his way to understanding.
But at once she said clearly: “I did not steal them. I took them. I will restore them—to their owner.”
“Then you don’t claim they are yours?”
“No,” she said, “they are not mine. But neither are they FitzHamon’s.”
“Do you tell me,” said Cadfael mildly, “that there has been no theft at all?”
“Oh, yes,” said Elfgiva, and her pallor burned into a fierce brightness, and her voice vibrated like a harp-string. “Yes, there has been a theft, and a vile, cruel theft, too, but not here, not now. The theft was a year ago, when FitzHamon received these candlesticks from Alard who made them, his villein, like me. Do you know what the promised price was for these? Manumission for Alard, and marriage with me, what we had begged of him three years and more. Even in villeinage we would have married and been thankful. But he promised freedom! Free man makes free wife, and I was promised, too. But when he got the fine works he wanted, then he refused the promised price. He laughed! I saw, I heard him! He kicked Alard away from him like a dog. So what was his due, and denied him, Alard took. He ran! On St Stephen’s Day he ran!”
“And left you behind?” said Cadfael gently.
“What chance had he to take me? Or even to bid me farewell? He was thrust out to manual labour on FitzHamon’s other manor. When his chance came, he took it and fled. I was not sad! I rejoiced! Whether I live or die, whether he remembers or forgets me, he is free. No, but in two days more he will be free. For a year and a day he will have been working for his living in his own craft, in a charter borough, and after that he cannot be haled back into servitude, even if they find him.”
“I do not think,” said Brother Cadfael, “that he will have forgotten you! Now I see why our brother may speak after three days. It will be too late then to try to reclaim a runaway serf. And you hold that these exquisite things you are cradling belong by right to Alard who made them?”
“Surely,” she said, “seeing he never was paid for them, they are still his.”
“And you are setting out tonight to take them to him. Yes! As I heard it, they had some cause to pursue him towards London… indeed, into London, though they never found him. Have you had better word of him? From him?”
The pale face smiled. “Neither he nor I can read or write. And whom should he trust to carry word until his time is complete, and he is free? No, never any word.”
“But Shrewsbury is also a charter borough, where the unfree may work their way to freedom in a year and a day. And sensible boroughs encourage the coming of good craftsmen, and will go far to hide and protect them. I know! So you think he may be here. And the trail towards London a false trail. True, why should he run so far, when there’s help so near? But, daughter, what if you do not find him in Shrewsbury?”
“Then I will look for him elsewhere until I do. I can live as a runaway, too, I have skills, I can make my own way until I do get word of him. Shrewsbury can as well make room for a good seamstress as for a man’s gifts, and someone in the silversmith’s craft will know where to find a brother so talented as Alard. I shall find him!”
“And when you do? Oh, child, have you looked beyond that?”
To the very end,” said Elfgiva firmly. “If I find him and he no longer wants me, no longer thinks of me, if he is married and has put me out of his mind, then I will deliver him these things that belong to him, to do with as he pleases, and go my own way and make my own life as best I may without him. And wish well to him as long as I live.”
Oh, no, small fear, she would not be easily forgotten, not in a year, not in many years. “And if he is utterly glad of you, and loves you still?”
“Then,” she said, gravely smiling, “if he is of the same mind as I, I have made a vow to Our Lady, who lent me her semblance in the old man’s eyes, that we will sell these candlesticks where they may fetch their proper price, and that price shall be delivered to your almoner to feed the hungry. And that will be our gift, Alard’s and mine, though no one will ever know it.”
“Our Lady will know it,” said Cadfael, “and so shall I. Now, how were you planning to get out of this enclave and into Shrewsbury? Both our gates and the town gates are closed until morning.”
She lifted eloquent shoulders. “The parish doors are not barred. And even if I leave tracks, will it matter, provided I find a safe hiding-place inside the town?”
“And wait in the cold of the night? You would freeze before morning. No, let me think. We can do better for you than that.”
Her lips shaped: “We?” in silence, wondering, but quick to understand. She did not question his decisions, as he had not questioned hers. He thought he would long remember the slow, deepening smile, the glow of warmth mantling her cheeks. “You believe me!” she said.
“Every word! Here, give me the candlesticks, let me wrap them, and do you put up your hair again in net and hood. We’ve had no fresh snow since morning, the path to the parish door is well trodden, no one will know your tracks among the many. And, girl, when you come to the town end of the bridge there’s a little house off to the left, under the wall, close to the town gate. Knock there and ask for shelter over the night till the gates open, and say that Brother Cadfael sent you. They know me, I doctored their son when he was sick. They’ll give you a warm corner and a place to lie, for kindness’ sake, and ask no questions, and answer none from others, either. And likely they’ll know where to find the silversmiths of the town, to set you on your way.”
She bound up her pale, bright hair and covered her head, wrapping the cloak about her, and was again the maidservant in homespun. She obeyed without question his every word, moved silently at his back round the great court by way of the shadows, halting when he halted, and so he brought her to the church, and let her out by the parish door into the public street, still a good hour before Matins. At the last moment she said, close at his shoulder within the half-open door. “I shall be grateful always. Some day I shall send you word.”
“No need for words,” said Brother Cadfael, “if you send me the sign I shall be waiting for. Go now, quickly, there’s not a soul stirring.”
She was gone, lightly and silently, flitting past the abbey gatehouse like a tall shadow, towards the bridge and the town. Cadfael closed the door softly, and went back up the night stairs to the dortoir, too late to sleep, but in good time to rise at the sound of the bell, and return in procession to celebrate Matins.
There was, of course, the resultant uproar to face next morning, and he could not afford to avoid it, there was too much at stake. Lady FitzHamon naturally expected her maid to be in attendance as soon as she opened her eyes, and raised a petulant outcry when there was no submissive shadow waiting to dress her and do her hair. Calling failed to summon and search to find Elfgiva, but it was an hour or more before it dawned on the lady that she had lost her accomplished maid for good. Furiously she made her own toilet, unassisted, and raged out to complain to her husband, who had risen before her, and was waiting for her to accompany him to Mass. At her angry declaration that Elfgiva was nowhere to be found, and must have run away during the night, he first scoffed, for why should a sane girl take herself off into a killing frost when she had warmth and shelter and enough to eat where she was? Then he made the inevitable connection, and let out a roar of rage.
“Gone, is she? And my candlesticks gone with her, I dare swear! So it was she! The foul little thief! But I’ll have her yet, I’ll drag her back, she shall not live to enjoy her ill-gotten gains…”