Cadfael went out with him to shoo away any such premature visits. Jacob of Bouldon, pale and anxious, was sitting with arms folded closely round his drawn-up knees, hunched against the chill of the night. He looked up hopefully as they came out to him, and opened his mouth eagerly to plead. Madog clouted him amiably on the shoulder as he passed, and made off towards the gatehouse, a squat, square figure, brown and crusty as the bole of an oak.
“You’d best be off, too, into the warm,” said Brother Cadfael, not unkindly. “Master William will recover well enough, but he’s likely to be without his wits some time yet, no call for you to catch your death here on the stone.”
“I couldn’t rest,” said Jacob earnestly. “I told him, I begged him, take me with you, you should have someone. But he said, folly, he had collected rents for the abbey many years, and never felt any need for a guard. And now, see… Could I not come in and sit by him? I’d make no sound, never trouble him… He has not spoken?”
“Nor will for some hours yet, and even then I doubt he can tell us much. I’m here with him in case of need, and Brother Edmund is on call. The fewer about him, the better.”
“I’ll wait a little while yet,” said Jacob, fretting, and hugged his knees the tighter.
Well, if he would, he would, but cramp and cold would teach him better sense and more patience. Cadfael went back to his vigil, and closed the door. Still, it was no bad thing to encounter one lad whose devotion gave the lie to Master William’s forebodings concerning the younger generation.
Before midnight there was another visitor enquiring. The porter opened the door softly and came in to whisper that Master William’s son was here, asking after his father and wanting to come in and see him. Since the sergeant, departing when it seemed certain his vigil was fruitless until morning, had pledged himself to go and reassure Mistress Rede that her man was alive, well cared for, and certain to make a good recovery, Cadfael might well have gone out to bid the young man go home and take care of his mother rather than waste his time here, if the young man had not forestalled him by making a silent and determined entry on his herald’s heels. A tall, shock-headed, dark-eyed youth, hunched of shoulder just now, and grim of face, but admittedly very quiet in movement, and low-voiced. His look was by no means tender or solicitous. His eyes went at once to the figure in the bed, sweaty-browed now, and breathing somewhat more easily and naturally. He brooded, glaring, and wasting no time on question or explanation, said in a level whisper: “I will stay.” And with aggressive composure stayed, settling himself on the bench beside his father’s bed, his two long, muscular hands gripped tightly between his knees.
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 “Cadfael, 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?”