“A separate creature,” said Brother Cadfael, eyeing him with detached affection “My priest, my proxy. I had to find some way of evading the fate that closed on me. There goes my sacrificial lamb, the best of the flock.”
“Some day he will take your confession,” said Hugh, watching Mark pluck out weeds as gently as though he pitied them, “and you’ll be a lost man, for he’ll know every evasion.” He sipped wine, drew it about his mouth thoughtfully, swallowed it and sat savouring the after-taste for a moment. “This fellow Warin had little to add,” he said then. “What do you say now? This cannot be chance.”
“No,” agreed Cadfael, propping the door of his workshop wide to let in the air, and coming to sit beside his friend, “it cannot be chance. The man is killed, stripped, his barge searched, his booth searched. Not a soul besides, at this fair where there are several as wealthy, has suffered any attack or any loss. No, there is nothing done at hazard here.”
“What, then? Expound! The girl claimed there were things stolen from the barge. Now something positive, a strong-box, the single portable thing in the booth that might confidently be supposed to hold valuables, is demonstrably stolen from this last assault. If these are not simple thefts, what are they? Tell me!”
“Stages in a quest,” said Cadfael. “It seems to me there’s a hunt afoot for something. I do not know what, but some quite single, small thing, and precious, which was, or was thought to be, in the possession of Master Thomas. On the night he came here he was murdered, and his body stripped. The first search. And it was fruitless, for the next day his barge was visited and ransacked. The second search.”
“Not altogether fruitless this time,” said Beringar dryly, “for we know on the best authority, do we not, that whoever paid that visit left the richer by three things, a silver chain, a girdle with a gold clasp, and a pair of embroidered gloves.”
“Hmmm!” Cadfael twitched his brown nose doubtfully between finger and thumb, and eyed the young man sidewise.
“Oh, come!” said Hugh indulgently, and flashed his sudden smile. “I may not stumble on these subtleties as quickly as you, but since knowing you I’ve had to keep my wits about me. The lady has a bold mind and an excellent memory, and I have no hope in the world of getting her to make a mistake in one detail of the embroidery on those lost gloves, but for all that, I doubt if they ever existed.”
“You might,” Cadfael suggested, though without much hope, “try asking her outright what it is she’s hiding.”
“I did!” owned Hugh, ruefully grinning. “She opened great, hurt eyes at me, and could not understand me! She knows nothing, she’s hiding nothing, she has nothing to tell more than she’s already told, and every word of that is truth. But for all that, and however angelically, the girl’s lying. What was it stuck in your craw, and brought you up against the same shock before ever it dawned upon me?”
“I should be sorry,” said Cadfael slowly, “if anything I have done or said made you think any evil of the girl, for I think none.”
“Neither do I, you need not fear it. But I do think she may be meddling in something she would do better to let well alone, and I would rather, as you would, as Abbot Radulfus would, that no harm should come to her under our care. Or ever, for that matter. I like her well.”
“When we went together to the barge,” said Cadfael,” and she took no more than a minute within to cry out that someone had been there, pawing through all their belongings, I never doubted she was telling truth. Women know how they leave things, it needs only a wrong fold to betray an alien hand, and certainly it shocked and startled her, that was no feigning. Nor was it the next moment, when I asked if anything had been taken, and without pause for thought, she said: ‘No!’ An absolute no, I would say even triumphant. I thought little of it, then, but urged her to look thoroughly and make sure. When I said she must report the matter, she thought again, and took pains to discover that indeed a few things had been stolen. I think she regretted that ever she had cried out in the first place, but if the law must know of it, she would ensure that it was accepted as a trivial theft by some common pick-purse. Truth is what she told unguardedly, with that scornful ‘no’ of hers. Afterwards she made to undo the effect by lying, and for one not by nature a liar she did it well. But for all that, I think, like you, those pretty things of hers never existed, or never were aboard the barge.”
“Still remains the question,” said Hugh, considering, “of why she was so sure in the first place that nothing had been taken.”
“Because,” said Cadfael simply, “she knew what the thief must have come looking for, and she knew he had not found it, because she knew it was not there to be found. The second search was also vain. Whatever it may be, it was not on Master Thomas’s person, which was clearly the most likely place, nor was it on his barge.”
“Hence this third search! So now divine for me, Cadfael, whether this third attempt has succeeded or no. The merchant’s strong-box is vanished—again a logical place to keep something so precious. Will this be the end of it?” Cadfael shook his head emphatically. “This attempt has fared no better than the others,” he said positively. “You may take that as certain.”
“How can you be so sure of it?” demanded Hugh curiously.
“You saw all that I saw. She does not care a farthing for the loss of the strong-box! As soon as she knew that the man Warm was unhurt, she took everything else calmly enough. Whatever it is the unknown is seeking, she knew it was not in the barge, and she knew it was not in the booth. And I can think of only one reason why she should know so well where it is not, and that is that she knows equally well where it is.”
“Then the next possibility the enemy will be considering,” said Hugh with conviction, “is where she is—on her person or in some hiding-place only she knows of. Well, we’ll keep a vigilant eye on Emma, between us. No,” said Hugh reflectively, “I cannot imagine any evil of her, but neither can I imagine how she can be tangled in something grim enough to bring about murder, violence and theft, nor why, if she knows herself to be in danger and in need of help, she won’t speak out and ask for it. Aline has tried her best to get her to confide, and the girl remains all sweetness and gratitude, but lets no word drop of any burden she may be carrying. And you know Aline, she draws out confidences without ever asking a probing question, and whoever can resist her is beyond the reach of the rest of us . . .”
“I’m glad to see you so fond a husband,” said Cadfael approvingly.
“So you should be, it was you tossed the girl into my arms in the first place. You’d best be worrying now about what manner of father I shall make! And you might put in a prayer for me on the issue, some time when you’re on your knees. No, truly, Cadfael . . . I wonder about this girl. Aline likes her, and that’s recommendation enough. And she seems to like Aline—no, more than like! Yet she never lets down her veils. When she seems most to cherish my most cherishable lady, she is also more careful not to let slip one unguarded word about her own situation.”
Brother Cadfael saw no paradox there. “So she would be, Hugh,” he said gravely. “If she feels herself to be in danger, the last thing she will do is to draw in beside her someone she values and likes. By every means in her power—and I think she is a clever and resourceful girl—she will stand off her friends from any share in what she is about.”
Beringar considered that long and sombrely, nursing his empty horn. “Well, all we can do is hedge her about thick enough to stand off, likewise, whatever move may be made against her.”
It had not occurred to him, it was only now insinuating itself into Cadfael’s thoughts, that the next decisive move might come from Emma herself, rather than being made against her. A piece of this mystery, apparently the vital piece, she had in her hands; if any use was to be made of it, it might well be at her decree.