“The more reason you should take her away from here, to a new home and a new life.” He looked round for her then for the first time, startled not to find her there among the women, but relieved that she was not there to complicate a matter already vexed enough. If she had indeed been able to fall asleep, so much the better, let her sleep on, and know nothing worse until morning. The maidservants were drifting back from the room where they had been busy making Edgytha’s body seemly. There was nothing more they could now do here, and their uneasy presence, mute and fearful in hovering groups, became oppressive. Cenred stirred himself with an effort to be rid of them.
“Emma, send the women to their beds. There’s no more to be done here, and they need not wait. And you, fellows, be off and get your sleep. All’s done that can be done till Edred gets back from Elford, no need for the whole household to wait up for him.” And to de Perronet he said, “I sent him on with two others of my men to inform my overlord of this death. Murder in these parts is within his writ, this will be his business no less than mine. Come, Jean, with your leave we’ll withdraw to the solar, and leave the hall to the sleepers.”
Doubtless, thought Cadfael, watching the harassed lines of Cenred’s face, he would be happier if de Perronet chose to draw off once again from all involvement, and stand apart, but there’s no chance of that now. And however he hedges round the truth of why his steward has pushed on to Elford, the very name of that place has now assumed a significance there’s no evading. And this is not a man who likes deception, or practices it with pleasure or skill.
The women had accepted their orders at once, and dispersed, still whispering and fearful, to their quarters. The menservants quenched the torches, leaving only two by the great door to light the way in, and fed and damped down the fire to burn slowly through the night. De Perronet followed his host to the door of the solar, and there Cenred, turning, waved Cadfael to join them within.
“Brother, you were a witness, you can testify to how we found her. It was you showed how the snow had begun to fall before she was struck down. Will you wait with us, and see what word my steward brings back with him?”
There was no word said as to whether Brother Haluin should consider this invitation as applying equally to him, but he caught Cadfael’s eye, deprecating rather than recommending such a move, and chose rather to ignore it. Enough had already happened to exercise his mind, if he was to join two people whose imminent marriage was at least suspect of bringing about a death. He needed to know what lay behind these nocturnal wanderings, and followed the company into the solar, his crutches heavy and slow in the rushes, and starting a dull echo as he stepped onto the floorboards within. He took his seat on a bench in the dimmest corner, an unobtrusive listener, as Cenred sat down wearily at the table, and spread his elbows on the board, propping his head between muscular hands.
“Your men are on foot?” asked de Perronet.
“Yes.”
“Then we may have a long wait yet before they can be here again. Had you other parties out on other roads?”
Cenred said starkly, “No,” and offered no further words by way of explanation or excuse. Not a quarter of an hour ago, thought Cadfael, watching, he would have evaded that, or left it unanswered. Now he is gone beyond caring for discretion. Murder brings out into the open many matters no less painful, while itself still lurking in the dark.
De Perronet shut his lips and clenched his teeth on any further questioning, and set himself to wait in uncommitted patience. The night had closed in on the manor of Vivers in hushed stillness, ominous and oppressive. Doubtful if anyone in the hall slept, but if any of them moved it was furtively, and if any spoke it was in whispers.
Nevertheless, the wait was not to be as long as de Perronet had prophesied. The silence was abruptly shivered by the thudding of galloping hooves on the hard-frozen earth of the courtyard, a furious young voice yelling peremptorily for service, the frantic running of grooms without, and the hasty stirring of all the wakeful retainers within. Feet ran blindly in the dark, stumbling and rustling in the rushes, flint and steel spat sparks too brief and hasty to catch the tinder, the first torch was plunged into the turfed-down fire, and carried in haste to kindle others. Before the listeners in the solar could burst out into the hall a fist was thumping at the outer door, and an angry voice demanding entry.
Two or three ran to unbar, knowing the voice, and were sent reeling as the heavy door was flung back to the wall, and into the brightening flurry of torchlight burst the figure of Roscelin, head uncovered, flaxen hair on end from the speed of his ride, blue eyes blazing. The cold of the night blew in with him, and all the torches guttered and smoked, as Cenred, erupting out of the solar, was halted as abruptly on the threshold of the hall by his son’s fiery glare.
“What is this Edred tells me of you?” demanded Roscelin. “What have you done behind my back?”
Chapter Nine
For once paternal authority was caught at a disadvantage, and Cenred was all too aware of it. Nor had he the past reputation of a family tyrant to fall back on, but he did his best to wrest back the lost initiative.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded sternly. “Did I send for you? Did your lord dismiss you? Has either of us released you from your bond?”
“No,” said Roscelin, glittering. “I have no leave from any man, and have not asked for any. And as for my bond, you loosed me from it when you played me false. It’s not I who have broken faith. And as for the duty I owe to Audemar de Clary, I’ll return to it if I must, and abide whatever his displeasure visits on me, but not until you render me account here openly of what you intended in the dark behind my back. I listened to you, I owned you right, I obeyed you. Did you owe me nothing in return? Not even honesty?”
Another father might well have felled him for such insolence, but Cenred had no such option. Emma was plucking anxiously at his sleeve, troubled for both her menfolk. De Perronet, alert and grim, loomed at his shoulder, eyeing the enraged boy confronting them, and already apprised of an inevitable threat to his own plans. What else could have brought this youngster haring through the night? And by all the signs he had come by the shortest road, dangerous in the dark, or he could not have arrived so soon. Nothing that had happened this night was accident or chance. The marriage of Helisende Vivers had brought about all this coil of murder and search and pursuit, and what more was to come of it there was as yet no knowing.
“I have done nothing,” said Cenred, “of which I need to be ashamed, and nothing for which I need account to you. Well you know what your own part must be, you have agreed to it, do not complain now. I am the master in my own house, I have both rights and duties towards my family. I will discharge them as I see fit. And for the best!”
“Without the courtesy of a word to me!” flared Roscelin, burning up like a stirred fire. “No, I must hear it only from Edred, after the damage has already begun, after a death that can surely be laid at your own door. Was that for the best? or dare you tell me Edgytha is dead for some other cause, by some stranger’s hand? That’s mischief enough, even if it’s no worse than that. But whose plans sent her out into the night? Dare you tell me she was on some other errand? Edred says she was on her way to Elford when someone cut her off. I am here to prevent the rest.”
“Your son refers, as I suppose,” said de Perronet, loudly and coldly, “to the marriage arranged between the lady Helisende and me. In that matter, I think, I too have a say.”
Roscelin’s wide blue stare swung from his father’s face to the guest’s. It was the first time he had looked at him, and the encounter held him silent for a long moment. They were not strangers to each other, Cadfael recalled. The two families were acquainted, perhaps even distant kin, and two years ago de Perronet had made a formal offer for He lisende’s hand. There was no personal animosity in Roscelin’s glare, rather a baffled and frustrated rage against circumstance than against this favored suitor, to whom he could not and must not be a rival.