“It seems,” interrupted the sheriff sharply, “that we have need of someone in authority at Saint Giles. It’s a serious matter to hide a wanted murderer.”
From the rear of the crowd in the direction of the gardens, a deprecating voice piped up none too happily: “Father Abbot, if it please you, I am willing to speak for Saint Giles, for I serve there.”
Every head turned, all eyes opening wide in astonishment at the sorry little figure advancing meekly to stand before Radulfus. Brother Mark’s face was smudged with mud, a trailing wisp of pond-weed adorned his straggling tonsure, his habit trickled water from its skirts at every step, and clung to his thin body in heavy, dripping folds. He was ridiculous enough, and yet the soiled, earnest face and devoted gray eyes had still a bedraggled dignity, and if there were some half-hysterical grins and sniggers among the throng at sight of him, Radulfus was not smiling.
“Brother Mark! What can this mean?”
“It took me a long time to find a fordable place,” said Mark apologetically. “I am sorry I come so late. I had no horse to carry me over, and I cannot swim. I had to draw back twice, and once I fell, but at the third try I found the shallow place. By daylight it would not have taken so long.”
“We pardon your lateness,” said Radulfus gravely, and for all the composure of his voice and his face, it was no longer quite so certain that he was not smiling. “It seems you had reason to feel you might be needed here, for you come very aptly, if you come to account for how a wanted man came to find refuge in the hospital. Did you know of this young man’s presence there?”
“Yes, Father,” said Brother Mark simply, “I did know.” “And was it you who introduced and sheltered him there?” “No, Father. But I did come to realize, at Prime of that day, that we had one man more among us.”
“And held your peace? And countenanced his presence?” “Yes, Father, that I did. At first I did not know who he was, nor could I always single him out from others of our flock, for he wore the face-cloth. And when I suspected … Father, I do not own any man’s life, to give it up to any but God’s judgment. So I held my peace. If I was wrong, judge me.”
“And do you know,” asked the abbot impassively, “who it was who introduced the young man into the hospice?”
“No, Father. I do not even know that anyone did. I may have some thoughts as to that, but I do not know. But if I did,” owned Mark with candid-eyed humility, “I could not give you a name. It is not for me to accuse or betray any man but myself.”
“You are two here of like mind,” said the abbot drily. “But you have yet to tell us, Brother Mark, how you come to be fording the Meole brook, on the heels, as I understand it—if, indeed, I have yet understood any part of it!—of this young fugitive, who was sensible enough to provide himself with a horse for the venture. Had you been following him?”
“Yes, Father. For I knew I might be answerable for harboring one less innocent and good than I thought him—for which thought I promise I had good reason. So all this day I have watched him. He has hardly been a moment out of my sight. And when he discarded his cloak in the dusk, and set off this way, I did follow him. I saw him find his horse tethered in the copse across the brook, and I saw him cross. I was in the water when I heard the outcry after him. As for this day I can speak for all he has done, and there was no blame.”
“And the day when he came to you?” the sheriff demanded sharply. “What of his first appearance among your lepers? At what hour?”
Brother Mark, single-hearted in his allegiance, kept his eyes fixed upon the abbot’s face for guidance, and Radulfus nodded gravely that he, too, required an answer.
“It was two days ago, at Prime, as I’ve told you,” said Mark, “that I first was aware of him. But at that time he was already provided with the leper cloak, and a face-cloth to hide his face, and behaved altogether conformably with the others. I judge, therefore, he must have been in hiding among us at least some quarter to half an hour, to be so well prepared.”
“And as I have heard,” said the abbot thoughtfully, turning to Prestcote, “your men on patrol in the Foregate, my lord, started a hare that same morning, and lost him in the neighborhood of Saint Giles. At what hour did they sight him?”
“They reported to me,” said the sheriff, pondering, “sighting such a fleeing man the best part of an hour before Prime, and certainly they lost him near Saint Giles.”
Iveta descended one more step. She felt herself suspended in a dream, a double dream that filled her with terror when she looked one way, and wild hope when she looked the other way. For these were not the voices of enemies. And still, blessedly, her uncle did not come, to cast into the balance his black animosity, his narrow malice. She was but two steps behind Joscelin now, she could have stretched out her hand and touched his unkempt flaxed hair, but she was afraid of shattering his braced attention. She did not touch him. She kept an alert eye on the gatehouse, watchful for her chief enemy’s return. That was why she was the first to mark Brother Cadfael’s arrival. Only she and Agnes were looking that way.
The little mule, which had enjoyed an unhurried day, was resentful at being urged to speed at the end of it, and manifested his displeasure by halting inside the gatehouse and refusing to budge further. And Brother Cadfael, who had been demanding some effort of him until that moment, sat to gaze in mute astonishment as his eyes lit upon the scene in the great court. She saw his rapid glance rove over all those intent faces, she could almost feel him stretch his ears to pick up the words that were passing. He saw Joscelin standing braced and alert at the foot of the steps, saw sheriff and abbot eyeing each other somberly, and the draggled little figure of the young brother who, for Iveta, spoke with the unwitting tongue of a minor angel, the kind of angel who would descend with disarming apologies, and of whom no sinner would ever be afraid.
Hastily but quietly, Cadfael dismounted, surrendered the mule to the porter, and advanced to the edge of the crowd, himself still unnoticed. Obscurely encouraged, Iveta descended one more step.
“So it would seem,” said Radulfus reasonably, “that you were at the hospital, young man, by a quarter of an hour at least before Prime of that day, and perhaps as much as half an hour.”
“I had—acquired my cloak,” agreed Joscelin, a little astray now and treading warily, “some little time before I went to the church.”
“And you were instructed how to behave?”
“I have attended Prime before, I know the office.”
“Perhaps, but it would take some few minutes of instruction,” persisted Radulfus mildly, “to pick up the whole order of the day in Saint Giles.”
“I can watch others and do as they do,” said Joscelin flatly, “as readily as any other man.”
“Granted, Father,” said Gilbert Prestcote impatiently, “that he was there well before the seventh hour of the morning. That I accept. But we have no way of knowing the hour of my lord Domville’s death.”
Brother Cadfael had the whole drift of it by then. Finding his way blocked by spectators so intent that they remained deaf and blind to his civil requests and attempts to make his way through their ranks, he used his elbows sturdily, and butted a path through to the front. And before anyone else could speak up and brush the question of timing aside, he lifted his voice and called loudly as he came: “True, my lord, but there is a way of knowing when he was last seen alive and well.”
He broke through then, the sudden shout opening a path before him, and emerged face to face with the abbot and the sheriff, both of whom had swung about to face and frown upon the interruption.
“Brother Cadfael! You have something to say in this matter?”
“I have …” began Cadfael, and broke off to gaze in vexed concern at the shivering little figure of Brother Mark. He shook his head in distracted compunction. “But, Father, should not Brother Mark be changing that wet habit, and getting something hot into him, before he takes his death?”