“But you are not so sure,” said Hugh, eyeing him steadily.
“Something he had on his mind, surely, something he saw as guilt, or knew others would call guilt, or he would not have run. But murderer…? Hugh, I have in that pill, box of mine certain proof of dyed wools and gold thread in whatever cloth was used to kill. Certain—whereas flight is uncertain proof of anything worse than fear. You know as I know that there was no such woven cloth anywhere in that room, or in the infirmary, or in the entire pale so far as we can discover. Whoever used it brought it with him. Where would Anion get hold of any such rich material? He can never have handled anything better than drab homespun and unbleached flax in his life. It casts great doubt on his guilt, though it does not utterly rule it out. It’s why I did not press him too far—or thought I had not!” he added ruefully.
Hugh nodded guarded agreement, and put the point away in his mind. “But for all that, tomorrow at dawn I must send out search parties between here and Wales, for surely that’s the way he’ll go. A border between him and his fear will be his first thought. If I can take him, I must and will. Then we may get out of him whatever it is he does know. A lame man cannot yet have got very far.”
“But remember the cloth. For those threads do not lie, though a mortal man may, guilty or innocent. The instrument of death is what we have to find.”
The hunt went forth at dawn, in small parties filtering through the woods by all the paths that led most directly to Wales; but they came back with the dark, empty-handed. Lame or no, Anion had contrived to vanish within half a day.
The tale had gone forth through the town and the Foregate by then, every shop had it and every customer, the ale, houses discussed it avidly, and the general agreement was that neither Hugh Beringar nor any other man need look further for the sheriff’s murderer. The dour cattle-man with a grudge had been heard going into and leaving the death-chamber, and on being questioned had fled. Nothing could be simpler.
And that was the day when they buried Gilbert Prestcote, in the tomb he had had made for himself in a transept of the abbey church. Half the nobility of the shire was there to do him honour, and Hugh Beringar with an escort of his officers, and the provost of Shrewsbury, Geoffrey Corviser, with his son Philip and his son’s wife Emma, and all the solid merchants of the town guild. The sheriff’s widow came in deep mourning, with her small son round-eyed and awed at the end of her arm. Music and ceremony, and the immensity of the vault, and the candles and the torches, all charmed and fascinated him; he was good as gold throughout the service.
And whatever personal enemies Gilbert Prestcote might have had, he had been a fair and trusted sheriff to this county in general, and the merchant princes were well aware of the relative security and justice they had enjoyed under him, where much of England suffered a far worse fate.
So in his passing Gilbert had his due, and his people’s weighty and deserved intercession for him with his God.
“No,” said Hugh, waiting for Cadfael as the brothers came out from Vespers that evening, “nothing as yet. Crippled or not, it seems young Anion has got clean away. I’ve set a watch along the border, in case he’s lying in covert this side till the hunt is called off, but I doubt he’s already over the dyke. And whether to be glad or sorry for it, that’s more than I know. I have Welsh in my own manor, Cadfael, I know what drives them, and the law that vindicates them where ours condemns. I’ve been a frontiersman all my life, tugged two ways.”
“You must pursue it,” said Cadfael with sympathy. “You have no choice.”
“No, none. Gilbert was my chief,” said Hugh, “and had my loyalty. Very little we two had in common, I don’t know that I even liked him overmuch. But respect—yes, that we had. His wife is taking her son back to the castle tonight, with what little she brought here. I’m waiting now to conduct her.” Her stepdaughter was already departed with Sister Magdalen and the cloth-merchant’s daughter, to the solitude of Godric’s Ford. “He’ll miss his sister,” said Hugh, diverted into sympathy for the little boy.
“So will another,” said Cadfael, “when he hears of her going. And the news of Anion’s flight could not change her mind?”
“No, she’s marble, she’s damned him. Scold if you will,” said Hugh, wryly smiling, “but I’ve let fall the word in his ear already that she’s off to study the nun’s life. Let him stew for a while—he owes us that, at least. And I’ve accepted his parole, his and the other lad’s, Eliud. Either one of them has gone bail for himself and his cousin, not to stir a foot beyond the barbican, not to attempt escape, if I let them have the run of the wards. They’ve pledged their necks, each for the other. Not that I want to wring either neck, they suit very well as they are, untwisted, but no harm in accepting their pledges.”
“And I make no doubt,” said Cadfael, eyeing him closely, “that you have a very sharp watch posted on your gates, and a very alert watchman on your walls, to see whether either of the two, or which of the two, breaks and runs for it.”
“I should be ashamed of my stewardship,” said Hugh candidly, “if I had not.”
“And do they know, by this time, that a bastard Welsh cowman in the abbey’s service has cast his crutch and run for his life?”
“They know it. And what do they say? They say with one voice, Cadfael, that such a humble soul and Welsh into the bargain, without kin or privilege here in England, would run as soon as eyes were cast on him, sure of being blamed unless he could show he was a mile from the matter at the fatal time. And can you find fault with that? It’s what I said myself when you brought me the same news.”
“No fault,” said Cadfael thoughtfully. “Yet matter for consideration, would you not say? From the threatened to the threatened, that’s large grace.”
Chapter Nine
OWAIN GWYNEDD SENT BACK HIS RESPONSE to the events at Shrewsbury on the day after Anion’s flight, by the mouth of young John Marchmain, who had remained in Wales to stand surety for Gilbert Prestcote in the exchange of prisoners. The half-dozen Welsh who had escorted him home came only as far as the gates of the town, and there saluted and withdrew again to their own country.
John, son to Hugh’s mother’s younger sister, a gangling youth of nineteen, rode into the castle stiff with the dignity of the embassage with which he was entrusted, and reported himself ceremoniously to Hugh.
“Owain Gwynedd bids me say that in the matter of a death so brought about, his own honour is at stake, and he orders his men here to bear themselves in patience and give all possible aid until the truth is known, the murderer uncovered, and they vindicated and free to return. He sends me back as freed by fate. He says he has no other prisoner to exchange for Elis ap Cynan, nor will he lift a finger to deliver him until both guilty and innocent are known.” Hugh, who had known him from infancy, hoisted impressed eyebrows into his dark hair, whistled and laughed. “You may stoop now, you’re flying too high for me.”
“I speak for a high, flying hawk,” said John, blowing out a great breath and relaxing into a grin as he leaned back against the guard-room wall. “Well, you’ve understood him. That’s the elevated tenor of it. He says hold them and find your man. But there’s more. How recent is the news you have from the south? I fancy Owain has his eyes and ears alert up and down the borders, where your writ can hardly go. He says that the empress is likely to win her way and be crowned queen, for Bishop Henry has let her into Winchester cathedral, where the crown and the treasure are guarded, and the archbishop of Canterbury is dilly, dallying, putting her off with—he can’t well acknowledge her until he’s spoken with the king. And by God, so he has, for he’s been to Bristol and taken a covey of bishops with him, and been let in to speak with Stephen in his prison.” And what says King Stephen?” wondered Hugh.