No, wait! There was more to it, he saw it now. The old woman at the head of the stairs, the only light that of the little lamp she carried, a falling light, pricking Susanna’s form and features into sharpest light and shade, every curve or hollow magnified... Yes! She saw what she saw, she shrieked and clutched her breast, and then fell, letting fall the revealing lamp from her hand. Somehow she had known the half of it, and come forth by night to confront her only, her best antagonist. She, too, must have seen the torn skirt, the stained hem, and made her own connections. And she had still, she had said, a use for those concealed keys of hers before she surrendered them at last. Yes, and the last words she ever spoke: ‘For all that, I should have liked to hold my great-grandchild... ‘ Words better understood now than when first he had heard them.
‘No, now I see! Nothing now could have held her back.
The man who compounded with her to steal was no kinsman, nor one they would ever have admitted as kin. They made their plans perforce, those two, to vanish from here together at the first favourable time, and make a life somewhere far away from this town. Her father grudged her a dowry, she has taken it for her herself. Whatever his name may be, this man, we know now what he is. He is her lover. More, he is the man who has got her with child.’
Chapter Twelve
Friday: night
Hugh was on his feet before the last words were spoken. ‘If you’re right, after what has happened they won’t wait for a better time. They’ve left it late as it is and so, by God, have I.’
‘You’re going there now? I am coming with you.’ Cadfael was not quite easy about Rannilt. In all innocence she had spoken out things that meant nothing evil to her, but might uncover much evil to those who listened. Far better to have her away before she could further threaten Susanna’s purposes. And it seemed that the same fear had fallen upon Liliwin, for he scrambled hastily out of the shadows to catch at Hugh’s arm before they could leave the cloister.
‘Sir, am I free now? I need not hide here any longer? Then take me with you! I want to fetch my girl away out of that house. I want her with me. How if they take fright at her too much knowledge? How if they do her harm? I’m coming to bring her away, whether or no it’s safe for me!’
Hugh clapped him heartily on the shoulder. ‘Come, and welcome. Free as a bird, and I’ll ensure my men shall know it and hold you safe enough. Tomorrow the town shall know it, too.’
There were no lights in the Aurifaber house when Hugh’s sergeant hammered at the hall door. The household was already abed, and it took some time to rouse any of the family. No doubt Dame Juliana, by this time, was shrouded and ready for her coffin.
It was Margery who at last came down to enquire quaveringly through the closed door who was without, and what was the matter at this time of night. At Hugh’s order she opened and let them in, herself surprised and vexed that Susanna, who slept downstairs, had not saved her the trouble. But it soon became clear that Susanna was not there to hear any knocking. Her room was empty, the bed undisturbed, the chest that had held her clothes now contained only a few discarded and well-worn garments.
The arrival of the sheriff’s deputy and others, with several officers of the law, very soon brought out all the inhabitants, Walter coming down blear-eyed and suspicious, Daniel hurrying solicitously to his wife’s side, the boy Griffin peering uncertainly from the other side of the yard. A curiously shrunken and unimpressive gathering, without its two dominant members, and every one of these few who remained utterly at a loss, staring about and at one another in consternation, as though somewhere among the shadows of the hall they might still discover Susanna.
‘My daughter?’ croaked Walter, looking about him helplessly. ‘But is she not here? She must be... she was here as always, she put out the lights as she always does, the last to her bed. Not an hour since! She cannot be gone!’
But she was gone. And so, as Cadfael found when he took a lantern and slipped away by the outdoor stairs at the rear of the house and into the undercroft, was Iestyn. Iestyn the Welshman, without money or family or standing, who would never for a moment have been considered as fit for his master’s daughter, even now she had ceased to be necessary to the running of his master’s house, and was of no further value.
The undercroft ran under stone-vaulted ceilings the length of the house. On impulse Cadfael left the cold, abandoned bed, and lit himself through to the front, where a narrow stair ran up to a door into the shop. Directly opposite to him, as he opened it, stood the pillaged coffer where Walter had kept his wealth. There had been no shadow that night, no sound, only the candle had flickered as the door was silently opened.
A few yards away, when Cadfael retraced his steps and again climbed the outdoor stair, lay the well. And on his right hand, the door into Susanna’s chamber, by which she could pass quickly between hall and kitchen, and a young man from below-stairs could as well enter when all was dark.
They were gone, as they had surely planned to go one night earlier and been detained by death. Acting on another thought, Cadfael went in by Susanna’s door, and asked Margery to open for him the locked door of the store. The big stone crock in which Susanna had kept her stock of oatmeal stood in one corner. Cadfael lifted the lid, and held his lantern over it. There was still a respectable quantity of grain left in the bottom of it, enough to hide quite a large bundle, suitably disposed, but bereft of that padding it showed much less than a quarter full. Juliana with her keys had been before him, and left what she found there, intending, as always, to manage the fortunes of her own clan with no interference from any other. She had known, and she had held her peace when she could have spoken. And that stark girl, her nearest kin, all desperation and all iron calm, had tended her scrupulously, and waited to learn her fate without fear or complaint. The one as strong as the other, for good or for evil, neither giving nor asking quarter.
Cadfael replaced the lid, went out and relocked the door. In the hall they were fluttering and bleating, anxious to insist on their own innocence and respectability at all costs, distracted at the thought that a kinswoman should be suspect of such an enormity as robbing her own family. Walter stammered out his answers, aghast at such treachery, almost incoherent with grief for his lost money, lost to his own child. Hugh turned rather to Daniel.
‘If she intended a long journey tonight, to take her out of our writ, or at least out of our hold, where would she run?
They would need horses. Have you horses they may have taken?’
‘Not here in the town,’ said Daniel, pale-faced and tousled from bed, his comeliness looking almost idiot at this pass, ‘but over the river we have a pasture and a stable. Father keeps two horses there.’
‘Which way? In Frankwell?’
‘Through Frankwell and along the westward road.’
‘And the westward road may well be our road,’ said Cadfael, coming in from the store, ‘for there’s a Welshman missing from under here, and what little he had gone with him, and once well into Wales he can thumb his nose at the sheriff of Shropshire. Whatever he may have taken with him.’
He had barely got it out, to indignant and disbelieving protests from Walter, outraged at the mere suggestion of such a depraved alliance, when Liliwin came bursting in from the rear quarters, his small person stiff and quivering with alarm.
‘I’ve been to the kitchen - Rannilt is not there. Her bed’s cold, she’s left her things just as they are, nothing taken.’How little she must have to take, but he knew the value, to one with virtually nothing, of the poor possessions she had left behind. ‘They’ve taken her with them - they’re afraid of what she knows and may tell. That woman has taken her,’ he cried, challenging the household, the law and all; ‘and she has killed and will kill again if she sees need. Where will they have gone? For I am going after them!’