“I went out that night to the pool. I have often walked there by night, when there has been no moon, and none awake to see. Between the willow trees there, beyond the mill, where she went into the water… Eluned, Nest’s girl… because Ailnoth refused her confession and the uses of the church, denounced her before all the parish and shut the door in her face. He could as well have stabbed her to the heart, it would have been kinder. All that brightness and beauty taken from us… I knew her well, she came so often for comfort while Father Adam lived, and he never failed her. And when she was not fretting over her sins she was like a bird, like a flower, a joy to see. There are not so many things of beauty in the world that a man should destroy one of them, and make no amends. And when she fell into remorse she was like a child… she was a child, it was a child he cast out…”
He fell silent for a moment, as though the words had become hard to read by reason of the blindness of grief, and furrowed his high forehead to decipher them the better, but no one ventured to speak.
“There I was standing, where Eluned went into the pool, when he came along the path. I did not know who it was, he did not come as far as where I stood—but someone, a man stamping and muttering, there by the mill. A man in a rage, or so it sounded. Then a woman came stumbling after him, I heard her cry out to him, she went on her knees to him, weeping, and he was trying to shake her off, and she would not let go of him. He struck her—I heard the blow. She made no more than a moan, but then I did go towards them, thinking there could be murder done, and therefore I saw dimly, but I had my night eyes, and I did see—how he swung his stick at her again, and she clung with both hands to the head of it to save herself, and how he tugged at it with all his strength and tore it out of her hands… The woman ran from him, I heard her stumbling away along the path, but I doubt she ever heard what I heard, or knows what I know. I heard him reel backwards and crash into the stump of the willow. I heard the withies lash and break. I heard the splash—it was not a great sound—as he went into the water.”
There was another silence, long and deep, while he thought, and laboured to remember with precision, since that was required of him. Brother Cadfael, coming up quietly behind the ranks of the awestruck brothers, had heard only the latter part of Cynric’s story, but he had the poor, draggled proof of it in his hand as he listened. Hugh’s trap had caught nothing, rather it had set everyone free. He looked across the mute circle to where Diota stood, with Sanan’s arm about her. Both women had drawn their hoods close round their faces. One of the hands torn by the sharp edges of the silver band held the folds of Diota’s cloak together.
“I went towards the place,” said Cynric, “and looked into the water. It was only then I knew him certainly for Ailnoth. He drifted at my feet, stunned or dazed… I knew his face. His eyes were open… And I turned my back and walked away from him, as he turned his back on her and walked away from her, shutting the door on her tears as he struck at this other woman’s tears… If God had willed him to live, he would have lived. Why else should it happen there, in that very place? And who am I, to usurp the privilege of God?”
All this he delivered in the same reasonable voice with which he would have rendered account of the number of candles bought for the parish altar, though the words came slowly and with effort and thought, studying to make all plain now that plainness was needed. But to Abbot Radulfus it had some distant echo of the voice of prophecy. Even if the man had wished to save, could he have saved? Might not the priest have been already past saving? And there in the dark, alone, with no time to summon help, since everyone was preparing for the night office, and with that undercut bank to contend with, and the dead weight of a big man to handle could any man, singly, have saved? Better to suppose that the thing had been impossible, and accept what to Cynric was the will of God!
“And now, with your leave, my lord abbot,” said Cynric, having waited courteously but vainly for some comment or question, “if you’ve no more need of me I’ll be getting on with filling in the grave, for I’ll need the most of the daylight to make a good job of it.”
“Do so,” said the abbot, and looked at him for a moment, eye to eye, with no shadow of blame, and saw no shadow of doubt. “Do so, and come to me for your fee when it is done.”
Cynric went as he had come, back to his work, and those who watched him in awe-stricken silence saw no change in his long-legged walk, or in the quiet, steady rhythm with which he plied his spade.
Radulfus looked at Hugh, and then to Jordan Achard, mute and wilting with relief from terror between his guards. For a brief instant the abbot’s austere face was shaken by the merest fleeting shadow of a smile. “My lord sheriff, I think your charge against this man is already answered. What other offences he may have on his conscience,” said the abbot, fixing the demoralised Jordan with a severe eye, “I recommend him to bring to confession. And to avoid henceforward! He may well reflect on the dangers into which such a manner of life has led him, and take this day as a warning.”
“For my part, I’m glad to know the truth and find that none of us here has the guilt of murder on his soul,” said Hugh. “Master Achard, take yourself home and be glad you have a loyal and dutiful wife. Lucky for you there was one here to speak for you, for there was a strong case against you had there been no such witness. Loose him!” he said to his sergeants. “Let him be about his business. By rights he owes a gift to the parish altar, by way of thanks for a good deliverance.”
Jordan all but sagged to the ground when the two officers took their hands from him, and Will Warden was moved in good humour to lend him a supporting hand again under one arm until he got his legs to stand solid under him. And now at last it was truly over, but that every soul there was so petrified with wonder that it took another benediction by way of dismissal to start them moving.
“Go now, good people,” said the abbot, somewhat brusquely accepting the need. “Make your prayers for the soul of Father Ailnoth, and bear in mind that our neighbour’s failings should but make us mindful rather of our own. Go, and trust to us who have the grant of this parish to bestow, to consider your needs above all in whatever we determine.” And he blessed them departing, with a vigour and brevity that actually set them in motion. Silent as yet, even as they melted like snow and began to move away, but soon they would be voluble enough. Town and Foregate would ring with the many and contradictory accounts of this morning’s events, to be transmuted at last into myth, a folk memory of momentous things witnessed, once, long ago.
“And you, brothers,” said Radulfus shortly, turning to his own flock, doves with fluttered feathers now and disrupted cooing, “go now to your daily duties, and make ready for dinner.”
They broke ranks almost fearfully, and drifted apart as the rest were doing, apparently aimlessly at first, then making slowly for the places where now they should be. Like sparks from a fire, or dust scattered on a wind, they disseminated, still half-dazed with revelation. The only one who went about his business with purpose and method was Cynric, busy with his spade under the wall.
Brother Jerome, deeply disturbed by proceedings which in no way fitted in with his conception of the rule and routine of the Benedictine order, went about rounding up some of his strayed chicks towards the lavatorium and the frater, and shooing some of the lingering parishioners out of the abbey’s confines. In so doing he drew near to the wide-open doors upon the Foregate, and became aware of a young man standing in the street outside, holding the bridle of a horse, and casting an occasional brief glance over those emerging, but from within a close-drawn capuchon, so that his face was not clearly visible. But there was something about him that held Jerome’s sharp eyes. Something not quite recognised, since the coat and capuchon were strange, and the face obstinately averted, and yet something reminiscent of a certain young fellow known for a while to the brethren, and later vanished in strange circumstances. If only the fellow would once turn his face fully!