by Ellis Peters
‘True, I have occasion to walk a few miles myself in the way of duty,’ agreed Boniface, with pride rather than regret in the breadth of his cure. ‘Not that I grudge it, God knows! Night or day, it’s a joy to know that from the furthest hamlet they can call me when they need me, and know that I’ll come. Sometimes I question my fortune, knowing it so little deserved. Only two days ago I was called away to Betton, and missed all but the morning Mass. I was sorry it should be that day, but no choice, there was a man dying, or he and all his kin thought he was dying. It was worth the journey, for he took the turn for life and I stayed until we were sure. It was getting dusk when I got back –’ He broke off suddenly, open mouthed and round-eyed. ‘So it was!’ he said slowly. ‘And I never thought to say!’
‘What is it?’ asked Cadfael curiously. It had been a long and confiding speech for this quiet, reticent young man, and this sudden halt was almost startling. ‘What have you thought of now?’
‘Why, that there was one more priest here then who is not here now. Father Elias will not know. I had a visitor came for the day of Saint Winifred’s translation, one who was my fellow-student, and ordained only a month ago. He came on the eve of the festival, early in the afternoon, and stayed through the next day, and when I was called away that morning after Mass I left him here to take part in all the offices in my place. I knew that would please him. He stayed until I came back, but that was when it was growing dark, and he was in haste then to be on his way home. It’s only a short while, from past noon one day to nightfall the next, but how if he did have a penitent come asking?’
‘He said no word of any such before he went?’ asked Cadfael.
‘He was in haste to be off, he had a walk of four miles. I never asked him. He was very proud to take my place, he said Compline for me. It could be!’ said Boniface. ‘Thin it may be, but it is a chance. Should we not make sure?’
‘So we can,’ said Cadfael heartily, ‘if he’s still within reach. But where should we look for him now? Four miles, you said? That’s no great way.’
‘He’s nephew to Father Eadmer at Attingham, and named for his uncle. Whether he’s still there, with him, is more than I know. But he has no cure yet. I would go,’ said Boniface, hesitating, ‘but I could hardly get back for Vespers. If I’d thought of it earlier…’
‘Never trouble yourself,’ said Cadfael. ‘I’ll ask leave of Father Abbot and go myself. For such a cause he’ll give permission. It’s the welfare of a soul at stake. And in this warm weather,’ he added practically, ‘there’s need of haste.’
*
It was, as it chanced, the first day for over a week to grow lightly overcast, though before night the cloud cover cleared again. To set out along the Foregate with the abbot’s blessing behind him and a four-mile walk ahead was pure pleasure, and the lingering vagus left in Cadfael breathed a little deeper when he reached the fork of the road at Saint Giles, and took the left-hand branch towards Attingham. There were times when the old wandering desire quickened again within him, and the very fact that he had been sent on an errand even beyond the limits of the shire, only three months back, in March, had rather roused than quenched the appetite. The vow of stability, however gravely undertaken, sometimes proved as hard to keep as the vow of obedience, which Cadfael had always found his chief stumbling-block. He greeted this afternoon’s freedom – and justified freedom, at that, since it had sanction and purpose – as a refreshment and a holiday.
The highroad had a broad margin of turf on either side, soft green walking, the veil of cloud had tempered the sun’s heat, the meadows were green on either hand, full of flowers and vibrant with insects, and in the bushes and headlands of the fields the birds were loud and full of themselves, shrilling off rivals, their first brood already fledged and trying their wings. Cadfael rolled contentedly along the green verge, the grass stroking silken cool about his ankles. Now if the end came up to the journey, every step of the way would be repaid with double pleasure.
Before him, beyond the level of the fields, rose the wooded hogback of the Wrekin, and soon the river reappeared at some distance on his left, to wind nearer as he proceeded, until it was close beside the highway, a gentle, innocent stream between flat grassy banks, incapable of menace to all appearances, though the local people knew better than to trust it. There were cattle in the pastures here, and waterfowl among the fringes of reeds. And soon he could see the square, squat tower of the parish church of Saint Eata beyond the curve of the Severn, and the low roofs of the village clustered close to it. There was a wooden bridge somewhat to the left, but Cadfael made straight for the church and the priest’s house beside it. Here the river spread out into a maze of green and golden shallows, and at this summer level could easily be forded. Cadfael tucked up his habit and splashed through, shaking the little rafts of water crowfoot until the whole languid surface quivered.
Over the years, summer by summer, so many people had waded the river here instead of turning aside to the bridge that they had worn a narrow, sandy path up the opposite bank and across the grassy level between river and church, straight to the priest’s house. Behind the mellow red stone of the church and the weathered timber of the modest dwelling in its shadow a circle of old trees gave shelter from the wind, and shaded half of the small garden. Father Eadmer had been many years in office here, and worked lovingly upon his garden. Half of it was producing vegetables for his table, and by the look of it a surplus to eke out the diet of his poorer neighbours. The other half was given over to a pretty little herber full of flowers, and the undulation of the ground had made it possible for him to shape a short bench of earth, turfed over with wild thyme, for a seat. And there sat Father Eadmer in his midsummer glory, a man lavish but solid of flesh, his breviary unopened on his knees, his considerable weight distilling around him, at every movement, a great aureole of fragrance. Before him, hatless in the sun, a younger man was busy hoeing between rows of young cabbages, and the gleam of his shaven scalp above the ebullient ring of curly hair reassured Cadfael, as he approached, that he had not had his journey for nothing. At least enquiry was possible, even if it produced disappointing answers.
‘Well, well!’ said the elder Eadmer, sitting up straight and almost sliding the breviary from his lap. ‘Is it you, off on your travels again?’
‘No further than here,’ said Cadfael, ‘this time.’
‘And how’s that unfortunate young brother you had with you in the spring?’ And Eadmer called across the vegetable beds to the young man with the hoe: ‘Leave that, Eddi, and fetch Brother Cadfael here a beaker of ale. Bring pitcher and all!’
Young Eadmer laid aside the hoe cheerfully, and was off into the house on fine long legs. Cadfael sat down beside the priest on the green bench, and waves of spicy fragrance rose around him.
‘He’s back with his pens and brushes, doing good work, and none the worse for his journey, indeed all the better in spirit. His walking improves, slowly but it improves. And how have you been? I hear this is your nephew, the young one, and newly made priest.’
‘A month since. He’s waiting to see what the bishop has in mind for him. The lad was lucky enough to catch his eye, it may work out well for him.’
It was clear to Cadfael, when the young Eadmer came striding out with a wooden tray of beakers and the pitcher, and served them with easy and willing grace, that the new priest was likely to catch any observant eye, for he was tall, well made and goodlooking, and blessedly unselfconscious about his assets. He dropped to the grass at their feet as soon as he had waited on them, and acknowledged his presentation to this Benedictine elder with pleasant deference, but quite without awe. One of those happy people for whose confidence and fearlessness circumstances will always rearrange themselves, and rough roads subside into level pastures. Cadfael wondered if his touch could do as much for other less fortunate souls.
‘Time spent sitting here with you and drinking your ale,’ admitted Cadfael with mild regret, ‘is stolen time, I fear, how
ever delightful. I’m on an errand that won’t wait, and once it’s done I must be off back. And my business is with your nephew here.’
‘With me?’ said the young man, looking up in surprise.
‘You came visiting Father Boniface, did you not, for Saint Winifred’s translation? And stayed with him from past noon on the eve until after Compline on the feast day?’
‘I did. We were deacons together,’ said young Eadmer, stretching up to refill their beakers without stirring from his grassy seat. ‘Why? Did I mislay something for him when I disrobed? I’ll walk back and see him again before I leave here.’
‘And he had to leave you in his place most of that day, from after the morning Mass until past Compline. Did any man come to you, during all that time, asking advice or wanting you to hear his confession?’
The straight-gazing brown eyes looked up at him thoughtfully, very grave now. Cadfael could read the answer and marvel at it even before Eadmer said: ‘Yes. One man did.’
It was too early yet to be sure of achievement. Cadfael asked cautiously: ‘What manner of man? Of what age?’
‘Oh, fifty years old, I should guess, going grey, and balding. A little stooped, and lined in the face, but he was uneasy and troubled when I saw him. Not a craftsman, by his hands, perhaps a small tradesman or someone’s house servant.’
More and more hopeful, Cadfael thought, and went on, encouraged: ‘You did see him clearly?’
‘It was not in the church. He came to the little room over the porch, where Cynric sleeps. Looking for Father Boniface, but found me instead. So we were face to face.’
‘You did not know him, though?’
‘No, I know very few in Shrewsbury. I never was there before.’
No need to ask if he had been at chapter, or at the session that followed, to know Aldwin again from that encounter. Cadfael knew he had not. He had too sure a sense of the limitations of his fledgling rights to overstep them.
‘And you confessed this man? And gave him penance and absolution?’
‘I did. And helped him through the penance. You will understand that I can tell you nothing about his confession.’
‘I would not ask you. If this was the man I believe it was, what matters is that you did absolve him, that his soul’s peace was made. For, you see,’ said Cadfael, considerately mirroring the young man’s severe gravity, ‘if I am right, the man is now dead. And since his parish priest had reason to wonder about the state of his strayed sheep, he is enquiring as to his spiritual standing before he will bury him with all the rites of the Church. It’s why every priest in the town has been questioned, and I come at last to you.’
‘Dead?’ echoed Eadmer, dismayed. ‘He was in sound health for a man of his years. How is that possible? And he was happier when he left me, he would not… No! So how comes it he is dead so soon?’
‘You will surely have heard by now,’ said Cadfael, ‘that the morning after the feast day a man was taken out of the river? Not drowned, but stabbed. The sheriff is hunting for his murderer.’
‘And this is the man?’ asked the young priest, aghast.
‘This is the man who so sorely needs a guarantor. Whether he is the man you confessed I cannot yet be certain.’
‘I never knew his name,’ said the boy, hesitant.
‘You would know his face,’ said his uncle, and spared to comment or prompt him further. There was no need. Young Eadmer set a hand to the ground and bounded to his feet, brushing down the skirt of his cassock briskly. ‘I will come back with you,’ he said, ‘and I hope with all my heart that I can speak for your murdered man.’
*
There were four of them about the trestle table on which Aldwin’s body had been laid out decently for burial: Girard, Father Elias, Cadfael and young Eadmer. In this narrow storeshed in the yard, swept out and sweetened with green branches, there was no room for more. And these witnesses were enough.
There had been very little said on the walk back to Shrewsbury. Eadmer, bent on preserving the sacredness of what had passed between them, had banished even the mention of their meeting until he should know that this dead man was indeed his penitent. Possibly his first penitent, and approached with awe, humility and reverence in consequence.
They had gone first to Father Elias, to ask him to accompany them to Girard’s house, for if this promise came to fruit it would be both ease for his mind, and due licence to hasten the arrangements for burial. The little priest came with them eagerly. He stood at the head of the bier, the place granted to him as of right, and his aging hands, thin and curled like a small bird’s claws, trembled for a moment as he turned back the covering from the dead man’s face. At the foot Eadmer stood, the fledgling priest fronting the old man worn but durable, after years of gain and loss in his strivings to medicine the human condition.
Eadmer did not move or utter a sound as the sheet was drawn down to uncover a face now somewhat eased, Cadfael thought, of its living discouragement and suspicion. The sinews of the cheeks and jaw had relaxed their sour tightness, and with it some years had slipped from him, leaving him almost serene. Eadmer gazed at him with prolonged wonder and compassion, and said simply: ‘Yes, that is my penitent.’
‘You are quite sure?’ said Cadfael.
‘Quite sure.’
‘And he made confession and received absolution? Praise be to God!’ said Father Elias, drawing up the sheet again. ‘I need not hesitate further. On the very day of his death he cleansed his soul. He did perform his penance?’
‘We said what was due together,’ said Eadmer. ‘He was distressed, I wanted to see him depart in better comfort, and so he did. I saw no cause to be hard on him. It seemed to me he might have done enough penance in his lifetime to be somewhat in credit. There are those who make their own way stony. There’s no merit in it, but I doubt if they can help it, and I felt it should count in extenuation of some small sins.’
For that Father Elias gave him a sharp and somewhat disapproving glance, but forebore from reproving what an austere old man might well consider the presumption, even levity, of youth. Eadmer was certainly innocent of having set out to arouse any such reservations. He opened his honest brown eyes wide on Father Elias, and said simply: ‘I’m glad out of measure, Father, that Brother Cadfael thought to come looking for me in time. And even more glad that I was there when this man was in need. God knows I have failings of my own to confess, for I was vexed at first when he came stumbling up the stairs. I came near to telling him to go away and come back at a better time, until I saw his face clearly. And all because he was making me late for Vespers.’
It was said so naturally and simply that it passed Brother Cadfael by for a long moment. He had turned towards the open doorway, where Girard was already leading the way out, and the early evening hung textured like a pearl, the westering sun veiled. He had heard the words without regarding them, and enlightenment fell on him so dazzlingly that he stumbled on the threshold. He swung about to stare at the young man following him.
‘What was that you said? For Vespers? He made you late for Vespers?’
‘So he did,’ said Eadmer blankly. ‘I was just opening the door to go down and into the church when he came. The office was half over by the time I sent him away consoled.’
‘Dear God!’ said Cadfael reverently. ‘And I never even thought to ask about the time! And this was on the festival day? Not the Vespers of the day you arrived? Not the eve?’
‘It was the festival day, when Boniface was away. Why, what’s in that to shake you? What is it I’ve said?’
‘The moment I clapped eyes on you, lad,’ said Cadfael joyfully, ‘I knew you had a happy touch about you. You’ve delivered not one man, but two, God bless you for it. Now come, come with me round the corner to Saint Mary’s close, and tell the sheriff what you’ve just told me.’
*
Hugh had come back to his house and family after a long and exasperating day of pursuing fruitless enquiries among an apparently unobse
rvant populace, and trying to extract truth from a scared and perspiring Conan, who was willing to admit that he had spent an hour or so trying to persuade Aldwin to let sleeping dogs lie, since it was known already, but insisted that after that he had wasted no more time, but gone straight to his work in the pastures west of the town. And that might well be true, even if he could cite no acquaintance who had met and spoken to him on the way. But there remained the possibility that he was still lying, and had followed and made one more disastrous attempt to sway a mind normally only too easily deflected from any purpose.
Enough and more than enough for one day. Hugh had taken himself off home to his own house, to his wife and his son and his supper, and he was sitting in the clean rushes of the hall floor, stripped down to shirt and hose in the mild evening, helping three-year-old Giles to build a castle, when Cadfael came rapping briskly at the open door, and marched in upon him shining with portentous news, and towing by the sleeve an unknown and plainly nonplussed young man.
Hugh abandoned his tower of wooden blocks unfinished, and came alertly to his feet. ‘Truant again, are you? I looked for you in the herbarium an hour ago. Where have you been off to this time? And who is this you’ve brought me?’
‘I’ve been no further than Attingham,’ said Cadfael, ‘to visit Father Eadmer. And here I’ve brought you his nephew, who is also Father Eadmer, ordained last month. This young man came to join his friend Father Boniface at Holy Cross for Saint Winifred’s celebrations. You know Father Elias has been fretting as to whether Aldwin died in a fit state to deserve all the rites of the Church, seeing he seldom showed his face at Mass in his own parish church. Elias had tried every priest he knew of, in and out of the town, to see if any could stand sponsor for the poor fellow. Boniface told me of one more who was here for a day and half a day, however unlikely it might be that a local man should find his way to him in so short a time. Howbeit, here he is, and he has a tale to tell you.’