Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many

on making sure the shutters were fast, and listening for hostile footsteps outside, to pay immediate attention to what he was saying. And too ready with questions of their own to answer his questions.
    'Are you hunted?' asked Edric anxiously. 'Do you need a place to hide?'
    And: 'Were you in the garrison?' demanded Petronilla, and patted him concernedly in search of wounds. As though she had been his nurse once, instead of Godith's, and seen him every day of his life instead of twice or thrice since the childhood betrothal. A little too much solicitude! And a neat, brief breathing-space while they considered how much or how little to tell him!
    'They've been hunting here already,' said Ethic. 'I doubt if they'll come again, they had the place to pieces after the sheriff and the Lord Fulke. You're welcome to a shelter here if you need it. Are they close on your heels?'
    He was sure by that time that they knew he had never been inside the castle, nor committed in any way to FitzAlan's stand. This clever, trusted old servant and her husband had been deep in Adeney's confidence, they knew very well who had held with him, and who had held aloof.
    'No, it's not that. I'm in no danger and no need. I came only to look for Godith. They're saying he left it too late to send her away with FitzAlan's family. Where can I find her?'
    'Did someone send you here to look for her?' asked Edric.
    'No, no, none ... But where else would he place her? Who is there to be trusted like her nurse? Of course I came first to you! Never tell me she was not here!'
    'She was here,' said Petronilla. 'Until a week ago we had her. But she's gone, Hugh, you're too late. He sent two knights to fetch her away, and not even we were told where she was bound. What we don't know we can't be made to tell, he said. But it's my belief they got her away out of the town in good time, and she's far off by now, and safe, pray God!' No doubt about the fervency of that prayer, she would fight and die for her nurseling. And lie for her, too, if need be!
    'But for God's sake, friends, can you not help me to her at all? I'm her intended husband. I'm responsible for her if her father is dead, as by now, for all I know, he may well be...'
    That got him something for his trouble, at any rate, if it was no more than the flicker of a glance passing between them, before they exclaimed their 'God forbid!' in unison. They knew very well, by the frenzied search, that FitzAlan and Adeney had been neither killed nor taken. They could not yet be sure that they were clean away and safe, but they were staking their lives and loyalty on it. So now he knew he would get nothing more from them, he, the renegade.
    Not, at any rate, by this direct means.
    'Sorry I am, lad,' said Edric Flesher weightily, 'to have no better comfort for you, but so it is. Take heart that at least no enemy has laid hand on her, and we pray none ever will.' Which could well be taken, reflected Beringar whimsically, as a thrust at me.
    'Then I must away, and try what I can discover elsewhere,' he said dejectedly. 'I'll not put you in further peril. Open, Petronilla, and look if the street's empty for me.' Which she did, nothing loathe, and reported it as empty as a beggar's palm. Beringar clasped Edric's hand, and leaned and kissed Ethic's wife, and was rewarded and avenged by a vivid, guilty blush.
    'Pray for her,' he said, asking one thing at least they would not grudge him, and slipped through the half-open door, and heard it closed firmly behind him. Not too loudly, since he was supposed to be affecting stealth, but still audibly, he tramped with hasty steps along the street as far as the corner of the house. Then, whirling, he skipped back silently on his toes to lay an ear to the shutter.
    'Hunting for his bride!' Petronilla was saying scornfully. 'Yes, and a fair price he'd pay for her, too, and she a certain decoy for her father's return, if not for FitzAlan's! He has his way to make with Stephen now, and my girl's his best weapon.'
    'Maybe we're too hard on him,' responded Edric mildly. 'Who's to say he doesn't truly want to see the girl safe? But I grant you we dared take no chances. Let him do his own hunting.'
    'Thank God,' she said fiercely, 'he can't well know I've hid my lamb away in the one place where no sane man will look for her!' And she chuckled at the word 'man.' 'There'll be a time to get her out of there later, when all the hue and cry's forgotten. Now I pray her father's miles from here