Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many

flushed and glittering, but with excitement and enjoyment of her own plotting, half-regretful that her share must end here. 'If Brother Cadfael is waiting, we mustn't lose time. The farther you get by daybreak, the better. Here is the bundle Godith brought. Wait here within, until I see if everything is quiet below in the garden.'
    She slipped away into the soft darkness, and stood by the edge of the pond, listening intently. She was sure they had left no guard behind, for why should they, when they had searched everywhere, and taken all they had been sent to take? Yet there might still be someone stirring in the houses opposite. But all were in darkness, she thought even the shutters were closed, in spite of the warm night, for fear some solitary Fleming should return to help himself to what he could find, under cover of the day's official looting. Even the willow leaves hung motionless here, sheltered from the faint breeze that stirred the grasses along the river bank.
    'Come!' she whispered, opening the door narrowly. 'All's quiet. Follow where I step, the slope is rough.' She had even thought to change her pale gown for a dark one since afternoon, to be shadowy among the shadows. Torold hoisted FitzAlan's treasury in its sacking shroud by the rope that secured it, and put off Godith firmly when she would have reached to share the weight with him. Surprisingly, she yielded meekly, and went before him very quickly and quietly to where the boat rode on its short mooring, half-concealed by the stooping willow branches. Aline lay down at the edge of the bank, and leaned to draw the boat in and hold it steady, for there was a two-foot hollow of undercut soil between them and the water. Very quickly and happily this hitherto cloistered and dutiful daughter was learning to be mistress of her own decisions and exploiter of her own powers.
    Godith slid down into the boat, and lent both arms to steady the sacking bundle down between the thwarts. The boat was meant for only two people at most, and settled low in the water when Torold also was aboard, but it was buoyant and sturdy, and would get them as far as they needed to go, as it had done once before.
    Godith leaned and embraced Aline, who was still on her knees at the edge of the grass. It was too late for spoken thanks then, but Torold kissed the small, well-tended hand held out to him, and then she loosed the end of the mooring-rope, and tossed it aboard, and the boat slipped out softly from under the bank and drifted across in the circling eddies of the outflow, back towards the brook from which the pool had been drawn. The spill from the head-race of the mill caught them and brisked their pace like a gentle push, and Torold sat with paddle idle, and let the silent flow take them out from the pond. When Godith looked back, all she could see was the shape of the willow, and the unlighted house beyond.
    Brother Cadfael rose from among the long grasses as Torold paddled the boat across to the abbey shore. 'Well done!' he said in a whisper. 'And no trouble? No one stirring?'
    'No trouble. Now you're the guide.'
    Cadfael rocked the boat thoughtfully with one hand. 'Put Godith and the load ashore opposite, and then fetch me. I may as well go dry-shod.' And when they were all safely across to the other side of the brook, he hauled the boat out of the water into the grass, and Godith hurried to help him carry it into hiding in the nearest copse. Once in cover, they had leisure to draw breath and confer. The night was still and calm around them, and five minutes well spent here, as Cadfael said, might save them much labour thereafter.
    'We may speak, but softly. And since no other eyes, I hope, are to see this burden of ours until you're well away to the west, I think we might with advantage open it and split the load again. The saddle-bags will be far easier to sling on our shoulders than this single lump.'
    'I can carry one pair,' said Godith, eager at his elbow.
    'So you can, for a short spell, perhaps,' he said indulgently. He was busy disentangling the two pairs of linked bags from the sacks that had swathed them. They had straps comfortably broad for the shoulder, and the weights in them had been balanced in the first place for the horses. 'I had thought we might save ourselves half a mile or so by making use of the river for the first part of the way,' he said, 'but with three of us and only this hazel-shell we should founder. And it's not so far we have to go, loaded