Brother Cadfael 03: Monk's Hood

surprised and appreciative eye on him.
    "So there is! And your eyes are younger than mine. The two of us might at least cover the available ground. Yes, come, for better or worse we'll venture."
    Brother Mark followed eagerly across the court, out at the gatehouse, and along the highroad towards the bridge and the town. A flat, leaden gleam lay over the mill-pond on their left, and the house beyond it showed only a closed and shuttered face. Brother Mark stared at it curiously as they passed. He had never seen Mistress Bonel, and knew nothing of the old ties that linked her with Cadfael, but he knew when his mentor and friend was particularly exercised on someone else's behalf, and his own loyalty and partisan fervour, after his church, belonged all to Cadfael. He was busy thinking out everything he had heard in the workshop, and making practical sense of it. As they turned aside to the right, down the sheltered path that led to the riverside and the main gardens of the abbey, ranged along the rich Severn meadows, he said thoughtfully:
    "I take it, brother, that what we are looking for must be small, and able to take the light, but had better not be a bottle?"
    "You may take it," said Cadfael, sighing, "that whether it is or not, we must try our best to find it. But I would very much rather find something else, something as innocent as the day."
    Just beneath the abutments of the bridge, where it was not worth while clearing the ground for cultivation, bushes grew thickly, and coarse grass sloped down gradually to the lip of the water. They combed the tufted turf along the edge, where a filming of ice prolonged the ground by a few inches, until the light failed them and it was time to hurry back for Vespers; but they found nothing small, relatively heavy, and capable of reflecting a flash of light as it was thrown, nothing that could have been the mysterious something tossed away by Edwin in his flight.
    Cadfael slipped away after supper, absenting himself from the readings in the chapter-house, helped himself to the end of a loaf and a hunk of cheese, and a flask of small ale for his fugitive, and made his way discreetly to the loft over the abbey barn in the horse-fair. The night was clear overhead but dark, for there was no moon as yet. By morning the ground would be silvered over, and the shore of Severn extended by a new fringe of ice.
    His signal knock at the door at the head of the stairs produced only a profound silence, which he approved. He opened the door and went in, closing it silently behind him. In the darkness within nothing existed visibly, but the warm, fresh scent of the clean hay stirred in a faint wave, and an equally quiet rustling showed him where the boy had emerged from his nest to meet him. He moved a step towards the sound. "Be easy, it's Cadfael."
    "I knew," said Edwin's voice very softly. "I knew you'd come."
    "Was it a long day?"
    "I slept most of it."
    "That's my stout heart! Where are you ... ? Ah!" They moved together, uniting two faint warmths that made a better warmth between them; Cadfael touched a sleeve, found a welcoming hand. "Now let's sit down and be blunt and brief, for time's short. But we may as well be comfortable with what we have. And here's food and drink for you." Young hands, invisible, clasped his offerings gladly. They felt their way to a snug place in the hay, side by side.
    "Is there any better news for me?" asked Edwin anxiously.
    "Not yet. What I have for you, young man, is a question. Why did you leave out half the tale?"
    Edwin sat up sharply beside him, in the act of biting heartily into a crust of bread. "But I didn't! I told you the truth. Why should I keep anything from you, when I came asking for your help?"
    "Why, indeed! Yet the sheriff's men have had speech with a certain carter who was crossing the bridge from Shrewsbury when you went haring away from your mother's house, and he testifies that he saw you heave something over the parapet into the river. Is that true?"
    Without hesitation the boy said: "Yes!" his voice a curious blend of bewilderment, embarrassment and anxiety. Cadfael had the impression that he was even blushing in the darkness, and yet obviously with no sense of guilt at having left the incident unmentioned, rather as though a purely private folly of his own had been accidentally uncovered.
    "Why did you not tell me that yesterday? I might have had a better chance of helping you if I'd known."
    "I don't see why." He was a little