Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

even ransacked the grounds of this house? And found he, or some fellow, had been hiding in one of the outhouses down by the wall?"
    Simon completed the donning of his coat, glumly thoughtful. "I heard it. But it seems he was long gone. If it was he."
    "Do you think he may be already out and away? Why should we not at least leave the old man's stable unlocked tonight? Or move Briar to the open one in the court? A small chance is better than none."
    "If we even knew where he might be ... But I've been thinking," agreed Simon, "that at least we'd better have the poor beast out into daylight again, and find him some exercise. Who knows, if I was seen riding him, and Joss got word of it, he might get in touch."
    "I see you no more believe in this charge than I do," observed Guy, lifting his rumpled head to give his friend a sharp glance. "Nor in that wretched business of the necklace in his saddle-bag, either. I wonder which misbegotten dog among the servants got his orders to hide it there! Or do you suppose the old man saw to it himself? He was never afraid of his own dirty work, as long as I've known him." Guy had been in the baron's service from twelve years old, beginning as a page fresh from his father's house, and had even acquired a kind of detached affection for his formidable lord, who had never had occasion to turn formidable to him. "But still, it was a foul way to make away with him," he said. "And I do still wonder ... If Joss was mad with rage - and he had reason to be - I would not be ready quite to stake my soul he did not kill him. Even that way!"
    "But I would," said Simon with certainty.
    "Ah, you!" Guy rose indulgently and clapped his fellow on the shoulder. "Where others hold opinions, you know! Be careful you don't trip yourself some day by trusting too far. And now I look at you," he added, twitching the collar of Simon's best coat into immaculate neatness, "you're very fine tonight. Where are you off to?"
    "Only to the Picards at the abbey. A common courtesy, now the worst of the day's over and the dust settling. They came close to becoming his kin, they'll have to be allowed a part in the mourning for him. It costs nothing to defer to the man as elder and adviser until my uncle's buried. There'll be messages to send out to my aunt in the nunnery at Wroxall, and one or two distant cousins. Eudo can make himself useful doing the scribing, he has the right flowery style."
    "I warn you," said Guy, rising lazily to go and demand hot water for his ablutions, "the sheriff and Eudo between them will drive you out with the rest of us to take part in their sweep tomorrow. They're bent on hanging him."
    "I can always look the other way, like you," said Simon, and departed to do his duty by one who had almost become a kinsman, and had hoped by this time to have a kinsman's rights.
    Iveta lay in her bed, with Brother Cadfael's poppy draught measured and ready to her hand, and his promise that it would bring her sleep like a small, warm core of comfort in her mind. But she did not want to sleep yet. There was a kind of passive pleasure in being here alone in the room, even though she knew that Madlen was within call. They had so seldom left her alone all these weeks, the oppression of their presence had been like a shadow cutting her off from the sun. Only yesterday, and only for those meagre minutes, and even then with an eye on her from the distance, had they sent her out to dispose herself where she must be noticed, and might be questioned, so that she might give the right answers, and display the right assured calmness of consent in her hateful destiny. And all the time they had known that Joscelin was not a prisoner, but somewhere at liberty, even if his liberty was that of a hunted man.
    That was over. She could not be cheated like that again. Two things at least she could cling to: he was not taken, and she was not married.
    She caught the sound of a hand at the door, and shrank within herself, wary and still. But when the door opened, and Agnes appeared, it was with a face almost benign, and a voice almost solicitous, surely for the benefit of the visitor who came in at her shoulder. Iveta stared in astonishment at the transformation.
    "Still awake, child? Then here is a good friend enquiring after you. May he come in for a few minutes? You are not too tired?"

He was in already, Simon in his best, and on his best behaviour for her aunt and uncle; and his best behaviour must have made its impression,