Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

hemmed in, and snarl defiance when he was overcome and pinioned. In deference to the abbot they hauled him out through the gates into the Foregate with as little violence as possible, and dealt with him there. He knotted his hands together to baulk the removal of his gloves, and when his hands were naked, the pale circle on the middle finger of his right hand glared like snow on new-ploughed russet soil, the large blot of the stone clear to be seen. He struggled and cursed when they felt about his body, sank his head grimly into his chest so that they had to force his head back to withdraw the cord from round his neck, beneath his shirt, and expose the ring to view.
    When they had hustled him away, four of them holding him and hard-pressed at that, to a cell in the castle, there fell a dreadful, exhausted silence over the great court. Joscelin, great-eyed, shaken and bewildered, folded his arms about Iveta, and quivered in uncomprehending relief, too shocked to question as yet the devious use that had been made of him throughout. Agnes stood rigid, staring balefully as long as her enemy remained in view, and then, released, clutched her head between her hands and wept, but hardly, in solitary and forbidding grief. Who would have thought she could have loved her unendearing husband?
    The virago was gone. She let fall her hands and paced slowly, like one walking in her sleep, through the agitated onlookers who moved aside to give her passage. She looked round once upon them all, from the steps of the guest-hall, having passed by Iveta's extended hand as though the girl did not exist, and then she went in, and vanished.
    "Later," said Abbot Radulfus, heavily but calmly, "she will speak freely. Her testimony is essential. As for her lord - he is dead already. Need we question, since he cannot be questioned?"
    "Not in any tribunal of mine, at any rate," agreed Gilbert Prestcote dryly, and turned to his remaining men. "You, sergeant, before we set off to bring this dead man home, how comes it that you set so apt a watch about the brook here, while we were beating the forest? We had no intimation that ever reached my ears, that a raid might be attempted on these premises."
    "It was after you were all gone forth, my lord," said the sergeant, "that Jehan here came to me with the notion that since the squire was set on the lady, he might take the chance when there were but few of us left here, to try to win her away." He haled forth the clever fellow who had won commendation for an earlier idea, equally justified in the event. The man was not quite so sure of himself, now that things were turned topsy-turvy, and his patron was become the villain in the web, but he stood his ground. "It was he who said that the fellow, if he had the wit, might hide in his lord's own gardens, you'll remember, and when we searched, we found he had indeed been there, though he was gone when we came to it. This time it seemed just as good sense, so we kept a vigil in secret."
    "Friend," said Prestcote, eyeing the man-at-arms somewhat ominously, "your guesses seem to be blessed by heaven, but I fancy hell had more to do with them. When did Aguilon put it into your head to search the bishop's outhouses for our wanted man? At what hour?"
    Jehan had the sense to be open about it, though none too happily. "My lord, it was after my lord Domville's body was brought back here. When he came back to the bishop's house, then he suggested it. He said I was welcome to the credit if we found our man, and he would as lief keep out of it."
    Joscelin shook his head despairingly between his hands, slow still to understand the whole of it. "But it was he who helped me - he came to find me, he hid me there himself in good will ..."
    "In very evil will!" said Brother Cadfael. "Son, you had given him not only the opportunity of hastening his inheritance of a great estate, but also of adding to it this lady's person and lands. For you had provided him a perfect scapegoat, one wronged and angry and bearing a grudge. Yours would be the first and only name that came to mind, when Huon de Domville was waylaid and murdered. But with that in view he had to have you still at liberty, hidden away somewhere safe, until well after the death, and where he could point the hunt to take you when that was done. It was your leaving your sanctuary that baulked his plans and saved your neck."
    "Then tonight," pursued Joscelin, frowning over this chill treachery as if his head ached, "you