Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

ear. Hugh Beringar would see to it that the search for truth and justice should not go sliding down the easiest way, and erase such minor details as failed to fit the pattern. Meantime, Cadfael had just such a detail to take up with Liliwin, besides restoring him the tools of his juggling trade. After dinner he went to look for him, and found him sitting in the cloister, with borrowed needle and thread, trying to cobble together the rents in his coat. Beneath the bandaged brow he had washed his face scrupulously, it showed pale and thin but clear-skinned, with good, even delicate features. And if he could not yet wash the dust and mire from his fair hair, at least he had combed it into decent order.
    The sop first, perhaps, and then the switch! Cadfael sat down beside him, and dumped the cloth bundle in his lap. 'Here's a part of your property restored you, for an earnest. There, open it!'
    But Liliwin already knew the faded wrapping. He sat gazing down for a moment in wonder and disbelief, and then untied the knotted cloth and sank his hand among his modest treasures with affection and pleasure, faintly flushing and brightening, as though for the first time recovering faith that some small comforts and kindnesses existed for him in the world.
    'But how did you get them? I never thought I should see them again. And you thought to ask for them ... for me ... That was kind!'
    'I did not even have to ask. That old dame who struck you, terror though she may be, is honest. She won't keep what is not hers, if she won't forgo a groat of what is. She sends them back to you.' Not graciously, but no need to go into that. 'There, take it for a good sign. And how do you find yourself today? Have they fed you?'
    'Very well! I'm to fetch my food from the kitchen at breakfast, dinner and supper.' He sounded almost incredulous, naming three meals a day. 'And they've given me a pallet in the porch here. I'm afraid to be away from the church at night.' He said it simply and humbly. 'They don't all like it that I'm here. I stick in their craw like a husk.'
    'They're accustomed to calm,' said Cadfael sympathetically. 'It is not calm you bring. You must make allowances, as they must. At least from tonight you may sleep secure. The deputy sheriff should be in town by this evening. In his authority, I promise you, you can trust.'
    Trust would still come very hardly to Liliwin, after all he had experienced in a short life, but the toys he had tucked away so tenderly under his pallet were a promise. He bent his head over his patient stitching, and said no word.
    'And therefore,' said Cadfael briskly, 'You'd best consider on the half-tale you told me, and own to the part you left out. For you did not creep away so docilely as you let us all think, did you? What were you doing, hugging the door-post of Master Walter's workshop, long after you claim you had made off into the night? With the door open, and your head against the post, and the goldsmith's coffer in full view ... and also open? And he bending over it!'
    Liliwin's needle had started in his fingers and pricked his left hand. He dropped needle, thread and coat, and sat sucking his pierced thumb, and staring at Brother Cadfael with immense, frightened eyes. He began to protest shrilly: 'I never went there ... I know nothing about it ...' Voice and eyes sank together. He blinked down at his open hands, lashes long and thick as a well-bred cow's brushing his staring cheekbones.
    'Child,' said Cadfael, sighing, 'you were there in the doorway, peering in. You left your mark there. A lad your size, with a bloodied head, leaned long enough against that door-post to leave a little clot of his blood, and two flax-white hairs gummed into it. No, no other has seen it, it's gone, blown away on the wind, but I saw it, and I know. Now tell me truth. What passed between you and him?'
    He did not ask why Liliwin had lied in omitting this part of his story, there was no need. What, place himself there on the spot, there were the blow had been struck? Innocence would have avoided admission every bit as desperately as guilt.
    Liliwin sat and shivered, fluttering like a leaf in that same wind which had carried off his stray hairs. Here in the cloister the air was still chilly, and he had only a patched shirt and hose on him, the half-mended coat lying on his knees. He swallowed hard and sighed.
    'It's true, I did wait ... It was not fair!' he blurted, shaking. 'I stayed there in the dark. They were not