Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

all as hard as she, I thought I might plead ... I saw him go to the shop with a light and I followed. He was not so furious when the pitcher was broken, he did try to calm her, I dared approach him. I went in and pleaded for the fee I was promised, and he gave me a second penny. He gave it to me and I went. I swear it!'
    He had sworn the other version, too. But fear does so, the fear bred of a lifetime's hounding and battering.
    'And then you left? And you saw no more of him? More to the point still, did you see ought of any other who may have been lurking as you did, and entered to him afterwards?'
    'No, there was no one. I went, I was glad to go, it was all over. If he lives, he'll tell you he gave me the second penny.'
    'He lives, and will,' said Cadfael. 'It was not a fatal blow. But he's said nothing yet.'
    'But he will, he will, he'll tell you how I begged him, and how he took pity on me. I was afraid,' he said quivering, 'I was afraid! If I'd said I went there, it would have been all over with me.'
    'Well, but consider,' said Cadfael reasonably, 'when Walter is his own man again, and comes forth with that very tale, how would it look if he brought it out when you had said no word of it? And besides, when his wits settle and he recalls what befell, it may well be that he'll be able to name his attacker, and clear you of all blame.'
    He was watching closely as he said it, for to an innocent man that notion would come as powerful comfort, but to a guilty one as the ultimate terror; and Liliwin's troubled countenance gradually cleared and brightened into timid hope. It was the first truly significant indication of how far he should be believed.
    'I never thought of that. They said murdered. A murdered man can't accuse or deliver. If I'd known then he was well alive I would have told the whole truth. What must I do now? It will look bad to have to own I lied.'
    'What you should do for the best,' Cadfael said after some thought, 'is let me take this word myself to the lord abbot, not as my discovery - for the evidence is gone with a puff of wind - but as your confession. And if Hugh Beringar comes tonight, as I hope and hear he may, then you may tell the tale over again to him in full, yourself. Whatever follows then, you may rest out your days of grace here with a clear conscience and truth will speak on your side.'
    Hugh Beringar of Maesbury, deputy sheriff of the shire, reached the abbey for Vespers, after a long conference with the sergeant concerning the lost treasury. In search of it, every yard of ground between the goldsmith's house and the bushes from which Liliwin had been flushed at midnight had been scoured without result. Every voice in the town declared confidently that the jongleur was the guilty man, and had successfully hidden his plunder before he was sighted and pursued.
    'But you, I think,' said Beringar, walking back towards the gatehouse with Cadfael beside him and twitching a thin dark eyebrow at his friend, 'do not agree. And not wholly because this enforced guest of yours is young and hungry and in need of protection. What is it convinces you? For I do believe you are convinced he's wronged.'
    'You've heard his story,' said Cadfael. 'But you did not see his face when I put it into his head that the goldsmith may get back his memory of the night in full, and be able to put a name or a face to his assailant. He took that hope to him like a blessed promise. The guilty man would hardly do so.'
    Hugh considered that gravely and nodded agreement. 'But the fellow is a player, and has learned hard to keep command of his face in all circumstances. No blame to him, he has no other armour. To appear innocent of all harm must now be his whole endeavour.'
    'And you think I am easily fooled,' said Cadfael dryly.
    'Far from it. Yet it is well to remember and admit the possibility.' And that was also true, and Hugh's dark smile, slanted along his shoulder, did nothing to blunt the point. 'Though I grant it would be nothing new for you to be the only creature who holds against the grain, and makes his wager good.'
    'Not the only one,' said Cadfael almost absently, with Rannilt's wan, elfin face before his mind's eye. 'There's one other more certain than I.' They had reached the arch of the gatehouse, the broad highway of the Foregate crossed beyond, and the evening was just greening and dimming towards twilight. 'You say you found the place where the lad bedded down for the night? Shall we take a look there