Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

'Come, now, close to the people there ...'
    The ancient, holy women of the Foregate waited on their knees, faces turned towards the file of monks as they passed, shadowy, towards their beds. Then they rose and began their leisurely shuffle towards the west door, and after them, emerging unquestioned from shadow, went Liliwin and Rannilt, close and quiet, as though they belonged.
    And it was unbelievably easy. The sheriff's officers had a guard of two men constantly outside the gatehouse, where they could cover both the gate itself and the west door of the church, and they had torches burning, but rather for their own pleasure and convenience than as a means of noting Liliwin's movements, since they had to while away the hours somehow on their watch, and you cannot play either dice or cards in the dark. By this time they did not believe that the refugee would make any attempt to leave his shelter, but they knew their duty and kept their watch faithfully enough. They stood to watch in silence as the worshippers left the church, but they had no orders to scrutinize those who went in, and so had not either counted them or observed them closely, and noted no discrepancy in the numbers leaving. Nor was there any sign here of the jongleur's faded and threadbare motley, but neat, plain burgess clothing. Having no knowledge that a young girl had made her way in, intent on seeing the accused man, they thought nothing of watching her make her way out in his company. Two insignificant young people passed and dwindled into the night on the heels of the old women. What was there in that?
    They were out, they were past, the lights of the torches dimmed behind them, the cool darkness closed round them, and the hearts that had fluttered up wildly into their throats, like terrified birds shut into a narrow room, settled back gradually into their breasts, still beating heavily. By luck two of the old women, and the young man who supported the elder, inhabited two of the small houses by the mill, as pensioners of the abbey, and so had to turn towards the town, and Liliwin and Rannilt did not have to go that way alone from the gate, or they might have been more conspicuous. When the women had turned aside to their own doors, and they two alone were stealing silently between mill-pool on one hand and the copses above the Gaye on the other, and the stone rise of the bridge showed very faintly before them, Rannilt halted abruptly, drawing him round face to face with her in the edge of the trees.
    'Don't come into the town! Don't! Turn here, to the left, this side the river, there's a track goes south, they won't be watching there. Don't come through the gate! And don't go back! You're out now, and none of them know. They won't, not until tomorrow. Go, go, while you can! You're free, you can leave this place ..." Her whisper was urgent, resolute with hope for him, desolate with dismay on her own account. Liliwin heard the one as clearly as the other, and for a moment he, too, was torn.
    He drew her deeper into the trees, and shut his arms about her fiercely. 'No! I'm coming with you, it isn't safe for you alone. You don't know what things can happen by night in a dark alley. I'll see you to your own yard. I must, I will!'
    'But don't you see ...' She beat a small fist against his shoulder in desperation. 'You could go now, escape, put this town behind you. A whole night to get well away. There'll be no second chance like this.'
    'And put you behind me, too? And make myself seem what they say I am?' He put a shaking hand under her chin, and turned up to him none too gently the face he saw only as a pale oval in the darkness. 'Do you want me to go? Do you want never to see me again? If that's what you want, say it, and I'll go. But say truth! Don't lie to me!'
    She heaved a huge sigh, and embraced him in passionate silence. In a moment she breathed: 'No! No ... I want you safe ... But I want you!'
    She wept briefly, while he held her and made soft, inarticulate sounds of comfort and dismay; and then they went on, for that was settled, and would not lightly be raised again. Over the bridge, with lambent light flickering up from the Severn's dimpling surface on either side, and the torches burning down redly in the side-pillars of the town gate before them. The watchmen at the gate were easy, bestirring themselves only when brawlers or obstreperous drunks rolled in upon them. Two humble but respectable young people hurrying home got only a