Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

in search of Liliwin, and found him sitting in deep shadow in the darkest corner of the porch, drawn up defensively against the stone with his arms locked about his knees. At this hour the light was too far gone for work to proceed on the mending of his rebec, or his new studies under Brother Anselm, and it seemed that the day's alarms had driven him back into distrust and despair, so that he hunched himself as small as possible into his corner and kept a wary face against the world. Certainly he gave Cadfael a bright, nervous, sidelong flash of his eyes as the monk hitched his habit comfortably and sat down beside him.
    'Well, young man, have you fetched your supper tonight?' said Cadfael placidly.
    Liliwin acknowledged that with a silent nod, watching him warily.
    'It seems you did not yesterday, and Brother Jerome tells us that a maidservant came to visit you in the afternoon and brought you a basket of food from her lady's table. He had, he said, occasion to admonish you both.' The silence beside him was charged and uneasy. 'Now, granted Brother Jerome is uncommonly good at finding grounds for admonishment, yet I fancy there is but one maidservant whose presence here would have caused him qualms for the propriety of your conduct - let alone the well-being of your soul.' It was said with a smile in his voice, but he did not miss the slight shudder that convulsed the thin body beside him or the stiffening of the hands that were clasped so tightly round Liliwin's knees. Now why in the world should the lad quake at the mention of his soul's health, just when Cadfael was becoming more and more convinced that he had no guilt whatever upon his conscience, bar an understandable lie or two.
    'Was it Rannilt?'
    'Yes,' said Liliwin, just audibly.
    'She came with good leave? Or of her own accord?'
    Liliwin told him, in as few words as possible.
    'So that was how it befell. And Jerome bade her do her errand and go, and stood over you to make sure she obeyed. And it was from that hour, as I understand - after he had witnessed her going - that no one saw you again until Prime this morning. Yet you say you were here within the pale and what you say, that I accept. Did you speak?'
    'No,' said Liliwin, none too happily. Not speech, exactly, but a small, shamed sound hurriedly suppressed.
    'You let her go somewhat tamely, did you not?' remarked Cadfael critically. 'Seeing the magnitude of the step she had taken for you.'
    The evening was closing down tranquilly all round them, there was no one else to hear, and Liliwin had spent much of the day wrestling alone with the belated conviction of his mortal sin. Terror of men was surely enough to bear, without being suddenly visited by the terror of damnation, let alone the awful sense of having brought about the damnation of another person as dear to him as himself. He uncurled abruptly from his dark corner, slid his legs over the edge of the stone bench, and clutched Cadfael impulsively by the arm.
    'Brother Cadfael, I want to tell you ... I must tell someone! I did - we did, but the fault was mine! - we did a terrible thing. I never meant it, but she was going away from me, and I might never see her again, and so it happened. A mortal sin and I've caused her to share in it!' The words spurted out like blood from a new wound, but the first flow eased him. From incoherent he grew quiet, and his shaking subsided and was gone. 'Let me tell you, and then do whatever you think is just. I couldn't bear it that she must go so soon, and it might be for ever. We went through the church, and I hid her within there, behind the altar in the transept chapel. There's a space behind there, I found it when I came new here and was afraid they might come for me in the night. I knew I could creep in there, and she is smaller than I. And when that brother had gone away, I went back to her there. I took my blankets in with me, and the new clothes she brought me - it's hard and chill on the stone. All I wanted,' said Liliwin simply, 'was to be with her as long as we dared. We did not even talk very much. But then we forgot where we were, and what was due ...'
    Brother Cadfael said no word either to help or check him, but waited in silence.
    'I couldn't think of anything but that she would go away, and I might never be with her again,' blurted Liliwin miserably, 'and I knew she was in the selfsame pain. We never intended evil, but we committed a terrible sacrilege. Here in the church, behind one of the holy