Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

at her age. But she'll be pleased if you care to visit her,' said Susanna, with a brief, flashing smile, 'for all the rest of us grow very tedious to her, she's worn us out long ago, we no longer amuse her. I doubt if she can tell you anything that will help you, my lord, but the change would do marvels for her.'
    She had wide eyes at once distant and brilliant, fringed with lashes russet as her coil of lustrous hair. A pity there should be grey strands in the russet, and fine wrinkles, whether of laughter or long-sighted pain, at the corners of the grey eyes, and drawn lines, like cobweb, about her full, firm mouth. She was, Hugh judged, at least six or seven years older than he, and seemed more. A fine thing spoiled for want of a little spending. Hugh had come by what was his as an only child, but he did not think a sister of his would have been left thus used and unprovided, to furnish a brother richly forth.
    'I'll gladly present myself to Dame Juliana,' he said, 'when I have spoken with Master Walter and Mistress Margery.'
    'That would be kind,' she said. 'And I could bring you wine, and that would give me the chance to bring her, with it, a dose she might otherwise refuse to take, even though Brother Cadfael comes tomorrow and she minds him more than any of us. Go down this way, then, my lord. I'll look for you returning.'
    Either the goldsmith had nothing to tell, or else could not bring himself to spend even words. The one thing that haunted him day and night was his lost treasury, of which he had rendered an inventory piece by piece, almost coin by coin, in loving and grieving detail. The coins in particular were notable. He had silver pieces from before Duke William ever became King William, fine mintage not to be matched now. His father and grandfather, and perhaps one progenitor more, must have been of the same mind as himself, and lived for their fine-struck wealth. Walter's head might be healed now without, but his loss might well have done untold harm to the mind within.
    Hugh stood patiently under the apple and pear trees of the orchard, pressing his few questions concerning the vanishing of Baldwin Peche. Almost it seemed to him that the name no longer struck any spark, that Walter had to blink and shake himself and think hard before he could recall the name or the face of his dead tenant. He could not see the one or remember the other for brooding on his voided coffer.
    One thing was certain, if he knew of anything that could help to recover his goods, he would pour it out in a hurry. Another man's death, by comparison, meant little to him. Nor did it seem that he had yet hit upon one possibility that was hovering in Hugh's mind. If there was indeed a connection between the robbery and this death, need it be the one to which the town had jumped so nimbly? Robbers can also be robbed, and may even be killed in the robbing. Baldwin Peche had been a guest at the wedding, he had made the locks and keys for the strong-box, and who knew the house and shop better than he?
    Margery had been feeding the fowls that scratched in an arrow run under the town wall, at the bottom of the garden. Until a year previously Walter had even kept his two horses here within the town, but recently he had acquired a pasture and an old stable across the river, westward from Frankwell, where Iestyn was regularly sent to see that they were fed and watered and groomed, and exercise them if they were short of work. The girl was coming up the slope of the garden with the morning's eggs in a basket, the bulk of the wall in shadow behind her, and the narrow door in it closed. A short, rounded, insignificant young person to the view, with an untidy mass of fair hair. She made Hugh a wary reverence, and raised to him a pair of round, unwavering eyes.
    'My husband is out on an errand, sir, I'm sorry. In half an hour or so he may be back.'
    'No matter,' said Hugh truly, 'I can speak with him later. And you may well be able to speak for both, and save the time. You know on what business I'm engaged. Master Peche's death seems likely to prove no accident, and though he was missing most of the day, yet the night is the most favourable time for villainies such as murder. We need to know what every man was doing two nights ago, and whether he saw or heard anything that may help us lay hands on the culprit. I understand your chamber is the second one, back from the street, yet you may have looked out and seen someone lurking in the alley