Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

done his best to earn his money and been cast out, and hunted as a thief and murderer here into the church. All of it known already.
    'How much of that burgage did you ever see? For you went first in daylight.'
    'I went to the shop and they sent me in through the passage to the hall door, to the women. It was they who hired me, the old woman and the young one.'
    'And in the evening?'
    'Why, as soon as I came there they sent me to eat with Rannilt in the kitchen, and I was there with her until they sent out for me to come and play and sing while they feasted, and afterwards I played for dancing, and did my acrobatics, and juggled - and you know how it ended.'
    'So you never saw more than the passage and the yard. You never were down the length of the garden, or through the town wall there to the waterside?'
    Liliwin shook his head firmly. 'I didn't even know it went beyond the wall until the day Rannilt came here. I could see as far as the wall when I went through to the hall in the morning, but I thought it ended there. It was Rannilt told me the drying-ground was beyond there. It was their washing day, you see, she'd done all the scrubbing and rinsing, and had it all ready to go out by mid-morning. But usually she has the dinner to prepare as well, and watches the weather, and fetches the clothes in before evening. But that day Mistress Susanna had said she would see to everything, and let Rannilt come here to visit me. That was truly kind!'
    Strange how sitting here listening to the boy's recollections brought up clearly the picture of that drying-ground he had never seen but through Rannilt's eyes, the slope of grass, the pebbles for anchors, the alders screening the riverside, the town wall shielding the sward from the north and leaving it open to the south ...
    'And I remember she said Mistress Susanna had her shoes and the hems of her skirts wet when she came in from putting out the washing and found Rannilt crying. But still she took note first for my girl being so sad ... Never mind my wet feet, she said, what of your wet eyes? Rannilt told me so!'
    All ready to go out by mid-morning ... As Baldwin Peche had gone out in mid-morning for the last time. The fish rising ... Cadfael, away pursuing his own thoughts, suddenly baulked, realizing, belatedly, what he had heard.
    'What was that you said? She had her feet and skirts wet?'
    'The river was a little high then,' explained Liliwin, undisturbed. 'She'd slipped on the smooth grass into the shallows. Hanging out a shirt on the alders ...
    And she came in calmly, and sent the maidservant away so that none other but herself should go to bring in the linen. What other reason would any have for passing through the wicket in the wall? And only yesterday Rannilt had been sitting in the doorway to have the light on her work, mending a rent in the skirt of a gown. And the brown at the hem had been mottled and faded, leaving a tide-mark of dark colour round the pallor ...
    'Brother Cadfael,' called the porter softly from the archway into the cloister, 'Hugh Beringar is here for you. He said you would be expecting him.'
    'I am expecting him,' said Cadfael, recalling himself with an effort from the Aurifaber hall. 'Bid him come through here. I think we have word for each other.'
    It was not quite dark, the sky being so clear, and Hugh knew his way everywhere within these walls. He came briskly, made no objection to Liliwin's presence, and sat down at once in the porch to show the silver coin in his palm.
    'I've already viewed it in a better light. It's a silver penny of the sainted Edward, king before the Normans came, a beautiful piece minted in this town. The moneyer was one Godesbrond, there are a few of his pieces to be found, but few indeed in the town where they were struck. Aurifaber's inventory listed three such. And this was stuck between the boards of the bucket in their well the morning after the theft. A scrap of coarse blue cloth, the lad says, was caught in with it, but he thought nothing of that. But it seems to me that whoever emptied Aurifaber's coffer tipped all into a blue cloth bag and dropped it into that bucket - the work of a mere few moments - to be retrieved later at leisure in the dark hours, before the earliest riser went to draw water.'
    'And whoever hoisted it out again,' said Cadfael, 'snagged a corner of the bag on a splinter ... a small tear, just enough to let through one of the smaller coins. It could be so. And Peche's boy had found