Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

bandage, and drew the tattered sleeve down over it. 'According to young Daniel, it seems his father's been struck down and his strong-box emptied. A poor way of rounding off a wedding night! Do you tell me all this can have happened after you were put out without your pay? On the face of it, that might turn their minds to you and your grievance, if they were casting about for a likely felon.'
    'I swear to you,' insisted the young man vehemently, 'the goldsmith was hale and well the last time I set eyes on him. There was no quarrelling, no violence but what they used on me, they were laughing and drinking and singing still. What's happened since I know no more than you. I left the place - what use was there in staying? Brother, for God's sake believe me! I've touched neither the man nor his money.'
    'Then so it will be found,' said Cadfael sturdily. 'Here you're safe enough in the meantime, and you must needs put your trust in justice and Abbot Radulfus, and tell your tale as you've told it to me when they question you. We have time, and given time, truth will out. You heard Father Abbot - stay here within the church tonight, but if they come to a decent agreement tomorrow you may have the run of the household.' Liliwin was very cold to the touch, with fear and shock, and still trembling. 'Oswin,' said Cadfael briskly, 'go and fetch me a couple of brychans from the store, and then warm me up another good measure of wine on the brazier, and spice it well. Let's get some warmth into him.'
    Oswin, who had held his tongue admirably while his eyes devoured the stranger, departed in a flurry of zeal to do his errands. Liliwin watched him go, and then turned to watch Cadfael no less warily. Small wonder if he felt little trust in anyone just now.
    'You won't leave me? They'll be peering in at the door again before the night's out.'
    'I won't leave you. Be easy!'
    Advice difficult to follow, he admitted wryly, in Liliwin's situation. But with enough mulled wine in him he might sleep. Oswin came again glowing with haste and the flush of bending over the brazier, and brought two thick, rough blankets, in which Liliwin thankfully wound himself. The spiced draught went down gratefully. A little colour came back to the gaunt, bruised face.
    'You go to your bed, lad,' said Cadfael, leading Oswin towards the night stairs. 'You can, now, he'll do till morning. Then we shall see.'
    Brother Oswin looked back in some wonder at the swaddled body almost swallowed up in Prior Robert's capacious stall, and asked in a whisper: 'Do you think he can really be a murderer, though?'
    'Child,' said Cadfael, sighing, 'until we get some sensible account of what's happened in Walter Aurifaber's burgage tonight, I doubt if there's been murder done at all. With enough drink in them, the fists may well have started flying, and a few noses been bloodied, and some fool may very well have started a panic, with other fools ready enough to take up the cry. You go to your bed, and wait and see.'
    And so must I wait and see, he thought, watching Oswin obediently climb the stair. It was all very well distrusting the alarms of the moment, but for all that, not all those voluble accusers had been drunk. And something unforeseen had certainly happened in the goldsmith's house, to put a violent end to the celebrations of young Daniel's marriage. How if Walter Aurifaber had really been struck dead? And his treasury robbed? By that woebegone scrap of humanity huddled in his brychans, half-drunk with the wine they had poured into him, half asleep but held alert by terror? Would he dare, even with a bitter grievance? Could he have managed the affair, even if he had dared? One thing was certain, if he had robbed he must have disposed of his gains in short order in the dark, in a town surely none too well known to him. In those scanty garments of his, that threadbare motley, there was barely room to conceal the single penny the old dame had thrown at him, much less the contents of a goldsmith's coffer.
    When he approached the stall, however quietly, the bruised eyelids rolled wide from the dark blue eyes, and they fixed on him in instant dread.
    'Never shrink, it's I. No one else will trouble you this night. And my name, if you need it, is Cadfael. And yours is Liliwin.' A name strangely right for a vagabond player, very young and solitary and poor, and yet proud of his proficiency in his craft, tumbler, contortionist, singer, juggler, dancer, purveying merriment for