Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

bed, and no man has seen him since dinner. Edmund missed him at the meal and has been looking for him ever since, but never a sign. And the crutch he was still using, though more from habit than need, was lying in the stable, yard. Anion has taken to his heels. And the blame, if blame there is,' said Cadfael honestly, 'is mine. Edmund and I have been asking every man in the infirmary if he saw or heard anything of note about the sheriff's chamber, any traffic in or out. It was but the same asking with Anion, indeed I was more cautious with him than with any when I spoke with him this morning in the stables. But for all that, no question, I've frightened him away.'
    'Not necessarily a proof of guilt, to take fright and run,' said Hugh reasonably. 'Men without privilege are apt to suppose they'll be blamed for whatever's done amiss. Is it certain he's gone? A man just healed of a broken leg? Has he taken horse or mule? Nothing stolen?'
    'Nothing. But there's more to tell. Brother Rhys, whose bed is by the door, across the passage from where the sheriff lay, heard the door creak twice and the first time he says someone entered, or at least pushed the door open, who walked with a stick. The second time came later, and may have been the time the Welsh boy went in there. Rhys is hazy about time, and slept before and after, but both visitors came while the court was quiet, he says, while we of the house were in the refectory. With that, and now he's run, even Edmund is taking it for granted Anion is your murderer. They'll be crying his guilt in the town by morning.'
    'But you are not so sure,' said Hugh, eyeing him steadily.
    'Something he had on his mind, surely, something he saw as guilt, or knew others would call guilt, or he would not have run. But murderer...? Hugh, I have in that pillbox of mine certain proof of dyed wools and gold thread in whatever cloth was used to kill. Certain, whereas flight is uncertain proof of anything worse than fear. You know as I know that there was no such woven cloth anywhere in that room, or in the infirmary, or in the entire pale so far as we can discover. Whoever used it brought it with him. Where would Anion get hold of any such rich material? He can never have handled anything better than drab homespun and unbleached flax in his life. It casts great doubt on his guilt, though it does not utterly rule it out. It's why I did not press him too far, or thought I had not!' he added ruefully.
    Hugh nodded guarded agreement, and put the point away in his mind. 'But for all that, tomorrow at dawn I must send out search parties between here and Wales, for surely that's the way he'll go. A border between him and his fear will be his first thought. If I can take him, I must and will. Then we may get out of him whatever it is he does know. A lame man cannot yet have got very far.'
    'But remember the cloth. For those threads do not lie, though a mortal man may, guilty or innocent. The instrument of death is what we have to find.'
    The hunt went forth at dawn, in small parties filtering through the woods by all the paths that led most directly to Wales; but they came back with the dark, empty-handed. Lame or no, Anion had contrived to vanish within half a day.
    The tale had gone forth through the town and the Foregate by then, every shop had it and every customer, the alehouses discussed it avidly, and the general agreement was that neither Hugh Beringar nor any other man need look further for the sheriff's murderer. The dour cattleman with a grudge had been heard going into and leaving the death, chamber, and on being questioned had fled. Nothing could be simpler.
    And that was the day when they buried Gilbert Prestcote, in the tomb he had had made for himself in a transept of the abbey church. Half the nobility of the shire was there to do him honour, and Hugh Beringar with an escort of his officers, and the provost of Shrewsbury, Geoffrey Corviser, with his son Philip and his son's wife Emma, and all the solid merchants of the town guild. The sheriff's widow came in deep mourning, with her small son round, eyed and awed at the end of her arm. Music and ceremony, and the immensity of the vault, and the candles and the torches, all charmed and fascinated him; he was good as gold throughout the service.
    And whatever personal enemies Gilbert Prestcote might have had, he had been a fair and trusted sheriff to this county in general, and the merchant princes were well aware of the relative security