Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

accept that. Nor, it seems, has Beringar accepted it.'
    'There is no more proof of it than that he was there, beside the bed, when Edmund came and drove him out. It could as well have been for the boy's declared purpose as for anything worse. And then, you'll understand, there was the matter of the gold pin. We never realised it was missing, my lord, until you had ridden for home. But very certainly Elis neither had it on him, nor had had any opportunity to hide it elsewhere before he was searched. Therefore someone else had been in that room and taken it away.'
    'But now that we know what befell my pin,' said Einon, 'and are satisfied Anion did not murder, does not that leave that boy again in danger of being branded for the killing of a sick and sleeping man? Though it sorts very poorly,' he added, 'with what I know of him.'
    'Which of us,' said Owain sombrely, 'has never been guilty of some unworthiness that sorts very ill with what our friends know of us? Even with what we know, or think we know, of ourselves! I would not rule out any man from being capable once in his life of a gross infamy.' He looked up at Cadfael. 'Brother, I recall you said, within there, that there was yet one more thing you must find before you would have found Prestcote's murderer. What is that thing?'
    'It is the cloth that was used to smother Gilbert. By its traces it will be known, once found. For it was pressed down over his nose and mouth, and he breathed it into his nostrils and drew it into his teeth, and a thread or two of it we found in his beard. No ordinary cloth. Elis had neither that nor anything else in his hands when he came from the infirmary. Once I had found and preserved the filaments from it, we searched for it throughout the abbey precincts, for it could have been a hanging or an altarcloth, but we have found nothing to match these fragments. Until we know what it was, and what became of it, we shall not know who killed Gilbert Prestcote.'
    'This is certain?' asked Owain. 'You drew these threads from the dead man's nostrils and mouth? You think you will know, when you find it, the very cloth that was used to stifle him?'
    'I do think so, for the colours are clear, and not common dyes. I have the box here. But open it with care. What's within is fine as cobweb.'
    Cadfael handed the little box across the brazier. 'But not here. The updraught from the warmth could blow them away.'
    Owain took the box aside, and held it low under one of the lamps, where the light would play into it. The minute threads quivered faintly, and again were still. 'Here's gold thread, that's plain, a twisted strand. The rest, I see it's wool, by the many hairs and the live texture. A darker colour and a lighter.' He studied them narrowly, but shook his head. 'I could not say what tints are here, only that the cloth had a good gold thread woven into it. And I fancy it would be thick, a heavy weave, by the way the wool curls and crimps. Many more such fine hairs went to make up this yarn.'
    'Let me see,' said Einon, and narrowed his eyes over the box. 'I see the gold, but the colours... No, it means nothing to me.'
    Tudur peered, and shook his head. 'We have not the light for this, my lord. By day these would show very differently.' It was true, by the mellow light of these oil lamps the prince's hair was deep harvest gold, almost brown. By daylight it was the yellow of primroses.
    'It might be better,' agreed Cadfael, 'to leave the matter until morning. Even had we better vision, what could be done at this hour?'
    'This light foils the eye,' said Owain. He closed the lid over the airy fragments. 'Why did you think you might find what you seek here?'
    'Because we have not found it within the pale of the abbey, so we must look outside, wherever men have dispersed from the abbey. The lord Einon and two captains beside had left us before ever we recovered these threads, it was a possibility, however frail, that unknowingly this cloth had gone with them. By daylight the colours will show for what they truly are. You may yet recall seeing such a weave.' Cadfael took back the box. It had been a fragile hope at best, but the morrow remained. There was a man's life, a man's soul's health, snared in those few quivering hairs, and he was their custodian.
    'Tomorrow,' said the prince emphatically, 'we will try what God's light can show us, since ours is too feeble.'
    In the deep small hours of that same night Elis awoke in the dark cell in the outer ward of