Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

stiffened his frail body and sat upright to gaze, and Brother Fidelis kneeled and braced an arm about him, behind the supporting pillow, stooping his head into shadow behind his lord's lean shoulder.
    'Is it so? Then we know all those who guarded her now. So you,' said Humilis, urgently studying the stalwart figure and blunt, brow-bent face that stooped a sunburned forehead to him, like a challenged bull, 'you must be that one they said loved her from a child.'
    'So I did,' said Adam Heriet firmly.
    'Tell him,' said Hugh, 'how and when you last parted from the lady. Speak up, it is your story.'
    Heriet drew breath long and deeply, but without any evidence of fear or stress, and told it again as he had told it to Hugh at Brigge. 'She bade me go and leave her. And so I did. She was my lady, to command me as she chose. What she asked of me, that I did.'
    'And returned to Andover?' asked Hugh mildly.
    'Yes, my lord.'
    'Scarcely in haste,' said Hugh with the same deceptive gentleness. 'From Andover to Wherwell is but a few short miles, and you say you were dismissed a mile short of that. Yet you returned to Andover in the dusk, many hours later. Where were you all that time?'
    There was no mistaking the icy shock that went through Adam, stopping his breath for an instant. His carefully hooded eyes rolled wide and flashed one wild glance at Hugh, then were again lowered. It took him a brief and perceptible struggle to master voice and thoughts, but he did it with heroic smoothness, and even the pause seemed too brief for the inspired concoction of lies.
    'My lord, I had never been so far south before, and reckoned at that time I never should again. She dismissed me, and the city of Winchester was there close. I had heard tell of it, but never thought to see it. I know I had no right so to borrow time, but I did it. I rode into the town, and there I stayed all that day. It was peace there, then, a man could walk abroad, view the great church, eat at an alehouse, all without fear. And so I did, and went back to Andover only late in the evening. If they have told you so, they tell truth. We never set out for home until next morning.'
    It was Humilis, who knew the city of Winchester like his own palm, who took up the interrogation there, dryly and calmly, eyes and voice again alert and vigorous. 'Who could blame you for taking a few hours to yourself, with your errand done? And what did you see and do in Winchester?'
    Adam's wary breathing eased again readily. This was no problem for him. He launched into a very full and detailed account of Bishop Henry's city, from the north gate, where he had entered, to the meadows of St Cross, and from the cathedral and the castle of Wolvesey to the north-western fields of Hyde Mead. He could describe in detail the frontages of the steep High Street, the golden shrine of Saint Swithun, and the magnificent cross presented by Bishop Henry to his predecessor Bishop Walkelin's cathedral. No doubt but he had seen all he claimed to have seen. Humilis exchanged glances with Hugh and assured him of that. Neither Hugh nor Cadfael, who stood a little apart, taking note of all, had ever been in Winchester.
    'So that is all you know of Julian Cruce's fate,' said Hugh at length.
    'Never word of her, my lord, since we parted that day,' said Adam, with every appearance of truth. 'Unless there is something you can tell me now, as you know I have asked and asked.' But he was asking no longer, even this repetition had lost all its former urgency.
    'Something I can and will tell you,' said Hugh abruptly and harshly. 'Julian Cruce never entered Wherwell. The prioress of Wherwell never heard of her. From that day she has vanished, and you were the last ever to see her. What's your answer to that?'
    Adam stood mute, staring, a long minute. 'Do you tell me this is true?' he said slowly.
    'I do tell you so though I think there never was any need to tell you, for you knew it, none better. As you are now left, the only one who may, who must, know where she did go, since she never reached Wherwell. Where she went and what befell her, and whether she is now on this earth or under it.'
    'I swear to God,' said Adam slowly, 'that when I parted from my lady at her wish, I left her whole and well, and I pray she is now, wherever she may be.'
    'You knew, did you not, what valuables she carried with her? Was that enough to tempt you? Did you, I ask you now in due form, did you rob your mistress and do her violence when she