Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

know him for an innocent. My lord sheriff, I fear this gentleman wastes your time in a mistake. This cannot be true."
    "Father Prior, by your leave," Ralph Giffard spoke up firmly, "it is only too true, the fellow is not what he seems. I received a message, written in a fair hand, from this same simpleton, sealed with the seal of the traitor and outlaw FitzAlan, the Empress's man who is now in France, and asking me for help in FitzAlan's name - an appeal I rightly left unanswered. I have kept the leaf, the lord sheriff has seen it for himself. He was here, he said, come with the new priest, and he needed help, news and a horse, and laid claim to my aid to get what he wanted. He begged me to meet him at the mill an hour short of midnight on Christmas Eve, when all good folk would be making ready for church. I did not go, I would not touch such treason against our lord the King. But the proof I've given to the sheriff here, and there is not nor cannot be any mistake. Your labourer Benet is FitzAlan's agent Ninian Bachiler, for so he signed himself with his own hand."
    "I fear it's true enough, Father Prior," said Hugh briskly. "There are questions to be asked later, but now I must ask your leave at once to seek out this Benet, and he must answer for himself. There need be no disturbance for the brothers, I am asking access only to the garden."
    It was at this point that Cadfael ambled forward out of the cloister, secure across the glazed cobbles, since his feet were still swathed in wool. He came with ears benignly pricked and countenance open as the air. The snow was still falling, in an idle, neglectful fashion, but every flake froze where it fell.
    "Benet?" said Cadfael guilelessly. "You're looking for my labouring boy? I left him not a quarter of an hour since in my workshop. What do you want with him?"
    He went with them, all concern and astonishment, as they proceeded into the garden, and threw open the workshop door upon the soft glow of the brazier, the pot of herbal oil drawn close on its stone slab, and the aromatic emptiness, and from that went on to quarter the whole of the garden and the fields down to the brook, where the helpful snow had obliterated every footprint. He was as mystified as the best of them. And if Hugh avoided giving him a single sidelong look, that did not mean he had not observed every facet of this vain pursuit, rather that he had, and was in little doubt as to the purveyor of mystification. There was usually a reason for Brother Cadfael's willing non-cooperation. Moreover, there were other points to be pursued before the search was taken further.
    "You tell me," said Hugh, turning to Giffard, "that you received this appeal for your help a day or so before Christmas Eve, when a meeting at the mill was requested, somewhat before midnight. Why did you not pass it on at once to my deputy? Something might have been done about it then. Plainly he had wind of us now, since he's fled."
    If Giffard was uneasy at this dereliction of a loyal subject's duty, he gave no sign of it, but stared Hugh fully and firmly in the face. "Because he was merely your deputy, my lord. Had you been here ... You got your office first after the siege of Shrewsbury, you know how we who had taken the oath to the Empress fared then, you know of my losses. Since then I have submitted to King Stephen, and held by my submission faithfully. But a young man like Herbard, new here, left in charge and liable to stand on his dignity and status - one ignorant of the past, and what it cost me ... I was afraid of being held still as one attainted, even if I told honestly all that I knew. And recollect, we had then heard nothing about this Bachiler being hunted in the south, the name meant nothing to me. I thought him probably of no importance, and with no prospect of any success in whipping up support for a lost cause. So I held my peace, in spite of FitzAlan's seal. There were several of his knights held such seals in his name. Do me justice, as soon as you made public the hue and cry, and I understood what was afoot, I came to you and told you the truth."
    "I grant you did," said Hugh, "and I understand your doubts, though it's no part of my office to hound any man for what's past and done."
    "But now, my lord ..." Giffard had more to say, and had plainly taken great encouragement from his own eloquence and Hugh's acquiescence, for he had burned into sudden hopeful fervour. "Now I see more in this than either you or I have