Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

followed and pleaded with him, and he struck you. Clubbed his staff and struck out at your head."
    "I clung to him," she said, with stony calm now, "fell on my knees in the frosty grass there by the mill, and clung to the skirts of his gown to hold him, and would not let go. I prayed him, I pleaded, I begged him for mercy, but he had none. Yes, he struck me. He could not endure to be so held and crossed, it enraged him, he might well have killed me. Or so I dreaded then. I tried to fend off his blows, but I knew he would strike again if he could not rid himself of me. So I loosed hold and got to my feet, God knows how, and ran from him. And that was the last I ever saw of him living."
    "And you neither saw nor heard any other creature there? You left him whole, and alone?"
    "I tell you truth," she said, shaking her head, "I neither heard nor saw any other soul, not even when I reached the Foregate. But neither my eyes nor my ears were clear, my head so rang, and I was in such sick despair. The first I was truly aware of was blood running down my forehead, and then I was in this house, crouched on the floor by the hearth, and shivering with the cold of fear, with no notion how I got here. I ran like an animal to its den, and that was all I knew. Only I am sure I met no one on the way, because if I had I should have had to master myself, walk like a woman in her senses, even give a greeting. And when you have to, you can. No, I know nothing more after I fled from him. All night I waited in fear of his return, knowing he would not spare me, and dreading he had already done his worst against Ninian. I was sure then that we were both lost - that everything was lost."
    "But he did not come," said Cadfael.
    "No, he did not come. I bathed my head, and stanched the blood, and waited without hope, but he never came. It was no help to me. Fear of him turned about into fear for him, for what could he be doing, out in the frost all night long? Even if he had gone up to the castle and called out the guard there, still it could not have kept him so long. But he didn't come. Think for yourself what manner of night I spent, sleepless in his house, waiting."
    "There was also, perhaps worst of all," said Cadfael gently, "your fear that he had indeed met with Ninian at the mill after you fled, and come to grief at Ninian's hands."
    She said, "Yes," in a dry whisper, and shivered. "It could have been so. A boy of such spirit, challenged, accused, perhaps attacked ... It could have been so. Thanks be to God, it was not so!"
    "And in the morning? You could not leave it longer or leave it to others to raise an alarm. So you came to the church."
    "And told half a story," she said with a brief, twisted smile, like a contortion of pain. "What else could I do?"
    "And while we went searching for the priest, Ninian stayed with you, and told you, doubtless, how he had spent the night, knowing nothing at all of what had happened after he left the mill. As doubtless you told him the rest of your story. But neither of you could shed light on the man's death."
    "That is true," said Diota, "I swear it. Neither then nor now. And now what do you intend for me?"
    "Why, simply that you should do what Abbot Radulfus charged you, continue here and keep this house in readiness for another priest, and trust his word that you shall not be abandoned, since the church brought you here. I must be free to make use of what I know, but it shall be done with as little harm to you as possible, and only when I have understood more than now I understand. I wish you could have helped me one more step on the road, but never mind, truth is there to be found, and there must be a way to it. There were three people, besides Ailnoth, went to the mill that night," said Cadfael, pausing at the door. "Ninian was the first, you were the second. I wonder - I wonder! - who was the third?"
    Chapter Ten
    Cadfael had been back in his workshop no more than half an hour, and the light was only just beginning to dim towards the Vesper office, when Hugh came seeking him, as he usually did if shire affairs brought him to confer with the abbot. He brought in with him a gust of moist, chill air and the quiver of a rising breeze that might bring more snow, now that the hard frost had eased, or might blow away the heavy cloud and clear the sky for the morrow.
    "I've been with Father Abbot," said Hugh, and sat down on the familiar bench by the wall and spread his feet appreciatively towards the