Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

though he's done his duty by her fairly enough. It saves him a dowry. And the man's had his losses, and is ambitious for his son."
    "And what," demanded Hugh, "does she get out of it?"
    "She gets her own way. She gets what she wants, and the man she's chosen for herself. She gets Ninian. I think it may not be a bad bargain."
    Hugh sat silent for a brooding while, weighing the rights and wrongs of allowing such a flight, and recalling, perhaps, his own determined pursuit of Aline, not so long past. After a while his brow smoothed, and the private gleam of mischief quickened in his black eyes and twitched at the corner of his mouth. An eloquent eyebrow tilted above a covert glance at Cadfael.
    "Well, I can as easily put a stop to that as cross the court here, yes, and bring the lad flying out of hiding into my arms, if I choose. You've taught me the way to flush him out of cover. All I need do is arrest Mistress Hammet, or even put it abroad that I'm about to, and he'll come running to defend her. If I accused her of murder, as like as not he'd go so far as to confess to an act he never committed, to see her free and vindicated."
    "You could do it," Cadfael admitted, without any great concern, "but you won't. You are as convinced as I am that neither he nor Dame Diota ever laid hand on Ailnoth, and you certainly won't pretend otherwise."
    "I might, however," said Hugh, grinning, "try the same trick with another victim, and see if the man who did drown Ailnoth will be as honest and chivalrous as your lad would be. For I came here today with a small item of news you will not yet have heard, concerning one of Ailnoth's flock who'll be none the worse for a salutary shock. Who knows, there are plenty of rough and ready fellows who would kill lightly enough, but not stand by and let another man be hanged for it. It would be worth the trial, to hook a murderer, and even if it failed, the bait would come to no lasting harm."
    "I would not do it to a dog!" said Cadfael.
    "Neither would I, dogs are honest, worthy creatures that fight fair and bear no grudges. When they set out to kill, they do it openly in broad daylight, and never care how many witnesses there may be. I have less scruples about some men. This one - ah, he's none so bad, but a fright won't hurt him, and may do a very sound turn for his poor drab of a wife."
    "You have lost me," said Cadfael.
    "Let me find you again! This morning Alan Herbard brought me a man he'd happened on by chance, a country kinsman of Erwald's who came to spend Christmas with the provost and his family here in the Foregate. The man's a shepherd by calling, and Erwald had a couple of ewes too early in lamb, penned in his shed out beyond the Gaye, and one of them threatened to cast her lamb too soon. So his cousin the shepherd went to the shed after Matins and Lauds on Christmas morning, to take a look at them, and brought off the threatened lamb safely, too, and was on his way back, just coming up from the Gaye and along to the Foregate at first light. And who do you suppose he saw sneaking very furtively up from the path to the mill and heading for home, but Jordan Achard, rumpled and bleared from sleep and hardly expecting to be seen at that hour. By chance one of the few people our man would have known by sight and name here, being the baker from whose oven he'd fetched his cousin's bread the day before. It came out in purest gossip, in all innocence. The countryman knew Jordan's reputation, and thought it a harmless joke to have seen him making for home from some strange bed."
    "Along that path?" said Cadfael, staring.
    "Along that path. It was well trodden that night, it seems."
    "Ninian was the first," said Cadfael slowly. "I never told you that, but he went there early, not being sure of Giffard. He took himself off smartly when he saw Ailnoth come raging to the meeting, and nothing more did he know of it until morning, when Diota came crying the priest was lost. She was there, as I've told you. I said there must be a third. But Jordan? And blundering homeward at first light? It's hard to believe he had so much durable malice in him as to carry his grudge so long. A big, spoiled babe, I should have said, but for being an excellent baker."
    "So should I. But he was there, no question. Who's abroad at first light on Christmas morning after a long night's worship? Barring, of course, a shepherd anxious about an ailing ewe! That was very ill luck for Jordan. But it goes further, Cadfael.