Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

it was a child he cast out ..."
    He fell silent for a moment, as though the words had become hard to read by reason of the blindness of grief, and furrowed his high forehead to decipher them the better, but no one ventured to speak.
    "There I was standing, where Eluned went into the pool, when he came along the path. I did not know who it was, he did not come as far as where I stood - but someone, a man stamping and muttering, there by the mill. A man in a rage, or so it sounded. Then a woman came stumbling after him, I heard her cry out to him, she went on her knees to him, weeping, and he was trying to shake her off, and she would not let go of him. He struck her - I heard the blow. She made no more than a moan, but then I did go towards them, thinking there could be murder done, and therefore I saw dimly, but I had my night eyes, and I did see - how he swung his stick at her again, and she clung with both hands to the head of it to save herself, and how he tugged at it with all his strength and tore it out of her hands ... The woman ran from him, I heard her stumbling away along the path, but I doubt she ever heard what I heard, or knows what I know. I heard him reel backwards and crash into the stump of the willow. I heard the withies lash and break. I heard the splash - it was not a great sound - as he went into the water."
    There was another silence, long and deep, while he thought, and laboured to remember with precision, since that was required of him. Brother Cadfael, coming up quietly behind the ranks of the awestruck brothers, had heard only the latter part of Cynric's story, but he had the poor, draggled proof of it in his hand as he listened. Hugh's trap had caught nothing, rather it had set everyone free. He looked across the mute circle to where Diota stood, with Sanan's arm about her. Both women had drawn their hoods close round their faces. One of the hands torn by the sharp edges of the silver band held the folds of Diota's cloak together.
    "I went towards the place," said Cynric, "and looked into the water. It was only then I knew him certainly for Ailnoth. He drifted at my feet, stunned or dazed ... I knew his face. His eyes were open ... And I turned my back and walked away from him, as he turned his back on her and walked away from her, shutting the door on her tears as he struck at this other woman's tears ... If God had willed him to live, he would have lived. Why else should it happen there, in that very place? And who am I, to usurp the privilege of God?"
    All this he delivered in the same reasonable voice with which he would have rendered account of the number of candles bought for the parish altar, though the words came slowly and with effort and thought, studying to make all plain now that plainness was needed. But to Abbot Radulfus it had some distant echo of the voice of prophecy. Even if the man had wished to save, could he have saved? Might not the priest have been already past saving? And there in the dark, alone, with no time to summon help, since everyone was preparing for the night office, and with that undercut bank to contend with, and the dead weight of a big man to handle could any man, singly, have saved? Better to suppose that the thing had been impossible, and accept what to Cynric was the will of God!
    "And now, with your leave, my lord abbot," said Cynric, having waited courteously but vainly for some comment or question, "if you've no more need of me I'll be getting on with filling in the grave, for I'll need the most of the daylight to make a good job of it."
    "Do so," said the abbot, and looked at him for a moment, eye to eye, with no shadow of blame, and saw no shadow of doubt. "Do so, and come to me for your fee when it is done."
    Cynric went as he had come, back to his work, and those who watched him in awe-stricken silence saw no change in his long-legged walk, or in the quiet, steady rhythm with which he plied his spade.
    Radulfus looked at Hugh, and then to Jordan Achard, mute and wilting with relief from terror between his guards. For a brief instant the abbot's austere face was shaken by the merest fleeting shadow of a smile. "My lord sheriff, I think your charge against this man is already answered. What other offences he may have on his conscience," said the abbot, fixing the demoralised Jordan with a severe eye, "I recommend him to bring to confession. And to avoid henceforward! He may well reflect on the dangers into which such a manner of life has led him,