Brother Cadfael 13: The Rose Rent

once. How everything I am, and know, and feel, and everyone who draws near me," she said with sudden passion, "spins around that house and those roses. I wish I had never left it, I could have given it to the abbey and still been its tenant. It was wrong to abandon the place where love was."
    Where love is, Cadfael thought, listening to the controlled voice so abruptly vibrant and fierce, and watching the pale, tired face blaze like a lighted lantern. And it was Niall who was by her when it came to life or death!
    The flame burned down a little and steadied, but was not quenched. "Now I have told you," she said. "What will you do? I promised that I would not urge any charge against him, the man who snatched me away. I bear him no malice. If you take him and charge him, I will not bear witness against him."
    "Shall I tell you," asked Hugh gently, "where he is now? He is in a cell in the castle. He rode in at the eastern gate not half an hour before Cadfael came for me, and we whisked him into the wards before he knew what we were about. He has not yet been questioned or charged with anything, and no one in the town knows that we have him. I can let him go, or let him rot there until the assize. Your wish to bury the affair I can understand, your intent to keep your word I respect. But there is still the matter of Bertred. Bertred was abroad that night when you made your plans..."
    "Cadfael has told me," she said, erect and watchful again.
    "The night of his death, which may or may not be mere accident. He was prowling with intent to break in and - steal, shall we say? And it is possible that he was helped to his death in the river."
    Judith shook her head decidedly. "Not by the man you say you are holding. I know, for I was with him." She bit her lips, and considered a moment. There was hardly anything left unsaid but the name she would not name. "We both were within there, we heard his fall, though we did not know then what was happening. We had heard small sounds outside, or thought we had. So we did again, or so he did, afterwards. But by then he was so fraught, every whisper jarred him from head to heel. But he did not leave me. Whatever happened to Bertred, he had no hand in it."
    "That's proof enough," agreed Hugh, satisfied. "Very well, you shall have your way. No one need know more than you care to tell. But, by God, he shall know what manner of worm he is, before I kick him out of the wards and send him home with a flea in his ear. That much you won't grudge me, he may still count himself lucky to get off so lightly."
    "He is of no great weight," she said indifferently, "for good or ill. Only a foolish boy. But he is no great villain, and young enough to mend. But there is still Bertred. Brother Cadfael tells me it was he who killed the young monk. I understand nothing, neither that nor why Bertred himself should die. Niall told me, last night, how things had been here in the town after I vanished. But he did not tell me about Bertred."
    "I doubt if he knew," said Cadfael. "It was only in the afternoon we had found him, and though the word was going round in the town, naturally, after he was brought back here, I doubt if it had reached Niall's end of the Foregate, and certainly I did not mention it to him. How did he come to be there at hand, close by Godric's Ford, when you needed him?"
    "He saw us pass," said Judith, "before we were into the forest. He was on his way home then, but he knew me, and he followed. Well for me! But Niall Bronzesmith has always been well for me, the few times ever we've met or touched."
    Hugh rose to depart. "Well, I'll have Alan take a patrol down into the forest, and make a thorough drive there. If we have a nest of wild men in those parts, we'll smoke them out. Madam, there shall be nothing made public of what has been said here. That matter is finished as you would have it. And thank God it ended no worse. Now I trust you may be left in peace."
    "Only I am not easy about Bertred," Judith said abruptly. "Neither about his guilt nor his death. So strong a swimmer, born and raised by the river. Why should his skill fail him that night, of all nights?"
    Hugh was gone, back to the castle to call off his hunters as fast as they came in to report, and either to deal faithfully with the wretched Vivian Hynde, or, more probably, leave him sweating and worrying overnight or longer in a chilly cell. Cadfael took the carefully rolled altar frontal Sister Magdalen had extracted from her