Brother Cadfael 13: The Rose Rent

globules of moisture formed and stood, quivering. "I've told you, I gave them to Bertred long ago."
    "Not long enough," said Brother Cadfael, "for him to stamp his own mark on them. They bear your tread, not his. You'll remember, very well, the mould I made in wax. You saw it when you came to fetch Mistress Perle home from the bronzesmith's. You guessed then what it was and what it meant. And that same night, your mother bears witness, you passed on those boots to Bertred. Who had nothing to do with the matter, and who was never likely to be called in question, neither he nor his possessions."
    "No!" cried Miles, shaking his head violently. The heavy drops flew from his forehead. "It was not then! No! Long before! Not that night!"
    "Your mother gives you the lie," said Hugh quite gently. "His mother will do no less. You would do well to make full confession, it would stand to your credit when you come to trial. For come to trial you will, Miles! For the murder of Brother Eluric..."
    Miles broke then, crumpling into himself and clutching his head between spread hands, at once to hide it and hold it together. "No!" he protested hoarsely between rigid fingers. "Not murder... no... He came at me like a madman, I never meant him harm, only to get away..."
    And it was done, so simply, at so little cost in the end. After that admission he had no defence; whatever else he had to tell would be poured out freely at last, in the hope of mitigation. He had trapped himself into a situation and a character he could not sustain. And all for ambition and greed!
    "... perhaps also for the murder of Bertred," went on Hugh mercilessly, but in the same dispassionate tone.
    There was no outcry this time. He had caught his breath in chilling and sobering astonishment, for this he had never foreseen.
    "... and thirdly, for the attempt to murder your cousin, in the forest close by Godric's Ford. Much play has been made, Miles Coliar, and reasonably enough, seeing what happened, with the many suitors who have plagued Mistress Perle, and the motive they had for desiring marriage, and marriage to her whole estate, not the half only. But when it came to murder, there was only one person who had anything to gain by that, and that was you, her nearest kin."
    Judith turned from her cousin lamely, and slowly sat down again beside Sister Magdalen, folding her arms about her body as if she felt the cold, but making no sound at all, neither of revulsion nor fear nor anger. Her face looked pinched and still, the flesh hollowed and taut under her white cheekbones, and the stare of her grey eyes turned within rather than without. And so she sat, silent and apart, while Miles stood helplessly dangling the hands he had lowered from a face now dulled and slack, and repeating over and over, with strenuous effort: "Not murder! Not murder! He came at me like a madman - I never meant to kill. And Bertred drowned; he drowned! It was not my doing. Not murder..." But he said no word of Judith, and kept his face turned away from her to the last, in a kind of horror, until Hugh stirred and shook himself in wondering detestation, and made a motion of his hand towards the two sergeants at the door.
    "Take him away!"
    Chapter Fourteen
    When he was gone, and the last receding footstep had sunk into silence, she stirred and breathed deeply, and said rather to herself than to any other: "This I never thought to see!" And to the room in general, with reviving force: "Is it true?"
    "As to Bertred," said Cadfael honestly, "I cannot be sure, and we never shall be quite sure unless he tells us himself, as I believe he may. As to Eluric - yes, it is true. You heard your aunt - as soon as he realised what witness he had left behind against himself, he got rid of the boots that left it. Simply to be rid of them, not then, I think, with any notion of sloughing off his guilt upon Bertred. I think he had come to believe that you really would take the veil, and leave the shop and the trade in his hands, and therefore it seemed worth his while to try and break the abbey's hold on the Foregate house, and have all."
    "He never urged me to take vows," she said wonderingly, "rather opposed it. But he did somehow touch on it now and then - keeping it in mind."
    "But that night made him a murderer, a thing he never intended. That I am sure is truth. But it was done, and could not be undone, and then there was no turning back. What he would have done if he had heard in time of your resolve