Brother Cadfael 14: The Hermit of Eyton Forest

open. He lifted down the cross and raised the lid, which gave readily. The lock was sprung and broken, and the casket was empty. Only the faint aromatic scent of the wood stirred upon the air. There was not even a filming of dust within; the box had been well made.
    'So something was taken, after all,' said Cadfael. He did not mention the breviary, though he could not doubt that Hugh had noticed its absence as readily as he.
    'But not the silver. What could a hermit have about him of greater value than Dame Dionisia's silver? He came to Buildwas on foot, carrying only a scrip like any other pilgrim, though to be sure his boy Hyacinth also carried a pack for him. Now I wonder,' said Hugh, 'whether this casket was also the lady's gift, or whether he brought it with him?'
    They had been so intent on what they were observing within that they had failed to pay attention to what was happening without, and there had been no sound to warn them. And in the shock of what they had discovered they had almost forgotten that at least one more witness was expected at this meeting. But it was a woman's voice, not Fulke's, that suddenly spoke in the doorway behind them, high and confidently, and with arrogant disapproval in its tone.
    'No need to wonder, my lord. It would be simple and civil to ask me.'
    All three of them swung round in dismayed alarm to stare at Dame Dionisia, tall and erect and defiant between them and the brightening daylight from which she had come, and which left her half-blind at stepping into this relative obscurity. They were between her and the body, and there was nothing else to startle or alarm her but the very fact that Hugh stood with his hand on the open casket, and the cross had been lifted down. This she saw clearly, while the dying lamp lit nothing else so well. And she was outraged.
    'My lord, what is this? What are you doing with these sacred things? And where is Cuthred? Have you dared to meddle in his absence?'
    The abbot moved to place himself more solidly between her and the dead man, and advanced to persuade her out of the chapel.
    'Madam, you shall know all, but I beg you, come out into the other room and be seated, and wait but a moment until we set all in order here. Here is no irreverence, I promise you.'
    The light from without was still further darkened by the bulk of Astley looming at her shoulder, blocking the retreat the abbot was urging. She stood her ground, imperious and indignant.
    'Where is Cuthred? Does he know you are here? How is it he has left his cell? He never does so -' The lie ended on her lips in a sharp indrawn breath. Beyond the abbot's robe she had seen one small pallor jutting from the huddle of dark skirts, a foot that had shaken loose its sandal. Her vision was clearer now. She evaded the abbot's restraining hand and thrust strongly past him. All her questions were answered in one shattering glance. Cuthred was indeed there, and on this occasion at least had not left his cell.
    The long, patrician composure of her face turned waxen grey and seemed to disintegrate, its sharp lines fallen slack. She uttered a great wail, rather of terror than of grief, and half-sprang, half-fell backwards into the arms of Fulke Astley.
    Chapter Thirteen
    She neither swooned nor wept. She was a woman who did not lightly do either. But she sat for a long while bolt upright on Cuthred's bed in the living room, rigid and pale and staring straight before her, clean through the stone wall before her face, and a long way beyond. It was doubtful if she heard any of the abbot's carefully measured words, or the uneasy blusterings of Astley, alternately offering her gallantries of comfort she did not value or need, and recalling feverishly that this crime left all questions unanswered, and in some none too logical way went to prove that the hermit had indeed been a priest, and the marriage he had solemnized still a marriage. At least she paid no attention to either. She had gone far beyond any such considerations. All her old plans had become irrelevant. She had looked closely on sudden death, unconfessed, unshriven, and she wanted no part of it. Cadfael saw it in her eyes as he came out from the chapel, having done what he could to lay Cuthred's body straight and seemly, now that he had read all it had to tell him. Through that death she was confronting her own, and she had no intention of meeting it with all her sins upon her. Or for many years yet, but she had had warning that if she was