Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

loose. Yes, that's my news. It's taken a time to fill in all the comings and goings of his day, but we've dredged up at last a cottar at the edge of Frankwell who knows him, and saw him going up the pastures to his flock well before Vespers that afternoon. There's no way he could have killed Aldwin, the man was alive and well a good hour later."
    Cadfael sat down slowly, with a long, breathy sigh. "So he's out of it, too! Well, well! I never thought him a likely murderer, I confess, but certainty, that's another matter."
    "Neither did I think him a likely murderer," agreed Hugh ruefully, "but I grudge him the days it's cost us to prise out his witnesses for him, and the fool so sick with fright he could barely remember the very acquaintances he'd passed on his way through Frankwell. And still lying, mark you, when his wits worked at all. But clean he is, and soon he'll be on his way back to his work, free as a bird. I wish Girard joy of him!" said Hugh disgustedly. He leaned his elbows on the small table between them, and held Cadfael eye-to-eye. "Will you credit it? He swore he'd seen nothing of Aldwin after the girl's reproof sent the poor devil off in a passion of guilt to try and retrieve what he'd done - until he knew we'd found out about the hour or so they spent together in the alehouse. Then he admitted that, but swore that was the end of it. No such thing, as it turned out. It was one of the eager hounds baying along the Foregate after Elave who told us the next part of the story. He saw the pair of them cross over the bridge and come along the road towards the abbey, with Conan's arm persuasive about Aldwin's shoulders, and Conan talking fast and urgently into Aldwin's ear. Until they both saw and heard the hunt in full cry! Frightened them out of their wits, he says, you'd have thought it was them the hounds were coursing. They went to ground among the trees so fast nothing showed but their scuts. I fancy that was what put an end once and for all to Aldwin's intention of going to the abbey with his bad conscience. Who knows, after the young priest confessed him he might have got his courage back, if... Only today has Conan admitted that he went after him a second time. They were both a shade drunk, I expect. But finally he did go out to his flock, when he was certain Aldwin was far too frightened to involve himself further."
    "So you've lost your best suspect," said Cadfael thoughtfully.
    "The only one I had. And not sorry, so far as the fool himself is concerned, that he should turn out to be blameless. Well, short of murder, at least," Hugh corrected himself. "But contenders were thin on the ground from the start. And what follows now?"
    "What follows," said Cadfael, "is that I tell you what I've come to tell you, for with even Conan removed from the field it becomes more substantial even than I thought. And then, if you agree, we might drain Conan dry of everything he knows, to the last drop, before you turn him loose. I can't be sure, even, that anyone has so much as mentioned to you the box that Elave brought home for the girl, by way of a dowry? From the old man, before he died in France?"
    "Yes," said Hugh wonderingly, "it was mentioned. Jevan told me, by way of accounting for Conan's wanting to get rid of Elave. He liked the daughter, did Conan, in a cool sort of way, but he began to like her much better when she had a dowry to bring with her. So says Jevan. But that's all I know of it. Why? How does the box have any bearing on murder?"
    "I have been baffled from the start," said Cadfael, "by the absence of motive. Revenge, said everyone, pointing the finger at Elave, but when that was blown clear away by young Father Eadmer, what was left? Conan may have been eager to prevent Aldwin from withdrawing his denunciation, but even that was thin enough, and now you tell me that's gone, too. Who had anything against Aldwin so grievous as to be worth even a clout in a quarrel, let alone murder? It was hard enough to see the poor devil at all, let alone resent him. He had nothing worth coveting, had done no great harm to anyone until now. No wonder suspects were thin on the ground. Yet he stood in someone's way, or menaced someone, surely, whether he knew it or not. So since his betrayal of Elave was not the cause of his death, I began to look more closely at all the affairs of the household to which both men were attached, however loosely, every detail, especially anything that was new, this outbreak