Sulien turned as the visitor's shadow fell within, and looked up into Jerome's face, and waited in dutiful silence to hear what was required of him. One brother was like another to him here as yet, and with this meagre little man he had not so far exchanged a word. The narrow, grey face and stooped shoulders made Jerome look older than he was, and it was the duty of young brothers to be serviceable and submissive to their elders.
Jerome requested onions, and Sulien went into the store-shed and brought what was wanted, choosing the soundest and roundest, since these were for the abbot's own kitchen. Jerome opened benevolently: 'How are you faring now, here among us, after all your trials elsewhere? Have you settled well here with Brother Cadfael?'
'Very well, I thank you,' said Sulien carefully, unsure yet of this solicitous visitor whose appearance was not precisely reassuring, nor his voice, even speaking sympathy, particularly sympathetic. 'I am fortunate to be here, I thank God for my deliverance.'
'In a very proper spirit,' said Jerome wooingly. 'Though I fear that even here there are matters that must trouble you. I wish that you could have come back to us in happier circumstances.'
'Indeed, so do I!' agreed Sulien warmly, still harking back in his own mind to the upheaval of Ramsey.
Jerome was encouraged. It seemed the young man might, after all, be in a mood to confide, if sympathetically prompted. 'I feel for you,' he said mellifluously. 'A shocking thing it must be, after such terrible blows, to come home to yet more ill news here. This death that has come to light, and worse, to know that it casts so black a shadow of suspicion upon a brother among us, and one well known to all your family -'
He was weaving his way so confidently into his theme that he had not even noticed the stiffening of Sulien's body, and the sudden blank stillness of his face.
'Death?' said the boy abruptly. 'What death?'
Thus sharply cut off in full flow, Jerome blinked and gaped, and leaned to peer more intently into the young, frowning face before him, suspecting deception. But the blue eyes confronted him with a wide stare of such crystal clarity that not even Jerome, himself adept at dissembling and a cause of defensive evasion in others, could doubt the young man's honest bewilderment.
'Do you mean,' demanded Jerome incredulously, 'that Ruald has not told you?'
'Told me of what? Nothing of a death, certainly! I don't know what you mean, Brother!'
'But you walked with him to Mass this morning,' protested Jerome, reluctant to relinquish his certainty. 'I saw you come, you had some talk together...'
'Yes, so we did, but nothing of ill news, nothing of a death. I have known Ruald since I could first run,' said Sulien. 'I was glad to meet with him, and see him so secure in his faith, and so happy. But what is this you are telling me of a death? I beg you, let me understand you!'
Jerome had thought to be eliciting information, but found himself instead imparting it. 'I thought you must surely know it already. Our plough-team turned up a woman's body, the first day they broke the soil of the Potter's Field. Buried there unlawfully, without rites - the sheriff believes killed unlawfully. The first thought that came to mind was that it must be the woman who was Brother Ruald's wife when he was in the world. I thought you knew from him. Did he never say a word to you?'
'No, never a word,' said Sulien. His voice was level and almost distant, as though all his thoughts had already grappled with the grim truth of it, and withdrawn deep into his being, to contain and conceal any immediate consideration of its full meaning. His blue, opaque stare held Jerome at gaze, unwavering. 'That it must be you said. Then it is not known! Neither he nor any can name the woman?'
'It would not be possible to name her. There is nothing left that could be known to any man. Mere naked bones is what they found.' Jerome's faded flesh shrank at the mere thought of
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