Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

whatever it might be, there had been no time for that. A few minutes, and Aldhelm would have been stirring and hauling himself to his feet. Cadfael began to prowl uphill along the edge of the path, probing into the bushes, and then downhill again on the opposite side. Here and there the limestone that cropped out among the heather and rough grass on the ridge above broke through the grass and mould in stony patches, fretted away occasionally into small scattered boulders, bedded into the turf and moss. Cadfael turned downhll some yards. The assailant had hidden on the left of the track, he probed first on that side. A few paces below where the body lay, and a yard or so into the bushes, there was a patch of free stones, loosely overgrown with grass and lichen, and to all appearance undisturbed for a year or more; until something about the clear outlining of the upper stone made him look closer. It was not bonded to those below it by the neat filling of soil and small growth that bound all the rest, though it lay aligned precisely to fill the place it had surely filled for a year or more. Cadfael stooped and took it in both hands, and lifted it, and it parted from its setting without trailing a blade of grass or a torn edge of moss. Once already in the night it had been uprooted and replaced.
    "No," said Cadfael, low to himself, "this I never expected. That we should find a mind of such devious ways."
    "This?" said Hugh, staring closely upon the stone. It was large and heavy, a weighty double handful, smoothed above by exposure, beneath its dappling of lichen and moss; but when Cadfael turned it over it showed rough and pale, with some jagged edges that were tipped with a dark crust, not yet dried out. That is blood," said Hugh with certainty.
    "That is blood," said Cadfael. "When the thing was done, there was no longer any haste. He had time to think, and reason. All cold, cold and deliberate. He put back the stone as he found it, carefully aligned. The small, severed roots that had held it he could not repair, but who was to notice them? Now we have done all we can do here, Hugh. What remains is to put all together and consider what manner of man this could be."
    "We may move the poor wretch?" said Hugh.
    "May I have him home to the abbey? I would like to look yet again, and more carefully. I think he lived alone, without family. We shall confer with his own priest at Upton. And this stone..." It was heavy for him, he was glad to set it down for a while. "Bring this with him."
    And all this time the boy had stood close by, wordless himself, but listening to every word spoken around him. The brief dew on his lashes, that had caught the thin early rays of the risen sun, was dry enough now, his mouth was set in a rigid line. When Hugh's men had lifted Aldhelm's body on to the litter, and set off down the path with it towards the Foregate, Tutilo fell in behind the sorry little procession like a mourner, and went silently step for step with them, his eyes still upon the shrouded body.
    "He'll not be leaving?" said Hugh in Cadfael's ear, as they followed.
    "He'll not be leaving. I will see to that. He has a hard master to satisfy, and nowhere else to go."
    "And what do you make of him?"
    "I would not presume to assay," said Cadfael. "He slips through my fingers. But time was when I would have said the same of you," he added wryly, and took heart at hearing Hugh laugh, if only briefly and softly. "I know! That was mutual. But see how it turned out in the end."
    "He came straight to me with the tale," said Hugh, reckoning up in a low voice for Cadfael's ear alone. "He showed very shaken and shocked, but clear of head. He had wasted no time, the body was almost warm as life, only no breath in him, so we let all alone until morning. This lad behaved every way as a man would who had happened unawares on murder. Only, perhaps, better than most would have managed."
    "Which may be the measure of his quality," said Cadfael firmly, "or of his cunning. As well the one as the other. And who's to tell?"
    "It is not often," said Hugh with a rueful smile, "that I must listen to you as the devil's advocate, where a youngster in trouble is concerned. Well, keep him in your custody, and we'll take time over either condemning or absolving."
    In the mortuary chapel Aldhelm's body lay on its bier, limbs straightened, body composed, eyes closed, enshrined and indifferent, having told all Cadfael could induce it to tell. Not all the specks of