Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

head to foot, and laughed.
    "My finery for when he entertains. I have been singing for his lordship of Leicester. Now they are talking intimate possibilities, so I slipped away. I shall not be missed now. I think R� will be riding back to Leicester with Robert Bossu, if he plays his cards cleverly. And I told you, he is a good musician. Leicester would not be cheated."
    "Is he in need of my medicines again?" asked Cadfael practically.
    "No. Nor am I." She was restless, moving uneasily about the hut as once before, curious but preoccupied, and slow to come to what had brought her on this errand. "B�zet is saying that Tutilo is taken for murder. He says Tutilo killed the man he tricked into helping him to steal away your saint. That cannot be true," she said with assured authority. "There is no harm and no violence in Tutilo. He dreams. He does not do."
    "He did more than dream when he purloined our saint," Cadfael pointed out reasonably.
    "He dreamed that before he did it. Oh, yes, he might thieve, that's a different matter. He longed to give his monastery a wonderful gift, to fulfil his visions and be valued and praised. I doubt if he would steal for himself, but for Ramsey, yes, surely he would. He was even beginning to dream of freeing me from my slavery," she said tolerantly, and smiled with the resigned amusement of one experienced beyond young Tutilo's innocent understanding. "But now you have him somewhere under lock and key, and with nothing good to look forward to, whatever follows. If your saint is to remain here now, then even if Tutilo escapes the sheriff's law, if Herluin takes him back to Ramsey they'll make him pay through his skin for what he attempted and failed to bring to success. They'll starve and flay him. And if it goes the other way, and he's called guilty of murder, then, worse, he'll hang." She had arrived, finally, at what she really wanted to know: "Where have you put him? I know he's a prisoner."
    "He is in the first penitentiary cell, close to the passage to the infirmary," said Cadfael. There are but two, we have few offenders in the general way of things. At least the locked door designed to keep him in also keeps his enemies out, if he can be said to have any enemies. I looked in on him not half an hour ago, and he is fast asleep, and by the look of him he'll sleep until past Prime tomorrow."
    "Because he has nothing on his conscience," Daalny snapped triumphantly, "just as I said."
    "I would not say he has always told us all the truth," said Cadfael mildly, "if that's a matter for his conscience. But I don't grudge him his rest, poor imp, he needs it."
    She shrugged that off lightly, pouting long lips. "Of course he is a very good liar, that's part of his fantasies. You would have to be very sure of him and of yourself to know when he's lying, and when he's telling the truth. One knows another!" she agreed defiantly, meeting Cadfael's quizzical look. "I've had to be a good liar myself to keep my head above water all this time. So has he. But do murder? No, that's far out of his scope."
    And still she did not go, but hovered, touching with long fingers along his shelves of vessels, reaching up to rustle the hanging bunches of herbs overhead, keeping only her profile towards him. There was more she wanted to know, but hesitated how to ask, or better, how to find out what she needed without asking.
    "They will feed him, will they not? You cannot starve a man. Who will look after him? Is it you?"
    "No," said Cadfael patiently. The porters will take him his food. But I can visit him. Can, and will. Girl, if you wish him well, leave him where he is."
    "Small choice I have!" said Daalny bitterly. Not, however, quite bitterly enough, Cadfael thought. Rather to present the appearance of resignation than to accept it. She was beginning to have dreams of her own and hers would proceed to action. She had only to watch the porter's moves next day to learn the times when he visited his charge, and espy where the two keys of the penal cells hung side by side in the gatehouse. And Wales was not far, and in any princely llys in that country, great or small, such a voice as Tutilo's, such a deft hand on strings, would easily find shelter. But to go with the slur of murder still upon him, and always the threat of pursuit and capture? No, better far sit it out here and shame the devil. For Cadfael was certain that Tutilo had never done violence to any man, and must not be marked with that obloquy for