Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

who had not had a flesh and blood mother, and come of a passionate coupling.
    She would do as she thought fit, and so would he. He was not charged with the keeping of the keys, once he had restored this one to its place.
    "Well, well!" said Cadfael with a sigh. "Let him be for tonight. Let all things be. Who knows how much clearer the skies will be by tomorrow?"
    He left her then, and went on up the court to the gatehouse, to return the key to Brother Porter. Behind him Daalny said softly: "Goodnight!" Her tone was level, courteous, and withdrawn, promising nothing, confiding nothing, a neutral salute out of the dark.
    And what had he to show for that last instinctive return to question the boy yet again, to hope for some sudden blinding recollection that would unveil truth like flinging open the shutters on a summer morning? One small thing only: Tutilo had lost his breviary, somewhere, at some time, on the death-day. With half a mile of woodland and two or three hundred yards of Foregate back-alleys, and the hasty rush into the town and back again, to parcel out in search of it, if it was valued enough. A breviary can be recopied. And yet, if that was all, why was it that he felt Saint Winifred shaking him impatiently by the shoulder and urging in his ear that he knew very well where to begin looking, and that he had better be about it in the morning, for time was running out?
    Chapter Twelve.
    Cadfael arose well before Prime, opening his eyes upon a morning twilight with the pearl-grey promise of clear skies and a windless calm, and upon the consciousness of a task already decided upon and waiting for completion. As well make the enterprise serve two purposes. He went first to his workshop, to select the medicines that might be running short at the hospital of Saint Giles, at the end of the Foregate; ointments and lotions for skin eruptions chiefly, for the strays who came to refuge there were liable to arrive suffering the attendant ills of starvation living and uncleanliness, often through no fault of their own. Those of cold no less, especially among the old, whose breath rattled and rasped in their lungs like dried leaves from wandering the roads. With his scrip already stocked, he looked about him for the jobs most needing attention, and marked down duties enough to keep Brother Winfrid busy through the working hours of the morning.
    After Prime he left Winfrid cheerfully digging over a patch for planting out cabbages later, and went to borrow a key from the porter. Round the eastern corner of the precinct wall, at the far end of the Horse Fair and halfway to Saint Giles, was the large barn and stable, and loft over, to which the horses had been transferred from the stable-yard within the abbey court during the flood. On this stretch of road the Longner cart had stood waiting, while the carters laboured to salvage the treasures of the church, and here Tutilo had emerged from the double rear-doors of the cemetery to haul back Aldhelm by the sleeve, and make him an unwitting partner in his sacrilegious theft. And here, on the night of Aldhelm's death, according to Daalny, she and Tutilo had taken refuge in the hay in the loft, to evade having to face the witness and admit to the sin, and had not dared return until they heard the bell for Compline. By which time their danger was indeed past, for the innocent young man was dead.
    Cadfael opened the main doors, and set one leaf wide. In the straw-scented dimness within the great lower room there were stalls for horses, though none of them was occupied. At seasonal stock sales there would be plenty of country breeders housing their beasts here, but at this season the place was little used. Almost in the middle of the long room a wooden ladder led up through a trapdoor to a loft above. Cadfael climbed it, thrusting up the trap and sliding it aside, to step into an upper room lit by a couple of narrow, unshuttered windows. A few casks ranged along the end wall, an array of tools in the near corner, and ample stores of hay still, for there had been good grass crops two years running.
    They had left their imprint in the piled hay. No question but two people had been here recently, the two snug, hollowed nests were there plain to be seen. But two they were, and that in itself caused Cadfael to stand for some moments in interested contemplation. Close enough for comfort and warmth, but nevertheless clearly separate, and so neatly preserved that they might have been