Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

shaped deliberately. There had been no rumbustious rustic coupling here, only two anxious minor sinners crouching in sanctuary from the buffetings of fate for this one night, even if the blow must fall next day. They must have sat very still, to avoid even the rustling of the straw round their feet.
    Cadfael looked about him for the small alien thing he had come to find, with no assurance that it would be here to be found, only an inward conviction that some benevolent finger had pointed him to this place. He had all but put his hand on it when he hoisted the trap, for the corner of the solid wooden square had pushed it some inches aside, and half hidden it from view. A narrow book, bound in coarse leather, the edges rubbed pale from carrying and handling, and the friction of rough sacking scrips. The boy must have laid it down here as they were leaving, to have his hands free to help Daalny down the ladder, and had then been so intent on fitting the trap into place again that he had forgotten to reach through for his book.
    Cadfael took it up in his hands and held it gratefully. There was a stem of clean yellow straw keeping a page in it, and the place it marked was the office of Compline. In the dark here they could not read it, but Tutilo would know it by heart in any case, and this gesture was simply by way of a small celebration to prove that they had observed the hours faithfully. It would be easy, thought Cadfael, to fall into a perilous affection for this gifted rogue, sometimes amused, often exasperated, but affection all the same. Apart, of course, from that angelic voice so generously bestowed on one who was certainly no angel.
    He was standing quite still, a pace or two away from the open trapdoor, when he heard a small sound from below. The door had been left open, anyone could have come in, but he had heard no footsteps. What had caught his ear was the slight rasp of rough ceramic against rough ceramic, crude baked clay, a heavy lid being lifted from a large storage jar. The friction of a slight movement in lifting made a brief, grating sound that carried strangely, and set the teeth on edge. Someone had raised the lid from the cornjar. It had been filled when the horses were moved, and would not have been emptied again, in case of further need, since the rivers were still running somewhat high, and the season was not yet quite safe. And once again, the slightly different but still rasping clap of the lid being replaced. It came very softly, a minute touch, but he heard it.
    He shifted quietly, to be able to look down through the trap, and someone below, hearing him, hallooed cheerfully up to him: "You there, Brother? All's well! Something I forgot here when we moved the horses." Feet stirred the straw on the flooring, audible now, and R�'s man B�zet came into view, grinning amiably up into the loft, and flourishing a bridle that showed glints of gilt decoration on headstall and rein. "My lord R�'s! I'd been walking his beast out for the first time after he went lame, and brought him in harnessed, and this I left behind here. We'll be needing it tomorrow. We're packing."
    "So I hear," said Cadfael. "And setting off with a safe escort." He tucked the breviary into the breast of his habit, having left his scrip below, and stepped cautiously through the trap and began to descend the ladder. B�zet waited for him, dangling the bridle. "I recalled in time where I'd left it," he said, smoothing a thumb along the embossed decorations on the brow and the rein. "I asked at the porter's, and he told me Brother Cadfael had taken the key and would be here, so I came to collect this while the place was open. If you're done, Brother, we can walk back together."
    "I have still to go on to Saint Giles," said Cadfael, and turned to pick up his scrip. "I'll lock up, if you've no further wants here, and get on to the hospital."
    "No, I'm done," said B�zet. "This was all. Lucky I remembered, or R�'s best harness would have been left dangling on that hayrack, and I should have had it docked out of my pay or out of my skin."
    He said a brisk farewell, and was off towards the corner, and round it into the straight stretch of the Foregate, without a glance behind. Never once had he cast a glance towards the cornbin in its shadowy niche. But the bridle, it seemed, he had reclaimed from the last hayrack. So, at least, he had made unnecessarily plain.
    Cadfael went to the corn jar and lifted the lid. There were grains