Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

behave correctly to brother, even if he detests him. I'm half sorry myself, but Tutilo remains in his cell. Officially, at any rate," he added with a considering grin. "Even your backslidings, provided they offend only Church law, would be no affair of mine."
    "On occasions they have been," said Cadfael, and let his mind stray fondly after certain memories that brought a nostalgic gleam to his eye. "It's a long time since we rode together by night."
    "Just as well for your old bones," said Hugh, and made an urchin's face at him. "Be content, sleep in your bed, and let clever little bandits like your Tutilo sweat for their sins, and wait their time to be forgiven. For all we know the abbot of Ramsey is a good, humane soul with as soft a spot for minor sinners as you. And a sound ear for music, perhaps. That would serve just as well. If you turned him loose into the night now, how would he fare, without clothes, without food, without money?"
    And it was true enough, Cadfael acknowledged. He would manage, no doubt, but at some risk. A shirt and chausses filched from some woman's drying-ground, an egg or so from under a hen, a few pence wheedled out of travellers on the road with a song, a few more begged at a market, But no stone walls shutting him in, and no locked door, no uncharitable elder preaching him endless sermons on his unpardoned sins, no banishment into the stony solitude of excommunication, barred from the communal meal and from the oratory, having no communication with his fellows, and if any should be so bold and so kind as to offer him a comfortable word, bringing down upon him the same cold fate.
    "All the same," said Hugh, reflecting, "there's justification in the Rule for leaving all doors open. After everything else has been visited on the incorrigible, what does the Rule say? 'If the faithless brother leaves you, let him go.' "
    Cadfael walked with him to the gatehouse when the long afternoon was stilling and chilling into the relaxed calm of the pre-Vesper hour, with the day's manual work done. He had said no word of B�zet's bridle, and his visit to the Horse Fair stable, in presenting the mute witness of Tutilo's breviary. Where there was no certainty, and nothing of substance to offer, he hesitated to advance a mere unsupported suspicion against any man. And yet he was loathe to let pass any possibility of further discovery. To be left in permanent doubt is worse than unwelcome knowledge.
    "You'll be coming down tomorrow," he said at the gate, "to see the earl's party on their way? At what hour his lordship proposes to muster I've heard no word, but they'll want to make good use of the light."
    "He'll hear the first Mass before he goes," said Hugh. "So I'm instructed. I'll be here to see him leave."
    "Hugh... bring three or four with you. Enough to keep the gate if there should be any move to break out. Not enough for comment or alarm."
    Hugh had halted sharply, and was studying him shrewdly along his shoulder. "That's not for the little brother," he said with certainty. "You have some other quarry in mind?"
    "Hugh, I swear to you I know nothing fit to offer you, and if anyone is to venture a mistaken move and make a great fool of himself, let it be me. But be here! A feather fluttering in the wind is more substantial than what I have, as at this moment. I may yet find out more. But make no move until tomorrow. In Robert Bossu's presence we have a formidable authority to back us. If I venture, and fall on my nose pointing a foolish finger at an innocent man, well, a bloody nose is no great matter. But I do not want to call a man a murderer without very hard proof. Leave me handle it my way, and let everyone else sleep easy."
    Hugh was in two minds then about pressing him for every detail of what he had it in mind to do, and whatever flutter of a plume in the wind was troubling his mind; but he thought better of it. Himself and three or four good men gathered to see the distinguished guest depart, and two stout young squires besides their formidable lord, with such a guard, what could happen? And Cadfael was an old and practised hand, even without a cohort at his back.
    "As you think best," said Hugh, but thoughtfully and warily. "We'll be here, and ready to read your signs. I should be lettered and fluent in them by now."
    His raw-boned dapple-grey favourite was tethered at the gate. He mounted, and was off along the highway towards the bridge into the town. The air was very still, and there