Brother Cadfael 20: Brother Cadfael's Penance

there can be no harm. But you will have small opportunity of enquiring further into either this death, or the whereabouts of the prisoners you are seeking, if, as I suppose, you are going home to Shrewsbury now the conference is over."
    "I am not sure, my lord," said Cadfael, "that I shall be going home."
    Chapter Six
    "You know, do you not," said Hugh very gravely, as they came from one more Compline together in the dusk, "that if you go further, I cannot go with you. I have work of my own to do. If I turn my back upon Madog ap Meredudd many more days he'll be casting covetous eyes at Oswestry again. He's never stopped hankering after it. God knows I'd be loathe to go back without you. And you know, none better, you'll be tearing your own life up by the roots if you fail to keep your time."
    "And if I fail to find my son," said Cadfael, gently and reasonably, "my life is nothing worth. No, never fret for me, Hugh, one alone on this labour can do as much as a company of armed men, and perhaps more. I have failed already to find any trace here, what remains but to go where he served, where he was betrayed and made prisoner? There someone must know what became of him. In Faringdon there will be echoes, footprints, threads to follow, and I will find them."
    He made his drawings with care, on a leaf of vellum from the scriptorium, one to size, with careful precision, one enlarged to show every detail of the salamander seal. There was no motto nor legend, only the slender lizard in its fiery nest. Surely that, too, harked back in some way to the surrender of Faringdon, and had somewhat to say concerning the death of Brien de Soulis, if only its language could be interpreted.
    Hugh cast about, without overmuch comfort, for something to contribute to these vexed puzzles that drove his friend into unwilling exile, but there was little of help to be found. He did venture, for want of better: "Have you thought, Cadfael, that of all those who may well have hated de Soulis, there's none with better reason than the empress? How if she prompted some besotted young man to do away with him? She has a string of raw admirers at her disposal. It could be so."
    "To the best of my supposing," said Cadfael soberly, "it was so. Do you remember she sent for Yves that first evening, after she had seen the lad show his paces against de Soulis? I fancy she had accepted the omen, and found him a work he could do for her, a trace more privately, perhaps, than at his first attempt."
    "No!" gasped Hugh, stricken, and halted in mid-stride. "Are you telling me that Yves ..."
    "No, no such matter!" Cadfael assured him chidingly. "Oh, he took her meaning, or I fear he did, though he surely damned himself for ever believing it was meant so. He did not do it, of course not! Even she might have had the wit to refrain, with such an innocent. But stupid he is not! He understood her!"
    "Then may she not have singled out a second choice for the work?" suggested Hugh, brightening.
    "No, you may forget that possibility. For she is convinced that Yves took the nudge, and rid her of her enemy. No, there's no solution there."
    "How so?" demanded Hugh, pricked. "How can you know so much?"
    "Because she rewarded him with a gold ring. No great prize, but an acknowledgement. He tried to refuse it, but he was not brave enough, small blame to the poor lad. Oh, nothing was ever openly said, and of course he would deny it, she would avoid even having to make him say as much. The child is out of his depth with such women. He's bent on getting rid of her gift as soon as he safely may. Her gratitude is short, that he knows. But no, she never hired another murderer, she is certain she needed none."
    "That can hardly have added to his happiness," said Hugh with a sour grimace. "And no help to us in lifting the weight from him, either."
    They had reached the door of their lodging. Overhead the sky was clear and cold, the stars legion but infinitesimal in the early dark. The last night here, for Hugh had duties at home that could not be shelved.
    "Cadfael, think well what you are doing. I know what you stake, as well as you know it. This is not simple going and returning. Where you will be meddling a man can vanish, and no return ever. Come back with me, and I will ask Robert Bossu to follow this quest to its ending."
    "There's no time," said Cadfael. "I have it in my mind, Hugh, that there are more souls than one, and more lives than my son's, to be salvaged here, and the time