Brother Cadfael 20: Brother Cadfael's Penance

stables and living quarters, view their trophy of arms, and make themselves at home here. Cadfael slipped back into the ward ahead of them, and made his way cautiously into the shell of the broken tower. Stepping warily among the fallen ashlar and rubble from the filling of the wall, he found the folded cloak wedged into a gap in the stonework, where Olivier had thrust it the moment before he slipped out into the night among the besiegers. The imperial eagle badge was still pinned into the shoulder. Cadfael rolled it within, and took his prize away with him to his own cell. Almost it seemed to him that a trace of the warmth of Olivier's body still clung to it.
    They were all in before the light faded, all but the empress's personal household, and their forerunners were already busy with hangings and cushions making the least Spartan apartment fit for an imperial lady. The hall was again habitable, and looked much as it had always looked, and the cooks and servants turned to feeding and housing one garrison as philosophically as another. The damaged tower was shored up stoutly with seasoned timbers, and a watch placed on it to warn off any unwary soul from risking his head within.
    And no one yet had opened the door to Philip's bedchamber, and found it empty. Nor had anyone had time to remark that the Benedictine guest who had been the last to sit in attendance on the wounded man had been at large about the ward and at the graveside for the past three hours, and so had the chaplain. Everyone had been far too preoccupied to wonder who, then, was keeping watch by the bedside during their absence. It was a point to which Cadfael had not given full consideration, and now that what was most urgent had been accomplished, it began to dawn upon him that he would have to make the discovery himself, in fairness to all the rest of Philip's remaining household. But preferably with a witness.
    He went to the kitchens, almost an hour before Vespers, and asked for a measure of wine and a leather bucket of hot water for his patient, and enlisted the help of a scullion to carry the heavy bucket for him across the ward and into the keep.
    "He was in fever," he said as they entered the corridor, "when I left him some hours ago to go out to the burial ground. We may manage to break it, if I bathe him now and try to get a drop of wine into him. Will you spare me a few minutes to help lift him and turn him?"
    The scullion, a shock-headed young giant, his mouth firmly shut and his face equally uncommunicative under this new and untested rule, slid a glance along his shoulder at Cadfael, made an intelligent estimate of what he saw there, and uttered through motionless lips but clearly: "Best let him go, brother, if you wish him well."
    "As you do?" said Cadfael in a very similar fashion. It was a small skill, but useful on occasion.
    No answer to that, but he neither expected nor needed one.
    "Take heart! When the time comes, tell what you have seen."
    They reached the door of the deserted bedchamber. Cadfael opened it, the wine flask in his hand. Even in the dimming light the bed showed disordered and empty, the covers tumbled every way, the room shadowy and stark. Cadfael was tempted to drop the flask in convincing astonishment and alarm, but reflected that by and large Benedictine brothers do not respond to sudden crises by dropping things, least of all flasks of wine, and further, that he had just as good as confided in this random companion, to remove all necessity for deception. There were certainly some among Philip's domestic household who would rejoice in his deliverance.
    So neither of them exclaimed. On the contrary, they stood in mute and mutual content. The look they exchanged was eloquent, but ventured no words, in case of inconvenient ears passing too close.
    "Come!" said Cadfael, springing to life. "We must report this. Bring the bucket," he added with authority. "It's the details that make the tale ring true."
    He led the way at a run, the wine flask still gripped in his hand, and the scullion galloping after, splashing water overboard from his bucket at every step. At the hall door Cadfael rushed almost into the arms of one of Bohun's knights, and puffed out his news breathlessly.
    "The lord marshall, is he within? I must speak to him. We're just come from FitzRobert's chamber. He's not there. The bed's empty, and the man's gone."
    Before the marshall, the steward and half a dozen earls and barons in the great hall it made