Free A Rare Benedictine by Ellis Peters Page A

enough to eat where she was? Then he made the inevitable
connection, and let out a roar of rage.
    “Gone,
is she? And my candlesticks gone with her, I dare swear! So it was she! The
foul little thief! But I’ll have her yet, I’ll drag her back, she shall not
live to enjoy her ill-gotten gains...”
    It
seemed likely that the lady would heartily endorse all this; her mouth was
already open to echo him when Brother Cadfael, brushing her sleeve close as the
agitated brothers ringed the pair, contrived to shake a few grains of lavender
on to her wrist. Her mouth closed abruptly. She gazed at the tiny things for
the briefest instant before she shook them off, she flashed an even briefer
glance at Brother Cadfael, caught his eye, and heard in a rapid whisper:
“Madam, softly! proof of the maid’s innocence is also proof of the mistress’s.”
    She
was by no means a stupid woman. A second quick glance confirmed what she had
already grasped, that there was one man here who had a weapon to hold over her
at least as deadly as any she could use against Elfgiva. She was also a woman
of decision, and wasted no time in bitterness once her course was chosen. The
tone in which she addressed her lord was almost as sharp as that in which she
had complained of Elfgiva’s desertion.
    “She
your thief, indeed! That’s folly, as you should very well know. The girl is an
ungrateful fool to leave me, but a thief she never has been, and certainly is
not this time. She can’t possibly have taken the candlesticks, you know well
enough when they vanished, and you know I was not well that night, and went
early to bed. She was with me until long after Brother Prior discovered the
theft. I asked her to stay with me until you came to bed. As you never did!”
she ended tartly. “You may remember!”
    Hamo
probably remembered very little of that night; certainly he was in no position
to gainsay what his wife so roundly declared. He took out a little of his
ill-temper on her, but she was not so much in awe of him that she dared not
reply in kind. Of course she was certain of what she said! She had not drunk
herself stupid at the lord abbot’s table, she had been nursing a bad head of
another kind, and even with Brother Cadfael’s remedies she had not slept until after
midnight, and Elfgiva had then been still beside her. Let him hunt a runaway
maidservant, by all means, the thankless hussy, but never call her a thief, for
she was none.
    Hunt
her he did, though with less energy now it seemed clear he would not recapture
his property with her. He sent his grooms and half the lay servants off in both
directions to enquire if anyone had seen a solitary girl in a hurry; they were
kept at it all day, but they returned empty-handed.
    The
party from Lidyate, less one member, left for home next day. Lady FitzHamon
rode demurely behind young Madoc, her cheek against his broad shoulders; she
even gave Brother Cadfael the flicker of a conspiratorial smile as the
cavalcade rode out of the gates, and detached one arm from round Madoc’s waist
to wave as they reached the roadway. So Hamo was not present to hear when
Brother Jordan, at last released from his vow, told how Our Lady had appeared
to him in a vision of light, fair as an angel, and taken away with her the
candlesticks that were hers to take and do with as she would, and how she had
spoken to him, and enjoined on him his three days of silence. And if there were
some among the listeners who wondered whether the fair woman had not been a
more corporeal being, no one had the heart to say so to Jordan, whose vision
was comfort and consolation for the fading of the light.
    That
was at Matins, at midnight of the day of St Stephen’s. Among the scattering of
alms handed in at the gatehouse next morning for the beggars, there was a
little basket that weighed surprisingly heavily. The porter could not remember
who had brought it, taking it to be some