Monk's Hood by Ellis Peters

Author:Ellis Peters [Peters, Ellis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781784080532
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2014-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

7

The abbey prison was two little cells attached to the rear of the gatehouse, very clean, furnished with benchbeds no worse than the novices endured, and very rarely occupied. The summer period of Saint Peter’s fair was the chief populator of the cells, since it could be relied upon to provide two happy drunken servants or lay brothers nightly, who slept off their excesses and accepted their modest fines and penances without rancour, thinking the game well worth the candle. From time to time some more serious disturbance might cast up an inmate, some ill-balanced brother who nursed a cloistered hate long enough to attempt violence, or a lay servant who stole, or a novice who offended too grossly against the imposed code. The abbey court was not a busy one.

In one of the two cells Brother Cadfael and Edwy sat side by side, warmly and companionably. There was a grille in the door, but it was most improbable that anyone was paying attention to anything that could be heard through it. The brother who held the keys was sleepy, and in any case indifferent to the cause that had brought him a prisoner. The difficulty would probably be to batter loudly enough to wake him when Cadfael wanted to leave.

“It wasn’t so hard,” said Edwy, sitting back with a grateful sigh after demolishing the bowl of porridge a tolerant cook had provided him, “there’s a cousin of father’s lives along the riverside, just beyond your property of the Gaye, he has an orchard there, and a shed for the donkey and cart, big enough to hide Rufus. His boy brought word into the town to us, and I took father’s horse and came out to meet Edwin there. Nobody was looking for a bony old piebald like our Japhet, I never got a second glance as I crossed the bridge, and I didn’t hurry. Alys came with me pillion, and kept watch in case they got close. Then we changed clothes and horses, and Edwin made off towards—”

“Don’t tell me!” said Cadfael quickly.

“No, you can truly say you don’t know. Plainly not the way I went. They were slow sighting me,” said Edwy scornfully, “even with Alys helping them. But once they had me in view it was a matter of how long I could keep them busy, to give him time to get well away. I could have taken them still further, but Rufus was tiring, so I let them have me. I had to, in the end, it kept them happy several more hours, and they sent one man ahead to call off the hunt. Edwin’s had a clear run. Now what do you think they’ll do with me?”

“If you hadn’t already been in abbey charge, and the prior by, at that,” said Cadfael frankly, “they’d have had the hide off you for leading them such a dance and making such fools of them. I wouldn’t say Prior Robert himself wouldn’t have liked to do as much, but dignity forbids, and authority forbids letting the secular arm skin you on his behalf.

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