Read Brother Cadfael 17: The Potter's Field for Free Online

'Two questions wait to be answered,' said Hugh, taking the initiative. 'Who is she? And if that cannot be answered with certainty, then who may she be? And the second: Has any woman vanished from these parts during these last few years, without word or trace?'

'Of one such,' said the abbot heavily, 'we certainly know. And the place itself is all too apt. Yet no one has ever questioned that she went away, and of her own choice. That was a hard case for me to accept, as the wife never accepted it. Yet Brother Ruald could no more be barred from following his soul's bent than the sun from rising. Once I was sure of him, I had no choice. To my grief, the woman never was reconciled.'

So now the man's name had been spoken. Perhaps no one even recalled the woman's. Many within the walls could never have set eyes on her, or heard mention of her until her husband had his visitation and came to stand patiently at the gates and demand entry.

'I must ask your leave,' said Hugh, 'to have him view this body. Even if she is indeed his wife, truly he may not be able to say so now with any certainty, yet it must be asked of him that he make the assay. The field was theirs, the croft there was her home after he left it.' He was silent for a long moment, steadily eyeing the abbot's closed and brooding face. 'After Ruald entered here, until the time when she is said to have gone away with another man, was he ever at any time sent back there? There were belongings he gave over to her, there could be agreements to be made, even witnessed. Is he known to have met with her, after they first parted?'

'Yes,' said Radulfus at once. 'Twice in the first days of his novitiate he did visit her, but in company with Brother Paul. As master of the novices Paul was anxious for the man's peace of mind, no less than for the woman's, and tried his best to bring her to acknowledge and bless Ruald's vocation. Vainly! But with Paul he went, and with Paul he returned. I know of no other occasion when he could have seen or spoken with her.'

'Nor ever went out to field work or any other errand close to that field?'

'It is more than a year,' said the abbot reasonably. 'Even Paul would be hard put to it to say where Ruald served in all that time. Commonly, during his novitiate he would always be in company with at least one other brother, probably more, whenever he was sent out from the enclave to work. But doubtless,' he said, returning Hugh's look no less fixedly, 'you mean to ask the man himself.'

'With your leave, Father, yes.'

'And now, at once?'

If you permit, yes. It will not yet be common knowledge what we have found. Best he should de taken clean, with no warning, and knowing no need for deception. In his own defence,' said Hugh emphatically, 'should he later find himself in need of defence.'

'I will send for him,' said Radulfus. 'Cadfael, will you find him, and perhaps, if the sheriff sees fit, bring him straight to the chapel? As you say, let him come to the proof in innocence, for his own sake. And now I remember,' said the abbot, 'a thing he himself said when first this exchange of land was mooted. Earth is innocent, he said. Only the use we make of it mars it.'

Brother Ruald was the perfect example of obedience, the aspect of the Rule which had always given Cadfael the most trouble. He had taken to heart the duty to obey instantly any order given by a superior as if it were a divine command, 'without half-heartedness or grumbling', and certainly without demanding 'Why?' which was Cadfael's first instinct, tamed now but not forgotten. Bidden by Cadfael, his elder and senior in vocation, Ruald followed him unquestioning to the mortuary chapel, knowing no more of what awaited him than that abbot and sheriff together desired his attendance.

Even on the threshold of the chapel, suddenly confronted by the shape of the bier, the