Brother Cadfael 17: The Potter's Field by Ellis Peters Page B

In the workshop in the herb garden the young man Sulien was diligently sorting beans dried for next year's seed, discarding those flawed or suspect, and collecting the best into a pottery jar almost certainly made by Brother Ruald in his former life. Jerome looked him over cautiously from the doorway before entering to interrupt his work. The sight only deepened his suspicion that things were going on of which he, Jerome, was insufficiently informed. For one thing, Sulien's crown still bore its new crop of light brown curls, growing more luxuriant every day, and presenting an incongruous image grossly offensive to Jerome's sense of decorum. Why was he not again shaven-headed and seemly, like all the brothers? Again, he went about his simple task with the most untroubled serenity and a steady hand, apparently quite unmoved by what he must have learned by now from Ruald's own lips. Jerome could not conceive that the two of them had walked together from the great court into the church before Mass, without one word being said about the murdered woman, found in the field once owned by the boy's father and tenanted by Ruald himself. It was the chief subject of gossip, scandal and speculation, how could it be avoided? And this boy and his family might be a considerable protection to a man threatened with the charge of murder, if they chose to stand by him. Jerome, in Ruald's place, would most heartily have enlisted that support, would have poured out the story as soon as the chance offered. He took it for granted that Ruald had done the same. Yet here this unfathomable youth stood earnestly sorting his seed, apparently without anything else on his mind, even the tension and stress of Ramsey already mastered.

Sulien turned as the visitor's shadow fell within, and looked up into Jerome's face, and waited in dutiful silence to hear what was required of him. One brother was like another to him here as yet, and with this meagre little man he had not so far exchanged a word. The narrow, grey face and stooped shoulders made Jerome look older than he was, and it was the duty of young brothers to be serviceable and submissive to their elders.

Jerome requested onions, and Sulien went into the store-shed and brought what was wanted, choosing the soundest and roundest, since these were for the abbot's own kitchen. Jerome opened benevolently: 'How are you faring now, here among us, after all your trials elsewhere? Have you settled well here with Brother Cadfael?'

'Very well, I thank you,' said Sulien carefully, unsure yet of this solicitous visitor whose appearance was not precisely reassuring, nor his voice, even speaking sympathy, particularly sympathetic. 'I am fortunate to be here, I thank God for my deliverance.'

'In a very proper spirit,' said Jerome wooingly. 'Though I fear that even here there are matters that must trouble you. I wish that you could have come back to us in happier circumstances.'

'Indeed, so do I!' agreed Sulien warmly, still harking back in his own mind to the upheaval of Ramsey.

Jerome was encouraged. It seemed the young man might, after all, be in a mood to confide, if sympathetically prompted. 'I feel for you,' he said mellifluously. 'A shocking thing it must be, after such terrible blows, to come home to yet more ill news here. This death that has come to light, and worse, to know that it casts so black a shadow of suspicion upon a brother among us, and one well known to all your family -'

He was weaving his way so confidently into his theme that he had not even noticed the stiffening of Sulien's body, and the sudden blank stillness of his face.

'Death?' said the boy abruptly. 'What death?'

Thus sharply cut off in full flow, Jerome blinked and gaped, and leaned