The Pilgram of Hate by Ellis Peters Page A

pick a pocket here and there, if business was bad. A quicker means to the same
end, if a riskier.”
    So
knowing and practical a brother Cadfael had not encountered for some years
among the innocents. Plainly Brother Adam’s frequent sallies out of the
cloister on the abbot’s business had broadened his horizons. Cadfael regarded
him with respect and warmth, and turned to study the smiling, benevolent
merchant more closely.
    “You’re
sure of him?”
    “Sure
that he’s the same man, yes. Sure enough of his practices to challenge him
openly, no, hardly, since he has never yet been taken up but once, and then he
proved so slippery he slithered through the bailiffs fingers. But keep a
weather eye on him, and this may be where he’ll make the slip every rogue makes
in the end, and get his comeuppance.”
    “If
you’re right,” said Cadfael, “has he not strayed rather far from his own
haunts? In my experience, from years back I own, his kind seldom left the
region where they knew their way about better than the bailiffs. Has he made
the south country so hot for him that he must run for a fresh territory? That
argues something worse than cheating at dice.”
    Brother
Adam hoisted dubious shoulders. “It could be. Some of our scum have found the
disorders of faction very profitable, in their own way, just as their lords and
masters have in theirs. Battles are not for them—far too dangerous to their own
skins. But the brawls that blow up in towns where uneasy factions come together
are meat and drink to them. Pockets to be picked, riots to be
started—discreetly from the rear—unoffending elders who look prosperous to be
knocked on the head or knifed from behind or have their purse-strings cut in
the confusion… Safer and easier than taking to the woods and living wild for
prey, as their kind do in the country.”
    Just
such gatherings, thought Cadfael, as that at Winchester, where at least one man
was knifed in the back and left dying. Might not the law in the south be
searching for this man, to drive him so far from his usual hunting-grounds? For
some worse offence than cheating silly young men of their money at dice?
Something as black as murder itself?
    “There
are two or three others in the common guest-hall,” he said, “about whom I have
my doubts, but this man has had no truck with them so far as I’ve seen. But
I’ll bear it in mind, and keep a watchful eye open, and have Brother Denis do
the same. And I’ll mention what you say to Hugh Beringar, too, before this
evening’s out. Both he and the town provost will be glad to have fair warning.”
     
    Since
Ciaran was sitting quietly in the cloister garth, it seemed a pity he should be
made to walk through the gardens to the herbarium, when Cadfael’s broad brown
feet were in excellent condition, and sensibly equipped with stout sandals. So
Cadfael fetched the salve he had used on Ciaran’s wounds and bruises, and the
spirit that would brace and toughen his tender soles, and brought them to the
cloister. It was pleasant there in the afternoon sun, and the turf was thick
and springy and cool to bare feet. The roses were coming into full bloom, and
their scent hung in the warm air like a benediction. But two such closed and
sunless faces! Was the one truly condemned to an early death, and the other to
lose and mourn so close a friend?
    Ciaran
was speaking as Cadfael approached, and did not at first notice him, but even
when he was aware of the visitor bearing down on them he continued steadily to
the end, “… you do but waste your time, for it will not happen. Nothing will be
changed, don’t look for it. Never! You might far better leave me and go home.”
    Did
the one of them believe in Saint Winifred’s power, and pray and hope for a
miracle? And was the other, the sick man, all too passionately of Rhun’s mind,
and set on offering his early death as an acceptable and willing sacrifice,