Sanctuary Sparrow by Ellis Peters

illumined a single primrose-coloured thread, waving at the level of his eyes from the doorpost. The doorpost now on his right, on his left when he entered, but then out of range of the sun’s rays. Pale as flax, and long and shining. He took it between finger and thumb, and plucked it gently from the wood, and a little blotch of dark, brownish red which had gummed it to the post came away with it, a second, shorter hair coiled and stuck in the blot. Cadfael stared at it for an instant, and cast one glance back over his shoulder before he closed the door. From here the coffer in the far corner was plainly in view, and so would a man be, bending over it.
    A small thing, to make so huge a hole in the defence a man put up for his life. Someone had stood pressed against that doorpost, looking in, someone about Cadfael’s own height-a small man with flaxen hair, and a bloodied graze on the left side of his head.

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Saturday, from Noon to Night
     
    CADFAEL WAS STILL STANDING WITH THE TINY, ominous speck in his palm when he heard his name called from the hall door, and in the same moment a freshening puff of wind took the floating hairs and carried them away. He let them go. Why not? They had already spoken all too eloquently, they had nothing to add. He turned to see Susanna withdrawing into the hall, and the little maidservant scurrying towards him, with a knotted bundle of cloth held out before her.
    “Mistress Susanna says, Dame Juliana wants these out of the house.” She opened the twist of cloth, and showed a glimpse of painted wood, scarred from much use. “They belong to Liliwin. She said you would take them to him.” The great dark eyes that dwelt unwaveringly on Cadfael’s face dilated even more. “Is it true?” she asked, low and urgently. “He’s safe, there in the church? And you’ll protect him? You won’t let them fetch him away?”
    “He’s with us, and safe enough,” said Cadfael. “No one dare touch him now.”
    “And they haven’t hurt him?” she questioned earnestly.
    “No worse than will mend now, in peace. No need to fret for a while. He has forty days grace. I think,” he said, studying the thin face, the delicate, staring cheekbones under the wide-set eyes, “you like this young man.”
    “He made such lovely music,” said the child wistfully. “And he spoke me gently, and was glad of being with me in the kitchen. It was the best hour I ever spent. And now I’m frightened for him. What will happen to him when the forty days are up?”
    “Why, if it goes so far—for forty days is time enough to change many things—but even if it goes so far, and he must come forth, it will be into the hands of the law, not into the hands of his accusers. Law is grim enough, but tries to be fair. And by then those who accuse him will have forgotten their zeal, but even if they have not, they cannot touch him. If you want to help him, keep eyes and ears open, and if you learn of anything to the purpose, then speak out.” Clearly the very thought terrified her. Who ever listened to anything she might say? “To me you may speak freely,” he said. “Do you know anything of what went on here last night?”
    She shook her head, casting wary glances over her shoulder. “Mistress Susanna sent me away to my bed. I sleep in the kitchen, I never even heard… I was very tired.” The kitchen was set well apart from the house for fear of fire, as was customary with these close-set and timber-framed town houses, she might well sleep through all the alarm after her long hours of labour. “But I do know this,” she said, and lifted her chin gallantly, and he saw that for all her youth and frailty it was a good chin, with a set to it that he approved. “I know Liliwin never harmed anyone, not my master nor any other man. What they say of him is not true.”
    “Nor ever stole?” asked Cadfael gently. She was no way put down, she held him steadily in her great lamps of eyes. “To