Holy Thief by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online

had given her a means to independent life, if ever she could discover
a place of safety in which to practise it. And at her age she could afford a
few years of waiting. Rémy himself was in search of a powerful patron. In the
court of some susbtantial honour she might make a very comfortable place for
herself.
    But
still, Cadfael reflected ruefully at the end of these practical musings, still
as a slave.
    “I
expected you to tell me now,” said the girl, eyeing him curiously, “that there
is one place where I could take refuge and not be pursued. Rémy would never
dare follow me into a nunnery.”
    “God
forbid!” prayed Cadfael with blunt fervour. “You would turn any convent
indoors-outdoors within a month. No, you’ll never hear me give you that advice.
It is not for you.”
    “It
was for you,” she pointed out, with mischief in her voice and her eyes. “And
for that lad Tutilo from Ramsey. Or would you have ruled him out, too? His case
is much like mine. It irks me to be in bondage, it irked him to be a menial in
the same house as a loathsome old satyr who liked him far too well. A third son
to a poor man, he had to look out for himself.”
    “I
trust,” said Cadfael, giving the linctus bottle an experimental shake to ensure
the contents should be well mixed, “I trust that was not his only reason for
entering Ramsey.”
    “Oh,
but I think it was, though he doesn’t know it. He thinks he was called to a
vocation, out of all the evils of the world.” She herself, Cadfael guessed, had
known many of those evils on familiar terms, and yet emerged thus far rather
contemptuous of them than either soiled or afraid. “That is why he works so
hard at being holy,” she said seriously. “Whatever he takes it into his head to
do he’ll do with all his might. But if he was convinced, he’d be easier about
it.”
    Cadfael
stood staring at her in mild astonishment. “You seem to know more than I do
about this young brother of mine,” he said. “And yet I’ve never seen you so
much as notice his existence. You move about the enclave, when you’re seen at
all, like a modest shadow, eyes on the ground. How did you ever come to
exchange good-day with him, let alone read the poor lad’s mind?”
    “Rémy
borrowed him to make a third voice in triple organa. But we had no chance to
talk then. Of course no one ever sees us look at each other or speak to each
other. It would be ill for both of us. He is to be a monk, and should never be
private with a woman, and I am a bondwoman, and if I talk with a young man it
will be thought I have notions only fit for a free woman, and may try to slip
out of my chains. I am accustomed to dissembling, and he is learning. You need
not fear any harm. He has his eyes all on sainthood, on service to his
monastery. Me, I am a voice. We talk of music, that is the only thing we
share.”
    True,
yet not quite the whole truth, or she could not have learned so much of the boy
in one or two brief meetings. She was quite sure of her own judgement.
    “Is
it ready?” she asked, returning abruptly to her errand. “He’ll be fretting.”
    Cadfael
surrendered the bottle, and counted out pastilles into a small wooden box. “A
spoonful, smaller than your kitchen kind, night and morning, sipped down
slowly, and during the day if he feels the need, but always at least three
hours between. And these pastilles he can suck when he will, they’ll ease his
throat.” And he asked, as she took them from him: “Does any other know that you
have been meeting with Tutilo? For you have observed no caution with me.”
    Her
shoulders lifted in an untroubled shrug; she was smiling. “I take as I find.
But Tutilo has talked of you. We do no wrong, and you will charge us with none.
Where it’s needful we take good care.” And she thanked him cheerfully, and was
turning to the door when he asked: “May I know your name?”
    She
turned back to him in the