Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

Agnes, complacently welcoming fortune restored. The second ... yes, that had been different indeed, he had professed himself disapproved and banished, and the event had borne him out in his claim. What could have happened between, to change everything?
    "So he did," shrilled Agnes, glittering with hatred, "thinking you the honest man you seemed then. But Huon's throat was bruised and cut - the monk there said it, and my lord heard it, and so did you - bruised and cut by a ring the murderer wore on his right hand. And once you had heard that said, who saw you again without gloves? In season and out! But my husband was at the coffining of Huon de Domville yesterday, and then you were forced - were you not, wretch? - to doff your gloves for once to take the aspergillum. And it was to him you handed it thereafter! He saw - oh, not the ring, no, that you had taken off hastily as soon as the monk here spoke of it, but the pale band where it was wont to be, and the square whiteness under the stone. And he remembered then that you used to wear a ring, just such a ring. And he was fool enough to speak out what he had seen, and what he believed, when you came visiting. He cut off all ado with a man he had cause to think a murderer."
    Yes, so he had. So that was the reason for the change! But not, thought Iveta, grown by force too suddenly into a woman, not because a murderer would not have been acceptable to him, provided no breath of suspicion ever blew his way. No, rather because while suspicion was even possible, he dared not risk contamination. Give him absolute security on that point, and he would have made up his differences quickly enough. And Joscelin had still been the law's quarry, and Joscelin might still have been taken, taken and hanged ... And she would have been left believing despairingly that she had but one kind friend in the world, and that was Simon Aguilon! He had sworn that the very reason he was banished was because he had declared his faith in Joscelin! And he might - given time enough to dull pain - he might even have prevailed! She pressed close to Joscelin's side, and trembled.
    "I urged him, I begged him," moaned Agnes, writhing, "to sever all ties with such a man. You knew all too well he might feel it his duty to speak out what he suspected, even without proof. You have made certain he never shall. But you have not reckoned with me!"
    "Woman, you are mad!" Simon flung up his hands against her, his voice high almost to breaking. "How could I have set a snare for my uncle, when I did not know where he had gone, or what he intended, much less by what narrow path he must return? I did not know he had a mistress anywhere within this shire, to tempt him to a night's visit."
    Cadfael had stood silent throughout this duel. He spoke now. "There is one who will say, Simon Aguilon, that you lie, that you did know, none so well. Avice of Thornbury says, and I fancy there will be two other witnesses to bear her out, once they know she is not at risk and asks no silence, that you, and none other, were the trusted escort who conducted her wherever her lord wanted her. You brought her to the hunting-lodge. The way between was well known to you, for you had ridden it. And Huon de Domville admitted but one man at a time to his private amours. For these last three years you have been that man."
    Agnes uttered a long wail of glee and grief together, that drifted eerily on the blown smoke of the torches. She pointed a triumphant hand. "Strip him! You will see! The ring is on him now, he never would leave it off his person, for another to see and understand. Search him, and you'll find it. And why should he doff it, if it never left mark on a murdered man?"
    The men-at-arms had read the sheriff's signs, and closed in silently, a tight ring of leather and steel about the two antagonists. Simon had been too intent on the threat before him to regard the quiet vigilance behind. He loosed a defiant cry of anger and impatience, and swung on his heel to stride away. "I need not stay to hear such venom!" he spat, too shrilly.
    Only then did he see the solid, silent line of armed men, drawn shoulder to shoulder between him and the gate, and baulked like a headed deer. He looked round wildly, unable to believe the collapse of his fortunes.
    The sheriff drew a measured pace nearer, and spoke.
    "Take off your gloves!"
    It was an unlovely thing to see a human creature break and try to run, see him fight like a wildcat when he was