“I shall have work with him a while,” said Cadfael, eyeing the smears ofblood that marked brow and cheek, and the painful list with which the manstood. A young, willowy body, accustomed to going lightly and lissomely. “Ifyou permit, Father, I will stay here with him, and take his care upon me. Shouldthere be need, I can call.”

“Very well, do so, brother. You may take whatever is necessary for his provision.”The weather was mild enough, but the hours of the night would be cold, in thissanctified but stony place. “Do you need a helper to fetch and carry for you?Our guest should not be left unfellowed.”

“If I may borrow Brother Oswin, he knows where to find all the things I mayneed,” said Cadfael.

“I will send him to you. And should this man wish to tell his own side ofthis unhappy story, mark it well. Tomorrow, no doubt, we shall have hisaccusers here in proper form, with one of the sheriff’s officers, and bothparties will have to render account.”

Cadfael understood the force of that. A small discrepancy in the accusedyouth’s story between midnight and morning could be revealing indeed. But bymorning the voluble accusers might also have cooled their heads, and come witha slightly modified tale, for Cadfael, who knew most of the inhabitants of thetown, had by this time recalled the reason for their being up so late in theirbest clothes, and well gone in drink. The young cockerel in the festival fineryshould by rights have been bedding a bride rather than pursuing a wretched wispof manhood over the bridge with hunting cries of murder and robbery. Nothingless than the marriage of the heir could have unloosed the purse-strings of theAurifaber household enough to provide such a supply of wine.

“I leave the watch to you,” said Radulfus, and departed to hale out BrotherOswin from his cell, and send him down to join the vigil, He came so blithelythat it was plain he had been hoping for just such a recall. Who but Brother