Monk's Hood (14 page)

He
did not at all like the expression of indulgent complacency that was creeping
over the sergeant’s weathered countenance, as though he enjoyed a joke that
presently, when he chose to divulge it, would quite take the wind out of
Cadfael’s sails. He himself admitted he had not captured his man, but there was
certainly some other secret satisfaction he was hugging to his leather bosom.

“You
have not found it already?” said Cadfael cautiously.

“Not
found it, no. Nor looked for it very hard. But for all that, I know where it
is. Small use looking now, and in any case, no need.” And now he was openly
grinning.

“I
take exception to that,” said Cadfael firmly. “if you have not found it, you
cannot know where it is, you can only surmise, which is not the same thing.”

“It’s
as near the same thing as we’re likely to get,” said the sergeant, pleased with
his advantage. “For your little vial has gone floating down the Severn, and may
never be seen again, but we know it was tossed in there, and we know who tossed
it. We’ve not been idle since we left here yesterday, I can tell you, and we’ve
done more than simply pursue a young fox and lose his trail a while. We’ve
taken witness from any we could find who were moving about the bridge and the
Foregate around the dinner hour, and saw Bonel’s manservant running after the
boy. We found a carter who was
crossing the bridge just at that
time. Such a chase, he pulled up his cart, thinking there was a hue and cry
after a thief, but when the boy had run past him he saw the pursuer give up the
chase, short of the bridge, for he had no chance of overtaking his quarry. The
one shrugged and turned back, and when the carter turned to look after the
other he saw him slow in his running for a moment, and hurl some small thing
over the downstream parapet into the water. It was young Gurney, and no other,
who had something to dispose of, as soon as possible after he’d tipped its
contents into the dish for his stepfather, given the spoon a whirl or two, and
rushed away with the bottle in his hand. And what do you say to that, my
friend?”

What,
indeed? The shock was severe, for not one word had Edwin said about this incident,
and for a moment Cadfael did seriously consider that he might have been
hoodwinked for once by a cunning little dissembler. Yet cunning was the last
thing he would ever have found in that bold, pugnacious face. He rallied
rapidly, and without betraying his disquiet.

“I
say that ‘some small thing’ is not necessarily a vial. Did you put it to your
carter that it might have been that?”

“I
did, and he would not say yes or no, only that whatever it was was small enough
to hold in the closed hand, and flashed in the light as it flew. He would not
give it a shape or a character more than that.”

“You
had an honest witness. Now can you tell me two things more from his testimony.
At exactly what point on the bridge was the boy when he threw it? And did the manservant
also see it thrown?”

“My
man says the fellow running after had halted and turned back, and only then did
he look round and catch the other one in the act. The servant could not have
seen. And as for where the lad was at that moment, he said barely halfway
across the drawbridge.”

That
meant that Edwin had hurled away whatever it was as soon as he felt sure he was
above the water, clear of the bank and the shore, for it was the outer section
of the bridge that could be raised. And at that, he might have miscalculated
and been in too big a hurry. The bushes and shelving slope
under
the abutments ran well out below the first arch. There was still a chance that
whatever had been discarded could be recovered, if it had fallen short of the
current. It seemed, also, that Aelfric had not concealed this detail, for he
had not witnessed it.

“Well,”
said Cadfael, “by your own tale the boy had just gone running past a halted
cart, with a driver already staring at him, and no doubt, at that hour, several
other people within view, and made no secret of getting rid of whatever it was
he threw. Nothing furtive about that. Hardly the way a murderer would go about
disposing of the means, to my way of thinking. What do you say?”

The
sergeant hitched at his belt and laughed aloud. “I say you make as good a
devil’s advocate as ever I’ve heard. But lads in a panic after a desperate deed
don’t stop to think. And if it was not the vial he heaved into the Severn, you
tell me, brother, what was it?” And he strode out into the chill of the early
evening air, and left Cadfael to brood on the same question.

Brother
Mark, who had made himself inconspicuous in a corner all this time, but with
eyes and ears wide and sharp for every word and look, kept a respectful silence
until Cadfael stirred at length, and moodily thumped his knees with clenched
fists. Then he said, carefully avoiding questions: “There’s still an hour or so
of daylight left before Vespers. If you think it’s worth having a look below
the bridge there?”

Brother
Cadfael had almost forgotten the young man was present, and turned a surprised
and appreciative eye on him.

“So
there is! And your eyes are younger than mine. The two of us might at least
cover the available ground. Yes, come, for better or worse we’ll venture.”

Brother
Mark followed eagerly across the court, out at the gatehouse, and along the
highroad towards the bridge and the town. A flat, leaden gleam lay over the
mill-pond on their left, and the house beyond it showed only a closed and
shuttered face. Brother Mark stared at it curiously as they passed. He had
never seen Mistress Bonel, and knew nothing of the old ties that linked her
with Cadfael, but he knew when his
mentor and friend was
particularly exercised on someone else’s behalf, and his own loyalty and
partisan fervour, after his church, belonged all to Cadfael. He was busy
thinking out everything he had heard in the workshop, and making practical
sense of it. As they turned aside to the right, down the sheltered path that
led to the riverside and the main gardens of the abbey, ranged along the rich
Severn meadows, he said thoughtfully:

“I
take it, brother, that what we are looking for must be small, and able to take
the light, but had better not be a bottle?”

“You
may take it,” said Cadfael, sighing, “that whether it is or not, we must try
our best to find it. But I would very much rather find something else,
something as innocent as the day.”

Just
beneath the abutments of the bridge, where it was not worth while clearing the
ground for cultivation, bushes grew thickly, and coarse grass sloped down
gradually to the lip of the water. They combed the tufted turf along the edge,
where a filming of ice prolonged the ground by a few inches, until the light
failed them and it was time to hurry back for Vespers; but they found nothing
small, relatively heavy, and capable of reflecting a flash of light as it was
thrown, nothing that could have been the mysterious something tossed away by
Edwin in his flight.

Cadfael
slipped away after supper, absenting himself from the readings in the
chapter-house, helped himself to the end of a loaf and a hunk of cheese, and a
flask of small ale for his fugitive, and made his way discreetly to the loft
over the abbey barn in the horse-fair. The night was clear overhead but dark,
for there was no moon as yet. By morning the ground would be silvered over, and
the shore of Severn extended by a new fringe of ice.

His
signal knock at the door at the head of the stairs produced only a profound
silence, which he approved. He opened the door and went in, closing it silently
behind him. In the darkness within nothing existed visibly, but the warm, fresh
scent of the clean hay stirred in a faint wave, and an equally
quiet rustling showed him where the boy had emerged from his nest to meet him.
He moved a step towards the sound. “Be easy, it’s Cadfael.”

“I
knew,” said Edwin’s voice very softly. “I knew you’d come.”

“Was
it a long day?”

“I
slept most of it.”

“That’s
my stout heart! Where are you…? Ah!” They moved together, uniting two faint warmths
that made a better warmth between them; Cadfael touched a sleeve, found a
welcoming hand. “Now let’s sit down and be blunt and brief, for time’s short.
But we may as well be comfortable with what we have. And here’s food and drink
for you.” Young hands, invisible, clasped his offerings gladly. They felt their
way to a snug place in the hay, side by side.

“Is
there any better news for me?” asked Edwin anxiously.

“Not
yet. What I have for you, young man, is a question. Why did you leave out half
the tale?”

Edwin
sat up sharply beside him, in the act of biting heartily into a crust of bread.
“But I didn’t! I told you the truth. Why should I keep anything from you, when
I came asking for your help?”

“Why,
indeed! Yet the sheriff’s men have had speech with a certain carter who was
crossing the bridge from Shrewsbury when you went haring away from your
mother’s house, and he testifies that he saw you heave something over the
parapet into the river. Is that true?”

Without
hesitation the boy said: “Yes!” his voice a curious blend of bewilderment,
embarrassment and anxiety. Cadfael had the impression that he was even blushing
in the darkness, and yet obviously with no sense of guilt at having left the
incident unmentioned, rather as though a purely private folly of his own had
been accidentally uncovered.

“Why
did you not tell me that yesterday? I might have had a better chance of helping
you if I’d known.”

“I
don’t see why.” He was a little sullen and on his dignity now, but wavering and
wondering. “It didn’t seem to have
anything to do with what
happened… and I wanted to forget it. But I’ll tell you now, if it does matter.
It isn’t anything bad.”

“It
matters very much, though you couldn’t have known that when you threw it away.”
Better tell him the reason now, and show that by this examiner, at least, he
was not doubted. “For what you sent over the parapet, my lad, is being
interpreted by the sheriff’s man as the bottle that held the poison, newly
emptied by you before you ran out of the house, and disposed of in the river.
So now, I think, you had better tell me what it really was, and I’ll try to
convince the law they are on the wrong scent, over that and everything else.”

The
boy sat very still, not stunned by this blow, which was only one more in a
beating which had already done its worst and left him still resilient. He was
very quick in mind, he saw the implications, for himself and for Brother
Cadfael. Slowly he said: “And you don’t need first to be convinced?”

“No.
For a moment I may have been shaken, but not longer. Now tell me!”

“I
didn’t know! How could I know what was going to happen?” He drew breath deeply,
and some of the tension left the arm and shoulder that leaned confidingly into
Cadfael’s side, “No one else knew about it, I hadn’t said a word to Meurig, and
I never got so far as to show it even to my mother—I never had the chance. You
know I’m learning to work in wood, and in fine metals, too, a little, and I had
to show that I meant to be good at what I did. I made a present for my
stepfather. Not because I liked him,” he made haste to add, with haughty
honesty, “I didn’t! But my mother was unhappy about our quarrel, and it had
made him hard and ill-tempered even to her—he never used to be, he was fond of
her, I know. So I made a present as a peace offering… and to show I should make
a craftsman, too, and be able to earn my living without him. He had a relic he
valued greatly, he bought it in Walsingham when he was on pilgrimage, a long
time ago. It’s supposed to be a piece of Our Lady’s mantle, from the hem, but I
don’t believe it’s true. But he believed
it. It’s a slip of
blue cloth as long as my little finger, with a gold thread in the edge, and
it’s wrapped in a bit of gold. He paid a lot of money for it, I know. So I
thought I would make him a little reliquary just the right size for it, a
little box with a hinge. I made it from pearwood, and jointed and polished it
well, and inlaid the lid with a little picture of Our Lady in nacre and silver,
and blue stone for the mantle. I think it was not bad.” The light- ache in his
voice touched Brother Cadfael’s relieved heart; he had loved his work and
destroyed it, he was entitled to grieve.

“And
you took it with you to give to him yesterday?” he asked gently.

“Yes.”
He bit that off short. Cadfael remembered how he had been received, according
to Richildis, when he made his difficult, courageous appearance at their table,
his gift secreted somewhere upon him.

“And
you had it in your hand when he drove you out of the house with his malice. I
see how it could happen.”

The
boy burst out bitterly, shivering with resentment still: “He said I’d come to
crawl to him for my manor… he taunted me, and if I kneeled to him… How could I
offer him a gift, after that? He would have taken it as proof positive… I
couldn’t bear that! It was meant to be a gift, without any asking.”

“I
should have done what you did, boy, kept it clutched in my hand, and run from
there without a word more.”

“But
not thrown it in the river, perhaps,” sighed Edwin ruefully. “Why? I don’t
know… Only it had been meant for him, and I had it in my hand, and Aelfric was
running after me and calling, and I couldn’t go back… It wasn’t his, and it
wasn’t any more mine, and I threw it over to be rid of it…”