Monk's Hood (8 page)
Authors: Ellis Peters
“Let
me understand you clearly,” said the sergeant, a thought too smoothly and
reasonably. “Ran out of the house through the kitchen, you say?—where you three
were sitting?” The turn of his head towards Aldith and the young
men
was sharp and intent, not smooth at all. “So you saw him leave the house,
without pause on the way?”
All
three hesitated a brief instant, each casting uncertain glances aside at the
others, and that was a mistake. Aldith said for them all, resignedly: “When
they began to shout and throw things, we all three ran in there, to try and
calm the master down… or at least to…”
“To
be there with me, and some comfort,” said Richildis.
“And
there you remained after the boy had gone.” He was content with his guess,
their faces confirmed it, however unwilling. “So I thought. It takes time to
placate a very angry man. So none of you saw whether this young fellow paused
in the kitchen, none of you can say he did not stop to take his revenge by
dosing the dish of partridge. He had been in the infirmary that morning, as he
had once before, he may well have known where to find this oil, and what its
powers could be. He may have come to this dinner prepared either for peace or
war, and failed of getting peace.”
Richildis
shook her head vigorously. “You don’t know him! It was my peace he wanted to
secure. And besides, it was no more than a few minutes before Aelfric ran out
after him, to try to bring him back, and though he followed almost to the
bridge, he could not overtake him.”
“It’s
true,” said Aelfric. “He surely had no time to check at all. I ran like a hare
and called after him, but he would not turn back.”
The
sergeant was unconvinced. “How long does it take to empty a small vial into an
open dish? One twirl of the spoon, and who was to know? And when your master
was calm again, no doubt the prior’s gift made a very handy and welcome sop to
his pride, and he ate it gladly.”
“But
did this boy even know,” asked Cadfael, intervening very gingerly, “that the
dish left in the kitchen was meant solely for Master Bonel? He would hardly
risk harm to his mother.”
The
sergeant was by that time too certain of his quarry to be impressed by any such
argument. He eyed Aldith hard, and for all her resolution she paled a little.
She
cast down her eyes and pleated the corner of her apron. “I thought it might
sweeten him,” she said despairingly.
The
sergeant had all he needed, or so he thought, to lay his hands promptly upon
the murderer. He gave a final look round the shattered household, and said:
“Well, I think you may put things in order here, I’ve seen all there is to be
seen. Brother Infirmarer is prepared to help you take care of your dead. Should
I need to question you further, I must be sure of finding you here.”
“Where
else should we be?” asked Richildis bleakly. “What is it you mean to do? Will
you at least let me know what happens, if you… if you should…” She could not
put it into words. She stiffened her still straight and lissome back, and said
with dignity: “My son has no part in this villainy, and so you will find. He is
not yet fifteen years old, a mere child!”
“The
shop of Martin Bellecote, you said.”
“I
know it,” said one of the men-at-arms.
“Good!
Show the way, and we’ll see what this lad has to say for himself.” And they
turned confidently to the door and the highway.
Brother
Cadfael saw fit to toss one disturbing ripple, at least, into the pool of their
complacency. “There is the matter of a container for this oil. Whoever
purloined it, whether from my store or from the infirmary, must have brought a
vial to put it in. Meurig, did you see any sign of such about Edwin this
morning? You came from the shop with him. In a pocket, or a pouch of cloth,
even a small vial would hang in a noticeable way.”
“Never
a sign of anything such,” said Meurig stoutly.
“And
further, even well stoppered and tied down, such an oil is very penetrating,
and can leave both a stain and an odour where even a drop seeps through or is
left on the lip.
Pay attention to the clothing of any man you
think suspect in this matter.”
“Are
you teaching me my business, brother?” enquired the sergeant with a tolerant
grin.
“I
am mentioning certain peculiarities about my business, which may be of help to
you and keep you from error,” said Cadfael placidly.
“By
your leave,” said the sergeant over his shoulder, from the doorway, “I think
we’ll first lay hands on the culprit. I doubt if we shall need your learned
advice, once we have him.” And he was off along the short path to the roadway
where the horses were tethered, and his two men after him.
The
sergeant and his men came to Martin Bellecote’s shop on the Wyle late in the
afternoon. The carpenter, a big, comely fellow in his late thirties, looked up
cheerfully enough from his work, and enquired their business without wonder or
alarm. He had done work for Prestcote’s garrison once or twice, and the
appearance of one of the sheriff’s officers in his workshop held no menace for
him. A brown-haired, handsome wife looked out curiously from the house-door
beyond, and three children erupted one by one from that quarter to examine the
customers fearlessly and frankly. A grave girl of about eleven, very housewifely
and prim, a small, square boy of eight or so, and an elfin miss no more than
four, with a wooden doll under her arm. All of them gazed and listened. The
door to the house remained open. and the sergeant had a loud, peremptory voice.
“You
have an apprentice here by the name of Edwin. My business is with him.”
“I
have,” agreed Martin loudly, rising and dusting the resin of polish from his
hands. “Edwin Gurney, my wife’s young brother. He’s not yet home. He went down
to see his mother in the Foregate. He should have been back before this, but I
daresay she’s wanted to keep him longer. What’s your will with him?” He was
still quite serene; he knew of nothing amiss.
“He
left his mother’s house above two hours since,” said
the
sergeant flatly. “We are come from there. No offence, friend, if you say he’s
not here, but it’s my duty to search for him. You’ll give us leave to go
through your house and yard?”
Martin’s
placidity had vanished in an instant, his brows drew into a heavy frown. His
wife’s beech-brown head appeared again in the doorway beyond, her fair,
contented face suddenly alert and chill, dark eyes intent. The children stared
unwaveringly. The little one, voice of natural justice in opposition to law,
stated firmly: “Bad man!” and nobody hushed her.
“When
I say he is not here,” said Martin levelly, “you may be assured it is true. But
you may also assure yourselves. House, workshop and yard have nothing to hide.
Now what are you hiding? This boy is my brother, through my wife, and my
apprentice by his own will, and dear to me either way. Now, why are you seeking
him?”
“In
the house in the Foregate where he visited this morning,” said the sergeant
deliberately, “Master Gervase Bonel, his stepfather, who promised him he should
succeed to the manor of Mallilie and then changed his mind, is lying dead at
this moment, murdered. It is on suspicion of his murder that I want this young
man Edwin. Is that enough for you?”
It
was more than enough for the eldest son of this hitherto happy household, whose
ears were stretched from the inner room to catch this awful and inexplicable
news. The law nose-down on Edwin’s trail, and Edwin should have been back long
ago if everything had gone even reasonably well! Edwy had been uneasy for some
time, and was alert for disaster where his elders took it for granted all must
be well. He let himself out in haste by the back window on to the yard, before
the officers could make their way into the house, clambered up the stacked
timber and over the wall like a squirrel, and was away at a light, silent run
towards the slope that dived riverwards, and one of the tight little posterns
through the town wall, open now in time of peace, that gave on to the steep
bank, not far from the abbot’s vineyard. Several of the businesses in town that
needed bulky stores
had fenced premises here for their stock,
and among them was Martin Bellecote’s wood-yard where he seasoned his timber.
It was an old refuge when either or both of the boys happened to be in trouble,
and it was the place Edwin would make for if… oh, no, not if he had killed;
because that was ridiculous!… but if he had been rejected, affronted, made
miserably unhappy and madly angry. Angry almost to murder, but never, never
quite! It was not in him.
Edwy
ran, confident of not being followed, and fell breathless through the wicket of
his father’s enclosure, and headlong over the splayed feet of a sullen,
furious, tear-stained and utterly vulnerable Edwin.
Edwin,
perhaps because of the tear-stains, immediately clouted Edwy as soon as he had
regained his feet, and was clouted in his turn just as indignantly. The first
thing they did, at all times of stress, was to fight. It meant nothing, except
that both were armed and on guard, and whoever meddled with them in the matter
afterwards had better be very careful, for their practice on each other would
be perfected on him. Within minutes Edwy was pounding his message home into
bewildered, unreceptive, and finally convinced and dismayed ears. They sat down
cheek by jowl to do some frantic planning.
Aelfric
appeared in the herb-gardens an hour before Vespers. Cadfael had been back in
his solitude no more than half an hour then, after seeing the body cleansed,
made seemly, and borne away into the mortuary chapel, the bereaved house
restored to order, the distracted members of the household at least set free to
wander and wonder and grieve as was best for them. Meurig was gone, back to the
shop in the town, to tell the carpenter and his family word for word what had
befallen, for what comfort or warning that might give them. By this time, for
all Cadfael knew, the sheriff’s men had seized young Edwin… Dear God, he had
even forgotten the name of the man Richildis had married, and Bellecote was
only her son-in-law.
“Mistress
Bonel asks,” said Aelfric earnestly, “that you’ll
come and
speak with her privately. She entreats you for old friendship, to stand her
friend now.”
It
came as no surprise. Cadfael was aware that he stood on somewhat perilous
ground, even after forty years. He would have been happier if the lamentable
death of her husband had turned out to be no mystery, her son in no danger, and
her future none of his business, but there was no help for it. His youth, a
sturdy part of the recollections that made him the man he was, stood in her
debt, and now that she was in need he had no choice but to make generous
repayment.
“I’ll
come,” he said. “You go on before, and I’ll be with her within a quarter of an
hour.”
When
he knocked at the door of the house by the millpond, it was opened by Richildis
herself. There was no sign either of Aelfric or Aldith, she had taken good care
that the two of them should be able to talk in absolute privacy. In the inner
room all was bare and neat, the morning’s chaos smoothed away, the trestle
table folded aside. Richildis sat down in the great chair which had been her
husband’s, and drew Cadfael down on the bench beside her. It was dim within the
room, only one small rush-light burning; the only other brightness came from
her eyes, the dark, lustrous brightness he was remembering more clearly with
every moment.
“Cadfael…”
she said haltingly, and was silent again for some moments. “To think it should
really be you! I never got word of you, after I heard you were back home. I
thought you would have married, and been a grandsire by this. As often as I
looked at you, this morning, I was searching my mind, why I should be so sure I
ought to know you… And just when I was in despair, to hear your name spoken!”
“And
you,” said Cadfael, “you came as unexpectedly to me. I never knew you’d been
widowed from Eward Gurney—I remember now that was his name!—much less that
you’d wed again.”
“Three
years ago,” she said, and heaved a sigh that might have been of regret or
relief at the abrupt ending of this second match. “I mustn’t make you think ill
of him, he was not a bad man, Gervase, only elderly and set in his ways, and
used
to being obeyed. A widower he was, many years wifeless,
and without any children, leastways none by the marriage. He courted me a long
time, and I was lonely, and then he promised, you see… Not having a legitimate
heir, he promised if I’d have him he’d make Edwin his heir. His overlord
sanctioned it. I ought to tell you about my family. I had a daughter, Sibil,
only a year after I married Eward, and then, I don’t know why, time went on and
on, and there were no more. You’ll remember, maybe, Eward had his business in
Shrewsbury as a master-carpenter and carver. A good workman he was, a good
master and a good husband.”
“You
were happy?” said Cadfael, grateful at hearing it in her voice. Time and
distance had done well by the pair of them, and led them to their proper
places, after all.
