St. Peter's Fair (14 page)

His
hands sank helplessly, he stood staring in dismay. He had bared the boards of
the booth; goods stood piled on either side, and between them, nothing. Master
Thomas’s strongbox was gone.

Brother Cadfael had taken advantage of the early
hours to put in an hour or two of work with Brother Mark in the herb-gardens,
while he had no reason to anticipate any threat to Emma, for she was surely
still asleep in the guest-hall with Constance, and out of reach of harm. The
morning was clear and sunny, the mist just lifting from the river, shot through
with oblique gold, and Mark sang cheerfully about his weeding, and listened
attentively and serenely as Cadfael instructed him in all particulars of the
day’s work.

“For
I may have to leave all things in your hands. And so I can, safely enough, I
know, if I should chance to be called away.”

“I’m
well taught,” said Brother Mark, with his grave smile, behind which the small
spark of mischief was visible only to Cadfael, who had first discovered and
nurtured it. “I know what to stir and what to let well alone in the workshop.”

“I
wish I could be as sure of my part outside it,” said Cadfael ruefully. “There
are brews among us that need just as sure a touch, boy, and where to stir and
where to let be is puzzling me more than a little. I’m walking a knife-edge,
with disastrous falls on either side. I know my herbs. They have fixed
properties, and follow sacred rules. Human creatures do not so. And I cannot
even wish they did. I would not have one scruple of their complexity done away,
it would be lamentable loss.”

It
was time to go to Prime. Brother Mark stooped to rinse his hands in the butt of
water they kept warming through the day, to be tempered for the herbs at the
evening watering. “It was being with you made me know that I want to be a
priest,” he said, speaking his mind as openly as always in Cadfael’s company.

“I
had never the urge for it,” said Cadfael absently, his mind on other matters.

“I
know. That was the one thing wanting. Shall we go?”

They
were coming out from Prime, and the lay servants already mustering for their
early Mass, when Roger Dod came trudging in at the gatehouse, out of breath,
and with trouble plain to be read in his face.

“What,
again something new?” sighed Cadfael, and set
off to intercept
him before he reached the guest-hall. Suddenly aware of this square, sturdy
figure bearing down on him with obvious purpose, Roger checked, and turned an
anxious face. His frown cleared a little when he recognised the same monk who
had accompanied the deputy sheriff in the vain search for Master Thomas, on the
eve of Saint Peter. “Oh, it’s you, brother, that’s well! Is Hugh Beringar
within? I must speak to him. We’re beset! Yesterday the barge, and now the
booth, and God knows what’s yet to come, and what will become of us before ever
we get away from this deadly place. My master’s books gone—money and box and
all! What will Mistress Emma think? I’d rather have had my own head broke, if
need be, than fail her so!”

“What’s
this talk of broken heads?” asked Cadfael, alarmed. “Whose? Are you telling me
there’ve been thieves ransacking your booth now?”

“In
the night! And the strong-box gone, and Warin tied up hand and foot with a
throatful of sacking, and nobody heard sound while they did it. We found him
not half an hour ago…”

“Come!”
said Cadfael, grasping him by the sleeve and setting off for the guest-hall at
a furious pace. “We’ll find Hugh Beringar. Tell your tale once, and save
breath!”

In
Aline’s apartments the women were only just out of bed, and Hugh was sitting
over an early meal in shirt and hose, shoeless, when Cadfael rapped at the
door, and cautiously put his head in.

“Your
pardon, Hugh, but there’s news. May we come in?”

Hugh
took one look at him, recognised the end of his ease, and bade them in
resignedly.

“Here’s
one has a tale to tell,” said Cadfael. “He’s new come from the horse-fair.”

At
sight of Roger, Emma came to her feet in astonishment and alarm, the soft,
bemused bloom of sleep gone from her eyes, and the morning flush from her
cheeks. Her black hair, not yet braided, swung in a glossy curtain about her
shoulders, and her loose undergown was ungirdled, her feet bare. “Roger, what
is it? What has happened now?”

“More
theft and roguery, mistress, and God knows I can see no reason why all the
rascals in the shire should pick on
us for prey.” Roger heaved
in deep breath, and launched headlong into his complaint. “This morning I go to
the stall as usual, and find it all closed, and not a sound or a word from
within for all my shouting and knocking, and then come some of the neighbours,
wondering, and one sees that the inside bar has been hoisted with a knife—and a
marvellous thin knife it must have been. And we go in and find Warin rolled up
like baggage in his own cloak, and fast tied, and his mouth stuffed with
sacking—a bag over his head, fit to choke him…”

“Oh,
no!” breathed Emma in a horrified whisper, and pressed a fist hard against
trembling lips. “Oh, poor Warin! He’s not… oh, not dead…?”

Roger
gave vent to a snort of contempt. “Not he! alive and fit as a flea, barring
being stiff from the cords. How he could sleep so sound as not to hear the
fumbling with the latch, nor even notice when the door was opened, there’s no
guessing. But if he did hear, he took good care not to give the robbers any
trouble. You know Warin’s no hero. He says he was only shook awake when the
sack went over his head, and never saw face nor form, though he thinks there
were two of them, for there was some whispering. But as like as not he heard
them come, but chose not to, for fear they’d slip the knife in his ribs.”

Emma’s
colour had warmed into rose again. She drew a deep breath of thankfulness. “But
he’s safe? He’s taken no harm at all?” She caught Aline’s sympathetic eye, and
laughed shakily with relief. “I know he is not brave. I’m glad he is not! Nor
very clever nor very industrious, either, but I’ve known him since I was a
little girl, he used to make toys for me, and willow whistles. Thank God he is
not harmed!”

“Not
a graze! I wish,” said Roger, his eyes burning jealously upon her childish
morning beauty, not yet adorned and needing no adornment, “I wish to God I’d
stayed there to be watchman myself, they’d not have broken in there unscathed,
and found everything handed over on a platter.”

“But
then you might have been killed, Roger. I’m glad you were not there, you’d
surely have put up a fight and come to harm. What, against two, and you
unarmed? Oh, no, I want no man hurt to protect my possessions.”

“What
followed?” asked Hugh shortly, stamping his feet
into his shoes
and reaching for his coat. “You’ve left him there to mind the stall? Is he
fit?”

“As
you or me, my lord. I’ll send him to you to tell his own tale when I get back.”

“No
need, I’m coming with you to view the place and the damage. Finish your tale.
They’ll scarcely have left empty-handed. What’s gone with them?”

Roger
turned devoted, humble, apologetic eyes upon Emma. “Sorrow the day, mistress,
my master’s strong-box is gone with them!”

Brother
Cadfael was watching Emma’s face just as intently as was her hopeless admirer,
and it seemed to him that in the pleasure of knowing that her old servant had
survived unharmed, she was proof against all other blows. The loss of the
strong-box she received with unshaken serenity. In these surroundings, safe
from any too pressing manifestation of his passion, she was even moved to
comfort Roger. A kind-hearted girl, who did not like to see any of her own
people out of sorts with his competence and his self-respect.

“You
must not feel it so sharply,” she said warmly. “How could you have prevented?
There is no fault attaches to you.”

“I
took most of the money back to the barge with me last night,” pleaded Roger
earnestly. “It’s safe locked away, there’s been no more tampering there. But
Master Thomas’s account books, and some parchments of value, and charters…”

“Then
there will be copies,” said Emma firmly. “And what is more, if they took the
box, supposing it to be full of money, they’ll keep what money was left there,
and most likely discard the box and the parchments, for what use can they make
of those? We may get most of it back, you will see.”

Not
merely a kind girl, but a girl of sense and fortitude, who bore up nobly under
her losses. Cadfael looked at Hugh, and found Hugh looking at him, just as
woodenly, but with one lively eyebrow signalling slightly sceptical admiration.

“Nothing
is lost,” said Emma firmly, “of any value to compare with a life. Since Warin
is safe, I cannot be sad.”

“Nevertheless,”
said Hugh with deliberation, “it might be well if one abbey sergeant stood
guard on your booth until the fair is over. For it does seem that all the
misfortunes that
should be rights be shared among all the
abbey’s clients are falling solely upon you. Shall I ask Prior Robert to see to
it?”

She
looked down, wary and thoughtful, for a moment, and then lifted deep blue eyes
wide and clear as the sky, and a degree more innocent than if they had but
newly opened on the world. “It’s kind of you,” she said, “but surely everything
has now been done to us. I don’t think it will be necessary to set a guard upon
us now.”

Hugh
came to Cadfael’s workshop after the midday meal, leaving Emma in Aline’s charge,
helped himself to a horn of wine from Cadfael’s private store, and settled down
on the bench under the eaves, on the shady side. The fragrance of the herbs lay
like a sleepy load on the air within the pleached hedges, and set him yawning
against his will and his mood, which was for serious discussion. They were well
away from the outer world here, the busy hum of the marketplace drifted to them
only distantly and pleasantly, like the working music of Brother Bernard’s
bees. And Brother Mark, weeding the herb-beds with delicate, loving hands,
habit kilted to his knees, was no hindrance at all to their solitude.

“A
separate creature,” said Brother Cadfael, eyeing him with detached affection
“My priest, my proxy. I had to find some way of evading the fate that closed on
me. There goes my sacrificial lamb, the best of the flock.”

“Some
day he will take your confession,” said Hugh, watching Mark pluck out weeds as
gently as though he pitied them, “and you’ll be a lost man, for he’ll know
every evasion.” He sipped wine, drew it about his mouth thoughtfully, swallowed
it and sat savouring the after-taste for a moment. “This fellow Warin had
little to add,” he said then. “What do you say now? This cannot be chance.”

“No,”
agreed Cadfael, propping the door of his workshop wide to let in the air, and
coming to sit beside his friend, “it cannot be chance. The man is killed,
stripped, his barge searched, his booth searched. Not a soul besides, at this
fair where there are several as wealthy, has suffered any attack or any loss.
No, there is nothing done at hazard here.”

“What,
then? Expound! The girl claimed there were things stolen from the barge. Now
something positive, a strong-box, the single portable thing in the booth that
might confidently
be supposed to hold valuables, is demonstrably
stolen from this last assault. If these are not simple thefts, what are they?
Tell me!”

“Stages
in a quest,” said Cadfael. “It seems to me there’s a hunt afoot for something.
I do not know what, but some quite single, small thing, and precious, which
was, or was thought to be, in the possession of Master Thomas. On the night he
came here he was murdered, and his body stripped. The first search. And it was
fruitless, for the next day his barge was visited and ransacked. The second
search.”

“Not
altogether fruitless this time,” said Beringar dryly, “for we know on the best
authority, do we not, that whoever paid that visit left the richer by three
things, a silver chain, a girdle with a gold clasp, and a pair of embroidered
gloves.”

“Hmmm!”
Cadfael twitched his brown nose doubtfully between finger and thumb, and eyed
the young man sidewise.

“Oh,
come!” said Hugh indulgently, and flashed his sudden smile. “I may not stumble
on these subtleties as quickly as you, but since knowing you I’ve had to keep
my wits about me. The lady has a bold mind and an excellent memory, and I have
no hope in the world of getting her to make a mistake in one detail of the
embroidery on those lost gloves, but for all that, I doubt if they ever existed.”

“You
might,” Cadfael suggested, though without much hope, “try asking her outright
what it is she’s hiding.”

“I
did!” owned Hugh, ruefully grinning. “She opened great, hurt eyes at me, and
could not understand me! She knows nothing, she’s hiding nothing, she has
nothing to tell more than she’s already told, and every word of that is truth.
But for all that, and however angelically, the girl’s lying. What was it stuck
in your craw, and brought you up against the same shock before ever it dawned
upon me?”

“I
should be sorry,” said Cadfael slowly, “if anything I have done or said made
you think any evil of the girl, for I think none.”

“Neither
do I, you need not fear it. But I do think she may be meddling in something she
would do better to let well alone, and I would rather, as you would, as Abbot
Radulfus would, that no harm should come to her under our care. Or ever, for
that matter. I like her well.”