St. Peter's Fair (18 page)

“For
God’s sake, what has happened to her? What…” His glance flashed from her
stunned visage to Cadfael’s, and beyond, to the open door with its splintered
panel. Over her head his lips framed silently for Cadfael: “Not again?
Another?”

“Take
her back,” said Cadfael shortly. “Take care of her. And tell Hugh Beringar to
come. We have sheriff’s business here within.”

All
the way back along the Foregate, Corbière kept a supporting arm about her, and
curbed his long stride to hers, and all
the way he poured
soothing, caressing words into her ear, while she, until they had almost
reached the west door of the church, said nothing at all, simply walked
docilely beside him, distantly aware of the lulling sound and the comforting
touch. Then suddenly she said: “He’s dead. I saw him, I know.”

“A
bare glimpse you had,” said Ivo consolingly. “It may not be so.”

“No,”
said Emma, “I know the man is dead. How could it happen? Why?”

“There
are always such acts, somewhere, robberies, violence and evil. It is sad, but
it is not new.” His fingers pressed her hand warmly. “It is no fault of yours,
and alas, there is nothing you or I can do about it. I wish I could make you
forget it. In time you will forget.”

“No,”
she said. “I shall never forget this.”

She
had meant to return by the church, as she had left, but now it no longer
mattered. As far as he or any other was concerned, she had simply set out early
to buy some gloves, or at least to view what the glover had to offer. She went
in with Ivo by the gatehouse. By the time he had brought her tenderly on his
arm to the guest-hall she had regained her composure. There was a little colour
in her face again, and her voice was alive, even if its tone indicated that
life was painful.

“I’m
recovered now, Ivo,” she said. “You need not trouble for me further. I will
tell Hugh Beringar that he is needed.”

“Brother
Cadfael entrusted you to me,” said Ivo with gentle and confident authority,
“and you did not reject me. I shall fulfil my errand exactly. As I hope,” he said
smiling, “I may perform any other missions you may care to entrust to me
hereafter.”

Hugh
Beringar came with four of the sheriff’s men, dispersed the crowd that hung
expectantly round the booth of Euan of Shotwick, and listened to the accounts
rendered by the neighbouring stall-holders, by the butcher from over the road,
and by Rhodri ap Huw, for whom Cadfael interpreted sentence by sentence. In no
haste to go, for as he said, his best lad was back with the boat from
Bridgnorth and competent
to take charge of what stock he still
had to sell, the Welshman nonetheless showed no unbecoming desire to linger,
once his witness was taken. Imperturbable and all-beholding, he ambled away at
the first indication that the law had done with him. Others, more persistent,
hung about the booth in a silent, watchful circle, but were kept well away from
earshot. Beringar drew the door to. The opened hatches gave light enough.

“Can
I take the man’s account for fair and true?” asked Hugh, casting a glance after
Rhodri’s retreating back. There was no backward glance from the Welshman, his
assurance was absolute.

“To
the letter, for all that happened here from the time I came on the scene. He’s
an excellent observer, there’s little he misses of what concerns him, or may
concern him, and what does not. He does business, too, his trade here is no
pretext. But it may be only half his business that we see.”

There
were only the two of them within there now, two living and the dead man. They
stood one either side of him, drawn back to avoid disturbing either his body or
the litter of leatherwork scattered about and over him.

“He
says there was a light showing through the chinks here past midnight,” said
Beringar. “The light is quenched now, not burned out. And if he locked his door
after closing the booth for the night…”

“As
he would,” said Cadfael. “Rhodri’s account of him rings true. A man complete in
himself, trusting no one, able to take care of himself, until now. He would
have locked his door.”

“Then
he also unlocked it, to let in his murderer. The lock never was forced until
now, as you saw. Why should a wary man unlock his door to anyone in the small
hours?”

“Because
he was expecting someone,” said Cadfael, “though not the someone who came.
Because, it may be, he had been expecting someone all these three days, and was
relieved when the expected message came at last.”

“So
relieved that he ceased to be cautious? Given your Welshman’s estimate of him,
I should doubt it.”

“So
should I,” agreed Cadfael, “unless there was a private word he was waiting for,
and it was known and given. A name, perhaps. For you see, Hugh, I think he was
already
well aware that the one he had expected to deliver the
message was never going to tap at his door by night, or stop in the Foregate to
pass the time with him.”

“You
mean,” said Hugh, “Thomas of Bristol, who is dead.”

“Who
else? How many strange chances can come together, all against what is likely,
or even possible? A merchant is killed, his barge searched, his booth searched,
then, dear God, his coffin! I have not yet had time, Hugh, to tell you of
that.” He told it now. He had the rose-petal in the breast of his habit,
wrapped in a scrap of linen; it still spoke as eloquently as before. “You may
trust my eyes, I know it did not fall earlier, I know it has been in the coffin
with him. Now that same man’s niece makes occasion to come by stealth to this
glover’s stall, only to find the glover dead like her uncle. It is a long list
of assaults upon all things connected with Thomas of Bristol. Now, since this
unknown treasure was not found even in his coffin, for safe-conduct back to
Bristol in default of delivery, the next point of search has been here—where
Master Thomas should have delivered it.”

“They
would need to have foreknowledge of that.”

“Or
good reason to guess aright.”

“By
your witness,” said Hugh, pondering, “the coffin was opened and closed between
Compline and Matins. Before midnight. When would you say, Cadfael—your
experience is longer than mine—when would you say this man died?”

“In
the small hours. By the second hour after midnight, I judge, he was dead. After
the coffin, it seems, they were forced to the conclusion that somehow, for all
they had a watch on Master Thomas from his arrival, and disposed of him before
ever the fair started, yet somehow he, or someone else on his behalf, must have
slipped through their net, and delivered the precious charge. This poor soul
certainly opened his door last night to someone he believed had business with
him. The mention of a privileged name… a password… He let in his murderer, but
what he had expected was the thing promised.”

“Then
even now,” said Hugh sharply, “with two murders on their souls, they have not
what they wanted. He thought they were bringing it. They trusted to find it
here. And neither of them had it. Both were deceived.” He brooded with a
brown fist clamping his jaw, and his black brows down-drawn in
unaccustomed solemnity. “And Emma came here… by stealth.”

“She
did. Not every man,” said Cadfael, “has your view of women, or mine. Most of
your kind, most of mine, would never dream of looking in a woman’s direction to
find anything of importance in hand. Especially a mere child, barely grown. Not
until every other road was closed, and they were forced to notice a woman there
in the thick of the matter. Who just might be what they sought.”

“And
who has now betrayed herself,” said Hugh grimly. “Well, at least she reached
the guest-hall safely, thanks to Corbière. I have left her with Aline, very
shaken, for all her strength of will, and she will not stir a step this day
unguarded. That I can promise. Between us I think we can take care of Emma. Now
let’s see if this poor wretch has anything to tell us that we don’t yet know.”

He
stooped and drew back the coarse sack that covered half the glover’s narrow
face, from eyebrow on one side to jaw on the other. A broken bruise in the
greying hair above the left temple indicated a right-handed blow as soon as the
door was opened to his visitor, meant to stun him, probably, until he could be
muffled in the sack and gagged like Warin. Here it was a case of gaining entry
and confronting a wide-awake man, not a timid sleeper.

“Much
the same manner as the other one,” said Cadfael, “and I doubt if they ever
meant to kill. But he was not so easily put out of the reckoning. He put up a
fight. And his neck is broken. By the look of it, one made round behind him to
secure this blindfold, and in the struggle he gave them, tried all too hard to
haul him backwards by it. He was wiry and agile, but his bones were aging, and
too brittle to sustain it. I don’t think it was intended. We should have found
him neatly bound and still alive, like Warin, if he had not fought them. Once
they knew he was dead, they made their search in haste, and left all as it
fell.”

Beringar
brushed aside the light tangle of girdles and straps and gloves that littered
the floor and lay over the body. Euan’s right arm was covered from the elbow
down by the skirts of his own gown, kicked out of the way of the searchers in
their
hunt. When the folds were drawn down Hugh let out a sharp
whistle of surprise, for in the dead man’s hand was a long poniard, the naked
blade grooved, and ornamented with gilding near the hilt. At his belt,
half-hidden now under his right hip, the scabbard lay empty.

“A
man of his hands! And see, he’s marked one of them for us!” There was blood on
the point of the blade, and drawn up by the grooving for some three fingers’
breadth in two thin crimson lines, now drying to black.

“Rhodri
ap Huw said of him,” Cadfael remembered, “that he was a solitary soul who
trusted nobody—his own porter and his own watchman. He said he wore a weapon,
and knew how to use it.” He went on his knees beside the body, and cleared away
the debris that still lay about it, eying and handling from head to foot.
“You’ll have him away to the castle, I suppose, or the abbey, and look him over
more carefully, but I do believe the only blood he’s lost is this smear on his
brow. This on the dagger is not his.”

“If
only we could as easily say whose it is!” said Hugh dryly, sitting on his heels
with the nimbleness of the young on the other side of the body. Brother Cadfael
eased creaky elderly knees on the hard boards, and briefly envied him. The
young man lifted the stiffening arm, and tested the grip of the clenched
fingers. “He holds fast!” It took him some effort to loosen the convulsive
grasp enough to slip the hilt of the dagger free. In the slanting light from
the open hatch something gleamed briefly, waving at the tip of the blade, and
again vanished, as motes of dust come and go in gold in bright sunlight. There
was also what seemed at first to be a thin encrustation of blood fringing the
steel on one edge. Cadfael exclaimed, leaning to point. “A yellow hair—There it
shows again!” The flashing gleam curled and twisted as Hugh turned the dagger
in his hand.

“Not
a hair, a fine, yellowish thread. Thread of flax, not bleached. This grooving
has ripped out a shred of cloth, and the blood has stuck it fast. See!”

A
mere wisp of brown material it was, a fringe along the groove that had held it.
Narrow as a blade of grass, but when Cadfael carefully took hold of a thread at
the end and drew it out straight, it stretched to the length of his hand. The
colour, though fouled by dried blood, showed plain at one edge, a
light russet-brown; and at the end of the sliver floated gaily the long, fine
flax thread, scalloped like a curly hair.

“A
sliced tear a hand long,” said Cadfael, “and ending at a hem, for surely this
thread sewed the edging, and the dagger ripped out a length of the stitching.”
He narrowed his eyes, and considered, imagining Euan facing the door as he
opened it, the instant blow that failed to tame him, and then his rapid drawing
of his poniard and striking with it. Almost brow to brow and breast to breast,
a man good with his right hand, and his attacker’s heart an open target.

“He
struck for the heart,” said Cadfael with conviction. “So would I, or so would I
have done once. The other man, surely, slipped behind him and spoiled the
stroke, but that is where he aimed. Someone, somewhere, has a torn cotte. It
might be in the left breast, or it might be in the sleeve. The man’s arms would
be raised, reaching to grapple him. I should say the left sleeve, ripping from
the hem halfway to the elbow. The sewing thread was caught first, and pulled
out a length of stitches.”

Hugh
considered that respectfully, and found no fault with it. “Much of a scratch,
would you guess? He did not drip blood to the doorway. It could not have been
enough to need much stanching.”

“The
sleeve would hold it. Likely only a graze, but a long graze. It will be there
to be seen.”

“If
we knew where to look!” Hugh gave a short bark of laughter at the thought of
sending sergeants about this teeming marketplace to ask every man to roll up
his left sleeve and show his arm. “A simple matter! Still, no reason why you
and I, and all the men I can spare and trust, should not be keeping our eyes
open all the rest of this day for a torn sleeve—or a newly cobbled one.”