St. Peter's Fair (9 page)

“This
death,” he said, closeted with Cadfael alone after Beringar’s departure, “casts
a shadow upon our house and our fair. Such a burden cannot be shifted to other
shoulders. I require of you a full account of what passes at this hearing. It
was of me that the elders of the town asked a relief I could not grant. On me
rests the load of resentment that drove those younger men to foolish measures.
They lacked patience and thought, and they were to blame, but that does not
absolve me. If the man’s death has arisen out of my act, even though I could not
act otherwise, I must know it, for I have to answer for it, as surely as the
man who struck him down.”

“I
shall bring you all that I myself see and hear, Father Abbot,” said Cadfael.

“I
require also all that you think, brother. You saw part of what happened
yesterday between the dead man and the living youth. Is it possible that it
could have brought about such a
death as this? Stabbed in the
back? It is not commonly the method of anger.”

“Not
commonly.” Cadfael had seen many deaths in the open anger of battle, but he
knew also of rages that had bred and festered into killings by stealth, with
the anger as hot as ever, but turned sour by brooding. “Yet it is possible. But
there are other possibilities. It may indeed be what it first seems, a mere
crude slaughter for the clothes on the body and the rings on the fingers,
opportune plunder in the night, when no one chanced to be by. Such things
happen, where men are gathered together and there is money changing hands.”

“It
is true,” said Radulfus, coldly and sadly. “The ancient evil is always with
us.”

“Also,
the man is of great importance in his trade and his region, and he may have
enemies. Hate, envy, rivalry, are as powerful motives even as gain. And at a
great fair such as ours, enemies may be brought together, far from the towns
where their quarrels are known, and their acts might be guessed at too
accurately. Murder is easier and more tempting, away from home.”

“Again,
true,” said the abbot. “Is there more?”

“There
is. There is the matter of the girl, niece and heiress to the dead man. She is
of great beauty,” said Cadfael plainly, asserting his right to recognise and
celebrate even the beauty of women, though their enjoyment he had now
voluntarily forsworn, “and there are three men in her uncle’s service, shut on
board a river barge with her. Only one of them old enough, it may be, to value
his peace more. One, I think, God’s simpleton, but not therefore blind, or
delivered from the flesh. And one whole, able, every way a man, and enslaved to
her. And this one it was who followed his master from the booth on the
fairground, some say a quarter of an hour after him, some say a little more.
God forbid I should therefore point a finger at an honest man. But we speak of
possibilities. And will speak of them no more until, or unless, they become
more than possibilities.”

“That
is my mind, also,” said Abbot Radulfus, stirring and almost smiling. He looked
at Cadfael steadily and long. “Go and bear witness, brother, as you are
charged, and bring me word again. In your report I shall set my trust.”

Emma had on, perforce, the same gown and bliaut she
had worn the evening before, the gown dark blue like her eyes, but the tunic
embroidered in many colours upon bleached linen. The only concession she could
make to mourning was to bind up her great wealth of hair, and cover it from
sight within a borrowed wimple. Nevertheless, she made a noble mourning figure.
In the severe white frame her rounded, youthful face gained in concentrated
force and meaning what it lost in pure grace. She had a look of single-minded
gravity, like a lance in rest. Brother Cadfael could not yet see clearly where
the lance was aimed.

When
she caught sight of him approaching, she looked at him with pleased
recognition, as the man behind the lance might have looked round at the fixed,
partisan faces of his friends before the bout, but never shifted the focus of
her soul’s intent, which reached out where he could not follow.

“Brother
Cadfael—have I your name right? It’s Welsh, is it not? You were kind,
yesterday. Lady Beringar says you will show me where to find the
master-carpenter. I have to order my uncle’s coffin, to take him back to
Bristol.” She was quite composed, yet still as simple and direct as a child.
“Have we time, before we must go to the castle?”

“It’s
on the way,” said Cadfael comfortably. “You need only tell Martin Bellecote,
whatever you ask of him he’ll see done properly.”

“Everyone
is being very kind,” she said punctiliously, like a well brought-up little girl
giving due thanks. “Where is my uncle’s body now? I should care for it myself,
it is my duty.”

“That
you cannot yet,” said Cadfael. “The sheriff has him at the castle, he must
needs see the body for himself, and have the physician also view it. You need
be put to no distress on that account, the abbot has given orders. Your uncle
will be brought with all reverence to lie in the church here, and the brothers
will make him decent for burial. I think he might well wish, could he tell you
so now, that you should leave all to us. His care for you would reach so far,
and your obedience could not well deny him.”

Cadfael
had seen the dead man, and felt strongly that she should not have the same
experience. Nor was it for her sake
entirely that he willed so.
The man she had respected and admired in his monumental dignity, living, had
the right to be preserved for her no less decorously in death.

He
had found the one argument that could deflect her absolute determination to
take charge of all, and escape nothing. She thought about it seriously as they
passed out at the gatehouse side by side, and he knew by her face the moment
when she accepted it.

“But
he did believe that I ought to take my full part, even in his business. He
wished me to travel with him, and learn the trade as he knew it. This is the
third such journey I have made with him.” That reminded her that it must also
be the last. “At least,” she said hesitantly, “I may give money to have Masses
said for him, here where he died? He was a very devout man, I think he would
like that.”

Well,
her reserves of money might now be far longer than her reserves of peace of
mind were likely to be; she could afford to buy herself a little consolation,
and prayers are never wasted.

“That
you may surely do.”

“He
died unshriven,” she said, with sudden angry grief against the murderer who had
deprived him of confession and absolution.

“Through
no fault of his own. So do many. So have saints, martyred without warning. God
knows the record without needing word or gesture. It’s for the soul facing
death that the want of shriving is pain. The soul gone beyond knows that pain
for needless vanity. Penitence is in the heart, not in the words spoken.”

They
were out on the highroad then, turning left towards the reflected sparkle that
was the river between its green, lush banks, and the stone bridge over it, that
led through the drawbridge turret to the town gate. Emma had raised her head,
and was looking at Brother Cadfael along her shoulder, with faint colour
tinting her creamy cheeks, and a sparkle like a shimmer of light from the river
in her eyes. He had not seen her smile until this moment, and even now it was a
very wan smile, but none the less beautiful.

“He
was a good man, you know, Brother Cadfael,” she said earnestly. “He was not easy
upon fools, or bad workmen, or people who cheated, but he was a good man, good
to me!
And he kept his bargains, and he was loyal to his lord…”
She had taken fire, for all the softness of her voice and the simplicity of her
plea for him; it was almost as though she had been about to say “loyal to his
lord to the death!” She had that high, heroic look about her, to be taken very
seriously, even on that child’s face.

“All
which,” said Cadfael cheerfully, “God knows, and needs not to be told. And
never forget you’ve a life to live, and he’d want you to do him justice by
doing yourself justice.”

“Oh,
yes!” said Emma, glowing, and for the first time laid her hand confidingly on
his sleeve. “That’s what I want! That’s what I have most in mind!”

Chapter Two

AT
MARTIN BELLECOTE’S SHOP, off the curve of the rising street called the Wyle,
which led to the centre of the town, she knew exactly what she wanted for her
dead, and ordered it clearly; more, she knew how to value a matching clarity
and forthrightness in the master-carpenter, and yet had time to be pleasantly
distracted by the invasion of his younger children, who liked the look of her
and came boldly to chatter and stare. As for the delinquent Edwy, sent home
overnight after his tongue-lashing from Hugh Beringar, the youngster worked
demurely with a plane in a corner of the shop, and was not too subdued to cast
inquisitive glances of bright hazel eyes at the lady, and one impudent wink at
Brother Cadfael when Emma was not noticing.

On
the way through the town, up the steep street to the High Cross, and down the
gentler slope beyond to the ramp which led up to the castle gateway, she fell
into a thoughtful silence, putting in order her recollections. The shadow of
the gate falling upon her serious face and cutting off the sunlight caused her
eyes to dilate in awe; but the casual traffic of the watch here was no longer
reminiscent of siege and battle, but easy and brisk, and the townspeople went
in and out freely with their requests and complaints. The sheriff was a
strong-minded, taciturn, able knight past fifty, and old in experience of both
war and office, and while he could be heavy-handed in crushing disorder, he was
trusted to be fair in day to day matters. If he had not given the goodmen of
the town much help in making good the dilapidations due to the siege, neither
had he permitted them to be misused or heavily taxed to restore the
damage to the castle. In the great court one tower was still caged in timber
scaffolding, one wall shored up with wooden buttresses. Emma gazed, great-eyed.

There
were others going the same way with them, anxious fathers here to bail their
sons, two of the abbey stewards who had been assaulted in the affray, witnesses
from the bridge and the jetty, all being ushered through to the inner ward, and
a chill, stony hall hung with smoky tapestries. Cadfael found Emma a seat on a
bench against the wall, where she sat looking about her with anxious eyes but
lively interest.

“Look,
there’s Master Corbière!”

He
was just entering the hall, and for the moment had no attention to spare for
anyone but the hunched figure that slouched before him; blear-eyed but in his
full wits today, going softly in awe of his irate lord, Turstan Fowler made his
powerful form as small and unobtrusive as possible, and mustered patience until
the storm should blow over. And what had he to do here, Cadfael wondered. He
had not been on the jetty, and by the state in which he had been found near
midnight, his memories of yesterday should in any case be vague indeed. Yet he
must have something to say to the purpose, or Corbière would not have brought
him here. By his mood last night, he had meant to leave him locked up all day,
to teach him better sense.

“Is
this the sheriff?” whispered Emma.

Gilbert
Prestcote had entered, with a couple of lawmen at his elbows to advise him on
the legalities. This was no trial but it rested with him whether the rioters
would go home on their own and their sires’ bond to appear at the assize, or be
held in prison in the meantime. The sheriff was a tall, spare man, erect and
vigorous, with a short black beard trimmed to a point, and a sharp and daunting
eye. He took his seat without ceremony, and a sergeant handed him the list of
names of those in custody. He raised his eyebrows ominously at the number of
them.

“All
these were taken in riot?” He spread the roll on his table and frowned down at
it. “Very well! There is also the graver matter of the death of Master Thomas
of Bristol. At what hour was the last word we have of Master Thomas alive and
well?”

“According to his journeyman and his watchman, he
left his booth on the horse-fair, intending to return to his barge, more than
an hour past the Compline bell. That is the last word we have. His man Roger
Dod is here to testify that the hour was rather more than a quarter past nine
of the evening and the watchman bears that out.”

“Late
enough,” said the sheriff, pondering. “The fighting was over by then, and
Foregate and fairground quiet. Hugh, prick me off here all those who were then
already in custody. Whatever their guilt for damages to goods and gear, they
cannot have had any hand in this murder.”

Hugh
leaned to his shoulder, and ran a rapid hand down the roster. “It was a sharp
encounter, but short. We had it in hand very quickly, they never reached the
end of the Foregate. This man was picked up last, it might be as late as ten,
but in an ale-house and very drunk, and the ale-wife vouches for his having
been there above an hour. A respectable witness, she was glad to get rid of
him. But he’s clear of the killing. This one crept back to the bridge a little
later, and owned to having been one among the rabble, but we let him home, for
he’s very lame, and there are witnesses to all his moves since before nine.
He’s here to answer for his part in the muster, as he promised. I think you may
safely write him clear of any other blame.”