One Corpse Too Many (20 page)

“Not all the Flemings,” Cadfael pointed out, “speak English.”

“But some do. And among those ninety-four surely more than half spoke French just as well. Any one of the Flemings might have taken the dagger. A valuable piece, and a dead man has no more need of it. Cadfael, I tell you, I feel as you do about this business, such a death must not go unavenged. Don’t you think, since it can’t be any further grief or shame to her, I might show this thing to Aline, and make certain whether it is or is not from the hilt she knew?”

“I think,” said Cadfael, “that you may. And after chapter we’ll meet again here, if you will. If, that is, I am not so loaded with penance at chapter that I vanish from men’s sight for a week.”

In the event, things turned out very differently. If his absence at Matins and Lauds had been noticed at all, it was clean forgotten before chapter, and no one, not even Prior Robert, ever cast it up at him or demanded penance. For after the former day’s excitement and distress, another and more hopeful upheaval loomed. King Stephen with his new levies, his remounts and his confiscated provisions, was about to move south towards Worcester, to attempt inroads into the western stronghold of Earl Robert of Gloucester, the Empress Maud’s half-brother and loyal champion. The vanguard of his army was to march the next day, and the king himself, with his personal guard, was moving today into Shrewsbury castle for two nights, to inspect and secure his defences there, before marching after the vanguard. He was well satisfied with the results of his foraging, and disposed to forget any remaining grudges, for he had invited to his table at the castle, this Tuesday evening, both Abbot Heribert and Prior Robert, and in the flurry of preparation minor sins were overlooked.

Cadfael repaired thankfully to his workshop, and lay down and slept on Godith’s bed until Hugh Beringar came to wake him. Hugh had the topaz in his hand, and his face was grave and tired, but serene.

“It is hers. She took it in her hands gladly, knowing it for her own. I thought there could not be two such. Now I am going to the castle, for the king’s party are already moving in there, and Ten Heyt and his Flemings will be with him. I mean to find the man, whoever he may be, who filched that dagger after Giles was dead. Then we shall know we are not far from your murderer. Cadfael, can you not get Abbot Heribert to bring you with him to the castle this evening? He must have an attendant, why not you? He turns to you willingly, if you ask, he’ll jump at you. Then if I have anything to tell, you’ll be close by.”

Brother Cadfael yawned, groaned and kept his eyes open unwillingly on the young, dark face that leaned over him, a face of tight, bright lines now, fierce and bleak, a hunting face. He had won himself a formidable ally.

“A small, mild curse on you for waking me,” he said, mumbling, “but I’ll come.”

“It was your own cause,” Beringar reminded him, smiling.

“It is my cause. Now for the love of God, go away and let me sleep away dinner, and afternoon and all, you’ve cost me hours enough to shorten my life, you plague.”

Hugh Beringar laughed, though it was a muted and burdened laugh this time, marked a cross lightly on Cadfael’s broad brown forehead, and left him to his rest.

Chapter Eleven

A SERVER FOR EVERY PLATE WAS REQUIRED at the king’s supper. It was no problem to suggest to Abbot Heribert that the brother who had coped with the matter of the mass burial, and even talked with the king concerning the unlicensed death, should be on hand with him to be questioned at need. Prior Robert took with him his invariable toady and shadow, Brother Jerome, who would certainly be indefatigable with finger-bowl, napkin and pitcher throughout, a great deal more assiduous than Cadfael, whose mind might well be occupied elsewhere. They were old enemies, in so far as Brother Cadfael entertained enmities. He abhorred a sickly-pale tonsure.

The town was willing to put on a festival face, not so much in the king’s honour as in celebration of the fact that the king was about to depart, but the effect was much the same. Edric Flesher had come down to the high street from his shop to watch the guests pass by, and Cadfael flashed him a ghost of a wink, by way of indication that they would have things to discuss later, things so satisfactory that they could well be deferred. He got a huge grin and a wave of a meaty hand in response, and knew his message had been received. Petronilla would weep for her lamb’s departure, but rejoice for her safe delivery and apt escort. I must go there soon, he thought, as soon as this last duty is done.

Within the town gate Cadfael had seen the blind old man sitting almost proudly in Giles Siward’s good cloth hose, holding out his palm for alms with a dignified gesture. At the high cross he saw the little old woman clasping by the hand her feeble-wit grandson with his dangling lip, and the fine brown cotte sat well on him, and gave him an air of rapt content by its very texture. Oh, Aline, you ought to give your own charity, and see what it confers, beyond food and clothing!

Where the causeway swept up from the street to the gate of the castle, the beggars who followed the king’s camp had taken up new stations, hopeful and expectant, for the king’s justiciar, Bishop Robert of Salisbury, had arrived to join his master, and brought a train of wealthy and important clerics with him. In the lee of the gate-house wall Lame Osbern’s little trolley was drawn up, where he could beg comfortably without having to move. The worn wooden pattens he used for his callused knuckles lay tidily beside him on the trolley, on top of the folded black cloak he would not need until night fell. It was so folded that the bronze clasp at the neck showed up proudly against the black, the dragon of eternity with his tail in his mouth.

Cadfael let the others go on through the gates, and halted to say a word to the crippled man. “Well, how have you been since last I saw you by the king’s guard-post? You have a better place here.”

“I remember you,” said Osbern, looking up at him with eyes remarkably clear and innocent, in a face otherwise as misshapen as his body. “You are the brother who brought me the cloak.”

“And has it done you good service?”

“It has, and I have prayed for the lady, as you asked. But, brother, it troubles me, too. Surely the man who wore it before me is dead. Is it so?”

“He is,” said Cadfael, “but that should not trouble you. The lady who sent it to you is his sister, and trust me, her giving blesses the gift. Wear it, and take comfort.”

He would have walked on then, but a hasty hand caught at the skirt of his habit, and Osbern besought him pleadingly: “But, brother, I go in dread that I bear some guilt. For I saw the man, living, with this cloak about him, hale as I…”

“You saw him?” echoed Cadfael on a soundless breath, but the anxious voice had ridden over him and rushed on.

“It was in the night, and I was cold, and I thought to myself, I wish the good God would send me such a cloak to keep me warm! Brother, thought is also prayer! And no more than three days later God did indeed send me this very cloak. You dropped it into my arms! How can I be at peace? The young man gave me a groat that night, and asked me to say a prayer for him on the morrow, and so I did. But how if my first prayer made the second of none effect? How if I have prayed a man into his grave to get myself a cloak to wear?”

Cadfael stood gazing at him amazed and mute, feeling the chill of ice flow down his spine. The man was sane, clear of mind and eye, he knew very well what he was saying, and his trouble of heart was real and deep, and must be the first consideration, whatever else followed.

“Put all such thoughts out of your mind, friend,” said Cadfael firmly, “for only the devil can have sent them. If God gave you the thing for which you wished, it was to save one morsel of good out of a great evil for which you are no way to blame. Surely your prayers for the former wearer are of aid even now to his soul. This young man was one of FitzAlan’s garrison here, done to death after the castle fell, at the king’s orders. You need have no fears, his death is not at your door, and no sacrifice of yours could have saved him.”

Osbern’s uplifted face eased and brightened, but still he shook his head, bewildered. “FitzAlan’s man? But how could that be, when I saw him enter and leave the king’s camp?”

“You saw him? You are sure? How do you know this is the same cloak?”

“Why, by this clasp at the throat. I saw it clearly in the firelight when he gave me the groat.”

He could not be mistaken, then, there surely were not two such designs exactly alike, and Cadfael himself had seen its match on the buckle of Giles Siward’s sword-belt.

“When was it that you saw him?” he asked gently. “Tell me how it befell.”

“It was the night before the assault, around midnight. I had my place then close to the guard-post for the sake of the fire, and I saw him come, not openly, but like a shadow, among the bushes. He stood when they challenged him, and asked to be taken to their officer, for he had something to tell, to the king’s advantage. He kept his face hidden, but he was young. And afraid! But who was not afraid, then? They took him away within, and afterwards I saw him return, and they let him out. He said he had orders to go back, for there must be no suspicion. That was all I heard. He was in better heart then, not so frightened, so I asked him for alms, and he gave, and asked my prayers in return. Say some prayer for me tomorrow, he said—and on ‘the morrow, you tell me, he died! This I’m sure of, when he left me he was not expecting to die.”

“No,” said Cadfael, sick with pity and grief for all poor, frightened, breakable men, “surely he was not. None of us knows the day. But pray for him you may, and your prayers will benefit his soul. Put off all thought that ever you did him harm, it is not so. You never wished him ill, God hears the heart. Never wished him any, never did him any.”

He left Osbern reassured and comforted, but went on into the castle carrying with him the load of discomfort and depression the lame man had shed. So it always is, he thought, to relieve another you must burden yourself. And such a burden! He remembered in time that there was one more question he should have asked, the most urgent of all, and turned back to ask it.

“Do you know, friend, who was the officer of the guard, that night?”

Osbern shook his head. “I never saw him, he never came out himself. No, brother, that I can’t tell you.”

“Trouble no more,” said Cadfael. “Now you have told it freely, and you know the cloak came to you with a blessing, not a bane. Enjoy it freely, as you deserve.”

“Father Abbot,” said Cadfael, seeking out Heribert in the courtyard, “if you have no need of me until you come to table, there is work here I have still to do, concerning Nicholas Faintree.”

With King Stephen holding audience in the inner ward, and the great court teeming with clerics, bishops, the small nobility of the county, even an earl or so, there was no room, in any case, for the mere servitors, whose duties would begin when the feast began. The abbot had found a friend in the bishop of Salisbury, and readily dismissed Cadfael to whatever pursuit he chose. He went in search of Hugh Beringar with Osbern’s story very heavy on his mind, and the last question still unanswered, though so many sad mysteries were now made plain. It was not a terrified prisoner with the rope already round his neck who had broken down and betrayed the secret of FitzAlan’s plans for his treasury. No, that betrayal had taken place a day previously, when the issue of battle was still to be decided, and the thing had been done with forethought, to save a life it yet had failed to save. He came by stealth, and asked to be taken to the officer of the guard, for he had something to tell to the king’s advantage! And when he left he told the guard he had orders to go back, so that there could be no suspicion, but then he was in better heart. Poor wretch, not for long!

By what means or on what pretext he had managed to get out of the castle—perhaps on pretence of reconnoitering the enemy’s position?—certainly he had obeyed his instructions to return and keep all suspicion lulled. He had returned only to confront the death he had thought he was escaping.

Hugh Beringar came out and stood on the steps of the great hall, craning round him for one person among all that shifting throng. The black Benedictine habits showed here and there in strong contrast to the finery of lordlings in their best, but Cadfael was shorter than many of those about him, and saw the man he was seeking before he was himself seen. He began to weave his way towards him, and the keen black eyes sweeping the court beneath drawn brows lit upon him, and glittered. Beringar came down to take him by the arm and draw him away to a quieter place.

“Come away, come up on to the guard-walk, there’ll be no one there but the sentry. How can we talk here?” And when they had mounted to the wall, he found a corner where no one could approach them without being seen, he said, eyeing Cadfael very earnestly: “You have news in your face. Tell it quickly, and I’ll tell you mine.”

Cadfael told the story as briefly as it had been told to him, and it was understood as readily. Beringar stood leaning against the merlon of the wall as though bracing his back for a dour defence. His face was bitter with dismay.

“Her brother! No escaping it, this can have been no other. He came by night out of the castle, by stealth, hiding his face, he spoke with the king’s officer, and returned as he had come. So that there might be no suspicion! Oh, I am sick!” said Beringar savagely. “And all for nothing! His treason fell victim to one even worse. You don’t know yet, Cadfael, you don’t know all! But that of all people it should be her brother!”

“No help for it,” said Cadfael, “it was he. In terror for his life, regretting an ill-judged alliance, he went hurrying to the besiegers to buy his life, in exchange—for what? Something of advantage to the king! That very evening they had held conference and planned the removal of FitzAlan’s gold. That was how someone learned in good time of what Faintree and Torold carried, and the way they were to go. Someone who never passed that word on, as I think, to king or any, but acted upon it himself, and for his own gain. Why else should it end as it did? The young man, so says Osbern, went back under orders, relieved and less afraid.”

“He had been promised his life,” said Beringar bitterly, “and probably the king’s favour, too, and a place about him, no wonder he went back the happier in that belief. But what was really intended was to send him back to be taken and slaughtered with the rest, to make sure he should not live to tell the tale. For listen, Cadfael, to what I got out of one of the Flemings who was in that day’s murderous labour from first to last. He said that after Arnulf of Hesdin was hanged, Ten Heyt pointed out to the executioners a young man who was to be the next to go, and said the order came from above. And it was done. They found it a huge jest that he was dragged to his death incredulous, thinking at first, no doubt, they were putting up a pretence to remove him from the ranks, and then he saw it was black reality, and he screamed that they were mistaken, that he was not to die with the rest, that he had been promised his life, that they should send and ask—“

“Send and ask,” said Brother Cadfael, “of Adam Courcelle.”

“No—I learned no name… my man heard none. What makes you hit on that name in particular? He was not by but once, according to this man’s account, he came but once to look at the bodies they had already cut down, and it was early, they would be but few. Then he went away to his work in the town, and was seen no more. Weak-stomached, they thought.”

“And the dagger? Was Giles wearing it when they strung him up?”

“He was, for my man had an eye to the thing himself, but when he was relieved for a while, and came back to get it, it was already gone.”

“Even to one with a great prize in view,” said Cadfael sadly, “a small extra gain by the way may not come amiss.”

They looked at each other mutely for a long moment. “But why do you say so certainly, Courcelle?”

“I am thinking,” said Cadfael, “of the horror that fell upon him when Aline came to collect her dead, and he knew what he had done. If I had known, he said, if I had known, I would have saved him for you! No matter at what cost! God forgive me! he said, but he meant: Aline, forgive me! With all his heart he meant it then, though I would not call that repentance. And he gave back, you’ll remember, the cloak. I think, truly I do think, he would then have given back also the dagger, if he had dared. But he could not, it was already broken and incomplete. I wonder,” said Cadfael, pondering, “I wonder what he has done with it now? A man who would take it from the dead in the first place would not part with it too easily, even for a girl’s sake, and yet he never dare let her set eyes on it, and he is in earnest in courting her. Would he keep it, in hiding? Or get rid of it?”

“If you are right,” said Beringar, still doubtful, “we need it, it is our proof. And yet, Cadfael, for God’s sake, how are we to deal now? God knows I can find no good to say for one who tried to purchase his own safety so, when his fellows were at their last gasp. But neither you nor I can strip this matter bare, and do so wicked an injury to so innocent and honourable a lady. It’s enough that she mourns for him. Let her at least go on thinking that he held by his mistaken choice faithfully to the end, and gave his life for it—not that he died craven, bleating that he was promised grace in return for so base a betrayal. She must not know, now or ever.”