One Corpse Too Many (9 page)

The young man lay back gratefully and heaved a huge sigh, meekly abandoning the responsibility for himself. Out of a soiled and weary face, eyes irrepressibly lively gazed up at them, of some light, bright colour not then identifiable. He had a large, generous mouth, drawn with exhaustion but wryly smiling, and the tangle of hair matted and stained from the river would be as fair as corn-stalks when it was clean. “One of them ripped your shoulder for you, I see,” said Cadfael, hands busy unfastening and drawing off the dark cotte encrusted down one sleeve with dried blood. “Now the shirt—you’ll be needing new clothes, my friend, before you leave this hostelry.”

“I’ll have trouble paying my shot,” said the boy, valiantly grinning, and ended the grin with a sharp indrawn breath as the sleeve was detached painfully from his wound.

“Our charges are low. For a straight story you can buy such hospitality as we’re offering. Godric, lad, I need water, and river water’s better than none. See if you can find anything in this place to carry it in.”

She found the sound half of a large pitcher among the debris under the wheel, left by some customer after its handle and lip had got broken, scrubbed it out industriously with the skirt of her cotte, and went obediently to bring water, he hoped safely. The flow of the river here would be fresher than the leat, and occupy her longer on the journey, while Cadfael undid the boy’s belt, and stripped off his shoes and hose, shaking out the blanket to spread over his nakedness. There was a long but not deep gash, he judged from a sword-cut, down the right thigh, a variety of bruises showing bluish on his fair skin, and most strangely, a thin, broken graze on the left side of his neck, and another curiously like it on the outer side of his right wrist. More healed, dark lines, these, older by a day or two than his wounds. “No question,” mused Cadfael aloud, “but you’ve been living an interesting life lately.”

“Lucky to keep it,” murmured the boy, half-asleep in his new ease.

“Who was hunting you?”

“The king’s men—who else?”

“And still will be?”

“Surely. But in a few days I’ll be fit to relieve you of the burden of me…”

“Never mind that now. Turn a little to me—so! Let’s get this thigh bound up, it’s clean enough, it’s knitting already. This will sting.” It did, the youth stiffened and gasped a little, but made no complaint. Cadfael had the wound bound and under the blanket by the time Godith came with the pitcher of water. For want of a handle she had to use two hands to carry it.

“Now we’ll see to this shoulder. This is where you lost so much blood. An arrow did this!” It was an oblique cut sliced through the outer part of his left arm just below the shoulder, bone-deep, leaving an ugly flap of flesh gaping. Cadfael began to sponge away the encrustations of blood from it, and press it firmly together beneath a pad of linen soaked in one of his herbal salves. “This will need help to knit clean,” he said, busy rolling his bandage tightly round the arm. “There, now you should eat, but not too much, you’re over-weary to make the best use of it. Here’s meat and cheese and bread, and keep some by you for morning, you may well be ravenous when you wake.”

“If there’s water left,” besought the young man meekly, “I should like to wash my hands and face. I’m foul!”

Godith kneeled beside him, moistened a piece of linen in the pitcher, and instead of putting it into his hand, very earnestly and thoroughly did it for, him, putting back the matted hair from his forehead, which was wide and candid, even teasing out some of the knots with solicitous fingers. After the first surprise he lay quietly and submissively under her ministering touch, but his eyes, cleansed of the soiled shadows, watched her face as she bent over him, and grew larger and larger in respectful wonder. And all this while she had hardly said a word.

The young man was almost too worn out to eat at all, and flagged very soon. He lay for a few moments with lids drooping, peering at his rescuers in silent thought. Then he said, his tongue stumbling sleepily: “I owe you a name, after all you’ve done for me…”

“Tomorrow,” said Cadfael firmly. “You’re in the best case to sleep sound, and here I believe you may. Now drink this down—it helps keep wounds from festering, and eases the heart.” It was a strong cordial of his own brewing, he tucked away the empty vial in his gown. “And here’s a little flask of wine to bear you company if you wake. In the morning I’ll be with you early.”

“We!” said Godith, low but firmly.

“Wait, one more thing!” Cadfael had remembered it at the last moment. “You’ve no weapon on you—yet I think you did wear a sword.”

“I shed it,” mumbled the boy drowsily, “in the river. I had too much weight to keep afloat—and they were shooting. It was in the water I got this clout… I had the wit to go down, I hope they believe I stayed down… God knows it was touch and go!”

“Yes, well, tomorrow will do. And we must find you a weapon. Now, good night!”

He was asleep before ever they put out the candle, and drew the door closed. They walked wordlessly through the rustling stubble for some minutes, the sky over them an arch of dark and vivid blue paling at the edges into a fringe of sea-green. Godith asked abruptly: “Brother Cadfael, who was Ganymede?”

“A beautiful youth who was cup-bearer to Jove, and much loved by him.”

“Oh!” said Godith, uncertain whether to be delighted or rueful, this success being wholly due to her boyishness.

“But some say that it’s also another name for Hebe,” said Cadfael.

“Oh! And who is Hebe?”

“Cup-bearer to Jove, and much loved by him—but a beautiful maiden.”

“Ah!” said Godith profoundly. And as they reached the road and crossed towards the abbey, she said seriously:

“You know who he must be, don’t you?”

“Jove? The most god-like of all the pagan gods…”

“He!” she said severely, and caught and shook Brother Cadfael’s arm in her solemnity. “A Saxon name, and Saxon hair, and on the run from the king’s men… He’s Torold Blund, who set out with Nicholas to save FitzAlan’s treasury for the empress. And of course he had nothing to do with poor Nicholas’s death. I don’t believe he ever did a shabby thing in his whole life!”

“That,” said Cadfael, “I hesitate to say of any man, least of all myself. But I give you my word, child, this one most shabby thing he certainly did not do. You may sleep in peace!”

It was nothing out of the ordinary for Brother Cadfael, that devoted gardener and apothecary, to rise long before it was necessary for Prime, and have an hour’s work done before he joined his brothers at the first service; so no one thought anything of it when he dressed and went out early on that particular morning, and no one even knew that he also roused his boy, as he had promised. They went out with more medicaments and food, and a cotte and hose that Brother Cadfael had filched from the charity offerings that came in to the almoner. Godith had taken away with her the young man’s bloodstained shirt, which was of fine linen and not to be wasted, had washed it before she slept, and mended it on rising, where the arrow-head had sliced the threads asunder. On such a warm August night, spread out carefully on the bushes in the garden, it had dried well.

Their patient was sitting up in his bed of sacks, munching bread with appetite, and seemed to have total trust in them, for he made no move to seek cover when the door began to open. He had draped his torn and stained cotte round his shoulders, but for the rest was naked under his blanket, and the bared, smooth chest and narrow flanks were elegantly formed. Body and eyes still showed blue bruises, but he was certainly much restored alter one long night of rest.

“Now,” said Cadfael with satisfaction, “you may talk as much as you like, my friend, while I dress this wound of yours. The leg will do very well until we have more time, but this shoulder is a tricky thing. Godric, see to him on the other side while I uncover it, it may well stick. You steady bandage and arm while I unbind. Now, sir…” And he added, for fair exchange: “They call me Brother Cadfael, I’m as Welsh as Dewi Sant, and I’ve been about the world, as you may have guessed. And this boy of mine is Godric, as you’ve heard, and brought me to you. Trust us both, or neither.”

“I trust both,” said the boy. He had more colour this morning, or it was the flush of dawn reflected, his eyes were bright and hazel, more green than brown. “I owe you more than trust can pay, but show me more I can do, and I’ll do it. My name is Torold Blund, I come from a hamlet by Oswestry, and I’m FitzAlan’s man from head to foot.” The bandage stuck then, and Godith felt him flinch, and locked the fold until she could ease it free, by delicate touches. “If that puts you in peril,” said Torold, suppressing the pain, “I do believe I’m fit to go, and go I will. I would not for the world shrug off my danger upon you.”

“You’ll go when you’re let,” said Godith, and for revenge snatched off the last fold of bandage, but very circumspectly, and holding the anointed pad in place. “And it won’t be today.”

“Hush, let him talk, time’s short,” said Cadfael. “Go to it, lad. We’re not in the business of selling Maud’s men to Stephen, or Stephen’s men to Maud. How did you come here in this pass?”

Torold took a deep breath, and talked to some purpose. “I came to the castle here with Nicholas Faintree, who was also FitzAlan’s man, from the next manor to my father’s, we joined the garrison only a week before it fell. The evening before the assault there was a council—we were not there, we were small fry—and they resolved to get the FitzAlan treasury away the very next day for the use of the empress, not knowing then it would be the last day. Nicholas and I were told off to be the messengers because we were new to Shrewsbury, and not known, and might get through well enough where others senior to us might be known and cut down at sight. The goods—they were not too bulky, thank God, not much plate, more coin, and most of all in jewellery—were hidden somewhere no one knew but our lord and his agent who had them in guard. We had to ride to him when the word was given, take them from where he would show us, and get clear by night for Wales. FitzAlan had an accord with Owain Gwynedd—not that he’s for either party here, he’s for Wales, but civil war here suits him well, and he and FitzAlan are friends. Before it was well dawn they attacked, and it was plain we could not hold. So we were sent off on our errand—it was to a shop in the town…” He wavered, uneasy at giving any clue.

“I know,” said Cadfael, wiping away the exudation of the night from the shoulder wound, and anointing a new pad. “It was Edric Flesher, who himself has told me his part in it. You were taken out to his barn in Frankwell, and the treasury laid up with you to wait for the cover of night. Go on!”

The young man, watching the dressing of his own hurts without emotion, went on obediently: “We rode as soon as it was dark. From there clear of the suburb and into trees is only a short way. There’s a herdsman’s hut there in the piece where the track is in woodland, though only along the edge, the fields still close. We were on this stretch when Nick’s horse fell lame. I lit down to see, for he went very badly, and he had picked up a caltrop, and was cut to the bone.”

“Caltrops?” said Brother Cadfael, startled. “On such a forest path, away from any field of battle?” For those unobtrusive martial cruelties, made in such a shape as to be scattered under the hooves of cavalry, and leaving always one crippling spike upturned, surely had no part to play on a narrow forest ride.

“Caltrops,” said Torold positively. “I don’t speak simply from the wound, the thing was there embedded, I know, I wrenched it out. But the poor beast was foundered, he could go, but not far, and not loaded. There’s a farm I know of very close there, I thought I could get a fresh horse in exchange for Nick’s, a poor exchange but what could we do? We did not even unload, but Nick lighted down, to ease the poor creature of his weight, and said he would wait there in the hut for me. And I went, and I got a mount from the farm—it’s off to the right, heading west as we were, the man’s name is Ulf, he’s distant kin to me on my mother’s side—and rode back, with Nick’s half the load on this new nag.

“I came up towards the hut,” he said, stiffening at the recollection, “and I thought he would be looking out for me, ready to mount, and he was not. I don’t know why that made me so uneasy. Not a breath stirring, and for all I was cautious, I knew I could be heard by any man truly listening. And he never showed face or called out word. So I never went too near. I drew off, and reined forward a little way, and made a single tether of the horses, to be off as fast as might be. One knot to undo, and with a single pluck. And then I went to the hut.”

“It was full dark then?” asked Cadfael, rolling bandage.

“Full dark, but I could see, having been out in it. Inside it was black as pitch. The door stood half open to the wall. I went inside stretching my ears, and not a murmur. But in the middle of the hut I fell over him. Over Nick! If I hadn’t I might not be here to tell as much,” said Torold grimly, and cast a sudden uneasy glance at his Ganymede, so plainly some years his junior, and attending him with such sedulous devotion. “This is not good hearing.” His eyes appealed eloquently to Cadfael over Godith’s shoulder.

“You’d best go on freely,” said Cadfael with sympathy. “He’s deeper in this than you think, and will have your blood and mine if we dare try to banish him. No part of this matter of Shrewsbury has been good hearing, but something may be saved. Tell your part, we’ll tell ours.”

Godith, all eyes, ears and serviceable hands, wisely said nothing at all.

“He was dead,” said Torold starkly. “I fell on him, mouth to mouth, there was no breath in him. I held him, reaching forward to save myself as I fell, I had him in my arms and he was like an armful of rags. And then I heard the dry fodder rustle behind me, and started round, because there was no wind to stir it, and I was frightened…”

“Small blame!” said Cadfael, smoothing a fresh pad soaked in his herbal salve against the moist wound. “You had good reason. Trouble no more for your friend, he is with God surely. We buried him yesterday within the abbey. He has a prince’s tomb. You, I think, escaped the like very narrowly, when his murderer lunged from behind the door.”