St. Peter's Fair (13 page)

“So
no such leech would have thrown it away,” said Cadfael.

“Never!”

“There
were also rings taken from his fingers. But rings, I suppose, might be too good
to discard, even to prove that this was a murder for hate, not for gain. Rings
would sink even if hurled into the Severn. So why hurl them?”

“As
usual,” said Hugh, elevating thin black brows, “you’re ahead of me rather than
abreast. On the face of it, this was a killing for private malice. So while we
examine it, Ivo Corbière very sensibly points out that a murderer so minded
would not have stayed to strip the body and put it into the river, but left it
lying, and made off as fast as he could. Vengeance, he says rightly, has
nothing to feed on in a bundle of clothing. The act is all! And that moved my
sheriff
to remark that the same thought might well have occurred
to the murderer, and caused him to strip his victim naked for that very reason,
a hoodwink for the law. Now we drag out of the river the dead man’s gown. And
where does that leave you and me, my friend?”

“In
two minds, or more,” said Cadfael ruefully. “If the gown never had been found,
the notion of common robbery would have held its ground and told in young
Corviser’s favour. Is it possible that what was said in the sheriff’s court put
that thought into someone’s mind for the first time, and drove him to discard
the gown where it was likely to be found? There’s one person it would suit very
well to have the case against your prisoner strengthened, and that’s the
murderer himself. Supposing yon fool boy is not the murderer, naturally.”

“True,
half a case can come to look almost whole by the addition of one more witness.
But what a fool your man would be, to toss the gown away for proof the killing
was not for robbery, thus turning suspicion back upon Philip Corviser, and then
creep aboard the barge and steal, when Philip Corviser is in a cell in the
castle, and manifestly out of the reckoning.”

“Ah,
but he never supposed the theft would be discovered until the barge was back in
Bristol, or well on the way. I tell you, Hugh, I could see no trace of an alien
hand anywhere among those stores on deck or the chattels in the cabin, and Emma
herself said she would not have missed the lost things until reaching home
again. They were bought on this journey, she had no intention of wearing them.
Nothing obvious was stolen, she had almost reached the bottom of her chest
before she found out these few bits of finery were gone. But for her sharp eye
for her own neat housekeeping, she would not have known the boat had been
visited.”

“Yet
robbery points to two separate villains and two separate crimes,” pointed out
Hugh with a wry smile, “as Emma insists on believing. If hate was the force
behind the man’s death, why stoop to pilfer from him afterwards? But do you
believe the two things are utterly separate? I think not!”

“Strange
chances do jostle one another sometimes in this world. Don’t put it clean out
of mind, it may still be true. But I cannot choose but believe that it’s the
same hand behind
both happenings, and the same purpose, and it
was neither theft nor hatred, or the death would have ended it.”

“But
Cadfael, in heaven’s name, what purpose that demanded a man’s death could get
satisfaction afterwards from stealing a pair of gloves, a girdle and a chain?”

Brother
Cadfael shook his head helplessly, and had no answer to that, or none that he
was yet prepared to give.

“My
head spins, Hugh. But I have a black suspicion it may not be over yet. Abbot
Radulfus has given me his commission to have an eye to the matter, for the
abbey’s sake, and permission to go in and out as I see fit for the purpose.
It’s at the back of his mind that if there’s some malignant plot in hand
against the Bristol merchant, his niece may not be altogether safe, either. If
Aline can keep her at her side, so much the better. But I’ll be keeping a
watchful eye on her, too.” He rose, yawning. “Now I must be off to Compline. If
I’m to scamp my duties tomorrow, let me at least end today well.”

“Pray
for a quiet night,” said Hugh, rising with him, “for we’ve not the men to mount
patrols through the dark hours. I’ll take one more turn along the Foregate with
my sergeant, as far as the horse-fair, and then I’m for my bed. I saw little
enough of it last night!”

The
night of the first of August, the opening day of Saint Peter’s Fair, was warm,
clear, and quiet enough. Traders along the Foregate kept their stalls open well
into the dark hours, the weather being so inviting that plenty of customers
were still abroad to chaffer and bargain. The sheriff’s officers withdrew into
the town, and even the abbey servants, left to keep the peace if it were
threatened, had little work to do. It was past midnight when the last lamps and
torches were quenched, and the night’s silence descended upon the horse-fair.

Master Thomas’s
barge rocked very softly to the motion of the river. Master Thomas himself lay
in a chapel of the abbey, decently shrouded, and in his workshop in the town
Martin Bellecote the master-carpenter worked late upon the fine, lead-lined
coffin Emma had ordered from him. And in a narrow and dusty cell in the castle,
Philip Corviser tossed and turned and nursed his bruises on a thin mattress of
straw, and could not sleep for fretting over the memory of Emma’s doubting,
pitying face.

The Second Day of the Fair

Chapter One

THE
SECOND DAY OF THE FAIR DAWNED BRILLIANTLY, a golden sun climbing, faint mist
hanging like a floating veil over the river. Roger Dod rose with the dawn, shook
Gregory awake, rolled up his brychan, washed in the river, and made a quick
meal of bread and small ale before setting off along the Foregate to his
master’s booth. All along the highroad traders were clambering out of their
cloaks, yawning and stretching, and setting out their goods ready for the day’s
business. Roger exchanged greetings with several of them as he passed. Where so
many were gathered at close quarters, even a dour and silent man could not help
picking up acquaintance with a few of his fellows.

The
first glimpse of Master Thomas’s booth, between the busy stirrings of its
neighbours, brought a scowl to Roger’s brow and a muttered oath to his tongue,
for the wooden walls were still fast closed. Every hatch still sealed, and the
sun already climbing! Warin must be fast asleep, inside there. Roger hammered
on the front boards, which should by this hour have been lowered trimly on to
their trestles, and set out with goods for sale. He got no response from
within.

“Warin!”
he bellowed. “Devil take you, get up and let me in!”

No
reply, except that several of the neighbours had turned curiously to listen and
watch, abandoning their own activities to attend to this unexpected clamour.

“Warin!”
bawled Roger, and thumped again vigorously. “You idle swine, what’s come to
you?”

“I did wonder,” said the cloth-merchant next door,
pausing with a bolt of flannel in his arms. “There’s been no sign of him. A
sound sleeper, your watchman!”

“Hold
hard!” The armourer from the other side leaned excitedly over Roger’s shoulder,
and fingered the edge of the wooden door. “Splinters, see?” Beside the latch
the boards showed a few pale threads, hardly enough to be seen, and at the
thrust of his hand the door gave upon a sliver of darkness. “No need to hammer,
the way in is open. A knife has been used on this!” said the armourer, and
there fell a momentary silence.

“Pray
God that’s all it’s been used on!” said Roger in an appalled whisper, and
thrust the door wide. He had a dozen of them at his back by then; even the
Welshman Rhodri ap Huw had come rolling massively between the stalls to join
them, sharp black eyes twinkling out of the thicket of his hair and beard,
though what he made of the affair, seeing he spoke no English, no one stopped
to consider.

From
the darkness within welled the warm scent of timber, wine and sweetmeats, and a
faint, strange sound like the breathy grunting of a dumb man. Roger was
propelled forward into the dimness by the eager helpers crowding at his back,
all agape with curiosity. The stacked bales and small casks of wine took shape
gradually, after the brief blindness of entering this dark place from sunlight.
Everything stood orderly and handy, just as it had been left overnight, and of
Warin there was no sign, until Rhodri ap Huw, ever practical, unbolted the
front hatch and let it down, and the brightness of the morning came flooding
in.

Stretched
along the foot of the same front wall, where Rhodri must almost have set foot
on him, Warin lay rolled in his own cloak and tied at elbows, knees and ankles
with cords, so tightly that he could barely wriggle enough to make the folds of
cloth rustle. There was a sack drawn over his head, and a length of linen
dragged the coarse fibres into his mouth and was secured behind his neck. He
was doing his best to answer to his name, and at least his limited jerkings and
muted grunts made it plain that he was alive.

Roger
uttered a wordless yell of alarm and indignation, and fell on his knees,
plucking first at the linen band that held the sack fast. The coarse cloth was
wet before with spittle, and
the mouth within must be clogged
and stung with ropey fibres, but at least the poor wretch could breathe, his
strangled grunts were trying to form words long before the linen parted, and
let him spit out his gag. Still beneath his sack, his hoarse croak demanded
aggrievedly: “Where were you so long, and me half-killed?”

A
couple of pairs of willing hands were at work on the other bonds by that time,
all the more zealously now they had heard him speak, and indeed complain, in
such reassuringly robust tones. Warin emerged gradually from his swaddlings,
unrolled unceremoniously out of the cloak so that he ended face-down on the
ground, and still incoherently voluble. He righted himself indignantly, but so
spryly that it was plain he had no broken bones, no painful injuries, and had
not even suffered overmuch from the cramps of his bonds. He looked up from
under his wild grey thatch of hair, half defensive and half accusing, glaring
round the circle of his rescuers as though they had been responsible for his
hours of discomfort.

“Late’s
better than never!” he said sourly, and hawked, and spat out fibres of sacking.
“What took you so long? Is everybody deaf? I’ve been kicking here half the
night!”

Half
a dozen hands reached pleasurably to hoist him to his feet and sit him down
gently on a cask of wine. Roger stood off and let them indulge their curiosity,
scowling blackly at his colleague meantime. There was no damage done, not a
scratch on the old fool! The first threat, and he had crumpled into a pliable
rag.

“For
God’s sake, what happened to you? You had the booth sealed. How could any man
break in here, and you not know? There are other merchants sleep here with
their wares, you had only to call.”

“Not
all,” said the cloth-merchant fairly. “I myself lie at a tavern, so do many. If
your man was sound asleep, as he well might be with all closed for the night…”

“It
was long past midnight,” said Warin, scrubbing aggrievedly at his chafed
ankles. “I know because I heard the little bell for Matins, over the wall,
before I slept. Not a sound after, until I awoke as that hood came over my
head. They rammed the stuff into my mouth. I never saw face or form, they
rolled me up like a bale of wool, and left me tied.”

“And you never raised a cry!” said Roger bitterly.
“How many were they? One or more?”

Warin
was disconcerted, and wavered, swaying either way. “I think two. I’m not sure…”

“You
were hooded, but you could hear. Did they talk together?”

“Yes,
now I recall there was some whispering. Not that I could catch any words. Yes,
they were two. There was moving about of casks and bales here, that I know…”

“For
how long? They durst not hurry, and have things fall and rouse the fairground,”
said the armourer reasonably. “How long did they stay?”

Warin
was vague, and indeed to a man blindfolded and tied by night, time might
stretch out like unravelled thread. “An hour, it might be.”

“Time
enough to find whatever was of most value here,” said the armourer, and looked
at Roger Dod, with a shrug of broad shoulders. “You’d better look about you,
lad, and see what’s missing. No need to trouble for anything so weighty as
casks of wine, they’d have needed a cart for those, and a cart in the small
hours would surely have roused someone. The small and precious is what they
came for.”

But
Roger had already turned his back on his rescued fellow, and was burrowing
frantically among the bales and boxes stacked along the wall. “My master’s
strong-box! I built it in behind here, out of sight… Thank God I took the most
of yesterday’s gains back to the barge with me last night, and have them safe
under lock and key, but for all that, there was a good sum left in it. And all his
accounts, and parchments…”

He
was thrusting boxes and bags of spices aside in his haste, scenting the air,
pushing out of his way wooden caskets of sugar confections from the east, come
by way of Venice and Gascony, and worth high prices in any market. “Here,
against the wall…”