by Ellis Peters
“So I did. It was not so difficult. I was a long time in the world. Will you taste my wine? It’s made from pears, when the crop’s good.”
“Gladly! And drink to your better success — against all opponents but Hugh Beringar.”
He was on his knees by then, unknotting the rope that bound his prize. One sack disgorged another, the second a third. It could not be said that he was feverish in his eagerness, or showed any particular greed, only a certain excited curiosity. Out of the third sack rolled a tight bundle of cloth, dark-coloured, that fell apart as it was freed from constriction, and shed two unmistakable sleeves across the earth floor. The white of a shirt showed among the tangle of dark colours, and uncurled to reveal three large, smooth stones, a coiled leather belt, a short dagger in a leather sheath. Last of all, out of the centre something hard and small and bright rolled and lay still, shedding yellow flashes as it moved, burning sullenly gold and silver when it lay still at Beringar’s feet.
And that was all.
On his knees, he stared and stared, in mute incomprehension, his black brows almost elevated into his hair, his dark eyes round with astonishment and consternation. There was nothing more to be read, in a countenance for once speaking volubly, no recoil, no alarm, no guilt. He leaned forward, and with a sweep of his hand parted all those mysterious garments, spread them abroad, gaped at them, and fastened on the stones. His eyebrows danced, and came down to their normal level, his eyes blazing understanding; he cast one glittering glance at Cadfael, and then he began to laugh, a huge, genuine laughter that shook him where he kneeled, and made the bunches of herbs bob and quiver over his head. A good, open, exuberant sound it was; it made Cadfael, even at this moment, shake and laugh with him.
“And I have been commiserating with you,” gasped Beringar, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, like a child, “all this time, while you had this in store for me! What a fool I was, to think I could out-trick you, when I almost had your measure even then.”
“Here, drink this down,” urged Cadfael, offering the beaker he had filled. “To your own better success — with all opponents but Cadfael!”
Beringar took it, and drank heartily. “Well, you deserve that. You have the last laugh, but at least you lent it to me a while, and I shall never enjoy a better. What was it you did? How was it done? I swear I never took my eyes from you. You did draw up what that young man of yours had drowned there, I heard it rise, I heard the water run from it on the stone.”
“So I did, and let it down again, but very softly. This one I had ready in the boat. The other Godith and her squire drew up as soon as you and I were well on our way.”
“And have it with them now?” asked Beringar, momentarily serious.
“They have. By now, I hope, in Wales, where Owain Gwynedd’s hand will be over them.”
“So all the while you knew that I was watching and following you?”
“I knew you must, if you wanted to find your treasure. No one else could lead you to it. If you cannot shake off surveillance,” said Brother Cadfael sensibly, “the only thing to do is make use of it.”
‘“you certainly did. My treasure!” echoed Beringar, and looked it over and laughed afresh. “Well, now I understand Godith better. In a fair win and a fair defeat, she said, there should be no heartburning! And there shall be none!” He looked again, more soberly, at the things spread before him on the earth floor, and after some frowning thought looked up just as intently at Cadfael. “The stones and the sacks, anything to make like for like,” he said slowly, “that I understand. But why these? What are these things to do with me?”
“You recognise none of them — I know. They are nothing to do with you, happily for you and for me. These,” said Cadfael, stooping to pick up and shake out shirt and hose and cotte, “are the clothes Nicholas Faintree was wearing when he was strangled by night, in a hut in the woods above Frankwell, and thrown among the executed under the castle wall, to cover up the deed.”
“Your one man too many,” said Beringar, low-voiced.
“The same. Torold Blund rode with him, but they were separated when this befell. The murderer was waiting also for him, but with the second one he failed. Torold won away with his charge.”
“That part I know,” said Beringar. “The last he said to you, and you to him, that evening in the mill, that I heard, but no more.”
He looked long at the poor relics, the dark brown hose and russet cotte, a young squire’s best. He looked up at Cadfael, and eyed him steadily, very far from laughter now. “I understand. You put these together to spring upon me when I was unprepared — when I looked for something very different. For me to see, and recoil from my own guilt. If this happened the night after the town fell, I had ridden out alone, as I recall. And I had been in the town the same afternoon, and to say all, yes, I did gather more than she bargained for from Petronilla. I knew this was in the wind, that there were two in Frankwell waiting for darkness before they rode. Though what I was listening for was a clue to Godith, and that I got, too. Yes, I see that I might well be suspect. But do I seem to you a man who would kill, and in so foul a fashion, just to secure the trash those children are carrying away with them into Wales?”
“Trash?” echoed Cadfael, mildly and thoughtfully.
“Oh, pleasant to have, and useful, I know. But once you have enough of it for your needs, the rest of it is trash. Can you eat it, wear it, ride it, keep off the rain and the cold with it, read it, play music on it, make love to it?”
“You can buy the favour of kings with it,” suggested Cadfael, but very placidly.
“I have the king’s favour. He blows too many ways as his advisers persuade him, but left alone he knows a man when he finds one. And he demands unbecoming services when he’s angry and vengeful, but he despises those who run too servilely to perform, and never leave him time to think better of his vindictiveness. I was with him in his camp a part of that evening, he has accepted me to hold my own castles and border for him, and raise the means and the men in my own way, which suits me very well. Yes, I would have liked, when such a chance offered, to secure FitzAlan’s gold for him, but losing it is no great matter, and it was a good fight. So answer me, Cadfael, do I seem to you a man who would strangle his fellow-man from behind for money?”
“No! There were the circumstances that made it a possibility, but long ago I put that out of mind. You are no such man. You value yourself too high to value a trifle of gold above your self-esteem. I was as sure as man could well be, before I put it to the test tonight,” said Cadfael, “that you wished Godith well out of her peril, and were nudging my elbow with the means to get her away. To try at the same time for the gold was fair dealing enough. No, you are not my man. There is not much,” he allowed consideringly, “that I would put out of your scope, but killing by stealth is one thing I would never look for from you, now that I know you. Well, so you can’t help me. There’s nothing here to shake you, and nothing for you to recognise.”
“Not recognise — no, not that.” Beringar picked up the yellow topaz in its broken silver claw, and turned it thoughtfully in his hands. He rose, and held it to the lamp to examine it better. “I never saw it before. But for all that, my thumbs prick. This, after a fashion, I think I may know. I watched with Aline while she prepared her brother’s body for burial. All his things she put together and brought them, I think, to you to be given as aims, all but the shirt that was stained with his death-sweat. She spoke of something that was not there, but should have been there — a dagger that was hereditary in her family, and went always to the eldest son when he came of age. As she described it to me, I do believe this may be the great stone that tipped the hilt.” He looked up with furrowed brows. “Where did you find this? Not on your dead man!”
“Not on him, no. But trampled into the earth floor, where Torold had rolled and struggled with the murderer. And it does not belong to any dagger of Torold’s. There is only one other who can have worn it.”
“Are you saying,” demanded Beringar, aghast, “that it was Aline’s brother who slew Faintree? Has she to bear that, too?”
“You are forgetting, for once, your sense of time,” said Brother Cadfael, reassuringly. “Giles Siward was dead several hours before Nicholas Faintree was murdered. No, never fear, there’s no guilt there can touch Aline. No, rather, whoever killed Nicholas Faintree had first robbed the body of Giles, and went to his ambush wearing the dagger he had contemptibly stolen.”
Beringar sat down abruptly on Godith’s bed, and held his head hard -between his hands. “For God’s sake, give me more wine, my mind no longer works.” And when his beaker was refilled he drank thirstily, picked up the topaz again and sat weighing it in his hand. “Then we have some indication of the man you want. He was surely present through part, at any rate, of that grisly work done at the castle, for there, if we’re right, he lifted the pretty piece of weaponry to which this thing belongs. But he left before the work ended, for it went on into the night, and by then, it seems, he was lurking in ambush on the other side Frankwell. How did he learn of their plans? May not one of those poor wretches have tried to buy his own life by betraying them? Your man was there when the killing began, but left well before the end. Prestcote was there surely, Ten Heyt and his Flemings were there and did the work, Courcelle, I hear, fled the business as soon as he could, and took to the cleaner duties of scouring the town for FitzAlan, and small blame to him.”
“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 swordbelt.
