St. Peter's Fair

by Ellis Peters

  She had laughed and shaken her head over Aline’s romantic fantasies, refusing to believe in any union between landed nobility and trade, except for mutual profit. Now she was not so sure that wisdom was all with the sceptics.

  *

  The hollow where the big, heavy body had lain still showed at least the approximate bulk of Master Thomas’s person, and round about it the grass was trodden, as though someone, or perhaps more than one, had circled all round him as he lay dead. And so they surely had, for here he must have been stripped and searched, the first of those fruitless searches Brother Cadfael had deduced from the events following. Out of the hollow, down to the raised bank of the river, went the track by which he had been dragged, the grass, growing longer as it emerged from shade, all brushed in one direction.

  Nor was there any doubt about the traces of blood, meagre though they were. The sliver of birch bark under the tree showed a thin crust, dried black. Careful search found one or two more spots, and a thin smear drawn downhill, where it seemed the dead man had been turned on his back to be hauled the more easily down to the water.

  “It’s deep here,” said Hugh, standing on the green hillock above the river, “and undercuts the bank, it would take him well out into the current. I fancy the clothes went after him at once, we may find the rest yet. One man could have done it. Had they been two, they would have carried him.”

  “Would you say,” wondered Cadfael, “that this is a reasonable way he might take to get back to his barge? He’d know his boat lay somewhat down-river from the bridge, I suppose he might try a chance cut through from the Foregate, and overcast by a little way. You see the end of the jetty, where the barge tied up, is only a small way upstream from us. Would you say he was alone, and unsuspecting, when he was struck down?”

  Hugh surveyed the ground narrowly. It was not the scene of a struggle, there was the flattened area of the body’s fall, and the trampling of feet all round its stillness. The brushings of the grass this way and that were ordered, not the marks of a fight.

  “Yes. There was no resistance. Someone crept behind, and pierced him without word or scruple. He went down and lay. He was on his way back, preferring the byways, and came out a little downstream of where he aimed. Someone had been watching and following him.”

  “The same night,” said Philip flatly, “someone had been watching and following me.”

  He had their attention at once, both of them eyeing him with sharp interest. “The same someone?” suggested Cadfael mildly.

  “I haven’t told you my own part,” said Philip. “It went out of my head when I stumbled on this place, and guessed at what it meant. What I set out to do was to find out just what I did that night, and prove I never did murder. For I’d come to think that whoever intended this killing had his eye on me from the start. I came from that riot on the jetty, with my head bleeding and my mood for murder, I was a gift, if I could but be out of sight and mind when murder was done.” He told them everything he had discovered, word for word. By the end of it they were both regarding him with intent and frowning concentration.

  “The man Fowler?” said Hugh. “You’re sure of this?”

  “Walter Renold is sure, and I think him a good witness. The man was there to be seen, I pointed him out, and Wat told me what he’d seen of him that night. Fowler looked in, saw and heard the condition I was in, and went away again for it might be as much as half an hour, says Wat. Then he came back, took one measure of ale to drink, and bought a big flask of geneva spirit.”

  “And left with it unopened,” Brother Cadfael recalled, “as soon as you took yourself off with your misery into the bushes. No need to blush for it now, we’ve all done as foolishly once or twice in our lives, many of us have bettered it. And the next that’s known of him,” he said, meeting Hugh’s eyes across the glade, “is two hours later, when we discover him lying sodden-drunk under a store of trestles by the Foregate.”

  “And Wat of the tavern swears he was sober as a bishop when he quit the inn.”

  “And I would swear by Wat’s judgment,” said Philip stoutly. “If any man drank that flagon dry in two hours, he says, it would be the death of him, or go very near. And Fowler was testifying in court next day, and little the worse for wear.”

  “Good God!” said Hugh, shaking his head. “I stooped over him, I pulled back the cloak from his shoulders. The fellow reeked. His breath would have felled an ox. Am I losing my wits?”

  “Or was it rather the reek you loosed by moving the cloak? I begin to have curious thoughts,” said Cadfael, “for I fancy that juniper liquor was bought for his outside, not his inside.”

  “A costly freak,” mused Hugh, “the price such liquors are. Cheap enough, though, if it bought him immunity from all suspicion of a thing that could have cost him a deal higher. What was the first thing I said?—more fool I! By the look of him, I said, he must have been here some hours already. And where did he go from there? Safely into an abbey punishment cell, and lay there overnight. How could he be guilty of anything but being a drunken sot? Children and drunken men are the world’s only innocents! If murder was done that night, who was to look at a man who had put himself out of the reckoning from the time Master Thomas was last seen alive to the time when his body was brought back to Shrewsbury?”

  Cadfael’s mind had probed even beyond that point, though nothing beyond was yet clear. “I have a fancy, Hugh, to look again at the place where we picked up that sodden carcase, if it can be found. Surely an honest drunk should have had his bottle lying beside him for all to see. But I remember none. If we missed it, and some stray scavenger found it by night, still half-full or more, well and good. But if by any chance it was hidden—so that no questions need ever be asked about how much had been drunk, and what manner of head could have borne it—would that be the act of a simple sot? He could not walk through the fairground stinking as he did, whether from outside or in. His baptism was there, where we found him tucked away. So should his bottle have been.”

  “And if he was neither simple nor a sot that night, Cadfael, how do you read his comings and goings? He looked in at the tavern, took note of this lad’s state, listened to his complaints, and went away—where?”

  “As far as Master Thomas’s booth, perhaps, to make sure the merchant was there, busy about his wares, and likely to be busy for a while longer? And so back to the tavern to keep watch on Philip, so handy a scapegoat, and so clearly on the way to ending the evening blind and deaf. And afterwards, when he had followed him far enough into the copse to know he was lost to the world, back to dog Master Thomas’s footsteps as he made his way back to the barge. Made his way, that is, as far as this place.”

  “It is all conjecture,” said Hugh reasonably.

  “It is. But read it so, and it makes sense.”

  “Then back with his flask of spirits ready, to slip unseen into a place withdrawn and private, and become the wretched object we found. How long would it take, would you say, to kill his man, search and strip him down to the river?”

  “Counting the time spent following him unseen, and returning unnoticed to the fairground after all was done, more than an hour of those two hours lost between drunk and sober. No,” said Cadfael sombrely, “I do not think he spent any of that time drinking.”

  “Was it he, also, who boarded the barge? But no, that he could not, he was at the sheriff’s court. Concerning the merchant of Shotwick, we already know his slayer.”

  “We know one of them,” said Cadfael. “Can any of these matters be separated from the rest? I think not. This pursuit is all one.”

  “You do grasp,” said Hugh, after a long moment of furious thought, “what it is we are saying? Here are these two men, one proven a murderer, the other suspect. And yesterday the one of them fetched down the other to his death. Coldly, expertly… Before we say more,” said Hugh abruptly, casting a final glance about the glade, “let’s do as you suggested, look again at the place where we found him lying.”

>   Chapter 2

  PHILIP, WHO WAS LEARNING how to listen and be silent, followed at their heels all the way back through the orchards and gardens of the Gaye. Neither of them found fault with his persistence. He had earned his place, and had no intention of being put off. All the larger boats were already gone from the jetty. Soon the labourers would begin dismantling the boards and piers until the following year, and stowing them away in the abbey storehouses. Along the Foregate stalls were being taken down and stacked for removal, while two of the abbey carts worked their way along from the horse-fair towards the gatehouse.

  “More than halfway along, I remember,” said Hugh, “and well back from the roadway. There were few lights, most of the stalls here were for the country people who come in by the day. Somewhere in this stretch.”

  There had been trestles stacked that night, and canvas awnings leaning against them ready for use. This morning there were also piles of trestles and boards, ready now to be put away for the next fair. They surveyed all the likely area, but to lay a finger on the exact place was impossible. One of the collecting carts had reached this stretch, and two lay servants were hoisting the heaped planks aboard, and stacking the trestles one within another in high piles. Cadfael watched as the ground was gradually cleared.

  “You’ve found some unexpected discards,” he commented, for a corner of the cart carried a small pile of odd objects, a large shoe, a short cotte, bedraggled but by no means old or ragged, a child’s wooden doll with one arm missing, a green capuchon, a drinking-horn.

  “There’ll be many more such, brother,” said the carter, grinning, “before the whole ground’s cleared. Some will be claimed. I fancy some child will want to know where she lost her doll. And the cotte is good stuff, some young gentleman took a drop too much, and forgot to collect that when he moved. The shoe’s as good as new, too, and a giant’s size, somebody may sneak in, shamefaced, to ask after that. I hope he had not far to go home with only one. But it wasn’t a rowdy night—not like many a night I’ve seen.” He slid powerful arms under a stack of trestles, and hoisted them bodily. “You’d hardly credit where we found that flagon there.”

  His nod indicated the front of the car, to which Cadfael had hitherto devoted no attention. Slung by a thin leather thong from the shaft hung a flattened glass bottle large enough to hold a quart. “Stuck on top of the canvas over one of the country stalls. An old woman who sells cheeses had the stall, I know her, she comes every year, and seeing she’s not so nimble nowadays, we put up the stall for her the night before the fair opened. The bottle all but brained Daniel here, when we took it down, this morning! Fancy tossing a bottle like that away as if it had no value! He could have got a free drink at Wat’s if he’d taken it back, whoever he was.”

  His armful of trestles thumped into the cart, and he turned to heave a stack of boards after it.

  “It came from Wat’s tavern then, did it?” asked Cadfael, very thoughtfully gazing.

  “It has his mark on the thong. We all know where they belong, these better vessels. But they’re not often left for us.”

  “And where was the stall where this one was left?” asked Hugh over Cadfael’s shoulder.

  “Not ten yards back from where you’re standing.” They could not resist looking back to measure, and it would do. It would do very well. “The odd thing is, the old woman swore, when she came to put out her wares, that there was a stink of spirits about the place. Said she could smell it in her skirts at night, as if she’d been wading in it. But after the first day she forgot about it. She’s half-Welsh, and has a touch of the strange about her, I daresay she imagined it.”

  Cadfael would have said, rather, that she had a keen nose, and some knowledge of the distilling of spirits, and had accurately assessed the cause of her uneasiness. Somewhere in the grass close to her stall, he was now certain, a good part of that quart of liquor had been poured out generously over clothing and ground, no wonder the turf retained it. A taste of it, perhaps, to scent the breath and steady the mind, might have gone down a throat; but no more, for the mind had been steady indeed, when stranger stooped over its fleshly habitation, and sniffed at its flagrant drunkenness. Strangers, all but one! Cadfael began to see what could hardly be called light, for he was looking into a profound darkness.

  “It so happens,” he said, “that we have some business with Walter Renold. Will you let us take your bottle back to him? You shall have the credit for it with him.”

  “Take it, brother,” agreed the carter cheerfully, unleashing the bottle from the shaft. “Tell him Rychart Nyall sent it. Wat knows me.”

  “Nothing in it, I suppose, when you found it?” hazarded Cadfael, hefting the fated thing in one hand.

  “Never a drop, brother! Fair-goers may abandon the bottle, but they make sure of what’s inside before they fall senseless!”

  The boards were stowed, the stripped ground lay trampled and naked, the cart moved on. It would take no more than a handful of days and the next summer showers, and all the green, fine hair would grow again, and the bald clay coil into ringlets.

  *

  “It’s mine, surely,” said Wat, receiving the bottle into a large hand. “The only one of its kind I’m short. Who buys this measure of spirits, even at a fair? Who has the money to afford it? And who chooses it afore decent ale and wine? Not many! I’ve known men desperate to sink their souls fast, at whatever cost, but seldom at a fair. They turn genial at fairs, even the sad fellows get the wind of it, and mellow. I marvelled at that one, even when he asked for it and paid the price, but he was plainly some lord’s servant, he had his orders. He had money, and I sell liquor. But yes, if it’s of worth to you, that same fellow Philip here knows of, that’s the measure he bought.”

  *

  A retired corner of Wat’s large taproom was as good a place as any to sit down and think before action, and try to make sense of what they had gathered.

  “Wat has just put words to it,” said Cadfael. “We should have been quicker to see. He was plainly some lord’s servant, he had his orders, he had money. One man from a lord’s household suborned to murder by an unknown, one such setting out on his own account to enrich himself by murder and theft, that I could believe in. But two? From the same household? No, I think not! They never strayed from their own manor. They served but one lord.”

  “Their own? Corbière?” whispered Philip, the breath knocked out of him by the enormity of the implications. “But he… The way I heard it, the groom tried to ride him down. Struck him into the dust when he tried to stop him. How can you account for that? There’s no sense in it.”

  “Wait! Take it from the beginning. Say that on the night Master Thomas died, Fowler was sent out to deal with him, to get possession of whatever it is someone so much desires. His lord has spied out the land, told him of a handy scapegoat who may yet be useful, given him money for the drink that will put him out of the reckoning when the deed is done. The man would demand immunity, he must be seen to be out of the reckoning. His lord keeps in close touch, joins us when we go forth to look for the missing merchant. Recollect, Hugh, it was Corbière, not we, who discovered his truant man. We had passed him by, and that would not have done. He must be found, must be seen to be so drunk as to have been helpless and harmless some hours, and must then be manifestly under lock and key many hours more. Ten murders could have been committed that night, and no one would ever have looked at Turstan Fowler.”

  “All for nothing,” pointed out Hugh. “Sooner or later he had to tell his master that murder had been done in vain. Master Thomas did not carry his treasure on him.”

  “I doubt if he found that out until morning, when he had his man let out of prison. Therefore he brought Fowler to lay evidence that made sure the finger was pointed at Philip here, and while we were all blamelessly busy at the sheriff’s hearing, sent his second man to search the barge. And again, vainly. Am I making sense of it thus far?”

  “Sound enough,” said Hugh sombrely. “The w
orst is yet to come. Which man, do you suppose, did the work that day?”

  “I doubt if they ever involved the young one. Two were enough to do the business. The groom Ewald, I think. Those two were the hands that did all. But they were not the mind.”

  “That same night, then, they broke into the booth, and made their search there, and still without success. The next night came the attack that killed Euan of Shotwick.” Hugh said no word of the violation of Master Thomas’s coffin. “And, as I remember you argued, once more in vain. So far, possible enough. But come to yesterday’s thorny business. For God’s sake, how can sense be made of that affair? I was there watching the man, I saw him change colour, I swear it! Shock and anger and affronted honour, he showed them all. He would not send for the groom, for fear a fellow-servant might warn him, he would fetch him himself. He placed himself between his man and the gate, he risked maiming or worse, trying to halt his flight…”

  “All that,” agreed Cadfael heavily, “and yet there is sense in it all, though a more abominable sense even than you or I dreamed of. Ewald was in the stables, there was no escape for him unless he could break out of our walls. Corbière came at the sheriff’s bidding, and was told all. His man was detected past denying, and driven into a corner, he would pour out everything he knew, lay the load on his lord. Consider the order in which everything happened from that moment. Fowler had been at the butts, and had his arbalest with him. Corbière set off to summon Ewald from the stables, Turstan made to follow him, yes, and some words were exchanged that sent him back. But what words? They were too distant to be heard. Nor could we guess what was said in the stable-yard. We waited—you’ll agree?—several minutes before they came. Long enough for Corbière to tell the groom how things stood, bid him keep his head, promise him escape. Bring the horse, I will ensure that only I stand between you and the gate, pick your moment, mount and away. Lie up in hiding—doubtless at his manor—and you shan’t be the loser. But make it clear that I have no part in this—attack me, make it good for your part, I will make it good for mine. And so he did—the finest player of a part that ever I saw. He set himself between Ewald and the gate, and between them they used the lively horse to edge us all that way. He made a gallant grab at the rein, and took a heavy fall, and the groom was clear.”