An Excellent Mystery bc-11

by Ellis Peters

  Already soaked, he shook off water merrily as a fish, as much at home in it as beside it. He had been out in storms quite as sudden and drastic as this, and furious though it might be, he was assured it would not last very long.

  But somewhere far upstream they had received this baptism several hours ago, for flood water was coming down by this time in a great, foul brown wave, sweeping them before it. Madog ran with it, using his oars only to keep his boat well out in midstream. And steadily and viciously the torrent of rain fell, and the rolls and peals and slashes of thunder hounded them down towards Shrewsbury, and the lightnings, hot on the heels of the thunder, flashed and flamed and criss-crossed their path, the only light in a howling darkness. They could barely see either bank except when the lightning flared and vanished, and the blindness after its passing made the succeeding blaze even more blinding.

  Wet and streaming as a seal, Fidelis shook off water on either side, and held the cover over Humilis with braced and aching forearms. His eyes were tight-shut against the deluge of the rain, he opened them only by burdened glimpses, peering through the downpour. He did not know where they were, except by flaming visions that forced light through his very eyelids, and caused him to blink the torment away. Such a flare showed him trees leaning, gaunt and sinister, magnified by the lurid light before they were swallowed in the darkness. So they were already past the open water-meadows, surely by now morasses dimpled and pitted with heavy rain. They were being driven fast be tween the trees, not far now from possible shelter in Frankwell.

  In spite of the covering cloth they were awash. Water swirled in the bottom of the boat, cold and sluggish, a discomfort, but not a danger. They ran with the current, fouled and littered with leaves and the debris of branches, muddied and turgid and curling in perverse eddies. But very soon now they could come ashore in Frankwell and take cover in the nearest dwelling, hardly the worse for all this turmoil and violence.

  The thunder gathered and shrieked, one ear-bursting bellow. The lightning struck in time with it, a blinding glare. Fidelis opened his drowned eyes in shock at the blow, in time to see the thickest, oldest, most misshapen willow on the left bank leap, split asunder in flame, wrench out half its roots from the slithering, sodden shore, and burst into a tremendous blossom of fire, hurled into midstream over them, and blazing as it fell.

  Madog flung himself forward over Humilis in the shell of the boat. Like a bolt from a mangonel the shattered tree crashed down upon the bow of the skiff, smashed through its sides and split it apart like a cracked egg. Trunk and boat and cargo went down deep together into the murky waters. The fire died in an immense hissing. Everything was dark, everything suddenly cold and in motion and heavier than lead, dragging body and soul down among the weed and debris of storm, turning and turning and drifting fast, drawn irresistibly towards the ease and languor of death.

  Fidelis fought and kicked his way upward with bursting heart, against the comforting persuasion of despair, the cramping, crippling weight of his habit, and the swirling and battering of drifting branches and tangling weeds. He came to the surface and drew deep breath, clutching at leaves that slid through his fingers, and fastening greedily on a branch that held fast, and supported him with his head above water. Gasping, he shook off water and opened his eyes upon howling darkness. A cage of shattered branches surrounded and held him. Torn but still tenacious roots anchored the willow, heaving and plunging, against the surging current. A brychan from the boat wound itself about his arm like a snake, and almost tore him from his hold. He dragged himself along the branch, peering and straining after any glimpse of a floating hand, a pale face, phantom-like in all that chaotic gloom.

  A fold of black cloth coiled past, driven through the threshing leaves. The end of a sleeve surfaced, a pallid hand trailed by and went under again. Fidelis loosed his hold, and launched himself after it, clear of the tree, diving beneath the trammelling branches. The hem of the habit slid through his fingers, but he got a grip on the billowing folds of the cowl, and struck out towards the Frankwell shore to escape the trailing wreckage of the willow. Clinging desperately, he shifted to a better hold, holding the lax body of Humilis above him. Once they went down together. Then Madog was beside them, hoisting the weight of the unconscious body from arms that could not have sustained it longer.

  Fidelis drifted for a moment on the edge of acceptance, in an exhaustion which rendered the idea of death perilously attractive. Better by far to let go, abandon struggle, go wherever the current might take him.

  And the current took him and stranded him quite gently in the muddied grass of the shore, and laid him face-down beside the body of Brother Humilis, over which Madog of the Dead Boat was labouring all in vain.

  The rain slackened suddenly, briefly, the wind, which had the whistle of anguish on its driving breath, subsided for an instant, and the demons of thunder rolled and rumbled away downstream, leaving a breath of utter silence and almost stillness, between frenzies. And piercing through the lull, a great scream of deprivation and loss and grief shrilled aloft over Severn, startling the hunched and silent birds out of the bushes, and echoing down the flood in a long ululation from bank to bank, crying a bereavement beyond remedy.

  Chapter Thirteen.

  NICHOLAS WAS APPROACHING SHREWSBURY when the sky began to darken ominously, and he quickened his pace in the hope of reaching shelter in the town before the storm broke. But the first heavy drops fell as he reached the Foregate, and before his eyes the street was emptied of life, all its inhabitants going to ground within their houses, and closing doors and shutters against the rage to come. By the time he rode past the gatehouse of the abbey, abandoning the thought of waiting out the storm there, since he was now so close, the sky had opened, in a downpour so opaque and blinding that he found himself veering from side to side as he crossed the bridge, unable to steer a straight course. It seemed he was the only man left in a depopulated town in an empty world, for there was not another soul stirring.

  Under the arch of the town gate he halted to draw breath and clear his eyes, shaking off the weight of the rain. The whole width of Shrewsbury lay between him and the castle, but Hugh’s house by Saint Mary’s was no great distance, only up the curve of the Wyle and the level street beyond. Hugh was as likely to be there as at the castle. At least he could call in and ask, on his way through to the High Cross, and the descent to the castle gatehouse. He could hardly get wetter than he already was. He set off up the hill. Saner folk peered out through the chinks in their shuttered windows, and watched him scurrying head-down through the deluge. Overhead the thunder rolled and rattled round a sky dark as midnight, and lightnings flickered, drawing the peals ever closer after them. The horse was unhappy but well-trained, and pressed on obedient but quivering with fear.

  The gates of Hugh’s courtyard stood open, there was a degree of shelter under the lee of the house, and as soon as hooves were heard on the cobbles the hall door opened, and a groom came haring across from the stables to take the horse to cover. Aline stood peering anxiously out into the murky gloom, and beckoned the traveller in.

  “Before you drown, sir,” she said, all concern, as Nicholas plunged into the shelter of the doorway and let fall his streaming cloak, to avoid bringing it within. They stood looking earnestly at each other, for the light was too dim for instant recognition. Then she tilted her head, recaptured a memory, and smiled. “You are Nicholas Harnage! You came here with Hugh, when first you came to Shrewsbury. I remember now. Forgive such a slow welcome back, but I am not used to midnight in the afternoon. Come within, and let me find you some dry clothes-though I fear Hugh’s will be a tight fit for you.”

  He was warmed by her candour and kindness, but it could not divert him from the black intensity of his purpose here. He looked beyond her, where Constance hovered, clutching her tyrant Giles firmly by the hand, for fear he should mistake the deluge for a new amusement, and dart out into it.

  “The lord sheriff is not here? I must see him
as soon as may be. I bring grim news.”

  “Hugh is at the castle, but he’ll come by evening. Can it not wait? At least until this storm blows by. It cannot last long.”

  No, he could not wait. He would go on the rest of the way, fair or foul. He thanked her, almost ungraciously in his preoccupation, swung the wet cloak about him again, took back his horse from the groom, and was off again at a trot towards the High Cross. Aline sighed, shrugged, and went in, closing the door on the chaos without. Grim news! What could that mean? Something to do with King Stephen and Robert of Gloucester? Had the attempts at an exchange foundered? Or was it something to do with that young man’s personal quest? Aline knew the bare bones of the story, and felt a mild, rueful interest-a girl set free by her affianced husband, a favoured squire sent to tell her so, and too modest or too sensitive to pursue at once the attraction he felt towards her on his own account. Was the girl alive or dead? Better to know, once for all, than to go on tormented by uncertainty. But surely ‘grim news’ could only mean the worst.

  Nicholas reached the High Cross, spectral through the streaming rain, and turned down the slight slope towards the castle, and the broad ramp to the gatehouse. Water lay ankle-deep in the outer ward, draining off far too slowly to keep pace with the flood. A sergeant leaned out from the guard-room, and called the stranger within.

  “The lord sheriff? He’s in the hall. If you bear round into the inner ward close to the wall you’ll escape the worst. I’ll have your horse stabled. Or wait a while here in the dry, if you choose, for this can’t last for ever…”

  But no, he could not wait. The ring burned in his pouch, and the acid bitterness in his mind. He must get his tale at once to the ears of authority, and his teeth into the throat of Adam Heriet. He dared not stop hating, or the remaining grief became more than he could stand. He bore down on Hugh in the huge dark hall with the briefest of greetings and the most abrupt of challenges, an unkempt apparition, his wet brown hair plastered to forehead and temples, and water streaking his face.

  “My lord, I’m back from Winchester, with plain proof Julian is dead and her goods made away with long ago. And we must leave all else and turn every man you have here and I can raise in the south, to hunt down Adam Heriet. It was his doing-Heriet and his hired murderer, some footpad paid for his work with the price of Julian’s jewellery. Once we lay hands on him, he won’t be able to deny it. I have proof, I have witnesses that he said himself she was dead!”

  “Come, now!” said Hugh, his eyes rounding. “That’s a large enough claim. You’ve been a busy man in the south, I see, but so have we here. Come, sit, and let’s have the full story. But first, let’s have those wet clothes off you, and find you a man who matches, before you catch your death.” He shouted for the servants, and sent them running for towels and coats and hose.

  “No matter for me,” protested Nicholas feverishly, catching at his arm. “What matters is the proof I have, that fits only one man, to my mind, and he going free, and God knows where…”

  “Ah, but Nicholas, if it’s Adam Heriet you’re after, then you need fret no longer. Adam Heriet is safe behind a locked door here in the castle, and has been for a matter of days.”

  “You have him? You found Heriet? He’s taken?” Nicholas drew deep and vengeful breath, and heaved a great sigh.

  “We have him, and he’ll keep. He has a sister married to a craftsman in Brigge, and was visiting his kin like any honest man. Now he’s the sheriff’s guest, and stays so until we have the rights of it, so no more sweat for him.”

  “And have you got any part of it out of him? What has he said?”

  “Nothing to the purpose. Nothing an honest man might not have said in his place.”

  “That shall change,” said Nicholas grimly, and allowed himself to notice his own sodden condition for the first time, and to accept the use of the small chamber provided him, and the clothes put at his disposal. But he was half into his tale before he had dried his face and his tousled hair and shrugged his way into dry garments.

  “… never a trace anywhere of the church ornaments, which should be the most notable if ever they were marketed. And I was in two minds whether it was worth enquiring further, when the man’s wife came in, and I knew the ring she was wearing for Julian’s. No, that’s to press it too far, I know-say rather I saw that it fitted only too well the description we had of Julian’s. You remember? Enamelled all round with flowers in yellow and blue…”

  “I have the whole register by heart,” said Hugh drily.

  “Then you’ll see why I was so sure. I asked where she got it, and she said it was brought into the shop for sale along with two other pieces of jewellery, by a man about fifty years old. Three years back, on the twentieth day of August, for that was the day of her birth, and she asked the ring as a present, and got it from her husband. And the other two pieces, both sold since, they described to me as a necklace of polished stones and a silver bracelet engraved with sprays of vetch or pease. Three such, and all together! They could only be Julian’s.”

  Hugh nodded emphatic agreement to that. “And the man?”

  “The description the woman gave me fits what little I have been told of Adam Heriet, for till now I have not seen him. Fifty years old, tanned from living outdoor like forester or huntsman… You have seen him, you know more. Brown-bearded she said and balding, a face of oak… Is that in tune?”

  “To the letter and the note.”

  “And the ring I have. Here, see! I asked it of the woman for this need, and she trusted me with it, though she valued it and would not sell, and I must give it back-when its work is done! Could this be mistaken?”

  “It could not. Cruce and all his household will confirm it, but truth, we hardly need them. Is there more?”

  “There is! For the jeweller questioned the ownership, seeing these were all a woman’s things, and asked if the lady who owned them had no further use for them. And the man said, as for the lady who had owned them, no, she had no further use for them, seeing she was dead!”

  “He said so? Thus baldly?”

  “He did. Wait, there’s more! The woman was a little curious about him, and followed him out of the shop when he left. And she saw him meet with a young fellow who was lurking by the wall outside, and give something over to him-a part of the money or the whole, or so she thought. And when they were aware of her watching, they slipped away round the corner out of sight, very quickly.”

  “All this she will testify to?”

  “I am sure she will. And a good witness, careful and clear.”

  “So it seems,” said Hugh, and shut his fingers decisively over the ring. “Nicholas, you must take some food and wine now, while this downpour continues-for why should you drown a second time when we have our quarry already in safe hold? But as soon as it stops, you and I will go and confront Master Heriet with this pretty thing, and see if we cannot prise more out of him this time than a child’s tale of gaping at the wonders of Winchester.”

  Ever since dinner Brother Cadfael had been dividing his time between the mill and the gatehouse, forewarned of possible trouble by the massing of the clouds long before the rain began. When the storm broke he took refuge in the mill, from which vantage-point he could keep an eye on both the pond and its outlet to the brook, and the road from the town, in case Madog should have found it advisable to land his charges for shelter in Frankwell, rather than completing the long circuit of the town, in which case he would come afoot to report as much.

  The mill’s busy season was over, it was quiet and dim within, no sound but the monotonous dull drumming of the rain. It was there that Madog found him, a drowned rat of a Madog, alone. He had come by the path outside the abbey enclave, by which the town customers approached with their grain to be milled, rather than enter at the gatehouse. He loomed shadowy against the open doorway, and stood mute, dangling long, helpless arms. No man’s strength could fight off the powers of weather and storm and thunder. Even his long endurance had
its limits.

  “Well?” said Cadfael, chilled with foreboding.

  “Not well, but very ill.” Madog came slowly within, and what light there was showed the dour set of his face. “Anything to astonish me, you said! I have had my fill of astonishment, and I bring it straight to you, as you wished. God knows,” he said, wringing out beard and hair, and shaking rivulets of rain from his shoulders, “I’m at a loss to know what to do about it. If you had foreknowledge, you may be able to see a way forward-I’m blind!” He drew deep breath, and told it all in words blunt and brief. “The rain alone would not have troubled us. The lightning struck a tree, heaved it at us as we passed, and split us asunder. The boat’s gone piecemeal down the river, where the shreds will fetch up there’s no guessing. And those two brothers of yours…”

  “Drowned?” said Cadfael in a stunned whisper.

  “The older one, Marescot, yes… Dead, at any rate. I got him out, the young one helping, though him I had to loose, I could not grapple with both. But I could get no breath back into Marescot. There was barely time for him to drown, the shock more likely stopped his heart, frail as he was-the cold, even the noise of the thunder. However it was, he’s dead. There’s an end. As for the other-what is there I could tell you of the other, that you do not know?”

  He was searching Cadfael’s face with close and wondering attention. “No, there’s no astonishment in it for you, is there? You knew it all before. Now what do we do?”

  Cadfael stirred out of his stillness, gnawed a cautious lip, and stared out into the rain. The worst had passed, the sky was growing lighter. Far along the river valley the diminishing rolls of thunder followed the foul brown flood-water downstream.

  “Where have you left them?”

  “On the far side of Frankwell, not a mile from the bridge, there’s a hut on the bank, the fishermen use it. We fetched up close by, and I got them into cover there. We’ll need a litter to bring Marescot home, but what of the other?”