St. Peter's Fair (8 page)

A
late boat coming up the Severn from Buildwas next day, and tying up at the
bridge about nine in the morning, delayed its unloading of a cargo of pottery
to ask first that a message be sent to the sheriff, for they had other cargo
aboard, taken up out of a cove near Atcham, which would be very much the
sheriff’s business. Gilbert Prestcote, busy with other matters, sent from the
castle his own sergeant, with orders to report first to Hugh Beringar at the
abbey.

The
particular cargo the potter had to deliver lay rolled in a length of coarse
sail-cloth in the bottom of the boat, and oozed water in a dark stain over the
boards. The boatman unfolded the covering, and displayed to Beringar’s view the
body of a heavily-built man of some fifty to fifty-five years, fleshy, with
thinning, grizzled hair and bristly, bluish jowls, his pouchy features sagging
doughily in death. Master Thomas of Bristol, stripped of his elaborate
capuchon, his handsome gown, his rings and his dignity, as naked as the day he
was born.

“We
saw his whiteness bobbing under the bank,” said the potter, looking down upon
his salvaged man, “and poled in to pick him up, the poor soul. I can show you
the place, this side of the shallows and the island at Atcham. We thought best
to bring him here, as we would a drowned man. But this one,” he said very
soberly, “did not drown.”

No,
Thomas of Bristol had not drowned. That was already evident from the very fact
that he had been stripped of everything he had on, and hardly by his own hands
or will. But also, even more certainly, from the incredibly narrow wound under
his left shoulder-blade, washed white and closed by the river, where a very
fine, slender dagger had transfixed him and penetrated to his heart.

The First Day of the Fair

Chapter One

THE
FIRST DAY OF SAINT PETER’S FAIR was in full swing, and the merry, purposeful hum
of voices bargaining, gossiping and crying wares came over the wall into the
great court, and in at the gatehouse, like the summer music of a huge hive of
bees on a sunny day. The sound pursued Hugh Beringar back to the apartment in
the guest-hall, where his wife and Emma Vernold were very pleasurably comparing
the virtues of various wools, and the maid Constance, who was an expert
spinstress, was fingering the samples critically and giving her advice.

On
this domestic scene, which had brought back the fresh colour to Emma’s cheeks
and the animation to her voice, Hugh’s sombre face cast an instant cloud. There
was no time for breaking news circuitously, nor did he think that this girl
would thank him for going roundabout.

“Mistress
Vernold, my news is ill, and I grieve for it. God knows I had not expected
this. Your uncle is found. A boat coming up early this morning from Buildwas
picked up his body from the river.”

The
colour ebbed from her face. She stood with frightened, helpless eyes gazing
blindly before her. The prop of her life had suddenly been plucked away, and
for a moment it seemed that all balance was lost to her, and she might indeed
fall for want of him. But by the time she had drawn breath deep, and shaped
soundlessly: “Dead!” it was clear that she was firm on her own feet again, and
in no danger of falling. Her
eyes, once the momentary panic and
dizziness passed, looked straight at Hugh and made no appeal.

“Drowned?”
she said. “But he swam well, he was raised by the river. And if he drank at
all, it was sparingly. I do not believe he could fall into Severn and drown.
Not of himself!” she said, and her large eyes dilated.

“Sit
down,” said Hugh gently, “for we must talk a little, and then I shall leave you
with Aline, for of course you must remain here in our care for this while. No,
he did not drown. Nor did he come by his death of himself. Master Thomas was
stabbed from behind, stripped, and put into the river after death.”

“You
mean,” she said, in a voice low and laboured, but quite steady, “he was waylaid
and killed by mere sneak-thieves, for what he had on him? For his rings and his
gown and his shoes?”

“It
is what leaps to the mind. There are no roads in England now that can be called
safe, and no great fair that has not its probable underworld of hangers-on, who
will kill for a few pence.”

“My
uncle was not a timid man. He has fought off more than one attack in his time,
and he never avoided a journey for fear in his life. After all these years,”
she said, her voice aching with protest, “why should he fall victim now to such
scum? And yet what else can it be?”

“There
are some people recalling,” said Hugh, “that there was an ugly incident on the
jetty last evening, and violence was done to a number of the merchants who were
unloading goods and setting up stalls for the fair. It’s common knowledge there
was bad blood between town and traders, of whom Master Thomas was perhaps the
most influential. He was involved bitterly with the young man who led the raid.
An attack made in revenge, by night, perhaps in a drunken rage, might end
mortally, whether it was meant or no.”

“Then
he would have been left where he lay,” said Emma sharply. “His attacker would
think only of getting clean away unseen. Those angry people were not thieves,
only townsmen with a grievance. A grievance might turn them into murderers, but
I do not think it would turn them into thieves.”

Hugh
was beginning to feel considerable respect for this girl, as Aline, by her
detached silence and her attentive face,
had already learned to
do. “I won’t say but I agree with you there,” he admitted. “But it might well
occur to a young man turned murderer almost by mishap, to dress his crime as
the common sneak killing for robbery. It opens so wide a field. Twenty young
men bitterly aggrieved and hot against your uncle for his scorn of them could
be lost among a thousand unknown, and the most unlikely suspects among them, at
that, if this passes as chance murder for gain.”

Even
in the bleak newness of her bereavement, this thought troubled her. She bit a
hesitant lip. “You think it may have been one of those young men? Or more of
them together? That they burned with their grudge until they followed him in
the dark, and took this way?”

“It’s
being both thought and said,” owned Hugh, “by many people who witnessed what
happened by the river.”

“But
the sheriff’s men,” she pointed out, frowning, “surely took up many of those
young men long before my uncle went to the fairground. If they were already in
prison, they could not have harmed him.”

“True
of most of them. But the one who led them was not taken until the small hours
of the morning, when he came reeling back to the town gate, where he was
awaited. He is in a cell in the castle now, like his fellows, but he was still
at liberty long after Master Thomas failed to come back to you, and he is under
strong suspicion of this death. The whole pack of them will come before the
sheriff this afternoon. The rest, I fancy, will be let out on their fathers’ bail,
to answer the charges later. But for Philip Corviser, I greatly doubt it. He
will need to have better answers than he was able to give when they took him.”

“This
afternoon!” echoed Emma. “Then I should also attend. I was a witness when this
turmoil began. The sheriff should hear my testimony, too, especially if my
uncle’s death is in question. There were others—Master Corbière, and the
brother of the abbey, the one you know well…”

“They
will be attending, and others besides. Certainly your witness would be
valuable, but to ask it of you at such a time…”

“I
would rather!” she said firmly. “I want my uncle’s murderer caught, if indeed
he was murdered, but I pray no innocent man may be too hurriedly blamed. I
don’t know—
I would not have thought he looked like a murderer… I
should like to tell what I do know, it is my duty.”

Beringar
cast a brief glance at his wife for enlightenment, and Aline gave him a smile
and the faintest of nods.

“If
you are resolved on that,” he said, reassured, “I will ask Brother Cadfael to
escort you. And for the rest, you need have no anxieties about your own
situation. It will be necessary for you to stay here until this matter is
looked into, but naturally you will remain here in Aline’s company, and you
shall have every possible help in whatever dispositions you need to make.”

“I
should like,” said Emma, “to take my uncle’s body back by the barge to Bristol
for burial.” She had not considered, until then, that there would be no
protector for her on the boat this time, only Roger Dod, whose mute but
watchful and jealous devotion was more than she could bear, Warin who would
take care to notice nothing that might cause him trouble, and poor Gregory, who
was strong and able of body but very dull of wit. She drew in breath sharply,
and bit an uncertain lip, and the shadow came back to her eyes. “At least, to
send him back… His man of law there will take care of his affairs and mine.”

“I
have spoken to the prior. Abbot Radulfus sanctions the use of an abbey chapel,
your uncle’s body can lie there when he is brought from the castle, and all due
preparations will be made for his decent coffining. Ask for anything you want,
it shall be at your disposal. I must summon your journeyman to attend at the
castle this afternoon, too. How would you wish him to deal, concerning the
fair? I will give him whatever instructions you care to send.”

She
nodded understanding, visibly bracing herself again towards a world of shrewd
daily business which had not ceased with the ending of a life. “Be so kind as
to tell him,” she said, “to continue trading for the three days of the fair, as
though his master still presided. My uncle would scorn to go aside from his
regular ways for any danger or loss, and so will I in his name.” And suddenly,
as freely and as simply as a small child, she burst into tears at last.

When
Hugh was gone about his business, and Constance had withdrawn at Aline’s nod,
the two women sat quietly until
Emma had ceased to weep, which
she did as suddenly as she had begun. She wept, as some women have the gift of
doing, without in the least defacing her own prettiness and without caring
whether she did or no. Most lose the faculty, after the end of childhood. She
dried her eyes, and looked up straightly at Aline, who was looking back at her
just as steadily, with a serenity which offered comfort without pressing it.

“You
must think,” said Emma, “that I had no deep affection for my uncle. And indeed
I don’t know myself that you would be wrong. And yet I did love him, it has not
been only loyalty and gratitude, though those came easier. He was a hard man,
people said, hard to satisfy, and hard in his business dealings. But he was not
hard to me. Only hard to come near. It was not his fault, or mine.”

“I
think,” said Aline mildly, since she was being invited closer, “you loved him
as much as he would let you. As he could let you. Some men have not the gift.”

“Yes.
But I would have liked to love him more. I would have done anything to please
him. Even now I want to do everything as he would have wished. We shall keep
the booth open as long as the fair lasts, and try to do it as well as he would
have done. All that he had in hand, I want to see done thoroughly.” Her voice
was resolute, almost eager. Master Thomas would certainly have approved the set
of her chin and the spark in her eye. “Aline, shall I not be a trouble to you
by staying here? I—my uncle’s men—there’s one who likes me too well…”

“So
I had thought,” said Aline. “You’re most welcome here, and we’ll not part with
you until you can be sent back safely to Bristol, and your home. Not that I can
find it altogether blameworthy in the young man to like you, for that matter,”
she added, smiling.

“No,
but I cannot like him well enough. Besides, my uncle would never have allowed
me to be there on the barge without him. And now I have duties,” said Emma,
rearing her head determinedly and staring the uncertain future defiantly in the
face. “I must see to the ordering of a fine coffin for him, for the journey
home. There will be a master-carpenter, somewhere in the town?”

“There
is. To the right, halfway up the Wyle, Master Martin Bellecote. A good man, and
a good craftsman. His
lad was among these terrible rioters, as I
hear,” said Aline, and dimpled indulgently at the thought, “but so were half
the promising youth of the town. I’ll come in with you to Martin’s shop.”

“No,”
said Emma firmly. “It will all be tedious and long at the sheriff’s court, and
you should not tire yourself. And besides, you have to buy your fine wools,
before the best are taken. And Brother Cadfael—was that the name?—will show me
where to find the shop. He will surely know.”

“There’s
very little to be known about this precinct and the town of Shrewsbury,” agreed
Aline with conviction, “that Brother Cadfael does not know.”

Cadfael
received the abbot’s dispensation to attend the hearing at the castle, and to
escort the abbey’s bereaved guest, without question. A civic duty could not be evaded,
whether by secular or monastic. Radulfus had already shown himself both an
austere but just disciplinarian and a shrewd and strong-minded business man. He
owed his preferment to the abbacy as much to the king as to the papal legate,
and valued and feared for the order of the realm at least as keenly as for the
state of his own cure. Consequently, he had a use for those few among the
brothers who shared his wide experience of matters outside the cloister.