The Potter's Field (14 page)

“And the woman?” said Hugh. “A strolling tumbler, so I'm told, dark, very handsome. Did you see him with her?”

“He did have a girl with him,” the widow allowed after a moment's thought, “for I was shopping at the fishmonger's booth close by Wat's tavern, at the corner of the horse fair, the one day, and she came to fetch him away before, she said, he'd drunk all his day's gain and half of hers. That I remember. They were loud, he was getting cantankerous then in his cups, but she was a match for him. Cursed each other blind, they did, but then they went off together as close and fond as you please, and her holding him about the body from stumbling, and still scolding. Handsome?” said the widow, considering, and sniffed dubiously. “Some might reckon so. A bold, striding, black-eyed piece, thin and whippy as a withy.”

“Britric was at this year's fair, too, so they tell me,” said Hugh. “Did you see him?”

“Yes, he was here. Doing quite nicely in the world, by the look of him. They do say there's a good living to be made in pedlary, if you're willing to work at it. Give him a year or two more, and he'll be renting a booth like the merchants, and paying the abbey fees.”

“And the woman? Was she with him still?”

“Not that I ever saw.” She was no fool, and there was hardly a soul within a mile of Shrewsbury who did not know by this time that there was a dead woman to be accounted for, and the obvious answer, for some reason, was not satisfactory, since enquiry was continuing, and had even acquired a sharper edge. “I was down into the Foregate only once during the three days, this year,” she said. “There's others would be there all day and every day, they'll know. But I saw nothing of her. God knows what he's done with her,” said the widow, and crossed herself with matronly deliberation, standing off all evil omens from her own invulnerable virtue, “but I doubt you'll find anyone here who set eyes on her since last year's Saint Peter's Fair.”

*

“Oh, yes, that fellow!” said Master William Rede, the elder of the abbey's lay stewards, who collected their rents and the tolls due from merchants and craftsmen bringing their goods to the annual fair. “Yes, I know the man you mean. A bit of a rogue, but I've known plenty worse. By rights he should be paying a small toll for selling here, he brings in as full a man-load as Hercules could have hefted. But you know how it is. A man who sets up a booth for the three days, that's simple, you know where to find him. He pays his dues, and no time wasted. But a fellow who carries his goods on him, he sets eyes on you from a distance, and he's gone elsewhere, and you can waste more time chasing him than his small toll would be worth. Playing hoodman blind in and out of a hundred stalls, and all crowded with folk buying and selling, that's not for me. So he gets off scot-free. No great loss, and he'll come to it in time, his business is growing. I know no more about him than that.”

“Had he a woman with him this year?” Hugh asked. “Dark, handsome, a tumbler and acrobat?”

“Not that I saw, no. There was a woman last year I noticed ate and drank with him, she could well be the one you mean. There were times I am sure she made him the sign when I came in sight, to make himself scarce. Not this year, though. He brought more goods this year, and I think you'll find he lay at Wat's tavern, for he needed somewhere to store them. You may learn more of him there.”

*

Walter Renold leaned his folded arms, bared and brawny, on the large cask he had just rolled effortlessly into position in a corner of the room, and studied Hugh across it with placid professional eyes.

“Britric, is it? Yes, he put up here with me through the fair. Came heavy laden this year, I let him put his bits and pieces in the loft. Why not? I know he slips his abbey dues, but the loss of his penny won't beggar them. The lord abbot doesn't cast too harsh an eye on the small folk. Not that Britric is small in any other way, mind you. A big lusty fellow, red-haired, a bit of a brawler sometimes, when he's drunk, but not a bad lad, take him all in all.”

“Last year,” said Hugh, “he had a woman with him, or so I hear. I've good cause to know he was not lodging with you then, but if he did his drinking here you must have seen something of them both. You remember her?”

Wat was certainly remembering her already, with some pleasure and a great deal of amusement. “Oh, her! Hard to forget, once seen. She could twist herself like a slip of willow, dance like a March lamb, and play on the little pipe. Easy to carry, better than a rebec unless you're a master. And she was the practical one, keeping a tight hold on the money they made between them. She talked of marriage, but I doubt she'd ever get him to the church door. Maybe she talked of it once too often, for he came alone this year round. Where he's left her there's no knowing, but she'll make her way wherever she is.”

That had a very bitter ring in Hugh's ear, considering the possibility he had in mind. Wat, it seemed, had not made the connection which had already influenced the widow's thinking. But before he could ask anything further Wat surprised him by adding simply: “Gunnild, he called her. I never knew where she came from—I doubt if he knew it, either—but she's a beauty.”

That, too, had its strange resonance, when Hugh recalled the naked bones. More and more, in imagination, they took on the living aspect of this wild, sinuous, hardworking-waif of the roads, darkly brilliant as the admiring gleam she could kindle in a middle-aged innkeeper's eyes after a year and more of absence.

“You have not seen her since, here or elsewhere?”

“How often am I elsewhere?” Wat responded good-humouredly. “I did my roaming early. I'm content where I am. No, I've never set eyes on the girl again. Nor heard him so much as mention her name this year, now I come to think of it. For all the thought he seemed to be giving to last year's fancy,” said Wat tolerantly, “she might as well be dead.”

*

“So there we have it,” said Hugh, summing up briskly for Cadfael in the snug privacy of the workshop in the herb garden. “Britric is the one man we know to have made himself at home there in Ruald's croft. There may have been others, but none that we can learn of. Moreover, there was a woman with him, and their mating by all accounts tempestuous, she urging marriage on him, and he none too ready to be persuaded. More than a year ago, this. And this year not only does he come to the fair alone, but she is not seen there at all, she who gets her living at fairs and markets and weddings and such jollifications. It is not proof, but it requires answers.”

“And she has a name,” said Cadfael reflectively. “Gunnild. But not a habitation. She comes from nowhere and is gone, nowhere. Well, you cannot but look diligently for them both, but he should be the easier to find. And as I guess, you already have all your people alerted to look out for him.”

“Both round the shire and over the border,” said Hugh flatly. “His rounds, they say, go no further, apart from journeys to the towns to buy such commodities as salt and spices.”

“And here are we into November, and the season for markets and fairs over, but the weather still fairly mild and dry. He'll be still on his travels among the villages, but I would guess,” said Cadfael, pondering, “not too far afield. If he still has a base in Ruiton, come the hard frosts and snow he'll be making for it, and he'll want to be within a reasonable few miles of it when the pinch comes.”

“About this time of year,” said Hugh, “he remembers he has a mother in Ruiton, and makes his way back there for the winter.”

“And you have someone waiting there for his coming.”

“If luck serves,” said Hugh, “we may pick him up before then. I know Ruiton, it lies barely eight miles from Shrewsbury. He'll time his journeys to bring bom round by all those Welsh villages and bear east through Knockin, straight for home. There are many hamlets close-set in that corner, he can go on with his selling until the weather changes, and still be near to home. Somewhere there we shall find him.”

*

Somewhere there, indeed, they found him, only three days later. One of Hugh's sergeants had located the pedlar at work among the villages on the Welsh side of the border, and discreetly waited for him on the English side until he crossed and headed without haste for Meresbrook, on his way to Knockin and home. Hugh kept a sharp eye on his turbulent neighbours in Powys, and as he would tolerate no breach of English law his own side of the border, so he was punctilious in giving them no occasion to complain that he trespassed against Welsh law on their side, unless they had first broken the tacit compact. His relations with Owain Gwynedd, to the north-west, were friendly, and well understood on either part, but the Welsh of Powys were ill-disciplined and unstable, not to be provoked, but not to be indulged if they caused him trouble without provocation. So the sergeant waited until his unsuspecting quarry crossed over the ancient dyke that marked the boundary, somewhat broken and disregarded in these parts but still traceable. The weather was still reasonably mild, and walking the roads not unpleasant, but it seemed that Britric's pack was as good as empty, so he was making for home ahead of the frosts, apparently content with his takings. If he had stocks at home in Ruiton, he could still sell to his neighbours and as far afield as the local hamlets.

So he came striding into the shire towards Meresbrook, whistling serenely and swinging a long staff among the roadside grasses. And short of the village he walked into a patrol of two light-armed men from the Shrewsbury garrison, who closed in on him from either side and took him by either arm, enquiring without excitement if he owned to the name of Britric. He was a big, powerful fellow half a head taller than either of his captors, and could have broken away from them had he been so minded, but he knew them for what they were and what they represented, and forbore from tempting providence unnecessarily. He behaved himself with cautious discretion, owned cheerfully to his name, and asked with disarming innocence what they wanted with him.

They were not prepared to tell him more than that the sheriff required his attendance in Shrewsbury, and their reticence, together with the stolid efficiency of their handling of him, might well have inclined him to think better of his co-operation and make a break for it, but by then it was too late, for two more of their company had appeared from nowhere to join them, ambling unhurriedly from the roadside, but both with bows slung conveniently to hand, and the look of men who knew how to use them. The thought of an arrow in the back did not appeal to Britric. He resigned himself to complying with necessity. A great pity, with Wales only a quarter of a mile behind. But if the worst came to the worst, there might be a better opportunity of flight later if he remained docile now.

They took him into Knockin, and for the sake of speed found a spare horse for him, brought him into Shrewsbury before nightfall, and delivered him safely to a cell in the castle. By that time he showed signs of acute uneasiness, but no real fear. Behind a closed and unrevealing face he might be weighing and measuring whatever irregularities he had to account for, and worrying about which of them could have come to light, but if so, the results seemed to bewilder rather than enlighten or alarm him. All his efforts to worm information out of his captors had failed. All he could do now was wait, for it seemed that the sheriff was not immediately on hand.

The sheriff, as it happened, was at supper in the abbot's lodging, together with Prior Robert and the lord of the manor of Upton, who had just made a gift to the abbey of a fishery on the River Tern, which bordered his land. The charter had been drawn up and sealed before Vespers, with Hugh as one of the witnesses. Upton was a crown tenancy, and the consent and approval of the king's officer was necessary to such transactions. The messenger from the castle was wise enough to wait patiently in the ante-room until the company rose from the table. Good news will keep at least as well as bad, and the suspect was safe enough within stone walls.

“This is the man you spoke of?” asked Radulfus, when he heard what the man had to say. The one who is known to have made free with Brother Ruald's croft last year?”

“The same,” said Hugh. “And the only one I can hear of who
is
known to have borrowed free lodging there. And if you'll hold me excused, Father, I must go and see what can be got out of him, before he has time to get his breath and his wits back.”

“I am as concerned as you for justice,” the abbot avowed. “Not so much that I want the life of this or any man, but I do want an accounting for the woman's. Of course, go. I hope we may be nearer the truth this time. Without it there can be no absolution.”

“May I borrow Brother Cadfael, Father? He first brought me word of this man, he knows best what the old fellow at Saint Giles said of him. He may be able to pick up details that would elude me.”

Prior Robert looked down his patrician nose at the suggestion, and thinned his long lips in disapproval. He considered that Cadfael was far too often allowed a degree of liberty outside the enclave that offended the prior's strict interpretation of the Rule. But Abbot Radulfus nodded thoughtful agreement.

“Certainly a shrewd witness may not come amiss. Yes, take him with you. I do know his memory is excellent, and his nose for discrepancies keen. And he has been in this business from the beginning, and has some right, I think, to continue with it to the end.”

So it came about that Cadfael, coming from supper in the refectory, instead of going dutifully to Collations in the chapter-house, or less dutifully recalling something urgent to be attended to in his workshop, in order to avoid the dull, pedestrian reading of Brother Francis, whose turn it was, was haled out of his routine to go with Hugh up through the town to the castle, there to confront the prisoner.

*

He was as the old man had reported him, big, red-haired, capable of throwing out far more powerful intruders than a scabby old vagabond and, to an unprejudiced eye, a personable enough figure of a man to captivate a high-spirited and self-sufficient woman as streetwise as himself. At any rate for a time. If they had been together long enough to fall easily into fighting, he might well use those big, sinewy hands too freely and once too often, and find that he had killed without ever meaning to. And if ever he blazed into the real rage his bush of flaming hair suggested, he might kill with intent. Here in the cell where Hugh had chosen to encounter him, he sat with wide shoulders braced back against the wall, stiffly erect and alert, his face as stony as the wall itself, but for the wary eyes that fended off questions and questioners with an unwavering stare. A man, Cadfael judged, who had been in trouble before, and more than once, and coped with it successfully. Nothing mortal, probably, a deer poached here and there, a hen lifted, nothing that could not be plausibly talked out of court, in these somewhat disorganised days when in many places the king's foresters had little time or inclination to impose the rigours of forest law.