One Corpse Too Many bc-2

by Ellis Peters

  “When was it that you saw him?” he asked gently. “Tell me how it befell.”

  “It was the night before the assault, around midnight. I had my place then close to the guard-post for the sake of the fire, and I saw him come, not openly, but like a shadow, among the bushes. He stood when they challenged him, and asked to be taken to their officer, for he had something to tell, to the king’s advantage. He kept his face hidden, but he was young. And afraid! But who was not afraid, then? They took him away within, and afterwards I saw him return, and they let him out. He said he had orders to go back, for there must be no suspicion. That was all I heard. He was in better heart then, not so frightened, so I asked him for alms, and he gave, and asked my prayers in return. Say some prayer for me tomorrow, he said — and on ‘the morrow, you tell me, he died! This I’m sure of, when he left me he was not expecting to die.”

  “No,” said Cadfael, sick with pity and grief for all poor, frightened, breakable men, “surely he was not. None of us knows the day. But pray for him you may, and your prayers will benefit his soul. Put off all thought that ever you did him harm, it is not so. You never wished him ill, God hears the heart. Never wished him any, never did him any.”

  He left Osbern reassured and comforted, but went on into the castle carrying with him the load of discomfort and depression the lame man had shed. So it always is, he thought, to relieve another you must burden yourself. And such a burden! He remembered in time that there was one more question he should have asked, the most urgent of all, and turned back to ask it.

  “Do you know, friend, who was the officer of the guard, that night?”

  Osbern shook his head. “I never saw him, he never came out himself. No, brother, that I can’t tell you.”

  “Trouble no more,” said Cadfael. “Now you have told it freely, and you know the cloak came to you with a blessing, not a bane. Enjoy it freely, as you deserve.”

  “Father Abbot,” said Cadfael, seeking out Heribert in the courtyard, “if you have no need of me until you come to table, there is work here I have still to do, concerning Nicholas Faintree.”

  With King Stephen holding audience in the inner ward, and the great court teeming with clerics, bishops, the small nobility of the county, even an earl or so, there was no room, in any case, for the mere servitors, whose duties would begin when the feast began. The abbot had found a friend in the bishop of Salisbury, and readily dismissed Cadfael to whatever pursuit he chose. He went in search of Hugh Beringar with Osbern’s story very heavy on his mind, and the last question still unanswered, though so many sad mysteries were now made plain. It was not a terrified prisoner with the rope already round his neck who had broken down and betrayed the secret of FitzAlan’s plans for his treasury. No, that betrayal had taken place a day previously, when the issue of battle was still to be decided, and the thing had been done with forethought, to save a life it yet had failed to save. He came by stealth, and asked to be taken to the officer of the guard, for he had something to tell to the king’s advantage! And when he left he told the guard he had orders to go back, so that there could be no suspicion, but then he was in better heart. Poor wretch, not for long!

  By what means or on what pretext he had managed to get out of the castle — perhaps on pretence of reconnoitering the enemy’s position? — certainly he had obeyed his instructions to return and keep all suspicion lulled. He had returned only to confront the death he had thought he was escaping.

  Hugh Beringar came out and stood on the steps of the great hall, craning round him for one person among all that shifting throng. The black Benedictine habits showed here and there in strong contrast to the finery of lordlings in their best, but Cadfael was shorter than many of those about him, and saw the man he was seeking before he was himself seen. He began to weave his way towards him, and the keen black eyes sweeping the court beneath drawn brows lit upon him, and glittered. Beringar came down to take him by the arm and draw him away to a quieter place.

  “Come away, come up on to the guard-walk, there’ll be no one there but the sentry. How can we talk here?” And when they had mounted to the wall, he found a corner where no one could approach them without being seen, he said, eyeing Cadfael very earnestly: “You have news in your face. Tell it quickly, and I’ll tell you mine.”

  Cadfael told the story as briefly as it had been told to him, and it was understood as readily. Beringar stood leaning against the merlon of the wall as though bracing his back for a dour defence. His face was bitter with dismay.

  “Her brother! No escaping it, this can have been no other. He came by night out of the castle, by stealth, hiding his face, he spoke with the king’s officer, and returned as he had come. So that there might be no suspicion! Oh, I am sick!” said Beringar savagely. “And all for nothing! His treason fell victim to one even worse. You don’t know yet, Cadfael, you don’t know all! But that of all people it should be her brother!”

  “No help for it,” said Cadfael, “it was he. In terror for his life, regretting an ill-judged alliance, he went hurrying to the besiegers to buy his life, in exchange-for what? Something of advantage to the king! That very evening they had held conference and planned the removal of FitzAlan’s gold. That was how someone learned in good time of what Faintree and Torold carried, and the way they were to go. Someone who never passed that word on, as I think, to king or any, but acted upon it himself, and for his own gain. Why else should it end as it did? The young man, so says Osbern, went back under orders, relieved and less afraid.”

  “He had been promised his life,” said Beringar bitterly, “and probably the king’s favour, too, and a place about him, no wonder he went back the happier in that belief. But what was really intended was to send him back to be taken and slaughtered with the rest, to make sure he should not live to tell the tale. For listen, Cadfael, to what I got out of one of the Flemings who was in that day’s murderous labour from first to last. He said that after Arnulf of Hesdin was hanged, Ten Heyt pointed out to the executioners a young man who was to be the next to go, and said the order came from above. And it was done. They found it a huge jest that he was dragged to his death incredulous, thinking at first, no doubt, they were putting up a pretence to remove him from the ranks, and then he saw it was black reality, and he screamed that they were mistaken, that he was not to die with the rest, that he had been promised his life, that they should send and ask — “

  “Send and ask,” said Brother Cadfael, “of Adam Courcelle.”

  “No — I learned no name … my man heard none. What makes you hit on that name in particular? He was not by but once, according to this man’s account, he came but once to look at the bodies they had already cut down, and it was early, they would be but few. Then he went away to his work in the town, and was seen no more. Weak-stomached, they thought.”

  “And the dagger? Was Giles wearing it when they strung him up?”

  “He was, for my man had an eye to the thing himself, but when he was relieved for a while, and came back to get it, it was already gone.”

  “Even to one with a great prize in view,” said Cadfael sadly, “a small extra gain by the way may not come amiss.”

  They looked at each other mutely for a long moment. “But why do you say so certainly, Courcelle?”

  “I am thinking,” said Cadfael, “of the horror that fell upon him when Aline came to collect her dead, and he knew what he had done. If I had known, he said, if I had known, I would have saved him for you! No matter at what cost! God forgive me! he said, but he meant: Aline, forgive me! With all his heart he meant it then, though I would not call that repentance. And he gave back, you’ll remember, the cloak. I think, truly I do think, he would then have given back also the dagger, if he had dared. But he could not, it was already broken and incomplete. I wonder,” said Cadfael, pondering, “I wonder what he has done with it now? A man who would take it from the dead in the first place would not part with it too easily, even for a girl’s sake, and yet he never dare let her set
eyes on it, and he is in earnest in courting her. Would he keep it, in hiding? Or get rid of it?”

  “If you are right,” said Beringar, still doubtful, “we need it, it is our proof. And yet, Cadfael, for God’s sake, how are we to deal now? God knows I can find no good to say for one who tried to purchase his own safety so, when his fellows were at their last gasp. But neither you nor I can strip this matter bare, and do so wicked an injury to so innocent and honourable a lady. It’s enough that she mourns for him. Let her at least go on thinking that he held by his mistaken choice faithfully to the end, and gave his life for it — not that he died craven, bleating that he was promised grace in return for so base a betrayal. She must not know, now or ever.”

  Brother Cadfael could not but agree. “But if we accuse him, and this comes to trial, surely everything will come out. That we cannot allow, and there lies our weakness.”

  “And our strength,” said Beringar fiercely, “for neither can he allow it. He wants his advancement with the king, he wants offices, but he wants Aline — do you think I did not know it? Where would he stand with her if ever a breath of this reached her? No, he will be at least as anxious as we to keep the story for ever buried. Give him but a fair chance to settle the quarrel out of hand, and he’ll jump at it.”

  “Your preoccupation,” said Cadfael gently, “I understand, and sympathise with it. But you must also acknowledge mine. I have here another responsibility. Nicholas Faintree must not lie uneasy for want of justice.”

  “Trust me, and stand ready to back me in whatever I shall do this night at the king’s table,” said Hugh Beringar. “Justice he shall have, and vengeance, too, but let it be as I shall devise.”

  Cadfael went to his duty behind the abbot’s chair in doubt and bewilderment, with no clear idea in his mind of what Beringar intended, and no conviction that without the broken dagger any secure case could be made against Courcelle. The Fleming had not seen him take it, what he had cried out to Aline over her brother’s body, in manifest pain, was not evidence. And yet there had been vengeance and death in Hugh Beringar’s face, as much for Aline Siward’s sake as for Nicholas Faintree’s. What mattered most in the world to him, at this moment, was that Aline should never know how her brother had disgraced his blood and his name, and in that cause Beringar would not scruple to spend not only Adam Courcelle’s life, but also his own. And somehow, reflected Cadfael ruefully, I have become very much attached to that young man, and I should not like to see any ill befall him. I would rather this case went to law, even if we have to step carefully in drawing up our evidence, and leave out every word concerning Torold Blund and Godith Adeney. But for that we need, we must have, proof positive that Giles Siward’s dagger passed into the possession of Adam Courcelle, and preferably the dagger itself, into the bargain, to match with the piece of it I found on the scene of the murder. Otherwise he will simply lie and lie, deny everything, say he never saw the topaz or the dagger it came from, and has nothing to answer; and from the eminence of the position he has won with the king, he will be unassailable.

  There were no ladies present that night, this was strictly a political and military occasion, but the great hall had been decked out with borrowed hangings, and was bright with torches. The king was in good humour, the garrison’s provisions were assured, and those who had robbed for the royal supplies had done their work well. From his place behind Heribert at the king’s high table Cadfael surveyed the full hall, and estimated that some five hundred guests were present. He looked for Beringar, and found him at a lower table, in his finery, very debonair and lively in conversation, as though he had no darker preoccupation. He was master of his face; even when he glanced briefly at Courcelle there was nothing in the look to attract attention, certainly nothing to give warning of any grave purpose.

  Courcelle was at the high table, though crowded to its end by the visiting dignitaries. Big, vividly coloured and handsome, accomplished in arms, in good odour with the king, how strange that such a man should feel it necessary to grasp secretly at plunder, and by such degrading means! And yet, in this chaos of civil war, was it so strange after all? Where a king’s favour could be toppled with the king, where barons were changing sides according as the fortunes changed, where even earls were turning to secure their own advantage rather than that of a cause that might collapse under their feet and leave them prisoner and ruined! Courcelle was merely a sign of the times; in a few years there would be duplicates of him in every corner of the realm.

  I do not like the way I see England going, thought Cadfael with anxious foreboding, and above all I do not like what is about to happen, for as surely as God sees us, Hugh Beringar is set to sally forth on to a dubious field, half-armed.

  He fretted through the long meal, hardly troubled by the demands of Abbot Heribert, who was always abstemious with wine, and ate very frugally. Cadfael served and poured, proffered the finger-bowl and napkin, and waited with brooding resignation.

  When the dishes were cleared away, musicians playing, and only the wine on the tables, the servitors in their turn might take their pick of what was left in the kitchens, and the cooks and scullions were already helping themselves and finding quiet corners to sit and eat. Cadfael collected a bread trencher and loaded it with broken meats, and took it out through the great court to Lame Osbern at the gate. There was a measure of wine to go with it. Why should not the poor rejoice for once at the king’s cost, even if that cost was handed on down the hierarchies until it fell at last upon the poor themselves? Too often they paid, but never got their share of the rejoicing.

  Cadfael was walking back to the hall when his eye fell upon a lad of about twelve, who was sitting in the torchlight on the inner side of the gate house, his back comfortably against the wall, carving his meat into smaller pieces with a narrow-bladed knife. Cadfael had seen him earlier, in the kitchen, gutting fish with the same knife, but he had not seen the halt of it, and would not have seen it now if the boy had not laid it down beside him on the ground while he ate.

  Cadfael halted and gazed, motionless. It was no kitchen knife, but a well-made dagger, and its hilt was a slender shaft of silver, rounded to the hand, showing delicate lines of filigree-work, and glowing round the collar of the blade with small stones. The hilt ended in a twist of silver broken off short. It was hard to believe, but impossible not to believe. Perhaps thought really is prayer.

  He spoke to the boy very softly and evenly; the unwitting means of justice must not be alarmed. “Child, where did you get so fine a knife as that?”

  The boy looked up, untroubled, and smiled. When he had gulped down the mouthful with which his cheeks were bulging, he said cheerfully: “I found it. I didn’t steal it.”

  “God forbid, lad, I never thought it. Where did you find it? And have you the sheath, too?”

  It was lying beside him in the shadow, he patted it proudly. “I fished them out of the river. I had to dive, but I found them. They really are mine, father, the owner didn’t want them, he threw them away. I suppose because this was broken. But it’s the best knife for slitting fish I ever had.”

  So he threw them away! Not, however, simply because the jewelled hilt was broken.

  “You saw him throw it into the river? Where was this, and when?”

  “I was fishing under the castle, and a man came down alone from the water-gate to the bank of the river, and threw it in, and went back to the castle. When he’d gone I dived in where I saw it fall, and I found it. It was early in the evening, the same night all the bodies were carried down to the abbey — a week ago, come tomorrow. It was the first day it was safe to go fishing there again.”

  Yes, it fitted well. That same afternoon Aline had taken Giles away to St Alkmund’s, and left Courcelle stricken and wild with unavailing regrets, and in possession of a thing that might turn Aline against him for ever, if once she set eyes on it. And he had done the only, the obvious thing, consigned it to the river, never thinking that the avenging angel, in the shape of a f
isherboy, would redeem it to confront him when most he believed himself safe.

  “You did not know who this man was? What like was he? What age?” For there remained the lingering doubt; all he had to support his conviction was the memory of Courcelle’s horrified face and broken voice, pleading his devotion over Giles Siward’s body.

  The child hoisted indifferent shoulders, unable to picture for another what he himself had seen clearly and memorably. “Just a man. I didn’t know him. Not old like you, father, but quite old.” But to him anyone of his father’s generation would be old, though his father might be only a year or two past thirty.

  “Would you know him if you saw him again? Could you point him out among many?”

  “Of course!” said the boy almost scornfully. His eyes were young, bright, and very observant, if his tongue was none too fluent, of course he would know his man again.

  “Sheathe your knife, child, and bring it, and come with me,” said Cadfael with decision. “Oh, don’t fret, no one will take your treasure from you, or if later you must give it up, you shall be handsomely paid for it. All I need is for you to tell again what you have told to me, and you shan’t be the loser.”

  He knew, when he entered the hail with the boy beside him, a little apprehensive now but even more excited, that they came late. The music was stilled, and Hugh Beringar was on his feet and striding towards the dais on which the high table stood. They heard his voice raised, high and clear, as he mounted and stood before the king. “Your Grace, before you depart for Worcester, there is a matter on which I beg you’ll hear me and do right. I demand justice on one here in this company, who has abused his position in your confidence. He has stolen from the dead, to the shame of his nobility, and he has committed murder, to the shame of his manhood. I stand on my charges, to prove them with my body. And here is my gage!”