St Peter's Fair bc-4

by Ellis Peters

  She knew her duty; she said prayers for him, a great many prayers, because the form was blessedly laid down, and her mind could range while her lips formed the proper words. She would do what he had wanted done, what he had half-confided to her, as he had to no other. She would see his task completed, and he would rest, pleased with her. And then … she had hardly looked beyond, but there was a great, summer-scented breeze blowing through her spirit, telling her she was young and fair, and wealthy into the bargain, and that boys like the coffin-maker’s young son looked upon her with interest and pleasure. Other young men, too, of less green years …

  She rose from her knees at last, shook out her crumpled skirts, and walked briskly out of the chapel into the nave of the church, and founding the clustered stone pillars at the corner of the crossing, came face to face with Ivo Corbičre.

  He had been waiting, silent and motionless, in his shadowy corner, refraining even from setting foot in the chapel until her vigil was over, and the resolution with which she had suddenly ended it flung her almost’ into his arms.

  She uttered a startled gasp, and he put out reassuring hands to steady her, and was in no haste to let go. In this dim place his gold head showed darkened to bronze, and his face, stooped over her solicitously, was so gilded by the summer that it had almost the same fine-metal burnishing.

  “Did I alarm you? I’m sorry! I didn’t want to disturb you. They told me at the gatehouse that the master-carpenter had come and gone, and you were here. I hoped if I waited patiently I might be able to talk with you. If I have not pressed my attentions on you until now,” he said earnestly, “it is not because I haven’t thought of you. Constantly!”

  Her eyes were raised to his face with a fascinated admiration she would never have indulged in full light, and she quite forgot to make any move to withdraw herself from his hold. His hands slid down her forearms, but halted at her hands, and the touch, by mutual consent, became a clasp.

  “Almost two days since I’ve spoken with you!” he said. “It’s an age, and I’ve grudged it, but you were well-friended, and I had no right … But now that I have you, let me keep you for an hour! Come out and walk in the gardens. I doubt if you’ve even seen them yet.”

  They went out together into the sunlight, through the cloister garth and out into the bustle and traffic of the great court. It was almost time for Vespers, the quietest hours of the afternoon now spent, the brothers gathering gradually from their dispersed labours, guests returning from the fairground and the riverside. It was a gratifying thing to walk through this populous place on the arm of a nobleman, lord of a modest honour scattered through Cheshire and Shropshire. For the daughter of craftsmen and merchants, a very gratifying thing! They sat down on a stone bench in the flower-garden, on the sunny side of the pleached hedge, with the heady fragrance of Brother Cadfael’s herbarium wafted to them in drunken eddies on a soft breeze.

  “You will have troublesome dispositions to make,” said Corbičre seriously. “If there is anything I can arrange for you, let me know of it. It will be my pleasure to serve you. You are taking him back to Bristol for burial?”

  “It’s what he would have wished. There will be a Mass for him in the morning, and then we shall carry him back to his barge for the journey home. The brothers have been kindness itself to me.”

  “And you? Will you also return with the barge?”

  She hesitated, but why not confide in him? He was considerate and kind, and quick to understand. “No, it would be— unwise. While my uncle lived it was very well, but without him it would not do. There is one of our men—I must say no evil of him, for he has done none, but … He is too fond. Better we should not travel together. But neither do I want to offer him insult, by letting him know he is not quite trusted. I’ve told him that I must remain here a few days, that I may be needed if the sheriff has more questions to ask, or more is found out about my uncle’s death.”

  “But then,” said Ivo with warm concern, “what of your own journey home? How will you manage?”

  “I shall stay with Lady Beringar until we can find some safe party riding south, with women among them. Hugh Beringar will advise me. I have money, and I can pay my way. I shall manage.”

  He looked at her long and earnestly, until his gravity melted into a smile.

  “Between all your well-wishers, you will certainly reach your home without mishap. I’ll be giving my mind to it, among the rest. But now let’s forget, for my sake, that there must be a departure, and make the most of the hours while you are still here.” He rose, and took her by the hand to draw her up with him.

  “Forget Vespers, forget we’re guests of an abbey, forget the fair and the business of the fair, and all that such things may demand of you in future.

  Think only that it’s summer, and a glorious evening, and you’re young, and have friends … Come down with me past the fish-ponds, as far as the brook. That is all abbey land, I wouldn’t take you beyond.”

  She went with him gratefully, his hand cool and vital in hers. By the brook below the abbey fields it was cool and fresh and bright, full of scintillating light along the water, and birds dabbling and singing, and in the pleasure of the moment she almost forgot all that lay upon her, so sacred and so burdensome.

  Ivo was reverent and gentle, and did not press her too close, but when she said regretfully that it was time for her to go back, for fear Aline might be anxious about her, he went with her all the way, her hand still firmly retained in his, and presented himself punctiliously before Aline, so that Emma’s present guardian might study, accept and approve him. As indeed she did.

  It was charmingly and delicately done. He made himself excellent company for as long as was becoming on a first visit, invited and deferred to all Aline’s graceful questions, and withdrew well before he had even drawn near the end of his welcome.

  “So that’s the young man who was so helpful and gallant when the riot began,”

  said Aline, when he was gone. “Do you know, Emma, I do believe you have a serious admirer there.” A wooer gained, she thought, might come as a blessed counter-interest to a guardian lost. “He comes of good blood and family,” said the Aline Siward who had brought two manors to her husband in her own right, but saw no difference between her guest and herself, and innocently ignored the equally proud and honourable standards of those born to craft and commerce instead of land. “The Corbičres are distant kin of Earl Ranulf of Chester himself. And he does seem a most estimable young man.”

  “But not of my kind,” said Emma, as shrewd and wary as she sounded regretful. “I am a stone-mason’s daughter, and niece to a merchant. No landed lord is likely to become a suitor for someone like me.”

  “But it’s not someone like you in question,” said Aline reasonably. “It is you!”

  Brother Cadfael looked about him, late in the evening after Compline, saw all things in cautious balance, Emma securely settled in the guest-hall, Beringar already home. He went thankfully to bed with his brothers, for once at the proper time, and slept blissfully until the bell rang to wake him for Matins.

  Down the night stairs and into the church the brothers filed in the midnight silence, to begin the new day’s worship. In the faint light of the altar candles they took their places, and the third day of Saint Peter’s Fair had begun. The third and last.

  Cadfael always rose for Matins and Lauds not sleepy and unwilling, but a degree more awake than at any other time, as though his senses quickened to the sense of separateness of the community gathered here, to a degree impossible by daylight. The dimness of the light, the solidity of the enclosing shadows, the muted voices, the absence of lay worshippers, all contributed to his sense of being enfolded in a sealed haven, where all those who shared in it were his own flesh and blood and spirit, responsible for him as he for them, even some for whom, in the active and arduous day, he could feel no love, and pretended none.

  The burden of his vows became also his privilege, and the night’s first worship
was the fuel of the next day’s energy.

  So the shadows had sharp edges for him, the shapes of pillar and capital and arch clamoured like vibrant notes of music, both vision and hearing observed with heightened sensitivity, details had a quivering insistence. Brother Mark’s profile against the candle-light was piercingly clear. A note sung off-key by a sleepy elder stung like a bee. And the single pale speck lying under the trestle that supported Master Thomas’s coffin was like a hole in reality, something that could not be there. Yet it persisted. It was at the beginning of Lauds that it first caught his eye, and after that he could not get free of it. Wherever he looked, however he fastened upon the altar, he could still see it out of the corner of his eye.

  When Lauds ended, and the silent procession began to file back towards the night stairs and the dortoir, Cadfael stepped aside, stooped, and picked up the mote that had been troubling him. It was a single petal from a rose, its colour indistinguishable by this light, but pale, deepening round the tip. He knew at once what it was, and with this midnight clarity in him he knew how it had come there.

  Fortunate, indeed, that he had seen Emma bring her chosen rose and lay it in the coffin. If he had not, this petal would have told him nothing. Since he had, it told him all. With hieratic care and ceremony, after the manner of the young when moved, she had brought her offering cupped in both hands, and not one leaf, not one grain of yellow pollen from its open heart, had fallen to the floor.

  Whoever was hunting so persistently for something believed to be in Master Thomas’s possession, after searching his person, his barge and his booth, had not stopped short of the sacrilege of searching his coffin. Between Compline and Matins it had been opened and closed again; and a single petal from the wilting rose within had shaken loose and been wafted unnoticed over the side, to bear witness to the blasphemy.

  The Third Day of the Fair

  CHAPTER 1

  Emma arose with the dawn, stole out of the wide bed she shared with Constance, and dressed herself very quietly and cautiously, but even so the sense of movement, rather than any sound, disturbed the maid’s sleep, and caused her to open eyes at once alert and intelligent.

  Emma laid a finger to her lips, and cast a meaning glance towards the door beyond which Hugh and Aline were still sleeping. “Hush!” she whispered. “I’m only going to church for Prime. I don’t want to wake anyone else.”

  Constance shrugged against her pillow, raised her brows a little, and nodded.

  Today there would be the Mass for the dead uncle, and then the transference of his coffin to the barge that would take him home. Not surprising if the girl was disposed to turn this day into a penitential exercise, for the repose of her uncle’s soul and the merit of her own. “You won’t go out alone, will you?”

  “I’m going straight to the church,” promised Emma earnestly.

  Constance nodded again, and her eyelids began to close. She was asleep before Emma had drawn the door to very softly, and slipped away towards the great court.

  Brother Cadfael rose for Prime like the rest, but left his cell before his companions, and went to take counsel with the only authority in whom he could repose his latest discovery. Such a violation was the province of the abbot, and only he had the right to hear of it first.

  With the door of the abbot’s austere cell closed upon them, they were notably at ease together, two men who knew their own minds and spoke clearly what they had to say. The rose petal, a little shrunken and weary, but with its yellow and pink still silken-bright, lay in the abbot’s palm like a golden tear.

  “You are sure this cannot have fallen when our daughter brought it as an offering? It was a gentle gift,” said Radulfus.

  “Not one grain of dust fell. She carried it like a vessel of wine, in both hands. I saw every move. I have not yet seen the coffin by daylight, but I doubt not it has been dealt with competently, and looks as it looked when the master-carpenter firmed it down. Nevertheless, it has been opened and closed again.”

  “I take your word,” said the abbot simply. “This is vile.”

  “It is,” said Cadfael and waited.

  “And you cannot put name to the man who would do this thing?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Nor say if he has gained by it? As God forbid!”

  “No, Father! But God will forbid.”

  “Give your might to it,” said Radulfus, and brooded for a while in silence. Then he said: “We have a duty to the law. Do what is best there, for I hear you have the deputy sheriff’s ear. As for the affont to the church, to our house, to our dead son and his heiress, I am left to read between rubrics. There will be a Mass this morning for the dead man. The holy rite will cleanse all foulness from his passing and his coffin. As for the child, let her be at peace, for so she may, her dead is in the hand of God, there has no violence been done to his soul.”

  Brother Cadfael said, with hearty gratitude: “She will rest the better if she knows nothing. She is a good girl, her grief should have every consolation.”

  “See to it, brother, as you may. It is almost time for Prime.”

  Cadfael was hurrying from the abbot’s lodging towards the cloister when he saw Emma turn in there ahead of him, and slowed his steps to be unnoticed himself while he watched what she would do. On this of all days Emma was entitled to every opportunity of prayer and meditation, but she also had a very private secular preoccupation of her own, and which of these needs she was serving by this early-rising zeal there was no telling.

  In at the south door went Emma, and in after her, just as discreetly, went Brother Cadfael. The monks were already in their stalls, and concentrating all upon the altar. The girl slipped silently round into the nave, as though she would find herself a retired spot there in privacy; but instead of turning aside, she continued her rapid, silent passage towards the west door, the parish door that opened on to the Foregate, outside the convent walls. Except during times of stress, such as the siege of Shrewsbury the previous year, it was never closed.

  In at one door and out at another, and she was free, for a little while, to go where she would, and could return by the same way, an innocent coming back from church.

  Brother Cadfael’s sandals padded soundlessly over the tiled floor after her, keeping well back in case she should look round, though here within he was reasonably sure she would not. The great parish door was unlatched, she had only to draw it open a little way, her slenderness slipped through easily, and since this was facing due west, no betraying radiance flooded in. Cadfael gave her a moment to turn right or left outside the door, though surely it would be to the right, towards the fairground. What should she have to do in the direction of the river and the town?

  She was well in sight when he slid through the doorway and round the corner of the west front, and looked along the Foregate. She did not hurry now, but curbed her pace to that of the early buyers who were sauntering along the highroad, halting at stalls already busy, handling goods, arguing over prices. The last day of the fair was commonly the busiest. There were bargains to be snapped up at the close, and lowered prices. There was bustle everywhere, even at this hour, but the pace of the ambulant shoppers was leisurely. Emma matched hers to it, as though she belonged among them, but for all that, she was making her way somewhere with a purpose. Cadfael followed at a respectful distance.

  Only once did she speak to anyone, and then she chose the holder of one of the larger stalls, and it seemed that she was asking him for directions, for he turned and pointed ahead along the street, and towards the abbey wall. She thanked him, and went on in the direction he had indicated, and now she quickened her pace. Small doubt that she had known all along to whom she was bound; apparently she had not known precisely where to find him. Now she knew.

  By this time all the chief merchants gathered here knew where to find one another.

  Emma had come to a halt, almost at the end of the Foregate, where a half-dozen booths were backed into the abbey wall. It seemed that she
had arrived at her destination, yet now stood hesitant, gazing a little helplessly, as if what she confronted surprised and baffled her. Cadfael drew nearer. She was frowning doubtfully at the last of the booths, backed into a corner between buttress and wall. Cadfael recognised it; a lean, suspicious face had peered out from that hatch as the sheriff’s officers had hoisted Turstan Fowler on to a board and borne him away to an abbey cell on the eve of the fair. The booth of Euan of Shotwick. Here they came again, those imagined gloves, so feelingly described, so soon stolen!

  And Emma was at a loss, for the booth was fast-closed, every panel sealed, and business all around in full swing. She turned to the nearest neighbour, clearly questioning, and the man looked, and shrugged, and shook his head. What did he know? There had been no sign of life there since last night, perhaps the glover had sold out and departed.

  Cadfael drew nearer. Beneath the austere white wimple, so sharp a change from the frame of blue-black hair, Emma’s young profile looked even more tender and vulnerable. She did not know what to do. She advanced a few steps and raised a hand, as though she would knock at the closed shutter, but then she wavered and drew back. From across the street a brawny butcher left his stall, patted her amiably on the shoulder, and did the knocking for her lustily, then stood to listen. But there was no move from within.

  A large hand clapped Cadfael weightily on the back, and the cavernous voice of Rhodri ap Huw boomed in his ear in Welsh: “What’s this, then? Master Euan not open for trade? That I should see the day! I never knew him to miss a sale before, or any other thing to his advantage.”

  “The stall’s deserted,” said Cadfael. “The man may have left for home.”

  “Not he! He was there past midnight, for I took a turn along here to breathe the cool before going to my inn, and there was a light burning inside there then.”

  No gleam from within now, though the slanting sunlight might well pale it into invisibility. But no, that was not so, either. The chinks between shutter and frame were utterly dark.