by Ellis Peters
From the darkness within welled the warm scent of timber, wine and sweetmeats, and a faint, strange sound like the breathy grunting of a dumb man. Roger was propelled forward into the dimness by the eager helpers crowding at his back, all agape with curiosity. The stacked bales and small casks of wine took shape gradually, after the brief blindness of entering this dark place from sunlight. Everything stood orderly and handy, just as it had been left overnight, and of Warin there was no sign, until Rhodri ap Huw, ever practical, unbolted the front hatch and let it down, and the brightness of the morning came flooding in.
Stretched along the foot of the same front wall, where Rhodri must almost have set foot on him, Warin lay rolled in his own cloak and tied at elbows, knees and ankles with cords, so tightly that he could barely wriggle enough to make the folds of cloth rustle. There was a sack drawn over his head, and a length of linen dragged the coarse fibres into his mouth and was secured behind his neck. He was doing his best to answer to his name, and at least his limited jerkings and muted grunts made it plain that he was alive.
Roger uttered a wordless yell of alarm and indignation, and fell on his knees, plucking first at the linen band that held the sack fast. The coarse cloth was wet before with spittle, and the mouth within must be clogged and stung with ropey fibres, but at least the poor wretch could breathe, his strangled grunts were trying to form words long before the linen parted, and let him spit out his gag. Still beneath his sack, his hoarse croak demanded aggrievedly: “Where were you so long, and me half-killed?”
A couple of pairs of willing hands were at work on the other bonds by that time, all the more zealously now they had heard him speak, and indeed complain, in such reassuringly robust tones. Warin emerged gradually from his swaddlings, unrolled unceremoniously out of the cloak so that he ended face-down on the ground, and still incoherently voluble. He righted himself indignantly, but so spryly that it was plain he had no broken bones, no painful injuries, and had not even suffered overmuch from the cramps of his bonds. He looked up from under his wild grey thatch of hair, half defensive and half accusing, glaring round the circle of his rescuers as though they had been responsible for his hours of discomfort.
“Late’s better than never!” he said sourly, and hawked, and spat out fibres of sacking. “What took you so long? Is everybody deaf? I’ve been kicking here half the night!”
Half a dozen hands reached pleasurably to hoist him to his feet and sit him down gently on a cask of wine. Roger stood off and let them indulge their curiosity, scowling blackly at his colleague meantime. There was no damage done, not a scratch on the old fool! The first threat, and he had crumpled into a pliable rag.
“For God’s sake, what happened to you? You had the booth sealed. How could any man break in here, and you not know? There are other merchants sleep here with their wares, you had only to call.”
“Not all,” said the cloth-merchant fairly. “I myself lie at a tavern, so do many. If your man was sound asleep, as he well might be with all closed for the night…”
“It was long past midnight,” said Warin, scrubbing aggrievedly at his chafed ankles. “I know because I heard the little bell for Matins, over the wall, before I slept. Not a sound after, until I awoke as that hood came over my head. They rammed the stuff into my mouth. I never saw face or form, they rolled me up like a bale of wool, and left me tied.”
“And you never raised a cry!” said Roger bitterly. “How many were they? One or more?”
Warin was disconcerted, and wavered, swaying either way. “I think two. I’m not sure…”
“You were hooded, but you could hear. Did they talk together?”
“Yes, now I recall there was some whispering. Not that I could catch any words. Yes, they were two. There was moving about of casks and bales here, that I know…”
“For how long? They durst not hurry, and have things fall and rouse the fairground,” said the armourer reasonably. “How long did they stay?”
Warin was vague, and indeed to a man blindfolded and tied by night, time might stretch out like unravelled thread. “An hour, it might be.”
“Time enough to find whatever was of most value here,” said the armourer, and looked at Roger Dod, with a shrug of broad shoulders. “You’d better look about you, lad, and see what’s missing. No need to trouble for anything so weighty as casks of wine, they’d have needed a cart for those, and a cart in the small hours would surely have roused someone. The small and precious is what they came for.”
But Roger had already turned his back on his rescued fellow, and was burrowing frantically among the bales and boxes stacked along the wall. “My master’s strong-box! I built it in behind here, out of sight… Thank God I took the most of yesterday’s gains back to the barge with me last night, and have them safe under lock and key, but for all that, there was a good sum left in it. And all his accounts, and parchments…”
He was thrusting boxes and bags of spices aside in his haste, scenting the air, pushing out of his way wooden caskets of sugar confections from the east, come by way of Venice and Gascony, and worth high prices in any market. “Here, against the wall…”
His hands sank helplessly, he stood staring in dismay. He had bared the boards of the booth; goods stood piled on either side, and between them, nothing. Master Thomas’s strongbox was gone.
*
Brother Cadfael had taken advantage of the early hours to put in an hour or two of work with Brother Mark in the herb-gardens, while he had no reason to anticipate any threat to Emma, for she was surely still asleep in the guest-hall with Constance, and out of reach of harm. The morning was clear and sunny, the mist just lifting from the river, shot through with oblique gold, and Mark sang cheerfully about his weeding, and listened attentively and serenely as Cadfael instructed him in all particulars of the day’s work.
“For I may have to leave all things in your hands. And so I can, safely enough, I know, if I should chance to be called away.”
“I’m well taught,” said Brother Mark, with his grave smile, behind which the small spark of mischief was visible only to Cadfael, who had first discovered and nurtured it. “I know what to stir and what to let well alone in the workshop.”
“I wish I could be as sure of my part outside it,” said Cadfael ruefully. “There are brews among us that need just as sure a touch, boy, and where to stir and where to let be is puzzling me more than a little. I’m walking a knife-edge, with disastrous falls on either side. I know my herbs. They have fixed properties, and follow sacred rules. Human creatures do not so. And I cannot even wish they did. I would not have one scruple of their complexity done away, it would be lamentable loss.”
It was time to go to Prime. Brother Mark stooped to rinse his hands in the butt of water they kept warming through the day, to be tempered for the herbs at the evening watering. “It was being with you made me know that I want to be a priest,” he said, speaking his mind as openly as always in Cadfael’s company.
“I had never the urge for it,” said Cadfael absently, his mind on other matters.
“I know. That was the one thing wanting. Shall we go?”
*
They were coming out from Prime, and the lay servants already mustering for their early Mass, when Roger Dod came trudging in at the gatehouse, out of breath, and with trouble plain to be read in his face.
“What, again something new?” sighed Cadfael, and set off to intercept him before he reached the guest-hall. Suddenly aware of this square, sturdy figure bearing down on him with obvious purpose, Roger checked, and turned an anxious face. His frown cleared a little when he recognised the same monk who had accompanied the deputy sheriff in the vain search for Master Thomas, on the eve of Saint Peter. “Oh, it’s you, brother, that’s well! Is Hugh Beringar within? I must speak to him. We’re beset! Yesterday the barge, and now the booth, and God knows what’s yet to come, and what will become of us before ever we get away from this deadly place. My master’s books gone—money and box and all!
What will Mistress Emma think? I’d rather have had my own head broke, if need be, than fail her so!”
“What’s this talk of broken heads?” asked Cadfael, alarmed. “Whose? Are you telling me there’ve been thieves ransacking your booth now?”
“In the night! And the strong-box gone, and Warin tied up hand and foot with a throatful of sacking, and nobody heard sound while they did it. We found him not half an hour ago…”
“Come!” said Cadfael, grasping him by the sleeve and setting off for the guest-hall at a furious pace. “We’ll find Hugh Beringar. Tell your tale once, and save breath!”
In Aline’s apartments the women were only just out of bed, and Hugh was sitting over an early meal in shirt and hose, shoeless, when Cadfael rapped at the door, and cautiously put his head in.
“Your pardon, Hugh, but there’s news. May we come in?”
Hugh took one look at him, recognised the end of his ease, and bade them in resignedly.
“Here’s one has a tale to tell,” said Cadfael. “He’s new come from the horse-fair.”
At sight of Roger, Emma came to her feet in astonishment and alarm, the soft, bemused bloom of sleep gone from her eyes, and the morning flush from her cheeks. Her black hair, not yet braided, swung in a glossy curtain about her shoulders, and her loose undergown was ungirdled, her feet bare. “Roger, what is it? What has happened now?”
“More theft and roguery, mistress, and God knows I can see no reason why all the rascals in the shire should pick on us for prey.” Roger heaved in deep breath, and launched headlong into his complaint. “This morning I go to the stall as usual, and find it all closed, and not a sound or a word from within for all my shouting and knocking, and then come some of the neighbours, wondering, and one sees that the inside bar has been hoisted with a knife—and a marvellous thin knife it must have been. And we go in and find Warin rolled up like baggage in his own cloak, and fast tied, and his mouth stuffed with sacking—a bag over his head, fit to choke him…”
“Oh, no!” breathed Emma in a horrified whisper, and pressed a fist hard against trembling lips. “Oh, poor Warin! He’s not… oh, not dead…?”
Roger gave vent to a snort of contempt. “Not he! alive and fit as a flea, barring being stiff from the cords. How he could sleep so sound as not to hear the fumbling with the latch, nor even notice when the door was opened, there’s no guessing. But if he did hear, he took good care not to give the robbers any trouble. You know Warin’s no hero. He says he was only shook awake when the sack went over his head, and never saw face nor form, though he thinks there were two of them, for there was some whispering. But as like as not he heard them come, but chose not to, for fear they’d slip the knife in his ribs.”
Emma’s colour had warmed into rose again. She drew a deep breath of thankfulness. “But he’s safe? He’s taken no harm at all?” She caught Aline’s sympathetic eye, and laughed shakily with relief. “I know he is not brave. I’m glad he is not! Nor very clever nor very industrious, either, but I’ve known him since I was a little girl, he used to make toys for me, and willow whistles. Thank God he is not harmed!”
“Not a graze! I wish,” said Roger, his eyes burning jealously upon her childish morning beauty, not yet adorned and needing no adornment, “I wish to God I’d stayed there to be watchman myself, they’d not have broken in there unscathed, and found everything handed over on a platter.”
“But then you might have been killed, Roger. I’m glad you were not there, you’d surely have put up a fight and come to harm. What, against two, and you unarmed? Oh, no, I want no man hurt to protect my possessions.”
“What followed?” asked Hugh shortly, stamping his feet into his shoes and reaching for his coat. “You’ve left him there to mind the stall? Is he fit?”
“As you or me, my lord. I’ll send him to you to tell his own tale when I get back.”
“No need, I’m coming with you to view the place and the damage. Finish your tale. They’ll scarcely have left empty-handed. What’s gone with them?”
Roger turned devoted, humble, apologetic eyes upon Emma. “Sorrow the day, mistress, my master’s strong-box is gone with them!”
Brother Cadfael was watching Emma’s face just as intently as was her hopeless admirer, and it seemed to him that in the pleasure of knowing that her old servant had survived unharmed, she was proof against all other blows. The loss of the strong-box she received with unshaken serenity. In these surroundings, safe from any too pressing manifestation of his passion, she was even moved to comfort Roger. A kind-hearted girl, who did not like to see any of her own people out of sorts with his competence and his self-respect.
“You must not feel it so sharply,” she said warmly. “How could you have prevented? There is no fault attaches to you.”
“I took most of the money back to the barge with me last night,” pleaded Roger earnestly. “It’s safe locked away, there’s been no more tampering there. But Master Thomas’s account books, and some parchments of value, and charters…”
“Then there will be copies,” said Emma firmly. “And what is more, if they took the box, supposing it to be full of money, they’ll keep what money was left there, and most likely discard the box and the parchments, for what use can they make of those? We may get most of it back, you will see.”
Not merely a kind girl, but a girl of sense and fortitude, who bore up nobly under her losses. Cadfael looked at Hugh, and found Hugh looking at him, just as woodenly, but with one lively eyebrow signalling slightly sceptical admiration.
“Nothing is lost,” said Emma firmly, “of any value to compare with a life. Since Warin is safe, I cannot be sad.”
“Nevertheless,” said Hugh with deliberation, “it might be well if one abbey sergeant stood guard on your booth until the fair is over. For it does seem that all the misfortunes that should be rights be shared among all the abbey’s clients are falling solely upon you. Shall I ask Prior Robert to see to it?”
She looked down, wary and thoughtful, for a moment, and then lifted deep blue eyes wide and clear as the sky, and a degree more innocent than if they had but newly opened on the world. “It’s kind of you,” she said, “but surely everything has now been done to us. I don’t think it will be necessary to set a guard upon us now.”
*
Hugh came to Cadfael’s workshop after the midday meal, leaving Emma in Aline’s charge, helped himself to a horn of wine from Cadfael’s private store, and settled down on the bench under the eaves, on the shady side. The fragrance of the herbs lay like a sleepy load on the air within the pleached hedges, and set him yawning against his will and his mood, which was for serious discussion. They were well away from the outer world here, the busy hum of the marketplace drifted to them only distantly and pleasantly, like the working music of Brother Bernard’s bees. And Brother Mark, weeding the herb-beds with delicate, loving hands, habit kilted to his knees, was no hindrance at all to their solitude.
“A separate creature,” said Brother Cadfael, eyeing him with detached affection “My priest, my proxy. I had to find some way of evading the fate that closed on me. There goes my sacrificial lamb, the best of the flock.”
“Some day he will take your confession,” said Hugh, watching Mark pluck out weeds as gently as though he pitied them, “and you’ll be a lost man, for he’ll know every evasion.” He sipped wine, drew it about his mouth thoughtfully, swallowed it and sat savouring the after-taste for a moment. “This fellow Warin had little to add,” he said then. “What do you say now? This cannot be chance.”
“No,” agreed Cadfael, propping the door of his workshop wide to let in the air, and coming to sit beside his friend, “it cannot be chance. The man is killed, stripped, his barge searched, his booth searched. Not a soul besides, at this fair where there are several as wealthy, has suffered any attack or any loss. No, there is nothing done at hazard here.”
“What, then? Expound! The girl claimed there were things stolen from the barge. Now something positive, a
strong-box, the single portable thing in the booth that might confidently be supposed to hold valuables, is demonstrably stolen from this last assault. If these are not simple thefts, what are they? Tell me!”
“Stages in a quest,” said Cadfael. “It seems to me there’s a hunt afoot for something. I do not know what, but some quite single, small thing, and precious, which was, or was thought to be, in the possession of Master Thomas. On the night he came here he was murdered, and his body stripped. The first search. And it was fruitless, for the next day his barge was visited and ransacked. The second search.”
“Not altogether fruitless this time,” said Beringar dryly, “for we know on the best authority, do we not, that whoever paid that visit left the richer by three things, a silver chain, a girdle with a gold clasp, and a pair of embroidered gloves.”
“Hmmm!” Cadfael twitched his brown nose doubtfully between finger and thumb, and eyed the young man sidewise.
“Oh, come!” said Hugh indulgently, and flashed his sudden smile. “I may not stumble on these subtleties as quickly as you, but since knowing you I’ve had to keep my wits about me. The lady has a bold mind and an excellent memory, and I have no hope in the world of getting her to make a mistake in one detail of the embroidery on those lost gloves, but for all that, I doubt if they ever existed.”
“You might,” Cadfael suggested, though without much hope, “try asking her outright what it is she’s hiding.”
“I did!” owned Hugh, ruefully grinning. “She opened great, hurt eyes at me, and could not understand me! She knows nothing, she’s hiding nothing, she has nothing to tell more than she’s already told, and every word of that is truth. But for all that, and however angelically, the girl’s lying. What was it stuck in your craw, and brought you up against the same shock before ever it dawned upon me?”