St. Peter's Fair

by Ellis Peters

  They were both gazing at him in mute fascination, wide-eyed.

  “Except that his lord had one more trick to play,” said Cadfael. “He had never intended to let him go. Escape was too great a risk, he might yet be taken, and open his mouth. ‘Fetch him down!’ said Corbière, and Turstan Fowler did it. Without compunction, like master, like man. A dangerous mouth—dangerous to both of them—closed at no cost.”

  There was a long moment of appalled silence. Even Beringar, whose breadth of mind could conceive, though with detestation, prodigies of evil and treachery, was shocked out of words. Philip stared aghast, huge of eye, and came slowly to his feet. His experience was narrow, local and decent, it was hard to grasp that men could be monsters.

  “You mean it! You believe it! But this man—he visits her, he pays court to her! And you say there was something he wanted from her uncle, and has missed getting—not on his body, not in his barge, not in his booth—where is there left, but with Emma? And we delay here!”

  “Emma is with my wife,” said Hugh reasonably, “in the abbey guest-hall, what harm can come to her there?”

  “What harm?” cried Philip passionately. “When you tell me we are dealing not with men, but with devils?” And he whirled on the heel of a trodden shoe and ran, out of the tavern and arrow-straight along the road towards the Foregate, long legs flashing.

  Cadfael and Hugh were left regarding each other mutely across the table, but for no more than a moment. “By God,” said Hugh then, “we learn of the innocents! Come on, we’d best make haste after. The lad’s shaken me!”

  *

  Philip came to the guest-hall out of breath. With chest heaving from his running he asked for Aline, and she came out, smiling but alone.

  “Why, Philip, what’s the matter?” Then she thought she knew, and was sorry for a lovesick boy who came too late even to take a dignified farewell, and receive what comfort a few kind words, costing nothing, could provide him. “Oh, Philip, I am sorry you’ve missed her, but they could not linger, it was necessary to leave in good time. She would have wished me to say her goodbye to you, and wish you…” The words faded on her lips. “Philip, what is it? What ails you?”

  “Gone?” he said, hard and shrill. “She’s gone? They, you said! Who? Who is gone with her?”

  “Why, she left with Messire Corbière, he has offered to escort her to Bristol with his sister, who goes to a convent there. It seemed a lucky chance… Philip! What have I said? What is wrong?” He had let out a great groan of fury and anguish, and even reached a hand to grip her wrist.

  “Where? Where is he taking her? Now, today!”

  “To his manor of Stanton Cobbold for tonight—his sister is there…”

  But he was gone, the instant she had named the place, running like a purposeful demon, and not towards the gatehouse, but across the court to the stable-yard. There was no time to ask leave of any man, or respect any man’s property, whatever the consequences. Philip took the best-looking horse he saw ready to hand, which by luck—Philip’s luck, not the owner’s!—stood saddled and waiting for departure, on a tether in the yard. Before Aline, bewildered and frightened, reached the doorway of the hall, Philip was already out of the gate, and a furious groom was haring across the court in voluble and hopeless pursuit.

  *

  Since the nearest way to the road leading south towards Stretton and Stanton Cobbold was to turn left at the gate, and left again by the narrow track on the near side of the bridge, Brother Cadfael and Hugh Beringar, hastening along the Foregate, saw nothing of the turmoil that attended Philip’s departure. They came to the gatehouse and the great court without any intimation that things could have gone amiss. There were still guests departing, the normal bustle of the day after the fair, but nothing to give them pause. Hugh made straight for the guest-hall, and Cadfael, following hard on his heels, was suddenly arrested by a large hand on his shoulder, and a familiar, hearty voice hailing him in amiable Welsh.

  “The very man I was looking for! I come to make my farewells, brother, and thank you for your companionship. A good fair! I’m off to my boat now, and away home with a handsome profit.”

  Rhodri ap Huw beamed merrily from within the covert of his black beard and thorn-bush of black hair.

  “Far from a good fair to two, at least, who came looking for a profit,” said Cadfael ruefully.

  “Ah, but in cash, or some other currency? Though it all comes down to cash in the end, cash or power. What else do men labour for?”

  “For a cause, perhaps, now and then one. You said yourself, I remember, no place like one of the great fairs for meeting someone you’d liefer not be seen meeting. Nowhere so solitary as the middle of a market place!” And he added mildly: “I daresay Owain Gwynedd himself may have had his intelligencers here. Though they’d need to have good English,” he said guilelessly, “to gather much profit from it.”

  “They would so. No use employing me. I daresay you’re right, though. Owain needs to have forward information, as much as any man, if he’s to keep his princedom safe, and add a few more miles to it here and there. Now I wonder which of all these traders I’ve rubbed shoulders with will be making his report in Owain’s ear!”

  “And what advice he’ll be giving him,” said Cadfael.

  Rhodri stroked his splendid beard, and his dark eyes twinkled. “I think he might take him word that the message Earl Ranulf expected from the south—who knows, maybe even from overseas—will never be delivered, and if he wants to get the best out of the hour, he should be aiming to enlarge his rule away from Chester’s borders, for the earl will be taking no risks, but looking well to his own. Owain would do better to make his bid in Maelienydd and Elfael, and let Ranulf alone.”

  “Now I come to think,” mused Cadfael, “it would be excellent cover for Owain’s intelligencers to ask the help of an interpreter in these parts, and be seen to need him. Tongues wag more freely before the deaf man.”

  “A good thought,” approved Rhodri. “Someone should suggest it to Owain.” Though there was every indication that the prince of Gwynedd needed no other man’s wits to fortify his own, but had been lavishly endowed by God in the first place. Cadfael wondered how many other tongues this simple merchant knew. French, almost certainly enough for his purposes. Flemish, possibly a little, he had undoubtedly travelled in Flanders. It would be no surprise if he knew some Latin, too.

  “You’ll be coming to Saint Peter’s Fair next year?”

  “I may, brother, I may, who knows! Will you come forth again and speak for me, if I do?”

  “Gladly. I’m a Gwynedd man myself. Take my greetings back with you to the mountains. And good speed on the way!”

  “God keep you!” said Rhodri, still beaming, and clapped him buoyantly on the shoulder, and set off towards the riverside.

  *

  Hugh had no sooner set foot in the hall when Aline flew into his arms, with a cry of relief and desperation mingled, and began to pour into his ears all her bewilderment and anxiety.

  “Oh, Hugh, I think I must have done something terrible! Either that, or Philip Corviser has gone mad. He was here asking after Emma, and when I told him she was gone he rushed away like a madman, and there’s a merchant from Worcester in the stables accusing him of stealing his horse and making off with it, and what it all means I daren’t guess, but I’m afraid…”

  Hugh held her tenderly, dismayed and solicitous. “Emma’s gone? But she was coming home with us. What happened to change it?”

  “You know he’s been paying attentions to her… He came this morning asking for you—he said he has a sister who is entering the nunnery at Minchinbarrow, and since he must escort her there, and it’s barely five miles from Bristol, he could as well take Emma home in his sister’s company. He said they’d sleep overnight at his manor, and set off tomorrow. Emma said yes, and I thought no wrong, why should I? But the very name has sent Philip off like a man demented…”

  “Corbière?” demanded Hugh, hol
ding her off by the shoulders to peer anxiously into her face.

  “Yes! Yes, Ivo, of course—but what’s so wrong in that? He takes her to his sister at Stanton Cobbold—I thought it ideal, so did she, and you were not here to say yes or no. Besides, she is her own mistress…”

  True, the girl had a will of her own, and liked the man who had made the offer, and was flattered at being singled out for his favours. Even for the sake of her own independence she would have chosen to go, and Hugh, had he been present, would not then have known or suspected enough to prevent. He tightened his arms comfortingly round his trembling wife, his cheek pressed against her hair. “My love, my heart, you could not have done anything but what you did, and I should have done the same. But I must go after. No questions now, you shall know everything later. We’ll bring her back—there’ll be no harm done…”

  “It’s true, then!” whispered Aline, her breath fluttering against his throat. “There’s reason to fear harm? I’ve let her go into danger?”

  “You could not stop her. She chose to go. Think no more of your part, you played none—how could you know? Where’s Constance? Love, I hate to leave you like this…”

  He was thinking, of course, like all men, she thought, that any grievous upset to his wife in this condition was a potential upset to his son. That roused her. She was not the girl to keep a man dancing anxious attention on her, even if she had a wife’s claim on him, when he was needed more urgently elsewhere. She drew herself resolutely out of his arms.

  “Of course you must leave me. I’ve taken no harm, and shall take none. Go, quickly! They have a good three hours start of you, and besides, if you delay, Philip may run his head into trouble alone. Send quickly for what men you can muster, and I’ll go see what I can do to placate the merchant whose horse has been borrowed…” He was loath, all the same, to let go of her. She took his head between her hands, kissed him hard, and turned him about just as Cadfael came in at the hall door.

  “She’s gone with Corbière,” said Hugh, conveying news in the fewest words possible. “Bound for his one Shropshire manor. The boy’s off after them, and so must I. I’ll send word to Prestcote to have a guard follow as fast as may be. You’ll be here to take care of Aline…”

  Aline doubted that, seeing the spark flare up in Brother Cadfael’s bright and militant eye. Hastily she said: “I need no one to nurse me. Only go—both of you!”

  “I have licence,” said Cadfael, clutching at virtue to cover his ardour. “Abbot Radulfus gave me the charge of seeing that his guest came to no harm under his roof, and I’ll stretch that to extend beyond his roof, and make it good, too. You have a horse to spare, Hugh, besides that raw-boned dapple of yours. Come on! It’s a year since you and I rode together.”

  Chapter 3

  THE MANOR OF STANTON COBBOLD lay a good seventeen miles from Shrewsbury, in the south of the shire, and cheek by jowl with the large property of the bishops of Hereford in those parts, which covered some nine or ten manors. The road lay through the more open and sunlit stretches of the Long Forest, and at its southernmost fringe plunged in among the hump-backed hills at the western side of a long, bare ridge that ran for some miles. Here and there a wooded valley backed into its bare flank, and into one of these Corbière turned, along a firm cart-track. It was the height of the early afternoon then, the sun at its highest, but even so the crowding trees cast sudden chill and shadow. The bay horse had worked off his high spirits, and went placidly under his double burden. Once in the forest they had halted briefly, and Ivo had produced wine and oat-cakes as refreshment on the journey, and paid Emma every possible delicate attention. The day was fair, the countryside strange to her and beautiful, and she was embarked on an agreeable adventure. She approached Stanton Cobbold with only the happiest anticipation, flattered by Ivo’s deference, and eager to meet his sister.

  A rivulet ran alongside the track, coming down from the ridge. The path narrowed, and the trees closed in.

  “We are all but home,” said Ivo over his shoulder; and in a few minutes more the rising ground opened before them into a narrow, level plot enclosed before with a wooden stockade. Within, the manor house backed solidly into the hillside, trees at the back, trees shutting it in darkly at either end. A boy came running to open the gate for them, and they rode into the enclosure. Barns and byres lined the stockade within. The manor itself showed a long undercroft of stone, buttressed, and pierced with two doors wide enough for carts, and a living floor above, also of stone for most of its length, where the great hall and the kitchens and pantries lay, but at the right, stone gave place to timber, and stone mullions to wooden window-frames and stout shutters; and this wooden living apartment was taller than the stone portion, and seemed to have an additional floor above the solar. A tall stone stair led up to the hall door.

  “Modest enough,” said Ivo, turning his head to smile at her, “but it has room and a welcome for you.”

  He was well served. Grooms came running before the horse had halted, a maid appeared in the hall doorway, and began to flutter down to meet them.

  Ivo kicked his feet free of the stirrups, swung a leg nimbly over the horse’s bowing head, and leaped down, waving Turstan Fowler aside, to stretch up his arms to Emma and lift her down herself. Her slight weight gave him no trouble, he held her aloft for a long moment to prove it, laughing, before he set her down.

  “Come, I’ll take you up to the solar.” He put off the maid with a flick of his hand, and she stood aside and followed them demurely up the steps, but let them go on without her when they reached the hall. The thick stone walls struck inward with a palpable chill. The hall was large and lofty, the high ceiling smoke-stained, but now, in the summer, the huge fireplace was empty and cold. The mullioned windows let in air far more genial than that within, and a comforting light, but they were narrow, and could do little to temper the oppression of the room. “Not my most amiable home,” said Ivo with a grimace, “but in these Welsh borders we built for defence, not for comfort. Come up to the solar. The timber end was built on later, but even there this is a chill, dark house. Even on summer evenings we need some firing.”

  A short staircase at the end of the hall led up to a broad gallery and a pair of doors. “The chapel,” he said, indicating that on the left. “There are two small bedchambers above, dark, since they look into the hillside and the trees at close quarters. And in here, if you’ll forgive me while I attend to your baggage and mine, and see the horses stabled, I’ll rejoin you shortly.”

  The solar into which he led her contained a massive table, a carved bench, cushioned chairs, tapestries draping the walls, and rugs on the floor, and was a place of some comfort and elegance, if also somewhat dim and cold, chiefly by reason of the looming hillside and the shrouding trees, and the narrow windows that let in so little of the day, and so filtered through heavy branches. Here there was no fireplace, the only chimney serving the hall and the kitchens; but the centre of the floor was set with large paving stones to make a hearth proof against cinders, and on this square a brazier burned, even on this summer day. Charcoal and wood glowed, discreetly massed, to give a central spark of comfort without smoke. Summer sunlight failed to warm through the arm’s-length thickness of the stone walls below, and here the sun, though confronted only with friendly timber, hardly ever reached.

  Emma went forward into the room and stood looking about her curiously. She heard Ivo close the door between them, but it was only a very small sound in a large silence.

  She had expected his sister to appear immediately on his return, and felt a pang of disappointment, though she knew it was unreasonable. He had sent no word ahead, how could the girl have known? She might, with good reason, be out walking on the open hill in the full summer warmth, or she might have duties elsewhere. When she did come, it would be to the pleasure of having her brother home, and with a visitor of her own sex and approximate age, into the bargain, and to hear that she was to have her will without further delay. Yet her absenc
e was a disappointment, and his failure to remark on it or apologise for it was a check to her eagerness.

  She began to explore the room, interested in everything. Her own city home was cushioned and comfortable by comparison, though no less dark and shut in, if not among trees, among the buildings the trees provided. She was aware that she had been born to comparative wealth, but wealth concentrated into one commodious and well-furbished dwelling, whereas this border manor represented only perhaps a tenth of what Ivo possessed, without regard to the land attached to all those manors. He had said himself that this was not the most genial of his homes, yet it held sway over she could not guess how many miles of land, and how many free tenants and unfree villeins. It was another world. She had looked at it from a distance, and been dazzled, but never to blindness.

  She felt a conviction suddenly that it was not for her, though whether she was glad or sorry remained a mystery.

  All the same, there was knowledge and taste here beyond her experience. The brazier was a beautiful thing, a credit to the smith who made it; on three braced legs like saplings, the fire-basket a trellis of vine-leaves. If it had a fault, it was that it was raised rather too high, she thought, to be completely stable. The cushions of the chairs were of fine embroidery of hunting scenes, though dulled by use and friction and the touch of slightly greasy fingers. On a shelf built under the table there were books, a psalter, a vellum folder of music, and a faded treatise with strange diagrams. The carving of chairs and table and bench-ends was like live plants growing. The tapestries that covered all the walls between windows and door were surely old, rich, wonderfully worked, and once had had glorious colours that showed still, here and there, in the protected folds; but they were smoke-blackened almost beyond recognition, rotted here and there into tinder. She parted a fold, and the hound, plunging with snarling jaws and stretched paws between her fingers, disintegrated into powdery dust, and floated on the air in slow dissolution. She let fall the threads she held, and retreated in dismay. The very dust on her palms felt like ash.