by Ellis Peters
There was room for the box within the chest. Jevan closed that lid also over his library, and kneeled for a moment with both long hands pressed upon the wood, caressing and reverent. “Very well! At least you may be sure it will be valued.” He rose to his feet, his eyes still lingering upon the chest that held his treasure, a shadowy private smile of perfect contentment playing round his lips. “Do you know, chick, that I’ve never locked this before? Now I have your gift within it I shall keep it locked for safety.”
They turned towards the door together, his hand on her shoulder. At the head of the stairs that went down into the hall she halted, and turned her face up to him suddenly. “Uncle, you know you said Conan had learned a great deal about your business, through helping you there sometimes? Would he know what value to set on books? Would he recognize it, if by chance he lit on one of immense value?”
Chapter Twelve
On the twenty-sixth day of june fortunata rose early, and with her first waking thought recalled that it was the day of Aldwin’s funeral. It was taken for granted that the entire household would attend, so much was owed to him, for many reasons, years of service, undistinguished but conscientious, years of familiarity with his harmless, disconsolate figure about the place, and the pity and the vague sense of having somehow failed him, now that he had come to so unexpected an end. And the last words she had ever said to him were a reproach! Deserved, perhaps, but now, less reasonably, reproaching her.
Poor Aldwin! He had never made the most of his blessings, always feared their loss, like a miser with his gold. And he had done a terrible thing to Elave in his haunting fear of being discarded. But he had not deserved to be stabbed from behind and cast into the river, and she had him somehow on her conscience in spite of her anxiety and dread for Elave, whom he had injured. On this of all mornings he filled Fortunata’s mind, and drove her on along a road she was reluctant to take. But if justice is to be denied to the inadequate, grudging, and sad, to whom then is it due?
Early as she was, it seemed that someone else was earlier. The shop would remain closed all this day, shuttered and dim, so there was no occasion for Jevan to be up so early, but he had risen and gone out before Fortunata came down into the hall.
“He’s off to his workshop,” said Margaret, when Fortunata asked after him. “He has some fresh skins to put into the river to soak, but he’ll be back in good time for poor Aldwin’s funeral. Were you wanting him?”
“No, nothing that won’t wait,” said Fortunata. “I missed him, that’s all.”
She was glad that the household was fully occupied with the preparations for one more memorial gathering, so soon after the first, the evening of Uncle William’s wake when this whole cycle of misfortune had begun. Margaret and the maid were busy in the kitchen, and Girard, as soon as he had broken his fast, was out in the yard arranging Aldwin’s last dignified transit to the church he had neglected in life. Fortunata went into the shuttered shop, and without more light than filtered through the joints of the shutters, began swiftly and silently to search along the shelves among the array of uncut skins, tools, every corner of a neat, sparsely furnished room. Everything was open to view. She had scarcely expected to find anything alien here, and did not spend much time on it. She closed the door again upon the: shadowy interior, and went back into the empty hall, and up the staircase to Jevan’s bedchamber, over the entry from the street.
Perhaps he had forgotten that she had known from infancy where everything in this house was kept, or overlooked the fact that even those details which had never interested her before might be of grave importance now. She had not yet given him any cause to reflect on such matters, and she was praying inwardly at this moment that she never need give him cause. Whatever she did now, she was going to feel guilt, but that she could bear, since she must. The haunting uncertainty she could not bear.
Never before, Jevan had said, had he troubled to lock up his manuscripts, never until her precious dower box was laid among them. And that might well have been a light, affectionate gesture of praise and thanks to flatter her, but for the fact that he had indeed turned the key on her gift when he was alone in the room at night. She knew it, even before she laid hand to the lid to raise it, and found it locked. Now, if he had kept his keys on his person when he left the house, she could go no further along this fearful road. But he had seen no need for that, for they were there in their usual place, on a hook inside the chest where his clothes were kept, in a corner of the room. Her hand shook as she selected the smallest, and metal grated acidly against metal before she could insert it in the lock of the book chest.
She raised the lid, and kneeled motionless beside the chest, gripping the carved edge with both hands, so hard that her fingers stiffened and ached with tension. It needed only one glance, not the long, dismayed stare she fixed upon the interior, the serried spines upturned, the vacant space at one end. There was no dark casket there, no great-eyed, round-browed ivory saint returning her wide stare. Whitest of the pale spines, cheek by jowl with its one red-dyed companion, Jevan’s treasured French breviary, bought from some careful thief or trader in stolen goods at Saint Peter’s Fair a couple of years ago, rested in its accustomed place among the others, deprived of its new and sumptuous casket.
The book remained, the box into which it fitted so harmoniously had been removed, and Fortunata could think of only one reason, and only one place where it could have gone.
She closed the lid in a sudden spurt of haste and panic, and turned the key, and a tress of her hair caught in the fretted edge of the lock, and she tugged it loose as she rose, in a fever to escape from this room, and take refuge elsewhere among ordinary events and innocent people, from the knowledge she wished she had let lie, but now could not unknow, and the path onto which she had stepped hoping it would fade from under her feet, and now must follow to its end.
Aldwin was carried to his burial at midmorning, escorted by Girard of Lythwood and all his household, and guided into the next world with all solemnity by Father Elias, satisfied now of his parishioner’s credentials and relieved of all his former doubts. Fortunata stood beside Jevan at the graveside, and felt the counter-currents of pity and horror tearing her mind between them as his sleeve brushed hers. She had watched him make one among those carrying the bier, scatter a handful of earth into the grave, and gaze down into the dark pit with austere and composed face as the clods fell dully and covered the dead. A life lived in discouragement and pessimism might not seem much to lose, but when it is snatched away by murder the offense and the deprivation show as monstrous.
So there went Aldwin out of this world, which had never seen fit to content him, and home went Girard and his family, having done their duty by their unfortunate dependent. They were all quiet at table, but the gap Aldwin had left was narrow at best, and would soon close up like a trivial wound, to leave no scar.
Fortunata cleared away the dishes, and went into the kitchen to help wash the pots after dinner. She could not be sure whether she was delaying what she knew she must do out of care to arouse no special interest in her movements, or out of desperate longing not to do it at all. But in the end she could not leave it unfinished. She might yet be agonizing needlessly. There might be a good answer, even now, and if she did not finish what she had begun she might never find it out. Truth is a terrible compulsion.
She crossed the yard and slipped unnoticed into the shuttered shop. The key of the Frankwell workshop was dangling in its proper place, where Jevan had hung it openly and serenely when he returned from his early morning expedition. Fortunata took it down, and hid it in the bodice of her gown.
“I’m going down to the abbey,” she said, looking in at the hall door, “to see if they’ll let me see Elave again. Or at least to find out if anything has happened yet. The bishop surely must send a message any day now, Coventry is not so far.”
No one objected, no one offered to go with her. No doubt they felt that after the morning’s preoccupation with death
it would be the best thing in the world for her to go out into the summer afternoon, and turn her thoughts, however anxious they might be, towards life and youth.
Since only the eyes of the shop, blind and shuttered now, looked out upon the street, the house windows being all in the upright of the L and looking out upon the long strip of yard and garden, no one saw her emerge from the passageway and turn, not left towards the town gate and the abbey, but right, towards the western bridge and the suburb of Frankwell.
Brother Cadfael, not usually given to hesitation, had spent the entire morning and an hour of the early afternoon pondering the events of the previous day, and trying to determine how much of what was troubling his mind was knowledge, and how much was wild speculation. Certainly at some stage Fortunata’s box had contained a book, and by the traces left, it had been so used for a very considerable time, to leave that faint lavender bloom on the lining, and a frayed, wafer-thin wisp of purple leather trapped in a corner between lining and wood. Gold leaf is applied over glue, and then burnished, and though the sheets are too frail and fine to be handled safely out in the cloister, or in any trace of wind, properly finished gilding is very durable. It would take much use and frequent lifting in and out of a well-fitted container, to fret away even those few infinitesimal grains of gold. The more he thought of it the more he felt sure that somewhere there was a book meant for this casket, and that they had kept company together for a century or more. If they had parted long ago, the book perhaps stolen, raided away into paynim hands, even destroyed, then what had been the nature of the dowry old William had sent to his foster daughter? For he was certain, as Elave was now certain, that it had not been those six felt bags of silver pence.
And supposing it had indeed still been the book, secure in its beautiful coffin, carried across half the world unhandled and unread, for its value to a girl when she had reached marriageable age? Value as something to be sold, and sold shrewdly, to bring in the best profit. Books have another value, to those who have fallen forever and wholly in love with them. There are those who would cheat for them, steal for them, lie for them, even if then they could never show or boast of their treasures to any other creature. Kill for them? It was not impossible.
But that was surely looking far beyond the present case, for where was the connection? Who threatened? Who stood in the way? Not a barely literate clerk, who certainly cared not at all about exquisite manuscripts worked long ago by consummate artists.
Abruptly, and somewhat to his own surprise, for he was unaware of the intention forming, Cadfael stopped fretting out the small weeds from between his herb beds, put away his hoe, and went to look for Brother Winfrid, weeding by hand in the vegetable garden.
“Son, I have an errand to do, if Father Abbot allows. I should be back before Vespers, but if I come late, see everything in order and close up my workshop for me before you go.”
Brother Winfrid straightened up to his full, brawny country height for a moment to acknowledge his orders, with one large fist full of the greenery he had uprooted. “I will. Is there anything within needs a stir?”
“Nothing. You can take your ease when you finish here.” Not that he was likely to take that literally. Brother Winfrid had so much energy in him that it had to find constant outlet, or it would probably split him apart. Cadfael clapped him on the shoulder, left him to his vigorous labors, and went off in search of Abbot Radulfus.
The abbot was in his office, poring over the cellarer’s accounts, but he put them aside when Cadfael asked audience, and gave his full attention to the petitioner.
“Father,” said Cadfael, “has Brother Anselm told you what we discovered yesterday concerning the box that was brought back from the east for the girl Fortunata? And what, with reservations, we concluded from examining it?”
“He has,” said the abbot. “I would trust Anselm’s judgment on such matters, but it is still speculation. It does seem likely that there was such a book. A great pity it should be lost.”
“Father, I am not sure that it is lost. There is reason to believe that what came to England in that box was not the money that is in it now. There was a difference of weight and of balance. So says the young man who brought it from the east, and so I say, also, for I handled it on the same day he delivered it to Girard of Lythwood’s house. I think,” said Cadfael vehemently, “that what we have noted should also be reported to the sheriff.”
“You believe,” said Radulfus, eyeing him gravely, “that it may have some bearing on the only case I know of that Hugh Beringar now has in hand? But that is a case of murder. What can a book, present or absent, have to say regarding that crime?”
“When the clerk was killed, Father, was it not taken as proven by most men that the young man he had injured had killed him in revenge? Yet we know now it was not so. Elave never harmed him. And who else had cause to move against the man’s life in the matter of that accusation he made? No one. I have come to believe that the cause of his death had nothing to do with his denunciation of Elave. Yet it does still seem that it had, something to do with Elave himself, with his coming home to Shrewsbury. Everything that has happened has happened since that return. Is it not possible, Father, that it has to do with what he brought back to that house? A box that changes in weight, and one day handles like a solid carving of wood, and a few days later rings with silver coins. This in itself is strange. And whatever is strange within and around that household, where the dead man lived and worked for years, may have a bearing.”
“And should be taken into account,” concluded the abbot, and sat pondering what he had heard for some minutes in silence. “Very well, so be it. Yes, Hugh Beringar should know of it. What he may make of it I cannot guess. God knows I can make nothing of it myself, not yet, but if it can shed one gleam of light to show the way a single step towards justice, yes, he must know. Go to him now, if you wish. Take whatever time may be needed, and I pray it may be used to good effect.”
Cadfael found Hugh, not at his own house by Saint Mary’s, but at the castle. He was just striding across the outer ward in a preoccupied haste that curiously managed to indicate both buoyancy and irritation, as Cadfael came up the ramp from the street, and in through the deep tunnel of the gate tower. Hugh checked and turned at once to meet him.
“Cadfael! You come very timely, I’ve news for you.”
“And so have I for you,” said Cadfael, “if mine can be called news. But for what it may be worth, I think you should have it.”
“And Radulfus agreed? So there must be substance in it. Come within, and let’s exchange what we have,” said Hugh, and led the way forthwith towards the guardroom and anteroom in the gate tower, where they could be private. “I was about to go in and see our friend Conan,” he said with a somewhat wry smile, “before I turn him loose. Yes, that’s my news. It’s taken a time to fill in all the comings and goings of his day, but we’ve dredged up at last a cottar at the edge of Frankwell who knows him, and saw him going up the pastures to his flock well before Vespers that afternoon. There’s no way he could have killed Aldwin, the man was alive and well a good hour later.”
Cadfael sat down slowly, with a long, breathy sigh. “So he’s out of it, too! Well, well! I never thought him a likely murderer, I confess, but certainty, that’s another matter.”
“Neither did I think him a likely murderer,” agreed Hugh ruefully, “but I grudge him the days it’s cost us to prise out his witnesses for him, and the fool so sick with fright he could barely remember the very acquaintances he’d passed on his way through Frankwell. And still lying, mark you, when his wits worked at all. But clean he is, and soon he’ll be on his way back to his work, free as a bird. I wish Girard joy of him!” said Hugh disgustedly. He leaned his elbows on the small table between them, and held Cadfael eye-to-eye. “Will you credit it? He swore he’d seen nothing of Aldwin after the girl’s reproof sent the poor devil off in a passion of guilt to try and retrieve what he’d doneuntil he knew we’d found out about t
he hour or so they spent together in the alehouse. Then he admitted that, but swore that was the end of it. No such thing, as it turned out. It was one of the eager hounds baying along the Foregate after Elave who told us the next part of the story. He saw the pair of them cross over the bridge and come along the road towards the abbey, with Conan’s arm persuasive about Aldwin’s shoulders, and Conan talking fast and urgently into Aldwin’s ear. Until they both saw and heard the hunt in full cry! Frightened them out of their wits, he says, you’d have thought it was them the hounds were coursing. They went to ground among the trees so fast nothing showed but their scuts. I fancy that was what put an end once and for all to Aldwin’s intention of going to the abbey with his bad conscience. Who knows, after the young priest confessed him he might have got his courage back, if
Only today has Conan admitted that he went after him a second time. They were both a shade drunk, I expect. But finally he did go out to his flock, when he was certain Aldwin was far too frightened to involve himself further.”
“So you’ve lost your best suspect,” said Cadfael thoughtfully.
“The only one I had. And not sorry, so far as the fool himself is concerned, that he should turn out to be blameless. Well, short of murder, at least,” Hugh corrected himself. “But contenders were thin on the ground from the start. And what follows now?”
“What follows,” said Cadfael, “is that I tell you what I’ve come to tell you, for with even Conan removed from the field it becomes more substantial even than I thought. And then, if you agree, we might drain Conan dry of everything he knows, to the last drop, before you turn him loose. I can’t be sure, even, that anyone has so much as mentioned to you the box that Elave brought home for the girl, by way of a dowry? From the old man, before he died in France?”
“Yes,” said Hugh wonderingly, “it was mentioned. Jevan told me, by way of accounting for Conan’s wanting to get rid of Elave. He liked the daughter, did Conan, in a cool sort of way, but he began to like her much better when she had a dowry to bring with her. So says Jevan. But that’s all I know of it. Why? How does the box have any bearing on murder?”