“Where else should we be?” asked Richildis bleakly. “What is it you mean to do? Will you at least let me know what happens, if you… if you should…” She could not put it into words. She stiffened her still straight and lissome back, and said with dignity: “My son has no part in this villainy, and so you will find. He is not yet fifteen years old, a mere child!”
“The shop of Martin Bellecote, you said.”
“I know it,” said one of the men-at-arms.
“Good! Show the way, and we’ll see what this lad has to say for himself.” And they turned confidently to the door and the highway.
Brother Cadfael saw fit to toss one disturbing ripple, at least, into the pool of their complacency. “There is the matter of a container for this oil. Whoever purloined it, whether from my store or from the infirmary, must have brought a vial to put it in. Meurig, did you see any sign of such about Edwin this morning? You came from the shop with him. In a pocket, or a pouch of cloth, even a small vial would hang in a noticeable way.”
“Never a sign of anything such,” said Meurig stoutly.
“And further, even well stoppered and tied down, such an oil is very penetrating, and can leave both a stain and an odour where even a drop seeps through or is left on the lip. Pay attention to the clothing of any man you think suspect in this matter.”
“Are you teaching me my business, brother?” enquired the sergeant with a tolerant grin.
“I am mentioning certain peculiarities about my business, which may be of help to you and keep you from error,” said Cadfael placidly.
“By your leave,” said the sergeant over his shoulder, from the doorway, “I think we’ll first lay hands on the culprit. I doubt if we shall need your learned advice, once we have him.” And he was off along the short path to the roadway where the horses were tethered, and his two men after him.
The sergeant and his men came to Martin Bellecote’s shop on the Wyle late in the afternoon. The carpenter, a big, comely fellow in his late thirties, looked up cheerfully enough from his work, and enquired their business without wonder or alarm. He had done work for Prestcote’s garrison once or twice, and the appearance of one of the sheriff’s officers in his workshop held no menace for him. A brown-haired, handsome wife looked out curiously from the house-door beyond, and three children erupted one by one from that quarter to examine the customers fearlessly and frankly. A grave girl of about eleven, very housewifely and prim, a small, square boy of eight or so, and an elfin miss no more than four, with a wooden doll under her arm. All of them gazed and listened. The door to the house remained open and the sergeant had a loud, peremptory voice.
“You have an apprentice here by the name of Edwin. My business is with him.”
“I have,” agreed Martin loudly, rising and dusting the resin of polish from his hands. “Edwin Gurney, my wife’s young brother. He’s not yet home. He went down to see his mother in the Foregate. He should have been back before this, but I daresay she’s wanted to keep him longer. What’s your will with him?” He was still quite serene; he knew of nothing amiss.
“He left his mother’s house above two hours since,” said the sergeant flatly. “We are come from there. No offence, friend, if you say he’s not here, but it’s my duty to search for him. You’ll give us leave to go through your house and yard?”
Martin’s placidity had vanished in an instant, his brows drew into a heavy frown. His wife’s beech-brown head appeared again in the doorway beyond, her fair, contented face suddenly alert and chill, dark eyes intent. The children stared unwaveringly. The little one, voice of natural justice in opposition to law, stated firmly: “Bad man!” and nobody hushed her.
“When I say he is not here,” said Martin levelly, “you may be assured it is true. But you may also assure yourselves. House, workshop and yard have nothing to hide. Now what are you hiding? This boy is my brother, through my wife, and my apprentice by his own will, and dear to me either way. Now, why are you seeking him?”
“In the house in the Foregate where he visited this morning,” said the sergeant deliberately, “Master Gervase Bonel, his stepfather, who promised him he should succeed to the manor of Mallilie and then changed his mind, is lying dead at this moment, murdered. It is on suspicion of his murder that I want this young man Edwin. Is that enough for you?”
It was more than enough for the eldest son of this hitherto happy household, whose ears were stretched from the inner room to catch this awful and inexplicable news. The law nose-down on Edwin’s trail, and Edwin should have been back long ago if everything had gone even reasonably well! Edwy had been uneasy for some time, and was alert for disaster where his elders took it for granted all must be well. He let himself out in haste by the back window on to the yard, before the officers could make their way into the house, clambered up the stacked timber and over the wall like a squirrel, and was away at a light, silent run towards the slope that dived riverwards, and one of the tight little posterns through the town wall, open now in time of peace, that gave on to the steep bank, not far from the abbot’s vineyard. Several of the businesses in town that needed bulky stores had fenced premises here for their stock, and among them was Martin Bellecote’s wood-yard where he seasoned his timber. It was an old refuge when either or both of the boys happened to be in trouble, and it was the place Edwin would make for if… oh, no, not if he had killed; because that was ridiculous! …but if he had been rejected, affronted, made miserably unhappy and madly angry. Angry almost to murder, but never, never quite! It was not in him.
Edwy ran, confident of not being followed, and fell breathless through the wicket of his father’s enclosure, and headlong over the splayed feet of a sullen, furious, tear-stained and utterly vulnerable Edwin.
Edwin, perhaps because of the tear-stains, immediately clouted Edwy as soon as he had regained his feet, and was clouted in his turn just as indignantly. The first thing they did, at all times of stress, was to fight. It meant nothing, except that both were armed and on guard, and whoever meddled with them in the matter afterwards had better be very careful, for their practice on each other would be perfected on him. Within minutes Edwy was pounding his message home into bewildered, unreceptive, and finally convinced and dismayed ears. They sat down cheek by jowl to do some frantic planning.
Aelfric appeared in the herb-gardens an hour before Vespers. Cadfael had been back in his solitude no more than half an hour then, after seeing the body cleansed, made seemly, and borne away into the mortuary chapel, the bereaved house restored to order, the distracted members of the household at least set free to wander and wonder and grieve as was best for them. Meurig was gone, back to the shop in the town, to tell the carpenter and his family word for word what had befallen, for what comfort or warning that might give them. By this time, for all Cadfael knew, the sheriff’s men had seized young Edwin… Dear God, he had even forgotten the name of the man Richildis had married, and Bellecote was only her son-in-law.
“Mistress Bonel asks,” said Aelfric earnestly, “that you’ll come and speak with her privately. She entreats you for old friendship, to stand her friend now.”
It came as no surprise. Cadfael was aware that he stood on somewhat perilous ground, even after forty years. He would have been happier if the lamentable death of her husband had turned out to be no mystery, her son in no danger, and her future none of his business, but there was no help for it. His youth, a sturdy part of the recollections that made him the man he was, stood in her debt, and now that she was in need he had no choice but to make generous repayment.
“I’ll come,” he said. “You go on before, and I’ll be with her within a quarter of an hour.”
When he knocked at the door of the house by the millpond, it was opened by Richildis herself. There was no sign either of Aelfric or Aldith, she had taken good care that the two of them should be able to talk in absolute privacy. In the inner room all was bare and neat, the morning’s chaos smoothed away, the trestle table folded aside. Richildis sat down in the great chair which had been her husband’s, and drew Cadfael down on the bench beside her. It was dim within the room, only one small rush-light burning; the only other brightness came from her eyes, the dark, lustrous brightness he was remembering more clearly with every moment.