“Ah, but I have,” said Godith’ “Aline Siward was here looking for you. She brought these, see, for you to give as alms, wherever you think best. They were her brother’s. She told me. And this money is for Masses — she said especially a Mass for this one man more than was looked for. Now tell me, what is this mystery?”
It was pleasant to sit quietly for a while and let things slide, and therefore he relaxed and sat down with her, and told her. She listened intently, and when he was done she asked at once: “And where is he now, this stranger nobody knows?”
“He is in the church, on a bier before the altar. I want all who come to services to pass by him, in the hope that someone must know him, and give him a name. We can’t keep him beyond tomorrow,” he said fretfully, “the season is too hot. But if we must bury him unknown, I intend it to be where he can as easily be taken up again, and to keep his clothes and a drawing of his face, until we discover the poor lad.”
“And you truly believe,” she questioned, awed, “that he was murdered? And then cast in among the king’s victims, to hide the crime away for ever?”
“Child, I’ve told you! He was taken from behind, with a. strangler’s cord ready prepared for the deed. And it was done in the same night that the others died and were flung over into the ditch. What better opportunity could a murderer have? Among so many, who was to count, and separate, and demand answers? He had been dead much the same time as some of those others. It should have been a certain cover.”
“But it was not!” she said, vengefully glowing. “Because you came. Who else would have cared to be so particular among ninety-five dead men? Who else would have stood out alone for the rights of a man not condemned — killed without vestige of law? Oh, Brother Cadfael, you have made me as irreconcilable as you are on this. Here am I, and have not seen this man. Let the king wait a little while! Let me go and see! Or go with me, if you must, but let me look at him.”
Cadfael considered and got to his feet, groaning a little at the effort. He was not so young as he once had been, and he had had a hard day and night. “Come, then, have your will, who am Ito shut you out where I invite others in? It should be quiet enough there now, but keep close to me. Oh, girl, dear, I must also be about getting you safe out of here as soon as I may.”
“Are you so eager to get rid of me?” she said, offended. “And just when I’m getting to know sage from marjoram! What would you do without me?”
“Why, train some novice I can expect to keep longer than a few weeks. And speaking of herbs,” said Cadfael, drawing out a little leather bag from the breast of his habit, and shaking out a six-inch sprig of sun-dried herbage, a thin, square stem studded at intervals with pairs of spreading leaves, with tiny brown balls set in the joints of them, “do you know what this one is?”
She peered at it curiously, having learned much in a few days. “No. We don’t grow it here. But I might know it if I saw it growing fresh.”
“It’s goose-grass — -cleavers it’s also called. A queer, creeping thing that grows little hooks to hold fast, even on these tiny seeds you see here. And you see it’s broken in the middle of this straight stem?”
She saw, and was curiously subdued. There was something here beyond her vision; the thing was a wisp of brown, bleached and dry, but indeed folded sharply in the midst by a thin fracture. “What is it? Where did you find it?”
“Caught into the furrow in this poor lad’s throat,” he said, so gently that she could take it in without shock, “broken here by the ligament that strangled him. And it’s last year’s crop, not new. The stuff is growing richly at this season, seeding wild everywhere, this was in fodder, or litter, grass cut last autumn and dried out. Never turn against the herb, it’s sovereign for healing green wounds that are stubborn to knit. All the things of the wild have their proper uses, only misuse makes them evil.” He put the small slip of dryness away carefully in his bosom, and laid an arm about her shoulders. “Come, then, let’s go and look at this youngster, you and I together.”
It was mid-afternoon, the time of work for the brothers, play for the boys and the novices, once their limited tasks were done. They came down to the church without meeting any but a few half-grown boys at play, and entered the cool dimness within.
The mysterious young man from the castle ditch lay austerely shrouded on his bier in the choir end of the nave, his head and face uncovered. Dim but pure light fell upon him; it needed only a few minutes to get accustomed to the soft interior glow in this summer afternoon, and he shone clear to view. Godith stood beside him and gazed in silence. They were alone there, but for him, and they could speak, in low voices. But when Cadfael asked softly: “Do you know him?” he was already sure of the answer.
A fine thread of a whisper beside him said: “Yes.”
“Come!” He led her out as softly as they had come. In the sunlight he heard her draw breath very deep and long. She made no other comment until they were secure together in the herbarium, in the drowning summer sweetness, sitting in the shade of the hut.
“Well, who is he, this young fellow who troubles both you and me?”
“His name,” she said, very low and wonderingly, “is Nicholas Faintree. I’ve known him, by fits and starts, since I was twelve years old. He is a squire of FitzAlan’s, from one of his northern manors, he’s ridden courier for his lord several times in the last few years. He would not be much known in Shrewsbury, no. If he was waylaid and murdered here, he must have been on his lord’s business. But FitzAlan’s business was almost finished in these parts.” She hugged her head between her hands, and thought passionately. “There are some in Shrewsbury could have named him for you, you know, if they had reason to come looking for men of their own. I know of some who may be able to tell you what he was doing here that day and that night. If you can be sure no ill will come to them?”
“Never by me,” said Cadfael, “that I promise.”
“There’s my nurse, the one who brought me here and called me her nephew. Petronilla served my family all her grown life, until she married late, too late for children of her own, and she married a good friend to FitzAlan’s house and ours, Edric Flesher, the chief of the butchers’ guild in town. The two of them were close in all the plans when FitzAlan declared for the empress Maud. If you go to them from me,” she said confidently, “they’ll tell you anything they know. You’ll know the shop, it has the sign of the boar’s head, in the butchers’ row.”
Cadfael scrubbed thoughtfully at his nose. “If I borrow the abbot’s mule, I can make better speed, and spare my legs, too. There’ll be no keeping the king waiting, but on the way back I can halt at the shop. Give me some token, to show you trust me, and they can do as much without fear.”
“Petronilla can read, and knows my hand. I’ll write you a line to her, if you’ll lend me a little leaf of vellum, a mere corner will do.” She was alight with ardour, as intent as he. “He was a merry person, Nicholas, he never did harm to anyone, that I know, and he was never out of temper. He laughed a great deal. . . . But if you tell the king he was of the opposite party, he won’t care to pursue the murderer, will he? He’ll call it a just fate, and bid you leave well alone.”
“I shall tell the king,” said Cadfael, “that we have a man plainly murdered, and the method and time we know, but not the place or the reason. I will also tell him that we have a name for him — it’s a modest name enough, it can mean nothing to Stephen. As at this moment there’s no more to tell, for I know no more. And even if the king should shrug it off and bid me let things lie, I shall not do it. By my means or God’s means, or the both of us together, Nicholas Faintree shall have justice before I let this matter rest.”