‘And a priest,’ pursued Hugh mercilessly.
‘By the ring, the cross and the tonsure, yes, a priest.’
‘You perceive our reasoning, Brother Meriet. Have you knowledge of such a man lost hereabouts?’
Meriet continued to stare down at the silent relics that had been a man. His eyes were huge in a face blanched to the palest ivory. He said in a level voice: ‘I see your reasoning. I do not know the man. How can anyone know him?’
‘Not by his visage, certainly. But by his accoutrements, perhaps? The cross, the ring, even the buckles—these could be remembered, if a priest of such years, and so adorned, came into your acquaintance? As a guest, say, in your house?’
Meriet lifted his eyes with a brief and restrained flash of green, and said: ‘I understand you. There was a priest who came and stayed the night over in my father’s house, some weeks ago, before I came into the cloister. But that one travelled on the next morning, northwards, not this way. How could he be here? And how am I, or how are you, to tell the difference between one priest and another, when they are brought down to this?’
‘Not by the cross? The ring? If you can say positively that this is not the man,’ said Hugh insinuatingly, ‘you would be helping me greatly.’
‘I was of no such account in my father’s house,’ said Meriet with chill bitterness, ‘to be so close to the honoured guest. I stabled his horse—to that I have testified. To his jewellery I cannot swear.’
‘There will be others who can,’ said Hugh grimly. ‘And as to the horse, yes, I have seen in what confortable esteem you held each other. You said truly that you are good with horses. If it became advisable to convey the mount some twenty miles or more away from where the rider met his death, who could manage the business better? Ridden or led, he would not give any trouble to you.’
‘I never had him in my hands but one evening and the morning after,’ said Meriet, ‘nor saw him again until you brought him to the abbey, my lord.’ And though sudden angry colour had flamed upward to his brow, his voice was ready and firm, and his temper well in hand.
‘Well, let us first find a name for our dead man,’ said Hugh, and turned to circle the dismembered mound once more, scanning the littered and fouled ground for any further detail that might have some bearing. He pondered what was left of the leather belt, all but the buckle end burned away, the charred remnant extending just far enough to reach a lean man’s left hip. ‘Whoever he was, he carried sword or dagger, here is the loop of the strap by which it hung—a dagger, too light and elegant for a sword. But no sign of the dagger itself. That should be somewhere here among the rubble.’
They raked through the debris for a further hour, but found no more of metal or clothing. When he was certain there was nothing more to be discovered, Hugh withdrew his party. They wrapped the recovered bones and the ring and cross reverently in a linen cloth and a blanket, and rode back with them to Saint Giles. There Meriet dismounted, but halted in silence to know what was the deputy-sheriff’s will with him.
‘You will be remaining here at the hospice?’ asked Hugh, eyeing him impartially. ‘Your abbot has committed you to this service?’
‘Yes, my lord. Until or unless I am recalled to the abbey, I shall be here.’ It was said with emphasis, not merely stating a fact, but stressing that he felt himself to have taken vows already, and not only his duty of obedience but his own will would keep him here.
‘Good! So we know where to find you at need. Very well, continue your work here without hindrance, but subject to your abbot’s authority, hold yourself also at my disposal.’
‘So I will, my lord. So I do,’ said Meriet, and turned on his heel with a certain drear dignity, and stalked away up the incline to the gate in the wattle fence.
‘And now, I suppose,’ sighed Hugh, riding on towards the Foregate with Cadfael beside him, ‘you will be at odds with me for being rough with your fledgling. Though I give you due credit, you held your tongue very generously.’
‘No,’ said Cadfael honestly, ‘he’s none the worse for goading. And there’s no blinking it, suspicion drapes itself round him like cobwebs on an autumn bush.’
‘It is the man, and he knows that it is. He knew it as soon as he raked out the shoe and the foot within it. That, and not the mere matter of some unknown man’s ugly death, was what shook him almost out of his wits. He knew—quite certainly he knew—that Peter Clemence was dead, but just as certainly he did not know what had been done with the body. Will you go with me so far?’
‘So far,’ said Cadfael ruefully, ‘I have already gone. An irony, indeed, that he led them straight to the place, when for once he was thinking of nothing but finding his poor folk fuel for the winter. Which is on the doorstep this very evening, unless my nose for weather fails me.’
The air had certainly grown still and chill, and the sky was closing down upon the world in leaden cloud. Winter had delayed, but was not far away.
‘First,’ pursued Hugh, harking back to the matter in hand, ‘we have to affix a name to these bones. That whole household at Aspley saw the man, spent an evening in his company, they must all know these gems of his, soiled as they may be now. It might put a rampaging cat among pigeons if I sent to summon Leoric here to speak as to his guest’s cross and ring. When the birds fly wild, we may pick up a feather or two.’
‘But for all that,’ said Cadfael earnestly, ‘I should not do it. Say never a probing word to any, leave them lulled. Let it be known we’ve found a murdered man, but no more. If you let out too much, then the one with guilt to hide will be off and out of reach. Let him think all’s well, and he’ll be off his guard. You’ll not have forgotten, the older boy’s marriage is set for the twenty-first of this month, and two days before that the whole clan of them, neighbours, friends and all, will be gathering in our guest-halls. Bring them in, and you have everyone in your hand. By then we may have the means to divine truth from untruth. And as for proving that this is indeed Peter Clemence—not that I’m in doubt!—did you not tell me that Canon Eluard intends to come back to us on the way south from Lincoln, and let the king go without him to Westminster?’
‘True, so he said he would. He’s anxious for news to take back to the bishop at Winchester, but it’s no good news we have for him.’
‘If Stephen means to spend his Christmas in London, then Canon Eluard may very well be here before the wedding party arrives. He knew Clemence well, they’ve both been close about Bishop Henry. He should be your best witness.’
‘Well, a couple of weeks can hardly hurt Peter Clemence now,’ agreed Hugh wryly. ‘But have you noticed, Cadfael, the strangest thing in all this coil? Nothing was stolen from him, everything burned with him. Yet more than one man, more than two, worked at building that pyre. Would you not say there was a voice in authority there, that would not permit theft though it had been forced to conceal murder? And those who took his orders feared him—or at the least minded him—more than they coveted rings and crosses.’
It was true. Whoever had decreed that disposal of Peter Clemence had put it clean out of consideration that his death could be the work of common footpads and thieves. A mistake, if he hoped to set all suspicion at a distance from himself and his own people. That rigid honesty had mattered more to him, whoever he was, than safety. Murder was within the scope of his understanding, if not of his tolerance; but not theft from the dead.
* * *
CHAPTER NINE
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Frost set in that night, heralding a week of hard weather. No snow fell, but a blistering east wind scoured the hills, wild birds ventured close to human habitations to pick up scraps of food, and even the woodland foxes came skulking a mile closer to the town. And so did some unknown human predator who had been snatching the occasional hen from certain outlying runs, and now and then a loaf of bread from a kitchen. Complaints began to be brought in to the town provost of thefts from the garden stores outside the walls, and to the castle of poultry taken from homesteads at the edge of the Foregate, and not by foxes or other vermin. One of the foresters from the Long Forest brought in a tale of a gutted deer lost a month ago, with evidence enough that the marauder was in possession of a good knife. Now the cold was driving someone living wild nearer to the town, where nights could be spent warmer in byre or barn than in the bleak woods.