Brother Cadfael had already noted one remarkable circumstance. He had been watching Nigel’s face ever since that young man had first looked down at the adornment that was causing so much interest, and until this moment there had been no sign whatever that the brooch meant anything to him. He was glancing from Canon Eluard to Roswitha, and back again, a puzzled frown furrowing his broad forehead and a faint, questioning smile on his lips, waiting for someone to enlighten him. But now that its owner had been named, it suddenly had meaning for him, and a grim and frightening meaning at that. He paled and stiffened, staring at the canon, but though his throat and lips worked, either he found no words or thought better of those that he had found, for he remained mute. Abbot Radulfus had drawn close on one side, and Hugh Beringar on the other.
‘What is this? You recognise this gem as belonging to Master Clemence? You are certain?’
‘As certain as I was of those possessions of his which you have already shown me, cross and ring and dagger, which had gone through the fire with him. This he valued in particular as the bishop’s gift. Whether he was wearing it on his last journey I cannot say, but it was his habit, for he prized it.’
‘If I may speak, my lord,’ said Isouda clearly from behind Roswitha’s shoulder, ‘I do know that he was wearing it when he came to Aspley. The brooch was in his cloak when I took it from him at the door and carried it to the chamber prepared for him, and it was in his cloak also when I brought it out to him the next morning when he left us. He did not need the cloak for riding, the morning was warm and fine. He had it slung over his saddle-bow when he rode away.’
‘In full view, then,’ said Hugh sharply. For cross and ring had been left with the dead man and gone to the fire with him. Either time had been short and flight imperative, or else some superstitious awe had deterred the murderer from stripping a priest’s gems of office from his very body, though he had not scrupled to remove this one fine thing which lay open to his hand. ‘You observe, my lords,’ said Hugh,’that this jewel seems to show no marks of damage. If you will allow us to handle and examine it…?’
Good, thought Cadfael, reassured, I should have known Hugh would need no nudging from me. I can leave all to him now.
Roswitha made no move either to allow or prevent, as Hugh unpinned the great brooch from its place. She looked on with a blanched and apprehensive face, but said never a word. No, Roswitha was not entirely innocent in the matter; whether she had known what this gift was and how come by or not, she had certainly understood that it was perilous and not to be shown—not yet! Perhaps not here? And after their marriage they were bound for Nigel’s northern manor. Who was likely to know it there?
This has never seen the fire,’ said Hugh, and handed it to Canon Eluard for confirmation. ‘Everything else the man had was burned with him. Only this one thing was taken from him before ever those reached him who built him into his pyre. And only one person, last to see him alive, first to see him dead, can have taken this from his cloak as he lay, and that was his murderer.’ He turned to Roswitha, who stood pale to translucency, like a woman of ice, staring at him with wide and horrified eyes.
‘Who gave it to you?’
She cast one rapid glance around her, and then as suddenly took heart, and drawing breath deep, she answered loudly and clearly: ‘Meriet!’
Cadfael awoke abruptly to the realisation that he possessed knowledge which he had not yet confided to Hugh, and if he waited for the right challenge to this bold declaration from other lips he might wait in vain, and lose what had already been gained. For most of those here assembled, there was nothing incredible in this great lie she had just told, nothing even surprising, considering the circumstances of Meriet’s entry into the cloister, and the history of the devil’s novice within these walls. And she had clutched at the brief general hush as encouragement, and was enlarging boldly: ‘He was always following me with his dog’s eyes. I didn’t want his gifts, but I took it to be kind to him. How could I know where he got it?’
‘When?’ demanded Cadfael loudly, as one having authority. “When did he give you this gift?’
‘When?’ She looked round, hardly knowing where the question had come from, but hasty and positive in answering it, to hammer home conviction. ‘It was the day after Master Clemence left Aspley—the day after he was killed—in the afternoon. He came to me in our paddock at Linde. He pressed me so to take it… I did not want to hurt him…’ From the tail of his eye Cadfael saw that Meriet had come forth from his shadowy place and drawn a little nearer, and Mark had followed him anxiously though without attempting to restrain him. But the next moment all eyes were drawn to the tall figure of Leoric Aspley, as he came striding and shouldering forward to tower over his son and his son’s new wife.
‘Girl,’ cried Leoric, ‘think what you say! Is it well to lie? I know this cannot be true.’ He swung about vehemently, encountering in turn with his grieved, grim eyes abbot and canon and deputy-sheriff. ‘My lords all, what she says is false. My part in this I will confess, and accept gladly whatever penalty is due from me. For this I know, I brought home my son Meriet, that same day that I brought home the dead body of my guest and kinsman, and having cause, or so I thought, to believe my son the slayer, I laid him under lock and key from that hour, until I had considered, and he had accepted, the fate I decreed for him. From late afternoon of the day Peter Clemence died, all the next day, and until noon of the third, my son Meriet was close prisoner in my house. He never visited this girl. He never gave her this gift, for he never had it in his possession. Nor did he ever lift hand against my guest and his kinsman, now it is shown! God forgive me that ever I credited it!’
‘I am not lying!’ shrilled Roswitha, struggling to recover the belief she had felt within her grasp. ‘A mistake only—I mistook the day! It was the third day he came came…’
Meriet had drawn very slowly nearer. From deep within his shadowing cowl great eyes stared, examining in wonder and anguish his father, his adored brother and his first love, so frantically busy twisting knives in him. Roswitha’s roving, pleading eyes met his, and she fell mute like a songbird shot down in flight, and shrank into Nigel’s circling arms with a wail of despair.
Meriet stood motionless for a long moment, then he turned on his heel and limped rapidly away. The motion of his lame foot was as if at every step he shook off dust.
‘Who gave it to you?’ asked Hugh, with pointed and relentless patience.
All the crowd had drawn in close, watching and listening, they had not failed to follow the logic of what had passed. A hundred pairs of eyes settled gradually and remorselessly upon Nigel. He knew it, and so did she.
‘No, no, no!’ she cried, turning to wind her arms fiercely about her husband. ‘It was not my lord—not Nigel! It was my brother gave me the brooch!’
On the instant everyone present was gazing round in haste, searching the court for the fair head, the blue eyes and light-hearted smile, and Hugh’s officers were burrowing through the press and bursting out at the gate to no purpose. For Janyn Linde had vanished silently and circumspectly, probably by cool and unhurried paces from the moment Canon Eluard first noticed the bright enamels on Roswitha’s shoulder. And so had Isouda’s riding-horse, the better of the two hitched outside the gatehouse for Meriet’s use. The porter had paid no attention to a young man sauntering innocently out and mounting without haste. It was a youngster of the Foregate, bright-eyed and knowing, who informed the sergeants that a young gentleman had left by the gate, as long as a quarter of an hour earlier, unhitched his horse, and ridden off along the Foregate, not towards the town. Modestly enough to start with said the shrewd urchin, but he was into a good gallop by the time he reached the corner at the horse-fair and vanished.
From the chaos within the great court, which must be left to sort itself out without his aid, Hugh flew to the stables, to mount himself and the officers he had with him, send for more men, and pursue the fugitive; if such a word might properly be applied to so gay and competent a malefactor as Janyn.