“No need to labour it,” said Prestcote shortly. “The shire has been saved a trial and a hanging, which is to the good, and I don’t know but the wretch himself might prefer this way out. It was a doughty shot, and that’s a valuable man of yours. I never thought it could be done so accurately at that distance.”
Ivo shrugged. “I knew Turstan’s quality, or I would not have said what I did, to risk either my horse or any of the hundreds about their harmless business in the Foregate. I don’t know that I expected a death . . .”
“There’s only one cause for regret,” said the sheriff. “If he had accomplices, he can never now be made to name them. And you say, Beringar, that there were probably two?”
“You’re satisfied, I hope,” said Ivo, “that neither Turstan nor my young groom Arald had any part with him in these thefts?”
Both had been questioned, he had insisted on that. Turstan had been a model of virtue since his one lapse, and the youngster was a fresh-faced country youth, and both had made friends among the other servants and were well liked. Ewald had been morose and taciturn, and kept himself apart, and the revelation of his villainy did not greatly surprise his fellows.
“There’s still the matter of the other offences. What do you think? Was it this man in all of them?”
“I cannot get it out of my mind,” said Hugh slowly, “that Master Thomas’s death was the work of one man only. And without reason or proof, by mere pricking of thumbs, I do not believe it was this man. For the rest—I don’t know! Two, the merchant’s watchman said, but I am not sure he may not be increasing the odds to excuse his own want of valour—or his very good sense, however you look at it. Only one, surely, would enter the barge in full daylight, no doubt briskly, as if he had an errand there, something to fetch or something to bestow. Where there were two, this must surely be one of them. Who the other was, we are still in the dark.”
After Compline Cadfael went to report to Abbot Radulfus all that had happened. The sheriff had already paid the necessary courtesy visit to inform the abbot, but for all that Radulfus would expect his own accredited observer to bring another viewpoint, one more concerned with the repute and the standards of a Benedictine house. In an order which held moderation in all things to be the ground of blessing, immoderate things were happening.
Radulfus listened in disciplined silence to all, and there was no telling from his face whether he deplored or approved such summary justice.
“Violence can never be anything but ugly,” he said thoughtfully, “but we live in a world as ugly and violent as it is beautiful and good. Two things above all concern me, and one of them may seem to you, brother, a trivial matter. This death, the shedding of this blood, took place outside our walls. For that I am grateful. You have lived both within and without, what must be accepted and borne is the same to you, within or without. But many here lack your knowledge, and for them, and for the peace we strive to preserve here as refuge for others beside ourselves, the sanctity of this place is better unspotted. And the second thing will matter as deeply to you as to me: Was this man guilty? Is it certain he himself had killed?”
“It is certain,” said Brother Cadfael, choosing his words with care, “that he had been concerned in murder, most likely with at least one other man.”
“Then harsh though it may be, this was justice.” He caught the heaviness of Cadfael’s silence, and looked up sharply. “You are not satisfied?”
“That the man took part in murder, yes, I am satisfied. The proofs are clear. But what is justice? If there were two, and one bears all, and the other goes free, is that justice? I am certain in my soul that there is more, not yet known.”
“And tomorrow all these people will depart about their own affairs, to their own homes and shops, wherever they may be. The guilty and the innocent alike. That cannot be the will of God,” said the abbot, and brooded a while in silence. “Nevertheless, it may be God’s will that it should be taken out of our hands. Continue your vigil, brother, through the morrow. After that others, elsewhere, must take up the burden.”
Brother Mark sat on the edge of his cot, in his cell in the dortoire, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and grieved. From a child he had lived a hard life, privation, brutality and pain were all known to him as close companions until he came into this retreat, at first unwilling. But death was too monstrous and too dark for him, coming thus instant in terror, and without the possibility of grace. To live misused, ill-fed, without respite from labour, was still life, with a sky above it, and trees and flowers and birds around it, colour and season and beauty. Life, even so lived, was a friend. Death was a stranger.
“Child, it is with us always,” said Cadfael, patient beside him. “Last summer ninety-five men died here in the town, none of whom had done murder. For choosing the wrong side, they died. It falls upon blameless women in war, even in peace at the hands of evil men. It falls upon children who never did harm to any, upon old men, who in their lives have done good to many, and yet are brutally and senselessly slain. Never let it shake your faith that there is a balance hereafter. What you see is only a broken piece from a perfect whole.”
“I know,” said Brother Mark between his fingers, loyal but uncomforted. “But to be cut off without trial . . .”
“So were the ninety-four last year,” said Cadfael gently, “and the ninety-fifth was murdered. Such justice as we see is also but a broken shred. But it is our duty to preserve what we may, and fit together such fragments as we find, and take the rest on trust.”
“And unshriven!” cried Brother Mark.
“So went his victim also. And he had neither robbed nor killed, or if he had, only God knows of it. There has many a man gone through that gate without a safe-conduct, who will reach heaven ahead of some who were escorted through with absolution and ceremony, and had their affairs in order. Kings and princes of the church may find shepherds and serfs preferred before them, and some who claim they have done great good may have to give place to poor wretches who have done wrong and acknowledge it, and have tried to make amends.”
Brother Mark sat listening, and at least began to hear. Humbly he recognised and admitted the real heart of his grievance. “I had his arm between my hands, I saw him wince when I cleansed his wound, and I felt his pain. It was only a small pain, but I felt it. I was glad to help him, it was pleasure to anoint the cut with balm, and wrap it clean, and know he was eased. And now he’s dead, with a cross-bow bolt through him . . .” Briefly and angrily, Brother Mark brushed away tears, and uncovered his accusing face. “What is the use of mending a man, if he’s to be broken within a few hours, past mending?”
“We were speaking of souls,” said Cadfael mildly, “not mere bodies, and who knows but your touch with ointment and linen may have mended to better effect the one that lasts the longer? There’s no arrow cleaves the soul but there may be balm for it.”
CHAPTER 5
Head-down on his own traces, Philip had run his friend John Norreys to earth at last at the butts by the riverside, where the budding archers of the town practised, and together they hunted out Edric Flesher’s young journeyman from the yard behind his master’s shop. Philip’s odyssey on the eve of the fair had begun with these two, who had had him bundled into their arms by Brother Cadfael when the sheriff’s men descended on the Gaye.
By their own account, they had hauled him away through the orchards and the narrow lanes behind the Foregate, avoiding the highroads, and sat him down in the first booth that sold drink, to recover his addled wits. And very ungrateful they had found him, as soon as the shock of his blow on the head began to pass, and his legs were less shaky under him.
Furious with himself, he had turned his ill-temper on them, snarled at them, said John tolerantly, that he was capable of looking after himself, and they had better go and warn some of the other stalwarts who had rushed on along the Foregate overturning stalls and scattering goods, before the officers reached them. Which they had taken good-humouredly enough, knowing his head was aching villainously by that time, and had followed him for a while at a discreet distance as he blundered away through the fair-ground, until he turned on them again and ordered them away. They had stood to watch him, and then shrugged and left him to his own devices, since he would have none of them.