“And was I yelling vengeance against the man who struck me? That’s what they said of me.”
“Well, now, I wouldn’t go so far as that, and yet it’s not too far off the mark, either. Let’s say you were not greatly loving him, and no wonder, we could all see the dunt he’d given you. Arrogant and greedy you called him, and a few other things I don’t recall, and mark your words, you kept telling us, pride like his was due for a disastrous fall, and soon. That must be what they had in mind who witnessed against you. I never heard word of any going to this hearing from my tavern, not until afterwards. Who were they that testified, then?”
“It was one man,” said Philip. “Not that I can blame him, it seems he told no lies—indeed, I never thought he had, I know I was the world’s fool that night.”
“Why, bless you, lad, with a cracked head a man’s liable to act like one cracked, he has the right. But who’s this one man? What with all the incomers at the fair, I had more strangers than known customers of these evenings.”
“It was a man attending one of the abbey guests,” said Philip. “Turstan Fowler, they said his name was. He said he was here drinking, and went from ale to wine, and then to strong liquor—it seems he ended up as drunk as I was myself, they took him up helpless later, and slung him into a cell at the abbey overnight. A well-set-up fellow, but slouching and unkempt when I saw him in the court. About thirty-five years old, at a guess, sunburned, a bush of brown hair . . .”
Wat shook his head, pondering the description. “I don’t know him, not by that, though I’ve got a rare memory for faces. An ale-house keeper has to have. Ah, well, if he’s a stranger he’d no call to give false witness, I suppose he was but honest, and put the worst meaning on your bletherings for want of knowing you.”
“What time was it when I left here?” Philip winced ever at the recollection of the departure, sudden and desperate, with churning stomach and swimming head, and both hands clamped hard over his grimly locked jaw. Barely time to weave a frantic way across the road and into the edge of the copse beyond, where he had heaved his heart out, and then blundered some distance further in cover towards the orchards of the Gaye, and collapsed shivering and retching into the grass, to pass into a sodden sleep. He had not dragged himself out of it until the small hours.
“Why, reckoning from Compline, I’d say an hour had passed, it would be about nine of the clock.”
Thomas of Bristol had set out from his booth to return to his barge only a quarter of an hour or so later. And someone, someone unknown, had intercepted him on the way, dagger in hand. No wonder the law had looked so narrowly at Philip Corviser, who had reason to resent and hate, and had blundered out of sight and sound of other men around that time, after venting his grievance aloud for all to hear.
Wat rose to go and cope with the custom that was overwhelming his two potboys, and Philip sat brooding with his chin on his fist. Most of the flares must be out by now along the Foregate, most of the stalls packed up and ready for departure. Another balmy summer night, heaven dropping fat blessings on the abbey receipts and the profits of trade, after a lost summer of warfare and a winter of uncertainty. And the town walls still unrepaired, and the streets still broken!
The door stood propped wide on the warm, luminous twilight, and the traffic in and out was brisk. Youngsters came with jugs and pitchers to fetch for their elders, maids tripped in for a measure of wine for their masters, labourers and abbey servants wandered in to slake their thirst between spells of work. Saint Peter’s Fair was drawing to its contented and successful close.
Through the open door came a fresh-faced youngster in a fine leather jerkin, and on his heels a sturdy, brown-faced man at least fifteen years older, in the same good livery. It took Philip a long moment of staring to recognise Turstan Fowler, sober, well-behaved, in good odour with his lord and all the world. Still longer to cause him to reflect afresh how he himself must have looked, drunk, if the difference could stretch so far. He watched the little potboy serve them. Wat was busy with others, and the room was full. The end of the fair was always a busy time. Another day, and these same hours would hang heavy and dark.
Philip never quite knew why he turned his head away, and hoisted a wide shoulder between himself and Ivo Corbière’s men. He had nothing against either of them, but he did not want to be recognised and condoled with, or congratulated on his release, or in any way, sympathetic or not, have public attention called to him. He kept his shoulder hunched between, and was glad to have the room so full of people, and most of them strangers.
“Fairs are good business,” remarked Wat, returning to his place and plumping down on the bench with a sigh of pleasure, “but I wish we could spread them round the rest of the year. My feet are growing no younger, and I’ve hardly been off them an hour in all, the last three days. What was it we were saying?”
“I was trying to describe for you the fellow who reported me as threatening revenge,” said Philip. “Cast a look over yonder now, and you’ll see the very man. The two in leather who came in together—the elder of the two.”
Wat let his sharp eyes rove, and surveyed Turstan Fowler with apparent disinterest, but very shrewdly. “Slouching and hangdog, was he? Smart as a new coat now.” His gaze returned to Philip’s face. “That’s the man? I remember him well enough. I seldom forget a man’s face, but his name and condition I’ve no way of knowing.”
“He can’t have looked quite so trim that evening,” said Philip, “seeing he owned to being well soused. He was lost to the world two hours later, by his own tale.”
“And he said he got it all here?” Wat’s eyes had narrowed thoughtfully.
“So he said. ‘Where I got my skinful’ is what he said.”
“Well, let me tell you something interesting, friend . . .” Wat leaned confidentially across the table. “Now I see him, I know how I saw him the last time, for if you’ll credit me, he looked much as he looks now. And what’s more, now I know of the connection he had with you and your affairs, I can recall small things that happened that night, things I never gave a thought to before, and neither would you have done. He was in here twice that evening, or rather, he was in the doorway once, before he came over the threshold later. In that doorway he stood, and looked round him, a matter of ten minutes or so after you came in. I made nothing of it that he gave you a measuring sort of look, for well he might, you were in full cry then. But look at you he did, and weighed you up, and went away again. And the next we saw of him, it might be half an hour later, he came in and bought a measure of ale, and a big flask of strong geneva liquor, and sat supping his ale quietly, and eyeing you from time to time—as again well he might, it was about then you were greenish and going suspicious quiet. But do you know when he drank up and left, Philip, lad? The minute after you made for the door in a hurry. And his flask under his arm, unopened. Drunk? Him? He was stone cold sober when he went out of here.”
“But he took the juniper liquor with him,” pointed out Philip, reasonably. “He was drunk enough two hours later, there were several of them to swear to that. They had to carry him back to the abbey on a trestle-board.”
“And how much of the juniper spirit did they find remaining? Did they ever mention that? Did they find the flask at all?”
“I never heard mention of it,” owned Philip, startled and doubtful. “Brother Cadfael was there, I could ask him. But why?”
Wat laid a kindly if patronising hand on his shoulder. “Lad, it’s easy to see you never went beyond wine or ale, and if you’ll heed me you’ll leave the strong stuff to strong stomachs. I said a large flask, and large I meant. There was a quart of geneva spirits in that bottle! If any man drank that dry in two hours, it wouldn’t be dead drunk they’d be carrying him away, it would be plain dead. Or if he did live to tell of it, it wouldn’t be the next day, nor for several after. Sober as the sheriff himself was that fellow when he went out of here on your heels, and why he should want to lie about it is more than I can say, but lie about it he did, it seems. Now you tell me why a man should go to some pains to convict himself of a debauch he never even had, and get himself slung into a cell for recompense. Unless,” added Wat, considering the problem with lively interest, “it was to get himself out of something worse.”