The elder potboy, a freckled lad born and bred in the Foregate, came by with a cluster of empties in either hand, and paused to nudge Wat in the ribs with an elbow, and lean to his ear.
“Do you know who you have there, master?” A jerk of his head indicated the two in leather jerkins. “The young one’s fellow-groom to the one that got a bolt through him along the Foregate a while ago. And the other—Will Wharton just told me, and he was close by and saw it all!—that’s the fellow who loosed the bolt! His comrade in the same price, mark! Should he be here and in such spirits the same night? That’s a stronger stomach than mine. ‘Fetch him down!’ says the master, and down the fellow fetches him, sharp and cool. You’d have thought his hand would have shook too much to get near the target, but no!—thump between the shoulders and through to the breast, so Will says. And that’s the very man that did it, supping ale like any Christian.”
They were both of them staring at him open-mouthed, and turned away only to stare again, briefly and intently, at Turstan Fowler sitting at ease with his tankard, sturdy legs splayed under the table. It had never even occurred to Philip to ask in whose service the dead malefactor was employed, and perhaps Wat would not have known the name if he had asked. He would have mentioned it else.
“That’s the man? You’re sure?” pressed Philip.
“Will Wharton is sure, and he helped to pick up the poor devil who was killed.”
“Turstan Fowler? The falconer to Ivo Corbière? And Corbière ordered him to shoot?”
“The name I don’t know, for neither did Will. Some young lord at the abbey guest-hall. Very handsome sprig, yellow-haired, Will says. Though it’s no great blame to him for wanting a murderer and thief stopped in his tracks, granted, and any road, the man had just stolen his horse, and kicked him off into the dust when he tried to halt him. And I suppose when a lord orders, his man had better jump to obey. Still, it’s a grim thing to work side by side with a man maybe months and years, and then to be told, strike him dead! And to do it!” And the potboy rolled up his eyes and loosed a long, soft whistle, and passed on with his handful of tankards, leaving them so sunk in reconsideration that neither of them had anything to say.
But there could not be anything in it of significance for him, surely? Philip looked back briefly as he left the inn, and Turstan Fowler and the young groom were sitting tranquilly with their ale, talking cheerfully with half a dozen other sober drinkers around them. They had not noticed him, or if they had, had not recognised him, and neither of them seemed to have anything of grave moment on his mind. Strange, though, how this same man seemed to be entangled in every untoward episode, never at the centre of things yet always somewhere in view.
As for the matter of the flask of juniper spirits, what did it really signify? The man had been picked up too drunk to talk, no one had looked round for his bottle, it might well have been left lying, still more than half-full, if the stuff was as potent as Wat said, and some scavenger by night might have picked it up and rejoiced in his luck. There were a dozen ways of accounting for the circumstances. And yet it was strange. Why should he have said he was drunk before he left Wat’s inn, if he had really left it cold sober? More to the point, why should he have left so promptly on Philip’s heels? Yet Wat was a good observer.
The tiny discrepancies stuck like barbs in Philip’s mind. It was far too late to trouble anyone else tonight, Compline was long over, the monks of Shrewsbury, their guests, their servants, would all be in their beds or preparing to go there, except for the few lay stewards who had almost completed their labours, and would be glad enough to make a modestly festive night of it. Moreover, his parents would be vexed that he had abandoned them all the day and he could expect irate demands for explanations at home. He had better make his way back.
All the same, he crossed the road and made for the copse, as on the night he was repeating, and found some faint signs of his wallow still visible, dried into the trampled grass. Then back towards the river, avoiding the streets, keeping to the cover of woodland, and there was the sheltered hollow where he had slept off the worst of his orgy, before gathering himself up stiffly and hobbling back to the town. There was enough lambent starlight to see his way, and show him the scuffled and flattened grasses.
But no, this was not the place! Here there was a faint, trodden path, and he had certainly moved much deeper into the bushes and trees, down-river, hiding even from the night. This glade looked very like the other, but it was not the same. Yet someone or something, large as a man, had lain here, and not peacefully. Surely more than one pair of feet had ploughed the turf. A pair of opportunist lovers, enjoying one of the traditional pleasures of the fair? Or another kind of struggle? No, hardly a struggle, though something had been dragged downhill towards the river, which was just perceptible as a gleam between the trees. There was a patch of bare soil, dry and pale as clay, between the spreading roots of the birch tree against which he leaned, and ribbons of dropped bark littered it. The largest of them showed curiously dark instead of silvery, like the rest. He stooped and picked it up, and his fingertips recoiled from the black, encrusted stain. In the grass, if he searched by daylight, there might well be other such blots.
In looking for the place of his own humiliation, he had found something very different, the place where Master Thomas had been killed. And below, from that spur of grass standing well above the undermined bank, his body had been thrown into the river.
After the Fair
CHAPTER 1
Brother Cadfael came out from Prime, next morning, to find Philip hovering anxiously in the great court, fidgeting from one foot to the other as if the ground under him burned, and so intent and grim of face that there was no doubting the urgency of what he had to impart. At sight of Cadfael he came bounding alongside to lay a hand on his sleeve.
“Will you come with me to Hugh Beringar? You know him, he’ll listen if you vouch for me. I didn’t know if he’d be stirring this early, so I waited for you. I think I’ve found the place where Master Thomas was killed.”
It was certainly not what he had been looking for, and came as a total irrelevance for a moment to Brother Cadfael, who checked and blinked at an announcement so unexpected. “You’ve done what!”
“It’s true, I swear it! It was so late last night, I couldn’t pester anyone with it then, and I’ve not been there by daylight—but someone bled there—someone was dragged down to the water—”
“Come!” said Cadfael, recovering. “We’ll go together.” And he set out at a brisk trot for the guest-hall, Philip’s long strides keeping easy pace with him. “If you’re right . . . He’ll want you to show the place. Can you find it again with certainty?”
“I can, you’ll see why.”
Hugh came out to them yawning, in shirt and hose, but wide awake and shaven all the same. “Speak low!” he said, finger on lip, and softly closed the door of his rooms behind him. “The women are still asleep. Now, what is it? I know better than to turn away anyone who comes with Brother Cadfael’s warranty.”
Philip told only what was needful. For his own personal need there would be time later. What mattered now was the glade in the edge of the woods, beyond the orchards of the Gaye.
“I was following my own scent, last night, and I made too short a cast at the way I took down to the river. I came on a place in the trees there—I can find it again—where some heavy thing had lain, and been dragged down to the water. The grass is flattened where he lay, and combed downhill, where he was dragged, and for all the three days between, it still shows the traces. I think there are also spots of blood.”
“The merchant of Bristol?” asked Hugh, after an instant of startled silence.
“I think so. Daylight may show for certain.”
Hugh turned to drain his morning ale in purposeful haste, and demolish the end of oatcake he had been eating. “You slept at home? In the town?” He was brushing his black crest hastily as he talked, tying the laces of his shirt and reaching for his cotte. “And came to me rather than to the sheriff! Well, no harm, we’re nearer than he, it will save time.” Sword and sword-belt he left lying, and thrust his feet into his shoes. “Cadfael, you’ll be missing breakfast, take these cakes with you, and drink something now, while you may. And you, friend, have you eaten?”