A Rare Benedictine (11 page)

“So
it seems.”

“And
you caught never a glimpse? Never had time to turn your head? You can tell us
nothing to trace him? Not even a guess at his build? His age?”

Nothing.
Simply, there had been early dusk before him, his own steps the only sound, no
man in sight between the high walls of gardens, yards and warehouses going down
to the river, and then the shock of the blow, and abrupt darkness. He was
growing tired again, but his mind was clear enough. There would be no more to
get from him.

Brother
Edmund came in, eyed his patient, and silently nodded the visitors out at the
door, to leave him in peace. Eddi kissed his father’s dangling hand, but
brusquely, rather as though he would as lief have bitten it, and marched out to
blink at the sunlight in the great court. With a face grimly defiant he waited
for the sergeant’s dismissal.

“I
left him as I told you, I went to the butts, and played into a wager there, and
shot well. You’ll want names from me. I can give them. And I’m still short the
half of my fine, for what that’s worth. I knew nothing of this until I went
home, and that was late, after your messenger had been there. Can I go home?
I’m at your disposal.”

“You
can,” granted the sergeant, so readily that it was clear the young man would
not be unwatched on the way, or on arrival. “And there stay, for I shall want
more from you than merely names. I’m away to take their tales from the lay
brothers who were working late at the Gaye yesterday, but I’ll not be long
after you in the town.”

The
workers were already assembling in the court and moving off to their day’s
labour. The sergeant strode forth to find his men, and left Eddi glowering
after him, and Cadfael mildly observing the wary play of thought in the dark
young face. Not a bad-looking lad, if he would wear a sunnier visage; but
perhaps at this moment he had little cause.

“He
will truly be a hale man again?” he asked suddenly, turning his black gaze on
Cadfael.

“As
whole and hearty as ever he was.”

“And
you’ll take good care of him?”

“So
we will,” agreed Cadfael innocently, “even though he may be a cantankerous
worrit and a plague.”

“I
‘m sure none of you here have any call to say so,” flashed the young man with
abrupt ferocity. “The abbey has had loyal and solid service from him all these
years, and owes him more thanks than abuse.” And he turned his back and stalked
away out of the great court, leaving Cadfael looking after him with a
thoughtful face and the mere trace of a smile.

He
was careful to wipe off the smile before he went back to Master William, who
was in no mood to take himself, his son and his troubles anything but
seriously. He lay trying to blink and frown away his headache, and fulminating
about his offspring in a glum undertone.

“You
see what I have to complain of, who should be able to look for comfort and
support at home. A wild, unbiddable good-for-nothing, and insolent into the
bargain...”

“So
he is,” agreed Cadfael sympathetically, wooden-faced. “No wonder you mean to
let him pay for his follies in prison, and small blame to you.” He got an acid
glare as reward. “I shall do no such thing!” snapped Master William sharply.
“The boy’s no worse than you or I at his age, I daresay. Nothing wrong with him
that time won’t cure.”

Master
William’s disaster, it seemed, had shaken the serenity of the abbey from choir
to guest-hall. The enquiries were many and assiduous. Young Jacob had been
hopping about outside the infirmary from dawn, unable to tear himself away even
to the duties he owed his injured master, until Cadfael had taken pity on his
obvious anxiety, and stopped to tell him that there was no need for such
distress, for the worst was over, and all would be well with Master William.

“You
are sure, brother? He has regained his senses? He has spoken? His mind is
clear?”

Patiently
Cadfael repeated his reassurances.

“But
such villainy! Has he been able to help the sheriff’s men? Did he see his
attacker? Has he any notion who it could have been?”

“Not
that, no. Never a glimpse, he was struck from behind, and knew no more until he
came to this morning in the infirmary. He’s no help to the law, I fear. It was
not to be expected.”

“But
he himself will be well and strong again?”

“As
ever he was, and before long, too.”

“Thank
God, brother!” said Jacob fervently, and went away satisfied to his accounts.
For even with the town rents lost, there was still bookwork to be done on what
remained.

More
surprising it seemed to be stopped on the way to the dortoir by Warin Harefoot,
the haberdasher, with a very civil enquiry after the steward’s health. Warin
did not presume to display the agitation of a favoured colleague like Jacob,
but rather the mannerly sympathy of a humble guest of the house, and the
law-abiding citizen’s indignation at evil-doing, and desire that justice should
pursue the evildoer. Had his honour been able to put a name or a face to his
attacker? A great pity! Yet justice, he hoped, might still be done. And would
there should any man be so fortunate as to trace the missing satchel with its
treasure would there be a small reward for such a service? To an honest man who
restored it, Cadfael thought, there well might. Warin went off to his day’s
peddling in Shrewsbury, humping his heavy pack. The back view of him, for some
reason, looked both purposeful and jaunty.

But
the strangest and most disturbing enquirer made, in fact, no enquiry, but came
silently in, as Cadfael was paying another brief visit to the infirmary in the
early afternoon, after catching up with some of his lost sleep. Brother
Eutropius stood motionless and intent at the foot of the steward’s bed, staring
down with great hollow eyes in a face like a stone mask. He gave never a glance
to Cadfael. All he regarded was the sleeping man, now so placid and eased for
all his bandaged head, a man back from the river, back from the grave. He stood
there for a long time, his lips moving on inaudible formulae of prayer Suddenly
he shuddered, like someone waking from a trance, and crossed himself, and went
away as silently as he had come.

Cadfael
was so concerned at his manner and his closed face that he went out after him,
no less quietly, and followed him at a distance through the cloisters and into
the church.

Brother
Eutropius was on his knees before the high altar, his marble face upraised over
clasped hands. His eyelids were closed, but the dark lashes glittered. A
handsome, agonised man of thirty, with a strong body and a fierce, tormented
heart, his lips framing silently but readably in the altar-light. “Mea culpa...
maxima mea culpa...”

Cadfael
would have liked to pierce the distance and the ice between, but it was not the
time. He went away quietly, and left Brother Eutropius to the remnant of his
disrupted solitude, for whatever had happened to him, the shell was cracked and
disintegrating, and never again would he be able to reassemble it about him.

Cadfael
went into the town before Vespers, to call upon Mistress Rede, and take her the
latest good word of her man. It was by chance that he met the sergeant at the
High Cross, and stopped to exchange news. It had been a routine precaution to
round up a few of the best-known rogues in Shrewsbury, and make them account
for their movements the previous day, but that had yielded nothing. Eddi’s
fellow-marksmen at the butts under the town wall had sworn to his story
willingly, but seeing they were all his cronies from boyhood, that meant little
enough. The one new thing, and it marked the exact spot of the attack past
question, was the discovery in the passage above the water-gate of the one loop
of leather from Master William’s pouch, the one which had been sliced clean
through and left lying in the thief’s haste, and the dim light under the high
walls.

“Right
under the clothier’s cart-yard. The walls are ten feet high, and the passage
narrow. Never a place from which the lane can be overlooked. No chance in the
world of an eye witness. He chose his place well.”

“Ah,
but there is one place, then, from which a man might have watched the deed,”
said Cadfael, enlightened. “The loft above that cart-house and barn has a hatch
higher than the wall, and close to it. And Roger Clothier lets Rhodri Fychan
sleep up there the old Welshman who begs at Saint Mary’s church. By that time
of the evening he may have been up in the hay already, and on a fine evening
he’d be sitting by the open hatch. And even if he had not come home at that
time, who’s to be sure of that? It’s enough that he could have been there.

He
had been right about the sergeant; the man was an incomer, not yet acquainted
with the half of what went on in Shrewsbury. He had not known Madog of the
Dead-Boat, he did not know Rhodri Fychan. Pure chance had cast this particular
affair into the hands of such a man, and perhaps no ill chance, either.

“You
have given me a notion,” said Cadfael, “that may bring us nearer the truth yet.
Not that I’d let the old man run any risk, but no need for that. Listen,
there’s a baited trap we might try, if you’re agreeable. If it succeeds you may
have your man. If it fails, we shall have lost nothing. But it’s a matter of
doing it quietly, no public proclamation, leave the baiting to me. Will you
give it a trial? It’s your credit if we hook our fish, and it costs but a
night-watch.”

The
sergeant stared, already sniffing at the hope of praise and promotion, but
cautious still. “What is it you have in mind?”

“Say
you had done this thing, there between blind walls, and then suddenly heard
that an old man slept above every night of the year, and may have been there
when you struck. And say you were told that this old beggar has not yet been
questioned but tomorrow he will be...”

“Brother,”
said the sergeant, “I am with you. I am listening.”

There
were two things to be done, after that, if the spring was to succeed, and
imperil no one but the guilty. No need to worry, as yet, about getting
permission to be absent in the night, or, failing that, making his own
practised but deprecated way out without permission. Though he had confidence
in Abbot Radulfus, who had, before now, shown confidence in him. Justice is a
permitted passion, the just respect it. Meantime, Cadfael went up to Saint Mary’s
churchyard, and sought out the venerable beggar who sat beside the west door,
in his privileged and honoured place. Rhodri the Less for his father had been
Rhodri, too, and a respected beggar like his son knew the footstep, and turned
up a wrinkled and pock-marked face, brown as the soil, smiling.

“Brother
Cadfael, well met, and what’s the news with you?”

Cadfael
sat down beside him, and took his time. “You’ll have heard of this bad business
that was done right under your bedchamber, yesterday evening. Were you there,
last night?”

“Not
when this befell,” said the old man, scratching his white poll thoughtfully,
“and can find no one who was down there at that time, either. Last night I
begged late, it was a mild evening. Vespers was over and gone here before I
went home.”

“No
matter,” said Cadfael. “Now listen, friend, for I’m borrowing your nest
tonight, and you’ll be a guest elsewhere, if you’ll be my helper...”

“For
a Welshman,” said the old man comfortably, “whatever he asks. You need only
tell me.” But when it was told, he shook his head firmly. “There’s an inner
loft. In the worst of the winter I move in there for the warmth, away from the
frosty air. Why should not I be present? There’s a door between, and room for
you and more. And I should like, Brother Cadfael, I should like of all things
to be witness when Will Rede’s murderer gets his come-uppance.”

He
leaned to rattle his begging-bowl at a pious lady who had been putting up
prayers in the church. Business was business, and the pitch he held was the
envy of the beggars of Shrewsbury. He blessed the giver, and reached a delaying
hand to halt Cadfael, who was rising to depart.

“Brother,
a word for you that might come helpfully, who knows! They are saying that one
of your monks was down under the bridge yesterday evening, about the time Madog
took up Will out of the water. They say he stood there under the stone a long
time, like a man in a dream, but no good dream. One they know but very little,
a man in his prime, dark-avised, solitary...”

“He
came late to Vespers,” said Cadfael, remembering.

“You
know I have those who tell me things, for no evil purpose a man who sits still
must have the world come to him. They tell me this brother walked into the
water, above his sandals, and would have gone deeper, but it was then Madog of
the Dead-Boat hallooed that he had a drowned man aboard. And the strange monk
drew back out of the water and fled from his devil. So they say. Does it mean
anything to you?”

“Yes,”
said Cadfael slowly. “Yes, it means much.”

When
Cadfael had finished reassuring the steward’s brisk, birdlike little wife that
she should have her man back in a day or two as good as new, he drew Eddi out
with him into the yard, and told him all that was in the wind.

“And
I am off back now to drop the quiet word into a few ears I can think of, where
it may raise the fiercest itch. But not too early, or why should not the
thought be passed on to the sheriff’s man at once for action? No, last thing,
after dark, when all good brothers are making their peace with the day before
bed, I shall have recalled that there’s one place from which yonder lane can be
overlooked, and one man who sleeps the nights there, year round, and may have
things to tell. First thing tomorrow, I shall let them know, I’ll send the sheriff
the word, and let him deal. Whoever fears an eye witness shall have but this
one night to act.”