An Excellent Mystery

Chapter
One

Chapter
Two

Chapter
Three

Chapter
Four

Chapter
Five

Chapter
Six

Chapter
Seven

Chapter
Eight.

Chapter
Nine

Chapter
Ten

Chapter
Eleven

Chapter
Twelve

Chapter
Thirteen

Chapter
Fourteen

Chapter One

AUGUST
CAME IN, that summer of 1141, tawny as a lion and somnolent and purring as a
hearthside cat. After the plenteous rains of the spring the weather had settled
into angelic calm and sunlight for the feast of Saint Winifred, and preserved
the same benign countenance throughout the corn harvest. Lammas came for once
strict to its day, the wheat-fields were already gleaned and white, ready for
the flocks and herds that would be turned into them to make use of what
aftermath the season brought. The loaf-Mass had been celebrated with great
contentment, and the early plums in the orchard along the riverside were
darkening into ripeness. The abbey barns were full, the well-dried straw bound
and stacked, and if there was still no rain to bring on fresh green fodder in
the reaped fields for the sheep, there were heavy morning dews. When this
golden weather broke at last, it might well break in violent storms, but as yet
the skies remained bleached and clear, the palest imaginable blue.

“Fat
smiles on the faces of the husbandmen,” said Hugh Beringar, fresh from his own
harvest in the north of the shire, and burned nut-brown from his work in the
fields, “and chaos among the kings. If they had to grow their own corn, mill
their own flour and bake their own bread they might have no time left for all
the squabbling and killing. Well, thank God for present mercies, and God keep
the killing well away from us here. Not that I rate it the less ill-fortune for
being there in the south, but this shire is my field, and my people, mine to
keep. I have enough to do to mind my own, and when I see them brown and rosy
and fat, with full byres and barns, and a high wool tally in good quality
fleeces, I’m content.”

They
had met by chance at the corner of the abbey wall, where the Foregate turned
right towards Saint Giles, and beside it the great grassy triangle of the
horse-fair ground opened, pallid and pockmarked in the sun. The three-day
annual fair of Saint Peter was more than a week past, the stalls taken down,
the merchants departed. Hugh sat aloft on his raw-boned and cross-grained grey
horse, tall enough to carry a heavyweight instead of this light, lean young man
whose mastery he tolerated, though he had precious little love for any other
human creature. It was no responsibility of the sheriff of Shropshire to see
that the fairground was properly vacated and cleared after its three-day
occupation, but for all that Hugh liked to view the ground for himself. It was
his officers who had to keep order there, and make sure the abbey stewards were
neither cheated of their fees nor robbed or otherwise abused in collecting
them. That was over now for another year. And here were the signs of it, the
dappling of post-holes, the pallid oblongs of the stalls, the green fringes,
and the trampled, bald paths between the booths. From sun-starved bleach to
lush green, and back to the pallor again, with patches of tough, flat clover
surviving in the trodden paths like round green footprints of some strange
beast.

“One
good shower would put all right,” said Brother Cadfael, eyeing the curious
chessboard of blanched and bright with a gardener’s eye. “There’s nothing in
the world so strong as grass.”

He
was on his way from the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul to its chapel and
hospital of Saint Giles, half a mile away at the very rim of the town. It was
one of his duties to keep the medicine cupboard there well supplied with all
the remedies the inmates might require, and he made this journey every couple
of weeks, more often in times of increased habitation and need. On this
particular early morning in August he had with him young Brother Oswin, who had
worked with him among the herbs for more than a year, and was now on his way to
put his skills into practice among the most needy. Oswin was sturdy,
well-grown, glowing with enthusiasm. Time had been when he had cost plenty in
breakages, in pots burned beyond recovery, and deceptive herbs gathered by
mistake for others only too like them. Those times were over. All he needed now
to be a treasure to the hospital was a cool-headed superior who would know when
to curb his zeal. The abbey had the right of appointment, and the lay head they
had installed would be more than proof against Brother Oswin’s too exuberant
energy.

“You
had a good fair, after all,” said Hugh.

“Better
than ever I expected, with half the south cut off by the trouble in Winchester.
They got here from Flanders,” said Cadfael appreciatively. East Anglia was no
very peaceful ground just now, but the wool merchants were a tough breed, and
would not let a little bloodshed and danger bar them off from a good profit.

“It
was a fine wool clip.” Hugh had flocks of his own on his manor of Maesbury, in
the north, he knew about the quality of the year’s fleeces. There had been good
buying in from Wales, too, all along this border. Shrewsbury had ties of blood,
sympathy and mutual gain with the Welsh of both Powys and Gwynedd, whatever
occasional explosions of racial exuberance might break the guarded peace. In
this summer the peace with Gwynedd held firm, under the capable hand of Owain
Gwynedd, since they had a shared interest in containing the ambitions of Earl
Ranulf of Chester. Powys was less predictable, but had drawn in its horns of
late after several times blunting them painfully on Hugh’s precautions.

“And
the corn harvest the best for years. As for the fruit… It looks well,” said
Cadfael cautiously, “if we get some good rains soon to swell it, and no
thunderstorms before it’s gathered. Well, the corn’s in and the straw stacked,
and as good a hay crop as we’ve had since my memory holds. You’ll not hear me
complain.”

But
for all that, he thought, looking back in mild surprise, it had been an
unchancy sort of year, overturning the fortunes of kings and empresses not
once, but twice, while benignly smiling upon the festivities of the church and
the hopeful labours of ordinary men, at least here in the midlands. February
had seen King Stephen made prisoner at the disastrous battle of Lincoln, and
swept away into close confinement in Bristol castle by his arch-enemy, cousin
and rival claimant to the throne of England, the Empress Maud. A good many
coats had been changed in haste after that reversal, not least that of
Stephen’s brother and Maud’s cousin, Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and
papal legate, who had delicately hedged his wager and come round to the winning
side, only to find that he would have done well to drag his feet a little
longer. For the fool woman, with the table spread for her at Westminster and
the crown all but touching her hair, had seen fit to conduct herself in so
arrogant and overbearing a manner towards the citizens of London that they had
risen in fury to drive her out in ignominious flight, and let King Stephen’s
valiant queen into the city in her place.

Not
that this last spin of the wheel could set King Stephen free. On the contrary,
report said it had caused him to be loaded with chains by way of extra
security, he being the one formidable weapon the empress still had in her hand.
But it had certainly snatched the crown from Maud’s head, most probably for
ever, and it had cost her the not inconsiderable support of Bishop Henry, who
was not the man to be over-hasty in his alliances twice in one year. Rumour
said the lady had sent her half-brother and best champion, Earl Robert of
Gloucester, to Winchester to set things right with the bishop and lure him back
to her side, but without getting a straight answer. Rumour said also, and
probably on good grounds, that Stephen’s queen had already forestalled her, at
a private meeting with Henry at Guildford, and got rather more sympathy from
him than the empress had succeeded in getting. And doubtless Maud had heard of
it. For the latest news, brought by latecomers from the south to the abbey
fair, was that the empress with a hastily gathered army had marched to
Winchester and taken up residence in the royal castle there. What her next move
was to be must be a matter of anxious speculation to the bishop, even in his
own city.

And
meantime, here in Shrewsbury the sun shone, the abbey celebrated its maiden
saint with joyous solemnity, the flocks flourished, the harvest whitened and
was gathered in exemplary weather, the annual fair took its serene course
through the first three days of August, and traders came from far and wide,
conducted their brisk business, took their profits, made their shrewd
purchases, and scattered again in peace to return to their own homes, as though
neither king nor empress existed, or had any power to hamper the movements or
threaten the lives of ordinary, sensible men.

“You’ll
have heard nothing new since the merchants left?” Cadfael asked, scanning the
blanched traces their stalls had left behind.

“Nothing
yet. It seems they’re eyeing each other across the city, each waiting for the
other to make a move. Winchester must be holding its breath. The last word is
that the empress sent for Bishop Henry to come to her at the castle, and he has
sent a soft answer that he is preparing himself for the meeting. But stirred
not a foot, so far, to move within reach of her. But for all that,” said Hugh
thoughtfully, “I dare wager he’s preparing, sure enough. She has mustered her
forces, he’ll be calling up his before ever he goes near her, if he does!”

“And
while they hold their breath, you may breathe more freely,” said Cadfael
shrewdly.

Hugh
laughed. “While my enemies fall out, at least it keeps their minds off me and
mine. Even if they come to terms again, and she wins him back, there’s at least
a few weeks’ delay gained for the king’s party. If not, why, better they should
tear each other than save their arrows for us.”

“Do
you think he’ll stand out against her?”

“She
has treated him as haughtily as she does every man, when he did her good menial
service. Now he has half-defied her he may well be reflecting that she takes
very unkindly to being thwarted, and that a bishop can be clapped in chains as
easily as a king, once she lays hands on him. No, I fancy his lordship is
stocking his own castle of Wolvesey to withstand a siege, if it comes to that,
and calling up his men in haste. Who bargains with the empress had better
bargain from behind an army.”

The
queen’s army?” demanded Cadfael, sharp-eyed.

Hugh
had begun to wheel his horse back towards the town, but he looked round over a
bare brown shoulder with a flashing glint of black eyes. “That we shall see! I
would guess the first courier ever he sent out for aid went to Queen Matilda.”

“Brother
Cadfael…” began Oswin, trotting jauntily beside him as they walked on towards
the rim of the town, where the hospital and its chapel rose plain and grey
within their long wattle fence.

“Yes,
son?”

“Would
even the empress really dare lay hands on the Bishop of Winchester? The Holy
Father’s legate here?”

“Who
can tell? But there’s not much she will not dare.”

“But…
That there could be fighting between them…”

Oswin
puffed out his round young cheeks in a great breath of wonder and deprecation.
Such a thing seemed to him unimaginable. “Brother, you have been in the world
and have experience of wars and battles. And I know that there were bishops and
great churchmen went to do battle for the Holy Sepulchre, as you did, but
should they be found in arms for any lesser cause?”