An Excellent Mystery (23 page)

The
hardness of the answer, its cold force, was there in the silversmith’s voice as
he repeated it. Remembering had brought it back far more vividly than ever he
had dreamed, it shook him as he voiced it. Even more fiercely it stabbed at
Nicholas, a knife in the heart, driving the breath out of him. It rang so
hideously true, and named Adam Heriet almost beyond doubt. She who had owned
them was dead. Ornaments were of no further concern to her.

Out
of the chill rage that consumed him he heard the woman, roused now and eager,
saying: “No, but that’s not all! For it so chanced I followed the man out when
he left, but softly, not to be seen too soon.” Had he given her an appraising
look, smiled, flashed an admiring eye, to draw her on a string? No, not if he
had anything to hide, no, he would rather have slid away unobtrusively, glad to
be rid of his winnings for money. No, she was female, curious, and had time on
her hands to spare, she went out to see whatever was to be seen. And what was
it she saw? “He slipped along to the left here,” she said, “and there was
another man, a young fellow, pressed close against the wall there, waiting for
him. Whether he gave him the money, all of it or some of it, I could not be
sure, but something was handed over. And then the older one looked over his
shoulder and saw me, and they slipped away very quickly round the corner into
the side street by the market, and that was all I saw of them. And more than I
was meant to see,” she reflected, herself surprised now that she came to see
more in it than was natural.

“You’re
sure of that?” asked Nicholas intently. “There was a second with him, a younger
man?” For the three innocents from Lai had been left waiting in Andover. If it
had not been true, one or other of them, the simpleton surely, would have given
the game away at once.

“I
am sure. A young fellow, neat enough but homespun, such as you might see
hanging around inns or fairs or markets, the best of them hoping for work, and
the worst hoping for a chance to get a hand in some other man’s pouch.”

Hoping
for work or hoping to thieve! Or both, if the work offered took that shape —
yes, even to the point of murder.

“What
was he like, this second?”

She
furrowed her brow and considered, gnawing a lip. She was in strong earnest,
searching her memory, which was proving tenacious and long. “Tallish but not
too tall, much the older one’s height when they stood together, but half his
bulk. I say young because he was slender and fast when he slipped away, and
light on his feet. But I never saw his face, he had the capuchon over his
head.”

“I
did wonder,” said the silversmith defensively. “But it was done, I’d paid, and
I had the goods. There was no more I could do.”

“No.
No, there’s no blame. You could not know.” Nicholas looked again at the bright
ring on the woman’s finger. “Madam, will you let me buy that ring of you? For
double what your husband paid for it? Or if you will not, will you let me
borrow it of you for a fee, and my promise to return it when I can? To you,” he
said earnestly, “it is dear as a gift, and prized, but I need it.”

She
stared back at him wide-eyed and captivated, clasping and turning the ring on
her finger. “Why do you need it? More than I?”

“I
need it to confront that man who brought it here, the man who has procured, I
do believe, the death of the lady who wore it before you. Put a price on it,
and you shall have it.”

She
closed her free hand round it defensively, but she was flushed and bright-eyed
with excitement, too. She looked at her husband, who had the merchant’s
calculating, far-off look in his eyes, and was surely about to fix a price that
would pay the repairs of his shop for him. She tugged suddenly at the ring,
twisted it briskly over her knuckle, and held it out to Nicholas.

“I
lend it to you, for no fee. But bring it back to me yourself, when you have
done, and tell me how this matter ends. And should you find you are mistaken,
and she is still living, and wants her ring, then give it back to her, and pay
me for it whatever you think fair.”

The
hand she had extended to him with her bounty he caught and kissed. “Madam, I
will! All you bid me, I will! I pledge you my faith!” He had nothing fit to
offer her as a return pledge, she had the better of him at all points. Her
husband was looking at her indulgently, as one accustomed to the whims of a
very handsome wife, and made no demur, at least until the visitor was gone. “I
serve here under FitzRobert,” said Nicholas. “Should I fail you, or you ever
come to suppose that I have so failed you, complain to him, and he will show
you justice. But I will not fail you!”

“Are
you so ready to say farewell to my gifts?” asked the silversmith, when Nicholas
was out of sight. But he sounded amused rather than offended, and had turned
back to his close work on the brooch with unperturbed concentration.

“I
have not said farewell to it,” she said serenely. “I trust my judgement. He
will be back, and I shall have my ring again.”

“And
how if he finds the lady living, and takes you at your word? What then?”

“Why,
then,” said his wife, “I think I may earn enough out of his gratitude to buy
myself all the rings I could want. And I know you have the skill to make me a
copy of that one, if I so wish. Trust me, whichever way his luck runs — and I
wish him better than he expects! — we shall not be the losers.”

Nicholas
rode out of Winchester within the hour, in burning haste, by the north gate
towards Hyde, passing close by the blackened ground and broken-toothed walls of
the ill-fated abbey from which Humilis and Fidelis had fled to Shrewsbury for
refuge. These witnesses to tragedy and loss fell behind him unnoticed now. His
sights were set far ahead.

The
inertia of despair had lasted no longer than the length of the street, and
given place to the most implacable fury of rage and vengefulness. Now he had
something as good as certain, a small circlet of witness, evidence of the
foulest treachery and ingratitude. There could be no doubt whatever that these
modest ornaments were the same that Julian had carried with her, no chance
could possibly have thrown together for sale three such others. Two witnesses could
tell of the disposal of that ill-gotten plunder, one could describe the seller
only too well, with even more certainty once she was brought face to face with
him, as, by God, she should be before all was done. Moreover, she had seen him
meet with his hired assassin in the street, and pay him for his services. There
was no possibility of finding the hireling, nameless and faceless as he was,
except through the man who had hired him, and such enquiries as Nicholas had
set in motion after Adam Heriet had so far failed to trace his present
whereabouts. Only one company of Waleran’s men remained near Winchester, and
Heriet was not with them. But the search should go on until he was found, and
when found, he had more now to explain away than a few stolen hours —
possession of the lost girl’s goods, the disposal of them for money, the
sharing of his gains with some furtive unknown. For whatever conceivable
purpose, but to pay him for his part in robbery and murder?

Once
the principal villain was found, so would his tool be. And the first thing to
do now was inform Hugh Beringar, and accelerate the hunt for Adam Heriet in
Shropshire as in the south, until he was run to earth at last, and confronted
with the ring.

It
was barely past noon when Nicholas rode out of the city. By dusk he was near
Oxford, secured a remount, and rode on at a steadier and more sparing pace
through the night. A hot, sultry night it was, all the more as he went north
into the midlands. The sky was clear of cloud, yet without moon or stars, very
black. And all about him, in the mid hours of the night, lightnings flared and
instantly died again into blackness, conjuring up, for the twinkling of an eye,
trees and roofs and distant hills, only to obliterate them again before the eye
could truly perceive them. And all in absolute silence, with nowhere any murmur
of thunder to break the leaden hush. Forewarnings of the wrath of God, or of
his inscrutable mercies.

Chapter Twelve

THE
MORNING CAME BRIGHT, VEILED AND STILL, the rising sun a disc of copper, the
mill pond flat and dull like a pewter dish. The ripples evoked by Madog’s oars
did no more than heave sluggishly and settle again with an oily heaviness, as
he brought his boat in from the river after Prime.

Brother
Edmund had fussed and hesitated over the whole enterprise, unhappy at allowing
the risk to his patient, but unable to prevent, since the abbot had given his
permission. By way of a compromise with his conscience, he saw to it that every
possible provision was made for the comfort of Humilis on the journey, but
absented himself from the embarkation to busy himself about his other duties.
It was Cadfael and Fidelis who carried Humilis in a simple litter out through
the wicket in the enclave wall which led directly to the mill, and down to the
waterside. For all his long bones, he weighed hardly as much as a half-grown
boy. Madog, shorter by head and shoulders, hoisted him bodily in his arms
without noticeable effort, and bade Fidelis first take his place on the thwart,
so that the sick man could be settled on brychans against the young man’s
knees, and propped comfortably with pillows. Thus he might travel with as
little fatigue as possible. Fidelis drew the thin shoulders gently back to rest
against him, the tonsured head, bared to the morning air, pillowed on his
knees. The ring of dark hair still showed vigorous and young where all else was
enfeebled, drained and old. Only the eyes had kindled to unusual brightness in
the excitement of this venture, the fulfilment of a dear wish. After all the
great endeavours, all the crossing and recrossing of oceans and continents, all
the battles and victories and strivings, adventure at last was a voyage of a
few miles up an English river, to revisit a modest manor in a peaceful English
shire.

Happiness,
thought Cadfael, watching him, consists in small things, not in great. It is
the small things we remember, when time and mortality close in, and by small
landmarks we may make our way at last humbly into another world.

He
drew Madog aside for a moment before he let them go. The two in the boat were
already engrossed, the one in the open day, the sky above him, the green and
brightness of the land outside the cloister, the other in his beloved charge.
Neither was paying attention to anything else.

“Madog,”
said Cadfael earnestly, “if anything untoward should come to your notice — if
there should be anything strange, anything to astonish you… for God’s sake say
no word to any other, only bring it to me.”

Madog
looked sideways at him, blinking knowingly through the thorn-bushes of his
brows, and said: “And you, I suppose, will be no way astonished! I know you! I
can see as far into a dark night as most men. If there’s anything to tell, you
shall be the first, and from me the only one to hear it.”

He
clapped Cadfael weightily on the shoulder, slipped loose the mooring rope he
had twined about a stooping willow stump, and set foot with a boy’s agility on
the side of the boat, at once pushing it off from the shore and sliding down to
the thwart in one movement. The dull sheen of the water heaved and sank
lethargically between boat and bank. Madog took the oars, and pulled the boat
round easily into the outflowing current, lax and sleepy in the heat like a
human creature, but still alive and in languid motion.

Cadfael
stood to watch them go. The morning light, hazy though it was, shone on the
faces of the two travellers as the boat swung round, the young face and the
older face, the one hovering, solicitous and grave, the other upturned and
pallidly smiling for pleasure in his chosen day. Both great-eyed, intent,
perhaps even a little intimidated by the enterprise they had undertaken. Then
the boat came round, the oars dipped, and it was on Madog’s squat, capable
figure the eastern light fell.

There
was a ferryman called Charon, Cadfael recalled from his few forays into the
writings of antiquity, who had the care of souls bound out of this world. He,
too, took pay from his passengers, indeed he refused them if they had not their
fare. But he did not provide rugs and pillows and cerecloth for the souls he
ferried across to eternity. Nor had he ever cared to seek and salvage the
forlorn bodies of those the river took as its prey. Madog of the Dead Boat was
the better man.

There
is always a degree of coolness on the water, however sultry the air and sunken
the level of the stream. On the still, metallic lustre of the Severn there was
at least the illusion of a breeze, and a breath from below that seemed to
temper the glow from above, and Humilis could just reach a frail arm over the
side and dip his fingers in the familiar waters of the river beside which he
had been born. Fidelis nursed him anxiously, his hands braced to steady the
pillowed head, so that it lay in a chalice of his cupped palms, quite at rest.
Later he might seek to withdraw the touch of his hands, flesh against flesh,
for the sake of coolness, but as yet there was no need. He hung above the
upturned, dreaming face, delicately shifting his hands as Humilis turned his
head from side to side, trying to take in and recall both banks as they slid
by. Fidelis felt no cramp, no weariness, almost no grief. He had lived so long
with one particular grief that it had settled amicably into his being, a
welcome and kindly guest. Here in the boat, thus islanded together, he found
also an equally profound and poignant joy.