Monk's Hood (20 page)

Hugh
drummed his fingers on the table, and pondered in silence for a moment.
“Cadfael, I must tell you I shall pursue the hunt for the boy to the limit, and
not spare any tricks in the doing, so look to your own movements.”

“That’s
fair dealing,” said Cadfael simply. “You and I have been rivals in trickery
before, and ended as allies. But as for my movements, you’ll find them
monstrously dull. Did Prior Robert not tell you? I’m confined within the abbey
walls, I may not go beyond.”

Hugh’s
agile black brows shot up to meet his hair. “Good God, for what cloistered
crime?” His eyes danced. “What have you been about, to incur such a ban?”

“I
spent too long in talk with the widow, and a stretched ear gathered that we had
known each other very well, years ago, when we were young.” That was one thing
he had not thought necessary to tell, but there was no reason to withhold it
from Hugh. “You asked me, once, how it came I had never married, and I told you
I once had some idea of the kind, before I went to the Holy Land.”

“I
do remember! You even mentioned a name. By now, you said, she must have
children and grandchildren… Is it really so, Cadfael? This lady is your Richildis?”

“This
lady,” said Cadfael with emphasis, “is indeed Richildis, but mine she is not.
Two husbands ago I had a passing claim on her, and that’s all.”

“I
must see her! The charmer who caught your eye must be worth cultivating. If you
were any other man I should say this greatly weakens the force of your
championship of her son, but knowing you, I think any scamp of his age in
trouble would have you by the nose. I will see her, however, she may need
advice or help, for it seems there’s a legal tangle there that will take some
unravelling.”

“There’s
another thing you can do, that may help to prove to you what I can only urge. I
told you the boy says he threw
into the river an inlaid wooden
box, quite small.” Cadfael described it minutely. “If that could come to light,
it would greatly strengthen his story, which I, for one, believe. I cannot go
out and contact the fishermen and watermen of Severn, and ask them to keep
watch for such a small thing in the places they’ll know of, where things afloat
do wash up. But you can, Hugh. You can have it announced in Shrewsbury and
downstream. It’s worth the attempt.”

“That
I’ll certainly do,” said Beringar readily. “There’s a man whose grim business
it is, when some poor soul drowns in Severn, to know exactly where the body
will come ashore. Whether small things follow the same eddies is more than I
know, but he’ll know. I’ll have him take this hunt in charge. And now, if we’ve
said all, we’d better go and see this twin imp of yours. Lucky for him you knew
him, they’d hardly have believed it if he’d told them himself that he was the
wrong boy. Are they really so like?”

“No,
no more than a general family look about them if you know them, or see them
side by side. But apart, a man might be in doubt, unless he did know them well.
And your men were after the rider of that horse, and sure who it must be. Come
and see!”

He
was still in doubt, as they went together to the cell where Edwy waited, by
this time in some trepidation, exactly what Beringar meant to do with his
prisoner, though he had no fear that any harm would come to the boy. Whatever
Hugh might think about Edwin’s guilt or innocence, he was not the man to lean
too heavily upon Edwy’s staunch solidarity with his kinsman.

“Come
forth, Edwy, into the daylight,” said Beringar, holding the cell door wide,
“and let me look at you. I want to be in no doubt which of you I have on my
hands, the next time you change places.” And when Edwy obediently rose and
stepped warily out into the court, after one nervous side-glance to make sure
Brother Cadfael was there, the deputy sheriff took him by the chin and raised
his face gently enough, and studied it attentively. The bruises were purple
this morning, but the hazel eyes were bright. “I’ll know you again,”
said Hugh confidently. “Now, young sir! You have cost us a great
deal of time and trouble, but I don’t propose to waste even more by taking it
out of your skin. I’ll ask you but once: Where is Edwin Gurney?”

The
phrasing of the question and the cut of the dark face left in doubt what was to
happen if he got no answer; in spite of the mild tone, the potentialities were
infinite. Edwy moistened dry lips, and said in the most conciliatory and
respectful tone Cadfael had heard from him: “Sir, Edwin is my kin and my
friend, and if I had been willing to tell where he is, I should not have gone
to such pains to help him get there. I think you must see that I can’t and
won’t betray him.”

Beringar
looked at Brother Cadfael, and kept his face grave but for the sparkle in his
eye. “Well, Edwy, I expected no other, to tell the truth. Nobody does ill to
keep faith. But I want you where I may lay hand on you whenever I need to, and
be sure you are not stravaiging off on another wild rescue.”

Edwy
foresaw a cell in Shrewsbury castle, and stiffened a stoical face to meet the
worst.

“Give
me your parole not to leave your father’s house and shop,” said Beringar,
“until I give you your freedom, and you may go home. Why should we feed you at
public expense over the Christmas feast, when I fancy your word, once given,
will be your bond? What do you say?”

“Oh,
I do give you my word!” gasped Edwy, startled and radiant with relief. “I won’t
leave the yard until you give me leave. And I thank you!”

“Good!
And I take your word, as you may take mine. My task, Edwy, is not to convict
your uncle, or any man, of murder at all costs, it is to discover truly who did
commit murder, and that I mean to do. Now come, I’ll take you home myself, a
word with your parents may not come amiss.”

They
were gone before High Mass at ten, Beringar with Edwy pillion behind him, the
raw-boned dapple being capable of carrying double his master’s light weight,
the men-at-arms of the escort two by two behind. Only in the middle of Mass,
when his mind should have been on higher things, did Cadfael
recall vexedly two more concessions he might have gained if he had thought of
them in time. Martin Bellecote, for certain, was now without a horse, and the
abbey was willing to part with Rufus, while Richildis would surely be glad to
have him settled with her son-in-law, and no longer be beholden to the abbey
for his keep. It would probably have tickled Beringar’s humour to restore the
carpenter a horse, on the pretext of relieving the abbey of an incubus. But the
other thing was more important. He had meant to go searching the shores of the
pond for the poison vial the previous day, and instead had found himself
confined within the walls. Why had he not remembered to ask Beringar to follow
up that tenuous but important line of inquiry, while he was asking him to have
the watermen watch for the pear-wood reliquary? Now it was too late, and he
could not follow Beringar into the town to remedy the omission. Vexed with
himself, he even snapped at Brother Mark, when that devoted young man
questioned him about the outcome of the morning’s events. Undeterred, Mark
followed him, after dinner, to his sanctuary in the garden.

“I
am an old fool,” said Cadfael, emerging from his depression, “and have lost a
fine chance of getting my work done for me, in places where I can no longer go
myself. But that’s no fault of yours, and I’m sorry I took it out on you.”

“If
it’s something you want done outside the walls,” said Mark reasonably, “why
should I be of less use today than I was yesterday?”

“True,
but I’ve involved you enough already. And if I had had good sense I could have
got the law to do it, which would have been far better. Though this is not at
all dangerous or blameworthy,” he reminded himself, taking heart, “it is only
to search once again for a bottle…”

“Last
time,” said Mark thoughtfully, “we were looking for something we hoped would not
be a bottle. Pity we did not find it.”

“True,
but this time it should be a bottle, if the omen of Beringar’s coming instead
of Prestcote means anything. And
I’ll tell you where.” And so
he did, pointing the significance of a window open to the south, even in light
frost, on a bright day.

“I’m
gone,” said Brother Mark. “And you may sleep the noon away with a good
conscience. My eyes are younger than yours.”

“Mind,
take a napkin, and if you find it, wrap it loosely, and touch only as you must.
I need to see how the oil has run and dried.”

It
was when the afternoon light was dimming that Brother Mark came back. There was
half an hour yet before Vespers, but from this time on any search for a small
thing in a narrow slope of grass would have been a blind and hopeless quest.
Winter days begin so late and end so early, like the dwindling span of life
past three score.

Cadfael
had taken Brother Mark at his word, and dozed the afternoon away. There was
nowhere he could go, nothing he could do here, no work needing his efforts. But
suddenly he started out of a doze, and there was Brother Mark, a meagre but
erect and austere figure, standing over him with a benign smile on the ageless,
priestly face Cadfael had seen in him ever since his scared, resentful,
childish entry within these walls. The voice, soft, significant, delighted, rolled
the years back; he was still eighteen, and a young eighteen at that.

“Wake
up! I have something for you!”

Like
a child coming on a father’s birthday: “Look! I made it for you myself!”

The
carefully folded white napkin was lowered gently into Cadfael’s lap. Brother
Mark delicately turned back the folds, and exposed the contents with a gesture
of such shy triumph that the analogy was complete. There it lay to be seen, a
small, slightly misshapen vial of greenish glass, coloured somewhat differently
all down one side, where yellowish brown coated the green, from a residue of
liquid that still moved very sluggishly within.

“Light
me that lamp!” said Cadfael, gathering the napkin
in both
hands to raise the prize nearer his eyes. Brother Mark laboured industriously
with flint and tinder, and struck a spark into the wick of the little oil-lamp
in its clay saucer, but the conflict of light, within and without, hardly
bettered the view. There was a stopper made of a small plug of wood wrapped in
a twist of wool cloth. Cadfael sniffed eagerly at the cloth on the side that
was coloured brown. The odour was there, faint but unmistakable, his nose knew
it well. Frost had dulled but still retained it. There was a long trail of
thin, crusted oil, long dried, down the outside of the vial.

“Is
it right? Have I brought you what you wanted?” Brother Mark hovered, pleased
and anxious.

“Lad,
you have indeed! This little thing carried death in it, and, see, it can be
hidden within a man’s hand. It lay thus, on its side, as you found it? Where
the residue has gathered and dried the length of the vial within? And without,
too… It was stoppered and thrust out of sight in haste, surely about someone’s
person, and if he has not the mark of it somewhere about him still, this long
ooze of oil from the leaking neck is a great deceiver. Now sit down here and
tell me where and how you found it, for much depends on that. And can you find
the exact spot again, without fail?”

“I
can, for I marked it.” Flushed with pleasure at having pleased, Brother Mark
sat down, leaning eagerly against Cadfael’s sleeve. “You know the houses there
have a strip of garden going down almost to the water, there is only a narrow
footpath along the edge of the pond below. I did not quite like to invent a
reason for entering the gardens, and besides, they are narrow and steep. It
would not be difficult to throw something of any weight from the house right to
the edge of the water, and beyond—even for a woman, or a man in a hurry. So I
went first along the path, the whole stretch of it that falls within reach from
the kitchen window, the one you said was open that day. But it was not there I
found it.”

“It
was not?”

“No,
but beyond. There’s a fringe of ice round the edge of the pond now, but the
current from the millrace keeps all the middle clear. I found the bottle on my
way back, after I’d
searched all the grass and bushes there,
and thought to look on the other side of the path, along the rim of the water.
And it was there, on its side half under the ice, held fast. I’ve driven a
hazel twig into the ground opposite the place, and the hole I prised it from
will say unless we have a thaw. I think the bottle was thrown clear of whatever
ice there may have been then, but not far enough out to be taken away by the
mill current, and because the stopper was in it, it floated, and drifted back
to be caught in the next frost. But, Cadfael, it couldn’t have been thrown from
the kitchen window, it was too far along the path.”

“You’re
sure of that? Then where? Is it the distance that seems too great?”

“No,
but the direction. It’s much too far to the right, and there’s a bank of bushes
between. The ground lies wrong for it. If a man threw it from the kitchen
window it would not go where I found it, it could not. But from the window of
the other room it very well could. Do you remember, Cadfael, was that window
unshuttered, too? The room where they were dining?”

Cadfael
thought back to the scene within the house, when Richildis met him and ushered
him desperately through to the bedchamber, past the disordered table laid with
three trenchers. “It was, it was!—the shutter was set open, for the midday sun
came in there.” From that room Edwin had rushed in indignant offence, and out
through the kitchen, where he was thought to have committed his crime and rid
himself of the evidence later. But not for a moment had he been alone in that
inner room; only in his precipitate flight had he been out of sight of all the
household.