Monk's Hood (27 page)

“You
are of the Benedictine order?” said the presiding judge, bewildered, as the
sturdy, habited figure emerged and stood in the aisle. “A monk of Shrewsbury?
Are you here to speak on behalf of your abbey?”

“No,”
said Brother Cadfael. He stood no more than two yards from Meurig now, and the
mist of shock and unbelief had cleared from the black, brilliant eyes; they
recognised him all too well. “No, I am here to speak on behalf of Gervase
Bonel.”

By
the brief, contorted struggle of Meurig’s throat, he made an attempt to speak,
but could not.

“I
do not understand you, brother,” said the judge patiently. “Explain yourself.
You spoke of an impediment.”

“I
am a Welshman,” said Cadfael. “I endorse and approve the law of Wales, that
says a son is a son, in or out of marriage, and has the same rights though
English law may call him a bastard. Yes, a son born out of wedlock may
inherit—but not a son who has murdered his father, as this man has.”

He
expected uproar, and instead there was such a silence as he had seldom known.
The three judges sat rigid and staring, as though turned to stone, and every
breath in the church seemed to be held in suspense. By the time they all
stirred out of their daze, and turned almost stealthily, almost fearfully, to
look at Meurig, he had regained his colour and his hardihood, though at a
price. Forehead and high cheek
bones had a wet sheen of sweat,
and the muscles of his neck were drawn like bow-strings, but he had himself in
hand again, he could look his accuser in the face, refrain from hurling himself
upon him, even turn from him with dignity and calm to look at the judges, in
eloquent protest against a charge he disdained to deny except by silent
contempt. And probably, Cadfael reflected ruefully, there are some here who
will take for granted that I am an agent sent by my order to prevent, or at
least delay, the surrender of Mallilie to its rightful owner. By any means,
however base, even by accusing a decent man of murder.

“This
is a most grave charge,” said the presiding judge, formidably frowning. “If you
are in earnest, you must now stand to it, and make good what you have said, or
withdraw.”

“That
I will do. My name is Cadfael, a brother of Shrewsbury, and the herbalist who
made the oil with which Gervase Bonel was poisoned. My honour is involved. The
means of comfort and healing must not be used to kill. I was called to attend
the dying man, and I am here now to demand justice for him. Allow me, if you
will, to tell you how this death befell.”

He
told the story very baldly, the narrow circle of those present, of whom one,
the stepson, seemed then to be the only one with anything to gain from the
death.

“Meurig,
as it seemed to us, had nothing to gain, but you and I have now seen how much,
indeed, was at stake for him.

The
agreement with my abbey had not been completed, and by Walsh law, which we had
not understood could be invoked in the matter, he is the heir. Let me tell you
his story as I see it. Ever since he grew a man he has been well aware that by
Welsh law his position as heir was unassailable, and he was well content to
wait for his father’s death, like any other son, before claiming his inheritance.
Even the will Gervase Bonel made, after his second marriage, making his stepson
his heir, did not trouble Meurig, for how could such a claim stand against his
right as a true son of the man’s blood? But it was a different case when his
father granted his manor to the abbey of Shrewsbury in return for housing, food
and comfort
for life, after the usual fashion of such
retirements. I do believe that if that agreement had been completed and sealed
at once, all would have been over, and this man would have grown reconciled to
his loss and never become a murderer. But because my abbot was summoned away to
London, with good reason to think that another may be appointed in his place,
he would not complete the charter, and that respite caused Meurig to hope again,
and to look about him desperately for the means to prevent it ever being
completed. For, see, if the abbey ever established its legal right by final
ratification, his position at law would have been hopeless. How could he fight
Shrewsbury abbey? They have influence enough to ensure that any suit should be
tried in an English court and by English law, and by English law, I acknowledge
it with regret and shame, such children as Meurig are deprived, and cannot
inherit. I say it was mere chance, and that resulting from an act of kindness,
that showed him where to find the means to kill, and tempted him to use it. And
great pity it is, for he was never meant to be a murderer. But here he stands
in his guilt, and must not and cannot enter into possession of the fruit of his
crime.”

The
presiding judge sat back with a heavy and troubled sigh, and looked at Meurig,
who had heard all this with a motionless face and a still body. “You have heard
and understood what is charged against you. Do you wish now to answer?”

“I
have nothing to answer,” said Meurig, wise in his desperation. “This is nothing
but words. There is no substance. Yes, I was there in the house, as he has told
you, with my father’s wife, the boy her son, and the two servants. But that is
all. Yes, by chance I have been in the infirmary, and did know of this oil he
speaks of. But where is there any thread to link me with the act? I could as
well put forward the same story against any of those in that household that
day, and with as little proof, but I will not. The sheriff’s officers have held
from the beginning that my father’s stepson did this thing. I don’t say that is
true. I say only that there is no proof to entangle me rather than any other.”

“Yes,”
said Cadfael, “there is such proof. There is one small matter that makes this
crime all the more grievous, for it is the only proof that it was not all
impulsive, done in an angry instant and regretted after. For whoever took away
a portion of my monk’s-hood oil from our infirmary must have brought with him a
bottle in which to put it. And that bottle he had to conceal afterwards, as
long as he was observed, but dispose of as soon as he privately might. And the
place will show that it could not have been put there by the boy Edwin Gurney,
Bonel’s stepson. By any other of the household, yes, but not by him. His
movements are known. He ran straight from the house to the bridge and the town,
as there are witnesses to declare.”

“We
have still nothing but words, and deceptive words, too,” said Meurig, gaining a
little confidence. “For this bottle has not been found, or we should have known
it from the sheriff’s men. This is a whole-cloth tale compounded for this court
alone.”

For
of course he did not know; not even Edwin knew, not even Hugh Beringar, only
Cadfael and Brother Mark. Thank God for Brother Mark, who had done the finding
and marked the place, and was in no suspicion of being anyone’s corrupted
agent.

Cadfael
reached into his pouch, and brought forth the vial of flawed green glass,
unwrapping it carefully from the napkin in which it was rolled. “Yes, it has
been found. Here it is!” And he held it out sharply at the full stretch of his
arm into Meurig’s appalled face.

The
instant of sick disintegration passed valiantly, but Cadfael had witnessed it,
and now there was no shadow of doubt left, none. And it was a piercing grief to
him, for he had liked this young man.

“This,”
said Cadfael, whirling to face the bench, “was found, not by me, but by an
innocent novice who knew little of the case, and has nothing to gain by lying.
And it was found—the place is recorded—in the ice of the mill-pond, under the
window of the inner room of that house. In that room the boy Edwin Gurney was
never for one moment alone,
and could not have thrown this out
from that window. Inspect it, if you will. But carefully, for the marks of the
oil are there in a dried stream down one outer side of the vial, and the dregs
are still easily identifiable within.”

Meurig
watched the small, dreadful thing being passed among the three in its napkin,
and said with arduous calm: “Even granted this—for we have not the finder here
to speak for himself!—there were four of us there who could well have gone in
and out of that inner room the rest of the day. Indeed, I was the only one to
leave, for I went back to my master’s shop in the town. They remained there,
living in the house.”

Nevertheless,
it had become a trial. Even with his admirable and terrible gallantry, he could
not entirely prevent the entry of a note of defence. And he knew it, and was
afraid, not for himself, for the object of his absorbing love, the land on
which he had been born. Brother Cadfael was torn in a measure he had hardly
expected. It was time to end it, with one fatal cast that might produce success
or failure, for he could not bear this partition of his mind much longer, and
Edwin was in a prison cell, something even Meurig did not yet know, something
that might have reassured him if he had been aware of it, but no less might have
moved and dismayed him. Never once, in that long afternoon of questioning, had
Meurig sought to turn suspicion upon Edwin, even when the sergeant pointed the
way.

“Draw
out the stopper,” said Cadfael to the three judges, almost strident now in his
urgency. “Note the odour, it is still strong enough to be recognised again. You
must take my word for it that it was the means of death. And you see how it has
run down the vial. It was stoppered in haste after the act, for all was then
done in haste. Yet some creature carried this vial on his person for a
considerable while after, until the sheriffs officers had come and gone. In
this condition, oiled without as well as within. It would leave a greasy stain
not easy to remove, and a strong smell—yes, I see you detect the smell.” He
swung upon Meurig, pointing to the coarse linen scrip that hung at his belt.
“This, as I recall, you wore that day. Let the judges themselves examine, with
the vial in their
hands, and see whether it lay within there
an hour, two hours or more, and left its mark and its odour. Come, Meurig,
unbuckle and give up your scrip.”

Meting
indeed dropped a hand to the buckles, as though stunned into obedience. And
after this while, Cadfael knew, there might be nothing to find, even though he
no longer had any doubts that the vial had indeed lain within there all that
prolonged and agonising afternoon of Bonel’s death. It needed only a little
hardihood and a face of brass, and the single fragile witness against Meurig
might burst like a bubble, and leave nothing but the scattered dew of
suspicion, like the moisture a bubble leaves on the hand. But he could not be
sure! He could not be sure! And to examine the scrip and find nothing would not
be to exonerate him completely, but to examine it and find the seam stained
with oil, and still with the penetrating scent clinging, would be to condemn
him utterly. The fingers that had almost withdrawn the first thong suddenly
closed into a clenched fist denying access.

“No!”
he said hoarsely. “Why should I submit to this indignity? He is the abbey’s man
sent to besmirch my claim.”

“It
is a reasonable requirement,” said the presiding judge austerely. “There is no
question of your surrendering it to anyone but this court. There can be no
suspicion that we have anything to gain by discrediting you. The bench requires
you to hand it over to the clerk.”

The
clerk, accustomed to having the court’s orders respected without demur,
advanced trustingly, extending a hand. Meurig dared not take the risk. Suddenly
he whirled and sprang for the open door, scattering the old men who had come to
back his claim. In a moment he was out into the wintry light of the morning,
running like a deer. Behind him uproar broke out, and half of those in the
church poured out after the fugitive, though their pursuit was half-hearted
after the first instinctive rush. They saw Meurig vault the stone wall of the
churchyard and head for the fringes of woodland that clothed the hillside
behind. In a moment he was lost to view among the trees.

In
the half-deserted church a heavy silence fell. The old
men
looked at one another helplessly, and made no move to join the hunt. The three
judges conferred in low and anxious tones. Cadfael stood drooping in a
weariness that seemed temporarily to have deprived him of energy or thought,
until at last he drew breath long and deeply, and looked up.

“It
is not a confession, nor has there been a formal charge, or any suit as yet
brought against him. But it is evidence for a boy who is now in prison at
Shrewsbury on suspicion of this crime. Let me say what can and should be said
for Meurig: he did not know Edwin Gurney had been taken, of that I am sure.”

“We
have now no choice but to pursue him,” said the presiding judge, “and it will
be done. But certainly the record of this court must be sent, out of courtesy,
to the sheriff at Shrewsbury, and at once. Will that content you?”

“It’s
all I ask. Send also, if you will, the vial, concerning which a novice by the
name of Mark will testify, for it was he who found it. Send all to Hugh
Beringar, the sheriff’s deputy, who is in charge, and deliver the report only
to him, of your kindness. I wish I might go, but I have still work to do here.”

“It
will take some hours for our clerks to make the necessary copies and have them
certified. But by tomorrow evening, at latest, the report shall be delivered. I
think your prisoner will have nothing more to fear.”