St. Peter's Fair (6 page)

Brother
Cadfael excused himself from lingering, wished the company goodnight, and
walked back at leisure to the gatehouse. The Foregate stretched busy and
populous, but at peace. Order had been restored, and Saint Peter’s Fair could
open on the morrow without further disruption.

Chapter Four

HUGH
BERINGAR CAME BACK FROM A FINAL PATROL along the Foregate well past ten
o’clock, an hour when all dutiful brothers should have been fast asleep in the
dortoir. He was by no means surprised to find that Cadfael was not. They met in
the great court, as Cadfael came back from closing his workshop in the herb-garden.
It was still a clear twilight, and the west had a brilliant afterglow.

“I
hear you’ve been in the thick of it,” said Hugh, stretching and yawning. “Did
ever I know you when you were not? Mad young fools, what did they hope to do,
that their elders could not! And then to run wild as they did, and ruin their
case even with those who had sympathy for them! Now their sires will have fines
to pay, and the town lose more for the night’s work than ever it stood to gain.
Cadfael, I take no joy in heaving decent, silly lads into prison, I have a foul
taste in my mouth from it. Come into the gatehouse for a while, and share a cup
with me. You may as well stay awake until Matins now.”

“Aline
will be waiting for you,” objected Cadfael.

“Aline,
bless her good sense, will be fast asleep, for I’m bound to the castle yet to
report on this disturbance. I doubt I shall be there over the night. Come and
tell me how all this went wrong, for they tell me it began down at the jetty,
where you were.”

Cadfael
went with him willingly. They sat together in the anteroom of the gatehouse,
and the porter, used to such nocturnal activities when the deputy sheriff of
the shire was
lodged within, brought them wine, made tolerant
enquiry of progress, and left them to their colloquy.

“How
many have you taken up?” asked Cadfael, when he had given an account of what
had happened by the river.

“Seventeen.
And it should have been eighteen,” owned Hugh grimly, “if I had not hauled
Bellecote’s boy Edwy aside without witnesses, put the fear of God into him, and
sent him home with a flea in his ear. Not sixteen yet! But sharp enough to know
very well what he was about, the imp! I should not have done it.”

“His
father was one of yesterday’s delegates,” said Cadfael, “and he’s a loyal child,
as well as a bold one. I’m glad you let him away home. And young Corviser?”

“No,
we’ve not laid hand on him, though a dozen witnesses say he was the ringleader,
and captained the whole enterprise. But he has to go home some time, and he’ll
not get in at the gate a free man. Not a hope of it!”

“He
came lecturing like a doctor,” said Cadfael seriously, “and never a threatening
move. It was when he was struck down that the wild lads took the bit between
their teeth and laid about them. I saw it! The man who struck him lashed out in
alarm, I grant you, but without cause.”

“I
take your word for that, and I’ll stand by it. But he led the attack, and he’ll
end with the rest, as he should, seeing he loosed this on us all. They’ll be
bailed by their fathers, the lot of them,” said Hugh wearily, and passed long
fingers over tired eyelids. “Do I seem to you, Cadfael, to be turning horribly
into a crown official? That I should not like!”

“No,”
said Cadfael judicially, “you’re not too far gone. Still a glint in the eye and
a quirk in the mind. You’ll do yet!”

“Gracious
in you! And you say this Bristol merchant struck the silly wretch down without
provocation?”

“He
imagined provocation. The boy laid a detaining hand on his arm from behind, meaning
no ill, but the man took fright. He had a staff in his hand, he turned on him
and hit out. Felled him like an ox! I doubt if he had the strength to knock the
trestle from under a stall, after that. For all I know, he may be fallen out of
his senses, somewhere, unless his friends have kept their hands on him.”

Hugh
looked at him across the trestle on which their own
elbows were
spread, and smiled. “If ever I want for an advocate, I’ll come running to you.
Well, I do know the lad, he has a well-hung tongue, and lets it wag far too
freely, and he has a hot temper and a warm heart, and lets the pair of them run
away with his own sense—if you claim he has any!”

The
lay porter put his bald brown crown and round red face into the room. “My lord,
there’s a lady here at the gate has a trouble on her mind, and asks a word. One
Mistress Emma Vernold, niece to the merchant Thomas of Bristol. Will you have
her come in?”

They
looked at each other across the board with raised brows and startled eyes. “The
same man?” said Beringar, marvelling.

“The
same man, surely! And the same girl! But the uproar was all over. What can she
be wanting here at this hour, and what’s her uncle about, letting her venture
loose into the night?”

“We’d
best be finding out,” said Hugh, resigned. “Let the lady come in, if I’m the
man she wants.”

“She
asked first for a guest here, Ivo Corbière, but I know he’s still out viewing
the preparations along the Foregate. And when I mentioned that you were here,
she begged a word with you. Glad to find the law here and awake, seemingly.”

“Ask
her to step in, then. And Cadfael, stay, if you’ll be so good, she’s had speech
with you already, she may be glad of a known face.”

Emma
Vernold came in hurriedly yet hesitantly, unsure of herself in this unfamiliar
place, and made a hasty reverence. “My lord, I pray your pardon for troubling
you so late…” She saw Brother Cadfael, and half-smiled, relieved but
distracted. “I am Emma Vernold, I came with my uncle, Thomas of Bristol, we
have our own living-space on his barge by the bridge. And this is my uncle’s
man Gregory.” It was the youngest of the three who attended her, a gawky, lean
but powerful fellow of about twenty.

Beringar
took her by the hand and put her into a seat by the table. “I’m here to serve
you, as best I can. What’s your trouble?”

“Sir,
my uncle went to see to the stocking of his booth at the horse-fair, it was not
long after the good brother here left
us. You’ll have heard all
that happened, below there? My uncle went to join his other two men, who were
busy there before him, and left only Gregory with me. But that’s nearly two
hours ago, and he has not come back.”

“He
will have brought a great deal of merchandise with him,” suggested Hugh
reasonably. “It takes time to arrange things to the best vantage, and I imagine
your uncle will have things done well.”

“Oh,
yes, indeed he will. But it isn’t just that he is so long. The two men with him
were his journeyman, Roger Dod, and the porter Warin, and Warin sleeps in the
booth to mind the goods. Roger came back to the barge an hour ago, and was
surprised not to find my uncle back, for he said he left the booth well before
him. We thought perhaps he had met some acquaintance on the way, and stopped to
exchange the news with him, so we waited some while, but still he did not come.
And now I have been back to the booth with Gregory, to see if by some chance he
had turned back there for something, something forgotten, perhaps. But he has
not, and Warin says, as Roger does, that my uncle left first, intending to come
straight home to me, it being so late. He never liked—he does not like,” she
amended, paling, “for me to be alone with the men, without his company.” Her
eyes were steady and clear, but her lip quivered, and there was the faint
suggestion of disquiet even in the unflinching firmness of her regard.

She
knows she is fair, Cadfael thought, and she’s right to take account of it. It
may even be that one of them—Roger Dod, the most privileged of the three,
perhaps?—has a fancy for her, and she knows that, too, and has no fancy for
him, and whether justly or not, is uneasy about being close to him without her
guardian by.

“And
you are sure he has not made his way home by some other way,” asked Hugh,
“while you’ve been seeking him at his booth?”

“We
went back. Roger waited there, for that very case, but no, he has not come. I
asked those still working in the Foregate if they had seen such a man, but I
could get no news. And then I thought that perhaps—“ She turned in appeal to
Cadfael. “The young gentleman who was so kind,
this evening—he
is staying here in the guest-hall, so he told us. I wondered if perhaps my
uncle had met him again on his way home, and lingered… And he, at least, knows
his looks, and could tell me if he has seen him. But he is not yet back, they
tell me.”

“He
left the jetty earlier than your uncle, then?” asked Cadfael. The young man had
looked very well settled to spend a pleasant hour or two in the lady’s company,
but perhaps her formidable uncle had ways of conveying, even to lords of
respectable honours, that his niece was to be approached only when he was
present to watch over her.

Emma
flushed, but without averting her eyes; eyes which were seen to be thoughtful,
resolute and intelligent, for all her milk-and-roses baby-face. “Very soon
after you, brother. He was at all points correct and kind. I thought to come
and ask for him, as someone on whom I could rely.”

“I’ll
ask the porter to keep a watch for him,” offered Cadfael, “and have him step in
here when he returns. Even the horse-fair should be on its way to bed by now,
and he’ll be needing his own sleep if he’s to hunt the best bargains tomorrow,
which is what I take it he’s here for. What do you say, Hugh?”

“A
good thought,” said Hugh. “Do it, and we’ll make provision to look for Master
Thomas, though I trust all’s well with him, for all this delay. The eve of a
fair,” he said, smiling reassurance at the girl, “and there are contacts to be
made, customers already looking over the ground… A man can forget about his
sleep with his mind on business.”

Brother
Cadfael heard her sigh: “Oh, yes!” with genuine hope and gratitude, as he went
to bid the porter intercept Ivo Corbière when he came in. His errand could
hardly have been better timed, for the man himself appeared in the gateway. The
main gate was already closed, only the wicket stood open, and the dip of the
gold head stepping through caught the light from the torch overhead, and burned
like a minor sun. Bare-headed, with his cotte slung on one shoulder in the warm
last night of July, Ivo Corbière strolled towards his bed almost rebelliously,
with a reserve of energy still unspent. The snowy linen shirt glowed in the
lambent dark with a ghostly whiteness. He was whistling a street tune, more
likely
Parisian than out of London, by the cadence of it. He had
certainly drunk reasonably deep, but not beyond his measure, nor even up to it.
He was alert at a word.

“What,
you, brother? Out of bed before Matins?” Amiable though his soft laughter was,
he checked it quickly, sensing something demanding gravity of him. “You were
looking for me? Something worse fell out? Good God, the old man never killed
the fool boy, did he?”

“Nothing
so dire,” said Cadfael. “But there’s one within here at the gatehouse came
looking for you, with a question. You’ve been about the Foregate and the
fairground all this time?”

“The
whole round,” said Ivo, his attention sharpening. “I have a new and draughty
manor to furnish in Cheshire. I’m looking for woollens and Flemish tapestries.
Why?”

“Have
you seen, in your wanderings, Master Thomas of Bristol? At any time since you
left his barge earlier this evening?”

“I
have not,” said Ivo, wondering, and peered closely “in the strange, soft light
of midsummer, an hour short of midnight.

“What
is this? The man made it clear—he has practice, which is no marvel!—that his
girl is to be seen only in his presence and with his sanction, and small blame
to him, for she’s gold, with or without his gold. I respected him for it, and I
left. Why? What follows?”

“Come
and see,” said Cadfael simply, and led the way within.

The
young man blinked in the sudden light, and opened his eyes wide upon Emma. It was
a question which of them showed the more distracted. The girl rose, reaching
eager hands and then half-withdrawing them. The man sprang forward solicitously
to welcome the clasp.

“Mistress
Vernold! At this hour? Should you…” He had a grasp of the company and the
urgency by then. “What has happened?” he asked, and looked at Beringar.

Briskly,
Beringar told him. Cadfael was not greatly surprised to see that Corbière was
relieved rather than dismayed. Here was a young, inexperienced girl, growing
nervous all too easily when she was left alone an hour or so too long,
while no doubt her uncle, very travelled and experienced indeed,
and well able to take care of himself, was in no sort of trouble at all, but
merely engaged in a little social indulgence with a colleague, or busy
assessing the goods and worldly state of some of his rivals.

“Nothing
ill will have happened to him,” said Corbière cheerfully, smiling reassurance
at Emma, who remained, for all that, grave and anxious of eye. And she was no
fool, Cadfael reflected, watching, and knew her uncle better than anyone else
here could claim to know him. “You’ll see, he’ll come home in his own good
time, and be astonished to find you so troubled for him.”