St. Peter's Fair (7 page)

She
wanted to believe it, but her eyes said she could not be sure. “I hoped he
might have met you again,” she said, “or that at least you might have seen
him.”

“I
wish it were so,” he said. “It would have been my pleasure to set your mind at
rest. But I have not seen him.”

“I
think,” said Beringar, “this lies now with me. I have still half a dozen men
here within the walls, we’ll make a search for Master Thomas. In the meantime,
the hour is late, and you should not be wandering in the night. It will be best
if your man here returns to the barge, while you, madam, if you consent, can
very well join my wife, here in the guest-hall. Her maid Constance will make
room for you, and find you whatever you need over the night.” There was no
knowing whether he had noted her uneasiness about returning to the barge, just
as acutely as Cadfael had, or was simply placing her in the nearest safe
charge, and the best; but she brightened so eagerly, and thanked him so
fervently, that there was no mistaking the relief she felt.

“Come,
then,” he said gently, “I’ll see you safely into Constance’s care, and then you
may leave the searching to us.”

“And
I,” said Corbière, shrugging enthusiastically into the sleeves of his cotte,
“will bear a hand with you in the hunt, if you’ll have me.”

They
combed the whole length of the Foregate, Beringar, with his six men-at-arms,
Ivo Corbière, as energetic and wide-awake as at noon, and Brother Cadfael, who
had no legitimate
reason to go with them at all, beyond the
pricking of his thumbs, and the manifest absurdity of going to his bed at such
an hour, when he would in any case have to rise again at midnight for Matins.
If that was excuse enough for sharing a drink with Beringar, it was excuse
enough for taking part in the hunt for Thomas of Bristol. For truly, thought
Cadfael, shaking his head over the drastic events of the evening, I shall not
be easy until I see that meaty blue-jowled face again, and hear that loud,
self-confident voice. Corbière might shrug off the merchant’s non-return as a
mere trivial departure from custom, such as every man makes now and again, and
on any other day Cadfael would have agreed with him; but too much had happened
since noon today, too many people had been trapped into outrageous and
uncharacteristic actions, too many passions had been let loose, for this to be
an ordinary day. It was even possible that someone had stepped so far aside
from his usual self as to commit deliberate violence by stealth in the night,
to avenge what had been done openly and impulsively in the day. Though God
forbid!

They
had begun by making certain that there was still no word or sign at the jetty.
No, Thomas had neither appeared nor sent word, and Roger Dod’s forays among the
other traders along the riverside, as far as he dared go from the property he
guarded, had elicited no news of his master.

He
was a burly, well-set-up young man of about thirty, this Roger Dod, and very
personable, if he had not been so curt and withdrawn in manner. No doubt he was
anxious, too. He answered Hugh’s questions in the fewest possible words, and gnawed
an uncertain lip at hearing that his master’s niece was now lodged in the abbey
guest-hall. He would have come with them to help in their search, but he was
responsible for his master’s belongings, and would have to be answerable for
their safety when his master returned. He stayed with the barge, and sent the
mute and sleepily resentful Gregory to lead them straight to the booth Master
Thomas had rented. Beringar’s sergeant, with three men, was left behind to work
his way gradually along the Foregate after them, questioning every waking
stallholder as he went, while the rest followed the porter to the fairground.
The great open space was by this time half-asleep, but still winking with
occasional torches and braziers, and murmuring with subdued voices.
For these three days in the year it was transformed into a tight little town,
busy and populous, to vanish again on the fourth day.

Thomas
had chosen a large booth almost in the centre of the triangular ground. His
goods were neatly stacked within, and his watchman was awake and prowling the
ground uneasily, to welcome the arrival of authority with relief. Warm was a
leathery, middle-aged man, who had clearly been in his present service many
years, and was probably completely trusted within his limits, but had not the
ability ever to rise to the position Roger Dod now held.

“No,
my lord,” he said anxiously, “never a word since, and I’ve been on watch every
moment. He set off for his barge a good quarter of an hour before Roger left.
We had everything stowed to his liking, he was well content. And he’d had a
fall not so long before—you’d know of that?— and was glad enough, I’d say, to
be off home to his bed. For after all, he’s none so young, no more than I am,
and he carried more weight.”

“And
he set off from here, which way?”

“Why,
straight to the highroad, close by here. I suppose he’d keep along the
Foregate.”

Behind
Cadfael’s shoulder a familiar voice, rich and full and merrily knowing, said in
Welsh: “Well, well, brother, out so late? And keeping the law company! What
would the deputy sheriff of the shire want with Thomas of Bristol’s watchman at
this hour? Are they on the scent of all Gloucester’s familiars, after all? And
I claimed commerce was above the anarchy!” Narrowed eyes twinkled at Cadfael in
the light of the dispersed torches and the far-distant stars in a perfect
midsummer sky. Rhodri ap Huw was chuckling softly and fatly at his own teasing
wit and menacing sharpness of apprehension.

“You
keep a friendly eye out for your neighbours?” said Cadfael, innocently
approving. “I see you brought off all your own goods without scathe.”

“I
have a nose for trouble, and the good sense to step out of its way,” said
Rhodri ap Huw smugly. “What’s come to Thomas of Bristol? He was not so quick on
the scent, it
seems. He could have loosed his mooring and poled
out into the river till the flurry was over, and been as safe as in the west
country.”

“Did
you see him struck down?” asked Cadfael deceitfully; but Rhodri was not to be
caught.

“I
saw him strike down the other young fool,” he said, and grinned. “Why, did he
come to grief after I left? And which of them is it you’re looking for, Thomas
or the lad?” And he stared with marked interest to see the sheriff’s men
probing at the backs of stalls, and under the trestles, and followed
inquisitively on their heels as they worked their way back along the highroad.
Evidently nothing of moment was to be allowed to happen at this fair without
Rhodri ap Huw being present at it, or very quickly and minutely informed of it.
And why not make use of, his perspicacity?

“Thomas’s
niece is in a taking because he has not come back to his barge. That might mean
anything or nothing, but now it’s gone on so long, his men are getting uneasy,
too. Did you see him leave his booth?”

“I
did. It might be as much as two hours ago. And his journeyman some little while
after him. A fair size of a man, to be lost between here and the river. And no
word of him anywhere since then?”

“Not
that we’ve found, or likely to find, without questioning every trader and every
idler in all this array. And the wiser half of them getting their sleep in
ready for the morning.”

They
had reached the Foregate and turned towards the town, and still Rhodri strode
companionably beside Cadfael, and had taken to peering into the dark spaces
between stalls just as the sheriff’s men were doing. Lights and braziers were
fewer here, and the stalls more modest, and the quiet of the night closed in
drowsily. On their left, under the abbey wall, a few compact but secure booths
were arrayed. The first of them, though completely closed in and barred for the
night, showed through a chink the light of a candle within. Rhodri dug a
weighty elbow into Cadfael’s ribs.

“Euan
of Shotwick! No one is ever going to get at him from the rear, he likes a
corner backed into two walls if he can get it. Travels alone with a pack-pony,
and wears a weapon, and can use it, too. A solitary soul because he trusts
nobody. His own porter—luckily his wares weigh light for their
value—and his own watchman.”

Ivo
Corbière had loitered to go aside between the stalls, some of which in this
stretch were still unoccupied, waiting for the local traders who would come
with the dawn. The consequent darkness slowed their search, and the young man,
not at all averse to spending the night without sleep, and probably encouraged
by the memory of Emma’s bright eyes, was tireless and thorough. Even Cadfael
and Rhodri ap Huw were some yards ahead of him when they heard him cry after
them, high and urgently:

“Good
God, what’s here? Beringar, come back here!”

The
tone was enough to bring them running. Corbière had left the highway, probing
between stacked trestles and leaning canvas awnings into darkness, but when they
peered close there was lambent light enough from the stars for accustomed eyes
to see what he had seen. From beneath a light wooden frame and stretched canvas
jutted two booted feet, motionless, toes pointed skywards. For a moment they
all stared in silence, dumbstruck, for truth to tell, not one of them had
believed that the merchant could have come to any harm, as they all agreed
afterwards. Then Beringar took hold of the frame and hoisted it away from the
trestles against which it leaned, and dim and large in the darkness they saw a
man’s long shape, from the knees up rolled in a cloak that hid the face. There
was no movement, and no noticeable sound.

The
sergeant leaned in with the one torch they had brought with them, and Beringar
reached a hand to the folds of the cloak, and began to draw them back from the
shrouded head and shoulders. The movement of the cloth released a powerful wave
of an odour that made him halt and draw suspicious breath. It also disturbed
the body, which emitted an enormous snore, and a further gust of spirituous
breath.

“Dead
drunk and helpless,” said Beringar, relieved. “And not, I fancy, the man we’re
looking for. The state he’s in, this fellow must have been here some hours
already, and if he comes round in time to crawl away before dawn it will be a
miracle. Let’s have a look at him.” He was less gingerly now in dragging the
cloak away, but the drunken man let himself be hauled about and dragged forth
by the feet with only a few disturbed grunts, and subsided into stertorous
sleep
again as soon as he was released. The torch shone its
yellow, resinous light upon a shock-head of coarse auburn hair, a pair of wide
shoulders in a leather jerkin, and a face that might have been sharp, lively
and even comely when he was awake and sober, but now looked bloated and
idiotic, with open, slobbering mouth and reddened eyes.

Corbière
took one close look at him, and let out a gasp and an oath. “Fowler! Devil take
the sot! Is this how he obeys me? By God, I’ll make him sweat for it!” And he
filled a fist with the thick brown hair and shook the fellow furiously, but got
no more out of him than a louder snort, the partial opening of one glazed eye,
and a wordless mumble that subsided again as soon as he was dropped,
disgustedly and ungently, back into the turf.

“This
drunken rogue is mine… my falconer and archer, Turstan Fowler,” said Ivo
bitterly, and kicked the sleeper in the ribs but not savagely. What was the
use? The man would not be conscious for hours yet, and what he suffered afterwards
would pay him all his dues. “I’ve a mind to put him to cool in the river! I
never gave him leave to quit the abbey precinct, and by the look of him he’s
been out and drinking— Good God, the reek of it, what raw spirit can it
be?—since ever I turned my back.”

“One
thing’s certain,” said Hugh, amused, “he’s in no case to walk back to his bed.
Since he’s yours, what will you have done with him? I would not advise leaving
him here. If he has anything of value on him, even his hose, he might be
without it by morning. There’ll be scavengers abroad in the dark hours—no fair
escapes them.”

Ivo
stood back and stared down disgustedly at the oblivious culprit. “If you’ll
lend me two of your men, and let us borrow a board here, we’ll haul him back
and toss him into one of the abbey’s punishment cells, to sleep off his
swinishness on the stones, and serve him right. If we leave him there unfed all
the morrow, it may frighten him into better sense. Next time, I’ll have his
hide!”

They
hoisted the sleeper on to a board, where he sprawled aggravatingly into ease
again, and snored his way along the Foregate so blissfully that his bearers
were tempted to tip him off at intervals, by way of recompensing themselves for
their own labour. Cadfael, Beringar and the remainder of the party
were
left looking after them somewhat ruefully, their own errand still unfulfilled.

“Well,
well!” said Rhodri ap Huw softly into Cadfael’s ear, “Euan of Shotwick is
taking a modest interest in the evening’s happenings, after all!”

Cadfael
turned to look, and in the shuttered booth tucked under the wall a hatch had
certainly opened, and against the pale light of a candle a head leaned out in
sharp outline, staring towards where they stood. He recognised the
high-bridged, haughty nose, the deceptively meagre slant of the lean shoulders,
before the hatch was drawn silently to again, and the glover vanished.

They
worked their way doggedly, yard by yard, all the way back to the riverside,
where Roger Dod was waiting in a fume of anxiety, but they found no trace of
Thomas of Bristol.