Ellis Peters - Brother Cadfael's Penance

“Silence! Hush your noise!”

And the silence fell like a stone, crushingly; for one instant all movement froze, and every breath was held. A moment only, then almost stealthily feet shuffled, sleeves brushed, breath was drawn in gustily, and even comment resumed in hushed undertones and hissing whispers, but Stephen had his field, and bestrode it commandingly.

“Now let us have some room for thought before we accuse or exonerate any man. And before all, let someone who knows his business make good sure that the man is out of reach of help, or we are all guilty of his death. One lad falling over him in the dark, whether he himself struck the blow or not, can hardly give a physician’s verdict. William, do you make sure.”

William Martel, long in experience of death by steel through many campaigns, kneeled beside the body, and turned it by the shoulder to lie flat, exposing to the torchlight the bloody breast, the slit coat, and the narrow, welling wound. He drew wide an eyelid and marked the unmoving stare.

“Dead. Through the heart, surely. Nothing to be done for him.”

“How long?” asked the king shortly.

“No telling. But very recently.”

“During Compline?” The office was not a long one, though on this fateful evening it had been drawn out somewhat beyond its usual time.

“I saw him living,” said Martel, “only minutes before we went in. I thought he had followed us in. I never marked that he wore steel.”

“So if this young man is shown to have been within throughout the office,” said the king practically, “he cannot be guilty of this murder. Not fair fight, for de Soulis never had time to draw. Murder.”

A hand reached softly for Cadfael’s sleeve. Hugh had been worming his way inconspicuously through the press to reach him. In Cadfael’s ear his voice whispered urgently: “Can you speak for him? Was he within? Did you see him?”

“I wish to God I had! He says he came later. I was well forward in the choir. The place was full, the last would be pinned just within the doors.” In corners unlit, and possibly with none or few of their own acquaintance nearby to recognize or speak to them. All too easy not to be noticed, and a convincing reason why Yves should be one of the first to move out into the cloister and clear the way, to stumble over a dead man. The fact that his first cry had been a wordless one of simple alarm when he fell should speak for him. Only a minute later had he cried out the cause.

“No matter, let be!” said Hugh softly. “Stephen has his finger on the right question. Someone surely will know. And if all else fails, the empress will never let Philip FitzRobert lay a finger on any man of hers. Not for the death of a man she loathes? Look at her!”

Cadfael had to crane and shift to do so, for tall though she was, for a woman, she was surrounded by men far taller. But once found, she shone fiercely clear under the torchlight, her handsome face composed and severe, but her large eyes glittering with a suggestion of controlled elation, and the corners of her lips drawn into the austere shadow of an exultant smile. No, she had no reason at all to grieve at the death of the man who had betrayed Faringdon, or to sympathize with the grief and anger of his lord and patron, who had handed over her castle of Cricklade to the enemy. And as Cadfael watched, she turned her head a little, and looked with sharp attention at Yves Hugonin, and the subtle shadows that touched the corners of her lips deepened, and for one instant the smile became apparent. She did not move again, not yet. Let other witnesses do all for her, if that was possible. No need to spend her own efforts until or unless they were needed. She had her half-brother beside her, Roger of Hereford at one shoulder, Hugh Bigod at the other, force enough to prevent any action that might be ventured against any protégé of hers.

“Speak up!” said Stephen, looking round the array of watchful faces, guarded and still now, side-glancing at near neighbours, eyeing the king’s roused countenance. “If any here can say he saw this man within the church throughout Compline, then speak up and declare it, and do him right. He says he came unarmed, in all duty, to the worship of God, and was with us to the end of the office. Who bears him out?”

No one moved, beyond turning to look for reaction from others. No one spoke. There was a silence.

“Your Grace sees,” said Philip at length, breaking the prolonged hush, “there is no one willing to confirm what he says. And there is no one who believes him.”

“That is no proof that he lies,” said Roger de Clinton. “Too often truth can bring no witness with it, and find no belief. I do not say he is proven true, but neither is he proven a liar. We have not here the testimony of every man who came to Compline this night. Even if we had, it would not be proof positive that he is lying. But if one man only can come forward and say: I stood by him close to the door until the last prayer was said, and we went out to leave the doorway clear: then truth would be made manifest. Your Grace, we should pursue this further.”

“There is no time,” said the king, frowning. Tomorrow we leave Coventry. Why linger? Everything has been said.”

Back to the battlefield, thought Cadfael, despairing for a moment of his own kind, and with their fires refuelled by this pause.

“Within these walls,” said Roger de Clinton, roused, “I forbid violence even in return for violence, and even outside these walls I charge you forswear all revenges. If there cannot be proper enquiry after justice, then even the guilty among us must go free.”

“They need not,” said Philip grimly. “I require a blood price for my man. If his Grace wills justice, then let this man be left in fetters here, and let the constables of the city examine him, and hold him for trial. There is the means of justice in the laws of this land, is there not? Then use them! Give him to the law, as surely as death he has broken the law, and owes a death for a death. How can you doubt it? Who else was abroad? Who else had picked so fierce a quarrel with Brien de Soulis, or held so bitter a grudge against him? And we find him standing over the dead man, and barely another soul loose in the night, and you still doubt?”

And indeed it seemed to Cadfael that Philip’s bitter conviction was carrying even the king with him. Stephen had no great cause to believe in an unknown youth’s protestations of innocence against the odds, a youth devoted to the opposing cause, and suspect of robbing him of a useful fighting man who had recently done such signal service. He hesitated, visibly only too willing to shift the burden to other shoulders, and be off about his martial business again. The very suggestion that he was failing to maintain strict law in his own domain prompted him to commit Yves to the secular authorities, and wash his hands of him.

“I have a thing to say to that,” said the empress deliberately, her voice raised to carry clearly. “This conference was convened upon the issue of safe conducts on both sides, that we might come together without fear. Whatever may have happened here, it cannot break that compact. I came here with a certain number of people in my following, and I shall go hence tomorrow with that same number, for all were covered by safe conduct, and against none of them has any wrong been proved, neither this young squire nor any other. Touch him, and you touch him unlawfully. Detain him, and you are forsworn and disgraced. We leave tomorrow as many as we came.”

She moved decisively then, brushing aside those who stood between, and held out her hand imperiously to Yves. Her sleeve brushed disdainfully past Philip’s braced arm as the white-faced boy obeyed her gesture and turned to go with her wherever she directed. The ranks gave back and opened before her. Cadfael saw her turn to smile upon her escort, and marvelled that the boy’s face should gaze back at her so blanched and empty of gratitude, worship or joy.