Ellis Peters: An Excellent Mystery

“The lord sheriff? He’s in the hall. If you bear round into the inner ward close to the wall you’ll escape the worst. I’ll have your horse stabled. Or wait a while here in the dry, if you choose, for this can’t last for ever…”

But no, he could not wait. The ring burned in his pouch, and the acid bitterness in his mind. He must get his tale at once to the ears of authority, and his teeth into the throat of Adam Heriet. He dared not stop hating, or the remaining grief became more than he could stand. He bore down on Hugh in the huge dark hall with the briefest of greetings and the most abrupt of challenges, an unkempt apparition, his wet brown hair plastered to forehead and temples, and water streaking his face.

“My lord, I’m back from Winchester, with plain proof Juliana is dead and her goods made away with long ago. And we must leave all else and turn every man you have here and I can raise in the south, to hunt down Adam Heriet. It was his doing-Heriet and his hired murderer, some footpad paid for his work with the price of Juliana’s jewellery. Once we lay hands on him, he won’t be able to deny it. I have proof, I have witnesses that he said himself she was dead!”

“Come, now!” said Hugh, his eyes rounding. “That’s a large enough claim. You’ve been a busy man in the south, I see, but so have we here. Come, sit, and let’s have the full story. But first, let’s have those wet clothes off you, and find you a man who matches, before you catch your death.” He shouted for the servants, and sent them running for towels and coats and hose.

“No matter for me,” protested Nicholas feverishly, catching at his arm. “What matters is the proof I have, that fits only one man, to my mind, and he going free, and God knows where…”

“Ah, but Nicholas, if it’s Adam Heriet you’re after, then you need fret no longer. Adam Heriet is safe behind a locked door here in the castle, and has been for a matter of days.”

“You have him? You found Heriet? He’s taken?” Nicholas drew deep and vengeful breath, and heaved a great sigh.

“We have him, and he’ll keep. He has a sister married to a craftsman in Brigge, and was visiting his kin like any honest man. Now he’s the sheriff’s guest, and stays so until we have the rights of it, so no more sweat for him.”

“And have you got any part of it out of him? What has he said?”

“Nothing to the purpose. Nothing an honest man might not have said in his place.”

“That shall change,” said Nicholas grimly, and allowed himself to notice his own sodden condition for the first time, and to accept the use of the small chamber provided him, and the clothes put at his disposal. But he was half into his tale before he had dried his face and his tousled hair and shrugged his way into dry garments.

“… never a trace anywhere of the church ornaments, which should be the most notable if ever they were marketed. And I was in two minds whether it was worth enquiring further, when the man’s wife came in, and I knew the ring she was wearing for Juliana’s. No, that’s to press it too far, I know-say rather I saw that it fitted only too well the description we had of Juliana’s. You remember? Enamelled all round with flowers in yellow and blue…”

“I have the whole register by heart,” said Hugh drily.

“Then you’ll see why I was so sure. I asked where she got it, and she said it was brought into the shop for sale along with two other pieces of jewellery, by a man about fifty years old. Three years back, on the twentieth day of August, for that was the day of her birth, and she asked the ring as a present, and got it from her husband. And the other two pieces, both sold since, they described to me as a necklace of polished stones and a silver bracelet engraved with sprays of vetch or pease. Three such, and all together! They could only be Juliana’s.”

Hugh nodded emphatic agreement to that. “And the man?”

“The description the woman gave me fits what little I have been told of Adam Heriet, for till now I have not seen him. Fifty years old, tanned from living outdoor like forester or huntsman… You have seen him, you know more. Brown-bearded she said and balding, a face of oak… Is that in tune?”

“To the letter and the note.”

“And the ring I have. Here, see! I asked it of the woman for this need, and she trusted me with it, though she valued it and would not sell, and I must give it back-when its work is done! Could this be mistaken?”

“It could not. Cruce and all his household will confirm it, but truth, we hardly need them. Is there more?”

“There is! For the jeweller questioned the ownership, seeing these were all a woman’s things, and asked if the lady who owned them had no further use for them. And the man said, as for the lady who had owned them, no, she had no further use for them, seeing she was dead!”

“He said so? Thus baldly?”

“He did. Wait, there’s more! The woman was a little curious about him, and followed him out of the shop when he left. And she saw him meet with a young fellow who was lurking by the wall outside, and give something over to him-a part of the money or the whole, or so she thought. And when they were aware of her watching, they slipped away round the corner out of sight, very quickly.”

“All this she will testify to?”

“I am sure she will. And a good witness, careful and clear.”

“So it seems,” said Hugh, and shut his fingers decisively over the ring. “Nicholas, you must take some food and wine now, while this downpour continues-for why should you drown a second time when we have our quarry already in safe hold? But as soon as it stops, you and I will go and confront Master Heriet with this pretty thing, and see if we cannot prise more out of him this time than a child’s tale of gaping at the wonders of Winchester.”

Ever since dinner Brother Cadfael had been dividing his time between the mill and the gatehouse, forewarned of possible trouble by the massing of the clouds long before the rain began. When the storm broke he took refuge in the mill, from which vantage-point he could keep an eye on both the pond and its outlet to the brook, and the road from the town, in case Madog should have found it advisable to land his charges for shelter in Frankwell, rather than completing the long circuit of the town, in which case he would come afoot to report as much.

The mill’s busy season was over, it was quiet and dim within, no sound but the monotonous dull drumming of the rain. It was there that Madog found him, a drowned rat of a Madog, alone. He had come by the path outside the abbey enclave, by which the town customers approached with their grain to be milled, rather than enter at the gatehouse. He loomed shadowy against the open doorway, and stood mute, dangling long, helpless arms. No man’s strength could fight off the powers of weather and storm and thunder. Even his long endurance had its limits.

“Well?” said Cadfael, chilled with foreboding.

“Not well, but very ill.” Madog came slowly within, and what light there was showed the dour set of his face. “Anything to astonish me, you said! I have had my fill of astonishment, and I bring it straight to you, as you wished. God knows,” he said, wringing out beard and hair, and shaking rivulets of rain from his shoulders, “I’m at a loss to know what to do about it. If you had foreknowledge, you may be able to see a way forward-I’m blind!” He drew deep breath, and told it all in words blunt and brief. “The rain alone would not have troubled us. The lightning struck a tree, heaved it at us as we passed, and split us asunder. The boat’s gone piecemeal down the river, where the shreds will fetch up there’s no guessing. And those two brothers of yours…”