Ellis Peters - An Excellent Mystery

“The woman has described him, too. A young fellow about twenty, slender, and kept his capuchon over his head. Give him a name, Adam, and it may somewhat lighten your load. If you know a name for him? Where did you find him? In the market? Or was he bespoken well before for the work?”

“I never entered such a shop. If all this happened, it happened to other men, not to me. I was not there.”

“But Juliana’s possessions were, Adam! That’s certain. And brought by someone who much resembled you. When the woman sees you in the flesh, then I may say, brought by you. Better to tell us, Adam. Spare yourself a long uncovering, make your confession of your own will, and be done. Spare the silversmith’s wife a long journey. For she will point the finger, Adam. This, she will say when she sets eyes on you, this is the man.”

“I have nothing to confess. I’ve done no wrong.”

“Why did you choose that particular shop, Adam?”

“I was never in the shop. I had nothing to sell. I was not there…”

“But this ring was, Adam. How did it get there? And with neckless and bracelet, too? Chance? How far can chance stretch?”

“I left her a mile from Wherwell…”

“Dead, Adam?”

“I parted from her living, I swear it!”

“Yet you told the silversmith that the lady who had owned these gems was dead. Why did you so?”

“I told you, it was not I, I was never in the shop.”

“Some other man, was it? A stranger, and yet he had those ornaments, all three, and he resembled you, and he knew and said that the lady was dead. Here are so many miraculous chances, Adam, how do you account for them?”

The prisoner let his head fall back against the wall. His face was grey. “I never laid hand on her. I loved her!”

“And this is not her ring?”

“It is her ring. Anyone at Lai will tell you so.”

“Yes, they will, Adam, they will! They will tell the court so, when your time comes. But only you can tell us how it came into your possession, unless by murder. Who was the man you paid?”

“There was none. I was not there. It was not I…”

The pace had steadily increased, the questions coming thick as arrows and as deadly. Round and round, over and over the same ground, and the man was tiring at last. If he was breakable at all, he must break soon.

They were so intent, and strung so taut, like overtuned instruments, that they all three started violently when there was a knock at the door of the cell, and a sergeant put his head in, visibly agape with sensational news. “My lord, pardon, but they thought you should know at once… There’s word in town that a boat sank today in the storm. Two brothers from the abbey drowned in Severn, they’re saying, and Madog’s boat smashed to flinders by a tree the lightning fetched down. They’re searching downstream for one of the pair…”

Hugh was on his feet, aghast. “Madog’s boat? That must be the hiring Cadfael told me of… Drowned? Are they sure of their tale? Madog never lost man nor cargo till now.”

“My lord, who can argue with lightning? The tree crashed full on them. Someone in Frankwell saw the bolt fall. The lord abbot may not even know of it yet, but they’re all in the same story in the town.”

“I’ll come!” said Hugh, and swung hurriedly on Nicholas. “God knows I’m sorry, Nick, if this is true. Brother Humilis-your Godfrid-had a longing to see his birthplace at Salton again, and set out with Madog this morning, or so he intended-he and Fidelis. Come with me! We’d best go find out the truth of it. Pray God they’ve made much of little, as usual, and they’ve come by nothing worse than a ducking… Madog can outswim most fish. But let’s go and make sure.”

Nicholas had risen with him, startled and slow to take it in. “My lord? And he so sick? Oh, God, he could not live through such a shock. Yes, I’ll come… I must know!”

And they were away, abandoning their prisoner. The door closed briskly between, and the key turned in the lock. No one had given another look or thought to Adam Heriet, who sank back slowly on his hard bed, and bowed himself into his cupped hands, a demoralised hulk of a man, worn out and emptied at heart. Gradually slow tears began to seep between his braced fingers and fall upon his pillow, but there was no one there to see and wonder, and no one to interpret.

They took horse in haste through the town, through streets astonishingly drying out already in the gentle warmth after the deluge. It was still broad day and late sunlight, and the roofs and walls and roads steamed, so that the horses waded a shallow, frail sea of vapour. They passed by Hugh’s house without halting. As well, for they would have found no Aline there to greet them.

People were emerging into the streets again wherever they passed, gathering in twos and threes, heads together and chins earnestly wagging. The word of tragedy had gone round rapidly, once it was whispered. Nor was it any false alarm this time. Out through the eastern gate and crossing the bridge towards the abbey, Hugh and Nicholas drew rein at sight of a small, melancholy procession crossing ahead of them. Four men carried an improvised litter, an outhouse door taken from its hinges in some Frankwell householder’s yard, and draped decently with rugs to carry the corpse of one victim, at least, of the storm. One only, for it was a narrow door, and the four bearers handled it as if the weight was light, though the swathed body lay long and large-boned on its bier.

They fell in reverently behind, as many of the townsfolk afoot were also doing, swelling the solemn progress like a funeral cortege. Nicholas stared and strained ahead, measuring the mute and motionless body. So long and yet so light, fallen away into age before age was due, this could be no other but Godfrid Marescot, the maimed and dwindling flesh at last shed by its immaculate spirit. He stared through a mist, trying impatiently to clear his eyes.

“That is this Madog, that man who leads them?”

Hugh nodded silently, yes. No doubt but Madog had recruited friends from the suburb, part Welsh, as he was wholly Welsh, to help him bring the dead man home. He commanded his helpers decorously, dolorously, with great dignity.

“The other one-Fidelis?” wondered Nicholas, recalling the retiring anonymous figure forever shrinking into shadow, yet instant in service. He felt a pang of self-reproach that he grieved so much for Godfrid, and so little for the young man who had made himself a willing slave to Godfrid’s nobility.

Hugh shook his head. There was but one here.

They were across the bridge and moving along the approach to the Foregate, between the Gaye on the left hand and the mill and mill-pool on the right, and so to the gatehouse of the abbey. There the bearers turned in to the right with their burden, under the arch, into the great court, where a silent, solemn assembly had massed to wait for them, and there they set down their charge, and stood in silent attendance.

The news had reached the abbey as the brothers came from Vespers. They gathered in a stunned circle, abbot, prior, obedientiaries, monks and novices, brought thus abruptly to the contemplation of mortality. The townspeople who had followed the procession to its destination hovered within the gate, somewhat apart, and gazed in awed silence.

Madog approached the abbot with the Welshman’s unservile readiness to accept all men as equals, and told his story simply. Radulfus acknowledged the will of God and the helplessness of man with an absolving motion of his hand, and stood looking down at the swathed body a long moment, before he stooped and drew back the covering from the face.

Humilis in dying had shed all but his proper years. Death could not restore the lost and fallen flesh, but it had relaxed the sharp, gaunt lines, and smoothed away the engraved hollows of pain. Hugh and Nicholas, standing aloof at the corner of the cloister, caught a brief glimpse of Humilis translated, removed into superhuman serenity and repose, before Radulfus lowered the cloth again, blessed the bier and the bearers, and motioned to his obedientiaries to take up the body and carry it into the mortuary chapel.