Ellis Peters - Sanctuary Sparrow

‘I thought I knew that shaven sconce of yours,’ he said heartily, and hoisted his cockle-shell of withies and hide on to his shoulder to heft it ashore. ‘What is it with you? When you call me, I take it there’s a sound reason.’

‘Sound enough,’ said Cadfael. ‘I think I may have found what you were looking for.’ He jerked his head towards the plane of grass above, and led the way up without more words. They stood together over the prone body in thoughtful silence for some moments. Madog had taken note in one glance of the position of the head, and looked back to the gravelled shore under its liquid skin of water. He saw the shadowy shape left in the fine shale, and the mute, contained violence of the current that swept past only a man’s length away from that strange calm.

‘Yes. I see. He went into the water above. Perhaps not far above. There’s a strong tow under that bank, upstream from here a piece, under the castle. Then it could have brought him across and thrown him up here just as he lies. A good, solid weight, head-first into the bank. And left him stranded.’

‘So I thought,’ said Cadfael. ‘You were looking for him?’ People along the waterside who had kin go missing usually sought out Madog before they notified the provost or the sheriff’s sergeant.

‘That journeyman of his sent after me this morning. It seems his master went off yesterday before noon, but nobody wondered, he did the like whenever he chose, they were used to it. But this morning he’d never been back. There’s a boy sleeps in his shop, he was fretting over it, so when Boneth came to work and no locksmith he sent the lad to me. This one here liked his bed, even if he sometimes came to it about dawn. Not the man to go hungry or dry, either, and the ale-house he favoured hadn’t seen him.’

‘He has a boat,’ said Cadfael. ‘A known fisherman.’

‘So I hear. His boat was not where he keeps it.’

‘But you’ve found it,’ said Cadfael with conviction.

‘A half-mile down-river, caught in the branches where the willows overhang. And his rod snagged by the hook and trailing. The boat had overturned. He ran a coracle, like me. I’ve left it beached where I found it. A tricky boat,’ said Madog dispassionately, ‘if he hooked a lusty young salmon. The spring ones are coming. But he knew his craft and his sport.’

‘So do many and take the one chance that undoes them.’

‘We’d best get him back,’ said Madog, minding his business like any good master-craftsman. ‘To the abbey? It’s the nearest. And Hugh Beringar will have to know. No need to mark this place, you and I both know it well, and his marks will last long enough.’

Cadfael considered and decided. ‘You’ll get him home best afloat, and it’s your right. I’ll follow ashore and meet you below the bridge, we shall make much the same time of it. Keep him as he lies, Madog, facedown, and note what signs he leaves aboard.’

Madog had at least as extensive a knowledge of the ways of drowned men as Cadfael. He gave his friend a long, thoughtful look, but kept his thoughts to himself, and stooped to lift the shoulders of the dead man, leaving Cadfael the knees. They got him decently disposed into the light craft. There was a fee for every Christian body Madog brought out of the river, he had indeed a right to it. The duty had edged its way in on him long ago, almost unaware, but other men’s dying was the better part of his living now. And an honest, useful, decent man, for which many a family had been thankful.

Madog’s paddle dipped and swung him across the contrary flow, to use the counter-eddies in moving up-river. Cadfael took a last look at the cove and the level of grass above it, memorised as much of the scene as he could, and set off briskly up the path to meet the boat at the bridge.

The river was fast and self-willed, and by hurrying, Cadfael won the race, and had time to recruit three or four novices and lay brothers by the time Madog brought his coracle into the ordered fringes of the Gaye. They had an improvised litter ready, they lifted Baldwin Peche onto it, and bore him away up the path to the Foregate and across to the gatehouse of the abbey. A nimble and very young novice had been sent in haste to carry word to the deputy-sheriff to come to the abbey at Brother Cadfael’s entreaty.

But for all that, no one knew how, somehow the word had gone round. By the time Madog arrived, so had a dozen idle observers, draped over the downstream parapet of the bridge. By the time the bearers had got their burden to the level of the Foregate and turned towards the abbey, the dozen had become a score, and drifted in ominous quietness towards the end of the bridge, and there were a dozen more gradually gathering behind them, emerging from the town gate. When they reached the abbey gatehouse, which could not well be closed against any who came in decorous silence and apparent peace, they had between forty and fifty souls hovering at their heels and following them within. The weight of their foreboding, accusation and self-righteousness lay heavy on the nape of Cadfael’s neck as the litter was set down in the great court. When he turned to view the enemy, for no question but they were the enemy, the first face he saw, the first levelled brow and vengeful eye, was that of Daniel Aurifaber.

They came crowding close, peering round Madog and Cadfael to confirm what they already knew. They passed the word back to those behind, in ominous murmurs that swelled into excited speculation in a matter of moments. Cadfael caught at the sleeve of the first novice who came curiously to see what was happening.

‘Get Prior Robert and sharp about it. We’re likely to need some other authority before Hugh Beringar gets here.’ And to the litter-bearers, before they could be completely surrounded: ‘Into the cloister with him, while you can, and stand ready to fend off any who try to follow.’

The sorry cortege obediently made off into cover in some haste, and though one or two of the younger fellows from the town were drawn after by gaping curiosity to the threshold of the cloister, they did not venture further, but turned back to rejoin their friends. An inquisitive ring drew in about Cadfael and Madog.

‘That was Baldwin Peche the locksmith you had there,’ said Daniel, not asking, stating. ‘Our tenant. He never came home last night. John Boneth has been hunting high and low for him.’

‘So have I,’ said Madog, ‘at that same John’s urging. And between the two of us here we’ve found both the man and his boat.”

‘Dead.’ That was not a question either.

‘Dead, sure enough.’

By that time Prior Robert had been found, and came in haste with his dutiful shadow at his heels. Of the interruptions to his ordered, well-tuned life within here, it seemed, there was to be no end. He had caught an unpleasant murmur of ‘Murder!’ as he approached, and demanded in dismay and displeasure what had happened to bring this inflamed mob into the great court. A dozen voices volunteered to tell him, disregarding how little they themselves knew about it.

‘Father Prior, we saw our fellow-townsman carried in here, dead...‘

‘No one had seen him since yesterday...‘

‘My neighbour and tenant, the locksmith,’ cried Daniel. ‘Father robbed and assaulted, and now Master Peche fetched in dead!’

The prior held up a silencing hand, frowning them down. ‘Let one speak. Brother Cadfael, do you know what this is all about?’

Cadfael saw fit to tell the bare facts, without mention of any speculations that might be going on in his own mind. He took care to be audible to them all, though he doubted if they would be setting any limits to their own speculations, however careful he might be. ‘Madog here has found the man’s boat overturned, down-river past the castle,’ he concluded. ‘And we have sent to notify the deputy-sheriff, the matter will be in his hands now. He should be here very soon.’