Ellis Peters - One Corpse Too Many

“I remember you,” said Osbern, looking up at him with eyes remarkably clear and innocent, in a face otherwise as misshapen as his body. “You are the brother who brought me the cloak.”

“And has it done you good service?”

“It has, and I have prayed for the lady, as you asked. But, brother, it troubles me, too. Surely the man who wore it before me is dead. Is it so?”

“He is,” said Cadfael, “but that should not trouble you. The lady who sent it to you is his sister, and trust me, her giving blesses the gift. Wear it, and take comfort.”

He would have walked on then, but a hasty hand caught at the skirt of his habit, and Osbern besought him pleadingly: “But, brother, I go in dread that I bear some guilt. For I saw the man, living, with this cloak about him, hale as I…”

“You saw him?” echoed Cadfael on a soundless breath, but the anxious voice had ridden over him and rushed on.

“It was in the night, and I was cold, and I thought to myself, I wish the good God would send me such a cloak to keep me warm! Brother, thought is also prayer! And no more than three days later God did indeed send me this very cloak. You dropped it into my arms! How can I be at peace? The young man gave me a groat that night, and asked me to say a prayer for him on the morrow, and so I did. But how if my first prayer made the second of none effect? How if I have prayed a man into his grave to get myself a cloak to wear?”

Cadfael stood gazing at him amazed and mute, feeling the chill of ice flow down his spine. The man was sane, clear of mind and eye, he knew very well what he was saying, and his trouble of heart was real and deep, and must be the first consideration, whatever else followed.

“Put all such thoughts out of your mind, friend,” said Cadfael firmly, “for only the devil can have sent them. If God gave you the thing for which you wished, it was to save one morsel of good out of a great evil for which you are no way to blame. Surely your prayers for the former wearer are of aid even now to his soul. This young man was one of FitzAlan’s garrison here, done to death after the castle fell, at the king’s orders. You need have no fears, his death is not at your door, and no sacrifice of yours could have saved him.”

Osbern’s uplifted face eased and brightened, but still he shook his head, bewildered. “FitzAlan’s man? But how could that be, when I saw him enter and leave the king’s camp?”

“You saw him? You are sure? How do you know this is the same cloak?”

“Why, by this clasp at the throat. I saw it clearly in the firelight when he gave me the groat.”

He could not be mistaken, then, there surely were not two such designs exactly alike, and Cadfael himself had seen its match on the buckle of Giles Siward’s swordbelt.

“When was it that you saw him?” he asked gently. “Tell me how it befell.”

“It was the night before the assault, around midnight. I had my place then close to the guard-post for the sake of the fire, and I saw him come, not openly, but like a shadow, among the bushes. He stood when they challenged him, and asked to be taken to their officer, for he had something to tell, to the king’s advantage. He kept his face hidden, but he was young. And afraid! But who was not afraid, then? They took him away within, and afterwards I saw him return, and they let him out. He said he had orders to go back, for there must be no suspicion. That was all I heard. He was in better heart then, not so frightened, so I asked him for alms, and he gave, and asked my prayers in return. Say some prayer for me tomorrow, he said — and on ‘the morrow, you tell me, he died! This I’m sure of, when he left me he was not expecting to die.”

“No,” said Cadfael, sick with pity and grief for all poor, frightened, breakable men, “surely he was not. None of us knows the day. But pray for him you may, and your prayers will benefit his soul. Put off all thought that ever you did him harm, it is not so. You never wished him ill, God hears the heart. Never wished him any, never did him any.”

He left Osbern reassured and comforted, but went on into the castle carrying with him the load of discomfort and depression the lame man had shed. So it always is, he thought, to relieve another you must burden yourself. And such a burden! He remembered in time that there was one more question he should have asked, the most urgent of all, and turned back to ask it.

“Do you know, friend, who was the officer of the guard, that night?”

Osbern shook his head. “I never saw him, he never came out himself. No, brother, that I can’t tell you.”

“Trouble no more,” said Cadfael. “Now you have told it freely, and you know the cloak came to you with a blessing, not a bane. Enjoy it freely, as you deserve.”

“Father Abbot,” said Cadfael, seeking out Heribert in the courtyard, “if you have no need of me until you come to table, there is work here I have still to do, concerning Nicholas Faintree.”

With King Stephen holding audience in the inner ward, and the great court teeming with clerics, bishops, the small nobility of the county, even an earl or so, there was no room, in any case, for the mere servitors, whose duties would begin when the feast began. The abbot had found a friend in the bishop of Salisbury, and readily dismissed Cadfael to whatever pursuit he chose. He went in search of Hugh Beringar with Osbern’s story very heavy on his mind, and the last question still unanswered, though so many sad mysteries were now made plain. It was not a terrified prisoner with the rope already round his neck who had broken down and betrayed the secret of FitzAlan’s plans for his treasury. No, that betrayal had taken place a day previously, when the issue of battle was still to be decided, and the thing had been done with forethought, to save a life it yet had failed to save. He came by stealth, and asked to be taken to the officer of the guard, for he had something to tell to the king’s advantage! And when he left he told the guard he had orders to go back, so that there could be no suspicion, but then he was in better heart. Poor wretch, not for long!

By what means or on what pretext he had managed to get out of the castle — perhaps on pretence of reconnoitering the enemy’s position? — certainly he had obeyed his instructions to return and keep all suspicion lulled. He had returned only to confront the death he had thought he was escaping.

Hugh Beringar came out and stood on the steps of the great hall, craning round him for one person among all that shifting throng. The black Benedictine habits showed here and there in strong contrast to the finery of lordlings in their best, but Cadfael was shorter than many of those about him, and saw the man he was seeking before he was himself seen. He began to weave his way towards him, and the keen black eyes sweeping the court beneath drawn brows lit upon him, and glittered. Beringar came down to take him by the arm and draw him away to a quieter place.

“Come away, come up on to the guard-walk, there’ll be no one there but the sentry. How can we talk here?” And when they had mounted to the wall, he found a corner where no one could approach them without being seen, he said, eyeing Cadfael very earnestly: “You have news in your face. Tell it quickly, and I’ll tell you mine.”

Cadfael told the story as briefly as it had been told to him, and it was understood as readily. Beringar stood leaning against the merlon of the wall as though bracing his back for a dour defence. His face was bitter with dismay.

“Her brother! No escaping it, this can have been no other. He came by night out of the castle, by stealth, hiding his face, he spoke with the king’s officer, and returned as he had come. So that there might be no suspicion! Oh, I am sick!” said Beringar savagely. “And all for nothing! His treason fell victim to one even worse. You don’t know yet, Cadfael, you don’t know all! But that of all people it should be her brother!”