Ellis Peters: One Corpse Too Many

“Your Grace, this is utterly false. I never had the dagger, I could not well toss it into the river. I deny that ever I had the thing in my possession, or ever saw it until now.”

“Are you saying,” asked the king drily, “that the child lies? At whose instigation? Not Beringar’s — it seems to me that he was as taken aback by this witness as I myself, or you. Am I to think the Benedictine order has procured the boy to put up such a story? And for what end?”

“I am saying, your Grace, that this is a foolish error. The boy may have seen what he says he saw, and got the dagger as he claims he got it, but he is mistaken in saying he saw me. I am not the man. I deny all that has been said against me.”

“And I maintain it,” said Hugh Beringar. “And I ask that it be put to the proof.”

The king crashed a fist upon the table so that the boards danced, and cups rocked and spilled wine. “There is something here to be probed, and I cannot let it pass now without probing it.” He turned again to the boy, and reined in his exasperation to ask more gently: “Think and look carefully, now, and say again: are you certain this is the man you saw? If you have any doubt, say so. It is no sin to be mistaken. You may have seen some other man of like build or colour. But if you are sure, say that also, without fear.”

“I am sure,” said the boy, trembling but adamant. “I know what I saw.”

The king leaned back in his great chair, and thumped his closed fists on the arms, and pondered. He looked at Hugh Beringar with grim displeasure: “It seems you have hung a millstone round my neck, when most I need to be free and to move fast. I cannot now wipe out what has been said, I must delve deeper. Either this case goes to the long processes of court law — no, not for you nor any will I now delay my going one day beyond the morrow’s morrow! I have made my plans, I cannot afford to change them.”

“There need be no delay,” said Beringar, “if your Grace countenances trial by combat. I have appealed Adam Courcelle of murder, I repeat that charge. If he accepts, I am ready to meet him without any ceremony or preparations. Your Grace may see the outcome tomorrow, and march on the following day, freed of this burden.”

Cadfael, during these exchanges, had not taken his eyes from Courcelle’s face, and marked with foreboding the signs of gradually recovered assurance. The faint sweat that had broken on his lip and brow dried, the stare of desperation cooled into calculation; he even began to smile. Since he was now cornered, and there were two ways out, one by long examination and questioning, one by simple battle, he was beginning to see in this alternative his own salvation. Cadfael could follow the measuring, narrowed glance that studied Hugh Beringar from head to foot, and understood the thoughts behind the eyes. Here was a younger man, lighter in weight, half a head shorter, much less in reach, inexperienced, over-confident, an easy victim. It should not be any problem to put him out of the world; and that done, Courcelle had nothing to fear. The judgment of heaven would have spoken, no one thereafter would point a finger at him, and Aline would be still within his reach, innocent of his dealings with her brother, and effectively separated from a too-engaging rival, without any blame to Courcelle, the wrongly accused. Oh, no, it was not so grim a situation, after all. It should work out very well.

He reached out along the table, picked up the topaz, and rolled it contemptuously back towards Beringar, to be retrieved and retained.

“Let it be so, your Grace. I accept battle, tomorrow, without formality, without need for practice. Your Grace shall march the following day,” And I with you, his confident countenance completed.

“So be it!” said the king grimly. “Since you’re bent on robbing me of one good man, between you, I suppose I may as well find and keep the better of the two. Tomorrow, then, at nine of the clock, after Mass. Not here within the wards, but in the open — the meadow outside the town gate, between road and river, will do well. Prestcote, you and Willem marshal the lists. See to it! And we’ll have no horses put at risk,” he said practically. “On foot, and with swords!”

Hugh Beringar bowed acquiescence. Courcelle said:

“Agreed!” and smiled, thinking how much longer a reach and stronger a wrist he had for sword-play.

“A l’outrance!” said the king with a vicious snap, and rose from the table to put an end to a sullied evening’s entertainment.

On the way back through the streets of the town, dark but not quite silent, somehow uneasily astir as if rats ran in a deserted house, Hugh Beringar on his rawboned grey drew alongside Brother Cadfael and walked his mount for some few minutes at their foot-pace, ignoring Brother Jerome’s close proximity and attentive ears as though they had not existed. In front, Abbot Heribert and Prior Robert conversed in low and harried tones, concerned for one life at stake, but unable to intervene. Two young men at bitter enmity had declared for a death. Once both contestants had accepted the odds, there was no retreating; he who lost had been judged by heaven. If he survived the sword, the gallows waited for him.

“You may call me every kind of fool,” said Beringar accommodatingly, “if it will give you any ease.” His voice had still its light, teasing intonation, but Cadfael was not deceived.

“It is not for me, of all men,” he said, “to blame, or pity — or even regret what you have done.”

“As a monk?” asked the mild voice, the smile in it perceptible to an attentive ear.

“As a man! Devil take you!”

“Brother Cadfael,” said Hugh heartily, “I do love you. You know very well you would have done the same in my place.”

“I would not! Not on the mere guess of an old fool I hardly knew! How if I had been wrong?”

“Ah, but you were not wrong! He is the man — doubly a murderer, for he delivered her poor coward brother to his death just as vilely as he throttled Faintree. Mind, never a word to Aline about this until all’s over — one way or the other.”

“Never a word, unless she speak the first. Do you think the news is not blown abroad all through this town by now?”

“I know it is, but I pray she is deep asleep long ago, and will not go forth to hear this or any news until she goes to High Mass at ten. By which time, who knows, we may have the answer to everything.”

“And you,” said Brother Cadfael acidly, because of the pain he felt, that must have some outlet, “will you now spend the night on your knees in vigil, and wear yourself out before ever you draw in the field?”

“I am not such a fool as all that,” said Hugh reprovingly, and shook a finger at his friend. “For shame, Cadfael! You are a monk, and cannot trust God to see right done? I shall go to bed and sleep well, and rise fresh to the trial. And now I suppose you will insist on being my deputy and advocate to heaven?”

“No,” said Cadfael grudgingly, “I shall sleep, and get up only when the bell rings for me. Am I to have less faith than an impudent heathen like you?”

“That’s my Cadfael! Still,” conceded Beringar, “you may whisper a word or two to God on my behalf at Matins and Lauds, if you’ll be so kind. If he turns a deaf ear to you, small use the rest of us wearing out our knee-bones.” And he leaned from his tall horse to lay a light hand for an instant on Cadfael’s broad tonsure, like a playful benediction, and then set spurs to his horse and trotted ahead, passing the abbot with a respectful reverence, to vanish into the curving descent of the Wyle.

Brother Cadfael presented himself before the abbot immediately after Prime. It did not seem that Heribert was much surprised to see him, or to hear the request he put forward.