Ellis Peters - St Peter's Fair

They had begun by making certain that there was still no word or sign at the jetty. No, Thomas had neither appeared nor sent word, and Roger Dod’s forays among the other traders along the riverside, as far as he dared go from the property he guarded, had elicited no news of his master.

He was a burly, well-set-up young man of about thirty, this Roger Dod, and very personable, if he had not been so curt and withdrawn in manner. No doubt he was anxious, too. He answered Hugh’s questions in the fewest possible words, and gnawed an uncertain lip at hearing that his master’s niece was now lodged in the abbey guest-hall. He would have come with them to help in their search, but he was responsible for his master’s belongings, and would have to be answerable for their safety when his master returned. He stayed with the barge, and sent the mute and sleepily resentful Gregory to lead them straight to the booth Master Thomas had rented. Beringar’s sergeant, with three men, was left behind to work his way gradually along the Foregate after them, questioning every waking stallholder as he went, while the rest followed the porter to the fairground.

The great open space was by this time half-asleep, but still winking with occasional torches and braziers, and murmuring with subdued voices. For these three days in the year it was transformed into a tight little town, busy and populous, to vanish again on the fourth day.

Thomas had chosen a large booth almost in the centre of the triangular ground.

His goods were neatly stacked within, and his watchman was awake and prowling the ground uneasily, to welcome the arrival of authority with relief. Warin was a leathery, middle-aged man, who had clearly been in his present service many years, and was probably completely trusted within his limits, but had not the ability ever to rise to the position Roger Dod now held.

“No, my lord,” he said anxiously, “never a word since, and I’ve been on watch every moment. He set off for his barge a good quarter of an hour before Roger left. We had everything stowed to his liking, he was well content. And he’d had a fall not so long before - you’d know of that? - and was glad enough, I’d say, to be off home to his bed. For after all, he’s none so young, no more than I am, and he carried more weight.”

“And he set off from here, which way?”

“Why, straight to the highroad, close by here. I suppose he’d keep along the Foregate.”

Behind Cadfael’s shoulder a familiar voice, rich and full and merrily knowing, said in Welsh: “Well, well, brother, out so late? And keeping the law company!

What would the deputy sheriff of the shire want with Thomas of Bristol’s watchman at this hour? Are they on the scent of all Gloucester’s familiars, after all? And I claimed commerce was above the anarchy!” Narrowed eyes twinkled at Cadfael in the light of the dispersed torches and the far-distant stars in a perfect midsummer sky. Rhodri ap Huw was chuckling softly and fatly at his own teasing wit and menacing sharpness of apprehension.

“You keep a friendly eye out for your neighbours?” said Cadfael, innocently approving. “I see you brought off all your own goods without scathe.”

“I have a nose for trouble, and the good sense to step out of its way,” said Rhodri ap Huw smugly. “What’s come to Thomas of Bristol? He was not so quick on the scent, it seems. He could have loosed his mooring and poled out into the river till the flurry was over, and been as safe as in the west country.”

“Did you see him struck down?” asked Cadfael deceitfully; but Rhodri was not to be caught.

“I saw him strike down the other young fool,” he said, and grinned. “Why, did he come to grief after I left? And which of them is it you’re looking for, Thomas or the lad?” And he stared with marked interest to see the sheriff’s men probing at the backs of stalls, and under the trestles, and followed inquisitively on their heels as they worked their way back along the highroad. Evidently nothing of moment was to be allowed to happen at this fair without Rhodri ap Huw being present at it, or very quickly and minutely informed of it. And why not make use of, his perspicacity?

“Thomas’s niece is in a taking because he has not come back to his barge. That might mean anything or nothing, but now it’s gone on so long, his men are getting uneasy, too. Did you see him leave his booth?”

“I did. It might be as much as two hours ago. And his journeyman some little while after him. A fair size of a man, to be lost between here and the river.

And no word of him anywhere since then?”

“Not that we’ve found, or likely to find, without questioning every trader and every idler in all this array. And the wiser half of them getting their sleep in ready for the morning.”

They had reached the Foregate and turned towards the town, and still Rhodri strode companionably beside Cadfael, and had taken to peering into the dark spaces between stalls just as the sheriff’s men were doing. Lights and braziers were fewer here, and the stalls more modest, and the quiet of the night closed in drowsily. On their left, under the abbey wall, a few compact but secure booths were arrayed. The first of them, though completely closed in and barred for the night, showed through a chink the light of a candle within. Rhodri dug a weighty elbow into Cadfael’s ribs.

“Euan of Shotwick! No one is ever going to get at him from the rear, he likes a corner backed into two walls if he can get it. Travels alone with a pack-pony, and wears a weapon, and can use it, too. A solitary soul because he trusts nobody. His own porter - luckily his wares weigh light for their value - and his own watchman.”

Ivo Corbière had loitered to go aside between the stalls, some of which in this stretch were still unoccupied, waiting for the local traders who would come with the dawn. The consequent darkness slowed their search, and the young man, not at all averse to spending the night without sleep, and probably encouraged by the memory of Emma’s bright eyes, was tireless and thorough. Even Cadfael and Rhodri ap Huw were some yards ahead of him when they heard him cry after them, high and urgently:

“Good God, what’s here? Beringar, come back here!”

The tone was enough to bring them running. Corbière had left the highway, probing between stacked trestles and leaning canvas awnings into darkness, but when they peered close there was lambent light enough from the stars for accustomed eyes to see what he had seen. From beneath a light wooden frame and stretched canvas jutted two booted feet, motionless, toes pointed skywards. For a moment they all stared in silence, dumbstruck, for truth to tell, not one of them had believed that the merchant could have come to any harm, as they all agreed afterwards. Then Beringar took hold of the frame and hoisted it away from the trestles against which it leaned, and dim and large in the darkness they saw a man’s long shape, from the knees up rolled in a cloak that hid the face. There was no movement, and no noticeable sound.

The sergeant leaned in with the one torch they had brought with them, and Beringar reached a hand to the folds of the cloak, and began to draw them back from the shrouded head and shoulders. The movement of the cloth released a powerful wave of an odour that made him halt and draw suspicious breath. It also disturbed the body, which emitted an enormous snore, and a further gust of spirituous breath.

“Dead drunk and helpless,” said Beringar, relieved. “And not, I fancy, the man we’re looking for. The state he’s in, this fellow must have been here some hours already, and if he comes round in time to crawl away before dawn it will be a miracle. Let’s have a look at him.” He was less gingerly now in dragging the cloak away, but the drunken man let himself be hauled about and dragged forth by the feet with only a few disturbed grunts, and subsided into stertorous sleep again as soon as he was released. The torch shone its yellow, resinous light upon a shock-head of coarse auburn hair, a pair of wide shoulders in a leather jerkin, and a face that might have been sharp, lively and even comely when he was awake and sober, but now looked bloated and idiotic, with open, slobbering mouth and reddened eyes.