Ellis Peters - St Peter's Fair

“Gone?” he said, hard and shrill. “She’s gone? They, you said! Who? Who is gone with her?”

“Why, she left with Messire Corbière, he has offered to escort her to Bristol with his sister, who goes to a convent there. It seemed a lucky chance …

Philip! What have I said? What is wrong?” He had let out a great groan of fury and anguish, and even reached a hand to grip her wrist.

“Where? Where is he taking her? Now, today!”

“To his manor of Stanton Cobbold for tonight - his sister is there …”

But he was gone, the instant she had named the place, running like a purposeful demon, and not towards the gatehouse, but across the court to the stable-yard.

There was no time to ask leave of any man, or respect any man’s property, whatever the consequences. Philip took the best-looking horse he saw ready to hand, which by luck - Philip’s luck, not the owner’s! - stood saddled and waiting for departure, on a tether in the yard. Before Aline, bewildered and frightened, reached the doorway of the hall, Philip was already out of the gate, and a furious groom was haring across the court in voluble and hopeless pursuit.

Since the nearest way to the road leading south towards Stretton and Stanton Cobbold was to turn left at the gate, and left again by the narrow track on the near side of the bridge, Brother Cadfael and Hugh Beringar, hastening along the Foregate, saw nothing of the turmoil that attended Philip’s departure. They came to the gatehouse and the great court without any intimation that things could have gone amiss. There were still guests departing, the normal bustle of the day after the fair, but nothing to give them pause. Hugh made straight for the guest-hall, and Cadfael, following hard on his heels, was suddenly arrested by a large hand on his shoulder, and a familiar, hearty voice hailing him in amiable Welsh.

“The very man I was looking for! I come to make my farewells, brother, and thank you for your companionship. A good fair! I’m off to my boat now, and away home with a handsome profit.”

Rhodri ap Huw beamed merrily from within the covert of his black beard and thorn-bush of black hair.

“Far from a good fair to two, at least, who came looking for a profit,” said Cadfael ruefully.

“Ah, but in cash, or some other currency? Though it all comes down to cash in the end, cash or power. What else do men labour for?”

“For a cause, perhaps, now and then one. You said yourself, I remember, no place like one of the great fairs for meeting someone you’d liefer not be seen meeting. Nowhere so solitary as the middle of a market place!” And he added mildly: “I daresay Owain Gwynedd himself may have had his intelligencers here.

Though they’d need to have good English,” he said guilelessly, “to gather much profit from it.”

“They would so. No use employing me. I daresay you’re right, though. Owain needs to have forward information, as much as any man, if he’s to keep his princedom safe, and add a few more miles to it here and there. Now I wonder which of all these traders I’ve rubbed shoulders with will be making his report in Owain’s ear!”

“And what advice he’ll be giving him,” said Cadfael.

Rhodri stroked his splendid beard, and his dark eyes twinkled. “I think he might take him word that the message Earl Ranulf expected from the south - who knows, maybe even from overseas - will never be delivered, and if he wants to get the best out of the hour, he should be aiming to enlarge his rule away from Chester’s borders, for the earl will be taking no risks, but looking well to his own. Owain would do better to make his bid in Maelienydd and Elfael, and let Ranulf alone.”

“Now I come to think,” mused Cadfael, “it would be excellent cover for Owain’s intelligencers to ask the help of an interpreter in these parts, and be seen to need him. Tongues wag more freely before the deaf man.”

“A good thought,” approved Rhodri. “Someone should suggest it to Owain.” Though there was every indication that the prince of Gwynedd needed no other man’s wits to fortify his own, but had been lavishly endowed by God in the first place.

Cadfael wondered how many other tongues this simple merchant knew. French, almost certainly enough for his purposes. Flemish, possibly a little, he had undoubtedly travelled in Flanders. It would be no surprise if he knew some Latin, too.

“You’ll be coming to Saint Peter’s Fair next year?”

“I may, brother, I may, who knows! Will you come forth again and speak for me, if I do?”

“Gladly. I’m a Gwynedd man myself. Take my greetings back with you to the mountains. And good speed on the way!”

“God keep you!” said Rhodri, still beaming, and clapped him buoyantly on the shoulder, and set off towards the riverside.

Hugh had no sooner set foot in the hall when Aline flew into his arms, with a cry of relief and desperation mingled, and began to pour into his ears all her bewilderment and anxiety.

“Oh, Hugh, I think I must have done something terrible! Either that, or Philip Corviser has gone mad. He was here asking after Emma, and when I told him she was gone he rushed away like a madman, and there’s a merchant from Worcester in the stables accusing him of stealing his horse and making off with it, and what it all means I daren’t guess, but I’m afraid …”

Hugh held her tenderly, dismayed and solicitous. “Emma’s gone? But she was coming home with us. What happened to change it?”

“You know he’s been paying attentions to her … He came this morning asking for you - he said he has a sister who is entering the nunnery at Minchinbarrow, and since he must escort her there, and it’s barely five miles from Bristol, he could as well take Emma home in his sister’s company. He said they’d sleep overnight at his manor, and set off tomorrow. Emma said yes, and I thought no wrong, why should I? But the very name has sent Philip off like a man demented ...”

“Corbière?” demanded Hugh, holding her off by the shoulders to peer anxiously into her face.

“Yes! Yes, Ivo, of course - but what’s so wrong in that? He takes her to his sister at Stanton Cobbold - I thought it ideal, so did she, and you were not here to say yes or no. Besides, she is her own mistress …”

True, the girl had a will of her own, and liked the man who had made the offer, and was flattered at being singled out for his favours. Even for the sake of her own independence she would have chosen to go, and Hugh, had he been present, j would not then have known or suspected enough to prevent. He tightened his arms comfortingly round his trembling wife, his cheek pressed against her hair. “My love, my heart, you could not have done anything but what you did, and I should have done the same. But I must go after. No questions now, you shall know everything later. We’ll bring her back - there’ll be no harm done …”

“It’s true, then!” whispered Aline, her breath fluttering against his throat.

“There’s reason to fear harm? I’ve let her go into danger?”

“You could not stop her. She chose to go. Think no more of your part, you played none - how could you know? Where’s Constance? Love, I hate to leave you like this …”

He was thinking, of course, like all men, she thought, that any grievous upset to his wife in this condition was a potential upset to his son. That roused her.

She was not the girl to keep a man dancing anxious attention on her, even if she had a wife’s claim on him, when he was needed more urgently elsewhere. She drew herself resolutely out of his arms.

“Of course you must leave me. I’ve taken no harm, and shall take none. Go, quickly! They have a good three hours start of you, and besides, if you delay, Philip may run his head into trouble alone. Send quickly for what men you can muster, and I’ll go see what I can do to placate the merchant whose horse has been borrowed …” He was loath, all the same, to let go of her. She took his head between her hands, kissed him hard, and turned him about just as Cadfael came in at the hall door.