Authors: Ellis Peters
Monk's Hood (13 page)
But
once through the gate there was a bench set in an alcove in the wall, where a
tray could easily be put down for a moment, on pretense of adjusting to a
better balance. And Aelfric knew his way to the workshop in the garden, and had
seen the oil dispensed. And Aelfric was a soured man on two counts. A man of
infinite potential, since he let so little of himself be known to any.
“Ah,
well, it’s certain nothing was added to the food here.”
“Nothing
but wholesome wine and spices. Now if it had been the rest of the bird that was
poisoned,” said Petrus darkly, “I’d give you leave to look sideways at me, for
you’d have reason. But if ever I did go so far as to prepare a monk’s-hood stew
for that one, be sure I’d make no mistake about which bowl went to which
belly.”
No
need, thought Cadfael, crossing the court to Mass, to take Brother Petrus’s
fulminations too seriously. For all his ferocity he was a man of words rather
than actions. Or ought it, after all, to be considered as worth pondering? The
idea that a mistake had been made, and the dish intended for Robert sent
instead to Bonel, had never entered Cadfael’s head until now, but clearly
Petrus had credited him with just such a notion, and made haste to hammer it
into absurdity before it was uttered. A shade too much haste? Murderous hatreds
had been known to arise between those who were sworn to brotherhood, before
this, and surely would so arise again. Brother Petrus might have started the
very suspicion he had set out to scotch. Not, perhaps, a very likely murderer.
But bear it in mind!
The
few weeks before the main festivals of the year always saw an increase in the
parochial attendance at Mass, the season pricking the easy consciences of those
who took their spiritual duties lightly all the rest of the year. There were a
creditable number of local people in the church that morning, and it was no
great surprise to Cadfael to discover among them the white coif and abundant
yellow hair of the girl Aldith. When the service ended he noticed that she did
not go out by the west door, like the rest, but passed through the south door
into the cloister, and so out into the great court. There she drew her cloak
around her, and sat down on a stone bench against the refectory wall.
Cadfael
followed, and saluted her gravely, asking after her mistress. The girl raised
to him a fair, composed face whose
soft lines seemed to him to
be belied by the level dark force of her eyes. She was, he reflected, as
mysterious in her way as Aelfric, and what she did not choose to reveal of
herself it would be hard to discover unaided.
“She’s
well enough in body,” she said thoughtfully, “but distressed in mind for Edwin,
naturally. But there’s been no word of his being taken, and I’m sure we should
have heard if he had been. That’s some comfort. Poor lady, she’s in need of
comfort.”
He
could have sent her some reassurance by this messenger, but he did not.
Richildis had taken care to speak with him alone, he should respect that
preference. In so tight and closed a situation, where only the handful of
people involved in one household seemed to be at risk, how could Richildis be
absolutely sure even of her young kinswoman, even of her stepson or her
manservant? And could he, in the end, even be sure of Richildis? Mothers may be
driven to do terrible things in defence of the rights of their children.
Gervase Bonel had made a bargain with her, and broken it.
“If
you’ll permit, I’ll sit with you a little while. You’re not in haste to
return?”
“Aelfric
will be coming for the dinner soon,” she said. “I thought I would wait for him,
and help him carry everything. He’ll have the ale and the bread as well.” And
she added, as Cadfael sat down beside her: “It’s ill for him, having to do that
same office daily, after what fell on us yesterday. To think that people may be
eyeing him and wondering. Even you, brother. Isn’t it true?”
“No
help for that,” said Cadfael simply, “until we know the truth. The sheriff’s
sergeant believes he knows it already. Do you agree with him?”
“No!”
She was mildly scornful, it even raised the ghost of a smile. “It isn’t the
wild, noisy, boisterous boys, the ones who let the world all round know their
grievances and their tantrums and their pleasures, who use poison. But what
avails my telling you this, saying I believe or I don’t believe, when I’m deep
in the same coil myself? As you know I am! When Aelfric came into my kitchen
with the tray, and told me about
the prior’s gift, it was I who
set the dish to keep hot on the hob, while Aelfric carried the large dish into
the room, and I followed with the platters and the jug of ale. The three of
them were in there at table, they knew nothing about the partridge until I told
them… thinking to please the master, for in there the air was so chill you
could hardly breathe. I think I was back in the kitchen first of the two of us,
and I sat by the hob to eat my meal, and I stirred the bowl when it simmered.
More than once, and moved it aside from the heat, too. What use my saying I
added nothing? Of course that is what I, or any other in my shoes would say, it
carries no weight until there’s proof, one way or the other.”
“You
are very sensible and very just,” said Cadfael. “And Meurig, you say, was just
coming in at the door when you returned to the kitchen. So he was not alone
with the dish… even supposing he had known what it was, and for whom it was
intended.”
Her
dark brows rose, wonderfully arched and vivid and striking under the pale brow
and light-gold hair. “The door was wide open, that I recall, and Meurig was
just scraping the dirt from his shoes before coming in. But what reason could
Meurig have, in any case, to wish his father dead? He was not lavish with him,
but he was of more value to him alive than dead. He had no hope of inheriting
anything, and knew it, but he had a modest competence to lose.”
That
was simple truth. Not even the church would argue a bastard’s right to inherit,
while the state would deny it even where marriage of the parents, every way
legal, followed the birth. And this had been a commonplace affair with one of
his own maidservants. No, Meurig had no possible stake in this death. Whereas
Edwin had a manor to regain, and Richildis, her adored son’s future. And
Aelfric?
She
had reared her head, gazing towards the gatehouse, where Aelfric had just
appeared, the high-rimmed wooden tray under his arm, a bag for the loaves slung
on his shoulder. She gathered her cloak and rose.
“Tell
me,” said Cadfael, mild-voiced beside her, “now that Master Bonel is dead, to
whom does Aelfric belong?
Does he go with the manor, to the
abbey or some other lord? Or was he excluded from the agreement, conceded to
Master Bonel as manservant in villeinage for life?”
She
looked back sharply in the act of going to meet Aelfric. “He was excluded. Granted
to be my lord’s villein personally.”
“Then
whatever happens to the manor now, he will go to whoever inherits the personal
effects… to widow or son, granted the son escapes a criminal charge. And
Aldith, you know Mistress Bonel’s mind, would you not say that she would at
once give Aelfric his freedom, with a glad heart? And would the boy do any
other?”
All
she gave him by way of answer was a brief, blinding flash of the black,
intelligent eyes, and the sudden, veiling swoop of large lids and long dark
lashes. Then she went to cross Aelfric’s path, and fall in beside him on his
way to the abbot’s lodging. Her step was light and easy, her greeting
indifferent, her manner dutiful. Aelfric trudged by her side stiff and mute,
and would not let her take the bag from his shoulder. Cadfael sat looking after
them for a long moment, observing and wondering, though after a while the
wonder subsided into mild surprise, and by the time he set off to wash his
hands before dinner in the refectory, even surprise had settled into conviction
and reassessment.
It
was mid-afternoon, and Cadfael was picking over the stored trays of apples and
pears in the loft of the abbot’s barn, discarding the few decayed specimens
before they could infect their neighbours, when Brother Mark came hallooing for
him from below.
“The
sheriff’s man is back,” he reported, when Cadfael peered down the ladder at him
and demanded what the noise was about, “and asking for you. And they’ve not
captured their man—if it’s any news I’m telling you.”
“It’s
no good news that I should be wanted,” admitted Cadfael, descending the ladder
backwards, as nimbly as a boy. “What’s his will? Or his humour, at least?”
“No
menace to you, I think,” said Mark, considering.
“Vexed at not
laying his hands on the boy, naturally, but I think his mind’s on small things
like the level of that rubbing oil in your store. He asked me if I could tell
if any had been removed from there, but I’m a slipshod hand who notices
nothing, as you’ll bear witness. He thinks you’ll know to the last drop.”
“Then
he’s the fool. It takes a mere mouthful or two of that to kill, and in a
container too wide to get the fingers of both hands around, and tall as a
stool, who’s to know if ten times that amount has been purloined? But let’s at
least pick his brains of what he’s about now, and how far he thinks he has his
case proven.”
In
the workshop the sheriff’s sergeant was poking his bushy beard and hawk’s beak
into all Cadfael’s sacks and jars and pots in somewhat wary curiosity. If he
had brought an escort with him this time, he must have left them in the great
court or at the gatehouse.
“You
may yet be able to help us, brother,” he said as Cadfael entered. “It would be
a gain to know from which supply of this oil of yours the poison was taken, but
the young brother here can’t say if any is missing from this store. Can you be
more forthcoming?”
“On
that point,” said Cadfael bluntly, “no. The amount needed would be very small,
and my stock, as you see, is large. No one could pretend to say with certainty
whether any had been taken out unlawfully. This I can tell you, I examined the
neck and stopper of this bottle yesterday, and there is no trace of oil at the
lip. I doubt if a thief in haste would stop to wipe the lip clean before
stoppering it, as I do.”
The
sergeant nodded, partially satisfied that this accorded with what he believed.
“It’s more likely it was taken from the infirmary, then. And that’s a smaller
flask by much than this, but I’ve been there, and they can none of them hazard
an opinion. Among the old the oil is in favoured use now, who can guess if it
was used one more time without lawful reason?”
“You’ve
made little progress, I fear,” said Brother Cadfael.
Cadfael
sat back on his bench and spread his hands on his knees. “You’re very sure of
him. Yet there are at least four others who were there in the house, and any
number more who, for one reason or another, know the use and abuse of this
preparation. Oh, I know the weight of the case you can make against this boy. I
could make as good a case against one or two more, but that I won’t do. I’d
rather by far consider those factors that might provide, not suspicion, but
proof, and not against one chosen quarry, but against the person, whoever he
may be, towards whom the facts point. The time concerned is tight, half an hour
at most. I myself saw the manservant fetch the dishes from the abbot’s kitchen,
and carry them out at the gate. Unless we are to look seriously at those who
serve the abbot’s kitchen, the dish was still harmless when it left our
enclave. I don’t say,” he added blandly, “that you should, because we wear the
cowl, write off any man of us as exempt from suspicion, myself included.”
The
sergeant was intelligent, though not impressed. “Then what limiting factors,
what firm facts, do you refer to, brother?”
“I
mentioned to you yesterday, and if you care to sniff at that bottle, and try a
drop of it on your sleeve, you’ll note for yourself, that it makes itself
apparent both to the nose and eye. You would not easily wash out the greasy
mark from cloth, nor get rid of the smell. It is not the wolfsbane that smells
so sharp and acrid, there’s also mustard and other herbs. Whoever you seize
upon, you must examine his clothing for these signs. I don’t say it’s proof of
innocence if no such signs are found, but it does weaken the evidence of
guilt.”
“You
are interesting, brother,” said the sergeant, “but not convincing.”
“Then
consider this. Whoever had used that poison would be in haste to get rid of the
bottle as soon as possible, and as cleanly. If he lingered, he would have to
hide it about him, and risk marking himself, or even having it discovered on
him. You will conduct your business as you see fit. But I, were I in your
shoes, would be looking very carefully for a small vial, anywhere within a
modest distance of that house, for when you find it, the place where it was
discarded will tell a great deal about the person who could have cast it
there.” And with certainty he added: “You’ll be in no doubt of it being the
right vial.”