Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many

of silver, rounded to the hand, showing delicate lines of filigree-work, and glowing round the collar of the blade with small stones. The hilt ended in a twist of silver broken off short. It was hard to believe, but impossible not to believe. Perhaps thought really is prayer.
    He spoke to the boy very softly and evenly; the unwitting means of justice must not be alarmed. 'Child, where did you get so fine a knife as that?'
    The boy looked up, untroubled, and smiled. When he had gulped down the mouthful with which his cheeks were bulging, he said cheerfully: 'I found it. I didn't steal it.'
    'God forbid, lad, I never thought it. Where did you find it? And have you the sheath, too?'
    It was lying beside him in the shadow, he patted it proudly. 'I fished them out of the river. I had to dive, but I found them. They really are mine, father, the owner didn't want them, he threw them away. I suppose because this was broken. But it's the best knife for slitting fish I ever had.'
    So he threw them away! Not, however, simply because the jewelled hilt was broken.
    'You saw him throw it into the river? Where was this, and when?'
    'I was fishing under the castle, and a man came down alone from the water-gate to the bank of the river, and threw it in, and went back to the castle. When he'd gone I dived in where I saw it fall, and I found it. It was early in the evening, the same night all the bodies were carried down to the abbey - a week ago, come tomorrow. It was the first day it was safe to go fishing there again.'
    Yes, it fitted well. That same afternoon Aline had taken Giles away to St Alkmund's, and left Courcelle stricken and wild with unavailing regrets, and in possession of a thing that might turn Aline against him for ever, if once she set eyes on it. And he had done the only, the obvious thing, consigned it to the river, never thinking that the avenging angel, in the shape of a fisherboy, would redeem it to confront him when most he believed himself safe.
    'You did not know who this man was? What like was he? What age?' For there remained the lingering doubt; all he had to support his conviction was the memory of Courcelle's horrified face and broken voice, pleading his devotion over Giles Siward's body.
    The child hoisted indifferent shoulders, unable to picture for another what he himself had seen clearly and memorably. 'Just a man. I didn't know him. Not old like you, father, but quite old.' But to him anyone of his father's generation would be old, though his father might be only a year or two past thirty.
    'Would you know him if you saw him again? Could you point him out among many?'
    'Of course!' said the boy almost scornfully. His eyes were young, bright, and very observant, if his tongue was none too fluent, of course he would know his man again.
    'Sheathe your knife, child, and bring it, and come with me,' said Cadfael with decision. 'Oh, don't fret, no one will take your treasure from you, or if later you must give it up, you shall be handsomely paid for it. All I need is for you to tell again what you have told to me, and you shan't be the loser.'
    He knew, when he entered the hail with the boy beside him, a little apprehensive now but even more excited, that they came late. The music was stilled, and Hugh Beringar was on his feet and striding towards the dais on which the high table stood. They heard his voice raised, high and clear, as he mounted and stood before the king. 'Your Grace, before you depart for Worcester, there is a matter on which I beg you'll hear me and do right. I demand justice on one here in this company, who has abused his position in your confidence. He has stolen from the dead, to the shame of his nobility, and he has committed murder, to the shame of his manhood. I stand on my charges, to prove them with my body. And here is my gage!'
    Against his own doubts, he had accepted Cadfael's intuition, to the length of staking his life upon it. He leaned forward, and rolled something small and bright across the table, to clang softly against the king's cup. The silence that had fallen was abrupt and profound. All round the high table heads craned to follow the flash of yellow brilliance that swayed irregularly over the board, limping on its broken setting, and then were raised to stare again at the young man who had launched it. The king picked up the topaz and turned it in his large hands, his face blank with incomprehension at first, and then wary and brooding. He, too, looked long at Hugh