Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many

sluggishly from under him, and forming a dark pool about him on the trampled ground.
    Hugh Beringar looked from the gathering blood to the dagger he still gripped in his right hand, and shook his head in bewilderment, for he was very tired, and weak now with this abrupt and inexplicable ending, and there was barely a drop of fresh blood on his blade, and the sword lay loosely clasped still in Courcelle's right hand, innocent of his death. And yet he had his death; his life was ebbing out fast into the thick grass. So what manner of ominous miracle was this, that killed and left both weapons unstained?
    Hugh stooped, and raised the inert body by the left shoulder, turning it to see where the blood issued; and there, driven deep through the leather jerkin, was the dead man's own poniard, which he had flung away to grasp at the sword. By the look of it the hilt had lodged downwards in thick grass against the solidly braced boot of one of the Flemings. Hugh's onslaught had flung the owner headlong upon his discarded blade, and their rolling, heaving struggle had driven it home.
    I did not kill him, after all, though Beringar. His own cunning killed him. And whether he was glad or sorry he was too drained to know. Cadfael would be satisfied, at least; Nicholas Faintree was avenged, he had justice in full. His murderer had been accused publicly, and publicly the charge had been justified by heaven. And his murderer was dead; that failing breath was already spent.
    Beringar reached down and picked up his sword, which rose unresisting out of the convicted hand. He turned slowly, and raised it in salute to the king, and walked, limping now and dropping a few trickles of blood from stiffening cuts in hand and forearm, out of the square of lances, which opened silently to let him go free.
    Two or three paces he took across the sward towards the king's chair, and Aline flew into his arms, and clasped him with a possessive fervour that shook him fully alive again. Her gold hair streamed about his shoulders and breast, she lifted to him a rapt, exultant and exhausted face, the image of his own, she called him by his name: 'Hugh... Hugh...' and fingered with aching tenderness the oozing wounds that showed in his cheek and hand and wrist.
    'Why did you not tell me? Why? Why? Oh, you have made me die so many times! Now we are both alive again ... Kiss me!'
    He kissed her, and she remained real, passionate and unquestionably his. She continued to caress, and fret, and fawn.
    'Hush, love,' he said, eased and restored, 'or go on scolding, for if you turn tender to me now I'm a lost man. I can't afford to droop yet, the king's waiting. Now, if you're my true lady, lend me your arm to lean on, and come and stand by me and prop me up, like a good wife, or I may fall flat at his feet.'
    'Am I your true lady?' demanded Aline, like all women wanting guarantees before witnesses.
    'Surely! Too late to think better of it now, my heart!'
    She was beside him, clasped firmly in his arm, when he came before the king. 'Your Grace,' said Hugh, condescending out of some exalted private place scarcely flawed by weariness and wounds, 'I trust I have proven my case against a murderer, and have your Grace's countenance and approval.'
    'Your opponent,' said Stephen, 'proved your case for you, all too well.' He eyed them thoughtfully, disarmed and diverted by this unexpected apparition of entwined lovers. 'But what you have proved may also be your gain. You have robbed me, young man, of an able deputy sheriff of this shire, whatever else he may have been, and however foul a fighter. I may well take reprisal by drafting you into the vacancy you've created. Without prejudice to your own castles and your rights of garrison on our behalf. What do you say?'
    'With your Grace's leave,' said Beringar, straight-faced, 'I must first take counsel with my bride.'
    'Whatever is pleasing to my lord,' said Aline, equally demurely, 'is also pleasing to me.'
    Well, well, though Brother Cadfael, looking on with interest, I doubt if troth was ever plighted more publicly. They had better invite the whole of Shrewsbury to the wedding.
    Brother Cadfael walked across to the guest hall before Compline, and took with him not only a pot of his goose-grass salve for Hugh Beringar's numerous minor grazes, but also Giles Siward's dagger, with its topaz finial carefully restored.
    'Brother Oswald is a skilled silversmith, this is his gift and mine to your lady. Give it to her yourself.