Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

My uncle would have struck him again, and might have done him desperate hurt if I had not stopped him. That is not his nature," she said firmly, "it was most unlike him, but he was in a rage, and confused. Brother Cadfael will confirm what I say."
    "At all points," said Brother Cadfael. "It is a perfectly balanced and just account."
    "My lord Corbiere?"
    "I have nothing to add," said Ivo, "to what Mistress Vernold has so admirably told you. I saw the prisoner helped away by his fellows, and what became of him after that I have no knowledge. But here is a man of mine, Turstan Fowler, who says he did see him later in the evening, drinking in an ale-house at the corner of the horse-fair. I must say," added Ivo with resigned disgust, "that his own recollection of the night's events ought to be as hazy as the prisoner's, for we took him up dead drunk past eleven, and by the look of him he had been in the same state some time then. I had him put into a cell in the abbey overnight. But he claims his head is clear now, and he knows what he saw and heard. I thought it best he should speak here for himself."
    The archer edged forward sullenly, peering up under thick frowning brows, as though his head still rang.
    "Well, what is it you claim to know, fellow?" asked Prestcote, eyeing him narrowly.
    "My lord, I had no call to be out of the precinct at all, last night, my lord Corbiere had given me orders to stay within. But I knew he would spend the evening looking the ground over, so I ventured. I got my skinful at Wat's tavern, by the north corner of the horse-fair. And this fellow was there, drinking fit to beat me, and I'm an old toper, and can carry it most times. The place was full, there must be others can tell you the same. He was nursing his sore head, and breathing fire against the man that gave it him. He swore he'd be up with him before the night was out. And that's all the meat of it, my lord."
    "At what hour was this?" asked Prestcote.
    "Well, my lord, I was still firm on my feet then, and clear in my mind, and that I certainly was not later in the evening. It must have been somewhere halfway between eight and nine. I should have borne my drink well enough if I had not gone from ale to wine, and then to a fierce spirit, and that last was what laid me low, or I'd have been back within the wall before my lord came home, and escaped a night on the stones."
    "It was well earned," said Prestcote dryly. "So you took yourself off to sleep off your load - when?"
    "Why, about nine, I suppose, my lord, and was fathoms deep soon after. Troth, I can't recall where, though I remember the inn. They can tell you where I was found who found me."
    At this point it dawned abruptly upon Brother Cadfael that by pure chance this whole interrogation, since Philip had been brought in, had been conducted without once mentioning the fact that Master Thomas at this moment lay dead in the castle chapel. Certainly the sheriff had addressed Emma in tones of sympathy and consideration appropriate to her newly-orphaned state, and her uncle's absence might in itself be suggestive, though in view of the importance of his business at the fair, and the fact that Emma had once, at least, referred to him in the present tense, a person completely ignorant of his death would hardly have drawn any conclusion from these hints, unless he had all his wits about him. And Philip had been all night in a prison cell, and haled out only to face this hearing, and moreover, was still sick and dulled with his drinking, his broken head and his sore heart, and in no case to pick up every inference of what he heard. No one had deliberately laid a trap for him, but for all that, the trap was there, and it might be illuminating to spring it.
    "So these threats you heard against Master Thomas," said Prescote, "can have been uttered only within an hour, probably less, of the time when the merchant left his booth to return alone to his barge. The last report we have of him."
    That was drawing nearer to the spring, but not near enough. Philip's face was still drawn, resigned and bewildered, as though they had been talking Welsh over his head. Brother Cadfael struck the prop clean away; it was high time.
    "The last report we have of him alive," he said clearly.
    The word might have been a knife going in, the slender kind that is hardly felt for a moment, and then hales after it the pain and the injury. Philip's head came up with a jerk, his mouth fell open, his bruised eyes