Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

them?"
    "As usual," said Hugh, elevating thin black brows, "you're ahead of me rather than abreast. On the face of it, this was a killing for private malice. So while we examine it, Ivo Corbiere very sensibly points out that a murderer so minded would not have stayed to strip the body and put it into the river, but left it lying, and made off as fast as he could. Vengeance, he says rightly, has nothing to feed on in a bundle of clothing. The act is all! And that moved my sheriff to remark that the same thought might well have occurred to the murderer, and caused him to strip his victim naked for that very reason, a hoodwink for the law. Now we drag out of the river the dead man's gown. And where does that leave you and me, my friend?"
    "In two minds, or more," said Cadfael ruefully. "If the gown never had been found, the notion of common robbery would have held its ground and told in young Corviser's favour. Is it possible that what was said in the sheriff's court put that thought into someone's mind for the first time, and drove him to discard the gown where it was likely to be found? There's one person it would suit very well to have the case against your prisoner strengthened, and that's the murderer himself. Supposing yon fool boy is not the murderer, naturally."
    "True, half a case can come to look almost whole by the addition of one more witness. But what a fool your man would be, to toss the gown away for proof the killing was not for robbery, thus turning suspicion back upon Philip Corviser, and then creep aboard the barge and steal, when Philip Corviser is in a cell in the castle, and manifestly out of the reckoning."
    "Ah, but he never supposed the theft would be discovered until the barge was back in Bristol, or well on the way. I tell you, Hugh, I could see no trace of an alien hand anywhere among those stores on deck or the chattels in the cabin, and Emma herself said she would not have missed the lost things until reaching home again. They were bought on this journey, she had no intention of wearing them. Nothing obvious was stolen, she had almost reached the bottom of her chest before she found out these few bits of finery were gone. But for her sharp eye for her own neat housekeeping, she would not have known the boat had been visited."
    "Yet robbery points to two separate villains and two separate crimes," pointed out Hugh with a wry smile, "as Emma insists on believing. If hate was the force behind the man's death, why stoop to pilfer from him afterwards? But do you believe the two things are utterly separate? I think not!"
    "Strange chances do jostle one another sometimes in this world. Don't put it clean out of mind, it may still be true. But I cannot choose but believe that it's the same hand behind both happenings, and the same purpose, and it was neither theft nor hatred, or the death would have ended it."
    "But Cadfael, in heaven's name, what purpose that demanded a man's death could get satisfaction afterwards from stealing a pair of gloves, a girdle and a chain?"
    Brother Cadfael shook his head helplessly, and had no answer to that, or none that he was yet prepared to give.
    "My head spins, Hugh. But I have a black suspicion it may not be over yet. Abbot Radulfus has given me his commission to have an eye to the matter, for the abbey's sake, and permission to go in and out as I see fit for the purpose. It's at the back of his mind that if there's some malignant plot in hand against the Bristol merchant, his niece may not be altogether safe, either. If Aline can keep her at her side, so much the better. But I'll be keeping a watchful eye on her, too." He rose, yawning. "Now I must be off to Compline. If I'm to scamp my duties tomorrow, let me at least end today well."
    "Pray for a quiet night," said Hugh, rising with him, "for we've not the men to mount patrols through the dark hours. I'll take one more turn along the Foregate with my sergeant, as far as the horse-fair, and then I'm for my bed. I saw little enough of it last night!"
    The night of the first of August, the opening day of Saint Peter's Fair, was warm, clear, and quiet enough. Traders along the Foregate kept their stalls open well into the dark hours, the weather being so inviting that plenty of customers were still abroad to chaffer and bargain. The sheriff's officers withdrew into the town, and even the abbey servants, left to keep the peace if it were threatened, had little work to do. It was past midnight when the last lamps