Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

alarm. It was impossible not to feel elated, whatever reproaches might still await him at home; and hope and the resilience of youth blossomed in him as his father recounted brusquely all that had happened while his son fretted in prison without news.
    "Then there have been two attacks upon Mistress Vernold's boat and booth, her goods taken, her men assaulted?" He had quite forgotten his own bedraggled appearance, he was striding towards home with his head up and his visage roused and belligerent, looking, indeed, very much as he had looked when he led his ill-fated expedition across the bridge on the eve of the fair. "And no one seized for it? Nothing done? Why, she herself may be in danger!" Indignation quickened his steps. "For God's sake, what's the sheriff about?"
    "He has enough to do breaking up unseemly riots by you and your like," said his father smartly, but could not raise so much as a blush from his incensed offspring. "But since you want to know, Mistress Vernold is in the guest-hall of the abbey, safe enough, in the care of Hugh Beringar and his lady. You'd do better to be thinking about your own troubles, my lad, and mind your own step, for you're not out of the wood yet."
    "What did I do that was so wrong? I went only one pace beyond what you did yourself the day before." He did not even sound aggrieved about being judged hard, he made that brief defence only absently, his mind all on the girl. "Even in the guest-hall she may not be out of reach, if this is all some determined plot against her uncle and all his family." In the death of one more tradesman at the fair he showed less interest, shocking though it was, since it seemed to have little or nothing to do with the vindictive catalogue of offences against Master Thomas and all his possessions. "She spoke so fairly," he said. "She would not have me accused of worse than I did."
    "True enough! She was a fine, honest witness, no denying it. But no business of yours now, she's well cared for. It's your mother you need to be thinking of, she's been in a fine taking over you all this while, and now they're looking in other directions for the one who did the killing - with one eye still on you, though, mind! - she'll likely take some sweetening. One way or another, you'll get a warm welcome."
    Philip was far beyond minding that, though as soon as he entered the house behind the shoemaker's shop he did indeed get a warm welcome, not one way or another, but both ways at once. Mistress Corviser, who was large, handsome and voluble, looked round from her fireside hob, uttered a muted shriek, dropped her ladle, and came billowing like a ship in full sail to embrace him, shake him, wrinkle her nose at the prison smell of him, abuse him for the damage to his best cotte and hose, box his ears for laughing at her tirade, exclaim lamentably over the dried scar at his temple, and demand that he sit down at once and let her crop the hair that adhered to the matted blood, and clean up the wound. By far the easiest thing to do was to submit to all, and let her talk herself out.
    "The trouble and shame you've put us to, the heartaches you've cost me, wretch, you don't deserve that I should feed you, or wash and mend for you. The provost's son in prison, think of our mortification! Are you not ashamed of yourself?" She was sponging away the encrusted blood, and relieved to find so insignificant a scar remaining; but when he said blithely: "No, mother!" she pulled his hair smartly.
    "Then you should be, you good-for-nothing! There, that's not so bad. Now I hope you're going to settle down to work, and make up for all the trouble you've made for us, instead of traipsing about the town egging on other people's sons to mischief with your wild ideas ..."
    "They were the same ideas father and all the guild merchant had, mother, you should have scolded them. And you ask those who're wearing my shoes whether there's much amiss with my work." He was a very good workman, in fact, as she would have asserted valiantly if anyone else had cast aspersions on his diligence and ability. He hugged her impulsively, and kissed her cheek, and she put him off impatiently, with what was more a slap than a caress. "Get along with you, and don't come moguing me until you're cleared of the worse charge, and have paid your fine for the riot. Now come and eat your dinner!"
    It was an excellent dinner, such as she produced on festivals and saints' days. After it, instead of shedding the clothes he