Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

had worn day and night in his cell, he shaved carefully, made a bundle of his second-best suit, and left the house with it under his arm.
    "Now where are you going?" she demanded inevitably.
    "To the river, to swim and get clean again." They had a garden upstream, below the town hall, as many of the burgesses had, for growing their own fruit and vegetables, and there was a small hut there, and a sward where he could dry in the sun. He had learned to swim there, shortly after he learned to walk. He did not tell her where he was going afterwards. It was a pity he would have to present himself in his second-best coat, but in this hot summer weather perhaps he need not put it on at all; in shirt and hose most men look the same, provided the shirt is good linen and well laundered.
    The water was not even cold in the sandy shallow by the garden, but after his meal he did not stay in long, or swim out into deep water. But it was good to feel like himself again, cleansed even of the memory of his failure and downfall. There was a still place under the bank where the water hung almost motionless, and showed him a fair image of his face, and the thick bush of red-brown hair which he combed and straightened with his fingers. He dressed as carefully as he had shaved, and set off back to the bridge, and over it to the abbey. The town's grievance, which he had had on his mind the last time he came this way, was quite forgotten; he had other important business now on the abbey side of Severn.
    "There's one here," said Constance, coming in from the great court with a small, private smile on her lips, "who asks to speak with Mistress Vernold. And not a bad figure of a young fellow, either, though still a thought coltish about the legs. He asked very civilly."
    Emma had looked up quickly at the mention of a young man; now that she had gone some way towards accepting what had happened, and coming to terms with a disaster which, after all, she had not caused, she had been remembering words Ivo had used, almost disregarded then in her shocked daze, but significant and warming now.
    "Messire Corbiere?"
    "No, not this time. This one I don't know, but he says his name is Philip Corviser."
    "I know him," said Aline, and smiled over her sewing. "The provost's son, Emma, the boy you spoke for in the sheriff's court. Hugh said he would see him set free today. If there's one soul can say he has done no evil to you or any these last two days, he's the man. Will you see him? It would be a kindness."
    Emma had almost forgotten him, even his name, but she recalled the plea he had made for her belief in him. So much had happened between. She remembered him now, unkempt, bruised and soiled, pallid-sick after his drunkenness, but still with a despairing dignity. "Yes, I remember him. Of course I'll see him."
    Philip followed Constance into the room. Fresh from the river, with damp hair curling thickly about his head, shaven and glowing and in fierce earnest, but without the aggression of the manner she had first seen in him, this was a very different person from the humiliated prisoner of the court. The last look he had given her, chin on shoulder, as he was dragged out ... yes, she saw the resemblance there. He made his reverence to Aline, and then to Emma.
    "Madam, I am released on my father's bail. I came to say my thanks to Mistress Emma for speaking so fairly for me, when I had no right to expect goodwill from her."
    "I'm glad to see you free, Philip," said Aline serenely, "and looking none the worse. You will like to speak with Emma alone, I daresay, and company other than mine may be good for her, for here we talk nothing but babies." She rose, folding her sewing carefully to keep the needle in view as she carried it. "Constance and I will sit on the bench by the hall door, in the sun. The light is better there, and I am no such expert needlewoman as Emma. You can be undisturbed here."
    Out she went, and they saw a ray of sun from the open outer door sparkle in her piled gold hair, before Constance followed, and closed the door between. The two of them were left, gazing gravely at each other.
    "The first thing I wanted to do with freedom," said Philip, "was to see you again, and thank you for what you did for me. As I do, with all my heart. There were some who bore witness there who had known me most of my life, and surely had no grudge against me, and yet testified that I had been the first to strike, and done all manner of things I knew I had