Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

nail, but the stroke of a dagger, and the fret you took from the glover's blade matches this sleeve past question. Is there doubt in any mind that this was a murderer?"
    There was none. Cadfael was there with them in the room, at Hugh's instance, and he had no doubts at all. This was the man Euan of Shotwick had marked, before he himself died. Moreover, some of Euan of Shotwick's goods and money had been found among the sparse belongings Ewald had left behind him; his saddle-roll held a pouch of fine leather full of coins, and two pairs of gloves made for the hands of girls, presents, perhaps, for wife or sister. This was certainly a murderer. Turstan, who had shot him down, obviously did not consider himself anything of the kind, any more than one of Prestcote's archers would have done, had he been given the order to shoot. Turstan had taken the whole affair stolidly, as none of his business apart from his duty to his lord, and gone away to his evening meal with an equable appetite.
    "I brought him here," said Ivo bitterly, wiping smears of blood from his grazed cheek. "It is my honour he has offended, as well as the law of the land. I had a right to avenge myself."
    "No need to labour it," said Prestcote shortly. "The shire has been saved a trial and a hanging, which is to the good, and I don't know but the wretch himself might prefer this way out. It was a doughty shot, and that's a valuable man of yours. I never thought it could be done so accurately at that distance."
    Ivo shrugged. "I knew Turstan's quality, or I would not have said what I did, to risk either my horse or any of the hundreds about their harmless business in the Foregate. I don't know that I expected a death ..."
    "There's only one cause for regret," said the sheriff. "If he had accomplices, he can never now be made to name them. And you say, Beringar, that there were probably two?"
    "You're satisfied, I hope," said Ivo, "that neither Turstan nor my young groom Arald had any part with him in these thefts?"
    Both had been questioned, he had insisted on that. Turstan had been a model of virtue since his one lapse, and the youngster was a fresh-faced country youth, and both had made friends among the other servants and were well liked. Ewald had been morose and taciturn, and kept himself apart, and the revelation of his villainy did not greatly surprise his fellows.
    "There's still the matter of the other offences. What do you think? Was it this man in all of them?"
    "I cannot get it out of my mind," said Hugh slowly, "that Master Thomas's death was the work of one man only. And without reason or proof, by mere pricking of thumbs, I do not believe it was this man. For the rest - I don't know! Two, the merchant's watchman said, but I am not sure he may not be increasing the odds to excuse his own want of valour - or his very good sense, however you look at it. Only one, surely, would enter the barge in full daylight, no doubt briskly, as if he had an errand there, something to fetch or something to bestow. Where there were two, this must surely be one of them. Who the other was, we are still in the dark."
    After Compline Cadfael went to report to Abbot Radulfus all that had happened. The sheriff had already paid the necessary courtesy visit to inform the abbot, but for all that Radulfus would expect his own accredited observer to bring another viewpoint, one more concerned with the repute and the standards of a Benedictine house. In an order which held moderation in all things to be the ground of blessing, immoderate things were happening.
    Radulfus listened in disciplined silence to all, and there was no telling from his face whether he deplored or approved such summary justice.
    "Violence can never be anything but ugly," he said thoughtfully, "but we live in a world as ugly and violent as it is beautiful and good. Two things above all concern me, and one of them may seem to you, brother, a trivial matter. This death, the shedding of this blood, took place outside our walls. For that I am grateful. You have lived both within and without, what must be accepted and borne is the same to you, within or without. But many here lack your knowledge, and for them, and for the peace we strive to preserve here as refuge for others beside ourselves, the sanctity of this place is better unspotted. And the second thing will matter as deeply to you as to me: Was this man guilty? Is it certain he himself had killed?"
    "It is certain," said Brother Cadfael, choosing