Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

have there, master?" A jerk of his head indicated the two in leather jerkins. "The young one's fellow-groom to the one that got a bolt through him along the Foregate a while ago. And the other - Will Wharton just told me, and he was close by and saw it all! - that's the fellow who loosed the bolt! His comrade in the same price, mark! Should he be here and in such spirits the same night? That's a stronger stomach than mine. 'Fetch him down!' says the master, and down the fellow fetches him, sharp and cool. You'd have thought his hand would have shook too much to get near the target, but no! - thump between the shoulders and through to the breast, so Will says. And that's the very man that did it, supping ale like any Christian."
    They were both of them staring at him open-mouthed, and turned away only to stare again, briefly and intently, at Turstan Fowler sitting at ease with his tankard, sturdy legs splayed under the table. It had never even occurred to Philip to ask in whose service the dead malefactor was employed, and perhaps Wat would not have known the name if he had asked. He would have mentioned it else.
    "That's the man? You're sure?" pressed Philip.
    "Will Wharton is sure, and he helped to pick up the poor devil who was killed."
    "Turstan Fowler? The falconer to Ivo Corbiere? And Corbiere ordered him to shoot?"
    "The name I don't know, for neither did Will. Some young lord at the abbey guest-hall. Very handsome sprig, yellow-haired, Will says. Though it's no great blame to him for wanting a murderer and thief stopped in his tracks, granted, and any road, the man had just stolen his horse, and kicked him off into the dust when he tried to halt him. And I suppose when a lord orders, his man had better jump to obey. Still, it's a grim thing to work side by side with a man maybe months and years, and then to be told, strike him dead! And to do it!" And the potboy rolled up his eyes and loosed a long, soft whistle, and passed on with his handful of tankards, leaving them so sunk in reconsideration that neither of them had anything to say.
    But there could not be anything in it of significance for him, surely? Philip looked back briefly as he left the inn, and Turstan Fowler and the young groom were sitting tranquilly with their ale, talking cheerfully with half a dozen other sober drinkers around them. They had not noticed him, or if they had, had not recognised him, and neither of them seemed to have anything of grave moment on his mind. Strange, though, how this same man seemed to be entangled in every untoward episode, never at the centre of things yet always somewhere in view.
    As for the matter of the flask of juniper spirits, what did it really signify? The man had been picked up too drunk to talk, no one had looked round for his bottle, it might well have been left lying, still more than half-full, if the stuff was as potent as Wat said, and some scavenger by night might have picked it up and rejoiced in his luck. There were a dozen ways of accounting for the circumstances. And yet it was strange. Why should he have said he was drunk before he left Wat's inn, if he had really left it cold sober? More to the point, why should he have left so promptly on Philip's heels? Yet Wat was a good observer.
    The tiny discrepancies stuck like barbs in Philip's mind. It was far too late to trouble anyone else tonight, Compline was long over, the monks of Shrewsbury, their guests, their servants, would all be in their beds or preparing to go there, except for the few lay stewards who had almost completed their labours, and would be glad enough to make a modestly festive night of it. Moreover, his parents would be vexed that he had abandoned them all the day and he could expect irate demands for explanations at home. He had better make his way back.
    All the same, he crossed the road and made for the copse, as on the night he was repeating, and found some faint signs of his wallow still visible, dried into the trampled grass. Then back towards the river, avoiding the streets, keeping to the cover of woodland, and there was the sheltered hollow where he had slept off the worst of his orgy, before gathering himself up stiffly and hobbling back to the town. There was enough lambent starlight to see his way, and show him the scuffled and flattened grasses.
    But no, this was not the place! Here there was a faint, trodden path, and he had certainly moved much deeper into the bushes and trees, down-river, hiding even from the