Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

night. This glade looked very like the other, but it was not the same. Yet someone or something, large as a man, had lain here, and not peacefully. Surely more than one pair of feet had ploughed the turf. A pair of opportunist lovers, enjoying one of the traditional pleasures of the fair? Or another kind of struggle? No, hardly a struggle, though something had been dragged downhill towards the river, which was just perceptible as a gleam between the trees. There was a patch of bare soil, dry and pale as clay, between the spreading roots of the birch tree against which he leaned, and ribbons of dropped bark littered it. The largest of them showed curiously dark instead of silvery, like the rest. He stooped and picked it up, and his fingertips recoiled from the black, encrusted stain. In the grass, if he searched by daylight, there might well be other such blots.
    In looking for the place of his own humiliation, he had found something very different, the place where Master Thomas had been killed. And below, from that spur of grass standing well above the undermined bank, his body had been thrown into the river.
    After the Fair
    Chapter One
    Brother Cadfael came out from Prime, next morning, to find Philip hovering anxiously in the great court, fidgeting from one foot to the other as if the ground under him burned, and so intent and grim of face that there was no doubting the urgency of what he had to impart. At sight of Cadfael he came bounding alongside to lay a hand on his sleeve.
    "Will you come with me to Hugh Beringar? You know him, he'll listen if you vouch for me. I didn't know if he'd be stirring this early, so I waited for you. I think I've found the place where Master Thomas was killed."
    It was certainly not what he had been looking for, and came as a total irrelevance for a moment to Brother Cadfael, who checked and blinked at an announcement so unexpected. "You've done what!"
    "It's true, I swear it! It was so late last night, I couldn't pester anyone with it then, and I've not been there by daylight - but someone bled there - someone was dragged down to the water -"
    "Come!" said Cadfael, recovering. "We'll go together." And he set out at a brisk trot for the guest-hall, Philip's long strides keeping easy pace with him. "If you're right ... He'll want you to show the place. Can you find it again with certainty?"
    "I can, you'll see why."
    Hugh came out to them yawning, in shirt and hose, but wide awake and shaven all the same. "Speak low!" he said, finger on lip, and softly closed the door of his rooms behind him. "The women are still asleep. Now, what is it? I know better than to turn away anyone who comes with Brother Cadfael's warranty."
    Philip told only what was needful. For his own personal need there would be time later. What mattered now was the glade in the edge of the woods, beyond the orchards of the Gaye.
    "I was following my own scent, last night, and I made too short a cast at the way I took down to the river. I came on a place in the trees there - I can find it again - where some heavy thing had lain, and been dragged down to the water. The grass is flattened where he lay, and combed downhill, where he was dragged, and for all the three days between, it still shows the traces. I think there are also spots of blood."
    "The merchant of Bristol?" asked Hugh, after an instant of startled silence.
    "I think so. Daylight may show for certain."
    Hugh turned to drain his morning ale in purposeful haste, and demolish the end of oatcake he had been eating. "You slept at home? In the town?" He was brushing his black crest hastily as he talked, tying the laces of his shirt and reaching for his cotte. "And came to me rather than to the sheriff! Well, no harm, we're nearer than he, it will save time." Sword and sword-belt he left lying, and thrust his feet into his shoes. "Cadfael, you'll be missing breakfast, take these cakes with you, and drink something now, while you may. And you, friend, have you eaten?"
    "No escort?" said Cadfael.
    "To what end? Your eyes and mine are all we require here, and the fewer great boots stamping about the sward, the better. Come, before Aline wakes, she has a bird's hearing, and I'd rather have her rest. Now, Philip, lead! You're on your home turf, take us the quickest way."
    Aline and Emma were at breakfast, resigned to Hugh's sudden and silent departures, when Ivo came asking admittance. Punctilious as always, he asked for Hugh.
    "But as that husband of mine has