Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

the barge? But no, that he could not, he was at the sheriff's court. Concerning the merchant of Shotwick, we already know his slayer."
    "We know one of them," said Cadfael. "Can any of these matters be separated from the rest? I think not. This pursuit is all one."
    "You do grasp," said Hugh, after a long moment of furious thought, "what it is we are saying? Here are these two men, one proven a murderer, the other suspect. And yesterday the one of them fetched down the other to his death. Coldly, expertly ... Before we say more," said Hugh abruptly, casting a final glance about the glade, "let's do as you suggested, look again at the place where we found him lying."
    Chapter Two
    Philip, who was learning how to listen and be silent, followed at their heels all the way back through the orchards and gardens of the Gaye. Neither of them found fault with his persistence. He had earned his place, and had no intention of being put off. All the larger boats were already gone from the jetty. Soon the labourers would begin dismantling the boards and piers until the following year, and stowing them away in the abbey storehouses. Along the Foregate stalls were being taken down and stacked for removal, while two of the abbey carts worked their way along from the horse-fair towards the gatehouse.
    "More than halfway along, I remember," said Hugh, "and well back from the roadway. There were few lights, most of the stalls here were for the country people who come in by the day. Somewhere in this stretch."
    There had been trestles stacked that night, and canvas awnings leaning against them ready for use. This morning there were also piles of trestles and boards, ready now to be put away for the next fair. They surveyed all the likely area, but to lay a finger on the exact place was impossible. One of the collecting carts had reached this stretch, and two lay servants were hoisting the heaped planks aboard, and stacking the trestles one within another in high piles. Cadfael watched as the ground was gradually cleared.
    "You've found some unexpected discards," he commented, for a corner of the cart carried a small pile of odd objects, a large shoe, a short cotte, bedraggled but by no means old or ragged, a child's wooden doll with one arm missing, a green capuchon, a drinking-horn.
    "There'll be many more such, brother," said the carter, grinning, "before the whole ground's cleared. Some will be claimed. I fancy some child will want to know where she lost her doll. And the cotte is good stuff, some young gentleman took a drop too much, and forgot to collect that when he moved. The shoe's as good as new, too, and a giant's size, somebody may sneak in, shamefaced, to ask after that. I hope he had not far to go home with only one. But it wasn't a rowdy night - not like many a night I've seen." He slid powerful arms under a stack of trestles, and hoisted them bodily. "You'd hardly credit where we found that flagon there."
    His nod indicated the front of the car, to which Cadfael had hitherto devoted no attention. Slung by a thin leather thong from the shaft hung a flattened glass bottle large enough to hold a quart. "Stuck on top of the canvas over one of the country stalls. An old woman who sells cheeses had the stall, I know her, she comes every year, and seeing she's not so nimble nowadays, we put up the stall for her the night before the fair opened. The bottle all but brained Daniel here, when we took it down, this morning! Fancy tossing a bottle like that away as if it had no value! He could have got a free drink at Wat's if he'd taken it back, whoever he was."
    His armful of trestles thumped into the cart, and he turned to heave a stack of boards after it.
    "It came from Wat's tavern then, did it?" asked Cadfael, very thoughtfully gazing.
    "It has his mark on the thong. We all know where they belong, these better vessels. But they're not often left for us."
    "And where was the stall where this one was left?" asked Hugh over Cadfael's shoulder.
    "Not ten yards back from where you're standing." They could not resist looking back to measure, and it would do. It would do very well. "The odd thing is, the old woman swore, when she came to put out her wares, that there was a stink of spirits about the place. Said she could smell it in her skirts at night, as if she'd been wading in it. But after the first day she forgot about it. She's half-Welsh, and has a touch of the strange about her, I daresay she imagined it."
    Cadfael would have