Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

murder.
    "There was some effort made." Cadfael recalled the deep pits Domville's boot-heels had scored in the turf. "But by the body only, as men jerk from wounds when they have no more power to resist them. His senses were out of him, he could not fight his assailant. And these were strong hands, and resolute. See here, where both thumbs, one over the other, were driven in. The apple of his neck is ruptured."
    He had not had the opportunity until now to look more closely at that savage injury. Under the short beard the slash made by the rope drew a dark-red line, from which the beads of blood had been washed away. The black bruises left by the strangler's hands showed up clearly.
    "Here is every sign of a madly vindictive attacker," said Prestcote grimly.
    "Or a very frightened one," Cadfael said mildly. "Desperate at his own act, an act unlike him, suddenly undertaken and monstrously overdone."
    "You could be speaking of the same man," said Radulfus reasonably. "Is there anything more this body can tell us about him?"
    It seemed that there was. On the left side of Domville's neck, about where the middle fingers of the right hand must have gripped, and had left their shadowy shape, the bruise was crossed by a short, indented wound, as though a jagged stone had been pressed into the flesh there. Cadfael pondered this small, insignificant thing in silence for a while, and concluded that it might be by no means insignificant.
    "A small, sharp cut," he mused, peering close, "and this hollow wound beside it. The man who did this wore a ring, on the middle or third finger of his right hand. A ring with a large stone in it, to thrust so into the flesh. And it must hang rather loose on his finger, for it turned partially within as he gripped. On the middle finger, surely ... if it had hung loose on the third he would have shifted it to the middle one. I can think of no other way such an injury can have been made." He looked up into the circle of attentive faces. "Did young Lucy wear such a ring?"
    Picard shrugged off all knowledge of such matters. After some thought Simon said: "I cannot recall ever noticing a ring. But neither can I say certainly that he never wore one. I might ask Guy if he knows."
    "It shall be enquired into," said the sheriff. "Is there more to be noticed?"
    "I can think of nothing. Unless it is worth wondering where this man had been, and on what errand, to find him on that path at such an hour."
    "We do not know the hour," said Prestcote.
    "No, true. It is not possible to say how long a man has been dead, not within a matter of hours. Yet the turf under him was moist. But there is another point. All the signs show - very well, let us be wary of reading too confidently, they seem to show! - that he was riding back towards his house when he was waylaid. And the trap set for him was laid and waiting before he came. Therefore whoever set it, and thereafter killed him, knew where he had gone, and by what road he must return."
    "Or must have followed him in the night, and made his plans accordingly," said the sheriff. "We are sure now that Lucy made his way to the hay-store in the bishop's garden and hid there, but after dark he came forth, and may well have lurked to keep watch on his lord's movements, with this fell intent in mind. He knew Domville would be supping here at the abbey, for all the household knew it. It would not be difficult to wait in hiding for his return, and to see him riding on alone and dismissing his squire provided the very chance revenge needed. Small doubt but Lucy is our man."
    There was no more then to be said. The sheriff returned to his hunt, convinced of his rightness; and on the face of it, Cadfael allowed, no blame at all to him for the case was black. Huon de Domville was left to the care of Brother Edmund and his helpers, and his coffin bespoken from Martin Bellecote, the master carpenter in the town, for whether he was to find his burial here or elsewhere, he must be decently coffined for his journey to the grave, and with suitable grandeur. His body had no more now to tell.
    Or so Brother Cadfael thought, until he consented to recount the circumstances of death and enquiry to Brother Oswin in the workshop, over the sorting of beans for the next year's seed. Oswin listened intently to all. At the end he said with apparent inconsequence: "I wonder that he should ride in a late October night without a capuchon. And he bald, too!"
    Cadfael stood at gaze, contemplating him