Brother Cadfael 07: The Sanctuary Sparrow

law's business. If you doubt my thoroughness, try crossing me.' And to his officers he said simply: 'Clear the court of those who have no business here. I will speak with the provost later.'
    In the mortuary chapel Baldwin Peche lay stripped naked, stretched now on his back, while Brother Cadfael, Hugh Beringar, Madog of the Dead-Boat and Abbot Radulfus gathered about him attentively. In the corners of his eyes, now closed, traces of ingrained mud lingered, drying, like the pigments vain women use to darken and brighten their eyes. From his thick tangle of grizzled brown hair Cadfael had coaxed out two or three strands of water crowfoot, cobweb-fine stems with frail white flowers withering into veined brown filaments as they died, and a broken twig of alder leaves. There was nothing strange in either of those. Alders clustered in many places along the riverside, and this was the season when delicate rafts of crowfoot swayed and trembled wherever there were shallows or slower water.
    'Though the water where I found him,' said Cadfael, 'runs fast, and will not anchor these flowers. The opposite bank I fancy, harbours them better. That is reasonable - if he launched his boat to go fishing it would be from that bank. And now see what more he has to show us.'

He cupped a palm under the dead man's cheek, turned his face to the light, and hoisted the bearded chin. The light falling into the stretched cavities of the nostrils showed them only as shallow hollows silted solid with river mud. Cadfael inserted the stem of the alder twig into one of them, and scooped out a smooth, thick slime of fine gravel and a wisp of crowfoot embedded within it.
    'So I thought, when I hefted him to empty out the water from him and got only a miserable drop or two. The drainings of mud and weed, not of a drowned man.' He inserted his fingers between the parted lips, and showed the teeth also parted, as if in a grimace of pain or a cry. Carefully he drew them wider. Tendrils of crowfoot clung in the large, crooked teeth. Those peering close could see that the mouth within was clogged completely with the debris of the river.
    'Give me a small bowl,' said Cadfael, intent, and Hugh was before Madog in obeying. There was a silver saucer under the unlighted lamp on the altar, the nearest receptacle, and Abbot Radulfus made no move to demur. Cadfael eased the stiffening jaw wider, and with a probing finger drew out into the bowl a thick wad of mud and gravel, tinted with minute fragments of vegetation. 'Having drawn in this, he could not draw in water. No wonder I got none out of him.' He felt gently about the dead mouth, probing out the last threads of crowfoot, fine as hairs, and set the bowl aside.
    'What you are saying,' said Hugh, closely following, 'is that he did not drown.'
    'No, he did not drown.'
    'But he did die in the river. Why else these river weeds deep in his throat?'
    'True. So he died. Bear with me, I am treading as blindly as you. I need to know, like you, and like you, I must examine what we have.' Cadfael looked up at Madog, who surely knew all these signs at least as well as any other man living. 'Are you with me so far?'
    'I am before you,' said Madog simply. 'But tread on. For a blind man you have not gone far astray.'
    'Then, Father, may we now turn him again on his face, as I found him?'
    Radulfus himself set his two long, muscular hands either side of the head, to steady the dead man over, and settled him gently on one cheekbone.
    For all his self-indulgent habits of life, Baldwin Peche showed a strong, hale body, broad-shouldered, with thick, muscular thighs and arms. The discolourations of death were beginning to appear on him now, and they were curious enough. The broken graze behind his right ear, that was plain and eloquent, but the rest were matter for speculation.
    'That was never got from any floating branch,' said Madog with certainty, 'nor from being swept against a stone, either, not in that stretch of water. Up here among the islands I wouldn't say but it might be possible, though not likely. No, that was a blow from behind, before he went into the water.'
    'You are saying,' said Radulfus gravely, 'that the charge of murder is justified.'
    'Against someone,' said Cadfael, 'yes.'
    'And this man was indeed next-door neighbour to the household that was robbed, and may truly have found out something, whether he understood its meaning or not, that could shed light on that robbery?'
    'It is possible. He took an