Read Online Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair by Ellis Peters - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ellis Peters
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him all his dues. "I've a mind to put him to cool in the river! I never gave him leave to quit the abbey precinct, and by the look of him he's been out and drinking - Good God, the reek of it, what raw spirit can it be? - since ever I turned my back."
"One thing's certain," said Hugh, amused, "he's in no case to walk back to his bed. Since he's yours, what will you have done with him? I would not advise leaving him here. If he has anything of value on him, even his hose, he might be without it by morning. There'll be scavengers abroad in the dark hours - no fair escapes them."
Ivo stood back and stared down disgustedly at the oblivious culprit. "If you'll lend me two of your men, and let us borrow a board here, we'll haul him back and toss him into one of the abbey's punishment cells, to sleep off his swinishness on the stones, and serve him right. If we leave him there unfed all the morrow, it may frighten him into better sense. Next time, I'll have his hide!"
They hoisted the sleeper on to a board, where he sprawled aggravatingly into ease again, and snored his way along the Foregate so blissfully that his bearers were tempted to tip him off at intervals, by way of recompensing themselves for their own labour. Cadfael, Beringar and the remainder of the party were left looking after them somewhat ruefully, their own errand still unfulfilled.
"Well, well!" said Rhodri ap Huw softly into Cadfael's ear, "Euan of Shotwick is taking a modest interest in the evening's happenings, after all!"
Cadfael turned to look, and in the shuttered booth tucked under the wall a hatch had certainly opened, and against the pale light of a candle a head leaned out in sharp outline, staring towards where they stood. He recognised the high-bridged, haughty nose, the deceptively meagre slant of the lean shoulders, before the hatch was drawn silently to again, and the glover vanished.
They worked their way doggedly, yard by yard, all the way back to the riverside, where Roger Dod was waiting in a fume of anxiety, but they found no trace of Thomas of Bristol.
A late boat coming up the Severn from Buildwas next day, and tying up at the bridge about nine in the morning, delayed its unloading of a cargo of pottery to ask first that a message be sent to the sheriff, for they had other cargo aboard, taken up out of a cove near Atcham, which would be very much the sheriff's business. Gilbert Prestcote, busy with other matters, sent from the castle his own sergeant, with orders to report first to Hugh Beringar at the abbey.
The particular cargo the potter had to deliver lay rolled in a length of coarse sail-cloth in the bottom of the boat, and oozed water in a dark stain over the boards. The boatman unfolded the covering, and displayed to Beringar's view the body of a heavily-built man of some fifty to fifty-five years, fleshy, with thinning, grizzled hair and bristly, bluish jowls, his pouchy features sagging doughily in death. Master Thomas of Bristol, stripped of his elaborate capuchon, his handsome gown, his rings and his dignity, as naked as the day he was born.
"We saw his whiteness bobbing under the bank," said the potter, looking down upon his salvaged man, "and poled in to pick him up, the poor soul. I can show you the place, this side of the shallows and the island at Atcham. We thought best to bring him here, as we would a drowned man. But this one," he said very soberly, "did not drown."
No, Thomas of Bristol had not drowned. That was already evident from the very fact that he had been stripped of everything he had on, and hardly by his own hands or will. But also, even more certainly, from the incredibly narrow wound under his left shoulder-blade, washed white and closed by the river, where a very fine, slender dagger had transfixed him and penetrated to his heart.
The First Day of the Fair
Chapter One
The first day of Saint Peter's Fair was in full swing, and the merry, purposeful hum of voices bargaining, gossiping and crying wares
"One thing's certain," said Hugh, amused, "he's in no case to walk back to his bed. Since he's yours, what will you have done with him? I would not advise leaving him here. If he has anything of value on him, even his hose, he might be without it by morning. There'll be scavengers abroad in the dark hours - no fair escapes them."
Ivo stood back and stared down disgustedly at the oblivious culprit. "If you'll lend me two of your men, and let us borrow a board here, we'll haul him back and toss him into one of the abbey's punishment cells, to sleep off his swinishness on the stones, and serve him right. If we leave him there unfed all the morrow, it may frighten him into better sense. Next time, I'll have his hide!"
They hoisted the sleeper on to a board, where he sprawled aggravatingly into ease again, and snored his way along the Foregate so blissfully that his bearers were tempted to tip him off at intervals, by way of recompensing themselves for their own labour. Cadfael, Beringar and the remainder of the party were left looking after them somewhat ruefully, their own errand still unfulfilled.
"Well, well!" said Rhodri ap Huw softly into Cadfael's ear, "Euan of Shotwick is taking a modest interest in the evening's happenings, after all!"
Cadfael turned to look, and in the shuttered booth tucked under the wall a hatch had certainly opened, and against the pale light of a candle a head leaned out in sharp outline, staring towards where they stood. He recognised the high-bridged, haughty nose, the deceptively meagre slant of the lean shoulders, before the hatch was drawn silently to again, and the glover vanished.
They worked their way doggedly, yard by yard, all the way back to the riverside, where Roger Dod was waiting in a fume of anxiety, but they found no trace of Thomas of Bristol.
A late boat coming up the Severn from Buildwas next day, and tying up at the bridge about nine in the morning, delayed its unloading of a cargo of pottery to ask first that a message be sent to the sheriff, for they had other cargo aboard, taken up out of a cove near Atcham, which would be very much the sheriff's business. Gilbert Prestcote, busy with other matters, sent from the castle his own sergeant, with orders to report first to Hugh Beringar at the abbey.
The particular cargo the potter had to deliver lay rolled in a length of coarse sail-cloth in the bottom of the boat, and oozed water in a dark stain over the boards. The boatman unfolded the covering, and displayed to Beringar's view the body of a heavily-built man of some fifty to fifty-five years, fleshy, with thinning, grizzled hair and bristly, bluish jowls, his pouchy features sagging doughily in death. Master Thomas of Bristol, stripped of his elaborate capuchon, his handsome gown, his rings and his dignity, as naked as the day he was born.
"We saw his whiteness bobbing under the bank," said the potter, looking down upon his salvaged man, "and poled in to pick him up, the poor soul. I can show you the place, this side of the shallows and the island at Atcham. We thought best to bring him here, as we would a drowned man. But this one," he said very soberly, "did not drown."
No, Thomas of Bristol had not drowned. That was already evident from the very fact that he had been stripped of everything he had on, and hardly by his own hands or will. But also, even more certainly, from the incredibly narrow wound under his left shoulder-blade, washed white and closed by the river, where a very fine, slender dagger had transfixed him and penetrated to his heart.
The First Day of the Fair
Chapter One
The first day of Saint Peter's Fair was in full swing, and the merry, purposeful hum of voices bargaining, gossiping and crying wares
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