“We’d best be finding out,” said Hugh, resigned. “Let the lady come in, if I’m the man she wants.”
“She asked first for a guest here, Ivo Corbière, but I know he’s still out viewing the preparations along the Foregate. And when I mentioned that you were here, she begged a word with you. Glad to find the law here and awake, seemingly.”
“Ask her to step in, then. And Cadfael, stay, if you’ll be so good, she’s had speech with you already, she may be glad of a known face.”
Emma Vernold came in hurriedly yet hesitantly, unsure of herself in this unfamiliar place, and made a hasty reverence. “My lord, I pray your pardon for troubling you so late …” She saw Brother Cadfael, and half-smiled, relieved but distracted. “I am Emma Vernold, I came with my uncle, Thomas of Bristol, we have our own living-space on his barge by the bridge. And this is my uncle’s man Gregory.” It was the youngest of the three who attended her, a gawky, lean but powerful fellow of about twenty.
Beringar took her by the hand and put her into a seat by the table. “I’m here to serve you, as best I can. What’s your trouble?”
“Sir, my uncle went to see to the stocking of his booth at the horse-fair, it was not long after the good brother here left us. You’ll have heard all that happened, below there? My uncle went to join his other two men, who were busy there before him, and left only Gregory with me. But that’s nearly two hours ago, and he has not come back.”
“He will have brought a great deal of merchandise with him,” suggested Hugh reasonably. “It takes time to arrange things to the best vantage, and I imagine your uncle will have things done well.”
“Oh, yes, indeed he will. But it isn’t just that he is so long. The two men with him were his journeyman, Roger Dod, and the porter Warin, and Warin sleeps in the booth to mind the goods. Roger came back to the barge an hour ago, and was surprised not to find my uncle back, for he said he left the booth well before him. We thought perhaps he had met some acquaintance on the way, and stopped to exchange the news with him, so we waited some while, but still he did not come.
And now I have been back to the booth with Gregory, to see if by some chance he had turned back there for something, something forgotten, perhaps. But he has not, and Warin says, as Roger does, that my uncle left first, intending to come straight home to me, it being so late. He never liked - he does not like,” she amended, paling, “for me to be alone with the men, without his company.” Her eyes were steady and clear, but her lip quivered, and there was the faint suggestion of disquiet even in the unflinching firmness of her regard.
She knows she is fair, Cadfael thought, and she’s right to take account of it.
It may even be that one of them - Roger Dod, the most privileged of the three, perhaps? - has a fancy for her, and she knows that, too, and has no fancy for him, and whether justly or not, is uneasy about being close to him without her guardian by.
“And you are sure he has not made his way home by some other way,” asked Hugh, “while you’ve been seeking him at his booth?”
“We went back. Roger waited there, for that very case, but no, he has not come.
I asked those still working in the Foregate if they had seen such a man, but I could get no news. And then I thought that perhaps - ” She turned in appeal to Cadfael. “The young gentleman who was so kind, this evening - he is staying here in the guest-hall, so he told us. I wondered if perhaps my uncle had met him again on his way home, and lingered … And he, at least, knows his looks, and could tell me if he has seen him. But he is not yet back, they tell me.”
“He left the jetty earlier than your uncle, then?” asked Cadfael. The young man had looked very well settled to spend a pleasant hour or two in the lady’s company, but perhaps her formidable uncle had ways of conveying, even to lords of respectable honours, that his niece was to be approached only when he was present to watch over her.
Emma flushed, but without averting her eyes; eyes which were seen to be thoughtful, resolute and intelligent, for all her milk-and-roses baby-face.
“Very soon after you, brother. He was at all points correct and kind. I thought to come and ask for him, as someone on whom I could rely.”
“I’ll ask the porter to keep a watch for him,” offered Cadfael, “and have him step in here when he returns. Even the horse-fair should be on its way to bed by now, and he’ll be needing his own sleep if he’s to hunt the best bargains tomorrow, which is what I take it he’s here for. What do you say, Hugh?”
“A good thought,” said Hugh. “Do it, and we’ll make provision to look for Master Thomas, though I trust all’s well with him, for all this delay. The eve of a fair,” he said, smiling reassurance at the girl, “and there are contacts to be made, customers already looking over the ground … A man can forget about his sleep with his mind on business.”
Brother Cadfael heard her sigh: “Oh, yes!” with genuine hope and gratitude, as he went to bid the porter intercept Ivo Corbière when he came in. His errand could hardly have been better timed, for the man himself appeared in the gateway. The main gate was already closed, only the wicket stood open, and the dip of the gold head stepping through caught the light from the torch overhead, and burned like a minor sun. Bare-headed, with his cotte slung on one shoulder in the warm last night of July, Ivo Corbière strolled towards his bed almost rebelliously, with a reserve of energy still unspent. The snowy linen shirt glowed in the lambent dark with a ghostly whiteness. He was whistling a street tune, more likely Parisian than out of London, by the cadence of it. He had certainly drunk reasonably deep, but not beyond his measure, nor even up to it.
He was alert at a word.
“What, you, brother? Out of bed before Matins?” Amiable though his soft laughter was, he checked it quickly, sensing something demanding gravity of him. “You were looking for me? Something worse fell out? Good God, the old man never killed the fool boy, did he?”
“Nothing so dire,” said Cadfael. “But there’s one within here at the gatehouse came looking for you, with a question. You’ve been about the Foregate and the fairground all this time?”
“The whole round,” said Ivo, his attention sharpening. “I have a new and draughty manor to furnish in Cheshire. I’m looking for woollens and Flemish tapestries. Why?”
“Have you seen, in your wanderings, Master Thomas of Bristol? At any time since you left his barge earlier this evening?”
“I have not,” said Ivo, wondering, and peered closely “in the strange, soft light of midsummer, an hour short of midnight.
“What is this? The man made it clear - he has practice, which is no marvel! - that his girl is to be seen only in his presence and with his sanction, and small blame to him, for she’s gold, with or without his gold. I respected him for it, and I left. Why? What follows?”
“Come and see,” said Cadfael simply, and led the way within.
The young man blinked in the sudden light, and opened his eyes wide upon Emma.
It was a question which of them showed the more distracted. The girl rose, reaching eager hands and then half-withdrawing them. The man sprang forward solicitously to welcome the clasp.
“Mistress Vernold! At this hour? Should you …” He had a grasp of the company and the urgency by then. “What has happened?” he asked, and looked at Beringar.
Briskly, Beringar told him. Cadfael was not greatly surprised to see that Corbière was relieved rather than dismayed. Here was a young, inexperienced girl, growing nervous all too easily when she was left alone an hour or so too long, while no doubt her uncle, very travelled and experienced indeed, and well able to take care of himself, was in no sort of trouble at all, but merely engaged in a little social indulgence with a colleague, or busy assessing the goods and worldly state of some of his rivals.