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 said, rather, that she had a keen nose, and some knowledge of the distilling of spirits, and had accurately assessed the cause of her uneasiness. Somewhere in the grass close to her stall, he was now certain, a good part of that quart of liquor had been poured out generously over clothing and ground, no wonder the turf retained it. A taste of it, perhaps, to scent the breath and steady the mind, might have gone down a throat; but no more, for the mind had been steady indeed, when stranger stooped over its fleshly habitation, and sniffed at its flagrant drunkenness. Strangers, all but one! Cadfael began to see what could hardly be called light, for he was looking into a profound darkness.
“It so happens,” he said, “that we have some business with Walter Renold. Will you let us take your bottle back to him? You shall have the credit for it with him.”
“Take it, brother,” agreed the carter cheerfully, unleashing the bottle from the shaft. “Tell him Rychart Nyall sent it. Wat knows me.”
“Nothing in it, I suppose, when you found it?” hazarded Cadfael, hefting the fated thing in one hand.
“Never a drop, brother! Fair-goers may abandon the bottle, but they make sure of what’s inside before they fall senseless!”
The boards were stowed, the stripped ground lay trampled and naked, the cart moved on. It would take no more than a handful of days and the next summer showers, and all the green, fine hair would grow again, and the bald clay coil into ringlets.
“It’s mine, surely,” said Wat, receiving the bottle into a large hand. “The only one of its kind I’m short. Who buys this measure of spirits, even at a fair? Who has the money to afford it? And who chooses it afore decent ale and wine? Not many! I’ve known men desperate to sink their souls fast, at whatever cost, but seldom at a fair. They turn genial at fairs, even the sad fellows get the wind of it, and mellow. I marvelled at that one, even when he asked for it and paid the price, but he was plainly some lord’s servant, he had his orders. He had money, and I sell liquor. But yes, if it’s of worth to you, that same fellow Philip here knows of, that’s the measure he bought.”
A retired corner of Wat’s large taproom was as good a place as any to sit down and think before action, and try to make sense of what they had gathered.
“Wat has just put words to it,” said Cadfael. “We should have been quicker to see. He was plainly some lord’s servant, he had his orders, he had money. One man from a lord’s household suborned to murder by an unknown, one such setting out on his own account to enrich himself by murder and theft, that I could believe in. But two? From the same household? No, I think not! They never strayed from their own manor. They served but one lord.”
“Their own? Corbière?” whispered Philip, the breath knocked out of him by the enormity of the implications. “But he … The way I heard it, the groom tried to ride him down. Struck him into the dust when he tried to stop him. How can you account for that? There’s no sense in it.”
“Wait! Take it from the beginning. Say that on the night Master Thomas died, Fowler was sent out to deal with him, to get possession of whatever it is someone so much desires. His lord has spied out the land, told him of a handy scapegoat who may yet be useful, given him money for the drink that will put him out of the reckoning when the deed is done. The man would demand immunity, he must be seen to be out of the reckoning. His lord keeps in close touch, joins us when we go forth to look for the missing merchant. Recollect, Hugh, it was Corbière, not we, who discovered his truant man. We had passed him by, and that would not have done. He must be found, must be seen to be so drunk as to have been helpless and harmless some hours, and must then be manifestly under lock and key many hours more. Ten murders could have been committed that night, and no one would ever have looked at Turstan Fowler.”
“All for nothing,” pointed out Hugh. “Sooner or later he had to tell his master that murder had been done in vain. Master Thomas did not carry his treasure on him.”
“I doubt if he found that out until morning, when he had his man let out of prison. Therefore he brought Fowler to lay evidence that made sure the finger was pointed at Philip here, and while we were all blamelessly busy at the sheriff’s hearing, sent his second man to search the barge. And again, vainly.
Am I making sense of it thus far?”
“Sound enough,” said Hugh sombrely. “The worst is yet to come. Which man, do you suppose, did the work that day?”
“I doubt if they ever involved the young one. Two were enough to do the business. The groom Ewald, I think. Those two were the hands that did all. But they were not the mind.”
“That same night, then, they broke into the booth, and made their search there, and still without success. The next night came the attack that killed Euan of Shotwick.” Hugh said no word of the violation of Master Thomas’s coffin. “And, as I remember you argued, once more in vain. So far, possible enough. But come to yesterday’s thorny business. For God’s sake, how can sense be made of that affair? I was there watching the man, I saw him change colour, I swear it! Shock and anger and affronted honour, he showed them all. He would not send for the groom, for fear a fellow-servant might warn him, he would fetch him himself. He placed himself between his man and the gate, he risked maiming or worse, trying to halt his flight …”
“All that,” agreed Cadfael heavily, “and yet there is sense in it all, though a more abominable sense even than you or I dreamed of. Ewald was in the stables, there was no escape for him unless he could break out of our walls. Corbière came at the sheriff’s bidding, and was told all. His man was detected past denying, and driven into a corner, he would pour out everything he knew, lay the load on his lord. Consider the order in which everything happened from that moment. Fowler had been at the butts, and had his arbalest with him. Corbière set off to summon Ewald from the stables, Turstan made to follow him, yes, and some words were exchanged that sent him back. But what words? They were too distant to be heard. Nor could we guess what was said in the stable-yard. We waited - you’ll agree? - several minutes before they came. Long enough for Corbière to tell the groom how things stood, bid him keep his head, promise him escape.