“It’s foolish to talk so,” she said. “You and I have known each other from childhood. I’m your elder, and a widow, by no means a match for you, and I do not intend to marry again with any man. You must accept that for an answer. Waste no more time here on me.”
“You are fretting now,” he said vehemently, “over this monk who is dead, though God knows that’s none of your fault. But it will not always be so, you’ll see all very differently in a month or so. And for this charter that troubles you, it can be changed. You can, you should rid yourself of the bargain, and with it the reproach. You see now it was folly.”
“Yes,” she agreed resignedly, “it was indeed folly to put a price, even a nominal price, upon a gift. I should never have done it. It has brought nothing but grief. But yes, it can be undone.”
It seemed to her that he was drawing encouragement from this lengthening colloquy, and that she certainly did not desire. So she rose, and pleaded her very real weariness to rid herself of his continuing assiduities as gently as possible. Vivian departed reluctantly but still gracefully, looking back from the doorway for a long, ingratiating moment before he swung about and went, lithe and long-legged and elegant, down the street called Maerdol towards the bridge.
But even when he was gone, the evening was full of echoes of the morning, reminders of disaster, reproaches of folly, as Agatha worried away at the past.
“You see now how foolish it was to make such a ballad-romance agreement, like any green girl. A rose, indeed! You should never have given away half your patrimony so rashly, how could you know when you and yours might have great need of it? And now see what it’s come to! A death, and all at the door of that foolish charter.”
“You need not trouble any longer,” said Judith wearily. “I do repent it. It is not too late to amend it. Let me alone now. There is nothing you could say to me that I have not already said to myself.”
She went early to her bed, and the girl Branwen, relieved of the carding that brought her out in a rash, and put to work for a time in the household, came to fetch and carry for her, fold away into the chest the gown her mistress discarded, and curtain the unshuttered window. Branwen was fond of Judith, but not sorry, on this occasion, to be dismissed early, for Vivian’s serving-man, left behind to carry home the bolt of cloth for Mistress Hynde, was settled cosily in the kitchen, throwing dice with Bertred, the foreman of the weavers, and both of them were personable fellows with an eye for a pretty girl. Branwen was not at all averse to being the desirable bone between two handsome dogs. Sometimes she had felt that Bertred had ideas above his station, and was casting a greedy eye in the direction of his mistress, being vain of his sturdy, straight body and fresh, comely face, and a silver tongue to match. But nothing would ever come of that! And when he had Master Hynde’s Gunnar across the table from him, plainly captivated, he might better appreciate more accessible meat.
“Go now,” said Judith, loosing the great sheaf of her hair about her shoulders. “I shan’t need you tonight. But call me very early in the morning,” she added with sudden resolution, “for I’m going to the abbey. I’ll not leave this matter lying one hour more than need be. Tomorrow I’ll go to the abbot and have a new charter drawn up. No more roses! The gift I made for so foolish a fee I’ll now make unconditional.”
Branwen was proud of her advancement into Judith’s personal service, and fondly imagined herself closer in her mistress’s confidence than in fact she was. And with two young men in the kitchen already interested in her and prepared to be impressed, what wonder if she boasted of being the first to be entrusted with Judith’s plans for the morrow? It seemed a pity that Gunnar should so soon afterwards recall that he had to carry home Mistress Hynde’s cloth, and might end with a flea in his ear if he delayed too long. And though that left her the attentions of Bertred, whom on the whole she preferred, his pricked sense of proprietorship in a woman of this household seemed to flag disappointingly once his rival was out of the house. It was not, after all, a satisfactory evening. Branwen went to her bed out of temper between disillusionment and dudgeon, and out of sorts with men.
Young Alan Herbard, Hugh’s deputy, dutiful and determined though he was, drew the line at coping unaided with murder, and had had a courier on the road as soon as the news came to his ears. By noon of the next day, which was the eighteenth day of June, Hugh would surely be back in Shrewsbury, not in his own house, where only one elderly servant remained during the family’s absence, but at the castle, where garrison, sergeant and all were at his disposal.
Meantime, Cadfael betook himself and his waxen footprint, with the abbot’s blessing, into the town, and showed mould and drawing to Geoffrey Corviser, the provost, and his son Philip, the foremost shoemakers and leather workers in the town. “For sooner or later every boot comes into the cobbler’s hands,” he said simply, “though it may be a year ahead or more. No harm, at least, in keeping a copy of such witness as you see there, and looking out for the like among any you repair.”
Philip handled the wax delicately, and nodded over the evidence it provided of its wearer’s tread. “I don’t know it, but it will be easily seen if ever it does find its way in here. And I’ll show it to the cobbler over the bridge, in Frankwell. Between us, who knows, we may run the fellow down in the end. But there’s many a man patches his own,” said the good craftsman with professional disdain.
A thin chance enough, Cadfael admitted to himself on his way back over the bridge, but one that could not be neglected. What else had they to offer a lead? Little enough, except the inevitable and unanswerable question: Who could possibly have wanted to destroy the rose-bush? And for what conceivable reason? A question they had all voiced already, without profit, and one that would be posed all over again when Hugh arrived.
Instead of turning in at the gatehouse Cadfael passed by and walked the length of the Foregate, along the dusty highway, past the bakery, past the forge, exchanging greetings in at doorways and over hedges as he went, to turn in at the gate of Niall’s yard, and cross to the wicket which led through into the garden. It was bolted fast on the inner side. Cadfael turned instead to the shop, where Niall was at work with a small ceramic crucible and a tiny clay mould for a brooch.
“I came to see if you’d had any further night visitors,” said Cadfael, “but I see you’ve secured one way in, at least. A pity there’s no wall ever built high enough to keep out a man determined to get in. But even stopping one hole is something. What of the bush? Will it live?”
“Come and see. One side may die off, but it’s no more than two or three branches. It may leave the tree lopsided, but a year or so, and pruning and growth will balance all.”
In the green and sunlight and tangled colour of the garden the rose-bush spread its arms firmly against the north wall, the dangling trailers pegged back to the stone with strips of cloth. Niall had wound a length of stout canvas round and round the damaged bole, binding the severed wood together, and coated the covering with a thick layer of wax and grease.
“There’s love been put into this,” said Cadfael approvingly, but wisely did not say whether for the bush or the woman. The leaves on the half-severed part had wilted, and a few had fallen, but the bulk of the tree stood green and glossy, and full of half-open buds. “You’ve done well by it. I could use you inside the enclave, if ever you tire of bronze and the world.”