Now that his mind was stringing together a thread of abhorrent sense out of details which hitherto had seemed to make none, he could not turn his thoughts to anything else. Throughout Vespers he struggled to concentrate on the office, but the lamentable sequence of disasters connected with the rose rent marched inexorably through his mind, gradually assembling into a logical order. First there was Judith, still deprived and unhappy after three lonely years, thinking and sometimes speaking of retreating into a nunnery, and vexed by a number of suitors both old and young, who had had an eye on her person and her wealth all this time, and wooed and pleaded without reward, and were now beginning to get desperate in case she carried out her design to become a religious. Then the attempt on the rosebush, to retrieve at least the possibility of regaining the gift-house, and the resultant death of Brother Eluric, probably, indeed almost certainly, unplanned and committed in panic. After that, however bitterly regretted, one man at least had murder already against him, and would be far more likely afterwards to stick at nothing. But then, to confound and complicate, came the abduction of Judith, another panic measure to prevent her from making her gift unconditional, and try to persuade or threaten her into marriage. Even if he had not been named, the perpetrator of that enormity was known. And the nocturnal death of Bertred might have been logical enough, had the abductor brought it about, but plainly he had not. Judith vouched for that, and so, probably, could Vivian Hynde’s mother, since it seemed clear that once the bargain was made between captive and captor, Judith had been removed to the greater comfort of a house which had already been visted in search of her, and the buried room in the warehouse hurriedly and ingeniously cleared of all traces of her presence. So far, well! But there had been listeners outside in the night, Bertred first and possibly another afterwards, unless Vivian had reached a state in which every stirring of a spider or a mouse in the roof could alarm him. The plan might well have been overheard, and the horse with the double load might have had another follower, besides Niall Bronzesmith. And that would round off the whole disastrous circle, all the more surely if he who began it was also the one who sought to end it.
For consider, thought Cadfael, while his mind should have been on more tranquil and timeless things, what an excellent scapegoat Vivian Hynde makes for whoever attacked Judith in the forest. The man who had snatched her away and tried in vain to force marriage upon her, now riding away with her into the forest by night, and perhaps not trusting to her promise not to betray him, but preferring, once he had set her down, to dismount and hurry back to put an end to her. True, as things were, Judith vindicated him, she was quite certain he had not turned back, but made all haste away home, or up to Forton, to his father’s flocks. But how if the attempt had succeeded, and Judith had been left dead in the forest, and there had been no witness to do him justice?
A scapegoat provided for one murder beforehand, Cadfael pursued. How if there had been another provided for the first murder, not beforehand, since that killing was not premeditated, but afterwards? A scapegoat suddenly presented helpless and vulnerable and already trussed for execution, bringing with him in an instant the inspiration of his usefulness, and the certainty of his death? Still not chance, but the bitterly ironic consequence of what had gone before.
And all this complication of logic and guilt depended upon two left shoes, which as yet he had not seen. The older the better, he had said, when Magdalen, intelligent and immune from surprise, questioned him on detail, I want them well worn. Few but the rich own many pairs of shoes, but one of the wearers of those he had in mind had no further use for whatever he did possess, and the other must surely have more than one pair. Not the new, Cadfael had said firmly, for he surely has some that are new. His oldest he’ll hardly miss.
Vespers was over, and Cadfael spared time to pay a visit to his workshop in the herb-garden before supper, in case the boy was waiting for him there. The master-carpenter’s son knew his way about very well, from old acquaintance of some years past, and would certainly look for him there. But all was cool and quiet and solitary within, a single wine-jar bubbling contentedly on its bench, in a slow, drowsy rhythm, the dried bunches of herbs rustling softly overhead along the eaves without and the beams within, the brazier quenched and cold. These were the longest days of the year, the light outside was barely subdued from its afternoon brightness, but in another hour it would be mellowing into the level beams of sunset and the greenish glow of twilight.
Nothing yet. He closed the door on his small inner kingdom, and went back to supper in the refectory, and bore with Brother Jerome’s unctuous reproof for being a moment late without comment or complaint. Indeed, without even noticing it, though he made appropriately placating answer by instinct. The household at Maerdol-head must be too busily awake and in motion for Sister Magdalen to manage her depredations as easily and quickly as he had hoped. No matter! Whatever she took in hand she would complete successfully.
He evaded Collations, but went dutifully to Compline, and still there was no sign. He retired again to his workshop, always a convenient excuse for not being where according to the horarium he should have been, even thus late in the evening. But it was full dark, and the brothers already in their cells in the dortoir, before Edwy Bellecote came, in haste and full of apologies.
“My father sent me on an errand out to Frankwell, and I had no leave to tell him what I was about for you, Brother Cadfael, so I thought best to hold my tongue and go. It took me longer than I thought for, and I had to pretend I’d left my tools behind as an excuse for going back to the house so late. But the sister was on the watch for me. She’s quick, that one! And she had what you asked for.” He produced a bundle rolled in sacking from under his coat, and sat down comfortably, uninvited but sure of his welcome, on the bench by the wall. “What would you be needing two odd shoes for?”
Cadfael had known him well since the boy, turned eighteen now, was a lively imp of fourteen, tall for his years and lean and venturesome, with a bush of chestnut hair, and light hazel eyes that missed very little of what went on about him. He was using them now to good effect, as Cadfael unwrapped the sacking, and tipped out the shoes on the earth floor.
“For the proper study of two odd feet,” he said, and viewed them for a moment without touching. “Which of the two is Bertred’s?”
“This. This one I purloined for her from where his few things were laid by, but she had to wait for a chance to get at the other, or I should have been here before ever I got sent out to Frankwell.”
“No matter,” said Cadfael absently, and turned the shoe sole-upward in his hands. Very well worn, the whole-cut upper rubbed thin at the toe and patched, the single-thickness sole reinforced with a triangular lift of thick leather at the heel. It was of the common sort that have no fastening, but are simply slipped on the foot. The leather thonging that seamed the instep at the outer side was almost worn through. But after all its probable years of wear, the sole was trodden straight and true from back of heel to tip of toe. No pressure to either side, no down at heel nor oblique wear at the toe.
“I should have known,” said Cadfael. “I can’t recall seeing the man walking more than half a dozen times, but I should have known. Straight as a lance! I doubt if he ever trod a sole sidelong or ground down a heel askew in his life.”
The other shoe was rather a low-cut ankle boot, made on the same one-piece pattern as to the upper, and similarly seamed at the instep, with a slightly pointed toe, a thicker lift of leather at the heel, and a thong that encircled the ankle and was fastened with a bronze buckle. The outer side of the back of the heel was trodden down in a deep segment, and the same wear showed at the inner side of the toe. The light of Cadfael’s small lamp, falling close but sidelong over it, accentuated the lights and shadows. Here there was only the faint beginning of a crack under the big toe, but it showed in the same spot as on the boot that had been taken from Bertred’s dead foot, and it was enough.
“What does it prove?” wondered Edwy, his bright shock-head bent curiously over the shoe.
“It proves that I am a fool,” said Cadfael ruefully, “though I have sometimes suspected as much myself. It proves that the man who wears a certain shoe this week may not be the man who wore it last week. Hush, now, let me think!” He was in two minds whether there was any need to take further action immediately, but recalling all that had been said that afternoon, he reasoned that action could wait until morning. What could have been more reassuring than Judith’s simple assumption that the attack on her had been a mere matter of the hazards of forest travel, an opportunist blow at a woman benighted, any woman, simply for the clothes she wore if she proved to have nothing else of value about her? No, no need to start an alarm and rouse Hugh again before morning, the murderer had every cause to believe himself safe.
“Son,” said Cadfael, sighing, “I am getting old, I miss my bed. And you had better be off to yours, or your mother will be blaming me for getting you into bad ways.”
*
When the boy had gone, with his curiosity still unsatisfied, Cadfael sat still and silent, at last admitting into his thoughts the realisation of which even his mind had been fighting shy. For the murderer, so well persuaded now of his own skill, feeling himself invulnerable, would not give up now. Having come so far, he would not turn back. Well, his time was short. He had only this one night left, though he did not know it, and he neither would nor could attempt anything against Judith now, in her own home, with Sister Magdalen keeping her formidable company. He would prefer to bide his time, unaware that tomorrow was to see an ending.
Cadfael started erect, causing the lamp to flicker. No, not against Judith! But if he was so sure of himself, then he had still this one night to try again to conserve the house in the Foregate, for tomorrow the rose rent would be paid, and for another year the abbey’s title would be unassailable. If Judith was not vulnerable, the rosebush still was.
He told himself that he was being a superstitious fool, that no one, not even a criminal at once lulled and exhilarated by success, would dare venture anything again so soon, but by the time he had completed even the thought he found himself halfway across the garden, heading at a hasty walk out into the great court, and making for the gatehouse. Here on familiar ground darkness was no impediment, and tonight the sky was clear, and there were stars, though fine as pinpricks in the midnight blackness. Along the Foregate it was very quiet, nothing moving but the occasional prowling cat among the alleys. But somewhere ahead, near the corner of the abbey wall at the horse-fair ground, there was a small, vibrating glow in the sky, low down behind the house-roofs, and its quivering alternately lit them into black silhouette and quenched them again in the common darkness. Cadfael began to run. Then he heard, distant and muted, the flurry of many voices in half-unbelieving alarm, and suddenly the glow was swallowed up in a great burst of flame, that fountained into the sky with a crackling of wood and thorn. The babble of voices became an uproar of men shouting and women shrilling, and all the Foregate dogs baying echoes from wall to wall along the highway.
Doors were opening, men running out into the roadway, pulling on hose and coats as they came and breaking into shuffling, entangled motion towards the fire. Questions flew at random, and were not answered because no one as yet knew the answers. Cadfael arrived among the rest at the gate of Niall’s yard, which already stood wide. Through the wicket into the garden the poppy-red glow glared, quivering, and above the crest of the wall the column of fire soared, breathing upward a whirlwind of burning air and spinning flakes of ash, double a tall man’s height, to dissolve into the darkness. Thank God, thought Cadfael at sight of its vertical ascent, there’s no wind, it won’t reach either the house or the farrier’s loft on the other side. And by the fury and noise of it, it may burn out quickly. But he knew already what he would see as he stepped through the wicket.
In the middle of the rear wall the rosebush was a great globe of flames, roaring like a furnace and crackling like the breaking of bones as the thorns spat and writhed in the heat. The fire had reached the old, crabbed vine, but beyond that there was nothing but the stone wall to feed it. The fruit trees were far enough removed to survive, though their nearer branches might be scorched. But nothing, nothing but blackened, outspread arms and white wood-ash, would be left of the rosebush. Against the blinding brightness of the flames a few helpless figures circled and flinched away, unable to approach. Water thrown from a safe distance exploded into steam and vanished in a frantic hissing, but did no good. They had given up the attempt to fight it, and stood back, dangling buckets, to watch the old, gnarled bole, so many years fruitful, twist and split and groan in its death-agony.
Niall had drawn back to the wall opposite, and stood watching with a soiled, discouraged face and drawn brows. Cadfael came to his side, and the brown head turned to acknowledge his coming, and nodded brief recognition before turning back again to resume his interrupted watch.
“How did he get this furnace going?” asked Cadfael. “Not with simple flint and steel and tinder, that’s certain, and you in the house. It would have taken him a good quarter-hour to get beyond the first smoulder.”
“He came the same way,” said Niall, without removing his bleak gaze from the tower of smoke and spinning ash surging up into the sky, “Through the paddock at the back, where the ground’s higher. He never even entered the garden this time. He must have poured oil over the wall on to the bush and the vine—drenched them in oil. And then he dropped a torch over. Well alight... And he away in the dark. And there’s nothing we can do, nothing!”
Nothing any man could do, except stand back from the heat and watch, as very gradually the first fury began to slacken, and the blackened branches to sag from the wall and collapse into the blazing heart of the fire, sending up drifts of fine grey ash that soared upwards like a flight of moths. Nothing except be thankful that the wall behind was of solid stone, and would not carry the fire towards either human habitation.
“It was dear to her,” said Niall bitterly.
“It was. But at least she has her life still,” said Cadfael, “and has rediscovered its value. And she knows who to thank for the gift, next after God.”
Niall said nothing to that, but continued grimly to watch as the fire, appeased, began to settle into a bed of crimson, and the flying moths of ash to drift about the garden, no longer torn headlong upward by the draught. The neighbours stood back, satisfied that the worst was over, and began gradually to drift away, back to their beds. Niall heaved a great breath, and shook himself out of his daze.
“I had been thinking,” he said slowly, “of bringing my little girl home here today. We were talking of it only the other night, that I should do well to have her with me, now she’s no longer a babe. But now I wonder! With such a madman haunting this house, she’s safer where she is.”
“Yes,” said Cadfael, rousing, “yes, do that, bring her home! You need not fear. After tomorrow, Niall, this madman will haunt you no more. I promise it!”
*
The day of Saint Winifred’s translation dawned fine and sunny, with a fresh breeze that sprang up only with the light, and drifted the stench of burning across the roofs of the Foregate as inevitably as the first labourer to cross the bridge brought the news of the fire into the town. It reached the Vestier shop as soon as the shutters were taken down and the first customer entered. Miles came bursting into the solar with a face of consternation, like someone charged with bad news and uncertain how to convey it delicately.
“Judith, it seems we’re not done yet with the ill luck that hangs around your rosebush. There’s yet one more strange thing happened, I heard it just this moment. No need for you to trouble too much, no one is dead or hurt this time, it’s not so terribly grave. But I know it will distress you, all the same.”
So long and deprecating a preamble was not calculated to reassure her, in spite of its soothing tone. She rose from the window-bench where she was sitting with Sister Magdalen. “What is it now? What was there left that could happen?”
“There’s been a fire in the night—someone set fire to the rosebush. It’s burned, every leaf, burned down to the bole, so they’re saying. There can’t be a bud or a twig left, let alone a flower to pay your rent.”
“The house?” she demanded, aghast. “Did that take fire? Was there damage? No harm to Niall? Only the bush?”
“No, no, nothing else touched, never fret for the smith, nor for the house, they’re safe enough. They’d have said if anyone had been harmed. Now, be easy, it’s over!” He took her by the shoulders, very gently and brotherly, smiling into her face. “Over now, and no one the worse. Only that plaguey bush gone, and I say just as well, considering all the mischief it’s caused. Such a queer bargain to make, you’re well rid of it.”
“It need never have brought harm to anyone,” she said wretchedly, and slowly sat down again, drawing herself out of his hands quite gently. “The house was mine to give. I had been happy in it. I wanted to give it to God, I wanted it blessed.”
“It’s yours again to give or keep, now,” said Miles, “for you’ll get no rose for your rent this year, my dear. You could take your house back for the default. You could give it as your dowry if you do go so far as to join the Benedictines.” He looked sidelong at Sister Magdalen with his blue, clear eyes, smiling. “Or you could live in it again if you’re so minded—or let Isabel and me live in it when we marry. Whatever you decide, the old bargain’s broken. If I were you, I would be in no hurry to make such another, after all that’s happened in consequence.”
“I don’t take back gifts,” she said, “especially from God.” Miles had left the door of the solar open behind him; she could hear the murmur of the women’s voices from the far end of the long room beyond, suddenly and sharply cut across by other voices at the hall door, a man’s first, courteous and low, then her aunt’s, with the sweet social note in it. There might be a number of neighbourly visits this day, as Bertred went to his burial. At mid-morning he would be carried to Saint Chad’s churchyard. “Let it rest,” said Judith, turning away to the window. “Why should we be talking of this now? If the bush is burned...” That had an ominous biblical ring about it, the burning bush of revelation. But that one, surely, was not consumed.
“Judith, my dear,” said Agatha, appearing in the doorway, “here is the lord sheriff to visit you again, and Brother Cadfael is come with him.”
They came in quietly, with nothing ominous about them, but for the fact that two sergeants of the garrison followed them into the room and stood well withdrawn, one on either side the doorway. Judith had turned to meet the visitors, anticipating news already known.
“My lord, I and my affairs are causing you trouble still. My cousin has already told me what happened in the night. With all my heart I hope this may be the last ripple of this whirlpool. I’m sorry to have put you to such shifts, it shall end here.”
“That is my intent,” said Hugh, making a brief formal reverence to Magdalen, who sat magisterial and composed by the window, an admirably silent woman when the occasion demanded. “My business here this morning is rather with Master Coliar. A very simple question, if you can help us.” He turned to Miles with the most amiable and inviting of countenances, and asked, on a silken, rapid level that gave no warning: “The boots we found on Bertred, when he was taken out of the river—when did you give them to him?”
Miles was quick in the wits, but not quick enough. He had caught his breath momentarily, and before he could release it again his mother had spoken up with her usual ready loquacity, and her pride in every detail that touched her son. “It was the day that poor young man from the abbey was found dead. You remember, Miles, you went down to bring Judith home, as soon as we heard. She’d gone to collect her girdle—”
He had himself in hand by then, but it was never an easy matter to stop Agatha, once launched. “You’re mistaken, Mother,” he said, and even laughed, with the light note of an indulgent son used to tolerating a woolly-witted parent. “It was weeks ago, when I saw his shoes were worn through into holes. I’ve given him my cast-offs before,” he said turning to confront Hugh’s levelled black eyes boldly. “Shoes are costly items.”
“No, my dear,” Agatha pursued with impervious certainty, “I recollect very well; after such a day how could I forget? It was that same evening, you remarked that Bertred was going almost barefoot, and it showed very ill for our house to let him run abroad so ill-shod on our errands...”
She had run on as she always ran on, hardly paying heed to anyone else, but gradually she became aware of the way her son was standing stiff as ice, and his face blanched almost to the burningly cold blue-white of his eyes, that were fixed on her without love, without warmth, with the cold, ferocious burning of death. Her amiable, silly voice faltered away into small, broken sounds, and fell silent. If she had done nothing to help him, she had delivered herself in her blind, self-centred innocence.
“Perhaps, after all,” she faltered, her lips shaking, fumbling for words better calculated to please, and to wipe away that look from his face. “Now I’m not sure—I may be mistaken...”
It was far too late to undo what she had done. Tears started into her eyes, blinding her to the aquamarine glare of hatred Miles had fixed upon her. Judith stirred out of her puzzled, shocked stillness and went quickly to her aunt’s side, folding an arm about her trembling shoulders.
“My lord, is this of so great importance? What does it mean? I understand nothing of all this. Please be plain!” And indeed it had happened so suddenly that she had not followed what was said, nor grasped its significance, but as soon as she had spoken understanding came, sharp as a stab-wound. She paled and stiffened, looking from Miles, frozen in his bitter, useless silence, to Brother Cadfael standing apart, from Cadfael to Sister Magdalen, from Magdalen to Hugh. Her lips moved, saying silently: “No! No! No...” but she did not utter it aloud.
They were in her house, and she had her own authority here. She confronted Hugh, unsmiling but calm. “I think, my lord, there is no need for my aunt to distress herself, this is some matter that can be discussed and settled between us quietly. Aunt, you had much better go and help poor Alison in the kitchen. She has everything on her hands, and this is a most unhappy day for her, you should not leave her to carry all alone. I will tell you, later, all that you need to know,” she promised, and if the words had a chill of foreboding about them, Agatha did not hear it. She went from the room docilely in Judith’s arm, half-reassured, half-daunted, and Judith returned and closed the door at her back.
“Now we may speak freely. I know now, all too well, what this is about. I know that two people may look back on events no more than a week past, and recall them differently. And I know, for Brother Cadfael told me, that the boots Bertred was wearing when he drowned made the print left behind by Brother Eluric’s murderer in the soil under the vine, when he climbed back over the wall. So it matters indeed, it matters bitterly, Miles, who was wearing those boots that night, you or Bertred.”
Miles had begun to sweat profusely, his own body betraying him. On the wax-white, icy forehead great globules of moisture formed and stood, quivering. “I’ve told you, I gave them to Bertred long ago...”
“Not long enough,” said Brother Cadfael, “for him to stamp his own mark on them. They bear your tread, not his. You’ll remember, very well, the mould I made in wax. You saw it when you came to fetch Mistress Perle home from the bronzesmith’s. You guessed then what it was and what it meant. And that same night, your mother bears witness, you passed on those boots to Bertred. Who had nothing to do with the matter, and who was never likely to be called in question, neither he nor his possessions.”
“No!” cried Miles, shaking his head violently. The heavy drops flew from his forehead. “It was not then! No! Long before! Not that night!”
“Your mother gives you the lie,” said Hugh quite gently. “His mother will do no less. You would do well to make full confession, it would stand to your credit when you come to trial. For come to trial you will, Miles! For the murder of Brother Eluric...”
Miles broke then, crumpling into himself and clutching his head between spread hands, at once to hide it and hold it together. “No!” he protested hoarsely between rigid fingers. “Not murder... no... He came at me like a madman, I never meant him harm, only to get away...”
And it was done, so simply, at so little cost in the end. After that admission he had no defence; whatever else he had to tell would be poured out freely at last, in the hope of mitigation. He had trapped himself into a situation and a character he could not sustain. And all for ambition and greed!
“...perhaps also for the murder of Bertred,” went on Hugh mercilessly, but in the same dispassionate tone.
There was no outcry this time. He had caught his breath in chilling and sobering astonishment, for this he had never foreseen.
“...and thirdly, for the attempt to murder your cousin, in the forest close by Godric’s Ford. Much play has been made, Miles Coliar, and reasonably enough, seeing what happened, with the many suitors who have plagued Mistress Perle, and the motive they had for desiring marriage, and marriage to her whole estate, not the half only. But when it came to murder, there was only one person who had anything to gain by that, and that was you, her nearest kin.”
Judith turned from her cousin lamely, and slowly sat down again beside Sister Magdalen, folding her arms about her body as if she felt the cold, but making no sound at all, neither of revulsion nor fear nor anger. Her face looked pinched and still, the flesh hollowed and taut under her white cheekbones, and the stare of her grey eyes turned within rather than without. And so she sat, silent and apart, while Miles stood helplessly dangling the hands he had lowered from a face now dulled and slack, and repeating over and over, with strenuous effort: “Not murder! Not murder! He came at me like a madman—I never meant to kill. And Bertred drowned; he drowned! It was not my doing. Not murder...” But he said no word of Judith, and kept his face turned away from her to the last, in a kind of horror, until Hugh stirred and shook himself in wondering detestation, and made a motion of his hand towards the two sergeants at the door.
“Take him away!”