with a cudgel?’
‘No,’ admitted Walter, ‘rather humbly, to all appearance. But then I’d heard him and turned. He was barely into the doorway, he could have dropped his weapon outside when he saw I was ware of him.’
‘But you did not hear it fall? Nor see any sign of such?’
‘No, that I own.’
‘Then what had he to say to you?’
‘He begged me to do him right, for he said he had been cheated of two thirds of his promised fee. He said it was hard on a poor man to be so blamed and docked of his money, and pleaded with me to make it good as promised.’
‘And did you?’ asked Hugh.
‘I tell you honestly, my lord, I could not say he had been hardly used, considering the worth of the pitcher, but I did think him a poor, sad creature who had to live, whatever the rights or wrongs of it. And I gave him another penny?good silver, minted in this town. But not a word of this to Dame Juliana, if you’ll be so good. She’ll have to know, now it’s all come back to me, that he dared creep in and ask, but no need for her to know I gave him anything. She would be affronted, seeing she had denied him.’
‘Your thought for her does you credit,’ said Hugh gravely. ‘What then? He took your bounty and slunk out?’
‘He did. But I wager he has not told you anything of this begging visit. A poor return I got for the favour!’ Walter was sourly vengeful still.
‘You mistake, for he has. He has told us this very same tale that you now tell. And confided to the abbey’s keeping, while he remains there, the two silver pence which is all he has on him. Tell me, had you closed the lid of the coffer as soon as you found yourself observed?’
‘I did!’ said Walter fervently. ‘And quickly! But he had seen. I never gave him another thought at the time but?see here, my lord, how it follows! As soon as he was gone, or I thought he was gone, I opened the coffer again, and was bending over it laying Margery’s dowry away, when I was clouted hard from behind, and that’s the last I knew till I opened an eye in my own bed, hours later. If it was two minutes after that fellow crept out of the door, when someone laid me flat, it was not a moment more. So who else could it be?’
‘But you did not actually see who struck you?’ Hugh pressed. ‘Not so much as a glimpse? No shadow cast, to give him a shape or size? No sense of a bulk heaving up behind you?’
‘Never a chance.’ Walter might be vindictive, but he was honest. ‘See, I was stooping over the coffer when it seemed the wall fell on me, and I pitched asprawl, head-down into the box, clean out of the world. I heard nothing and saw nothing, not even a shadow, no?the last thing I recall was the candle flickering, but what is there in that? No, depend on it, that rogue had seen what I had in my store before I clapped down the lid. Was he going tamely away with his penny, with all that money there to take? Not he! Nor hide nor hair of any other did I see in here that night. You may be certain of it, the jongleur is your man.’
‘And it may still be so,’ admitted Hugh, parting from Cadfael on the bridge some twenty minutes later. ‘Enough to tempt any poor wretch with but two coins to rub together. Whether he had any such thought in his head before the candle shone on our friend’s hoard or no. Equally, I grant the lad may not even have realised what lay beneath his hand, or seen anything but his own need and the thin chance of getting a kinder reception from the goldsmith than from that ferocious mother of his. He may have crept away thanking God for his penny and never a thought of wrong. Or he may have picked up a stone or a stave and turned back.’
At about that same time, in the street outside Saint Mary’s church, which was the common ground for exchanging civilities and observing fashions on a fine Sunday morning after Mass, Daniel and Margery Aurifaber in their ceremonial progression, intercepted by alternate well-wishers and commiserators?wedding and robbery being equally relished subjects of comment and speculation in Shrewsbury?came face to face with Master Ailwin Corde, the wool-merchant, and his wife, Cecily, and halted by general consent to pass the time of day as befitted friends and neighbours.
This Mistress Cecily looked more like a daughter to the merchant, or even a granddaughter, than a wife. She was twenty-three years old to his sixty, and though small and slender of stature, was so opulent in colouring, curvature and gait, and everything that could engage the eye, that she managed to loom large as a goddess and dominate whatever scene she graced with her presence. And her elderly husband took pleasure in decking her out with sumptuous fabrics and fashions the gem he should rather have shrouded in secretive, plain linens. A gilt net gathered on her head its weight of auburn hair, and a great ornament of enamel and gemstones jutted before her, calling attention to a resplendent bosom.
Faced with this richness, Margery faded, and knew that she faded. Her smile became fixed and false as a mask, and her voice tended to sharpen like a singer forced off-key. She tightened her clasp on Daniel’s arm, but it was like trying to hold a fish that slid through her fingers without even being aware of restraint.
Master Corde enquired solicitously after Walter’s health, was relieved to hear that he was making a good recovery, was sad, nonetheless, to know that so far nothing had been found of all that had been so vilely stolen. He sent his condolences, while thanking God for life and health spared. His wife echoed all that he said, modest eyes lowered, and voice like distant wood-doves.
Daniel, his eyes wandering more often to Mistress Cecily’s milk-and-roses face than to the old man’s flabby and self-satisfied countenance, issued a hearty invitation to Master Corde to bring his wife and take a meal with the goldsmith as soon as might be, and cheer him by his company. The wool-merchant thanked him, and wished it no less, but must put off the pleasure for a week or more, though he sent his sympathetic greetings and promised his prayers.
‘You don’t know,’ confided Mistress Cecily, advancing a small hand to touch Margery’s arm, ‘how fortunate you are in having a husband whose trade is rooted fast at home. This man of mine is for ever running off with his mules and his wagon and his men, either west into Wales or east into England, over business with these fleeces and cloths of his, and I’m left lonely days at a time. Now tomorrow early he’s off again, if you please, as far as Oxford, and I shall lack him for three or four days.’
Twice she had raised her creamy eyelids during this complaint, once ruefully at her husband, and once, with a miraculously fleeting effect which should have eluded Margery, but did not, at Daniel, eyes blindingly bright in the one flash that shot from them, but instantly veiled and serene.
‘Now, now, sweet,’ said the wool-merchant indulgently, ‘you know how I shall hurry back to you.’
‘And how long it will take,’ she retorted, pouting. ‘Three or four nights solitary. And you’d better bring me something nice to sweeten me for it when you return.’
