through up at the potter’s croft. Well, I’d never seen the cottage myself then. It was two months later when the prior put me in. there to take care of the place. My man was dead late that Spring, and I’d been asking Haughmond to find me some work to do. Smith had worked well for them in his time, I knew the prior wouldn’t turn me away.’
‘And the woman?’ said Hugh. ‘A strolling tumbler, so I’m told, dark, very handsome. Did you see him with her?’
‘He did have a girl with him,’ the widow allowed after a moment’s thought, ‘for I was shopping at the fishmonger’s booth close by Wat’s tavern, at the corner of the horse fair, the one day, and she came to fetch him away before, she said, he’d drunk all his day’s gain and half of hers. That I remember. They were loud, he was getting cantankerous then in his cups, but she was a match for him. Cursed each other blind, they did, but then they went off together as close and fond as you please, and her holding him about the body from stumbling, and still scolding. Handsome?’ said the widow, considering, and sniffed dubiously. ‘Some might reckon so. A bold, striding, black-eyed piece, thin and whippy as a withy.’
‘Britric was at this year’s fair, too, so they tell me,’ said Hugh. ‘Did you see him?’
‘Yes, he was here. Doing quite nicely in the world, by the look of him. They do say there’s a good living to be made in pedlary, if you’re willing to work at it. Give him a year or two more, and he’ll be renting a booth like the merchants, and paying the abbey fees.’
‘And the woman? Was she with him still?’
‘Not that I ever saw.’ She was no fool, and there was hardly a soul within a mile of Shrewsbury who did not know by this time that there was a dead woman to be accounted for, and the obvious answer, for some reason, was not satisfactory, since enquiry was continuing, and had even acquired a sharper edge. ‘I was down into the Foregate only once during the three days, this year,’ she said. ‘There’s others would be there all day and every day, they’ll know. But I saw nothing of her. God knows what he’s done with her,’ said the widow, and crossed herself with matronly deliberation, standing off all evil omens from her own invulnerable virtue, ‘but I doubt you’ll find anyone here who set eyes on her since last year’s Saint Peter’s Fair.’
‘Oh, yes, that fellow!’ said Master William Rede, the elder of the abbey’s lay stewards, who collected their rents and the tolls due from merchants and craftsmen bringing their goods to the annual fair. ‘Yes, I know the man you mean. A bit of a rogue, but I’ve known plenty worse. By rights he should be paying a small toll for selling here, he brings in as full a man-load as Hercules could have hefted. But you know how it is. A man who sets up a booth for the three days, that’s simple, you know where to find him. He pays his dues, and no time wasted. But a fellow who carries his goods on him, he sets eyes on you from a distance, and he’s gone elsewhere, and you can waste more time chasing him than his small toll would be worth. Playing hoodman blind in and out of a hundred stalls, and all crowded with folk buying and selling, that’s not for me. So he gets off scot-free. No great loss, and he’ll come to it in time, his business is growing. I know no more about him than that.’
‘Had he a woman with him this year?’ Hugh asked. ‘Dark, handsome, a tumbler and acrobat?’
‘Not that I saw, no. There was a woman last year I noticed ate and drank with him, she could well be the one you mean. There were times I am sure she made him the sign when I came in sight, to make himself scarce. Not this year, though. He brought more goods this year, and I think you’ll find he lay at Wat’s tavern, for he needed somewhere to store them. You may learn more of him there.’
Walter Renold leaned his folded arms, bared and brawny, on the large cask he had just rolled effortlessly into position in a corner of the room, and studied Hugh across it with placid professional eyes.
‘Britric, is it? Yes, he put up here with me through the fair. Came heavy laden this year, I let him put his bits and pieces in the loft. Why not? I know he slips his abbey dues, but the loss of his penny won’t beggar them. The lord abbot doesn’t cast too harsh an eye on the small folk. Not that Britric is small in any other way, mind you. A big lusty fellow, red-haired, a bit of a brawler sometimes, when he’s drunk, but not a bad lad, take him all in all.’
‘Last year,’ said Hugh, ‘he had a woman with him, or so I hear. I’ve good cause to know he was not lodging with you then, but if he did his drinking here you must have seen something of them both. You remember her?’
Wat was certainly remembering her already, with some pleasure and a great deal of amusement. ‘Oh, her! Hard to forget, once seen. She could twist herself like a slip of willow, dance like a March lamb, and play on the little pipe. Easy to carry, better than a rebec unless you’re a master. And she was the practical one, keeping a tight hold on the money they made between them. She talked of marriage, but I doubt she’d ever get him to the church door. Maybe she talked of it once too often, for he came alone this year round. Where he’s left her there’s no knowing, but she’ll make her way wherever she is.’
That had a very bitter ring in Hugh’s ear, considering the possibility he had in mind. Wat, it seemed, had not made the connection which had already influenced the widow’s thinking. But before he could ask anything further Wat surprised him by adding simply: ‘Gunnild, he called her. I never knew where she came from?I doubt if he knew it, either?but she’s a beauty.’
That, too, had its strange resonance, when Hugh recalled the naked bones. More and more, in imagination, they took on the living aspect of this wild, sinuous, hardworking-waif of the roads, darkly brilliant as the admiring gleam she could kindle in a middle-aged innkeeper’s eyes after a year and more of absence.
‘You have not seen her since, here or elsewhere?’
‘How often am I elsewhere?’ Wat responded good-humouredly. ‘I did my roaming early. I’m content where I am. No, I’ve never set eyes on the girl again. Nor heard him so much as mention her name this year, now I come to think of it. For all the thought he seemed to be giving to last year’s fancy,’ said Wat tolerantly,’she might as well be dead.’
‘So there we have it,’ said Hugh, summing up briskly for Cadfael in the snug privacy of the workshop in the herb garden. ‘Britric is the one man we know to have made himself at home there in Ruald’s croft. There may have been others, but none that we can learn of. Moreover, there was a woman with him, and their mating by ail accounts tempestuous, she urging marriage on him, and he none too ready to be persuaded. More than a year ago, this. And this year not only does he come to the fair alone, but she is not seen there at all, she who gets her living at fairs and markets and weddings and such jollifications. It is not proof, but it requires answers.’
‘And she has a name,’ said Cadfael reflectively. ‘Gunnild. But not a habitation. She comes from nowhere and is gone, nowhere. Well, you cannot but look diligently for them both, but he should be the easier to find. And as I guess, you already have all your people alerted to look out for him.’
‘Both round the shire and over the border,’ said Hugh flatly. ‘His rounds, they say, go no further, apart from journeys to the towns to buy such commodities as salt and spices.’
‘And here are we into November, and the season for markets and fairs over, but the weather still fairly mild and dry. He’ll be still on his travels among the villages, but I would guess,’ said Cadfael, pondering, ‘not too far afield. If
