“Not he! He was there past midnight, for I took a turn along here to breathe the cool before going to my inn, and there was a light burning inside there then.”
No gleam from within now, though the slanting sunlight might well pale it into invisibility. But no, that was not so, either. The chinks between shutter and frame were utterly dark.
It was all too like what Roger Dod had found at another booth, only one day past. But there the booth had been barred from within, and the bar hoisted clear with a dagger. Here there was a lock, to be mastered from within or without, and certainly no visible key.
“This I do not like,” said Rhodri ap Huw, and strode forward to try the door, and finding it, as was expected, locked, to peer squint-eyed through the large keyhole. “No key within,” he said shortly over his shoulder, and peered still.
“Not a movement in there.” He had Cadfael hard on his heels by then, and three or four others closing in. “Give me room!”
Rhodri clenched the fingers of both hands in the edge of the door, set a broad foot against the timber wall, and hauled mightily, square shoulders gathered in one great heave. Wood splintered about the lock, small flinders flying like motes of dust, and the door burst open. Rhodri swayed and recovered in recoil, and was first through the opening, but Cadfael was ‘ after him fast enough to ensure that the Welshman touched nothing within. They craned into the gloom together, cheek by jowl.
The glover’s stall was in chaos, shelves swept clear, goods scattered like grain over the floor. On a straw palliasse along the rear wall his cloak lay sprawled, and on an iron stand beside, a quenched candle sagged in folds of tallow. It took them a few seconds to accustom their eyes to the dimness and see clearly.
Tangled in his spilled stock of belts, baldricks, gloves, purses and saddlebags, Euan of Shotwick lay on his back, knees drawn up, a coarse sacking bag drawn half-over his lean face and greying head. Beneath the hem of the hood his thin-lipped mouth grinned open in a painful rictus, large white teeth staring, and the angle at which his head lay had the horrible suggestion of a broken wooden puppet.
Cadfael turned and flung up the shutter of the booth, letting in the morning light. He stooped to touch the contorted neck and hollow cheek. “Cold,” said Rhodri, behind him, not attempting to verify his judgment, which for all that was accurate enough. Euan’s flesh was chilling. “He’s dead,” said Rhodri flatly.
“Some hours,” said Cadfael.
In the stress of the moment he had forgotten Emma, but the shriek she gave caused him to swing round in haste and dismay. She had crept in fearfully to peer over the shoulders of the neighbours, and stood staring with eyes wide with horror, both small fists crushed against her mouth. “Oh, no!” she said in a whisper. “Not dead! Not he, too …”
Cadfael took her in his arms, and thrust her bodily before him out of the booth, elbowing the gaping onlookers out of his way. “Go back! You mustn’t stay here.
Go back before you’re missed, and leave this to me.” He wondered if she even heard his rapid murmur into her ear; she was shaking and white as milk, her blue eyes fixed and huge with shock. He looked about him urgently for someone to whom he could safely confide her, for he doubted if she should be left to return alone, and yet he did not care to leave this scene until Beringar should be here to take charge, or one of the sheriff’s sergeants at least. The sudden alarmed shout of recognition that came from the rear of the gathering crowd was a most welcome sound.
“Emma! Emma!” Ivo Corbicre came cleaving an unceremonious way through the press, like a sudden vehement wind in a cornfield, bludgeoning the standing stems out of its path. She turned at the call, and a spark of returning life sprang up in her eyes. Thankfully Cadfael thrust her into the young man’s arms, which reached eagerly and anxiously to receive her.
“For God’s sake, what has happened to her? What …” His glance flashed from her stunned visage to Cadfael’s, and beyond, to the open door with its splintered panel. Over her head his lips framed silently for Cadfael: “Not again? Another?”
“Take her back,” said Cadfael shortly. “Take care of her. And tell Hugh Beringar to come. We have sheriff’s business here within.”
All the way back along the Foregate, Corbicre kept a supporting arm about her, and curbed his long stride to hers, and all the way he poured soothing, caressing words into her ear, while she, until they had almost reached the west door of the church, said nothing at all, simply walked docilely beside him, distantly aware of the lulling sound and the comforting touch. Then suddenly she said: “He’s dead. I saw him, I know.”
“A bare glimpse you had,” said Ivo consolingly. “It may not be so.”
“No,” said Emma, “I know the man is dead. How could it happen? Why?”
“There are always such acts, somewhere, robberies, violence and evil. It is sad, but it is not new.” His fingers pressed her hand warmly. “It is no fault of yours, and alas, there is nothing you or I can do about it. I wish I could make you forget it. In time you will forget.”
“No,” she said. “I shall never forget this.”
She had meant to return by the church, as she had left, but now it no longer mattered. As far as he or any other was concerned, she had simply set out early to buy some gloves, or at least to view what the glover had to offer. She went in with Ivo by the gatehouse. By the time he had brought her tenderly on his arm to the guest-hall she had regained her composure. There was a little colour in her face again, and her voice was alive, even if its tone indicated that life was painful.
“I’m recovered now, Ivo,” she said. “You need not trouble for me further. I will tell Hugh Beringar that he is needed.”
“Brother Cadfael entrusted you to me,” said Ivo with gentle and confident authority, “and you did not reject me. I shall fulfil my errand exactly. As I hope,” he said smiling, “I may perform any other missions you may care to entrust to me hereafter.”
Hugh Beringar came with four of the sheriff’s men, dispersed the crowd that hung expectantly round the booth of Euan of Shotwick, and listened to the accounts rendered by the neighbouring stallholders, by the butcher from over the road, and by Rhodri ap Huw, for whom Cadfael interpreted sentence by sentence. In no haste to go, for as he said, his best lad was back with the boat from Bridgnorth and competent to take charge of what stock he still had to sell, the Welshman nonetheless showed no unbecoming desire to linger, once his witness was taken.
Imperturbable and all-beholding, he ambled away at the first indication that the law had done with him. Others,
