elsewhere at this moment! The dereliction stuck fast in Hugh’s mind, until he made sense of it later. It was, after all, possible that a dead man should have urgent unfinished business elsewhere, even more dear to him than the last devotions paid to his body.
They extended their respects and condolences to Abbot Radulfus, with the promise that search should be made downstream for the body of Brother Fidelis, as long as any hope remained of finding him, and then they rode back at a walking pace into the town, host and guest together. The dusk was closing gently in, the sky clear, bland, innocent of evil, the air suddenly cool and kind. Aline was waiting with the evening meal ready to be served, and welcomed two men returning as graciously as one. And if there was still a horse missing from the stables, Hugh did not linger to discover it, but left the horses to the grooms, and devoted his own attention to Nicholas.
“You must stay with us,” he said over supper, “until his burial. I’ll send word to Cruce, he’ll want to pay the last honours to one who once meant to become his brother by law, and he has a right to know how things stand now with Heriet.”
That caused Aline to prick up her ears. “And how do things stand now with Heriet? So much has happened today, I seem to have missed at least the half of it. Nicholas did say he brought grim news, but even the downpour couldn’t delay him long enough to say more. What has happened?”
They told her, between them, all that had passed, from the dogged search in Winchester to the point where news of Madog’s disaster had interrupted the questioning of Adam Heriet, and sent them out in consternation to find out the truth of the report. Aline listened with a slight, anxious frown.
“He burst in crying that two brothers from the abbey were dead, drowned in the river? Named names, did he? There in the cell, in front of your prisoner?”
“I think it was I who named names,” said Hugh. “It came at the right moment for Heriet, I fancy he was nearing the end of his tether. Now he can draw breath for the next bout, though I doubt if it will save him.”
Aline said no more on that score until Nicholas, short of sleep after his long ride and the shocks of this day, took himself off to his bed. When he was gone, she laid by the embroidery on which she had been working, and went and sat down beside Hugh on the cushioned bench beside the empty hearth, and wound a persuasive arm about his neck.
“Hugh, love-there’s something you must hear-and Nicholas must not hear, not yet, not until all’s over and safe and calm. It might be best if he never does hear it, though perhaps he’ll divine at least half of it for himself in the end. But you we need now.”
“We?” said Hugh, not too greatly surprised, and turned to wind an arm comfortably about her waist and draw her closer to his side.
“Cadfael and I. Who else?”
“So I supposed,” said Hugh, sighing and smiling. “I did wonder at his abandoning the disastrous end of a venture he himself helped to launch.”
“But he did not abandon it, he’s about resolving it this moment. And if you should hear someone about the stables, a little later, no need for alarm, it will only be Cadfael bringing back your horse, and you know he can be trusted to see to his horse’s comfort before he gives a thought to his own.”
“I foresee a long story,” said Hugh. “It had better be interesting.” Her fair hair was soft and sweet against his cheek. He turned to touch his lips to hers, very softly and briefly.
“It is. As any matter of life and death must be. You’ll see! And since it was blurted out in front of poor Adam Heriet that two brothers have drowned, you ought to pay him a visit as soon as you can, tomorrow, and tell him he need not fret, that things are not always what they.seem.”
“Then tell me,” said Hugh, “what they really are.”
She settled herself warmly into the circle of his arm, and very gravely told him.
The search for the body of Brother Fidelis was pursued diligently from both banks of the river, at every spot where floating debris commonly came ashore, for more than two days, but all that came to light was one of his sandals, torn from his foot by the river and cast up in the sandy shoals near Atcham. Most bodies that went into the Severn were also put ashore by the Severn, sooner or later. This one never would be. Shrewsbury and the world had seen the last of Brother Fidelis.
Chapter Fourteen.
THE BURIAL OF BROTHER HUMILIS BROUGHT TOGETHER in the abbey guest-hall representatives of all the small nobility of the shire, and most of the Benedictine foundations within the region. Sheriff and town provost would certainly attend and so would many of the elders and merchants of Shrewsbury, more by reason of the dramatic and tragic nature of the dead man’s departure than for any real knowledge they had had of him in his short sojourn in the town. Most had never seen him, but knew his reputation before he took the cowl, and felt that his birth and death here in their midst gave them some title in him. It would be a great occasion, befitting an entombment within the church itself, a rare honour.
Reginald Cruce came down from Lai a day in advance of the ceremony, malevolently gratified at all that Nicholas had to report, and taking vengeful pleasure in having the miscreant who had dared do violence to a member of the Cruce family securely in prison and tacitly acknowledged as guilty, even if trial had to await the legal formalities. Hugh did nothing to cast doubts on his satisfaction.
Reginald held the enamelled ring in a broad palm, and studied the intricate decoration with interest. “Yes, I remember it. Strange it should be this small thing that condemns him. She had another ring, I recall, that she valued, perhaps all the more because it was given to her as a child, when her fingers were far too small to retain it. Marescot sent it to her when the contract of betrothal was concluded, it was old, one that had been handed down bride to bride in his family. She used to wear it on a chain round her neck because it was too big for her fingers. I’m sure she would not leave that behind.”
“This was the only ring listed in the valuables she took with her,” said Nicholas, taking back the little jewel. “I’m pledged to return it to the silversmith’s wife in Winchester.”
“The list was of the things intended for her dowry. The ring Marescot sent her she probably meant to keep. It was gold, a snake with red eyes making two coils about the finger. Very old, the scales were worn smooth. I wonder,” said Reginald, “where it is now. There are no more Marescots left, not of that branch, to give it to their brides.”
No more Marescots, thought Nicholas, and no more Julians. A double, grievous loss, for which revenge, now that he seemed to have it securely in his hands, was no compensation at all. “Should you be mistaken, and she is
