behind. But it was dark there. A knowledgeable swordsman, if he had been waiting and had his night eyes, would have no difficulty.”
Cadfael considered. “Yes, let’s take another look at the man. And his belongings? Are they still here in the prior’s charge? Could we ask, do you think?”
“The bishop might allow it. He’s no better pleased at having a murderer active within the pale than you are.”
Brien de Soulis lay on the stone slab in the chapel, covered with a linen sheet, but not yet shrouded, and his coffin still in the hands of the carpenters. It seemed money had been left to provide a noble funeral. Was that Philip’s doing?
Cadfael drew down the sheet to uncover the body as far as the wound, a mere thin blue-black slit now, with slightly ribbed edges, a stroke no more than a thumbnail long. The body, otherwise unmarked, was well muscled and comely, the face retained its disdainful good looks, but cold and hard as alabaster.
“It was no sword did that,” said Cadfael positively. “The flow of blood hid all when he was found. But that was made by a dagger, not even a long one, but long enough. It’s not so far into the heart. And fine, very fine. The hilt has not bruised him. It was plunged in and withdrawn quickly, quickly enough for the slayer to draw off clean before ever the bleeding came. No use looking for stained clothing, so fine a slit does not open and gush like a fountain. By the time it was flowing fast the assailant was gone.”
“And never stayed to be sure of his work?” wondered Hugh.
“He was sure of it. Very cool, very resolute, very competent.” Cadfael drew up the sheet again over the stone- still face. “Nothing more here. Shall we consider once again the place where this happened?”
They passed through the south door, and emerged into the north walk of the cloister. Outside the third carrel the body had lain, its toes just trailing across the threshold. There was a faint pink stain, a hand’s length, still visible, where his blood had seeped down under his right side and fouled the flags. Someone had been diligent in cleaning it away, but the shape still showed. “Yes, here,” said Hugh. “The stones will show no marks, even if there was a struggle, but I fancy there was none. He was taken utterly by surprise.”
They sat down together there in the carrel to consider the alignment of this scene.
“He was struck from before,” said Cadfael, “and as the dagger was dragged out he fell forward with it, out of the carrel into the walk. Surely he was the one waiting here within. For someone. He wore sword and dagger himself, so he was not bound for Compline. If he designed to meet someone here in private, it was surely someone he trusted, someone never questioned, or how did he approach so close? Had it been Yves, as we know it was not, de Soulis would have had the sword out of the scabbard before ever the boy got within reach. The open hostility between those two was not the whole story. There must have been fifty souls within these walls who hated the man for what he did at Faringdon. Some who were there, and escaped in time, many others of the empress’s following who were not there, but hold the treason bitterly against him no less. He would be wary of any man fronting him whom he did not know well, and trust, men of his own faction and his own mind.”
“And this one he mistook fatally,” said Hugh.
“How should treason be prepared for counter-treason? He turned in the empress’s hand, now one of his own has turned in his. And he as wholly deceived as she was in him. So it goes.”
“I take it,” said Hugh, eyeing his friend very gravely, “that we can and do accept all that Yves says as truth? I do so willingly only from knowledge of him. But should we not consider how the thing must have looked to others who do not know him?”
“So we may,” said Cadfael sturdily, “and still be certain. True, no one has owned to seeing him among the last who came into the church, but that is well possible. He says he came late and spoke to no one, because the office had already begun. He was in a dark corner just within the door, and hence among the first out, to clear the way at the end. We heard him cry out, the first simply a gasp of surprise as he stumbled, then the alarm. Now if he had indeed avoided Compline, and had time to act at leisure while almost all were within, why cry out at all? Out of cunning, as Philip charged, to win the appearance of innocence? Yves is clever, but certainly has no cunning at all. And if he had the whole cloister at his back, he had time enough to slip away and leave others to find his dead man. He bore no arms, his sword was found, as he said, clean and sheathed in his quarters, and showed no sign of having been blooded. He had had, said Philip, the whole time of Compline to blood it, clean it and restore it to his lodging. But I saw the blade, and I could find no sign of blood. No, if he had had all the time of Compline at his disposal, he would never have sounded the alarm himself, but taken good care to be elsewhere when the dead man was found, and among witnesses, well away from the first outcry.”
“And if he had come forth from the church as he says, then he had no time to encounter and kill, and no sword or dagger on him.”
“Manifestly. And I think you know, as I know, that the death came earlier, though how much earlier it’s hard to tell. He had had time to bleed, you still see there the extent of the pool that gathered under him. No, you need not have any doubts. What you know of our lad you know rightly.”
“And of the rest of this great household,” said Hugh reflectively, “most were in the church. It need not be all, however. And as you say, he had enemies here, one at least more discreet than Yves, and more deadly.”
“And one,” Cadfael elaborated sombrely, “of whom he was no way wary. One who could approach him closely and rouse no suspicion, one he was waiting for, for surely he was standing here, in this carrel, and stepped forth willingly when the other came, and was spitted on the very threshold.”
Hugh retraced in silence the angle of that fall, the way the body had lain, the ominous rim of the bloodstain, and could find no flaw in this account of that encounter. In their well-meant efforts to bring together in reconciliation all the power and force and passion of both sides in the contention, the bishops had succeeded also in bringing within these walls a great cauldron of hatred and malice, and infinite possibilities of further treachery.
“More intrigue, more plotting for advantage,” said Hugh resignedly. “If two were meeting here in secret while the baronage was at worship, then it was surely for mischief. What more can we do here? Did you say you wanted to see what belongings de Soulis left behind him? Come, we’ll have a word with the bishop.”
“The man’s possessions,” said the bishop, “such as he had here with him, are here in my charge, and I await word from his brother in Worcester as to future arrangements for his burial. I have no doubt the brother will be responsible for that. But if you think that examination of his effects can give us any indication as to how he died, yes, certainly we should at least put it to the test. We may not neglect any means of finding out the truth. You are fully convinced,” he added anxiously, “that the young man who called us to the body bears no guilt for the death?”
“My lord,” said Hugh, “from all I know of him, he is as poor a hand at deceit or stealth as ever breathed. You
