“We can do no more for him,” said Brother Cadfael. “He’s gone.”
They all stirred briefly, as though a sudden wind had shaken them. The widow’s tears spilled over and ran down her motionless face, as though she were still too bemused to understand what caused them. Brother Edmund touched her arm, and said gently: “You will need helpers. I am very sorry, so are we all. You shall be relieved of such duties as we can lift from you. He shall lie in our chapel until all can be arranged. I will order it …”
“No,” said Cadfael, clambering stiffly to his feet, “that can’t be done yet, Edmund. This is no ordinary death. He is dead of poison, taken with the food he has recently eaten. It’s a matter for the sheriff, and we must disturb nothing here and remove nothing until his officers have examined all.”
After a blank silence Aelfric spoke up hoarsely: “But how can that be? It can’t be so! We have all eaten the same, every one of us here. If there was anything amiss with the food, it would have struck at us all.”
“That is truth!” said the widow shakily, and sobbed aloud.
“All but the little dish,” the maid pointed out, in a small, frightened but determined voice, and flushed at having drawn attention to herself, but went on firmly: “The one the prior sent to him.”
“But that was part of the prior’s own dinner,” said Aelfric, aghast. “Brother Petrus told me he had orders to take a portion from it and send it to my master with his compliments, to tempt his appetite.”
Brother Edmund shot a terrified look at Brother Cadfael, and saw his own appalling thought reflected back to him. Hastily he said: “I’ll go to the prior. Pray heaven no harm has come to him! I’ll send also to the sheriff, or, please God! Prior Robert shall do as much on his own account. Brother, do you stay here until I return, and see that nothing is touched.”
“That,” said Cadfael grimly, “I will certainly do.”
As soon as the agitated slapping of Brother Edmund’s sandals had dwindled along the road, Cadfael shooed his stunned companions into the outer room, away from the horrid air of the bedchamber, tainted with the foul odours of sickness, sweat and death. Yes, and of something else, faint but persistent even against that powerful combination of odours; something he felt he could place, if he could give it a moment’s undisturbed thought.
“No help for this,” he said sympathetically. “We may do nothing now without authority, there’s a death to account for. But no need to stand here and add to the distress. Come away and sit down quietly. If there’s wine or ale in that pitcher, child, get your mistress a drink, and do as much for yourself, and sit down and take what comfort you can. The abbey has taken you in, and will stand by you now, to the best it may.”
In dazed silence they did as he bade. Only Aelfric looked helplessly round at the debris of broken dishes and the littered table, and mindful of his usual menial role, perhaps, asked quaveringly: “Should I not clear this disorder away?”
“No, touch nothing yet. Sit down and be as easy as you can, lad. The sheriffs officer must see what’s to be seen, before we remedy any part of it.”
He left them for a moment, and went back into the bedchamber, closing the door between. The curious, aromatic smell was almost imperceptible now, overborne by the enclosed stench of vomit, but he leaned down to the dead man’s drawn-back lips, and caught the hint of it again, and more strongly. Cadfael’s nose might be blunt, battered and brown to view, but it was sharp and accurate in performance as a hart’s.
There was nothing more in this death-chamber to tell him anything. He went back to his forlorn company in the next room. The widow was sitting with hands wrung tightly together in her lap, shaking her head still in disbelief, and murmuring to herself over and over. “But how could it happen? How could it happen?” The girl, tearless throughout, and now jealously protective, sat with an arm about her mistress’s shoulders; clearly there was more than a servant’s affection there. The two young men shifted glumly and uneasily from place to place, unable to keep still. Cadfael stood back from them in the shadows, and ran a shrewd eye over the laden table. Three places laid, three beakers, one of them, in the master’s place where a chair replaced the backless benches, overturned in a pool of ale, probably when Bonel suffered the first throes and blundered up from his seat. The large dish that had held the main meal was there in the centre, the congealing remains still in it. The food on one trencher was hardly touched, on the others it had been finished decently. Five people—no, apparently six—had eaten of that dish, and all but one were whole and unharmed. There was also the small bowl which he recognised as one of Abbot Heribert’s, the same he had seen on Aelfric’s tray as he passed through the court. Only the smallest traces of sauce remained in it; Prior Robert’s gift to the invalid had clearly been much appreciated.
“None of you but Master Bonel took any of this dish?” asked Cadfael, bending to sniff at the rim carefully and long.
“No,” said the widow tremulously. “It was sent as a special favour to my husband—a kind attention.”
And he had eaten it all. With dire results.
“And you three—Meurig, Aelfric—and you, child, I don’t yet know your name…”
“It’s Aldith,” said the girl.
“Aldith! And you three ate in the kitchen?”
“Yes. I had to keep the extra dish hot there until the other was eaten, and to see to the serving. And Aelfric always eats there. And Meurig, when he visits …” She paused for only a second, a faint flush mantling in her cheeks: “… he keeps me company.”
So that was the way the wind blew. Well, no wonder, she was indeed a very pretty creature.
Cadfael went into the kitchen. She had her pots and pans in neat order and well polished, she was handy and able as well as pretty. The brazier had an iron frame built high on two sides, to support an iron hob above the heat, and there, no doubt, the little bowl had rested until Bonel was ready for it. Two benches were ranged against the wall, out of the way, but close to the warmth. Three wooden platters, all used, lay on the shelf under the open window.
In the room at his back the silence was oppressive and fearful, heavy with foreboding. Cadfael went out at the open kitchen door, and looked along the road.
Thank God there was to be no second and even more dismaying death to cope with: Prior Robert, far too dignified to run, but furnished with such long legs that Brother Edmund had to trot to keep up with his rapid strides, was advancing along the highroad in august consternation and displeasure, his habit billowing behind him.
“I have sent a lay brother into Shrewsbury,” said the prior, addressing the assembled household, “to inform the
