‘If this is murder,’ said Brother Cadfael, rather to himself than to any other, but aloud. He had remained still and silent in the doorway all this time, looking round him intently at the room he remembered well from a single visit, a room so sparsely furnished that every detail was memorable. The chapel was larger than the living room of the cell, there was room here for free movement, even for a struggle. Only the eastern wall was built up beneath its tiny square window with the great fashioned stone of the altar, and atop that the small carved reliquary on which stood the silver cross, and on either side a silver candlestick holding a tall candle, unlighted. On the stone before the reliquary, the lamp, and laid neatly in front of it?But there was nothing laid in front of it. Strange to have the man thrown down in disordered and disregarded death, but the altar so trim and undisturbed. And only one thing missing from the picture Cadfael carried in his mind’s eye. The breviary in the leather binding fit for a prince, tooled in intricate scrolls and leaves and gilded ornament, was gone.
Hugh rose from his knees and stood back to view the room as Cadfael was viewing it. They had seen it together, by rights their memories should match. He shot a sharp glance at Cadfael. ‘You see cause to doubt it?’
‘I see that he was armed.’ Hugh was already looking down at the long dagger that lay so close to Cuthred’s half-open hand. He had not touched it. He stood back and touched nothing, now that he knew the discarded flesh before him was cold. ‘He loosed his hold as he fell. That dagger is his. It was used. There is blood on it?not his blood. Whatever happened here, it was no furtive stabbing in the back.’
That was certain. The wound was over his heart, the stiffening patch of blood from it had reached his middle. The dagger that killed this man had been withdrawn and let out his lifeblood. Its fellow here on the floor was stained for only a thumb’s length from its tip, and had barely shed one drop upon the stone where it lay.
‘You are saying,’ said the abbot, stirring out of his horrified stillness, ‘that this was a fight? But how should a holy hermit keep sword or dagger about him? Even for his own defence against thieves and vagabonds such a man should not resort to arms, but put his trust in God.’
‘And if this was a thief,’ said Cadfael, ‘he was a most strange one. Here are cross and candlesticks of silver, and they are not taken, not even shaken from their places in the struggle. Or else they were set right afterwards.’
‘That is truth,’ said the abbot, and shook his head over so inexplicable a mystery. ‘This was not done for robbery. But what, then? Why should any man attack a solitary religious, one without possessions by choice, one whose only valuables are the furnishings of his altar? He has lived unmolested and serviceable among us, by all accounts open and accessible to all who came with their needs and troubles. Why should anyone wish to harm him? Can this be the same hand that killed the lord of Bosiet, Hugh? Or must we fear we have two murderers loose among us?’
‘There is still this lad of his,’ said Hugh, frowning over the thought but unable quite to discard it. ‘We have not found him, and I had begun to think that he had made off westward and got clean away into Wales. But it’s still possible that he has remained close here. There may well be those who are sheltering him and believe in him. We have grounds for thinking so. If he is indeed the villein who ran from Bosiet, he had some cause to rid himself of his master. And say that Cuthred, who disowned him on hearing he had been deceived in him, found out his hiding place now?yes, then he might also have cause to kill Cuthred. All of which is mere matter for conjecture. And yet cannot be quite rejected.’
No, thought Cadfael, not until Aymer Bosiet has gone his way back to Northamptonshire, and Hyacinth can come out of hiding and speak for himself, and Eilmund and Annet, yes, and Richard, can speak for him. For between the three of them I’m sure it can be proved exactly where Hyacinth has been at all times, and he has not been here. No, we need not trouble about Hyacinth. But I wish, he thought regretfully, I wish they had let me confide in Hugh long ago.
The sun was higher in the sky by now, and found a better angle through the leafage of the trees, to shed more light upon the distorted and lamentable body. The skirts of the rusty black habit were gathered together at one side, as if a large fist had drawn them into its grasp, and there the woollen cloth was clotted with a sticky dark stain. Cadfael kneeled and drew the folds apart, and they separated with a faint, rustling reluctance.
‘Here he wiped his dagger,’ said Cadfael, ‘before sheathing it again.’
‘Twice,’ said Hugh, peering, for there was a second such smear, barely perceptible. Coolly and efficiently, a methodical man cleaning his tools after finishing his work! ‘And see here, this casket on the altar.’ He had stepped carefully round the body to look closely at the carved wooden box, and draw a finger along the edge of the lid, above the lock. The flaw was no longer than a thumbnail, but showed where the point of a dagger had been thrust in to prise the box open. He lifted down the cross and raised the lid, which gave readily. The lock was sprung and broken, and the casket was empty. Only the faint aromatic scent of the wood stirred upon the air. There was not even a filming of dust within; the box had been well made.
‘So something was taken, after all,’ said Cadfael. He did not mention the breviary, though he could not doubt that Hugh had noticed its absence as readily as he.
‘But not the silver. What could a hermit have about him of greater value than Dame Dionisia’s silver? He came to Buildwas on foot, carrying only a scrip like any other pilgrim, though to be sure his boy Hyacinth also carried a pack for him. Now I wonder,’ said Hugh, ‘whether this casket was also the lady’s gift, or whether he brought it with him?’
They had been so intent on what they were observing within that they had failed to pay attention to what was happening without, and there had been no sound to warn them. And in the shock of what they had discovered they had almost forgotten that at least one more witness was expected at this meeting. But it was a woman’s voice, not Fulke’s, that suddenly spoke in the doorway behind them, high and confidently, and with arrogant disapproval in its tone.
‘No need to wonder, my lord. It would be simple and civil to ask me.’
All three of them swung round in dismayed alarm to stare at Dame Dionisia, tall and erect and defiant between them and the brightening daylight from which she had come, and which left her half-blind at stepping into this relative obscurity. They were between her and the body, and there was nothing else to startle or alarm her but the very fact that Hugh stood with his hand on the open casket, and the cross had been lifted down. This she saw clearly, while the dying lamp lit nothing else so well. And she was outraged.
‘My lord, what is this? What are you doing with these sacred things? And where is Cuthred? Have you dared to meddle in his absence?’
The abbot moved to place himself more solidly between her and the dead man, and advanced to persuade her out of the chapel.
‘Madam, you shall know all, but I beg you, come out into the other room and be seated, and wait but a moment until we set all in order here. Here is no irreverence, I promise you.’
