“And how persuade her?” asked Hugh, wryly smiling. “By abduction and force? Or by a gallant rescue?”
“Or both,” said Cadfael.
“Now truly you interest me! Those who hide can find! If by any chance the lady is where he put her, but doesn’t know who put her there ?for a Bertred can as easily find rogues to do his work for him as any wealthier man, it is but a matter of degrees of greed! ?then who could better come to her rescue? Even if gratitude did not go so far as to make her marry him, he certainly would not be the loser.”
“It offers one way of accounting,” Cadfael acknowledged. “And in its favour, the maid Branwen blabbed out what her mistress intended in the kitchen, so we are told. And Bertred ate in the kitchen, and was probably there to hear it. The kitchen knew of it, the hall knew nothing until next day, after she was lost. But there are other possibilities. That someone else took her, and Bertred had found out where she was. And said no word to you or your men, but kept the rescue for himself. It seems a simpler and a smaller villainy, for one surely not so subtle as to make tortuous plans.”
“You forget,” Hugh pointed out grimly, “that by all the signs he had already committed murder, whether with intent beforehand or not, still murder. He might be forced into plans far beyond his ordinary scope after that, to cover his tracks and secure at least some of his desired gains.”
“I forget nothing,” said Cadfael sturdily. “One point in favour of your story I’ve given you. Here is one against: If he had her hidden away somewhere, securely enough to baffle all your efforts to find her, why should it not be a safe and simple matter for him to effect that rescue of his without a single stumble? And the man is dead! Far more likely to come to grief in spite of all his planning, if he crossed the plans of some other man.”
“True again! Though for all we yet know, his death could have been pure mischance. True, it could be either way. If he is the abductor as well as the murderer, then we have no second villain to find, but alas, we still lack the lady, and the only man who could lead us to her is dead. If murderer and abductor are two different people, then we have still to find both the captor and his captive. And since it seems the most likely object of taking her is to inveigle her into marriage, we may hope and believe both that she is living, and that in the end he must release her. Though I own I’d rather forestall that by plucking her out of his hold myself.”
They were over the crest by the high cross, and striding downhill now, past the ramp that led up to the castle gatehouse, and still downhill alongside the towering walls, until town wall on their left and castle wall on their right met in a low tower, under which the highway passed. Once through that gateway, the level of the road opened before them, fringed for only a short way by small houses and gardens. Hugh turned right on the outer side of the deep, dry castle ditch, before the houses began, and started down towards the riverside, and Cadfael followed more sedately.
Godfrey Fuller’s tenterground stood empty, the drying cloth just unhooked and rolled up for finishing. Most of his men had already stopped work for the day, and the last few had lingered to watch and listen at the arrival of the sheriff’s men, before making for their homes in the town. A close little knot of men had gathered at the edge of the tenterground, between dye-works and wool warehouse: Godfrey Fuller himself, his finery shed in favour of stout working clothes, for he was by no means ashamed to soil his hands alongside his workmen, and prided himself on being able to do whatever he asked of them, and possibly as well or better than they could; the watchman, a thickset, burly fellow of fifty, with his mastiff on a leash; Hugh’s oldest sergeant, Will Warden, bushy-bearded and massive; and two men from the garrison in watchful attendance at a few yards distance. At sight of Hugh dropping with long strides down the slope of the meadow, Warden swung away from the colloquy to meet him.
“My lord, the watchman here says there was an alarm in the night, the dog gave tongue.”
The watchman spoke up freely for himself, aware of duty properly done. “My lord, some sneak thief was here in the night, well past midnight, climbing to the hatch behind Master Hynde’s storehouse. Not that I knew then that he’d got so far, but the hound here gave warning, and out we went, and heard him running for the river. I made to cut him off, but he was past me too fast, all I got was one clout at him as he rushed by. I hit him, but did him precious little harm, surely, by the speed he made down to the bank and into the water. I heard the splash as he went in, and called off the dog, and went to look had he got into the store. But there was no sign, not to be seen in the night, and I took it he was well across and off by then, no call to make any more stir about him. I never knew till now it was a dead man came ashore on the other side. That I never meant.”
“It was not your doing,” said Hugh. “The blow you got in did him no great damage. He drowned, trying to swim across.”
“But, my lord, there’s more! When I looked round the warehouse by daylight this morning, see what I found lying in the grass under the hatch. I’ve just handed them over to your sergeant here.” Will Warden had them in his hands, displayed in meaning silence, a long chisel and a small clawed hammer. “And the sill beam under the hatch broken from its nails at one end, and dangling. I reckon surely he was up there trying to break through the shutter and get in at the fleeces. A year ago when the clip was in there thieves got in and stole a couple of bales. Old William Hynde near went out of his wits with rage. Come and see, my lord.”
Cadfael followed slowly and thoughtfully as they set off round the bulk of the warehouse to the rear slope, where the shuttered hatch showed still securely fastened, though the stout beam under it hung vertically against the planks of the wall, the splintered gaps where it had broken free from its anchoring nails rotten and soft to the touch.
“Gave under his weight,” said the watchman, peering upward. “It was his fall the dog heard. And these tools came down with him, and he had no time to pick them up, if he’d delayed a moment we should have had him. But here’s good proof he was trying to break in and steal. And the best is,” said the watchman, shaking his head over the folly of the too-clever, “if he’d got in through the hatch he couldn’t have got at the fleeces.”
“No?” said Hugh sharply, turning a startled glance on him. “Why? What would have prevented?”
“There’s another locked door beyond, my lord, between him and what he came for. No, belike you wouldn’t know of it, why should you? William Hynde’s clerk used to work in the little back room up there, it was used as a counting-house until that time thieves broke in by this back way. By then the woolman was buying here for the foreign trade, and old Hynde thought better to bid him up to his own house and make much of him. And what with their business being all transacted there, the old counting-house was out of use. He had the door locked and barred, for an extra barrier against thieves. If this rogue had got in, it would have done him no good.”
Hugh gazed and pondered, and gnawed a dubious lip. “This rogue, my friend, was in the wool trade himself, and knew this place very well. He fetched the fleeces for the Vestiers from here, he’d been in and out more than once. How comes it that he would not know of this closed counting-house? And my deputy had them open up here two days ago, and saw the upper floor full almost to the ladder with bales. If there’s a door there, it was buried behind the wool.”
“So it would be, my lord. Why not? I doubt if a soul had gone through that door since it was first shut up. There’s nothing within there.”
