The Rose Rent

Chapter Ten

“Come with me,” said Hugh, setting off briskly up the hill towards the high cross, and turning his back with some relief on the troubled household at the clothiers’ shop. “Since you have honest leave to be out, you may as well join me on the errand you delayed for me a while ago. I was all but out of the town gate when your messenger came and Will came running after me to say I was wanted at the Vestiers’. I sent him on ahead with a couple of men, he’s down there and at it by now, but I’d as lief see to it for myself.”

“Where are we going?” asked Cadfael, falling in willingly beside his friend up the steep street.

“To talk to Fuller’s watchman. That’s the one place outside the town walls where there’d be a waking witness even in the night, and a watchdog to alert him if anyone came prowling close by. If the fellow did by any chance go into the water this side the river, works and warehouse are only a little way upstream from where you found him. Fuller’s man has both places in charge. He may have heard something. And as we go, tell me what you make of all that - Bertred’s night affairs, and the fortune he was going to make.”

“By reason of knowing something no one else knew -hmm! For that matter, I noticed he stayed behind when your men left the jetty yesterday afternoon. He let you all go on well before, and then slipped back alone into the trees. And he came late for his supper, told his mother she should be a gentlewoman in the house instead of a cook, and went off again in the night to set about making his word good. And according to Miles he not only fancied his mistess, but had the assurance to feel there was no reason he should not bring her to fancy him.”

“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.”

Nothing now, Cadfael was thinking. But was there something - someone! - there only yesterday? It would seem that Bertred thought so, though of course Bertred could be wrong. He must have known of the abandoned room, he may well have thought it worth putting to the test at a venture, without special cause. If so, it cost him dear. All those dreams of bettering his fortune by a gallant rescue, of exploiting a woman’s gratitude to the limit and advancing his own cause step by step with insinuating care, all shattered, swept away down the currents of the Severn. Did he really know something no one else among the searchers knew, or was he speaking only of this hidden room as a possibility?

“Will,” said Hugh,”send a man up to Hynde’s house, and ask him, or his son, to come down here and bring the keys. All his keys! It’s time I took a look within here myself. I should have done it earlier.”

But it was neither William Hynde nor his son Vivian who came striding down the field with the sergeant after a wait of some ten or fifteen minutes. It was a serving-man in homespun and leather, a tall, bold-faced, muscular fellow in his thirties, sporting a close-trimmed beard that outlined a wide mouth and a jaunty jaw with all the dandified elegance of a Norman lordling, though his build was Saxon and his colouring reddish-fair. He made a careless obeisance to Hugh, and straightened up to measure eyes with him, ice-pale eyes with only the glittering Norse-tinge of blue in them.

“My lord, my mistress sends you these, and my services.” He had the keys in his hand on a great ring, a rich bunch of them. His voice was loud, with a brazen ring to it, though his manner was civil enough. “My master’s away at his sheepfolds by Forton, has been since yesterday, and the young master’s gone up there to help them today, but he’ll be back tomorrow if you need him. Will it please you command me? I’m here to serve.”

“I’ve seen you about the town,” said Hugh, eyeing him with detached interest. “So you’re in Hynde’s service, are you? What’s your name?”

“Gunnar, my lord.”

“And he trusts you with his keys. Well, Gunnar, open these doors for us. I want to see what’s within.” And he added, as the man turned willingly to obey: “When is the barge expected, if Master Hynde can spare time to go in person to his flocks?”

“Before the end of the month, my lord, but the merchant sends word ahead from Worcester. They take the clip by water to Bristol, and then overland to Southampton for shipping, it cuts off the long voyage round. A rough passage they say it is, all round the south-west.” He was busy as he talked, unfastening two massive padlocks from the bar of the warehouse doors, and drawing both leaves wide open to let in the light upon a clean-swept, slightly raised floor of boards, on which the lower-grade fleeces had been stacked. This level was empty now. From the left-hand corner within the door a wooden ladder led up through a wide, open trap to the floor above.

“You’re well informed concerning Master Hynde’s business affairs, Gunnar,” said Hugh mildly, stepping over the threshold.

“He trusts me. I made the journey down to Bristol with the barge once, when they had a man injured and were short-handed. Will it please you go up, sir? Shall I lead the way?”

A very self-assured and articulate person, this Gunnar, Cadfael reflected, the very image of the intelligent and trusted servant of a commercial house, capable of adapting to travel, and learning from every experience. By his stature, bearing and colouring he proclaimed his northern ancestry. The Danes had reached no further south than Brigge in this shire, but they had left a few of their getting behind when they retreated. Cadfael followed without haste as they mounted the ladder and stepped on to the upper floor. Here the light was dim, reflected up from the wide doors below, but enough to show the stacked bales stretching the full length of the storehouse.

“We could do with more light,” said Hugh.

“Wait, my lord, and I’ll open.” And Gunnar made no more ado, but seized one of the bales in the centre of the array and hauled it down to set aside, and after it several more, until the stout wooden planks of a narrow door were laid bare. He flourished his ring of keys with a flurry of sound, selected one, and thrust it into the lock. There were two iron bars slotted across the door in addition, and they grated rustily as he drew them from the sockets. The key creaked as it turned. “There’s been no use made of this for a while now,” said Gunnar cheerfully. “We’ll do no harm by letting in the air for once.”

The door opened inward. He thrust it wide and made straight across to the shuttered hatch, and with a lusty banging of latches and beams released the shutters and pushed them wide to let in the slanting sunlight. “Mind the dust, my lord,” he warned helpfully, and stood back to let them examine the whole narrow room. A rising breeze blew in, fluttering trailers of cobweb from the rough wood of the hatch.

A small, barren space, an old bench against the wall, a heap of discarded fragments of vellum and cloth and wool and wood, and indistinguishable rubbish drifted into one corner, a large ewer with a broken lip, the ancient desk leaning askew, and over all the grime and dust of abandonment, of a place two years disused, and a year sealed and forgotten.

“There was a thief got in this way once,” said Gunnar airily. “They’d have much ado to manage it a second time. But I must make all secure again before I leave it, my master’d have my head if I forgot to shoot every bolt and turn every key.”

“There was a thief tried to get in this way only last night,” said Hugh casually. “Have they not told you?”

Gunnar had turned on him a face fallen open in sheer astonishment.” A thief? Last night? Not one word of this have I heard, or the mistress, either. Who says it’s so?”

“Ask the watchman below, he’ll tell you. One Bertred, a weaver who works for Mistress Perle. Take a look at the sill outside the hatch, Gunnar, you’ll see how it came down with his weight. The hound hunted him into the river,” said Hugh, offhand, gazing musingly all round the neglected room, but well aware of the look on Gunnar’s face. “He drowned.”

The silence that followed was brief but profound. Gunnar stood mute, staring, and all his light assurance had frozen into a steely gravity.

“You’d heard nothing?” marvelled Hugh, his eyes on the dusty floor, on which Gunnar’s vigorous passage had printed the only pattern of footmarks perceptible between door and hatch.

“No, my lord, - nothing.” The loud, confident voice had become taut, intent and quiet. “I know the man. Why should he want to steal fleeces? He is very well settled as he is - he was... dead?”

“Drowned, Gunnar. Yes.”

“Sweet Christ have his soul!” said Gunnar, slowly and quietly, to himself rather than to them. “I knew him. I’ve diced with him. God knows neither I nor any that I know of bore Bertred any ill will, or ever wished him harm.”

There was another silence. It was as if Gunnar had left them, and was withdrawn into another place. The ice-blue eyes looked opaque, as if he had drawn a shutter down over them, or turned their gaze within rather than without. In a few moments he stirred, and asked levelly: “Have you done here, my lord? May I close these again?”

“You may,” said Hugh as shortly. “I have done.”

On the way back into the town through the castle gate they were both silent and thoughtful, until Hugh said suddenly: “If ever she was there in that dusty hole, someone has done excellent work wiping out every trace.”

“Bertred thought she was,” said Cadfael. “Though Bertred may have been wrong. Surely he was there to try and set her free, but he may have been guessing, and guessing wrongly. He knew of the room, and knew it was not common knowledge and therefore, with care, might be used for such a purpose. And he knew that young Hynde made a very possible abductor, being vain, persistent and in urgent need of money to maintain his easy life. But was it more than a guess? Did he really discover something that made it a certainty?”

“The very dust!” said Hugh. “No mark of any foot but Gunnar’s, or none that I could see. And the young fellow, the son, this Vivian - he did ride off this morning, out of the town, that I knew already, Will reported it to me. So there’s no one there but the mother now. And would she be lying? Hardly likely he’d tell her if he had a woman hidden away. If he’s taken the girl elsewhere after the night alarm, it would hardly be to his mother. But I’ll pay the house another visit, all the same. I fancy Bertred must have been trying his luck - but that the poor wretch had no luck! No luck with the roses, no luck with the rescue. No luck in any of his schemes.”

Another long silence, while they climbed the gradual slope within the gate, and approached the ramp to the castle entrance. “And he did not know!” said Hugh. “He really did not know!”

“He? And know what?”

“This man Gunnar. I had my doubts about him until then. So confident and assured, light as air, until mention was made of a man’s death. That I am sure came new to him. There was no pretence there. What say you, Cadfael?”

“I say there is a man who could lie and lie, whenever the occasion needed it. But who was not lying then. His very voice changed, no less than his face. No, he did not know. He was shaken to the heart. Whatever mischief he might have a part in, he had not contemplated a death. Let alone Bertred’s death!” They had reached the ramp and halted. “I must get back,” said Cadfael, looking up into a sky just veiled and softened with the approach of twilight. “What more can we do tonight? And what will you do tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” said Hugh with deliberation, “I’ll have Vivian Hynde brought to me as soon as he shows his face in the town gate, and see what’s to be got out of him concerning his father’s old counting-house. From all I’ve heard of him, he should be easier to frighten than his man shows any sign of being. And even if he’s a snow-white innocent, from all accounts a fright will do him no harm.”

“And will you make it public,” Cadfael asked,”that at least Brother Eluric’s murderer is known? And is dead?”

“No, not yet. Perhaps not at all, but at least let the poor woman have what peace she can find until her son’s buried. What point in blazoning forth guilt where there can never be a trial?” Hugh was looking back with a frown, and somewhat regretting that Miles had been present to witness that manifestation in the loom-shed. “If I know the sharp ears and long tongues of Shrewsbury it may yet be common talk by morning without any word from me. Perhaps not, perhaps Coliar will hold his tongue for the mother’s sake. But at any rate they shall have no official declaration to grit their teeth in until we find Judith Perle. As we will, as we must. Let them gossip and speculate. Someone may take fright and make the blunder I’m waiting for.”

“The lord abbot will have to know all that I know,” said Cadfael.

“So he will, but he’s another matter. He has the right and you have the duty. So you’d best be about getting back to him,” said Hugh, sighing, “and I’d best go in and see if any of those men of mine who’ve been out raking the countryside has done any better than I have.”

Upon which impeccably conscientious but none too hopeful note they parted.

Cadfael arrived back at the gatehouse too late for Vespers. The brothers were in the choir, and the office almost over. A great deal had happened in one short afternoon.

“There’s one here been waiting for you,” said the porter, looking out from his lodge as Cadfael stepped through the wicket. “Master Niall the bronzesmith. Come in to him here, we’ve been passing the time of evening together, but he wants to be on his way as soon as may be.”

Niall had heard enough to know who came, and emerged from the gatehouse with a coarse linen bag under his arm. It needed but one glance at Cadfael’s face to show that there was nothing to tell, but he asked, all the same. “No word of her?”

“None that’s new. No, sorry I am to say it. I’m just back from the sheriff himself, but without comfort.”

“I waited,” said Niall, “in case you might bring at least some news. The least trace would be welcome. And I can do nothing! Well, I must be on my way, then.”

“Where are you bound tonight?”

“To my sister and her man at Pulley, to see my little girl. I have a set of harness ornaments to deliver for one of Mortimer’s horses, though that could have waited a few days yet. But the child will be looking for me. This is the evening I usually go to her, else I wouldn’t stir. But I shall not stay overnight. I’ll walk back in the dark. At least to be there with the roses, if I can do nothing better for her.”

“You’ve done more than the rest of us,” said Cadfael ruefully, “for you’ve kept the bush alive. And she’ll be back yet to take the pick of its flowers from your hand, the day after tomorrow.”

“Should I read that as a promise?” asked Niall, with a wry and grudging smile.

“No, as a prayer. The best I can do. With three miles or more to walk to Pulley, and three miles back,” said Cadfael, “you’ll have time for a whole litany. And bear in mind whose festival it will be in two days’ time! Saint Winifred will be listening. Who more likely? She herself stood off an unwanted suitor and kept her virtue, she’ll not forsake a sister.”

“Well, I’d best be off. God with you, Brother.” Niall shouldered his bag of ornamental bronze rosettes and harness buckles for Mortimer’s horse, and strode away along the Foregate, towards the track that led south-west from the bridge, a square, erect figure thrusting briskly into the pearly evening air cooling towards twilight. Cadfael stood looking after him until he turned the corner beyond the mill-pond and vanished from sight.

Not a man for grand gestures or many words, Niall Bronzesmith, but Cadfael was bitterly and painfully aware of the gnawing frustration that eats away at the heart from within, when there is nothing to be done about the one thing in the world of any importance.