Ellis Peters - An Excellent Mystery

An Excellent Mystery

Ellis Peters

The Eleventh Chronicle of Brother Cadfael

EBook Design Group [EDG] digital edition

v2 HTML January 14,2003

First published in 1985 by Macmillan LondonLimited, Great Britain.

CONTENTS

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Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

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August came in, that summer of 1141, tawny as alion and somnolent and purring as a hearthside cat. After theplenteous rains of the spring the weather had settled into angeliccalm and sunlight for the feast of Saint Winifred, and preservedthe same benign countenance throughout the corn harvest. Lammascame for once strict to its day, the wheat-fields were alreadygleaned and white, ready for the flocks and herds that would beturned into them to make use of what aftermath the season brought.The loaf-Mass had been celebrated with great contentment, and theearly plums in the orchard along the riverside were darkening intoripeness. The abbey barns were full, the well-dried straw bound andstacked, and if there was still no rain to bring on fresh greenfodder in the reaped fields for the sheep, there were heavy morningdews. When this golden weather broke at last, it might well breakin violent storms, but as yet the skies remained bleached andclear, the palest imaginable blue.

Fat smiles on the faces of the husbandmen, saidHugh Beringar, fresh from his own harvest in the north of theshire, and burned nut-brown from his work in the fields, andchaos among the kings. If they had to grow their own corn, milltheir own flour and bake their own bread they might have no timeleft for all the squabbling and killing. Well, thank God forpresent mercies, and God keep the killing well away from us here.Not that I rate it the less ill-fortune for being there in thesouth, but this shire is my field, and my people, mine to keep. Ihave enough to do to mind my own, and when I see them brown androsy and fat, with full byres and barns, and a high wool tally ingood quality fleeces, Im content.

They had met by chance at the corner of the abbey wall, wherethe Foregate turned right towards Saint Giles, and beside it thegreat grassy triangle of the horse-fair ground opened, pallid andpockmarked in the sun. The three-day annual fair of Saint Peter wasmore than a week past, the stalls taken down, the merchantsdeparted. Hugh sat aloft on his raw-boned and cross-grained greyhorse, tall enough to carry a heavyweight instead of this light,lean young man whose mastery he tolerated, though he had preciouslittle love for any other human creature. It was no responsibilityof the sheriff of Shropshire to see that the fairground wasproperly vacated and cleared after its three-day occupation, butfor all that Hugh liked to view the ground for himself. It was hisofficers who had to keep order there, and make sure the abbeystewards were neither cheated of their fees nor robbed or otherwiseabused in collecting them. That was over now for another year. Andhere were the signs of it, the dappling of post-holes, the pallidoblongs of the stalls, the green fringes, and the trampled, baldpaths between the booths. From sun-starved bleach to lush green,and back to the pallor again, with patches of tough, flat cloversurviving in the trodden paths like round green footprints of somestrange beast.

One good shower would put all right, said BrotherCadfael, eyeing the curious chessboard of blanched and bright witha gardeners eye. Theres nothing in the worldso strong as grass.

He was on his way from the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paulto its chapel and hospital of Saint Giles, half a mile away at thevery rim of the town. It was one of his duties to keep the medicinecupboard there well supplied with all the remedies the inmatesmight require, and he made this journey every couple of weeks, moreoften in times of increased habitation and need. On this particularearly morning in August he had with him young Brother Oswin, whohad worked with him among the herbs for more than a year, and wasnow on his way to put his skills into practice among the mostneedy. Oswin was sturdy, well-grown, glowing with enthusiasm. Timehad been when he had cost plenty in breakages, in pots burnedbeyond recovery, and deceptive herbs gathered by mistake for othersonly too like them. Those times were over. All he needed now to bea treasure to the hospital was a cool-headed superior who wouldknow when to curb his zeal. The abbey had the right of appointment,and the lay head they had installed would be more than proofagainst Brother Oswins too exuberant energy.

You had a good fair, after all, said Hugh.

Better than ever I expected, with half the south cut offby the trouble in Winchester. They got here from Flanders,said Cadfael appreciatively. East Anglia was no very peacefulground just now, but the wool merchants were a tough breed, andwould not let a little bloodshed and danger bar them off from agood profit.

It was a fine wool clip. Hugh had flocks of hisown on his manor of Maesbury, in the north, he knew about thequality of the years fleeces. There had been good buying infrom Wales, too, all along this border. Shrewsbury had ties ofblood, sympathy and mutual gain with the Welsh of both Powys andGwynedd, whatever occasional explosions of racial exuberance mightbreak the guarded peace. In this summer the peace with Gwynedd heldfirm, under the capable hand of Owain Gwynedd, since they had ashared interest in containing the ambitions of Earl Ranulf ofChester. Powys was less predictable, but had drawn in its horns oflate after several times blunting them painfully on Hughsprecautions.

And the corn harvest the best for years. As for thefruit It looks well, said Cadfaelcautiously, if we get some good rains soon to swell it, andno thunderstorms before its gathered. Well, the cornsin and the straw stacked, and as good a hay crop as weve hadsince my memory holds. Youll not hear mecomplain.

But for all that, he thought, looking back in mild surprise, ithad been an unchancy sort of year, overturning the fortunes ofkings and empresses not once, but twice, while benignly smilingupon the festivities of the church and the hopeful labours ofordinary men, at least here in the midlands. February had seen KingStephen made prisoner at the disastrous battle of Lincoln, andswept away into close confinement in Bristol castle by hisarch-enemy, cousin and rival claimant to the throne of England, theEmpress Maud. A good many coats had been changed in haste afterthat reversal, not least that of Stephens brother andMauds cousin, Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and papallegate, who had delicately hedged his wager and come round to thewinning side, only to find that he would have done well to drag hisfeet a little longer. For the fool woman, with the table spread forher at Westminster and the crown all but touching her hair, hadseen fit to conduct herself in so arrogant and overbearing a mannertowards the citizens of London that they had risen in fury to driveher out in ignominious flight, and let King Stephens valiantqueen into the city in her place.

Not that this last spin of the wheel could set King Stephenfree. On the contrary, report said it had caused him to be loadedwith chains by way of extra security, he being the one formidableweapon the empress still had in her hand. But it had certainlysnatched the crown from Mauds head, most probably for ever,and it had cost her the not inconsiderable support of Bishop Henry,who was not the man to be over-hasty in his alliances twice in oneyear. Rumour said the lady had sent her half-brother and bestchampion, Earl Robert of Gloucester, to Winchester to set thingsright with the bishop and lure him back to her side, but withoutgetting a straight answer. Rumour said also, and probably on goodgrounds, that Stephens queen had already forestalled her, ata private meeting with Henry at Guildford, and got rather moresympathy from him than the empress had succeeded in getting. Anddoubtless Maud had heard of it. For the latest news, brought bylatecomers from the south to the abbey fair, was that the empresswith a hastily gathered army had marched to Winchester and taken upresidence in the royal castle there. What her next move was to bemust be a matter of anxious speculation to the bishop, even in hisown city.