Cadfael had persuaded every man of the guard to view his unknown, but none of them could identify him. Courcelle had frowned down at the body long and sombrely, and shaken his head.
“I never saw him before, to my knowledge. What can there possibly have been about a mere young squire like this, to make someone hate him enough to kill?”
“There can be murders without hate,” said Cadfael grimly. “Footpads and forest robbers take their victims as they come, without any feeling of liking or disliking.”
“Why, what can such a youth have had to make him worth killing for gain?”
“Friend,” said Cadfael, “there are those in the world would kill for the few coins a beggar has begged during the day. When they see kings cut down more than ninety in one sweep, whose fault was only to be in arms on the other side, is it much wonder rogues take that for justification? Or at least for licence!” He saw the colour burn high in Courcelle’s face, and a momentary spark of anger in his eye, but the young man made no protest. “Oh, I know you had your orders, and no choice but to obey them. I have been a soldier in my time, and borne the same discipline and done things I would be glad now to think I had not done. That’s one reason I’ve accepted, in the end, another discipline.”
“I doubt,” said Courcelle drily, “if I shall ever come to that.”
“So would I have doubted it, then. But here I am, and would not change again to your calling. Well, we do the best we can with our lives!” And the worst, he thought, viewing the long lines of motionless forms laid out along the ward, with other men’s lives, if we have power.
There were some gaps in the silent ranks by then. Some dozen or so had been claimed by parents and wives. Soon there would be piteous little hand-carts pushed up the slope to the gate, and brothers and neighbours lifting limp bodies to carry them away. More of the townspeople were still coming timidly in through the archway, women with shawls drawn close over their heads and faces half-hidden, gaunt old men trudging resignedly to look for their sons. No wonder Courcelle, whose duties could hardly have encompassed this sort of guard before, looked almost as unhappy as the mourners.
He was frowning down at the ground in morose thought when Aline came into view in the archway, her hand drawn protectively through Hugh Beringar’s arm. Her face was white and taut, her eyes very wide and her lips stiffly set, and her fingers clutched at her escort’s sleeve as drowning men clutch at floating twigs, but she kept her head up and her step steady and firm. Beringar matched his pace attentively to hers, made no effort to divert her eyes from the sorry spectacle in the ward, and cast only few and brief, but very intent, side-glances at her pale countenance. It would certainly have been a tactical error, Cadfael thought critically, to attempt the kind of protective ardour that claims possession; young and ingenuous and tender as she might be, this was a proud patrician girl of old blood, not to be trifled with if once that blood was up. If she had come here on her own family business, like these poor, prowling citizens, she would not thank any man to try and take it out of her hands. She might, none the less, be deeply thankful for his considerate and reticent presence.
Courcelle looked up, almost as though he had felt a breath of unease moving before them, and saw the pair emerge into the sunlight in the ward, cruel afternoon sunlight that spared no detail. His head jerked up and caught the light, his bright hair burning up like a furze fire. “Christ God!” he said in a hissing undertone, and went plunging to intercept them on the threshold.
“Aline! — Madam, should you be here? This is no place for you, so desolate a spectacle. I marvel,” he said furiously to Beringar, “that you should bring her here, to face a scene so harrowing.”
“He did not bring me,” said Aline quickly. “It was I insisted on coming. Since he could not prevent me, he has been kind enough to come with me.”
“Then, dear lady, you were foolish to impose such a penance on yourself,” said Courcelle fiercely. “Why, how can you have business here? Surely there’s none here belonging to you.”
“I pray you may be right,” she said. Her eyes, huge in the white face, ranged in fearful fascination over the shrouded ranks at her feet, and visibly the first horror and revulsion changed gradually into appalled human pity. “But I must know! Like all these others! I have only one way of being certain, and it’s no worse for me than for them. You know I have a brother — you were there when I told the king
“But he cannot be here. You said he was fled to Normandy.”
“I said it was rumoured so — but how can I be sure? He may have won to France, he may have joined some company of the empress’s men nearer home, how can I tell? I must see for myself whether he chose Shrewsbury or not.”
“But surely the garrison here were known. Your name is very unlikely to have been among them.”
“The sheriff’s proclamation,” said Beringar mildly, speaking up for the first time in this encounter, “mentioned that there was one here, at least, Who was not known. One more, apparently, than the expected tally.”
“You must let me see for myself,” said Aline, gently and firmly, “or how can I have any peace?”
Courcelle had no right to prevent, however it grieved and enraged him. And at least this particular corpse was close at hand, and could bring her nothing but reassurance. “He lies here,” he said, and turned her towards the corner where Brother Cadfael stood. She gazed, and was surprised into the faint brightness of a smile, a genuine smile though it faded soon.
“I think I should know you. I’ve seen you about the abbey, you are Brother Cadfael, the herbalist.”
“That is my name,” said. Cadfael. “Though why you should have learned it I hardly know.”
“I was asking the porter about you,” she owned, flushing. “I saw you at Vespers and Compline, and — Forgive me, brother, if I have trespassed, but you had such an air — as though you had lived adventures before you came to the cloister. He told me you were in the Crusade — with Godfrey of Bouillon at the siege of Jerusalem! I have only dreamed of such service … Oh!” She had lowered her eyes from his face, half abashed by her own ardour, and seen the young, dead face exposed at his feet. She gazed and gazed, in controlled silence. The face was not offensive, rather its congestion had subsided; the unknown lay youthful and almost comely,
“This a most Christian service you are doing now,” said Aline, low-voiced, “for all these here. This is the unexpected one? The one more than was counted?”
“This is he.” Cadfael stooped and drew down the linen to show the good but simple clothing, the absence of anything warlike about the young man. “But for the dagger, which every man wears when he travels, he was unarmed.”
She looked up sharply. Over her shoulder Beringar was gazing down with frowning concentration at the rounded face that must have been cheerful and merry in life. “Are you saying,” asked Aline, “that he was not in the fight here? Not captured with the garrison?”
“So it seems to me. You don’t know him?”
“No.” She looked down with pure, impersonal compassion. “So young! It’s great pity! I wish I could tell you his name, but I never saw him before.”
“Master Beringar?”
“No. A stranger to me.” Beringar was still staring down very sombrely at the dead. They were almost of an age, surely no more than a year between them. Every man burying his twin sees his own burial.
Courcelle, hovering solicitously, laid a hand on the girl’s arm, and said persuasively: “Come now, you’ve done your errand, you should quit this sad place at once, it is not for you. You see your fears were groundless, your brother is not here.”
“No,” said Aline, “this is not he, but for all that he may — How can I be sure unless I see them all?” She put off the urging touch, but very gently. “I’ve ventured this far, and how is it worse for me than for any of these others?” She looked round appealingly. “Brother Cadfael, this is your charge now. You know I must ease my mind. Will you come with me?”