“According to his journeyman and his watchman, he left his booth on the horse-fair, intending to return to his barge, more than an hour past the Compline bell. That is the last word we have. His man Roger Dod is here to testify that the hour was rather more than a quarter past nine of the evening and the watchman bears that out.”
“Late enough,” said the sheriff, pondering. “The fighting was over by then, and Foregate and fairground quiet. Hugh, prick me off here all those who were then already in custody. Whatever their guilt for damages to goods and gear, they cannot have had any hand in this murder.”
Hugh leaned to his shoulder, and ran a rapid hand down the roster. “It was a sharp encounter, but short. We had it in hand very quickly, they never reached the end of the Foregate. This man was picked up last, it might be as late as ten, but in an alehouse and very drunk, and the ale-wife vouches for his having been there above an hour. A respectable witness, she was glad to get rid of him.
But he’s clear of the killing. This one crept back to the bridge a little later, and owned to having been one among the rabble, but we let him home, for he’s very lame, and there are witnesses to all his moves since before nine. He’s here to answer for his part in the muster, as he promised. I think you may safely write him clear of any other blame.”
“It leaves but one,” said Prestcote, and looked up sharply into Beringar’s face.
“It does,” said Hugh, and committed himself to nothing further.
“Very well! Have in all the rest, but keep him aside. Let us hold these two matters apart, and deal with the lesser first.”
Into the space roped off along one side the hall, the sheriff’s officers herded their prisoners, a long file of sullenly sheepish young men, bruised, dishevelled and sorry for themselves now, but still nursing the embers of a genuine resentment. There were some torn coats among them, and a purple eye or two, and the lingering signs of bloody noses and battered crowns, and a night on the stones of indifferently swept cells had done their best clothes, donned for dignified battle as knights case themselves in ceremonial armour, no good at all. There would be indignant mothers scolding bitterly as they scrubbed and mended, or here and there a young wife doing the nagging on behalf of all women.
The offenders stood in line doggedly, set their jaws, and braced themselves to endure whatever might follow.
Prestcote was thorough. Plainly he was preoccupied with the more serious evil, and little disposed to fulminate overmuch about this civic discord, which in the end had done comparatively little harm. So though he called every culprit separately, and had him answer for his own part in the affray, he got through them rapidly and reasonably. Most of them freely owned that they had taken part, maintained that the intention had been entirely lawful and peaceable, and the disintegration later had been unintentional and none of their making. Several bore witness that they had been with Philip Corviser on the jetty, and told how he had been assaulted, thus letting loose the riot that followed. Only one here and there sought to prove that he had never so much as overset one trestle under a stall, nor even been on the abbey side of Severn that evening. And those few were already committed deep on the evidence of law-abiding citizens.
Agitated fathers, vengeful rather than doting, came forward to claim each dejected hero, pledged attendance at the assize, and offered surety for the pledge. The lame lad was lectured perfunctorily, and dismissed without penalty.
Two who had been particularly voluble in asserting that they were elsewhere at the time, and unjustly accused, were returned to their prison for a day or two, to reconsider the nature of truth.
“Very well!” said Prestcote, dusting his hands irritably. “Clear the hall, but for those who have evidence to give concerning Master Thomas of Bristol. And bring in Philip Corviser.”
The line of young men had vanished, hustled out and shepherded away by loyal but exasperated families. At home they would have to sit and nurse sore heads and sore hearts while fathers hectored and dames wept, pouring out on them all the fear and worry they had suffered on their behalf. Emma looked after the last of them with round, sympathetic eyes, as he was haled away by the ear by a diminutive mother half his size, and shrill as a jay. Poor lad, he needed no other punishment, he was drowning in mortification already.
She turned about, and there where his fellows had been, but monstrously alone in the middle of that stony wall, was Philip Corviser.
He gripped the rope with both hands, and stood rigidly erect, neck as stiff as a lance, though for the rest he looked as if his flesh might melt and drop off the bone, he was so haggard. His extreme pallor, which Cadfael knew for what raw wine can do to the beginner, the day after his indulgence, Emma almost certainly took for the fruit of dire injury and great anguish of mind. She paled in reflection, staring piteously, though he was nothing to her, except that she had seen him struck down, and been afraid he might not rise again.
For all his efforts, he was a sorry figure. His best cotte was torn and soiled, and worse, speckled with drops of blood under his left ear, and vomit about the skirts. He mustered his gangling limbs gallantly but somewhat uncertainly, and his harmless, sunburned face, unshaven now and ashen under its tan, blushed to an unbecoming and unexpected purple when he caught sight of his father, waiting with laboured patience among the onlookers. He did not look that way again, but kept his bruised brown eyes fixed upon the sheriff.
He answered to his name in a voice too loud, from nervous defiance, and agreed to the time and place of his arrest. Yes, he had been very drunk, and hazy about his movements, and even about the circumstances of his arrest, but yes, he would try to answer truthfully to what was charged against him.
There were several witnesses to testify that Philip had been the originator and leader of the whole enterprise which had ended so ignominiously. He had been in the forefront when the angry young men crossed the bridge, he had given the signal that sent some of the party ahead along the Foregate, while he led a handful down to the riverside, and entered into loud argument with the merchants unloading goods there. Thus far all accounts tallied, but from then on they varied widely. Some had the youths beginning at once to toss merchandise into the river, and were certain that Philip had been in the thick of the battle. One or two of the aggrieved merchants alleged with righteous indignation that he had assaulted Master Thomas, and so began the whole turmoil. Since they would all have their say, Hugh Beringar had held back his preferred witnesses until last.
“My lord, as to the scene by the river, we have here the niece of Master Thomas, and two men who intervened, and afterwards helped to rescue much of what had been cast into the river: Ivo Corbière of Stanton Cobbold, and Brother Cadfael of the abbey, who was assisting a Welsh-speaking trader. There were no others so close to the affair. Will you hear Mistress Vernold?”
Philip had not realised until that moment that she was present. The mention of her caused him to look round wildly, and the sight of her stepping shyly forward to stand before the sheriff’s table brought out a deep and painful blush, that welled out of the young man’s torn collar and mounted in a great wave to his red-brown hair. He averted his eyes from her, wishing, thought Cadfael, for the floor to open and swallow him up. It would not have mattered so much looking a piteous object to others, but before her he was furious and ashamed. Not even the thought of his father’s mortification could have sunk his spirits so low.
Emma, after one rapid glance, sympathetic enough, had also turned her eyes away.