Not even the sheriff, Gilbert Prestcote, was going to bear down too hard on those well-meaning but ill-advised young men of Shrewsbury.
“Gentlemen,” said Thomas of Bristol, eased and expansive, “I cannot thank you enough for such generous help. No, the casks will have taken no hurt. Those who buy my wines should and do store them properly a good while before tapping, their condition will not be impaired. The sugar confections, thanks be, were not yet unloaded. No, I have suffered no real hurt. And my child here is much in your debt. Come, my dear, don’t hide there within, make your respects to such good friends! Let me present my niece Emma, my sister’s daughter, Emma Vernold, heiress to her father, who was a master-mason in our city, and also to me, for I have no other kin. Emma, my dear, you may pour the wine!”
The girl had made good use of the interval. She came forth now with her braids of hair coiled in a gilded net on her neck, and a fine tunic of embroidered linen over her plain gown. Not, thought Cadfael, for my benefit! It was high time for him to take his leave and return to his proper duties. He had missed Compline in favour of retrieving goods from the waters, and he would have to put in an hour or so in his workshop yet before he could seek his bed. No one would be early to bed on this night, however. Thomas of Bristol was not the man to leave the supervision of his booth and the disposition of his goods to others, however trustworthy his three servants might be; he would soon be off to the horse-fair to see everything safely stowed to his own satisfaction, ready for the morrow. And if he thought fit to leave those two handsome young people together here until his return, that was his affair. Mention of the manor of Stanton Cobbold, and as the least part of Corbière’s honour, at that, had made its impression. There had been no real need for that careful mention of Mistress Emma’s prospective wealth; but dutiful uncles and guardians must be ever on the alert for good matches for their girls, and this young man was already taken with her face before ever he heard of her fortune. Small wonder, she was a beautiful child by any standards.
Brother Cadfael excused himself from lingering, wished the company goodnight, and walked back at leisure to the gatehouse. The Foregate stretched busy and populous, but at peace. Order had been restored, and Saint Peter’s Fair could open on the morrow without further disruption.
CHAPTER 4
Hugh Beringar came back from a final patrol along the Foregate well past ten o’clock, an hour when all dutiful brothers should have been fast asleep in the dortoir. He was by no means surprised to find that Cadfael was not. They met in the great court, as Cadfael came back from closing his workshop in the herb-garden. It was still a clear twilight, and the west had a brilliant afterglow.
“I hear you’ve been in the thick of it,” said Hugh, stretching and yawning. “Did ever I know you when you were not? Mad young fools, what did they hope to do, that their elders could not! And then to run wild as they did, and ruin their case even with those who had sympathy for them! Now their sires will have fines to pay, and the town lose more for the night’s work than ever it stood to gain.
Cadfael, I take no joy in heaving decent, silly lads into prison, I have a foul taste in my mouth from it. Come into the gatehouse for a while, and share a cup with me. You may as well stay awake until Matins now.”
“Aline will be waiting for you,” objected Cadfael.
“Aline, bless her good sense, will be fast asleep, for I’m bound to the castle yet to report on this disturbance. I doubt I shall be there over the night. Come and tell me how all this went wrong, for they tell me it began down at the jetty, where you were.”
Cadfael went with him willingly. They sat together in the anteroom of the gatehouse, and the porter, used to such nocturnal activities when the deputy sheriff of the shire was lodged within, brought them wine, made tolerant enquiry of progress, and left them to their colloquy.
“How many have you taken up?” asked Cadfael, when he had given an account of what had happened by the river.
“Seventeen. And it should have been eighteen,” owned Hugh grimly, “if I had not hauled Bellecote’s boy Edwy aside without witnesses, put the fear of God into him, and sent him home with a flea in his ear. Not sixteen yet! But sharp enough to know very well what he was about, the imp! I should not have done it.”
“His father was one of yesterday’s delegates,” said Cadfael, “and he’s a loyal child, as well as a bold one. I’m glad you let him away home. And young Corviser?”
“No, we’ve not laid hand on him, though a dozen witnesses say he was the ringleader, and captained the whole enterprise. But he has to go home some time, and he’ll not get in at the gate a free man. Not a hope of it!”
“He came lecturing like a doctor,” said Cadfael seriously, “and never a threatening move. It was when he was struck down that the wild lads took the bit between their teeth and laid about them. I saw it! The man who struck him lashed out in alarm, I grant you, but without cause.”
“I take your word for that, and I’ll stand by it. But he led the attack, and he’ll end with the rest, as he should, seeing he loosed this on us all. They’ll be bailed by their fathers, the lot of them,” said Hugh wearily, and passed long fingers over tired eyelids. “Do I seem to you, Cadfael, to be turning horribly into a crown official? That I should not like!”
“No,” said Cadfael judicially, “you’re not too far gone. Still a glint in the eye and a quirk in the mind. You’ll do yet!”
“Gracious in you! And you say this Bristol merchant struck the silly wretch down without provocation?”
“He imagined provocation. The boy laid a detaining hand on his arm from behind, meaning no ill, but the man took fright. He had a staff in his hand, he turned on him and hit out. Felled him like an ox! I doubt if he had the strength to knock the trestle from under a stall, after that. For all I know, he may be fallen out of his senses, somewhere, unless his friends have kept their hands on him.”
Hugh looked at him across the trestle on which their own elbows were spread, and smiled. “If ever I want for an advocate, I’ll come running to you. Well, I do know the lad, he has a well-hung tongue, and lets it wag far too freely, and he has a hot temper and a warm heart, and lets the pair of them run away with his own sense - if you claim he has any!”
The lay porter put his bald brown crown and round red face into the room. “My lord, there’s a lady here at the gate has a trouble on her mind, and asks a word. One Mistress Emma Vernold, niece to the merchant Thomas of Bristol. Will you have her come in?”
They looked at each other across the board with raised brows and startled eyes.
“The same man?” said Beringar, marvelling.
“The same man, surely! And the same girl! But the uproar was all over. What can she be wanting here at this hour, and what’s her uncle about, letting her venture loose into the night?”