The Rose Rent (19 page)

Nothing any man could do, except stand back from the heat and watch, as very gradually the first fury began to slacken, and the blackened branches to sag from the wall and collapse into the blazing heart of the fire, sending up drifts of fine grey ash that soared upwards like a flight of moths. Nothing except be thankful that the wall behind was of solid stone, and would not carry the fire towards either human habitation.

“It was dear to her,” said Niall bitterly.

“It was. But at least she has her life still,” said Cadfael, “and has rediscovered its value. And she knows who to thank for the gift, next after God.”

Niall said nothing to that, but continued grimly to watch as the fire, appeased, began to settle into a bed of crimson, and the flying moths of ash to drift about the garden, no longer torn headlong upward by the draught. The neighbours stood back, satisfied that the worst was over, and began gradually to drift away, back to their beds. Niall heaved a great breath, and shook himself out of his daze.

“I had been thinking,” he said slowly, “of bringing my little girl home here today. We were talking of it only the other night, that I should do well to have her with me, now she’s no longer a babe. But now I wonder! With such a madman haunting this house, she’s safer where she is.”

“Yes,” said Cadfael, rousing, “yes, do that, bring her home! You need not fear. After tomorrow, Niall, this madman will haunt you no more. I promise it!”

The day of Saint Winifred’s translation dawned fine and sunny, with a fresh breeze that sprang up only with the light, and drifted the stench of burning across the roofs of the Foregate as inevitably as the first labourer to cross the bridge brought the news of the fire into the town. It reached the Vestier shop as soon as the shutters were taken down and the first customer entered. Miles came bursting into the solar with a face of consternation, like someone charged with bad news and uncertain how to convey it delicately.

“Judith, it seems we’re not done yet with the ill luck that hangs around your rosebush. There’s yet one more strange thing happened, I heard it just this moment. No need for you to trouble too much, no one is dead or hurt this time, it’s not so terribly grave. But I know it will distress you, all the same.”

So long and deprecating a preamble was not calculated to reassure her, in spite of its soothing tone. She rose from the window-bench where she was sitting with Sister Magdalen. “What is it now? What was there left that could happen?”

“There’s been a fire in the night—someone set fire to the rosebush. It’s burned, every leaf, burned down to the bole, so they’re saying. There can’t be a bud or a twig left, let alone a flower to pay your rent.”

“The house?” she demanded, aghast. “Did that take fire? Was there damage? No harm to Niall? Only the bush?”

“No, no, nothing else touched, never fret for the smith, nor for the house, they’re safe enough. They’d have said if anyone had been harmed. Now, be easy, it’s over!” He took her by the shoulders, very gently and brotherly, smiling into her face. “Over now, and no one the worse. Only that plaguey bush gone, and I say just as well, considering all the mischief it’s caused. Such a queer bargain to make, you’re well rid of it.”

“It need never have brought harm to anyone,” she said wretchedly, and slowly sat down again, drawing herself out of his hands quite gently. “The house was mine to give. I had been happy in it. I wanted to give it to God, I wanted it blessed.”

“It’s yours again to give or keep, now,” said Miles, “for you’ll get no rose for your rent this year, my dear. You could take your house back for the default. You could give it as your dowry if you do go so far as to join the Benedictines.” He looked sidelong at Sister Magdalen with his blue, clear eyes, smiling. “Or you could live in it again if you’re so minded—or let Isabel and me live in it when we marry. Whatever you decide, the old bargain’s broken. If I were you, I would be in no hurry to make such another, after all that’s happened in consequence.”

“I don’t take back gifts,” she said, “especially from God.” Miles had left the door of the solar open behind him; she could hear the murmur of the women’s voices from the far end of the long room beyond, suddenly and sharply cut across by other voices at the hall door, a man’s first, courteous and low, then her aunt’s, with the sweet social note in it. There might be a number of neighbourly visits this day, as Bertred went to his burial. At mid-morning he would be carried to Saint Chad’s churchyard. “Let it rest,” said Judith, turning away to the window. “Why should we be talking of this now? If the bush is burned…” That had an ominous biblical ring about it, the burning bush of revelation. But that one, surely, was not consumed.

“Judith, my dear,” said Agatha, appearing in the doorway, “here is the lord sheriff to visit you again, and Brother Cadfael is come with him.”

They came in quietly, with nothing ominous about them, but for the fact that two sergeants of the garrison followed them into the room and stood well withdrawn, one on either side the doorway. Judith had turned to meet the visitors, anticipating news already known.

“My lord, I and my affairs are causing you trouble still. My cousin has already told me what happened in the night. With all my heart I hope this may be the last ripple of this whirlpool. I’m sorry to have put you to such shifts, it shall end here.”

“That is my intent,” said Hugh, making a brief formal reverence to Magdalen, who sat magisterial and composed by the window, an admirably silent woman when the occasion demanded. “My business here this morning is rather with Master Coliar. A very simple question, if you can help us.” He turned to Miles with the most amiable and inviting of countenances, and asked, on a silken, rapid level that gave no warning: “The boots we found on Bertred, when he was taken out of the river—when did you give them to him?”

Miles was quick in the wits, but not quick enough. He had caught his breath momentarily, and before he could release it again his mother had spoken up with her usual ready loquacity, and her pride in every detail that touched her son. “It was the day that poor young man from the abbey was found dead. You remember, Miles, you went down to bring Judith home, as soon as we heard. She’d gone to collect her girdle—”

He had himself in hand by then, but it was never an easy matter to stop Agatha, once launched. “You’re mistaken, Mother,” he said, and even laughed, with the light note of an indulgent son used to tolerating a woolly-witted parent. “It was weeks ago, when I saw his shoes were worn through into holes. I’ve given him my cast-offs before,” he said turning to confront Hugh’s levelled black eyes boldly. “Shoes are costly items.”

“No, my dear,” Agatha pursued with impervious certainty, “I recollect very well; after such a day how could I forget? It was that same evening, you remarked that Bertred was going almost barefoot, and it showed very ill for our house to let him run abroad so ill-shod on our errands…”

She had run on as she always ran on, hardly paying heed to anyone else, but gradually she became aware of the way her son was standing stiff as ice, and his face blanched almost to the burningly cold blue-white of his eyes, that were fixed on her without love, without warmth, with the cold, ferocious burning of death. Her amiable, silly voice faltered away into small, broken sounds, and fell silent. If she had done nothing to help him, she had delivered herself in her blind, self-centred innocence.

“Perhaps, after all,” she faltered, her lips shaking, fumbling for words better calculated to please, and to wipe away that look from his face. “Now I’m not sure—I may be mistaken…”

It was far too late to undo what she had done. Tears started into her eyes, blinding her to the aquamarine glare of hatred Miles had fixed upon her. Judith stirred out of her puzzled, shocked stillness and went quickly to her aunt’s side, folding an arm about her trembling shoulders.

“My lord, is this of so great importance? What does it mean? I understand nothing of all this. Please be plain!” And indeed it had happened so suddenly that she had not followed what was said, nor grasped its significance, but as soon as she had spoken understanding came, sharp as a stab-wound. She paled and stiffened, looking from Miles, frozen in his bitter, useless silence, to Brother Cadfael standing apart, from Cadfael to Sister Magdalen, from Magdalen to Hugh. Her lips moved, saying silently: “No! No! No…” but she did not utter it aloud.

They were in her house, and she had her own authority here. She confronted Hugh, unsmiling but calm. “I think, my lord, there is no need for my aunt to distress herself, this is some matter that can be discussed and settled between us quietly. Aunt, you had much better go and help poor Alison in the kitchen. She has everything on her hands, and this is a most unhappy day for her, you should not leave her to carry all alone. I will tell you, later, all that you need to know,” she promised, and if the words had a chill of foreboding about them, Agatha did not hear it. She went from the room docilely in Judith’s arm, half-reassured, half-daunted, and Judith returned and closed the door at her back.

“Now we may speak freely. I know now, all too well, what this is about. I know that two people may look back on events no more than a week past, and recall them differently. And I know, for Brother Cadfael told me, that the boots Bertred was wearing when he drowned made the print left behind by Brother Eluric’s murderer in the soil under the vine, when he climbed back over the wall. So it matters indeed, it matters bitterly, Miles, who was wearing those boots that night, you or Bertred.”

Miles had begun to sweat profusely, his own body betraying him. On the wax-white, icy forehead great globules of moisture formed and stood, quivering. “I’ve told you, I gave them to Bertred long ago

“Not long enough,” said Brother Cadfael, “for him to stamp his own mark on them. They bear your tread, not his. You’ll remember, very well, the mould I made in wax. You saw it when you came to fetch Mistress Perle home from the bronzesmith’s. You guessed then what it was and what it meant. And that same night, your mother bears witness, you passed on those boots to Bertred. Who had nothing to do with the matter, and who was never likely to be called in question, neither he nor his possessions.”

“No!” cried Miles, shaking his head violently. The heavy drops flew from his forehead. “It was not then! No! Long before! Not that night!”

“Your mother gives you the lie,” said Hugh quite gently. “His mother will do no less. You would do well to make full confession, it would stand to your credit when you come to trial. For come to trial you will, Miles! For the murder of Brother Eluric…”

Miles broke then, crumpling into himself and clutching his head between spread hands, at once to hide it and hold it together. “No!” he protested hoarsely between rigid fingers. “Not murder… no… He came at me like a madman, I never meant him harm, only to get away…”

And it was done, so simply, at so little cost in the end. After that admission he had no defence; whatever else he had to tell would be poured out freely at last, in the hope of mitigation. He had trapped himself into a situation and a character he could not sustain. And all for ambition and greed!

“… perhaps also for the murder of Bertred,” went on Hugh mercilessly, but in the same dispassionate tone.

There was no outcry this time. He had caught his breath in chilling and sobering astonishment, for this he had never foreseen.

“… and thirdly, for the attempt to murder your cousin, in the forest close by Godric’s Ford. Much play has been made, Miles Coliar, and reasonably enough, seeing what happened, with the many suitors who have plagued Mistress Perle, and the motive they had for desiring marriage, and marriage to her whole estate, not the half only. But when it came to murder, there was only one person who had anything to gain by that, and that was you, her nearest kin.”

Judith turned from her cousin lamely, and slowly sat down again beside Sister Magdalen, folding her arms about her body as if she felt the cold, but making no sound at all, neither of revulsion nor fear nor anger. Her face looked pinched and still, the flesh hollowed and taut under her white cheekbones, and the stare of her grey eyes turned within rather than without. And so she sat, silent and apart, while Miles stood helplessly dangling the hands he had lowered from a face now dulled and slack, and repeating over and over, with strenuous effort: “Not murder! Not murder! He came at me like a madman—I never meant to kill. And Bertred drowned; he drowned! It was not my doing. Not murder…” But he said no word of Judith, and kept his face turned away from her to the last, in a kind of horror, until Hugh stirred and shook himself in wondering detestation, and made a motion of his hand towards the two sergeants at the door.

“Take him away!”

Chapter Fourteen

WHEN HE WAS GONE, and the last receding footstep had sunk into silence, she stirred and breathed deeply, and said rather to herself than to any other: “This I never thought to see!” And to the room in general, with reviving force: “Is it true?”

“As to Bertred,” said Cadfael honestly, “I cannot be sure, and we never shall be quite sure unless he tells us himself, as I believe he may. As to Eluric—yes, it is true. You heard your aunt—as soon as he realised what witness he had left behind against himself, he got rid of the boots that left it. Simply to be rid of them, not then, I think, with any notion of sloughing off his guilt upon Bertred. I think he had come to believe that you really would take the veil, and leave the shop and the trade in his hands, and therefore it seemed worth his while to try and break the abbey’s hold on the Foregate house, and have all.”

“He never urged me to take vows,” she said wonderingly, “rather opposed it. But he did somehow touch on it now and then—keeping it in mind.”

“But that night made him a murderer, a thing he never intended. That I am sure is truth. But it was done, and could not be undone, and then there was no turning back. What he would have done if he had heard in time of your resolve to go to the abbot and make your gift absolute, there’s no knowing, but he did not hear of it until too late, and it was someone else who took action to prevent. There was no question but his desperation then was real enough, he was frantic to recover you, fearing you might give way and commit your person and estate to your abductor, and he be left out in the cold, with a new master, and no hope of the power and wealth he had killed to gain.”

“And Bertred?” she asked. “How did Bertred come into it?”

“He joined my men in the hunt for you,” said Hugh, “and by the look of things he had found you, or had a shrewd notion where you were hidden, and said never a word to me or any, but set out by night to free you himself, and have the credit for it. But he took a fall, and roused the dog—you’ll have heard. The next of him was being fished out of the Severn on the other bank, next day. What happened between, and just how he came by his death, is still conjecture. But you’ll recall you heard, or thought you heard, sounds as of someone else abroad in the night, after Bertred was gone. While you were making your plans to ride to Godric’s Ford the next night.”

“And you think that must have been Miles?” She spoke her cousin’s name with a strange, lingering regret. She had never dreamed that the man who was her right hand could strike at her with mortal intent.

“It makes sense of all,” said Cadfael sadly. “Who else had such close opportunity to note some suspect complacency about Bertred, who else could so easily watch and follow him, when he slipped out in the night? And if your cousin then crept close, after Bertred was hunted away, and overheard what you intended, see how all things played into his hands! In the forest, well away from the town, once the other man parted from you, how simple a matter it was to leave you dead and plundered, and the blame would fall first on outlaws, and if ever that was brought in question, on the man who had held you prisoner and brought you there into remote forest, to make sure you should never betray him. I do not think,” said Cadfael with careful consideration, “that the idea of murder had ever occurred to him until then, when chance so presented it that it must have seemed to him the perfect solution. Better than persuading you into a nunnery. For he would have been your heir. Everything would have fallen into his hands. And how if then, with this intent already filling his mind, he came upon Bertred, already half-stunned from one blow, and was visited by yet another fearful inspiration—for Bertred alive could possibly meddle with his plans, but Bertred dead could tell nothing, and Bertred dead would be found to be wearing the boots of Eluric’s murderer. Thus he was provided with a scapegoat even for that.”

“But this is conjecture,” said Judith, wringing at disbelief. “There is nothing, nothing to bear witness to it.”

“Yes,” said Cadfael heavily, “I fear there is. For it so happened that when your cousin came down to the abbey with a cart, to bring home Bertred’s body, he found that those who had stripped off the boy’s sodden clothes had paid no heed to his boots, and neither did I pay any heed, or give a thought to them, when I brought out the bundle of clothing to the cart. Miles had to tilt the cart and spill the boots at my feet for me to pick up, before I looked at them, and knew what I was seeing. He did not intend that that infallible proof should be overlooked.”

“It was not so clever a move,” she said doubtfully, “for Alison would have been able to tell you that her son had the boots from Miles.”

“True, if ever she was asked. But bear in mind, this was a dead murderer discovered—no trial to come, no mystery, no point in asking questions, and none in hounding a dead body, let alone a wretched, bereaved woman. Even if I had had no doubts,” said Hugh, “and somehow a crumb of doubt there always was, I should not have kept his body from peaceable burial, or put her to any more grief than she already bore. Nevertheless, it was a risk, he might have had to brazen it out. But not even the shrewdest schemer can think of everything. And he,” said Hugh, “was new to such roguery.”

“He must have gone in torment,” said Judith, marvelling, “all night long since I escaped him, knowing I should return, not knowing how much I might be able to tell. And then I made it plain enough I had no notion who it was who had struck at me, and he felt himself safe… Strange!” she said, frowning over things now beyond help or remedy. “When he went out, he did not seem to me evil, or malicious, or aware of guilt. Only bewildered! As though he found himself where he had never thought or meant to be, in some place he could not even recognise, and not knowing how he made his way there.”

“In some sort,” said Cadfael soberly, “I think that is truth. He was like a man who has taken the first slippery step into a marsh, and then cannot draw back, and at every step forward sinks the deeper. From the assault on the rosebush to the attempt on your life, he went where he was driven. No wonder if the place where he arrived was utterly alien to him, and the face that waited for him in a mirror there was one he did not even know, a terrible stranger.”

They were all gone, Hugh Beringar back to the castle, to confront and question his prisoner now, while the shock of self-knowledge endured and the cold cunning of self-interest had not yet closed in to reseal a mind and conscience for a while torn open to truth; Sister Magdalen and Brother Cadfael back to the abbey, she to dine with Radulfus, having assured herself affairs in this house were in no need of her presence for a few hours, he back to his duties within the enclave, now that all was done and said that had to be done and said, and silence and time would have to be left to take their course, where clamour and haste were of no help. They were all gone, even the body of poor Bertred, gone to a grave in Saint Chad’s churchyard. The house was emptier than ever, half-depeopled by death and guilt, and the burden that fell back upon Judith’s shoulders was the heavier by two childless widows for whom she must make provision. Must and would. She had promised that she would tell her aunt all that she needed to know, and she had kept her promise. The first wild lamentation was over, the quiet of exhaustion came after. Even the spinning-women had deserted the house for today. The looms were still. There were no voices.

Judith shut herself up alone in the solar, and sat down to contemplate the wreckage, but it seemed rather that what she regarded was an emptiness, ground cleared to make room for something new. There was no one now on whom she could lean, where the clothiers’ trade was concerned, it was again in her own hands, and she must take charge of it. She would need another head weaver, one she could trust, and a clerk to keep the accounts, able to fill the place Miles had held. She had never shirked her responsibilities, but never made a martyrdom out of them, either. She would not do so now.

She had almost forgotten what day this was. There neither would nor could be any rose rent paid, that was certain. The bush was burned to the ground, it would never again bear the little, sweet-scented white roses that brought the years of her marriage back to mind. It did not matter now. She was free and safe and mistress of what she gave and what she retained; she could go to Abbot Radulfus and have a new charter drawn up and witnessed, giving the house and grounds free of all conditions. All the greed and calculation that had surrounded her was surely spent now, but she would put an end to it once for all. What did linger on after the roses was a faint bitter-sweetness of regret for the few short years of happiness, of which the one rose every year had been a reminder and a pledge. Now there would be none, never again.

In mid-afternoon Branwen put her head in timidly at the door to say that there was a visitor waiting in the hall. Indifferently Judith bade her admit him.

Niall came in hesitantly, with a rose in one hand, and a child by the other, and stood for a moment just within the doorway to get his bearings in a room he had never before entered. From the open window a broad band of bright sunlight crossed the room between them, leaving Judith in shadow on one side, and the visitors upon the other. Judith had risen, astonished at his coming, and stood with parted lips and wide eyes, suddenly lighter of heart, as though a fresh breeze from a garden had blown through a dark and gloomy place, filling it with the summer and sanctity of a saint’s festival day. Here without being summoned, without warning, was the one creature about her who had never asked or expected anything, made no demands, sought no advantages, was utterly without greed or vanity, and to him she owed more than merely her life. He had brought her a rose, the last from the old stem, a small miracle.

“Niall…” she said on a slow, hesitant breath, and that was the first time she had ever called him by his name.

“I’ve brought you your rent,” he said simply, and took a few paces towards her and held out the rose, half-open, fresh and white without a stain.

“They told me,” she said, marvelling, “there was nothing left, that all was burned. How is this possible?” And in her turn she went to meet him, almost warily, as though if she touched the rose it might crumble into ash.

Niall detached his hand very gently from the child’s grasp, as she hung back shyly. “I picked it yesterday, for myself when we came home.”

The two extended hands reached out and met in the band of brightness, and the opened petals turned to the rosy sheen of mother-of-pearl. Their fingers touched and clasped on the stem, and it was smooth, stripped of thorns.

“You’ve taken no harm?” she said. “Your wound will heal clean?”

“It’s nothing but a scratch. I dread,” said Niall, “that you have come by worse grief.”

“It’s over now. I shall do well enough.” But she felt that to him she seemed beyond measure solitary and forsaken. They were looking steadily into each other’s eyes, with an intensity that was hard to sustain and harder to break. The little girl took a shy step or two and again hesitated to venture nearer.

“Your daughter?” said Judith.

“Yes.” He turned to hold out his hand to her. “There was no one with whom I could leave her.”

“I’m glad. Why should you leave her behind when you come to me? No one could be more welcome.”

The child came to her father in a sudden rush of confidence, seeing this strange but soft-voiced woman smile at her. Five years old and tall for her age, with a solemn oval face of creamy whiteness with the gloss of the sun on it, she stepped into the bar of brilliance, and lit up like a candle-flame, for the hair that clustered about her temples and hung on her shoulders was a true dark gold, and long gold lashes fringed her dark-blue eyes. She made a brief dip of the knee by way of reverence, without taking those eyes or their bright, consuming curiosity from Judith’s face. And in a moment, having made up her mind, she smiled, and unmistakably held up her face for the acceptable kiss from an accepted elder.

She could as well have put her small hand into Judith’s breast and wrung the heart that had starved so many years for just such fruit. Judith stooped to the embrace with tears starting to her eyes. The child’s mouth was soft and cool and sweet. On the way through the town she had carried the rose, and the scent of it was still about her. She had nothing to say, not yet, she was too busy taking in and appraising the room and the woman. She would be voluble enough later, when both became less strange.

“It was Father Adam gave her her name,” said Niall, looking down at her with a grave smile. “An unusual name—she’s called Rosalba.”

“I envy you!” said Judith, as she had said once before.

A slight constraint had settled upon them again, it was difficult to find anything to say. So few words, and so niggardly, had been spent here throughout. He took his daughter’s hand again, and drew back out of the bar of light towards the door, leaving Judith with the white rose still sunlit on her breast. The other white rose gave a skipping step back, willing to go, but looked back over her shoulder to smile by way of leave-taking.

“Well, chick, we’ll be making for home. We’ve done our errand.”

And they would go, both of them, and there would be no more roses to bring, no more rents to pay on the day of Saint Winifred’s translation. And if they went away thus, there might never again be such a moment, never these three in one room together again.

He had reached the door when she said suddenly: “Niall…”

He turned, abruptly glowing, to see her standing full in the sunlight, her face as white and open as the rose.

“Niall, don’t go!” She had found words at last, the right words, and in time. She said to him what she had said in the dead of night, at the gate of Godric’s Ford:

“Don’t leave me now!”