St. Peter's Fair by Ellis Peters Page A

church here, and the brothers
will make him decent for burial. I think he might well wish, could he tell you
so now, that you should leave all to us. His care for you would reach so far,
and your obedience could not well deny him.”
    Cadfael
had seen the dead man, and felt strongly that she should not have the same
experience. Nor was it for her sakeentirely that he willed so.
The man she had respected and admired in his monumental dignity, living, had
the right to be preserved for her no less decorously in death.
    He
had found the one argument that could deflect her absolute determination to
take charge of all, and escape nothing. She thought about it seriously as they
passed out at the gatehouse side by side, and he knew by her face the moment
when she accepted it.
    “But
he did believe that I ought to take my full part, even in his business. He
wished me to travel with him, and learn the trade as he knew it. This is the
third such journey I have made with him.” That reminded her that it must also
be the last. “At least,” she said hesitantly, “I may give money to have Masses
said for him, here where he died? He was a very devout man, I think he would
like that.”
    Well,
her reserves of money might now be far longer than her reserves of peace of
mind were likely to be; she could afford to buy herself a little consolation,
and prayers are never wasted.
    “That
you may surely do.”
    “He
died unshriven,” she said, with sudden angry grief against the murderer who had
deprived him of confession and absolution.
    “Through
no fault of his own. So do many. So have saints, martyred without warning. God
knows the record without needing word or gesture. It’s for the soul facing
death that the want of shriving is pain. The soul gone beyond knows that pain
for needless vanity. Penitence is in the heart, not in the words spoken.”
    They
were out on the highroad then, turning left towards the reflected sparkle that
was the river between its green, lush banks, and the stone bridge over it, that
led through the drawbridge turret to the town gate. Emma had raised her head,
and was looking at Brother Cadfael along her shoulder, with faint colour
tinting her creamy cheeks, and a sparkle like a shimmer of light from the river
in her eyes. He had not seen her smile until this moment, and even now it was a
very wan smile, but none the less beautiful.
    “He
was a good man, you know, Brother Cadfael,” she said earnestly. “He was not easy
upon fools, or bad workmen, or people who cheated, but he was a good man, good
to me!And he kept his bargains, and he was loyal to his lord…”
She had taken fire, for all the softness of her voice and the simplicity of her
plea for him; it was almost as though she had been about to say “loyal to his
lord to the death!” She had that high, heroic look about her, to be taken very
seriously, even on that child’s face.
    “All
which,” said Cadfael cheerfully, “God knows, and needs not to be told. And
never forget you’ve a life to live, and he’d want you to do him justice by
doing yourself justice.”
    “Oh,
yes!” said Emma, glowing, and for the first time laid her hand confidingly on
his sleeve. “That’s what I want! That’s what I have most in mind!”

 
     
     
    Chapter Two
     
    AT
MARTIN BELLECOTE’S SHOP, off the curve of the rising street called the Wyle,
which led to the centre of the town, she knew exactly what she wanted for her
dead, and ordered it clearly; more, she knew how to value a matching clarity
and forthrightness in the master-carpenter, and yet had time to be pleasantly
distracted by the invasion of his younger children, who liked the look of her
and came boldly to chatter and stare. As for the delinquent Edwy, sent home
overnight after his tongue-lashing from Hugh Beringar, the youngster worked
demurely with a plane in a corner of the shop, and was not too subdued to cast
inquisitive glances of