The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters

Author:Ellis Peters [Peters, Ellis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781784080631
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2014-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

10

“Come with me,” said Hugh, setting off briskly up the hill towards the high cross, and turning his back with some relief on the troubled household at the clothiers’ shop. “Since you have honest leave to be out, you may as well join me on the errand you delayed for me a while ago. I was all but out of the town gate when your messenger came and Will came running after me to say I was wanted at the Vestiers’. I sent him on ahead with a couple of men, he’s down there and at it by now, but I’d as lief see to it for myself.”

“Where are we going?” asked Cadfael, falling in willingly beside his friend up the steep street.

“To talk to Fuller’s watchman. That’s the one place outside the town walls where there’d be a waking witness even in the night, and a watchdog to alert him if anyone came prowling close by. If the fellow did by any chance go into the water this side the river, works and warehouse are only a little way upstream from where you found him. Fuller’s man has both places in charge. He may have heard something. And as we go, tell me what you make of all that—Bertred’s night affairs, and the fortune he was going to make.”

“By reason of knowing something no one else knew—hmm! For that matter, I noticed he stayed behind when your men left the jetty yesterday afternoon. He let you all go on well before, and then slipped back alone into the trees. And he came late for his supper, told his mother she should be a gentlewoman in the house instead of a cook, and went off again in the night to set about making his word good. And according to Miles he not only fancied his mistress, but had the assurance to feel there was no reason he should not bring her to fancy him.”

“And how persuade her?” asked Hugh, wryly smiling. “By abduction and force? Or by a gallant rescue?”

“Or both,” said Cadfael.

“Now truly you interest me! Those who hide can find! If by any chance the lady is where he put her, but doesn’t know who put her there—for a Bertred can as easily find rogues to do his work for him as any wealthier man, it is but a matter of degrees of greed!—then who could better come to her rescue? Even if gratitude did not go so far as to make her marry him, he certainly would not be the loser.”

“It offers one way of accounting,” Cadfael acknowledged. “And in its favour, the maid Branwen blabbed out what her mistress intended in the kitchen, so we are told. And Bertred ate in the kitchen, and was probably there to hear it. The kitchen knew of it, the hall knew nothing until next day, after she was lost. But there are other possibilities. That someone else took her, and Bertred had found out where she was. And said no word to you or your men, but kept the rescue for himself.

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