Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many

it. Is the monk indeed present? And does he confirm the finding of this broken ornament at the place where this killing befell? And that it came from that very dagger?'
    'I brought Brother Cadfael here with me tonight,' said the abbot, and looked about for him helplessly.
    'I am here, Father Abbot,' said Cadfael from below the dais, and advanced to be seen, his arms about the shoulders of the boy, now totally fascinated, all eyes and ears.
    'Do you bear out what Beringar says?' demanded King Stephen. 'You found this stone where the man was slain?'
    'Yes, your Grace. Trampled into the earth, where plainly there had been a struggle, and two bodies rolling upon the ground.'
    'And whose word have we that it comes from a dagger once belonging to Mistress Siward's brother? Though I grant you it should be easy enough to recognise, once known.'
    'The word of Lady Aline herself. It has been shown to her, and she has recognised it.'
    'That is fair witness enough,' said the king, 'that whoever is the thief may well be the murderer, also. But why it should follow that either you or Beringar here suppose him to be Adam, that for my life I cannot see. There's never a thread to join him to the dagger or the deed. You might as well cast round here among us, and pick on Bishop Robert of Salisbury, or any one of the squires down below there. Or prick your knife-point into a list of us with eyes closed. Where is the logic?'
    'I am glad,' said Courcelle, darkly red and forcing a strained laughter, 'that your Grace puts so firm a finger on the crux of the matter. With goodwill I can go along with this good brother to condemn a mean theft and a furtive killing, but, Beringar, beware how you connect me with either, or any other honest man. Follow your thread from this stone, by all means, if thread there is, but until you can trace this dagger into my hands, be careful how you toss challenges to mortal combat about you, young man, for they may be taken up, to your great consternation.'
    'My gage is now lying upon the table,' said Hugh Beringar with implacable calm. 'You have only to take it up. I have not withdrawn it.'
    'My lord king,' said Cadfael, raising his voice to ride over the partisan whisperings and murmurings that were running like conflicting winds about the high table, 'it is not the case that there is no witness to connect the dagger with any person. And for proof positive that stone and dagger belong together, here is the very weapon itself. I ask your Grace to match the two with your own hands.'
    He held up the dagger, and Beringar at the edge of the dais took it from him, staring like a man in a dream, and handed it in awed silence to the king. The boy's eyes followed it with possessive anxiety, Courcelle's with stricken and unbelieving horror, as if a drowned victim had risen to haunt him. Stephen looked at the thing with an eye appreciative of its workmanship, slid out the blade with rising curiosity, and fitted the topaz in its silver claw to the jagged edge of the hilt.
    'No doubt but this belongs. You have all seen?' And he looked down at Cadfael. 'Where, then, did you come by this?'
    'Speak up, child,' said Cadfael encouragingly, 'and tell the king what you told to me.'
    The boy was rosy and shining with an excitement that had quite overridden his fear. He stood up and told his tale in a voice shrill with self-importance, but still in the simple words he had used to Cadfael, and there was no man there who could doubt he was telling the truth.
    '... and I was by the bushes at the edge of the water, and he did not see me. But I saw him clearly. And as soon as he went away I dived in where it had fallen, and found it. I live by the river, I was born by it. My mother says I swam before I walked. I kept the knife, thinking no wrong, since he did not want it. And that is the very knife, my lord, and may I have it back when you are done?'
    The king was diverted for a moment from the gravity of the cause that now lay in his hands, to smile at the flushed and eager child with all the good-humour and charm his nature was meant to dispense, if he had not made an ambitious and hotly contested bid for a throne, and learned the rough ways that go with such contests.
    'So our fish tonight was gutted with a jewelled knife, was it, boy? Princely indeed! And it was good fish, too. Did you catch it, as well as dress it?'
    Bashfully the boy said that he had helped.
    'Well, you have done your part very fitly. And now, did you know this