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that our town goes with broken walls and broken streets, whileabbey and Foregate have escaped all such damage. No, but listen…”
    The
merchant turned a broad, hunched back, with disdainful effect, and stalked away
to pick up the staff he had laid against his piled barrels, and motion his men
to continue their labours. Philip started indignantly after him, for the act
was stingingly deliberate, as though a gnat, a mere persistent nuisance, had
been brushed aside.
    “Master
merchant,” he called hotly, “one word more!” And he laid an arresting hand to
Thomas’s fine, draped sleeve.
    They
were two choleric people, and it might have come to it even at the best, sooner
or later, but Cadfael’s impression was that Thomas had been genuinely startled
by the grasp at his arm, and believed he was about to be attacked. Whatever the
cause, he swung round and struck out blindly with the staff he held. The boy
flung up his arm, but too late thoroughly to protect his head. The blow fell
heavily on his forearms and temple, and laid him flat on the planking of the
jetty, with blood oozing from a cut above his ear.
    That
was the end of all peaceful and dignified protest, and the declaration of war.
Many things happened on the instant. Philip had fallen without a cry, and lay
half-stunned; but someone had certainly cried out, a small, protesting shriek,
instantly swallowed up in the roar of anger from the young men of the town. Two
of them rushed to their fallen leader, but the rest, bellowing for vengeance,
lunged to confront the equally roused traders, and closed with them merrily. In
a moment the goods newly disembarked were being hoisted and flung into the
river, and one of the raiders soon followed them, with a bigger splash.
Fortunately those who lived all their lives by Severn usually learned to swim
even before they learned to walk, and the youngster was in no danger of
drowning. By the time he had hauled himself out and returned to the fray, there
was a fully-fledged riot in progress all along the riverside.
    Several
of the cooler-headed citizens had moved in, though cautiously, to try to
separate the combatants, and talk a little sense into the furious young; and
one or two, not cautious enough, had come in for blows meant for the foe, the
common fate of those who try to make peace where no one is inclined for it.
    Cadfael among the rest had rushed down to the jetty,
intent on preventing what might well be a second and fatal blow, to judge by
the merchant’s congested countenance and brandished staff. But someone else was
before him. A girl had clambered frantically up out of the tiny cabin of the
barge, kilted her skirts and leaped ashore, in time to cling with all her
weight to the quivering arm, and plead in agitated tones:
    “Uncle,
don’t please don’t! He did no violence! You’ve hurt him badly!”
    Philip
Corviser’s brown eyes, all this time open but unseeing, blinked furiously at
the sound of so unexpected a voice. He heaved himself shakily to his knees,
remembered his injury and his grievance, and gathered sprawled limbs and
faculties to surge to his feet and do battle. Not that his efforts would have
been very effective; his legs gave under him as he tried to rise, and he
gripped his head between steadying hands as though it might fall off if he
shook it. But it was the sight of the girl that stopped him short. There she
stood, clinging, to the merchant’s arm and pleading angelically into his ear,
in tones that could have cooled a dragon, her eyes all the time dilated and
anxious and pitying on Philip. And calling the old demon “uncle”! Philip’s
revenge was put clean out of his reach in an instant, but he scarcely felt a
pang at the deprivation, to judge by the transformation that came over his
bruised and furious face. Swaying on one knee, still dazed, he stared at the
girl as pilgrims might stare at miraculous visions, or lost wanderers at the
Pole