Farenheit 451

1. Setting

The murder took place in the town of Gwytherin (Wales) where Saint Winifred’s bones are buried in the twelfth century. Prior Robert, along with six brothers, decides to lead an expedition and tries to take the relics with him, but the expedition gets complicated when the inhabitants refuse to let them take the relics. Prior Robert decides to bribe Rhisiart in order to get to take the relic. Rhisiart refuses and the situation gets even worse. The next day, the monks and the prior are supposed to meet him and the villagers, but he does not show up. Everybody starts to get worried and, while Columbanus and Jerome are at a old chapel, they decide to leave the church and start to search for Rhisiart. His body is found by Benet in a forest,

a place surrounded by trees with plenty of hiding places, said Cadfael (page 38)

2. Body

The victim was Rhisiart, the biggest land-owner in and around Gwytherin. As Cai said: “He always says what he thinks, but he’s a good man”: (page 17) He was a widower and had no sons, so his daughter, Sioned, was the heir to his fortune.

In order to talk Rhisiart into letting the Shrewsbury Abbey keeping the saint’s relics, prior Robert makes a huge mistake and tries to bribe him. Rhisiart takes it badly and refuses to give them the relics, but they agree to meet the next day, yet he never shows up, he has been assassinated.

Rhisiart’s body is found at a forest by Bened and hastily everybody appears at the crime scene. Cadfael forbid everyone to touch the body, which was laying on the grass with an arrow in its heart, and also points out that Rhisiart’s clothes were damp on the back but dry on the front (page 30) from that morning’s rain, also his legs were half-turned, “like a man who had been lying on his face but who was pulled over onto his back” says Cadfael (page 30).

3. Detective

Brother Cadfael is a fifty years old monk who came to the Shrewsbury Abbey fifteen years ago, and is now working in the abbey’s garden, after his unusual past: “He used to be a sea captain, working for the King of Jerusalem, all along the coast of the Holy Land!”(page 1) whispered one brother to another. His peculiar and outrageous past also includes traveling to places like Venice, Cyprus, and the Holy Land, where he collected unusual herbs which he later used in the abbey, helping him to become an adroit at planting and using these herbs as medicine in order to help people. Nevertheless, Cadfael saw nothing strange about his past, he had enjoyed his adventures at the sea, and now he is enjoying the peace and quiet of a monk’s life.

After Brother Columbanus, a young monk who is working for Cadfael in the garden, recovers from a fit, miraculously saved by Saint Winifred, a couple of monks and Prior Robert decide to set out towards Gwytherin (Wales), where Saint Winfred’s holy bones are buried, and decides to invite our detective, since he’s the only one capable to speak Welsh.

4. Suspicious Characters

Engelard is the first suspicious character, since the arrow found on Rhisiart’s body had a blue feather on one side, a distinctive trait of Engelard’s arrows.

Furthermore, he is the best shot with the short bow in Gwytherin (page 30) and it’s believed that he had motives for killing Rhisiart, since he argued frequently about Sioned, the victim’s daughter, with him, because he refused to let him marry her.

Nevertheless, he says he would have never killed him, since they were really good friends, Rhisiart gave him work and helped him escape from England. Also, using his own arrows would be stupid and an inanity. Furthermore, he claims to not have seen the victim since he left him at the fields and also, he hadn’t had his bow all day. On top of that, Engelard was taller than the victim and the arrow looked like it was shot upwards.

Prior Robert is also suspicious because he wanted to take Saint Winifred with him, but he had one obstacle: Rhisiart. But, it cannot be him because he was with all the brothers (except with Brother Richard, who wasn’t with them) when the murder took place.

Peredur is also suspicious. He run away when Cadfael spoke about Rhisiart, he looked like a man being chased by the devil, thought Cadfael (page 36). But he had no reason to kill him, since Rhisiart wanted him to marry

Sioned.

Brother Jerome is the last suspicious. His alibi was that he had been with Columbanus when everything happened, but they found out that Columbanus fell asleep when everything happened, so his alibi was no longer possible. Eventually, Cadfael finds a bottle of poppy medicine half empty and knows the one who brought it was Columbanus, so he was probably lying and Brother Jerome was not the killer.

5. Clues

One of the first clue was that all of the body’s blood was at the back, not at the front where the arrow entered, and the grass from where the body was found, was wet under him, but dry all down his right side.

Moreover, Cadfael found out that the arrow in the cadaver had only broke the skin on his back and, above the arrow hole, there was another cut: “A wound, I suspect, made by a long, thin, sharp knife” said the monk (page 40), he also added that “the arrow went into his chest after he was dead, to hide the fact that he was killed with a knife.” (page 41). On top of that, the cadaver’s legs were half-turned, as if the dead body had been lying on his face but someone pulled him onto his back.

Later on, our detective found a bottle of poppy medicine in Columbanus’s room. The bottle wasn’t full, instead, the bottle was three-quarters empty, “enough gone to put a man to sleep for hours” thought Cadfael.

6. Surprise

Once the funeral of Rhisiart took place, Peredur was asked to put a cross on the victim’s chest, where the murderer’s arrow killed him, by Sioned. He couldn’t speak nor move, he fell down on his knees and confessed that he was the one to turn Rhisiart onto his back, open the wound the victim already had, and put Engelard’s arrow in it. He justified it by saying he knew that Sioned would never marry him while Engelard was there, and he knew people would believe Engelard did it (page 48) and also he thought he would run away, back to England, so he would have no problems.

Nevertheless, Peredur was not the murderer, it was Brother Columbanus.
After Sinoid and Cadfael had reasons to suspect of Brother Columbanus, Sionid got dressed as a Saint and fooled Columbanus into thinking she was Saint Winifred and made him confess. He told who he believed was the Saint that he did it for her and for his abbey, he thought Saint Winifred wanted to leave the town but Rhisiard did not let them took her, so he gave a medicine to Jerome, in his wine, and once he was sleeping, he went out into the forest and waited for Rhisiard. He followed him and killed him.

Eventually, when Columbanus finds out that the Saint is in fact Sinoid, he gets angry and attacks her. Englard accidentally kills Columbanus by shooking his shoulder and breaking his neck. However, Cadfael decides to carry the dead body to a chapel and they excuse themselves by telling everybody that Columbanus died after he had been praying to Winifred and after asking her to bless him with leaving his body out of this world.