"Peters, Ellis - Brother Cadfael 06 - Virgin in the Ice, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Peters Ellis)The Virgin in the Ice The winter of 1139 will disrupt Brother Cadfael’s tranquil life in
Shrewsbury with the most disturbing of events. Raging civil war has sent
refugees fleeing north from Worcester. Among them are two orphans from a noble
family, a boy of thirteen and an eighteen-year-old girl of great beauty, and
their companion, a young Benedictine nun. But the trio, never reaching
Shrewsbury, have disappeared somewhere in the wild countryside. Cadfael feels
afraid for these three lost lambs, but another call for help sends him to the
church of Saint Mary. A wounded monk, found naked and bleeding at the roadside,
will surely die without Cadfael’s healing arts. Why this holy man has been
attacked and what his fevered ravings reveal soon give Brother Cadfael a clue
to the fate of the missing travelers. Now Cadfael sets out on a dangerous quest
to find them. The road will lead him to a chill and terrible murder and a tale
of passion gone awry. And at journey’s end awaits a vision of what is best and
worst in humankind. The Sixth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael,
of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury By Ellis Peters IT
WAS EARLY IN NOVEMBER of 1139 that the tide of civil war, lately so sluggish
and inactive, rose suddenly to sweep over the city of Worcester, wash away half
its livestock, property and women, and send all those of its inhabitants who
could get away in time scurrying for their lives northwards away from the
marauders, to burrow into hiding wherever there was manor or priory, walled
town or castle strong enough to afford them shelter. By the middle of the month
a straggle of them had reached Shrewsbury, and subsided thankfully into the
hospitable embrace of monastery or town, to lick their wounds and pour out
their grievances. They
were not in too bad case, apart from the old or sick, for the winter had not
yet begun to bite hard. The weather-wise foretold that there was bitter cold in
store, heavy snows and hard and prolonged frosts, but as yet the land lay dour,
cloudy and mild, with capricious winds, but clear of frost or snow. “Thanks
be to God!” said Brother Edmund, the infirmarer, devoutly. “Or we should have
had more burials on our hands than three, and they all past their three score
and ten.” Even
so, he was hard put to it to find beds in his hospice for all those who needed
them, and there was thick straw laid down in the stone hall for the overflow.
They would live to return to their spoiled city before the Christmas feast, but now, exhausted and apathetic with shock, they needed all his care,
and the abbey’s resources were stretched to their limits. A few fugitives with
distant relatives in the town had been taken into the houses of their kin, and
were warmly provided. A pregnant woman near her time had been taken, husband
and all, into the town house of Hugh Beringar, the deputy sheriff of the shire,
at the insistence of his wife, whom he had brought here to the security of the
town, complete with her women, midwife, physician and all, because she, too,
looked forward to giving birth before the Nativity, and had a welcome for any
who came in the same expectation, and in any kind of need. “Our
Lady,” remarked Brother Cadfael ruefully to his good friend Hugh, “had no such
reception.” “Ah,
there is but one of my lady! Aline would take in every homeless dog she saw in
the streets, if she could. This poor girl from Worcester will do well enough
now, there’s nothing amiss with her that rest won’t mend. We may yet have two
births here for this Christmas, for she can’t well be moved until she’s safely
over her lying-in. But I daresay most of your guests will soon be shrugging off
their fears and heading for home.” “A
few have left already,” said Cadfael, “and more of the hale ones will be off
within days. It’s natural they should want to get home and repair what they
can. They say the king is on his way to Worcester with a strong force. If he
leaves the garrison better found, they should be safe over the winter. Though
they’ll need to draw stores from eastwards, for their own reserves will all
have been carried off.” Cadfael
knew from old experience the look, the stench, the desolation of a gutted town,
having been both soldier and sailor in his young days, and seen service far afield.
“And besides wanting to reclaim what’s left of their store before Christmas,”
he said, “there’s the spur of the winter coming. If the roads are cleared of
bad customs now, at least they can travel dry-shod and warm enough, but another
month, another week it may be, and who knows how deep the snow will be?” “Whether
the roads are cleared of bad customs,” said Beringar in wary reflection, “is
more than I should care to say. We have a pretty firm hold here
in Shropshire —thus far! But there’s ominous word from east and north, besides
this uneasiness along the border. When the king is all too busy in the south,
and his mind on where his Flemings’ next pay is to come from, and his energy
mostly wasted in wavering from one target to another, ambitious men in remoter
parts are liable to begin to spread their honors into palatines, and set up
kingdoms of their own. And given the example, the lesser fry will follow it.” “In
a land at war with itself,” agreed Cadfael sombrely, “you may take it as
certain that order breaks down, and savagery breaks out.” “Not
here, it shall not,” said Hugh grimly. “Prestcote has kept a close rein, and in
so far as it falls to me as his man, so will I.” For Gilbert Prestcote, King
Stephen’s sheriff of Shropshire, was planning to keep Christmas in the chief
manor of his own honor, in the north of the county, and the castle garrison and
the rule of law throughout the southern half of the shire would be left in
Beringar’s hands. This attack on Worcester might be only a foretaste of further
such raids. All the border towns were at risk, as well from the precarious
loyalties of constables and garrisons as from the enterprise of the enemy. More
than one lord in this troubled land had already changed his allegiance, more
than one would do so in the future, some, perhaps, for the second or third
time. Churchmen, barons and all, they were beginning to look first to their own
interests, and place their loyalty where it seemed likely to bring them the
greater profit. And it would not be long before some of them came to the
conclusion that their interests could be served just as well by flouting both
contendants for the crown, and setting up on their own account. “There
was some talk of your castellan in Ludlow being none too reliable,” observed
Cadfael. “For all King Stephen set him up in the honor of Lacy, and trusted
Ludlow castle to him, there have been rumors he was casting his eyes toward the
empress. Touch and go with him, as I heard it, if the king had not been close
and with a sharp eye on him.” Anything
Cadfael had heard, Hugh had certainly heard. There was not a sheriff in the
land who had not all his intelligencers alerted, these days, and
his own ear to the ground. If Josce de Dinan, in Ludlow, had indeed been
contemplating defection, and thought better of it, Hugh was content to accept
his present steadfastness, but with reservations, and was watching him still.
Distrust was only one of the lesser horrors of civil war, but saddening enough.
It was well that there could still be absolute trust between tried friends. In
these days there was no man living who might not suddenly have acute need of a
steady and stout back braced against his own. “Ah,
well, with King Stephen on his way to Worcester with an army, no one is going
to lift finger or show face until he draws off again. But for all that, I never
stop listening and watching.” Hugh rose from the bench against the wall of
Cadfael’s workshop, brief refuge from the world. “Now I am going home to my own
bed, for once—even if I am banished from my wife’s by my own arrogant brat. But
what would a devout religious like you know about a father’s tribulations!” What,
indeed? “You must all come to it,” said Brother Cadfael complacently, “you
married men. Third and unwanted where two are lost in admiring each other. I
shall go to Compline and say a prayer for you.” He
went first, however, to the infirmary, to check with Brother Edmund on one or
two patients who were slow in their recovery from their wanderings, being
feeble from age or poverty and hunger, and renew the dressing on a knife-wound
which was ill to heal, and only then went to Compline, there to pray for many
more, besides his friend, his friend’s wife, and his friend’s child to come,
this winter child. England
was already frozen into a winter years long, and he knew it. King Stephen was
crowned, and held, however slackly, most of England. The Empress Maud, his
rival for the throne, held the west, and came with a claim the equal of
Stephen’s. Cousins, most uncousinly, they tore each other and tore England
between them, and yet life must go on, faith must go on, the stubborn defiance
of fortune must go on in the husbandry of the year, season after season, plough
and harrow and seed, tillage and harvest. And here in the cloister and the
church, the sowing and tillage and harvest of souls. Brother Cadfael had no
fear for mankind, whatever became of mere men. Hugh’s child
would be a new generation, a new beginning, a new affirmation, spring in
midwinter. It
was on the last day of November that Brother Herward, sub-prior of the
Benedictine monastery of Worcester, appeared at chapter in the fraternal house
of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Shrewsbury, where he had arrived the previous
night, and been entertained in Abbot Radulfus’ own lodging as a cherished
guest. Most of the brothers had no knowledge of his coming, and wondered who
this could be, brought in courteously by their own abbot, and seated at his
right hand. For once Brother Cadfael knew no more than his fellows. The
abbot and his guest made a sharp contrast. Radulfus was tall, erect, vigorous,
with strong, austere features, magisterially calm. When needed, he could blaze,
and those scorched drew back advisedly, but his fire was always in control. The
man who entered beside him was meager, small and slight of body, grey of
tonsure, still tired after his journey, but his ageing eyes were direct of
gaze, and his mouth set into lines of patience and endurance. “Our
brother, Sub-Prior Herward of Worcester,” said the abbot, “has come to us with
an errand in which I have been unable to help him. Since many of you here have
been active in serving those unfortunates who came to us from that city, it is
possible that you may have heard from them something which may be to the
purpose. I have therefore asked him to repeat his request here to all.” The
visitor rose, to be better seen and heard by all present. “I am sent to make
enquiry after two noble children who were in Benedictine care in our town, and
fled from it when the attack fell upon us. They have not returned, and we have
traced their steps as far as the borders of this county and there lost them. It
was their intention to make for Shrewsbury, and therefore, since our order is
responsible for them, I came to find out whether they ever reached here. Father
Abbot tells me that to his knowledge they never did, but it may be that some
others among the fugitives may have seen them or got word of them in their
travels, and spoken of them here among you. I should be grateful for any news that
might lead to their safe recovery. And these are their names: the
girl Ermina Hugonin, almost eighteen years of age, who was in the care of our
sister convent in Worcester, and her brother Yves Hugonin, who was in our
charge, and is only thirteen. They are orphaned of both parents, and their
uncle and natural guardian has long been overseas in the Holy Land, and is only
now returned, to be met by the news of their loss. It will be understood here,”
said Brother Herward wryly, “that we feel ourselves greatly to blame for having
failed in our charge, though to say truth, we are not wholly at fault. As this
thing befell, it was taken out of our hands.” “In
such confusion and peril,” agreed Radulfus ruefully, “it would be much to ask
of any man that he should order all successfully. But children of such tender
age…” Brother
Edmund asked hesitantly: “Are we to understand that they left Worcester alone?”
He had not meant to sound either incredulous or censorious, but Brother Herward
bowed his head meekly to the implied reproach. “I
would not wish to excuse myself or any of my house. Yet it fell out, perhaps,
not quite as you suppose. That attack came in the early morning, but on the
south side it was held, and we did not hear how grave it showed, or how great the
force coming against us, until later, when they came about, and broke in by the
north. It so happened that the boy Yves was visiting his sister, and they were
quite cut off from us. The Lady Ermina is, dare I say, a headstrong young
woman. In such a case, though the sisters thought best to gather in their
church and abide the issue there, trusting that even these marauders—for I must
tell you many were already drunk and wild—would respect their cloth, and do
them no more harm than to steal, perhaps, their more valuable furnishings—the
sisters, I say, held that faith required them to remain, but the Lady Ermina
thought otherwise, and would slip away out of the town, as so many did, and
make away into some safe and distant refuge. And since she would not be
dissuaded, and her brother held with her, the young nun who was her tutor there
offered that she would go with them, to see them safe into shelter. When all
the raiders were gone, and we had put out the fires, and seen to the dead and
wounded, only then did we get word that they had escaped out of the city and
intended to reach Shrewsbury. They were well provided, though
without horses, since all were seized at sight. The girl had her jewels, and
store of money, and wit enough not to let them be seen on the way. And sorry I
am to say it, it was well that she would go, for these men of Gloucester did
not respect the sisters as they had hoped and trusted, but ravaged and burned,
stole away some, the youngest and best-favored among the novices, and bitterly misused
the prioress who tried to prevent. The girl did well to venture, and I pray she
and her brother, and Sister Hilaria with them, are safe in shelter somewhere
this moment. But alas, I do not know.” Brother
Denis the hospitaller, who knew every soul who came within the gates, said
regretfully: “I grieve to have to tell you, but quite surely they never arrived
here. We have had no such party. But come with me and speak with every fugitive
we are still sheltering here in the guest-hall, and the few in the infirmary,
in case they can tell you anything of use. For of course we knew nothing of
these young people until now, and therefore have not asked about them.” “Or
again it may be,” suggested Brother Matthew the cellarer, “that they knew of
some kinsman or tenant or old servant here in the town, and therefore have
passed us by, and are now within the walls.” “It
is possible,” agreed Herward, brightening a little. “But I think Sister Hilaria
would prefer to bring them here, to our own order for protection.” “If
there are none here who can help,” said the abbot briskly, “the next move is
certainly to consult the sheriff. He will know who has been received within the
town. You did mention, brother, that the uncle of this young pair is newly come
home from Palestine. There are channels he may use to approach the authorities
here. How is it that he is not pursuing this enquiry in person? For surely he
cannot cast the blame all on you.” Brother
Herward heaved a great sigh that first stiffened his little frame, and then let
it collapse dispiritedly into limpness. “The uncle is a knight of Angevin
blood—they are his sister’s children—by name Laurence d’Angers. Newly home from
the Crusade he is, but to Gloucester, to join the forces of the empress. It is
also true that he did not arrive there until after this
onslaught, and bears no blame for it, as he took no part in it. But no man from
Gloucester dare show his face now in our city. The king is there with a great
force, and an angry man, like every ruined burgess of the town. The search for
these children is deputed to our house, perforce. Nevertheless, this is a quest
for creatures absolutely innocent, and I shall so present it to the sheriff.” “And
you shall have my voice,” Radulfus assured him. “But first, since none here can
provide us news…?” He looked inquiringly round the chapterhouse, and found only
shaken heads. “Very well, we must inquire among our guests. The names, the
youth of the parties, the presence of the nun, may yield us some useful word.” Nevertheless,
Cadfael, filing out from chapter among the rest, could not believe that
anything would come of such inquiry. He had spent much of his time, in recent
days, helping Brother Edmund house and doctor the exhausted travellers, and
never a word had been said of any such trio encountered on the way. Travellers’
tales enough there had been, freely spilled for the listening, but none of a
Benedictine sister and two noble children loose on the roads with never a man
to guard them. And
the uncle, it seemed, was the empress’s man, as Gilbert Prestcote was the
king’s man, to the hilt and bitterness between the factions was flaring up like
a torch in tinder over the sack of Worcester. The omens were not good. Abbot
Radulfus would lend his own persuasions to the envoy’s, and this very day, too,
but what countenance the two of them would get for Laurence d’Angers was a
dubious speculation. The
sheriff received his petitioners courteously and gravely in his own apartment
in the castle, and listened with an impassive face to the story Herward had to
tell. A sombre man, black-browed and black-bearded, and his natural cast of
countenance rather forbidding than reassuring, but for all that a fair-minded
man in his stern fashion, and one who stood by his word and his men, provided
they kept the standards he demanded of them. “I am sorry,” he said when Herward
had done, “to hear of this loss, and sorrier still that I must
tell you at once you will be seeking your party in vain here in Shrewsbury.
Since this attack took place I have had word brought to me of every soul from
Worcester who has entered the town, and these three are not among them. Many
have already left again for home, now that his Grace has reinforced the
garrison in Worcester. If, as you say, the uncle of these children has now
returned to England, and is a man of substance, can he not undertake the search
in person?” It
was Herward’s weakness that he had withheld, up to that point, all but the name
of that nobleman, putting off the evil moment. And as yet the name meant
nothing, beyond a knight with the credit or the Crusade shedding lustre upon
him, newly arrived from the Holy Land, where a relatively secure peace held at
this time. But no help for it, the truth would out. “My
lord,” owned Herward, sighing, “Laurence d’Angers is willing and anxious to
make search for his nephew and niece, but for that he requires your
countenance, or the special dispensation of his Grace the king. For he returned
home as an Angevin owing allegiance to the Empress Maud, and had attached
himself and his men to her forces at Gloucester.” He hurried on, to have all
said while speech was allowed him, for the sheriff’s level brows had drawn
together into a steely bar above eyes now narrowed and bright in understanding.
“He had not arrived in Gloucester until a week after the attack, he took no
part in it, knew nothing of it, cannot be held responsible for it. He came only
to discover that his kin were lost, and all his desire is to find them and see
them into safety. But it is impossible for a man of Gloucester to come near
Worcester now, or to enter the king’s lands except by special safe-conduct.” “So
you,” said Prestcote after a daunting pause, “are acting on his behalf—the
king’s enemy.” “With
respect, my lord,” said Herward with spirit, “I am acting on behalf of a young
girl and a boy of tender years, who have done nothing to make them enemies to
king or empress. I am not concerned with faction, only with the fate of two
children who were in the charge of our order until this evil
befell. Is it not natural that we should feel responsible for them, and do all
we can in conscience to find them?” “Natural
enough,” allowed the sheriff dryly, “and moreover, as a man of Worcester
yourself you’re hardly likely to feel any great warmth towards the king’s
enemies, or want to give them aid or comfort.” “We
suffered from them, like the rest of Worcester, my lord. King Stephen is our
sovereign, and as such we acknowledge him. The only duty I feel here is to the
children. Consider what must be the dismay, the anxiety, of their natural
guardian! All he asks—all we ask for him—is leave to enter the king’s lands,
not in arms, and search for his niece and nephew without hindrance. I do not
say such a man, however innocent of this murderous raid, and even with his
Grace’s safe-conduct and countenance, would be utterly safe among the men of
our shire or yours, but that risk he is willing to take. If you will give him
safe-conduct, he pledges himself to pursue this quest, and no other end. He
will go unarmed, and with only one or two attendants to help him. He will take
no action but to find his wards. My lord, I entreat it of you, for their sake.”
Abbot
Radulfus added his own plea, very restrainedly. “From a Crusader of unblemished
repute, I believe such a pledge may be accepted without question.” The
sheriff considered, darkly and in frowning silence, for some minutes, and then
said with chill deliberation: “No. I will issue no safe-conduct, and if the
king himself were here and minded to grant it, I would urge him to the
contrary. After what has happened, any man of that faction found in any part of
my territory will be treated as a prisoner of war, if not as a spy. If he be
taken in any ill circumstances, his life may be forfeit, and even if on no
wrong errand, his liberty. It is not a matter of his intent alone. Even a man
so pledged, and true enough to his pledge, might take back with him knowledge
of castles and garrisons that would stand the enemy in good stead later. Also,
and above all, it is my duty to combat the king’s enemies and reduce their
forces wherever chance offers, and if I can pluck away a good knight from them
I will do it. No affront to Sir Laurence d’Angers, whose reputation, as far as
I know it, is honorable enough, but he shall not have his
safe-conduct, and if he ventures without it, let him look to his head. No doubt
he did not come home from Palestine to rot in a prison. If he risks it, it is
his own choice.” “But
the girl Ermina,” began Herward in dismayed appeal, “and her brother, a mere
child—are they to be left unsought?” “Have
I said so? Sought they shall be, to the best I can provide, but by my own men.
And if found, they shall be delivered safely to their uncle’s care. I will send
out orders to all my castellans and officers, to look out for such a company of
three, and make due inquiries after them. But I will not admit the empress’s
knight to the lands I administer for the king.” It
was all they would get from him, and they knew it by voice and face, and made
the best of it. “It
would help,” suggested Radulfus mildly, “if Brother Herward gives you some
description of the three. Though I do not know if he is well acquainted with
the girl, or the nun, her tutor…” “They
came several times to visit the boy,” said Herward. “I can picture them all
three. Your officers should inquire after these—Yves Hugonin, thirteen years
old, heir to a considerable portion of his father, is not over-tall for his
age, but sturdy and well-set-up, with a round, rosy face, and both hair and
eyes dark brown. I saw him the morning this coil began, in bright blue cotte,
cloak and capuchon, and grey hose. For the women—Sister Hilaria will be known
best by her habit, but I should tell you that she is young, not above five and
twenty, and well-favored, a slender woman and graceful. And the girl Ermina…”
Brother Herward hesitated, gazing beyond the sheriff’s shoulder, as if to
recall more perfectly someone but seldom seen, yet vividly impressed on his
vision. “She
will be eighteen very shortly, I do not know the precise day. Darker than her
brother, almost black of hair and eye, tall, vigorous… They report her quick of
mind and wit, and of strong will.” It
was hardly a detailed description of her physical person, yet it established
her with surprising clarity. All the more when Brother Herward
ended almost absently, as if to himself: “She would be reckoned very
beautiful.” Brother
Cadfael heard about it from Hugh Beringar, after the couriers had ridden out to
the castles and manors, and carried the word to the towns, to be cried
publicly. What Prescote had promised, that he performed to the letter before he
took himself off to the peace of his own manor to keep Christmas with his
family. The very announcement of the sheriff’s interest in the missing siblings
should cast a protecting shadow over them if anyone in this shire did encounter
them. Herward had set off back to Worcester with a guarded party by then, his
errand only partially successful. “Very
beautiful!” repeated Hugh, and smiled. But it was a concerned and rueful smile.
Such a creature, wilful, handsome, daring, let loose in a countryside waiting
for winter and menaced by discord, might all too easily come to grief. “Even
sub-priors,” said Cadfael mildly, stirring the bubbling cough linctus he was
simmering over his brazier in the workshop, “have eyes. But with her youth, she
would be vulnerable even if she were ugly. Well, for all we know they may be
snug and safe in shelter this moment. A great pity this uncle of theirs is of
the other persuasion, and cannot get countenance to do his own hunting.” “And
newly back from Jerusalem,” mused Hugh, “no way to blame for what his faction
did to Worcester. He’ll be too recent in the service to be known to you, I
suppose?” “Another
generation, lad. It’s twenty-six years since I left the Holy Land.” Cadfael
lifted his pot from the brazier, and stood it aside on the earth floor to cool
gradually overnight. He straightened his back carefully. He was not so far from
sixty, even it he did not look it by a dozen years. “Everything will be changed
there now, I doubt. The lustre soon tarnished. From which port did they say he
sailed?” “Tripoli,
according to Herward. In your unregenerate youth I suppose you must have known
that city well? It seems to me there’s not much of that coast you haven’t
covered in your time.” “It
was St. Symeon I favored myself. There were good craftsmen in
the shipyards there, a fine harbor, and Antioch only a few miles upriver.” He
had good cause to remember Antioch, for it was there he had begun and ended his
long career as a crusader, and his love affair with Palestine, that lovely,
inhospitable, cruel land of gold and sand and drought. From this quiet, busy
harbor in which he had chosen at last to drop anchor, he had had little time to
hark back to those remembered haunts of his youth. The town came back to him
now vividly, the lush green of the river valley, the narrow, grateful shade of
the streets, the babel of the market. And Mariam, selling her fruits and
vegetables in the Street of the Sailmakers, her young, fine-boned face honed
into gold and silver by the fierce sunlight, her black, oiled hair gleaming
beneath her veil. She had graced his arrival in the east, a mere boy of
eighteen, and his departure, a seasoned soldier and seafarer of thirty-three. A
widow, young, passionate and lonely, a woman of the people, not to everyone’s
taste, too spare, too strong, too scornful. The void left by her dead man had
ached unbearably, and drawn in the young stranger heart and soul into her life,
to fill the gap. For a whole year he had known her, before the forces of the
Cross had moved on to invest Jerusalem. There
had been other women, before her and after. He remembered them with gratitude,
and with no guilt at all. He had given and received pleasure and kindness. None
had ever complained of him. If that was a poor defense from the formal
viewpoint, nevertheless he felt secure behind it. It would have been an insult
to repent of having loved a woman like Mariam. “They
have alliances there that ensure peace now, if only for a time,” he said
reflectively, “I suppose an Angevin lord might well feel he’s more needed here
than there, now it’s his own liege lady in the lists. And the man bears a good
name, from all I hear. A pity he comes when hate’s at its height.” “A
pity there should be cause for hate between decent men,” agreed Hugh wryly. “I
am the king’s man, I chose him with my eyes open. I like Stephen, and am not
likely to leave him for any lure. But I can see just as plainly why a baron of Anjou should rush home to serve his lady every whit as loyally as
I serve Stephen. What a bedevilment of all our values, Cadfael, is this civil
war!” “Not
all,” said Cadfael sturdily. “There never was, for all I could ever learn, a
time when living was easy and peaceful. Your boy will grow up into a better
ordered world. There, I’ve finished here for tonight, and it must be nearly
time for the bell.” They
went out together into the cold and dark of the garden, and felt on their faces
the first flakes of the first snow of the winter. The air was full of a
drifting unease, but the fall was light and fitful here. Further south it set
in heavily, borne on a north-westerly wind, dry, fine snow that turned the
night into a white, whirling mist, shrouding outlines, burying paths, blown
into smooth, breaking waves only to be lifted and hurled again into new shapes.
Valleys filled to a treacherous level, hillsides were scoured clean. Wise men
stayed within their houses, clapped to shutter and door, and stopped the chinks
between the boards, where thin white fingers reached through. The first snow,
and the first hard frost. Thank God, thought Cadfael, hastening his steps as he
heard the Compline bell begin to sound, Herward and his company will be far on their
way home now, they’ll weather this well enough. But
what of Ermina and Yves Hugonin, astray somewhere between here and Worcester,
and what of the young Benedictine sister who had offered, in her gallant
innocence, to go with them and see them safe into sanctuary? Chapter
Two ON
THE FIFTH DAY OF DECEMBER, about noon, a traveller from the south, who had
slept the night at Bromfield Priory, some twenty-odd miles away, and had the
good fortune to find the highroad, at least, in passable condition, brought an
urgent message into Shrewsbury abbey. Prior Leonard of Bromfield had been a
monk of Shrewsbury until his promotion, and was an old friend of Brother
Cadfael’s, and familiar with his skills. “In
the night,” the messenger reported, “some decent fellows of that country
brought in a wounded man to the priory, found by the wayside stripped and
hacked, and left for dead. And half-dead he is, and his case very bad. If he
had lain out all night in the frost he’d have been frozen stiff by morning. And
Prior Leonard asked would I bring word here to you, for though they’ve some
knowledge of healing, this case is beyond them, and he said you have experience
from the wars, and may be able to save the man. If you could come, and bide
until he mends—or until the poor soul’s lost!—it would be a great comfort and
kindness.” “If
abbot and prior give me leave,” said Cadfael, concerned, “then most gladly.
Footpads preying on the roads so close to Ludlow? What are things come to,
there in the south?” “And
the poor man a monk himself, for they knew him by his tonsure.” “Come with me,” said Cadfael, “and we’ll
put it to Prior Robert.” Prior
Robert heard the plea with sympathy, and raised no objection, since it was not
he who must ride out all those miles in haste, in what was now the shrewd grip
of winter. He took the request in his turn to the abbot, and came again with
his approval granted. “Father
Abbot bids you take a good horse from the stables, for you’ll need him. You
have leave for as long as may be necessary, and we’ll send and have Brother
Mark come in from Saint Giles in the meantime, for I think Brother Oswin is not
yet practiced enough to be left in charge alone.” Cadfael
agreed, fervently but demurely. A willing and devoted soul, but hardly
competent to look after all the winter ailments that might crop up in his
tutor’s absence. Mark would leave his lepers on the outskirts of the town with
regret, but God willing it need not be for very long. “What
of the roads?” he asked the messenger, who was stabling his own beast as
Cadfael chose his. “You made good time here, and so must I back.” “The
worst is the wind, brother, but it’s blown the highroad almost clear in all but
a few bad places. It’s the byways that are clean buried. If you leave now you
won’t fare too badly. Better going south than north, at least you’ll have the
wind at your back.” Cadfael
took some thought over filling his scrip, for he had medicines, salves and
febrifuges not to be found in every infirmary cupboard, and the commoner sorts
Bromfield could provide. The less weight he carried, the better speed he would
make. He took stout boots and a thick travelling cloak over his habit and
belted the folds securely about his waist. If the errand had not been so grim,
he would have relished the prospect of a justified trip back into the world,
and the rare permission to take his pick of the stables. He had campaigned in
wintry conditions as well as in burning sun, the snow did not daunt him, though
he was shrewd enough to respect it, and treat it with caution. All
these four days since the first snow the weather had followed a fixed pattern,
with brief sunshine around noon, gathering cloud thereafter, fresh snow falling
late in the evening and well into the night, and always iron
frost. Around Shrewsbury the snowfalls had been light and powdery, the pattern
of white flakes and black soil constantly changing as the wind blew. But as
Cadfael rode south the fields grew whiter, the ditches filled. The branches of
trees sagged heavily towards the ground under their load, and by mid-afternoon
the leaden sky was sagging no less heavily earthwards, in swags of blue-black
cloud. If this went on, the wolves would be moving down from the hills and
prowling hungrily among the haunts of men. Better to be an urchin under a
hedgerow, sleeping the winter away, or a squirrel holed up snugly with his
hoarded stores. It had been a good autumn for nuts and acorns. Riding
was pleasure to him, even riding alone and in the bitter cold. The chance
seldom came his way now, it was one of the delights he had given up for the
quiet of the cloister and the sense of having discovered his true place. In
every decision there must be some regrets. He hunched his back solidly against
the malice of the wind, and saw the first driven flakes, fine as dust, whirl by
him and outpace his horse, while he felt nothing in his shroud of cowl and
cloak. He was thinking of the man who waited for him at the end of this
journey. Himself
a monk, the messenger had said. Of Bromfield? Surely not. If he had been one of
theirs they would have named him. A monk loose and alone about the roads in the
mid of the night? On what errand? Or in flight from what, before he fell into
the mercies of robbers and murderers? Others must have ranged through the same
countryside, in flight from the rape of Worcester, and where were they now?
Perhaps this cowled wanderer had made his way painfully out of the same
holocaust? The
snow thickened, two fine curtains of spume driving past him one on either side,
cloven by his sturdy body and waving away ahead of him like the ends of a gauze
scarf, drawing him forward. Perhaps four times on this ride he had exchanged
greetings in passing with other human creatures, and all of them close to home.
In such a season only the desperate travel. It
was dark by the time he reached the gatehouse of Bromfield,
crossing the foot-bridge over the little River Onny. His horse had had enough
by then, and was blowing frostily, and twitching irritable shoulders and
flanks. Cadfael lighted down gladly between the torches in the gateway, and let
a lay brother take the bridle. Before him the familiar court opened, straighter
than at Shrewsbury, and the shapes of the monastic buildings gilded here and
there by the flame of a torch. The church of Saint Mary loomed dark in
darkness, large and noble for such a modest foundation. And striding out of
shadows across the court came Prior Leonard himself, a long, loose-jointed
heron of a man, pointed beak anxiously advanced, arms flapping like wings. The
court under his feet, surely swept during the day, already bore a smooth, frail
coating of snow. By morning it would be crisp and deep underfoot, unless the
wind that brought it removed half of it again to hurl it elsewhere. “Cadfael?”
The prior was near-sighted, he had to peer and narrow his eyes even by
daylight, but he groped for a hand that came to meet his, and held and knew it.
“Thank God you could come! I fear for him… But such a ride… Come within, come
within, I have provision made for you, and a meal. You must be both hungry and
weary!” “First
let me see him,” said Cadfael briskly, and set off purposefully up the slope of
the court, leaving his broad boot-prints plain in the new-fallen whiteness.
Prior Leonard strode beside him, long legs curbed to his friend’s shorter pace,
still talking volubly. “We
have him in a room apart, for quietness, and watched constantly. He breathes,
but snoringly, like a man with a broken head. He has not spoken word or opened
eye since they brought him. Bruises darken on him everywhere, but those would
heal. But a knife was used on him, he has bled too much, though the wound is
stanched now. Through here— the inner room is less cold…” The
infirmary stood a little apart, sheltered from the wind by the mass of the
church. They went in, and shut the heavy door against the malice of the night,
and Leonard led the way through to the small, bare cell where a little oil-lamp
burned beside a bed. A young brother rose from his knees at their entry,
and drew back from the sick man’s bedside to make room for them. The
patient lay under piled covers, stretched on his back like a man coffined.
Certainly he breathed, with a groaning effort, but the intake of breath barely
lifted the blanket over his breast, and the face upturned on the pillow was
motionless, eyes closed, cheeks hollow and blue beneath thrusting bones. His
head was bandaged, covering the tonsure, and the brow beneath the wrappings was
swollen and bruised, so misshapen that one eye was sunken in folds of battered
flesh. No telling how he would look in health, but Cadfael judged that he was
well-made, and certainly not old, probably no older than thirty-five. “The
marvel is,” whispered Leonard, “that no bones are broken. Unless, indeed, his
skull… But you’ll examine him thoroughly, later…” “No
better time than now,” said Cadfael practically, and shed his cloak and went to
work, setting down his scrip on the stone floor. There was a small brazier
burning in a corner, but for all that, when he slid his hands under the covers
and felt at flank and thigh and foot, the unresponsive flesh was everywhere
deadly cold. They had wrapped him well, but it was not enough. “Lay
stones over your hob in the kitchen,” said Cadfael, “get them hot and wrap them
in flannel. We’ll pack him round with warmth, and change them as they cool.
This is not the cold of winter, but the chill of man’s mishandling, we must get
him out of it, or he never will wake. I’ve known men shattered by horror or
cruelty turn their backs on the world and die, when there was nothing mortal
ailed their bodies. Have you made shift to get any food or drink into him at
all?” “We
have tried but he cannot swallow. Even a trickle of wine only runs from his
mouth again.” A broken mouth, battered by fists or cudgels. Probably he had
lost teeth. But no, Cadfael drew back the upper lip delicately, and the strong
white teeth showed, even, clenched and large. The
young brother had slipped away silently to see about heating stones or bricks
in the kitchen. Cadfael turned back the covers, and viewed the naked body from
head to foot. They had left him so, under a linen sheet, to
have only a clean, smooth surface touching his many bruises and broken grazes.
The knife-wound under his heart was bandaged close. Cadfael did not unbind it; no
need to doubt that every wound had been scrupulously cleaned and dressed. But
he slid his fingers under the upper folds, and felt along the bones beneath. “It
was meant to finish him. But the knife struck the rib, and they did not wait to
make certain. In health this must be a fine man—see the build of him. Three or
four at least did this to him.” He
did what he could for the many injuries that showed some angry signs of
festering, drawing on his stock of salves tried over years, but let the lesser
and clean abrasions alone. They brought the heated stones, two or three eager
young brothers hovering anxiously, and packed the battered form round with
them, close but not touching, and trotted away devotedly to heat more. A good
hot brick at the long, bony feet; for if the feet stay cold, all stays cold,
said Cadfael. And then the bludgeoned head. He unwound the bandages, Leonard
supporting the man’s shoulders. The tonsure emerged unmistakable, thick, bushy
brown hair framing a pate scarred by two or three still oozing wounds. So thick
and strong the hair, of such vigorous growth, that even the ring of it might
well have saved him a broken skull. Cadfael felt delicately all round the
cupola of bone, and could not find a hollow that gave to his touch. He drew breath
in cautious hope. “His
wits will have been shaken up into confusion, but I do believe his skull is
whole. We’ll bind it up again for his comfort in lying, and for warmth. I can
find no break.” When
all was done, the mute body lay as before; hard to detect any change that did
not stem from the handling of others. But the warm stones zealously renewed as
they cooled had had their effect. His flesh felt softer and human to the touch,
capable of healing. “We
may leave him now,” said Cadfael, staring down at him with a considering frown.
“I’ll watch with him through the night, and get my sleep tomorrow by daylight,
when we see better how he fares. But I say he’ll live. Father Prior, by your leave, I’m ready now for that supper you promised me. And
before all, for I’m too stiff to fend for myself, get a stout youngster to haul
off these boots.” Prior
Leonard himself waited on his guest at supper, and freely admitted his relief
at having a more experienced physician at hand. “For I never had your knowledge,
nor the means of acquiring it, and never, God knows, have I had so wretched and
broken a creature left at my door. I thought I had a dead man on my hands,
before ever I brought him in and tried to stop the bleeding, and wrap him up
against the frost. And how he came by this usage we may never get to know.” “Who
brought him in?” asked Cadfael. “A
tenant of ours near Henley, Reyner Dutton, a good husbandman. That was the
first night of snow and frost, and Reyner had lost a strayed heifer, one of the
venturesome kind that will wander and break loose, and he was out after her
with a couple of his lads. They stumbled on this poor soul by the wayside, and
left all to carry him here to shelter as fast as they could. It was a wild
night, driving squalls and stone blind when they came. I doubt if he can have
lain there long, or he would not be living now, as cold as it was and is.” “And
these who helped him had seen nothing of any footpads? Met with no hindrance
themselves?” “Nothing.
But there was no seeing more than a dozen paces, men could pass close and never
know it. Likely they were lucky not to meet the same fate, though three of
them, perhaps, would be enough to daunt any footpads. They know this
countryside like their own palms. A stranger would have had to lie up somewhere
and wait till he could see his way. In these drifts, and with such a wind
blowing, and the snow so dry and fine, paths appear and vanish twice in a day
or more. You could walk a mile, and think you knew every landmark, and see
nothing you recognized on the way back.” “And
this sick man of ours—no one knows him here?” Prior
Leonard stared startled and embarrassed surprise. “Why, yes! Did I never make
that plain? Well, my messenger was enlisted in great haste, there was no time
to make a long tale of it. Yes, this is a Benedictine brother of Pershore, who came on an errand from his abbot. We have been treating with
them for a finger-bone of Saint Eadburga, whose relics, as you know, they
possess, and this is the brother who was entrusted with bringing it here to us
in its reliquary. He delivered it safely some days ago. The night of the first
of the month he arrived here, and stayed to witness the offices when we
installed it.” “Then
how,” demanded Cadfael, gaping, “did he come to be picked out of the snow and
brought back to you naked only a day or two later? You’re surely grown somewhat
careless with your guests, Leonard!” “But
he left us, Cadfael! The day before yesterday he said he must prepare to leave
early in the morning, and be on his way. And as soon as he had breakfasted
yesterday he left, and I do assure you, well provided for the first part of his
journey. We know no more than you how he came to be stricken down still so
close to us, and you see he cannot yet speak, to make all plain. Where he had
been between yesterday’s dawn and the thick of the night no one knows, but
certainly not where he was found, or we should be tolling for him, not trying
to heal him.” “Howbeit,
at least you know him. How much do you know of him? He gave you a name?” The
prior hoisted bony shoulders. What does a name tell about a man? “His name is
Elyas. I think, though he never said, not long in the cloister. A taciturn
man—in particular, I think, he would not speak of himself. He did eye the
weather somewhat anxiously. We thought it natural, since he had to brave the
way home, but now I fancy there was more in it than that, for he did say
something of a party he had left by Foxwood, coming from Cleobury, some people
he encountered there in flight from Worcester, and urged to come here with him
for safety, but they would push on over the hills for Shrewsbury. The girl, he
said, was resolute, and she called the tune.” “Girl?”
Cadfael stiffened erect, ears pricked. “There was a girl holding the rein?” “So
it seemed.” Leonard blinked in surprise at such interest in the phenomenon. “Did
he say who else was in her company? Was there a boy spoken of?
And a nun in charge of them?” He realized ruefully the folly of any such
attitude to this relationship. It was the girl who called the tune! “No,
he never told us more. But I did think he was anxious about them, for you see,
the snow came after he reached us, and over those bleak hills… He might well
wonder.” “You
think he may have gone to seek them? To find assurance they had made the
crossing safely, and were on a passable way to Shrewsbury? It would not be so
far aside from his way.” “It
could be so,” said Leonard, and was mute, searching Cadfael’s face with a
worried frown, waiting for enlightenment. “I
wonder, I wonder if he found them—if he was bringing them here for refuge!” He
was talking to himself, for the prior was left astray, patiently regarding him.
And if he was, thought Cadfael silently, what, in God’s name, had become of
them now? Their only helper and protector battered senseless and left for dead,
and those three, where? But as yet there was no proof that these were the
hapless Hugonins and their young nun. Many poor souls, girls among them, had
fled from the despoiled city of Worcester. Headstrong
girls, who called the tune? Well, he had known them crop up in cottage no less
than in castle, in croft and toft, and among the soil-bound villein families,
too. Women were as various as men. “Leonard,”
he said earnestly, leaning across the table, “have you had no proclamation from
the sheriff about two young things lost from Worcester in the company of a nun
of the convent there?” The
prior shook a vague but troubled head. “I don’t recall such a message, no. Are
you telling me that these… Brother Elyas certainly felt some anxiety. You think
these he spoke of may be the ones being sought?” Cadfael
told him the whole of it, their flight, the search for them, the plight of
their uncle, threatened with capture and prison if he ventured across the king’s
borders in quest of them. Leonard listened in growing dismay. “It could be so,
indeed. If this poor brother could but speak!” “But
he did speak. He told you he left them at Foxwood, and they
were bent on crossing the hills still towards Shrewsbury. That would mean their
venturing clean over the flank of Clee, to Godstoke, where they would be in the
lands of Wenlock priory, and in good enough hands.” “But
a bitter, bleak way over,” mourned the prior, aghast. “And that heavy snow the
next night.” “There’s
no certainty,” Cadfael reminded him cautiously. “Barely a suspicion. A quarter
of Worcester fled this way to escape the slaughter. Better I should keep watch
on this patient of ours than waste time on speculation. For only he can tell us
more, and besides, him we already have, he was laid at our doors, and him we
must keep. Go to Compline, Leonard, and pray for him, and I’ll do as much by
his bed. And if he speaks, never fret, I’ll be awake enough to catch his drift,
for all our sakes.” In
the night the first sudden but infinitesimal change took place. Brother Cadfael
was long accustomed to sleeping with one eye open, and both ears. On his low
stool beside the bed he drowsed thus, arms folded, head lowered, one elbow
braced on the wooden frame of the bed, to quicken to any move. But it was his
hearing that pricked him awake to stoop with held breath. For Elyas had just
drawn his first deeper, longer, eased breath, that went down through his
misused body from throat to stretched feet, groaning at the disturbed pains
that everywhere gored him. The horrid snore in his throat had softened, he drew
air, painful though it was, down into his midriff hungrily, like a starving man
grasping at food. Cadfael saw a great quiver pass over the mangled face and
past the swollen lips. The tip of a dry tongue strove to moisten, and shivered
and withdrew from pain, but the lips remained parted. The strong teeth
unclenched to let out a long, sighing groan. Cadfael
had honeyed wine standing in a jug beside the brazier, to keep warm. He
trickled a few drops between the swollen lips, and had the satisfaction of
seeing the unconscious face contort in muscular spasm, and the throat labor to
swallow. When he touched a finger to the man’s lips, again closed, they parted
in thirsty response. Drop by drop, patiently, a good portion of the drink went
down. Only when response failed at last did Cadfael abandon the process. Cold, oblivious absence had softened gradually into sleep, now that a
little warmth had been supplied him both within and without. A few days of
lying still, for his wits to settle again right way up in his head, thought
Cadfael, and he’ll come round and be on his way back to us. But whether he’ll
remember much of what befell him is another matter. He had known men, after
such head injuries, revive to recall every detail of their childhood and past
years, but no recollection whatever of recent injury. He
removed the cooling brick from the foot of the bed, fetched a replacement from
the kitchen, and sat down to resume his vigil. This was certainly sleep now,
but a very uneasy sleep, broken by whimpers and moans, and sudden shudders that
passed all down the long body. Once or twice Elyas labored in evident distress,
throat and lips and tongue trying to frame words, but achieving only anguished,
indecipherable sounds, or no sounds at all. Cadfael leaned close, to catch the
first utterance that should have meaning. But the night passed, and his vigil
had brought him nothing coherent. Perhaps
the sounds that measured out the cloistral day were able to reach some quiet
core of habit even within the sufferer’s disrupted being, for at the note of
the bell for Prime he fell suddenly quiet, and his eyelids fluttered and strove
to open, but closed again wincingly against even this subdued light. His throat
worked, he parted his lips and began to attempt speech. Cadfael leaned close,
his ear to the struggling mouth. “…
madness…” said Elyas, or so Cadfael thought he said. “Over Clee,” he grieved,
“in such snows…” He turned his head on the pillow, and hissed with the pain.
“So young… wilful…” He was lapsing again into a better sleep, his disquiet
easing. In a voice thread-fine but suddenly clearly audible: “The boy would
have come with me,” said Brother Elyas. That
was all. He lay once again motionless and mute. “He
has the turn for life,” said Cadfael, when Prior Leonard came in to inquire
after the patient as soon as Prime ended, “but there’ll be no hurrying him.” An
earnest young brother stood dutifully by to relieve him of his watch. “When he
stirs you may feed him the wine and honey, you’ll find he’ll take it now. Sit
close and mark me any word he says. I doubt if you’ll have
anything more to do for him, while I get my sleep, but there’s a ewer for his
use if he needs it. And should he begin to sweat, keep him well covered but
bathe his face to give him ease. God willing, he’ll sleep. No man can do for
him what sleep will do.” “You’re
content with him?” asked Leonard anxiously, as they went out together. “He’ll
do?” “He’ll
do very well, given time and quietness.” Cadfael was yawning. He wanted
breakfast first, and a bed after, for all the morning hours. After that, and
another look at the dressings on head and ribs, and all the minor hurts that
had threatened suppuration, he would have a better idea of how to manage both
the nursing of Brother Elyas and the pursuit of the lost children. “And
has he spoken? Any sensible word?” pressed Leonard. “He
has spoken of a boy, and of the madness of attempting to cross the hills in
such snows. Yes, I believe he did encounter the Hugonin pair and their nun, and
try to bring them into shelter here with him. It was the girl who would go her
own way,” said Cadfael, brooding on this unknown chit who willed to venture the
hills in both winter and anarchy. “Young and wilful, he said,” But however mad
and troublesome they may be, the innocent cannot be abandoned. “Feed me,” said
Cadfael, returning to first needs, “and then show me a bed. Leave the absent
for later. I’ll not quit Brother Elyas as long as he needs me. But I tell you
what we may well do, Leonard, if you’ve a guest in your hall here making for
Shrewsbury today. You might charge him to let Hugh Beringar know that we have
here what I take to be the first news of the three people he’s seeking.” “That
I’ll certainly do,” said Prior Leonard, “for there’s a cloth merchant of the
town on his way home for the Christmas feast, he’ll be off as soon as he’s
eaten, to get the best of the day. I’ll go and deliver him the message this
minute, and do you go and get your rest.” Before
night Brother Elyas opened his eyes for the second time, and this time, though
the return to light caused him to blink a little, he kept them open, and after
a few moments opened them wide in blank wonder, astonished by everything
on which they rested. Only when the prior stooped close at Cadfael’s shoulder
did the brightness of recognition quicken in the sick man’s eyes. This face, it
seemed, he knew. His lips parted, and a husky whisper emerged, questioning but
hopeful: “Father
Prior…?” “Here,
brother,” said Leonard soothingly. “You are here with us, safe in Bromfield.
Rest and gather strength, you have been badly hurt, but here you are in
shelter, among friends. Trouble for nothing… ask for whatever you need.” “Bromfield…”
whispered Elyas, frowning. “I had an errand to that place,” he said, troubled,
and tried to raise his head from the pillow. “The reliquary… oh, not lost…?” “You
brought it faithfully,” said Leonard. “It is here on the altar of our church,
you kept vigil with us when we installed it. Do you not remember? Your errand
was done well. All that was required of you, you performed.” “But
how… My head hurts…” The sighing voice faded, the dark brows drew together in
mingled anxiety and pain. “What is this weighs on me? How am I come to this?” They
told him, with cautious gentleness, how he had gone forth again from the
priory, to make his way home to his own abbey of Pershore, and how he had been
brought back broken and battered and abandoned for dead. At the name of
Pershore he grasped gladly, there he knew he belonged, and from there he
remembered he had set forth to bring Saint Eadburga’s finger-bone to Bromfield,
avoiding the perilous route by Worcester. Even Bromfield itself came back to
him gradually. But of what had befallen him after his departure he knew
nothing. Whoever had so misused him, they were gone utterly from his disturbed
mind. Cadfael leaned to him, urging gently: “You
did not meet them again? The girl and boy who would press on over the hills to
Godstoke? Foolish, but the girl would go, and her younger brother could not
persuade her…” “What
girl and boy were these?” wondered Elyas blankly, and drew his drawn brows more
painfully close. “And
a nun—do you not recall a nun who travelled with them?” He
did not. The effort at recall caused him agitation, he dragged at memory and
produced only the panic desperation of failure, and in his
wandering state failure was guilt. All manner of undischarged obligations
drifted elusive behind his haunted eyes, and could not be captured. Sweat broke
on his forehead, and Cadfael wiped it gently away. “Never
fret, but lie still and leave all to God, and under God, to us. Your part was
done well, you may take your rest.” They
tended his bodily needs, anointed his wounds and grazes, fed him a broth made
from their austere stores of meat for the infirmary, with herbs and oatmeal,
read the office with him before bed, and still, by the knotting of his brows,
Brother Elyas pursued the memories that fled him and would not be snared. In
the night, in the low hours when the spirit either crosses or draws back from
the threshold of the world, the sleeper was shaken by recollection and dream
together. But his utterances then were broken and mumbled, and so clearly painful
to his progress that Cadfael, who had reserved to himself that most perilous
watch, bent his energies all to soothing away the torment from his patient’s
mind, and easing him back into healthful sleep. Cadfael was relieved before
dawn, and Elyas slept. The body rallied and healed. The mind wandered and
shunned remembrance. Cadfael
slept until noon, and arose to find his patient at rest in wakefulness as he
had not been in sleep, very docile, without much pain, and well tended by an
elderly brother with long experience of nursing the sick. The day was clear,
and the light would last well. Though the frost was unbroken, and without doubt
there would be fresh snow in the night, at this hour the sun and the remaining
hours of daylight tempted. “He’s
well enough cared for.” said Cadfael to the prior. “I may leave him for a few
hours with an easy mind. That horse of mine is rested now, and the ways none so
bad until the next fall comes or the wind rises. I’ll ride as far as Godstoke,
and ask if these truants ever reached there, and whether they’ve moved on, and
by what road. Six days it must be now since he parted from them, at Foxwood you
said. If they came safely to the lands of Wenlock priory they may well have
made their way either to Wenlock or Shrewsbury by now, and all the coil over
them will be done. Then we can all breathe freely.” Chapter Three GODSTOKE,
SUNK IN ITS DEEP, WOODED VALLEY BETWEEN THE HILLS, was held by the priory of
Wenlock, a third of the manor fanned in demesne, the rest leased out to life
tenants, a prosperous settlement, and well-found in stores and firing for the
winter. Once over the bleak hills and into this sheltered place, a party of
fugitives could rest and be at ease, and make their way onward at their own
pace, moving from manor to manor of the prior’s wide-ranging properties. But
these fugitives had never reached Godstoke. The prior’s steward was quite
certain. “We
got word already they were being sought, and though we had no great call to
suppose they would be heading this way, any more than by Ludlow or any other
road, I’ve had inquiry made everywhere. You may take it as sure, brother, that
they did not reach us.” “The
last known of them,” said Brother Cadfael, “was at Foxwood. From Cleobury they
were in company with a brother of our order, who urged them to come on with him
to Bromfield, but they would continue north over the hills. It seemed to me
they must make for you.” “So
I would say also,” agreed the steward. “But they did not come.” Cadfael
considered. He was not perfectly familiar with these parts, yet he knew them
well enough to make his way. If they had not passed here, small
profit in searching beyond. And though it would be possible to work backwards
along the way they should have taken to reach this place, and look for traces
of them between here and Foxwood, that would certainly have to wait for another
day. This one was already too far spent. Dusk was closing in faintly, and he
had better make his way back by the nearest way. “Well,
keep watch in case some word reaches you. I’m for Bromfield again.” He had come
by the most used roads, but they were less than direct, and he had a good eye
for country. “If I make straight southwesterly from here, I take it that’s the
way the crow flies for Bromfield. How are the tracks?” “You’ll
be threading part of Clee Forest if you try it, but keep the sunset a little on
your right hand and you’ll not go wrong. And the brooks are no stay, nor have
been since the frost set in.” The
steward started him off in the direction he should go, and saw him out of the
wooded hollow and on to the narrow, straight track between gentle hills,
turning his back upon the great, hunched bulk of Brown Clee, and his left
shoulder on the grimmer, more rugged shape of Titterstone Clee. The sunlight
had long withdrawn, though the sun itself had still some way to sink, and hung
in a dull red ball behind veils of thin grey cloud. The inevitable nocturnal
snow should not begin for an hour or two yet. The air was very still and very
cold. After
a mile he was in the forest. The branches still held up roofs of frozen snow,
trailing long icicles where the noon sun had had room to penetrate, and the
ground underfoot, deep in leaf-mold and needles, was easy riding. The trees
even created a measure of warmth. Clee was a royal forest, but neglected now,
as much of England was surely being neglected, left to rot or to be
appropriated by opportunist local magnates, while king and empress fought out
their battle for the crown. Lonely country, this, and wild, even within ten
miles of castle and town. Assarts were few and far between. The beasts of the
chase and the beasts of the warren had it for their own domain, but in such a
winter even the deer would starve without some judicious nursing from men.
Fodder too precious to be wasted by the farmer might still be put out
by the lord to ensure the survival of his game in a bad season. Cadfael passed
one such store, trampled and spread by the hungry beasts, the snow patterned
with their slots all around. The hereditary forester was still minding his
duties, no matter which of the two rival rulers claimed his estate. The
sun, seen briefly between the trees, hung very low now, evening had begun to
gather like an overhanging cloud, while the ground below still had light
enough. Before him the trees drew apart, restoring an hour of the failing day.
Someone had carved out an assart, a clearing of narrow garden and field about a
low cottage. A man was folding his two or three goats, herding them before him
into a wattled enclosure. He looked up alertly at the rustle of crisp snow and
frozen leaf under hooves. A sturdy, squat husbandman no more than forty years
old, in good brown homespun and leggings of home-tanned leather. He had made a
good job of his lonely holding, and stood erect to face the traveller as soon
as he had penned his goats. Narrowed eyes surveyed the monastic habit, the tall
and vigorous horse, the broad, weathered face beneath the cowl. “God
bless the holding and the holder,” said Cadfael, reining in by the wattle
fence. “God
be with you, brother!” His voice was even and deep, but his eyes were wary.
“Whither bound?” “To
Bromfield, friend. Am I going right?” “True
enough to your road. Keep on as you are, and in a half-mile you come to the
Hopton brook. Cross it, and bear a little to your left over the two lesser
brooks that run into it. After the second the track forks. Bear right, level
along the slope, and you’ll come out to the road beyond Ludlow, a mile from the
priory.” He
did not ask how a Benedictine brother came to be riding this obscure way at
such an hour. He did not ask anything. He spread his solid bulk across the
gateway of his enclosure like a portcullis, but with courteous face and
obliging tongue. It was the eyes that said he had something within to cover
from view, and also that he was storing every sight and sound to be delivered
faithfully elsewhere. Yet whoever hewed this holding out of the forest could be
nothing less than a practical, honest man. “Thanks
for your rede,” said Cadfael. “Now help me with another matter if you can. I am
a monk of Shrewsbury, now nursing a brother of our order from Pershore, in the
infirmary of Bromfield priory. Our sick brother frets over certain people he
met on their way to Shrewsbury from Worcester, in flight from the sacking of
the city. They would not turn west with him for Bromfield, they would hold
northwards this way. Tell me if you have seen hide or hair of such.” He
described them, in doubt of his own intuition until he saw the man cast one swift
glance over his shoulder towards his cottage, and again confront him
unblinking. “No
such company has come my way in this woodland,” he said steadily. “And why
should they? I’m on the way to nowhere.” “Travellers
in strange country and snow may very well find themselves on the road to
nowhere, and lost to anywhere,” said Cadfael. “You’re none so far from
Godstoke, where I’ve already been inquiring. Well, if any or all of these three
should come your way, give them the word that they’re sought by all the shire
and the abbeys of Worcester and Shrewsbury, and when they’re found they shall
have safe escort wherever they would be. Worcester is re-garrisoned now, and
anxious about its strays. Say so, if you meet with them.” The
wary eyes stared him thoughtfully in the face. The man nodded, and said: “I
will say so. If ever I do meet with them.” He
did not move from his place before the gate until Cadfael had shaken his rein
and moved on along the track, yet when Cadfael reached the shelter of the trees
and turned to look back, the cottager had vanished with some speed into his
house, as if he had an errand that would not wait. Cadfael rode on, but at a
slow, ambling walk, and once well out of sight, halted and sat listening. The
small, cautious sounds of movement behind him were his reward. Someone
light-footed and shy was following him, trying at the same time to hurry and
remain unheard. A sly glance over his shoulder afforded him a fleeting glimpse
of a blue cloak that whisked aside into cover. He idled, letting the pursuer
draw nearer, and then suddenly reined aside and turned to look back
openly. All sounds ceased instantly, but the leaning branches of a beech
sapling quivered and shed a few flakes of powdery snow. “You
may come forth,” said Cadfael mildly. “I am a monk of Shrewsbury, no threat to
you or any. The goodman told you true.” The
boy stepped out of hiding and stood in the open ride, legs braced well apart,
ready to run if he saw fit, or stand his ground sturdily. A small, stocky boy
with a round shock-head of brown hair, large unwavering brown eyes, and a
formidably firm mouth and chin belying the childish fullness of his cheeks. The
bright blue cotte and cloak were somewhat soiled and crumpled now, as if he had
slept wild in the woods in them, as perhaps he had, and there was a tear in one
knee of the grey hose, but he still wore them with the large assurance of his
own nobility. He had a little dagger at his belt, the sheath ornamented with
silver, sign enough of his worth to have tempted many a man. He had fallen into
good hands at this recent stay, whatever had happened to him earlier. “He
said…” The boy advanced a step or two, reassured. “His name is Thurstan. He and
his wife have been good to me. He said that here was one I could trust, a Benedictine
brother. He said you have been looking for us.” “He
said truly. For you, I think, must be Yves Hugonin.” The
boy said: “Yes. And may I come with you to Bromfield?” “Yves,
very heartily you may, and a warm welcome you’ll get from all those who are out
hunting for you. Since you fled from Worcester your uncle d’Angers is come back
from the Holy Land, and reached Gloucester only to hear you were lost, and he’s
been sending about to have you sought all through this shire. Main glad he’ll
be to get you back whole and well.” “My
uncle d’Angers?” The boy’s face wavered between eagerness and doubt. “In
Gloucester? But… but it was men from Gloucester…” “It
was, we know, but none of his doing. Never trouble your head over the divisions
that keep him from coming himself to find you, nor you nor I can help those.
But we’re pledged to return you to him safe and sound, and that
you may rely on. But the search is for three, and here we are fobbed off with
but one. Where are your sister and her governess?” “I
don’t know!” It came almost in a wail. The boy’s resolute chin shook for a
moment, and recovered gallantly. “I left Sister Hilaria safe at Cleeton, I hope
she is safe there still, but what she would do when she found herself alone…
And my sister… My sister is the cause of all this! She went off with her lover,
in the night. He came for her, I am sure she sent him word to fetch her away. I
tried to follow them, but then the snow came…” Cadfael
drew breath in mingled wonder, dismay and relief. Here was at least one of the
three safely netted, another might be snug if distracted at Cleeton still, and
the third, even if she had committed a great folly, seemed to be in the hands
of someone who held her dear, and presumably meant her nothing but good. There
might yet be a happy ending to all. But meantime, it bade fair to be a very
long and confused story, and here was dusk falling, the rim of the sun already
dipped, and several miles to go, and the best thing to be done was to get this
one back to Bromfield, and make sure he did not wander to be lost again. “Come,
let’s get you home before night falls on us. Come up before me, your light
weight won’t worry this fellow. Your foot on mine, so…” The boy had to reach
high. His hand was firm and eager in Cadfael’s, he came up with a spring, and
settled himself snugly. His body, at first tensed, relaxed with a great sigh. “I
have thanked Thurstan, and said farewell to him,” he said in a soft, gruff
voice, reviewing his own behavior scrupulously. “I gave him half what was left
in my purse, but it was not very much. He said he did not want nor need it, and
I was welcome, but I had nothing else to give him, and I could not go and never
leave a token.” “There
may be a time, some day, to visit him again,” said Cadfael comfortably. The boy
had been well brought up, and felt his status and its obligations. There was
much to be said for the monastic education. “I
should like that,” said the child, wriggling himself warmly into the hollow of
Cadfael’s shoulder. “I would have given him my dagger, but he
said I should need it, and what would he do with such a thing, when he dared
not show it for fear of being thought to have stolen it.” He
seemed to have put away for the present his worries over the two women he had
somehow mislaid in the snow, in his gratitude at being relieved of anxiety on
his own account. Thirteen years old, they said he was. He had a right to be
glad when someone else took charge of him. “How
long have you been there with them?” “Four
days. Thurstan said I’d best wait until someone trusty came by, for there are
stories of footpads about the hills and the woods, and in this snow, if I set
out alone, I might get lost again. I was lost, two whole days,” said Yves,
staring remembered terrors firmly in the eye. “I slept in a tree, for fear of
wolves.” He was not complaining, rather doing his best not to boast. Well, let
him talk, easing his heart of loneliness and fright like a man stretching his
feet to a good fire after a dangerous journey. The real story he had to tell
could wait until proper attention could be paid to it. If all turned out well,
he might be able to point the way to both the missing ladies, but what mattered
now was to reach Bromfield before complete darkness fell. They
went briskly wherever the forest thinned and the lingering light showed their
way clearly. The first floating flakes of new snow drifted languidly on the air
as they came down to the Hopton brook, and crossed it on solid ice, Cadfael
lighting down to lead the horse over. From that point they bore somewhat to the
left, though veering gradually away from the course of the brook, and came to
the first of the little tributaries that flowed down into it, from the long,
gentle slope on their right hand. Every stream was still, frozen now for many
days. The sun was gone, only an angry glow remained in the west, sullen under
leaden greyness. The wind was rising, the snow beginning to sting their faces.
Here the forest was broken by scattered holdings and fields, and occasionally a
sheep shelter, roughly propped with its back to the wind. Shapes began to
dissolve into a mere mottle of shadows, but for fugitive gleams of reflected
light from surfaces of ice, and the bluish mounds where untrodden snow had
drifted deep. The
second brook, still and silent like the rest, was a shallow,
reed-fringed, meandering serpent of silver. The horse disliked the feel of the
ice under him, and Cadfael dismounted again to lead him over. The wide, glassy
surface shone opaque from every angle, except when looking directly down into
it, and Cadfael was watching his own foothold as he crossed, for his boots were
worn and smooth. Thus his eye caught, for a moment only, the ghostly pallor
beneath the ice to his left, before the horse slithered and recovered, hoisting
himself into the snowy grass on the further side. Cadfael
was slow to recognize, slower to believe, what he had seen. Half an hour later,
and he would not have been able to see it at all. Fifty paces on, with a
thicket of bushes between, he halted, and instead of remounting, as Yves
expected, put the bridle into the boy’s hands, and said with careful calm:
“Wait a moment for me. No, we need not turn off yet, this is not the place
where the tracks divide. Something I noticed there. Wait!” Yves
wondered, but waited obediently, as Cadfael turned back to the frozen brook.
The pallor had been no illusion from some stray reflected gleam, it was there
fixed and still, embedded in the ice. He went down on his knees to look more
closely. The
short hairs rose on his neck. Not a yearling lamb, as he had briefly believed
it might be. Longer, more shapely, slender and white. Out of the encasing,
glassy stillness a pale, pearly oval stared up at him with open eyes. Small,
delicate hands had floated briefly before the frost took hold, and hovered open
at her sides, a little upraised as if in appeal. The white of her body and the
white of her torn shift which was all she wore seemed to Cadfael to be smirched
by some soiling color at the breast, but so faintly that too intent staring
caused the mark to shift and fade. The face was fragile, delicate, young. A
lamb, after all. A lost ewe-lamb, a lamb of God, stripped and violated and
slaughtered. Eighteen years old? It could well be so. By
this token, Ermina Hugonin was at once found and lost. Chapter
Four THERE
WAS NOTHING TO BE DONE HERE at this hour, alone as he was, and if he lingered,
the boy might come to see what kept him so long. He rose from his knees in
haste, and went back to where the horse stamped and fidgeted, eager to get back
to his stable. The boy was looking round for him curiously, rather than
anxiously. “What
was it? Is there something wrong?” “Nothing
to fret you.” Not yet, he thought with a pang, not until you must know. At
least let’s feed you, and warm you, and reassure you your own life is safe
enough, before you need hear word of this. “I thought I saw a sheep caught in
the ice, but I was mistaken.” He mounted, and reached round the boy to take the
reins. “We’d best make haste. We’ll have full darkness on us before we reach
Bromfield.” Where
the track forked they bore right as they had been instructed, a straight
traverse along the slope, easy to follow. The boy’s sturdy body grew heavier
and softer in Cadfael’s arm, the brown head hung sleepy on his shoulder. You at
least, thought Cadfael, mute in his anger and grief, we’ll put out of harm’s
way, if we could not save your sister. “You
have not told me your name,” said Yves, yawning. “I don’t know what to call
you.” “My
name is Cadfael, a Welshman from Trefriw, but now of Shrewsbury abbey. Where, I
think, you were bound.” “Yes,
so we were. But Ermina—my sister’s name is Ermina—she must always have her own
way. I have far more sense than she has! If she’d listened to me we would never
have got separated, and we should all have been safe in Shrewsbury by now. I
wanted to come to Bromfield with Brother Elyas—you do know about Brother
Elyas?—and so did Sister Hilaria, but not Ermina, she had other plans. This is
all her fault!” And
small doubt, by now, that that was true, Brother Cadfael reflected wretchedly,
clasping the innocent judge who lay warm and confiding in his arm. But surely
our little faults do not deserve so crushing a penalty. Without time to
reconsider, to repent, to make reparation. Youth destroyed for a folly, when
youth should be allowed its follies on the way to maturity and sense. They
were coming down on to the good, trodden road between Ludlow and Bromfield.
“Praise God!” said Cadfael, sighting the torches at the gatehouse, yellow
terrestrial stars glowing through a fragile but thickening curtain of snow. “We
are here!” They
rode in at the gate, to be confronted by a scene of unexpected activity in the
great court. The snow within was stamped into intricate patterns of hooves, and
about the stables two or three grooms, certainly not of the household, were
busy rubbing down horses and leading them to their stalls. Beside the door of
the guest-hall Prior Leonard stood in earnest conversation with a lithe young
man of middle height, still cloaked and hooded, and his back turned, but it was
a back Cadfael knew very well by now. Hugh Beringar had come in person to probe
into the first news of the lost Hugonins, and brought, by the look of it, two
or three more officers with him. His
ear was as sharp as ever, he turned towards the arrivals and came striding
before ever the horse halted. The prior followed, eager and hopeful at sight of
two returning where only one went forth. Cadfael
was down by the time they approached, and Yves, dazzled and excited, had
recovered from his sleepiness and braced himself to encounter with a nobleman’s
assurance whoever bore down on him. He set both plump paws to the pommel
of the saddle, and vaulted down into the snow. A long way down for his short stature,
but he lit like an acrobat, and stretched erect before Beringar’s amused and
approving eye. “Make
your bow, Yves, to Hugh Beringar, the deputy sheriff of this shire,” said
Cadfael. “And to Prior Leonard of Bromfield, your host here.” And to Hugh, aside,
he said fervently, while the boy made his solemn reverences: “Ask him nothing,
yet, get him within!” Between
them they made a reasonable job of it, quick in response to each other from old
habit. Yves was soon led away contentedly with Leonard’s bony but benevolent
hand on his shoulder, to be warmed and fed and made much of before bed. He was
young, he would sleep this night. He was cloister-educated, he would stir in
response to the bells for office, and find nothing but reassurance, and sleep
again heartily. “For
God’s sake,” said Cadfael, heaving a great sigh as soon as the boy was safely
out of sight, “come within, somewhere quiet, where we can talk. I never
expected you here in person, seeing the ties you have at home…” Beringar had
taken him companionably by the arm, and was hurrying him into the doorway of
the prior’s lodging, and eyeing him intently along his shoulder as they shook
the snow from boots and cloaks on the threshold. “We had but a first breath of
news of our quarry, I never thought it could tear you away, though thanks be,
it did!” “I’ve
left all in very good order behind me,” said Hugh. He had come to meet his
friend expecting a glow of good news, and found himself confronted with a
gravity that promised little but trouble. “If you have burdens on your mind
here, Cadfael, at least you may be easy about affairs in Shrewsbury. The very
day you left us, our son was born, a fine, lusty lad as yellow-haired as his
mother, and the pair of them flourishing. And for good measure, the Worcester
girl has given her man a son, too, only one day after. The house is full of
exultant women, and no one is going to miss me for these few days.” “Oh,
Hugh, the best of news! I’m happy for you both.” It was right and fitting,
Cadfael thought, a life emerging in defiance of a death. “And
all went well for her? She had not too hard a time of it?” “Oh,
Aline has the gift! She’s too innocent to understand that there can be pain in
a thing so joyful as birth, so she felt none. Faith, even if I hadn’t had this
errand to occupy me, I was as near being elbowed out of my own house as makes
no matter. Your prior’s message came very aptly. I have three men here with me,
and twenty-two more I have quartered on Josce de Dinan in Ludlow castle, to be
at hand if I need them, and to give him a salutary jolt if he really is in two
minds about changing sides. He cannot be in any doubt now that I have my eye on
him. And now,” said Hugh, drawing up a chair to the fire in the prior’s parlor,
“you owe me a story, I fancy, and for my life I can’t tell what to expect of
it. Here you come riding in with the boy we’ve been hunting on your saddle-bow,
and yet a face on you as bleak as the sky, when you should be beaming. And not
a word to be got out of you until he was safe out of earshot. Where did you
find him?” Cadfael
sat back with a small groan of weariness and stiffness after his chill ride.
There was no longer any urgent need for action. In the night they would never
find the place, especially now that the wind was high and the fresh snow
altering the landscape on all sides, blowing hillsides naked, filling in
hollows, burying what yesterday had uncovered. He could afford to sit still and
feel the warmth of the fire on his legs, and tell what he had to tell at his
own pace, since there was nothing to be done about it until daylight. “In
an assart in Clee Forest, in shelter with a decent cottar and his wife, who
would not let him take his chance alone through the woods until some
trustworthy traveller came by to bear him company. Me they considered fit for
the task, and he came with me willingly enough.” “But
he was there alone? A pity,” said Hugh with a wry grimace, “that you did not
find his sister, too, while you were about it.” “I
am only too afraid,” said Cadfael, the warmth of the fire heavy on his eyelids,
“that I have indeed found her.” The
silence lasted a shorter time than it seemed. The significance of that last
utterance there was no mistaking. “And
cold.” Cold as ice, encased in ice. The first bitter frost had provided her a
glassy coffin, preserving her flesh immaculate and unchanged to accuse her
destroyer. “Tell
me,” said Hugh, intent and still. Cadfael
told him. The whole story would have to be told again when Prior Leonard came,
for he, too, must help to stand between the boy and too early and too sudden
knowledge of his loss. But in the meantime it was a relief to heave the burden
from his heart, and know that this was now Hugh’s responsibility as much as his
own. “Can
you find the place again?” “By
daylight, yes, I’ll find it. In darkness, no use trying. It will be a fearful
thing… We shall have to take axes to hew her out of the ice, unless the thaw
comes.” It was a forlorn hope, there was no possible sign of a thaw. “That
we’ll face when we come to it,” said Hugh somberly. “Tonight we’d best get the
boy’s story out of him, and see if we can gather from it how she ever came
where you happened on her. And where, in heaven’s name, is the nun who fled
with her?” “According
to Yves, he left her in Cleeton, safe enough. And the girl—poor fool!—he says
went off with a lover. But I took him no further into matters, it was towards
the end of the day, and the most urgent thing was to get one, at least, into
safety.” “True
enough, and you did well. We’ll wait for the prior, and until the boy’s fed and
warmed and easy. Then between us we’ll hope to get out of him all he knows, and
more, perhaps, than he realizes he knows, without betraying that he’s lost a
sister. Though he’ll have to learn it soon or late,” said Hugh unhappily. “Who
else knows the poor girl’s face?” “But
not tonight, let him sleep soundly tonight. Time enough,” said Cadfael heavily,
“when we’ve brought her in and made her as comely as may be, before he need see
her.” Supper
and security had done much for Yves, and his own natural resilience had done
even more. He sat in the prior’s parlor before Compline, face to face with Hugh
Beringar, and with Prior Leonard and Brother Cadfael in
watchful attendance, and told his story with bluntness and brevity. “She
is very brave,” he said judicially, giving his sister her due, “but very
obstinate and self-willed. All the way from Worcester I did feel she had
something up her sleeve, and was taking advantage of having to run away. We had
to go roundabout at first, and slowly, because there were bands of soldiers
roaming even miles from the town, so it took us a long time to get safely to
Cleobury, and there we stayed one night, and that was the night Brother Elyas
was there, too, and he came with us as far as Foxwood, and wanted us to come
with him into Bromfield for safety, and I wanted that, too, and so did Sister
Hilaria. From here we could have got an escort into Shrewsbury, and it would
not have been a much longer way. But Ermina would not have it! She must always
have her own way, and she would go on over the hills to Godstoke. No use my
arguing, she never listens, she claims that being the elder makes her the
wiser. And if we others had gone with Brother Elyas she would still have gone
on over the hills alone, so what could we do but go with her?” He blew out his
lips in a disgusted breath. “Certainly
you could not leave her,” agreed Beringar reasonably. “So you went on, to spend
the next night at Cleeton?” “It’s
close by Cleeton, a solitary holding. Ermina had a nurse once who married a
tenant of that manor, so we knew we could get a bed there. The man’s name is
John Druel. We got there in the afternoon, and I remembered afterwards that
Ermina was talking apart with the son of the house, and then he went away, and
we didn’t see him again until evening. I never thought of it then, but now I’m
sure she sent him with a message. That was what she intended all along. For a
man came late in the evening, with horses, and took her away. I heard the stir,
and I got up and looked out… Two horses there were, and he was just helping her
up into the saddle…” “He?”
said Hugh. “You knew him?” “Not
his name, but I do remember him. When my father was alive he used to visit
sometimes, if there was hunting, or for Christmas or Easter. Many guests used
to come, we always had company. He must be son or nephew to one
of my father’s friends. I never paid him much attention, nor he never noticed
me, I was too young. But I do remember his face, and I think… I think he has
been visiting Ermina now and then in Worcester.” If
he had, they must have been very decorous visits, with a sponsoring sister
always in attendance. “You
think she sent him word to come and fetch her?” asked Hugh. “This was no abduction?
She went willingly?” “She
went gaily!” Yves asserted indignantly. “I heard her laughing. Yes, she sent
for him, and he came. And that was why she would go that way, for he must have
a manor close by, and she knew she could whistle him to her. She will have a
great dower,” said the baron’s heir solemnly, his round, childish cheeks
flushing red with outrage. “And my sister would never endure to have her
marriage made for her in the becoming way, if it went against her choice. I
never knew a rule she would not break, shamelessly…” His
chin shook, a weakness instantly and ruthlessly suppressed. All the arrogant
pride of all the feudal houses of Anjou and England in this small package, and
he loved as much as he hated her, or more, and never, never must he see her
mute and violated and stripped to her shift. Hugh
took up the questioning with considerate calm. “And what did you do?” The jolt
back into facts was salutary. “No
one else had heard,” said Yves, rallying, “unless it was the boy who carried her
message, and he had surely been told not to hear anything. I was still dressed,
there being only one bed, which the women had, so I rushed out to try and stop
them. Older she may be, but I am my father’s heir! I am the head of our family
now.” “But
afoot,” said Hugh, pricking him back to the real and sorry situation, “you
could hardly keep their pace. And they were away before you could hale them
back to answer to you.” “No,
I couldn’t keep up, but I could follow. It had begun to snow, they left tracks,
and I knew they could not be going very far. Far enough to lose me!” he owned,
and bit a lip that did not quite know whether to curl up or down. “I followed
as long as I could by their tracks, and it was uphill, and the wind
rose, and there was so much snow the tracks were soon covered. I couldn’t find
the way forward or back. I tried to keep what I thought was the direction
they’d taken, but I don’t know how much I may have wandered, or where I went. I
was quite lost. All night I was in the forest, and the second night Thurstan
found me and took me home with him. Brother Cadfael knows. Thurstan said there
were outlaws abroad, and I should stay with him until some safe traveller came
by. And so I did. And now I don’t know,” he said, visibly sinking into his
proper years, “where Ermina went with her lover, or what has become of Sister
Hilaria. She would wake to find the two of us gone, and I don’t know what she
would do. But she was with John and his wife, they surely wouldn’t let her come
to harm.” “This
man who took your sister away,” pressed Beringar. “You don’t know his name, but
you do remember he was acceptable in your father’s house. If he has a manor in
the hills, within easy reach of Cleeton, no doubt we can trace him. I take it
he might, had your father lived, have been a possible suitor for your sister,
even in a more approved fashion?” “Oh,
yes,” said the boy seriously, “I think he well might. There were any number of
young men used to come, and Ermina, even when she was only fourteen or fifteen,
would ride and hunt with the best of them. They were all men of substance, or
heirs to good estates. I never noticed which of them she favored.” He would
have been playing with toy warriors and falling off his first pony then,
uninterested in sisters and their admirers. “This one is very handsome,” he
said generously. “Much fairer than me. And taller than you, sir.” That would
not make him a rarity, Beringar’s modest length of steel and sinew had been
under-estimated by many a man to his cost. “I think he must be about
twenty-five or six. But his name I don’t know. There were so many came visiting
to us.” “Now
there is one more thing,” said Cadfael, “in which Yves may be able to help us,
if I may keep him from his bed a few minutes more. You know, Yves, you spoke of
Brother Elyas, who left you at Foxwood?” Yves
nodded, attentive and wondering. “Brother
Elyas is here in the infirmary. After leaving for home, his
errand done, he was attacked by footpads in the night and badly hurt, and the
countrymen who found him brought him here to be cared for. I am sure he is on
the mend now, but he has not been able to tell us anything about what happened
to him. He has no memory of these recent days, only in his sleep he seems to
struggle with some half-recalled distress. Waking, his mind is blank, but in
sleep he has mentioned you, though not by name. The boy would have gone with
me, he said. Now if he claps eyes on you, safe and well, it might be the sight
will jog his memory. Will you try it with me?” Yves
rose willingly, if somewhat apprehensively, looking to Beringar for
confirmation that he had done all that was required of him here. “I am sorry he
has come to harm. He was kind… Yes, whatever I can do for him…” On
the way to the sickroom, with no other witness by, he slipped his hand
thankfully, like an awed child, into Brother Cadfael’s comfortable clasp, and
clung tightly. “You
mustn’t mind that he is bruised and disfigured. All that will pass, I promise
you.” Brother
Elyas was lying mute and still, while a younger brother read to him from the
life of Saint Remigius. His bruises and distortions were already subsiding, he
seemed free from pain, he had taken food during the day, and at the office bell
his lips would move soundlessly on the words of the liturgy. But his open eyes
dwelt unrecognizingly upon the boy who entered, and wandered away again
languidly into the shadowy corners of the room. Yves crept to the bedside on
tiptoe, great-eyed. “Brother
Elyas, here is Yves come to see you. You remember Yves? The boy you met at
Cleobury, and parted from at Foxwood.” No,
nothing, nothing but the faint tremor of desperate anxiety troubling the
patient face. Yves ventured close, and timidly laid his hand over the long, lax
hand that lay upon the covers, but it remained chill and unresponsive under his
touch. “I
am sorry you have been hurt. We walked together those few miles. I wish we had
kept your company all the way…” Brother Elyas stared and quivered,
shaking his head helplessly. “No,
let him be,” said Cadfael, sighing. “If we press him he grows agitated. No
matter, he has time. Only let his body revive as it is doing, and memory can
wait. It was worth the trying, but he is not ready for us yet. Come, you’re
dropping with sleep, let’s get you safely into your bed.” They
arose at dawn, Cadfael and Hugh and his men, and went out into a world which
had again changed its shape in the night, hillocks levelled and hollows filled
in, and a spume of fine snow waving like a languid plume from every crest, in
the subsiding winds. They took axes with them, and a litter of leather thongs
strung between two poles, and a linen cloth to cover her, and they went in dour
silence, none of them with anything to say until words were to the point for
the grim work in hand. The fall had stopped at the coming of daylight, as it
had now ever since that first night when Yves had set off doggedly to trail his
errant sister. Iron frost had begun the next night, and that same night some
nocturnal beast had ravished and murdered the girl they went out now to seek,
for the ice had taken her to itself very shortly after she had been put into an
already congealing stream. Of that Cadfael was certain. They
found her, after some questing and probing in new snow, swept the fresh fall
from the ice, and looked down upon her, a girl in a mirror, a girl spun from
glass. “Good
God!” said Hugh in awe. “She’s younger than the boy!” So slight, so childlike,
did the shadowy form appear. But
they were there, perforce, to break her rest and take her away for Christian
burial, though it seemed almost a violation to shatter the smoothness of the
ice that encase her. They did it with care, well aside from the delicate,
imprisoned flesh, and it proved hard work enough. For all the bite of the
frost, they were sweating when they hoisted out heavily the girl and her cold
coffin, laid her like a piece of statuary in the thongs of the litter, covered
her with the linen cloth, and carried her slowly back to Bromfield. Not a drop
fell from the ice until they had it stowed privately in the chill, bare
mortuary of the priory. Then the glittering edges began to
soften and slide, and drip into the channel where the water flowed away from
the washing of the dead. The
girl lay remote and pale within her lucid shroud, and yet grew steadily more
human and closer to life, to pain and pity and violence, and all the mortal lot
of mankind. Cadfael dared not leave the place for long, because the boy Yves
was now up and active, and inquisitive about everything, and no one could guess
where he would appear next. He was well brought up, and his manners were
charming, but with his inbred conviction of privilege and his very proper
thirteen-year-old energy, he might yet prove a hazard. It
was past ten, and High Mass in progress, when the shell of ice had dwindled so
far that the girl began to emerge, the tips of thin, pale fingers and stretched
toes, her nose, as yet only a minute pearl, and the first curling strands of
hair, a fine lace on either side her forehead. It was those curls that first
caught Cadfael’s acute attention. For they were short. He wound a few fine
threads on his finger, and they made but a turn and a half. And they were no
darker than dark gold, and would be even fairer as they dried. Then he bent to
the calm stare of her open eyes, still thinly veiled with ice. Their color
seemed to him the soft, dim purple of irises, or the darkest grey of lavender
flowers. The
face emerged as Mass ended. After the air touched her, bruises began to darken
on cheek and mouth. The tips of her small breasts broke the glaze over them.
And now Cadfael could see clearly the smear that darkened her flesh and her
linen there, on the right side, a reddish mark like a graze, faintly mottled
from shoulder to breast. He knew the traces of blood. The ice had taken her
before the stilling water could wash the stain away. Now it might pale as the
remaining ice thawed, but he would know how it had lain, and where to look for
the source. Well
before noon she was freed of her shell, and softening into his hands, slender
and young, her small, shapely head covered all over with an aureole of short
bronze curls, like an angel in an Annunciation. Cadfael went to fetch Prior
Leonard, and they cared for her together, not yet to wash her body, not until
Hugh Beringar had viewed it, but to compose her worthily in her everlasting
stillness. To the throat they covered her with a linen sheet,
and made her ready to be seen. Hugh
came, and stood by her silently. Eighteen could well be her age, so white and
slim and tranquil, gone far beyond them. And beautiful, as reported? Yes, that
she was. But was this the dark, headstrong, spoiled daughter of the nobility,
who had insisted on her own way in despite of the times, the winter, the war
and all? “Look!”
said Cadfael, and turned back the linen to show the crumpled folds of her
shift, just as they had emerged from the ice. The dull, reddish smear speckled
her right shoulder, the edge of her shift, and the creases over her right
breast. “Stabbed?”
said Hugh, looking up into Cadfael’s face. “There
is no wound. See now!” He drew down the linen and showed the flesh beneath.
Only a smudge or two showed on her pale skin. He wiped them away, and she shone
white without blemish. “Certainly not stabbed. The night frost that took her
closed in very quickly, and preserved these marks, faint as they are. But she
did not bleed. Or if she did,” he added bleakly, “it was not from knife-wounds,
and not there. More likely she fought him—him or them, such wolves hunt
happiest in packs!—and drew blood. A clawed face, it might be, or a hand or
wrist as she tried to force him off. Bear it in mind, Hugh, as I will also.” He
covered her again reverently. The alabaster face looked up from veiled eyes
into the vault, supremely unmoved, and her head of clipped curls was beginning
to shine like a halo as it dried. “She
begins to bruise,” said Hugh, and drew a fingertip over her cheekbone and down
to the faint discolorations round her lips. “But her throat is unmarked. She
was not strangled.” “Smothered,
surely, in the act of ravishment.” They
were all three so intent upon the dead girl that they had not heard the
footsteps that approached the closed door of the room, and even had they been
listening, the footsteps were light enough to be missed, though they came
briskly and without conceal. The first they knew of the boy’s coming was the
white burst of reflected light from the snow, as the door was opened wide to
the wall, and Yves marched over the threshold with the innocent
boldness of his kind. No creeping ingratiatingly through a narrow chink for
him, nothing he did was done by half-measures. The abruptness with which they
all whirled upon him, and their frowning consternation gave him sharp pause and
mild offense. Both Hugh and Prior Leonard stepped quickly between him and the
trestle on which the body lay. “You
should not be here, child,” said the prior, flustered. “Why
should I not, Father? No one has told me I should be at fault. I was looking
for Brother Cadfael.” “Brother
Cadfael will come out to you in a little while. Go back to the guest-hall and
wait for him there…” It
was late to ward him off, he had seen, beyond the sheltering shoulders, enough
to tell him what lay behind. The linen sheet, quickly drawn up, the
unmistakable shape, and one glimpse of short, bright hair where the linen, too
hastily drawn, had folded back on itself. His face grew still and wary, his
eyes large, and his tongue was silenced. The
prior laid a hand gently on his shoulder and made to turn him back to the doorway.
“Come, you and I will go together. Whatever is to be told, you shall hear
later, but leave it now.” Yves
stood his ground, and went on staring. “No,”
said Cadfael unexpectedly, “let him come.” He came out from behind the trestle,
and took a step or two towards the boy. “Yves, you are a sensible man, no need
to pretend to you, after your travels, that violence and danger and cruelty do
not exist, and men do not die. We have here a dead body, not known to us. I
would have you look at it, if you will, and say if you know this face. You need
not fear anything ill to see.” The
boy drew near steadily and with set face, and eyed the shrouded form with
nothing worse than awe. Doubtful if it had ever entered his head, thought
Cadfael, that this might be his sister, or indeed a woman. He had seen the
dilated eyes fix on the short, curling hair; it was a young man Yves expected.
Nevertheless, Cadfael would have approached this somewhat differently if he had
not been certain already, in his own mind, that this dead girl, whoever she
might be, was not Ermina Hugonin. Beyond that he had only a
pitiful suspicion. But Yves would know. He
drew down the sheet from her face. The boy’s hands, clenched together before
him, tightened abruptly. He drew in breath hard, but made no other sound for a
long moment. He shook a little, but not much. The wide-eyed stare he raised to
Cadfael’s questioning face was one of shocked bewilderment, almost of
disbelief. “But
how is this possible? I thought… I don’t understand! She…” He gave up, shaking
his head violently, and hung over her again in fascinated pity and wonder. “I
do know her, of course I do, but how can she be here, and dead? This is Sister
Hilaria, who came with us from Worcester.” Chapter
Five BETWEEN
THEM THEY COAXED AND SHOOED HIM AWAY across the snowy court. Yves went still in
his daze, frowning helplessly over this sudden and inexplicable reappearance in
another place of someone he had left safe under a friendly roof some miles
away. He was too shaken and puzzled at first to realize fully the meaning of
what he had seen, but halfway to the guest-hall it hit him like a blow on the
head. He balked, gulped breath in a great sob, and startled himself, if no one
else, by bursting into tears. Prior Leonard would have clucked over him like a
dismayed hen, but Cadfael clapped him briskly on the shoulder, and said
practically: “Bear
up, my heart, for we’re going to need you. We have a malefactor to trace now,
and a wrong to avenge, and who but you can lead us straight to the place where
you left her? Where else should we start?” The
fit passed as abruptly as it had begun. Yves scrubbed at his smudged cheeks
hastily with his sleeve, and looked round alertly enough to see what he could
read in Hugh Beringar’s face. In Hugh the authority lay. The role of the
cloistered was to shelter and counsel and offer prayers, but justice and law
were the business of the sheriff. Yves was not a baron’s heir for nothing, he
knew all about the hierarchies. “That’s
true, I can take you straight from Foxwood to John Druel’s
holding, it lies higher than Cleeton village.” He caught eagerly at Hugh’s
sleeve, wise enough to ask nicely instead of demanding. “May I go with you and
show the way?” “You
may, if you’ll stay close and do all as you’re bidden.” Hugh was already
committed, Cadfael had seen to that. But far better for the boy to be out in
men’s company, and active, than to sit fretting here alone. “We’ll find you a
pony your size. Run, then, get your cloak and come after us to the stables.” Yves
ran, restored by the prospect of doing something to the purpose. Beringar
looked after him thoughtfully. “Go with him, Father Prior, if you will, see
that he has some food with him, for it may be a long day, and no matter how
large a dinner he’s eaten half an hour ago, he’ll be hungry before night.” And
to Cadfael he said, as they turned together towards the stables: “You, I know,
will do whatever you fancy doing, and I’m always glad of your company, if your
charges, live and dead, can spare you. But you’ve had some hard riding these
last days…” “For
an ageing man,” said Cadfael. “As
well I did not say so! I doubt you could outlast me, for all your great burden
of years. What of Brother Elyas, though?” “He
needs no more from me, now, than a visit or two each day, to see that nothing’s
turned back for him and gone amiss. His body is recovering well. And as for the
part of his mind that’s astray, my being here won’t cure it. It will come back
of itself one day, or it will cease to be missed. He’s well looked after. As
she was not!” he said sadly. “How
did you know,” asked Hugh, “that it could not be the child’s sister?” “The
cropped hair, first. A month now since they left Worcester, long enough to
provide her that halo we have seen. Why should the other girl clip her locks?
And then, the coloring. Ermina, so Herward said, is almost black of hair and
eye, darker brown than her brother. So is not this lady. And they did say, as I
remember, the nun was also young, no more than five and twenty or so. No, I was
sure he was safe from that worst threat. Thus far!” said Cadfael soberly. “Now we have to find her, and make sure he never shall have to
uncover another known face and set a name to it. I have the same obligations as
you, and I’m coming with you.” “Go
get yourself booted and ready, then,” said Hugh, without surprise, “and I’ll
saddle you one of my own remounts. I came well prepared for any tangles you
might get me into. I know you of old.” To
Foxwood was a fairly easy ride, being a used highway, but from Foxwood they
climbed by even higher ways, and on tracks more broken and steep. The vast
flank of Titterstone Clee rose here to a bleak plateau, with the highest ground
towering over them on the left hand, in cloud that dropped lower as the
afternoon passed its peak. Yves rode close at Hugh’s side, intent and
important. “We
can leave the village away on our right, the holding lies above here. Over this
ridge there’s a bowl of fields John has, and a sheep-pen up the hill.” Hugh
reined in suddenly, and sat with head raised, sniffing the air with stretched
nostrils. “Are you getting the same waft I have in my nose? What should a
husbandman be burning at this end of the year?” The
faint but ominous stink hung in the air, stirred by a rising wind. One of the
men-at-arms at Beringar’s back said with certainty: “Three or four days old,
and snowed over, but I smell timber.” Hugh
spurred forward up the climbing track, between bushes banked with snow, and up
to the crest where the ground declined into the hollow. In the sheltered bowl
trees grew, providing a wind-break for byre and barn and house, and partly
screening the holding from view. They could see the stone walls of the
sheep-pen on the rising ground beyond, but not until they had wound their way
through the first belt of trees did John Druel’s tenant-farm reveal itself to
their appalled sight. Yves uttered a muted howl of dismay, and reached to
clutch at Brother Cadfael’s arm. The
corner-posts of blackened buildings stood stark out of the drifts of snow, the
timbers of roof and barn, what remained of them, jutted in charred ruin where
they had fallen. A desolation in which nothing moved, nothing lived, even the near-by trees shrivelled and brown. The Druel homestead was
emptied of livestock, stores and people, and burned to the ground. They
threaded the forlorn wreckage in grim silence, Hugh’s eyes intent on every
detail. The iron frost had prevented worse stinks than burning, for in the
littered yard they found the hacked bodies of two of the household dogs. Though
some two or three fresh falls of snow had covered the traces since the
holocaust, it seemed that a party of raiders at least ten or twelve strong had
committed this outrage, driving off the sheep and the household cow, emptying
the bam, and probably the house, too, of anything portable, stringing the fowls
together by the legs, for scattered feathers still blew about the ground and
clung to the blackened beams. Hugh
dismounted, and clambered in among the wreckage of the house and barns. His men
were quartering all the ground within and without the enclosing wall, probing
the drifts. “They’ve
killed them,” said Yves in a small, hollow voice. “John and his wife, and
Peter, and the shepherd—killed them all, or carried them off, as they carried
off Sister Hilaria.” “Hush!”
said Cadfael. “Never jump to meet the worst until you’ve looked about you well.
You know what they’re looking for?” The searchers were turning to exchange
looks and shrugs, and drawing together again to the yard. “Bodies! And they’ve
found none. Only the dogs, poor creatures. They did their proper work, and gave
the alarm. Now we’d best hope they gave it in time.” Hugh
came picking his way back from the barn, beating soiled palms together. “No
dead here to find. Either they had warning enough to run for it, or they’ve
been dragged off with the raiders. And I doubt if masterless men living wild
would bother with captives. Kill they might, but take prisoners, of this simple
kind, that I doubt. But I wonder which way they came? As we did, or by tracks
of their own, along the hillside here above? If there were no more than ten of
them, they’d keep to their measure, and the village might be too strong to
tempt them.” “There
was one sheep slaughtered by the fold,” said his sergeant, back
from the hillside. “There’s a traverse comes along the slope there, that might
be their path if they wanted to avoid Cleeton and pick off some meat less well
defended.” “Then
Druel may have got his family away towards the village.” Hugh pondered, frowning
at the drifts that had covered all traces of coming and going of men and
beasts. “If the dogs gave tongue for the sheep, there may have been time. Let’s
at least go and ask in the village what they know of it. We may yet find them
all alive,” he said, clapping Yves reassuringly on the shoulder, “even if
they’ve lost their home and goods.” “But
not Sister Hilaria,” said Yves, clinging to a quarrel which had become his own,
and bitterly felt. “If they could run away in time, why could they not save
Sister Hilaria?” “That
you shall ask them, if by God’s grace we do find them. I do not forget Sister
Hilaria. Come, we’ve found all we are going to find here.” “One
small thing,” said Cadfael. “When you heard the horses, Yves, in the dark, and
ran out to try to follow your sister, which way did they lead you from here?” Yves
turned to view the sorry remains of the house from which he had run. “To the
right, there, behind the house. There’s a little stream comes down, it was not
frozen then— they started up the slope beside it. Not towards the top of the
hills, but climbing round the flank.” “Good!
That direction we may try, another day. I’m done, Hugh, we can go.” They
mounted and turned back by the way they had come, out of the desolation and
ruin of the hollow, over the ridge between the trees, and down the track
towards the village of Cleeton. A hard place, bleak to farm, meager to crop,
but good for sheep, the rangy upland sheep that brought the leanest meat but
the longest fleeces. Across the uphill edge of the settlement there was a crude
but solid stockade, and someone was on the watch for strangers arriving, for a
whistle went before them into the huddle of house, shrill and piercing. By the
time they rode in there were three or four sturdy fellows on hand to receive
them. Hugh smiled. Outlaws living wild, unless they had considerable numbers
and sufficient arms, might be wise to fight shy of Cleeton. He gave them good-day and made himself
known. Doubtful if men in isolated places hoped much from the king’s
protection, or the empress’s either, but a county sheriff did offer hope of his
being on their side in the fight to survive. They brought their reeve, and
answered questions eagerly. Yes, they knew of the destruction of John Druel’s
holding, and yes, John was safe here, sheltered and fed by the village, at
least alive if he had lost everything but life. And his wife and son with him,
and the shepherd who labored for him, all saved. A long-legged boy ran eagerly
to bring Druel to answer for himself. At
sight of the lean, wiry husbandman approaching, Yves scrambled down from his
saddle and ran to meet him, incoherent in his relief. The man came up with an
arm about the boy’s shoulders. “My
lord, he says you’ve been up there… where my home was. God knows how grateful I
am for the kindness here, that won’t let us starve when all our goods and gear
are gone, but what’s to become of us poor souls that work hard to make a
living, if it’s to be clawed away in a night, and the roof burned over us? It’s
hard to live solitary in the hills,” he said roundly, “at best. But outlawry
the like of this we never thought to see.” “Friend,”
said Beringar ruefully, “you may take it I never looked for it, either.
Reparation for your losses I cannot offer, but some of what was yours may still
be recovered, if we can trace the raiders who took it from you. The boy, here,
lodged with you several nights since, and his sister with him…” “And
vanished from us in the night,” said John, and gave Yves a disapproving frown. “That
we know, he has told us, and he, at least, had sound reasons, and took his own
grave risks. But what we need from you is some account of this attack that fell
upon you… when?” “Two
nights after the lady and the lad fled us. The night of the fourth of the month,
it was, but very late, towards dawn. We woke to hear the dogs going mad, and
rushed out thinking there might be wolves, in such hard weather. For the dogs
were chained, d’you see?—and wolves they were, but of the
two-legged kind! Once out, we could hear the sheep bellowing up the hill and
see torches up there. Then they begin to come bounding down the slope, knowing
the dogs had given the alarm. I don’t know how many men, there might have been
a dozen or more. We could not stand, we could only run. From the ridge there we
saw the barn take fire. The wind was wild, we knew it must all burn out. And
here we are, master, bereft, to make a new start from villeinry, if there’s a
yardland to be had under any lord. But with our lives, thanks be to God!” “So
they came first to your sheep-fold,” said Hugh. “From which direction along
that slope?” “From
the south,” said John at once, “but not from the road—higher on the hill. They
came down at us.” “And
you have no notion who they may be, or from where? You’ve had no rumor
beforehand of outlaws setting up anywhere near?” No,
there had been no warning until then. It had come out of the blue, between
midnight of the fourth, and pre-dawn of the fifth. “One
more question,” said Hugh. “Since you brought off your family with their lives,
what became of the nun of Worcester who lodged with you the night of the
second, along with this young man and his sister? That they left you that night
we know. What of the nun?” “Why,
she was well out of it,” said Druel thankfully. “I had not her on my heart that
night of the burning. She was gone, the afternoon before. Rather late it was
for the daylight, but not too far gone. And a safe escort along the way, I
reckoned she would do well enough. In a sad, distracted way she’d been, the
poor girl, when she found she’d been left alone, but she did not know where to
look for her chicks, and neither did we, and what was she to do?” “Someone
came for her?” asked Hugh. “A
Benedictine brother. She knew him, he had walked a part of the way with them
before, and urged them to go with him to Bromfield, she said. So he urged then,
and when she told him how she was forsaken, he said all the more she should put
herself and her trouble into the hands of others, who would search for her
charges for her, and keep her safe until they were found. He’d
had to make his way here from Foxwood, asking after her,” said John, making
allowance for the waning of the day when he had reached them. “I never saw
woman so thankful to have a friend take her in care. She went with him, and I
make no doubt she came safe to Bromfield.” Yves
stood dumb. “She came,” said Hugh drily, rather to himself than to any other.
Safe? Yes, take it as large as words will hold, yes, she came safe. Sinless,
conscientious, brave, who at this moment was safer than Sister Hilaria, an
innocent gone straight to God? “A
strange thing followed, though,” said Druel, “for the next day, while we were
here telling our tale, and the good folk making room for us in their homes,
like Christians as they are, there came a young man afoot, up from the road by
the proper way, and asked after just such a party as we had housed. Had any
here news, he said, of a young nun of Worcester, in company with two young
gentlefolk, brother and sister, making towards Shrewsbury. We were full of our
own troubles, but we told him all we knew, and how they were all gone from us
before ever this evil befell. And he listened and went away. Up to the wreck of
my holding, first, but after that I cannot tell where.” “A
stranger to all here?” asked Hugh, looking round the circle that had gathered,
for by then the women had come forth, and hung attentive on the outskirts. “Never
seen before,” said the reeve emphatically. “What
manner of man, then?” “Why,
by his dress husbandman or shepherd like any of us here, a brown homespun man.
Not so much as thirty years old, nearer five or six and twenty. Bigger than
your lordship, but built like you, light and long. And dark, a black-rimmed eye
on him with a yellow glint, like a hawk. And black hair under his hood.” The
women had drawn closer in silence, quiet-eyed and prick-eared. Their interest
in the stranger was all the plainer because not one of them voiced it, or
volunteered any detail concerning him. Whoever he was, he had made an
impression upon the women of Cleeton, and they did not mean to miss
anything they could glean about him, or surrender anything they had already
gleaned. “Dark-skinned,”
said Druel, “and beaked like a hawk, too. A very comely man.” Yes, so the attentive
eyes of the women said. “There was something I thought slow about his speech,
now I come to recall…” Hugh
took him up alertly on that. “As though he were not at home in the common
English?” John
had not thought of that for himself; he considered it stolidly. “It might be
that. Or as if he had a small stumble of the tongue, like.” Well,
if English was not his proper tongue, what was? Welsh? Easily possible here
along the borders, but what would a Welshman be doing asking after the
fugitives from Worcester? Angevin, then? Ah, that was another matter. “If
ever you should hear or see more of him,” said Hugh, “send me word into Ludlow
or Bromfield, and you shall not be losers. And for you, friend, let’s own
honestly there’s little chance of recovering all or most of your losses, but
some of your stock we may yet win back for you if we can trace these outlaws to
their lair. We’ll do our best to that end, be sure.” He
wheeled his horse, and led the way towards the downward track, the others
following, but he did not hurry, for one of the young women had drawn off in
that direction, and was eyeing him meaningly over her shoulder. As Hugh came by
she closed alongside, and laid a hand to his stirrup-leather. She knew what she
was about, she had moved far enough to be out of earshot of the village. “My
lord…” She looked up at him with sharp blue eyes, and spoke in a purposeful
undertone. “One more thing I can tell you about the dark man, that no one else
saw. I said no word, for fear they would close up against him if they knew. He
was a very well-looking man, I trusted him, even if he was not what he seemed…”
“In
what particular?” asked Hugh, just as quietly. “He
kept his cloak close about him, my lord, and in the cold that was no marvel.
But when he went away I followed a little, and I saw how the folds hung at his
left side. Country lad or no, he wore a sword.” “So they went from here together,” said
Yves, as they rode down towards the highroad, where they must haste if they
were to use the remainder of the daylight. He had been very silent, struggling
with revelations that seemed only to make the pattern of events more complex
and entangled. “He came back to look for us all, and found only Sister Hilaria.
It was evening already, they would be caught in the darkness and the snow. And
these same robbers and murderers who have ruined poor John must have attacked
them, and left them both for dead.” “So
it would seem,” said Hugh somberly. “We have a plague among us that needs
burning out before it spreads. But what are we to make of this simple
countryman who wore a sword under his cloak?” “And
asking after us!” Yves recalled, marvelling. “But I know no one like that.” “What
like was the young lord who took away your sister?” “Not
black, nor like a hawk, rather fair-skinned, and fair in the hair, too. And
besides, even if he came seeking the two of us she’d left behind, he would not
come up from the highroad, not according to the way we set off when I followed
them. And he would not come dressed as a peasant, either. Nor alone.” All
of which was shrewd sense. There were, of course, other possibilities. The men
of Gloucester, elated by their gains, might well be sending agents in disguise
into these regions, probing for any weak spots, and such envoys, thought Cadfael,
might have been told to pursue, at the same time, the search for Laurence
d’Angers’ nephew and nice, strayed in the Worcester panic. “Let
it lie by a while,” said Beringar, half-grim and half-appreciative, as if he
looked forward to interesting encounters. “We shall certainly hear more of
Cleeton’s dark stranger, if we just bide quiet and bear his image in mind.” They
were within two miles of Ludlow before the expected snow began with the dusk.
They drew close cloak and capuchon, and rode sturdily with heads down, but so
close to home that they were in no danger of losing the road.
Hugh parted from them under the walls of Ludlow, to ride in to his company
there, leaving two of his men to escort Cadfael and the boy the short way on to
Bromfield. Even Yves had lost his tongue by then, a little drunk with fresh air
and exercise, and already growing hungry, for all he had eaten his hunk of
bread and strip of hard bacon long before. He sat braced and stolid in the
saddle, hunched under his hood, but emerged from it with a face like a rosy
apple as soon as they lighted down in the great court at the priory. Vespers
was long over. Prior Leonard was hovering, watchful and uneasy, for the return
of his fledgling, and ventured out into the thick haze of snow to reclaim him
and bring him in to supper. It
was after Compline when Beringar rode in, let his tired mount be led away to
the stables, and came to find Cadfael, who was sitting by the bed where Brother
Elyas already slept his secret, remote and troubled sleep. At sight of Hugh’s
face, full of hard tidings, Cadfael laid a finger to his lip, and rose to steal
away from the bedside into the anteroom, where they could talk without
disturbing the sleeper. “Our
friend above Cleeton,” said Hugh, sitting back with a great sigh against the
panelled wall, “is not the only one who had fallen victim, Cadfael. We have the
devil among us, no question. Ludlow’s in a hum tonight. It seems one of Dinan’s
archers has an old father at a hamlet south of Henley, a free tenant holding
from Mortimer, and today the lad went off to visit, to see how the old man was
making out in this hard weather. A holding not two miles from Ludlow, though
solitary. He found the place as we found Druel’s homestead. Not burned,
though—smoke or flames would have been seen, and brought Dinan out with all his
force like a swarm of bees disturbed. But swept clear of life, goods, gear and
all. And there the folk did not escape. Butchered, every one, except for one
poor idiot wretch the archer found wandering from house to house, foraging for
any crumbs left to live on.” Brother
Cadfael gaped at him in appalled wonder. “That they should dare, so near a
strong town!” “Trying
out their claws, in despite of a well-found garrison. And the one man left
alive, who hid in the woods until the raiders left, may be uncertain in his
wits, but he saw it all, and has given an account that makes
excellent sense, and for my part, I think him a good witness. And he says there
were about twenty men, and they had daggers, axes and swords among them. Three,
he says, were mounted. They came about midnight, and in a few hours had driven
off all the stock and departed into the night. And he has small notion of how
many days he has been solitary and starving there, but such things as the
changes of weather he understands very well, and he says, and will not be
shifted, that this took place on the night of the first hard frost, when all
the brooks stopped flowing.” “I
take your meaning,” said Cadfael, and gnawed his knuckles in fierce thought.
“The same two-legged wolves? The same night, surely. The first hard frost!
About midnight this slaughter and pillage by Henley… As if they set out
deliberately to blacken Dinan’s face!” “Or
mine,” said Hugh grimly. “Or
King Stephen’s! Well, so they moved off with their spoils maybe two hours after
midnight. They would not move fast, driving cattle and carrying food and grain.
Not long before dawn they ransacked and burned John Druel’s holding, high on
Clee. And in between—would you not say, Hugh?—in between they happened on
Brother Elyas and Sister Hilaria, and after their fashion let loose in a little
exuberant sport, leaving both dead or dying. Could there be two such bands out
on their grisly business on the same night? A wild night, a blizzard night,
that might well keep even thieves and vagabonds close to home. There are here
men who know these parts like their own palms, Hugh, and neither snow nor frost
can cage them.” “Two
such bands?” said Hugh, darkly pondering. “No, that’s out of the reckoning. And
consider the line they took that night. The night’s ventures began here under
our noses—that’s the furthest range of their foray. They returned eastward,
crossing the highway—for somewhere there your Brother Elyas was found—and
before dawn they were rounding the high shoulder of Titterstone Clee, where
they burned out Druel’s holding. It may not even have been in their plan,
simply a frolic by men drunk with success. But it was on their
way home, for they’d want to be snug and unseen by dawn. Agreed?” “Agreed.
And are you thinking, Hugh, what I am thinking? Yves rushes out to recall his
sister from her folly, and strikes off from that holding uphill, perhaps not on
the same level, but surely in the same direction your outlaws took on their way
home, two nights later. Somewhere in those uplands lies the manor to which his
sister fled with her lover. Does it not look as though he may have taken her to
a house far too close neighbor to the devil to be a safe place either for him
or for her?” “I
have already made my dispositions,” Hugh assured him with grim satisfaction,
“with that in mind. There’s a great swathe of upland there, some of it
forested, some of it rock, and bleak as death, too barren even for sheep. The
workable manors there go no higher than Druel’s homestead, and even there nest
in the sheltered places. Tomorrow at first light I’m going out with Dinan to
follow that same line the boy took, and see if I can find what he lost himself
seeking, the manor where the girl was taken. First, if we can, let’s get her
safe out of it. Then we may go after this challenger who spits in the face of
law, with no hostages at stake.” “But
leave the boy here!” said Cadfael, more peremptorily than he had intended. Hugh
looked down at him with a wry and burdened smile. “We shall be away before ever
he opens his eyes. Do you think I dare risk confronting him with another and
dearer corpse, with your fierce eye on me? No, if luck’s with us we’ll bring
him his sister, either intact or a wife irreclaimable, and they shall fight it
out between them, he, she and the lover! If luck turns her back on us—well,
then you may be needed. But once this girl’s well out of it, this burden is
mine, and you may take care of your patient and sit quietly at home.” Cadfael
watched the night through with Brother Elyas, and got nothing more for his
pains than he had known already. The barrier remained immovable. When a dutiful
brother came to relieve him, he went to his bed, and slept as soon as he lay
down. He had the gift. There was no profit in laying awake
fretting for what would, in any case, have to be faced on awaking, and he had
long ago sloughed off the unprofitable. It took too much out of a man, of what
would be needed hereafter. He
awoke only when he was roused by Prior Leonard, which was in the early
afternoon, a couple of hours at least after he had intended to be up and doing.
By which time Hugh was back from his foray into the hills, and tramped in weary
and bleak of countenance to share a late dinner, and report the fruits of his
labors. “There
is a manor known as Callowleas, a quarter-circle round the flank of Clee from
Druel’s place, and much on the same level.” Hugh paused to frown over his own
choice of words. “There was such a manor! It has been wiped out, drained,
filleted like a fish. What we found was Druel’s homestead over again, but to
another degree. This was a thriving manor, and now it’s a snowy waste, a number
of bodies buried or frozen there, nothing living left to speak. We’ve brought
back the first of the dead into Ludlow, and left men breaking out others from
the drifts. No telling how many they’ll find. By the covering of snow, I should
judge this raid took place even before the frost set in.” “Do
you tell me?” Cadfael sat staring, appalled. “Then before the raids of which we
already know, and before our little nun was killed, and Brother Elyas reduced
to his haunted condition he lies in now. Now you have your finger on a fixed
place, is there a name and a lord to go with it? Dinan will know all these
tenants who hold from him, and it must be his writ, the old Lacy writ, that
runs there.” “It
is. The manor of Callowleas is held from him by a young man who came into his
father’s honor only two years ago. Of suitable fortune, person, and age, yes.
His name is Evrard Boterei. Not a great family, but respected. By many tokens,
he may well be the man.” “And
this place lies in the right direction? The way the girl fled with her lover?”
It was a grim reflection, but Hugh shook his head emphatically at despondency. “Ah,
but wait! Nothing’s certain yet, Yves could not name the man. But even if it is
so—as I believe it must be—no need yet to bury the girl. For Dinan pointed out
that Boterel also holds the manor of Ledwyche, down in the
valley of the Dogditch brook, and there’s a good downhill track continues on
that way from Callowleas, into forest, and thick forest at that. A little over
three miles between the two holdings. We followed it a short way, though I own
I had little hope of finding any traces, even if some of the household had
escaped the slaughter that way. We had better fortune that I expected, or maybe
deserved. Look, this is what I found!” He
drew it out from the breast of his cotte, and held it up over his fist, a net
of fine gold filigree threads on a band of embroidered ribbon, made to pass
round the head when the hair was netted, and tie over the brow. The bow in
which it had been tied had been dragged askew, but not undone, for the band had
torn apart a little aside from it. “Caught
in thick woodland, well down the path. They were in haste, whoever rode that
way, they cut through a dense thicket to come the quickest way down the slope,
there were broken twigs hanging to bear witness. I say they, but I fancy one
horse only, with two riders. A low branch caught and dragged this from her
head. And since that gives us every hope that the wearer got away safely from
that terror, we may very well show this to Yves, and say how it was found. If
he knows it for hers, then I’m bound for Ledwyche, to see if luck’s still on
our side.” There
was no hesitation. The moment Yves set eyes on the handful of gold cobweb, his
eyes opened wide and grew luminous with hope and eagerness. “That
is my sister’s!” he said, shining. “It was too fine for the journey, but I know
she had it with her. For him she might wear it! Where did you find it?” Chapter
Six THIS
TIME THEY TOOK YVES WITH THEM, partly because, though he might have accepted
Hugh’s fiat gracefully if refused, he would have been restless and miserable
all the time of waiting, and partly because, in addition to being the only one
who could positively identify Ermina’s suitor when found, he was indeed the man
of his blood here, the head of his household, and had every right to partake in
the search for his lost sister, now they knew she should be well alive. “But
this is the same way we came down from Thurstan’s assart,” he said, after they
had turned off the highroad by the bridge over the Corve. “Must we continue
so?” “We
must, for some while. Well past the place where you and I would as soon not
be,” said Cadfael simply, divining his unease. “But we need not turn our eyes
away. There is nothing evil there. Neither earth nor water nor air have any
part in man’s ill-doing.” And with an attentive but cautious eye on the boy’s
grave face he said: “You may grieve, but you must not begrudge that she is
gone. Her welcome is assured.” “She
was, of all of us, the only best,” said Yves, abruptly eloquent. “You don’t
know! Never out of temper, always patient and kind and very brave. She was much
more beautiful than Ermina!” He
was thirteen, but taught and gifted, perhaps, somewhat beyond
his years, and he had gone afoot in Sister Hilaria’s gallant and gentle company
many days, close and observant. And if he had glimpsed for the first time a
mature kind of love, surely it had been a most innocent and auspicious kind,
even now after the apparent mutilation of loss. Yves had come to no harm. In
the past two days he seemed to have grown in stature, and taken several long
strides away from his infancy. He
did not avert his eyes when they came to the brook, but he was silent, and so
remained until after they had crossed the second brook also; but from that
point they veered to the right, and came into open woodland, and the new vistas
revived his interest in the world about him, and brightened his eyes again. The
brief winter sunlight, which had again drawn down slender icicles from eaves
and branches, was already past, but the light was clear and the air still, and
the patterns of black and white and dusky greens had their own somber beauty. They
crossed the Hopton brook, still motionless as before, half a mile lower down
its course than when they had come to Godstoke together. “But we must have been
very near,” said Yves, marvelling that he might have passed almost within touch
of his sister that day, and never known it. “Still
a mile or so to go.” “I
hope she may be there!” “So
do we all,” said Hugh. They
came to the manor of Ledwyche over a slight ridge, and emerged from woodland to
look down an equally gentle slope towards the Ledwyche brook, into which all
the others drained before it flowed on, mile after mile, southward to join the
River Theme. Beyond the watered valley the ground rose again, and there,
directly before them in the distance, hung the vast, bleak outline of
Titterstone Clee, its top shrouded in low cloud. But in between, the valley lay
sheltered on all sides from the worst winds. Trees had been cleared from round
the manor, except for windbreaks left for protection to crops and stock in the
most open places. From their ridge they looked down at an impressive array of
buildings, the manor-house itself built long and steep-roofed over a squat
undercroft, the entire visible sweep of the stockade lined
within with barn and byre and store. A considerable holding, and surely a
temptation to the hungry and covetous, in these lawless times, but perhaps too
strongly manned to be easy prey. It
seemed, however, that the holder was not quite easy about his property, for as
they drew nearer they could see that on the narrow timber bridge that crossed
the brook beyond the manor, men were working busily, erecting a barrier of
logs, and above the old, dark wood of the stockade, and especially along that eastward
side, glared the white, new wood of recent building. The lord of the manor was
heightening his fences. “They
are here, surely,” said Hugh, staring. “Here lives a man who has taken warning,
and does not mean to be caught by surprise a second time.” They
rode down with rising hopes to the open gate in the stockade, which here to the
west was still only breast-high. Nevertheless, even on this side an archer rose
in the gate to challenge them, and his bow was strung, and if he had not an
arrow braced, he had a quiver on his shoulder. He
was a shrewd fellow, so quick to measure the good equipment of the men-at-arms
at Hugh’s back that he had changed his wary front for a smile before ever Hugh
could recite his name and titles. “My
lord, you’ve very welcome. The lord sheriff’s deputy could not come better. If
our lord had known you were so near he would have sent to you. For he could not
well come himself… But ride in, my lord, ride in, and my boy here will run for
the steward.” The
boy was already in full flight across the trampled snow within the pale. By the
time they had ridden across to the stone stairway that led up to the great door
of the hall, the steward was scurrying out to receive them, a stout elderly
man, russet of beard and bald of head. “I
am seeking Evrard Boterei,” said Hugh, descending with a flurry of snow at his
heel. “He’s within?” “He
is, my lord, but not yet in full health. He has been in a sharp fever, but it
mends gradually. I’ll bring you to him.” He
went before, stumping up the steep stairs, and Hugh followed him close, with
Brother Cadfael and Yves on his heels. Within the great hall,
at this hour of this winter day, and with hardly a soul using it and hardly a
torch to light it, thick gloom hung heavy, warmed only grudgingly by the
dampened fire on the stones of the central hearth. All the manor’s menfolk were
working on the defense. A middle-aged matron jingled her keys along the passage
behind the screens, a couple of maids whispered and peered from the kitchen. The
steward brought them with a flourish into a small room at the upper end of the
hall, where a man lay back languidly in a great, cushioned chair, with wine and
a smoky oil-lamp on a table at his side. One small window was unshuttered, but
the light it provided was growing dim, and the yellow flame from the wick of
the lamp cast deceptive shadows, and gave them only a dusky view of the face
that turned towards them as the door was opened. “My
lord, here are the sheriff’s officers come south to Ludlow.” The steward had
softened his bluff voice to the coaxing tone he might have used to a child, or
a very sick man. “The lord Hugh Beringar comes to see you. We shall have help
if we should need it, you can put your mind at rest.” A
long and muscular but slightly shaky hand was put out to move the lamp, so that
it might show host and visitors to each other more clearly. A low-pitched voice
said, over somewhat quick and shallow breath: “My lord, you’re heartily
welcome. God knows we seem to have need of you in these parts.” And to the
steward he said: “Bring more lights, and some refreshment.” He leaned forward
in the chair, gathering himself with an effort. “You find me in some disarray,
I am sorry for it. They tell me I have been in fever some days. I am out of
that now, but it has left me weaker than I care to be.” “So
I see, and I am sorry,” said Hugh. “I brought a force south here, I must tell
you, upon other business, but by chance it has taken me to your manor above at
Callowleas. I have seen, sir, what has been done to you there. I am glad that
you, and some, at least, of your people escaped alive from that massacre, and I
intend to make it my business to find and root out whatever nest of vultures
brought that upon you. I see you have been busy strengthening
your own defenses.” “As
best we can.” A
woman brought candles, disposed them silently in sconces on the walls, and
withdrew. The sudden brightness brought them all vividly close, eyes startled
wide. Yves, who had stood rooted and stiff by Cadfael’s side, a lordling ready
to confront his enemy, suddenly clutched at Cadfael’s sleeve and softened in
uncertainty. The
man in the great chair looked no more than twenty-four or twenty-five. He had
heaved himself forward, and the cushions had slid down at his back. He
presented to the light a face pale and hollow-cheeked, the eyes large and dark,
and sunken into bruised hollows, glittering still with the hectic brilliance of
fever. His thick fair hair was rumpled and on end from the pillows that had
propped him. But no question, this was a very handsome and engaging person, and
when in health a tall and athletic one. He was clothed and booted, plainly he
had been out during the day among his men, ill-advisedly, for his boots were
wet and dark with melted snow. He was bending his brows now and peering
attentively at his three visitors, and when his gaze reached the boy, it halted
and hung there. He was not sure. He shook his head a little, peered again, and
pondered, frowning. “You
know the boy?” asked Hugh mildly. “He is Yves Hugonin, here seeking a lost
sister. If you can help us, we shall be greatly relieved, both he and I. For I
think you did not retreat from Callowleas alone. Caught in a tree along the
woodland track that bears this way, we found this.” He drew out the thimbleful
of gilt thread that expanded to a filigree globe in the palm of his hand. “Do
you know it?” “Only
too well!” said Evrard Boterei harshly, and closed, for an instant, large full
eyelids over too-bright eyes. He opened them again to look directly at Yves.
“You are the young brother? Forgive me that I could not be sure of you. I have
not seen you but once, I think, since you were a child. Yes, this is hers.” “You
brought her here with you,” said Hugh, not questioning, stating. “Safe out of
that attack.” “Yes—safe!
Yes, I brought her here.” There was a fine dew of sweat on
Evrard’s broad brow, but his eyes were wide open and clear. “We
have been in search of her and her companions” said Hugh, “ever since the
sub-prior of Worcester came to Shrewsbury asking after them, since all trace of
them had been lost after their flight. If she is here, send for her.” “She
is not here,” said Evrard heavily. “Nor do I know where she is. All these days
between, either I or men of mine have been hunting for her.” He set his long
hands to the arms of his chair, and hauled himself shakily to his feet. “I will
tell you!” he said. He
stalked about the room as he told them, a gaunt young man, filled with restless
energy, but enfeebled by his days of sickness. “I
was a frequent and welcome guest in her father’s house. This boy will know that
is truth. She grew up in beauty, and I loved her. I did and do love her! Since
she was orphaned I have ridden three times to Worcester to see her, and borne
myself as I must to be admitted there, and never did I have any evil design on
her, but intended to ask for her hand when I might. For her proper guardian now
is her uncle, and he is in the Holy Land. All we could do was wait for his
return. When I heard of the sack of Worcester all my prayer was that she should
be escaped well out of it. I never thought of any gain to me, nor that she
might be fled this way, until she sent her boy up from Cleeton…” “On
which day was that?” demanded Hugh, cutting in sharply. “On
the second day of this month. Come by night, she said, and fetch me away, for I
am here waiting for you. Never a word of any others along with her. I knew only
what she told me, and I went as she asked, with a horse for her, and brought
her away to Callowleas. She had taken me by surprise,” he said, jerking up his
head in defensive challenge, “but I wished of all things to wed her, and so did
she me. And I brought her there, and used her with all honor, and with her
consent I sent out to bring a priest to marry us. But the next night, before
ever he reached us, we were all undone.” “I have seen the ruin they left,” said
Hugh. “From which direction did they come? In what numbers?” “Too
many for us! They were into the bailey and into the house before ever we knew
what was happening. I cannot tell whether they came round the flank of the
hill, or over the crests at us, for they broke in round half our stockade,
ringing us from above and from the east. God knows I may have been too taken up
with Ermina to set as strict a watch as I should have done, but there had been
no warning, never a word until then of any such banditry in the land. It fell
like lightning-stroke. Their numbers I can hardly guess, but surely as many as
thirty, and well-armed. We were but half that, and caught easy and
half-sleeping after supper. We did what we could—I came by some hurts…” Cadfael
had already observed how he held one arm and shoulder hunched and still, the
left, where a right-handed opponent would lunge for his heart. “I had Ermina to
save, I dared not attempt more. I took her and rode. The downhill way was still
possible. They did not follow us. They were busy.” His mouth twisted in a
painful grimace. “We came here safely.” “And
then? How comes it that you have lost her again?” “You
cannot charge me more bitterly than I have accused myself,” said Evrard
wearily. “I am ashamed to face the boy here, and own how I let her slip through
my hands. It is little excuse to say, however truly, that I had bled too much,
and fell into my bed too weak to move. My leech may say what he can for me, I
will not plead. But by the next day this prod here in my shoulder had taken bad
ways, and the fever set in. By evening, when I had my wits for a while, and
asked for her, they told me she had been frantic with tears for her brother,
left behind at the house from which I took her. Now that she knew there were
such cutthroats abroad in these parts, she could not rest until she knew him
safe, and so she took horse in the middle of the day, and left word she would
ride to Cleeton to inquire after him. And she did not return.” “And
you did not follow her!” accused Yves, stiff as a lance and quivering by
Cadfael’s side. “You let her go alone, and stayed nursing your grazes!” “Neither
the one nor the other,” said Boterel, but gently and ruefully. “I did not let
her go, for I did not know she was gone. And I did, when I
learned of it—as my people here will tell you—I did get up from my bed and go
out to hunt for her. It was the cold of that night, I think, and the rubbing of
my clothes and the motion of riding, that fetched me down for so long. Sorry I
am, I swooned and fell out of the saddle, and those I had with me carried me
home the miles I’d ridden. I never reached Cleeton.” “As
well for you,” said Hugh drily, “for that night the very house she was seeking
was gutted and burned, and the family driven out.” “So
I have now been told. You do not think I have left things so, and never stirred
to try and find her? But she was not there when the holding was attacked. If
you have been there, and spoken with those who sheltered her, you know so much.
She never got there. I have had men out hunting for her all this time, even
though I myself was a useless wretch laid here shivering and raving. And now
that I have my legs under me again I shall go on searching. Until I find her!”
he said vehemently, and shut his mouth with a snap of strong teeth. There
was nothing more for them here, nothing to be gained and little to be blamed,
it seemed. The girl had set in motion the whole disastrous course, doubly
headstrong in decamping with her lover in the first place, and afterwards,
because he was stricken down, in setting off alone to try and amend what she
had done so sadly amiss. “If
you hear of any word of her,” said Hugh, “send to tell me at Bromfield, where I
am lodged, or in Ludlow, where you will find my men.” “I
shall, my lord, without fail.” Evrard fell back again among his untidy pillows,
and flinched at a twinge of pain, shifting his shoulder tenderly to ease it. “Before
we go,” said Brother Cadfael, “can I not dress your wound again for you? For I
see that it gives you trouble, and I fancy you have still a raw surface there
that sticks to your dressing, and may do further damage. You have a physician
here tending you?” The
young man’s hollow eyes opened wide at this kindly interest. “My leech, I
called him, I know. He’s none, but he has some skill, from
experience. I think he has looked after me pretty well. You are wise in such
matters, brother?” “Like
your own man, from long practice. I have often dealt with wounds that have
taken bad course. What has he used on you?” He was curious about other men’s
prescriptions, and there was clean linen bandaging, and a clay ointment jar
laid aside on a shelf by the wall. Cadfael lifted the lid and sniffed at the
greenish salve within. “Centaury, I think, and the yellow mild nettle, both
good. He knows his herbs. I doubt if you could do better. But since he is not
here, and you are in discomfort, may I assay?” Evrard
lay back submissively and let himself be handled. Cadfael unlaced the ties of
the young man’s corte, and drew the left shoulder gently out from the wide
sleeve, until the shirt could also be drawn down, and his arm freed. “You
have been out and active today, this binding is rubbed into creases, and dried
hard, no wonder it hurts you. You should lie still a day or two yet, and let it
rest.” It was his physician’s voice, practical, confident, even a little
severe. His patient listened meekly, and let himself be unwound from his
wrappings, which enveloped both shoulder and upper arm. The last folds were
stained in a long slash that ran from above the heart down to the underside of
the arm, with a thin, dark line of blood that ebbed out on either side into
pale, dried fluid. Here Cadfael went delicately, steadying the flesh against
every turn of the linen. The folds creaked stiffly free. A
long slash that could have killed him, but instead had been deflected outwards,
to slice down into the flesh of his arm. Not deep nor dangerous, though he
might well have bled copiously until it was staunched, and since he had ridden
hard that same night, no wonder he had lost blood enough to enfeeble him. It
was healing now from either end, and healing clean, but certainly, by exertion or
some contagion of dirt entering, it had been ugly and festering, and even now,
in the centre of the wound, the flesh showed pink, soft and angry. Cadfael
cleansed it with a morsel of the linen, and applied a new plaster coated with
the herbal salve. The pallid young face stared up at him all the while with
unblinking, bruised eyes, wondering and mute. “You have no other wounds?” asked
Cadfael, winding a fresh bandage about his dressing. “Well, rest this one a day
or two longer, and rest your own uneasy mind with it, for we are all on the
same quest. Take a little air in the middle of the day, if the sun comes, but
keep from cold and give your body time. There, now your sleeve, so… But it
would be wise to have these boots off, wrap yourself in your gown, and make
yourself content.” The
hollow eyes followed his withdrawal, marvelling. He found his voice to follow
them with thanks only as they were leaving. “You
have a gifted touch, brother. I feel myself much eased. God be with you!” They
went out to their horses and the gradually fading light. Yves was dumb. He had
come to challenge, and remained to feel sympathy, though almost against his
will. He was new to wounds and pain and sickness, until the shock of Worcester
he had lived indulged, sheltered, a child. And for his sister’s sake he was
deep in bitter disappointment and anxiety, and wanted no promptings from
anyone. “He
has what he claims,” said Brother Cadfael simply, when they were cresting the
ridge and heading down into the trees. “A thrust meant for his heart, rubbed
raw again later, and poisoned by some foulness that got into the wound. He has
been in fever, sure enough, and fretted gouts from his flesh. Everything speaks
him true.” “And
we are no nearer finding the girl,” said Hugh. The
nightly clouds were gathering, the sky drooping over their heads, an ominous
wind stirring. They made all the haste they could to get back into Bromfield
before the snow began. Chapter
Seven AFTER
VESPERS THAT NIGHT the wind rose violently, the vague wisps of snow that
drifted aimlessly on the air changed to thin, lashing whips, driving
horizontally against the walls and piling new layers of white against every
windward surface. By the time supper was over, and Brother Cadfael scurried
across the great court to the infirmary to look at his patient, the world
outside was an opaque, shifting, blinding mass of flakes, growing ever thicker.
This was to be a blizzard night. The wolves might well be abroad again. They
knew their ground exceedingly well, and weather that might daunt the innocent
had no terrors for them. Brother
Elyas had been allowed out of his bed for the first time, and was reclining
propped by his pillow, bony and shrunken in his voluminous habit. His head
wounds had healed over, his body mended of itself, but the constitution of his
mind had not the same strength. With mute submission he did whatever he was
bidden, with low and listless voice he gave thanks humbly for all that was done
for him, but with sunken eyes and painfully knotted brows he stared beyond the
walls of his cell, as if half-seeing and half-deluding himself that he saw that
part of him that had been reft away and never returned. Only in sleep, and
particularly when falling asleep or awaking out of sleep, was he agitated and
shaken, as if between waking life and the gentler semblance of
death the veil that hid his lost memory from him thinned but did not quite
part. Yves
had followed Cadfael across the court, restless and anxious. He was hovering
outside the door of the sickroom when Cadfael came out. “Should
you not be in your bed, Yves? Such a long, hard day as you’ve had!” “I
don’t want to sleep yet,” pleaded the boy querulously. “I’m not tired. Let me
sit with him for you until after Compline. I’d rather have something to do.”
And indeed it might be the best thing for him, to be doing something for
someone else, and feeding a draught of herbs to Brother Elyas might spill a
drop of comfort to soothe his own troubles and disappointments. “He still
hasn’t said anything to help us? He doesn’t remember us?” “Not
yet. There is a name he calls sometimes in his sleep, but none of our
acquaintance.” He called for her as for a thing hopelessly lost, an irreparable
grief but not an anxiety, she being beyond pain or danger. “Hunydd. In his
deepest sleep he calls for Hunydd.” “A
strange name,” said Yves, wondering. “Is it a man or a woman?” “A
woman’s name—a Welshwoman. I think, though I do not know, that she was his
wife. And dearly loved, too dearly to leave him in peace if she is only a few
months dead. Prior Leonard said of him, not long in the cloister. He may well
have tried to escape from what was hard to bear alone, and found it no easier
among any number of brethren.” Yves
was looking up at him with a man’s eyes, steady and grave. Even sorrows as yet
well out of his range he could go far towards understanding. Cadfael shook him
amiably by the shoulder. “There, yes, sit by him if you will. After Compline
I’ll bring someone to take your place. And should you need me, I’ll not be far away.”
Elyas
dozed, opened his eyes, and dozed again. Yves sat still and silent beside the
bed, attentive to every change in the gaunt but strong and comely face, and
pleased and ready when the invalid asked for a drink, or needed an arm to help
him turn and settle comfortably. In the wakeful moments the boy
tried tentatively to reach a mind surely not quite closed against him, talking
shyly of the winter weather, and the common order of the day within these
walls. The hollow eyes watched him as though from a great distance, but
attentively. “Strange,”
said Elyas suddenly, his voice low and creaky with disuse. “I feel that I
should know you. Yet you are not a brother of the house.” “You
have known me,” said Yves, eager and hopeful. “For a short time we were
together, do you remember? We came from Cleobury together, as far as Foxwood.
My name is Yves Hugonin.” No,
the name meant nothing. Only the face, it seemed touched some chord in his
disrupted memory. “There was snow threatening,” he said. “I had a reliquary to
deliver here, they tell me I brought it safely. They tell me! All I know is
what they tell me.” “But
you will remember,” said Yves earnestly. “It will come clear to you again. You
may trust what they tell you, no one would deceive you. Shall I tell you more
things? True things, that I know?” The
wondering, doubting face watched him, and made no motion of rejection. Yves
leaned close, and began to talk solemnly and eagerly about what was past. “You
were coming from Pershore, but roundabout, to avoid the trouble in Worcester.
And we had run from Worcester, and wanted to reach Shrewsbury. At Cleobury we
were all lodged overnight, and you would have had us come here to Bromfield
with you, as the nearest place of safety, and I wanted to go with you, but my
sister would not, she would go on over the hills. We parted at Foxwood.” The
face on the pillow was not responsive, but seemed to wait with a faint, patient
hope. The wind shook the stout shutter covering the window, and filtered
infinitely tiny particles of snow into the room, to vanish instantly. The
candle flickered. The whine of the gale outside was a piercingly desolate
sound. “But
you are here,” said Elyas abruptly, “far from Shrewsbury still. And alone! How
is that, that you should be alone?” “We
were separated.” Yves was not quite easy, but if the sick man was beginning to
ask questions thus intelligently, the threads of his torn
recollections might knit again and present him a whole picture. Better to know
both the bad and the good, since there was no guilt in it for him, he was the
blameless victim, and surely knowledge should be healing. “Some kind country
people sheltered me, and Brother Cadfael brought me here. But my sister… We are
seeking her. She left us of her own will!” He could not resist that cry, but
would not accuse her further. “I am sure we shall find her safe and well,” he
said manfully. “But
there was a third,” said Brother Elyas, so softly, so inwardly, that it seemed
he spoke to himself. “There was a nun…” And now he was not looking at Yves, but
staring great-eyed into the vault above him, and his mouth worked agitatedly. “Sister
Hilaria,” said Yves, quivering in response. “A
nun of our order…” Elyas set both hands to the sides of his bed, and sat up
strongly. Something had kindled in the deeps of his haunted eyes, a yellow,
crazed light too vivid to be merely a reflection from the candle’s flame.
“Sister Hilaria…” he said, and now at last he had found a name that meant
something to him, but something so terrible that Yves reached both hands to
take him by the shoulders, and urge him to lie down again. “You
mustn’t fret—she is not lost, she is here, most reverently tended and coffined.
It is forbidden to wish her back, she is with God.” Surely they must have told
him, but maybe he had not understood. Death could not be hidden away. He would
grieve, naturally, but that is permitted. But you may not begrudge it that she
has left us, Brother Cadfael had said. Brother
Elyas uttered a dreadful, anguished sound, yet so quiet that the howl of the
wind at the shutter almost drowned it. He clenched both hands into large, bony
fists, and struck them against his breast. “Dead!
Dead? In her youth, in her beauty—trusting me! Dead! Oh, stones of this house,
fall and cover me, unhappy! Bury me out of the sight of men…” Barely
half of it was clear, the words crowded so thick on his tongue, choking him,
and Yves in his alarm and dismay was hardly capable of listening, he cared only
to allay this storm he had innocently provoked. He stretched an arm
across Elyas’ breast, and tried to soothe him back to his pillow, his
young, whole strength pitted against this demented vigor. “Oh,
hush, hush, you mustn’t vex yourself so. Lie down, you’re too weak to rise… Oh,
don’t, you frighten me! Lie down!” Brother
Elyas sat rigidly upright, staring through the wall, gripping both hands
against his heart, whispering what might have been prayers, or self-reproaches,
or feverish, garbled recollections of times past. Against that private
obsession all the force Yves could exert had no influence. Elyas was no longer
even aware of him. If he spoke to any, it was to God, or to some creature
invisible. Yves
turned and fled for help, closing the door behind him. Through the infirmary he
ran full tilt, and out into the piled, whirling, howling snow of the court,
across to the cloister and the warming-room, where surely they would be at this
hour. He fell once, and plucked himself shivering out of a drift, halting to
clear his eyes. The whole night was a rain of goosefeathers, but cold, cold,
and the wind that flung them in his face cut like a knife. He stumbled and
slithered to the door of the church, and there halted, hearing the chanting
within. It was later than he had thought. Compline had already begun. He
had been too well schooled in the courtesies and proper observancies, he could
not for any cause burst in upon the officer and bawl for help. He hung still
for a few moments to get his breath and snake the snow from his hair and
lashes. Compline was not long, surely he could go back and battle with his
disordered charge until the office was over. Then there would be help in
plenty. He had only to keep Brother Elyas quiet for a quarter of an hour. He
turned, half-blinded as soon as he left cover, and battled his way back through
the drifts, laboring hard with his short, sturdy legs, and lowering his head
like a little fighting bull against the wind. The
outer door of the infirmary stood open wide, but he was all too afraid that he
had left it so in his haste. He blundered along the passage within, fending
himself off from the walls with both hands as he shook off the snow that clung
to his face. The door of the sickroom was also wide open. That
brought him up with a jolt that jarred him to the heels. The
room was empty, the coverings of the bed hung low to the floor. Brother Elyas’
sandals, laid neatly side by side under the head of the bed, were gone. And so
was Brother Elyas, just as he had risen from his sick-bed, clothed, habited but
without cloak or covering, out into the night of the ninth of December, into
such a blizzard as had raged the night he came by his all but mortal injuries,
and Sister Hilaria by her death. The only name that had reached him in his
solitary place. Yves
charged back along the passage to the doorway, and out into the storm. And
there were tracks, though he had not seen them when he entered, because he had
not expected them to be there, nor would they last long. They were filling
fast, but they showed, large feet tramping down the steps and across the court,
not towards the church, no—straight for the gatehouse. And Brother Porter had
leave to attend Compline. They
were still chanting in the church, and Elyas could not have got far. Yves ran
to grab his cloak from the porch of the guest-hall, and bolted like a startled
hare, in convulsive leaps, towards the gatehouse. The tracks were filling fast,
they lingered only as shallowing pits in the whiteness, picked out by the
shadows cast from the few burning torches. But they reached and quitted the
gate. The world without was nothing but a boiling whiteness, and the depth of
the fall made walking hard labor for his short legs, but he plodded on
relentlessly. The tracks turned right. So did Yves. Some
way along the road, wading blindly, with no sense of direction left to him in a
snowfall that looked the same wherever he turned his face, but where the ground
below him was still dimpled faintly with the furrows and pits of passage, he
glimpsed in a momentary emptiness cleared by the gale’s caprice, a black shadow
flitting before him. He fixed his eyes upon it, and plunged determinedly after.
It
took him a long time to overtake his quarry. It was incredible how fast Elyas
went, striding, thrusting, ploughing his way, so that now a torn furrow showed
where he had passed. In sandals, bare-headed, a sick man—only some terrible
force of passion and despair could give him such strength.
Moreover, which frightened Yves more than ever, he seemed to know where he was
going, or else to be drawn to some desperate meeting-place without his own
knowledge or will. The line he sheered through the drifts looked
arrow-straight. Nevertheless,
Yves did overtake him at last, struggling closer with every step, until he was
able to stretch out his hand and catch at the wide sleeve of the black habit.
The arm swung steadily, as though Elyas remained totally unaware of the weight
dragging at him. Almost he plucked himself clear, but Yves clung with both
hands, and heaving himself in front of the striding figure, wound his arms
about its middle and held on, blocking the way forward with all his weight, and
blinking up through the blinding snow into a face as chill and immovable as a
death-mask. “Brother
Elyas, come back with me! You must come back—you’ll die out here!” Brother
Elyas moved on inexorably, forcing his incubus before him, hampered but
undeterred. Yves maintained his hold, and went with him, but hanging back hard,
and pleading insistently: “You’re ill, you should be in your bed. Come back
with me! Where is it you want to go? Turn back now, let me take you home…” But
perhaps he was not going anywhere, only trying to get away from somewhere, or
from someone, from himself, from whatever it was that had come back to him like
lightning-stroke, and driven him mad. Yves pleaded breathlessly and
insistently, but in vain. He could not turn him or persuade him. There was
nothing left but to go with him. He took a firm grip on the black sleeve, and
set himself to keep pace with his charge. If they could find any cottage, or
meet with any late traveller he could ask for shelter or help. Surely Brother
Elyas must weaken and fail at last, and let himself be prevailed upon to accept
any aid that offered. But who would be out on such a night? Who but a poor
madman and his sorry keeper! Well, he had offered to take care of Brother
Elyas, and he would not let go of him, and if he could not protect him from his
own frenzy, he could at least share the penalty. And strangely, in a little
while they were moving together as one, and Brother Elyas, though his face
remained fixed and his purpose secret, laid an arm about Yves’
shoulders and drew him close against his side, and small, instinctive motions
of mutual kindness arose between them, to ease the labor and the cold and the
loneliness. Yves
had no longer any idea of where they were, though he knew that long ago they
had left the road. He thought they had crossed a bridge, and that could not
have been anything but the River Corve. Somewhere on that upland slope, then. A
poor chance of finding a cottage here, even if the snow gave over and let them
see their way. But
it seemed that Brother Elyas knew his way, or was guided to the place where he
could not choose but go, for some awful, penitential purpose of which only he
knew. A thicket of thorny bushes, heaped with snow, snatched at their garments,
sheltering a shallow hollow in the slope. Yves stumbled against a hard, dark
surface, and grazed his knuckles on rough wood. A low but sturdy hut, built to
give shelter to shepherds in the lambing, and store fodder and litter. The door
was held by a heavy bar, but Brother Elyas drew it clear and thrust the door
open. They burst through into blessed darkness, Elyas stooping his head low
beneath the lintel. The door, clapped to against the wind, fitted snugly, and
suddenly they were in blindness, stillness and comparative silence. After the
blizzard without, this was almost warmth, and the smell of old but dry hay,
stirred by their feet, promised bed and blankets together. Yves shook off snow,
and his heart lifted hopefully. Here Brother Elyas might survive the night. And
before dawn, before he awakes, thought the boy, I can slip out and bar the door
on him, while I go to find someone to help me, or carry a message for me. I’ve
held on to him thus far, I won’t lose him now. Brother
Elyas had moved away from him. He heard the rusting whisper of the hay as a
man’s weight was flung down into it. The howl of the wind outside ebbed into a
desolate moaning. Yves crept forward with hand extended, and touched a stooped
shoulder, caked with snow. The pilgrim had reached his strange shrine, and was
on his knees. Yves shook the snow from the folds of the black habit, and felt
Elyas shuddering beneath his hand, as though he contained by force what should
have been deep and bitter sobbing. Now that they were in utter
darkness the thread that bound them seemed to have drawn them closer together.
The kneeling man was whispering almost soundlessly, and though all words were
lost, the desperation of their import was plain. Yves
felt his way into the pile of hay beside him, and with an arm about the tense
shoulders tried to draw Elyas down to lie at rest, but for a long while the
pressure was resisted. At last the lean body softened and sank forward with a
muted, wordless groan, whether in consent to the boy’s urging or in the
collapse of exhaustion there was no telling. He lay stretched on his face, his
forehead on his arms, and Yves raked up the hay on either side to fold him in
with at least a measure of warmth, and lay down beside him. After
a while he knew by the long, deep breathing that Elyas slept. Yves
lay holding him, pressed close to his side, determined not to sleep. He was
cold and weary, and in great need of thought, but his mind was numbed and unwilling.
He did not want to remember the words Brother Elyas had spoken, much less try
to make out their meaning, for whatever it might be, it was terrible. All he
could do now for this broken man, for whom he felt so obstinate and strange an
affection, having taken the responsibility for him, was to make certain that he
could not escape again to wander and be lost, and to go out and seek help for
him in the morning. To which end he must stay awake. For
all that, he may have been very close to dozing when he was startled into
wakefulness again by a voice beside him, not whispering now, only muffled by
the cradling arms. “Sister…
my sister… Forgive me my weakness, my mortal sin—I, who have been your death!”
And after a long pause he said: “Hunydd—she was like you, even so warm and
confiding in my arms… After six months starving, suddenly such hunger—I could
not bear the burning, body and soul!” Yves
lay still, clasping him, unable to move, unable to stop listening. “No,
do not forgive! How dare I ask? Let the earth close on me and put me out of
mind… Craven, inconstant—unworthy.” A longer silence yet. Brother Elyas was
still asleep, and out of his sleep he gave voice to his torments, uncovered
now, mercilessly remembered. He slept and writhed. Never before had Yves felt
himself enlarged to contain either such horror, or such fierce and protective
pity. “She
clung to me… she had no fear at all, being with me! Merciful God, I am a man,
full of blood, with a man’s body, a man’s desires!” cried Brother Elyas in a
muted howl of pain. “And she is dead, who trusted in me…” Chapter
Eight BROTHER
CADFAEL CAME BACK FROM COMPLINE to see Elyas settled for the night, and brought
a young brother with him to relieve Yves of his watch. They found the door
standing open, the bed wildly disturbed, and the room empty. There
might, of course, have been explanations less dire than the obvious one, but
Cadfael made straight for the outer door again at a purposeful run, and looked
for the signs he had not looked for when entering. The court had been
crisscrossed with new tracks at the end of Compline, and even these the
continuing snow was rapidly obliterating, but there were still traces of
someone who had set a straight course for the gatehouse. Mere dimples in the
whiteness, but discernible. And the boy gone, too! What could have erupted
there in the sickroom to spur Elyas into such unreasonable and perilous action,
after his long apathy and submission? Certainly if he had taken it into his
disordered head to do something drastic a half-grown lad would not have been
able to stop him, and more than likely pride would not let Yves abandon a
creature for whom he had assumed, however briefly, the responsibility. He was
getting to know Yves fairly well by now. “You
run to the guest-hall,” he ordered the young brother briskly, “tell Hugh
Beringar what’s amiss, and make sure they are not within there.
I’ll go to Prior Leonard, and we’ll have the whole household searched.” Leonard
took the news with concern and distress, and had every brother scouring the
enclave at once, even to the grange court and the barns. Hugh Beringar came
forth booted and cloaked, in resigned expectation of the worst, and was short
with any who got in his way. With both the secular and the cloistral law directing,
the search did not take long, and was fruitless. “My
fault entire,” Cadfael owned bitterly. “I entrusted the poor wretch to a boy
hardly less wretched. I should have had more sense. Though how or why this can
have arisen between them is more than I can see. But I should not have taken
the least risk with either of them. And now my foolishness has lost them both,
the most forlorn pair this house held, who should have been guarded at every
step.” Hugh
was already busy disposing the men he had here at hand. “One to Ludlow, as far
as the gate, where either they’ll have passed, or you may have them kept safely
if they arrive hereafter. And you go with him, but to the castle, have out ten
men, and bring them down to the gate, where I’ll come. Wake up Dinan, too, let
him sweat, the boy’s son to a man he must have known, and nephew to one he may
well want to have dealings with soon. I won’t risk men by sending them out in
this beyond a mile or so, or in less than pairs, but our pair can’t have got
far.” He turned on Cadfael just as vehemently, and clouted him hard between the
shoulders. “And you, my heart, stop talking such arrogant foolery! The man
seemed quiet and biddable, and the boy needed using, and could be trusted to
the hilt, as you very well know. If they’ve miscarried, it’s none of your
blame. Don’t arrogate to yourself God’s own role of apportioning blame and
praise, even when the blame lands on your own shoulders. That’s a kind of
arrogance, too. Now come on, and we’ll see if we can’t bring home the two of
them out of this cold purgatory. But I tell you what I shall be telling my
fellows at Ludlow—move out no more than an hour from home, keep touch, and turn
back on the hour, as near as you can judge. I’m not losing more men into the
snow this night. At dawn, if we’ve caught nothing before, we’ll take up the
search in earnest.” With those orders they went forth into
the blizzard, hunting in pairs, and obscurely comforted, in Cadfael’s case at
least, by the reflection that it was a pair they were hunting. One man alone
can give up and subside into the cold and die, far more easily than two
together, who will both brace and provoke each other, wrangle and support, give
each other warmth and challenge each other’s endurance. In extremes, not to be
alone is the greatest aid to survival. He
had taken Hugh’s impatient reproof to heart, too, and it gave him reassurance
no less. It was all too easy to turn honest anxiety over someone loved into an
exaltation of a man’s own part and duty as protector, a manner of usurpation of
the station of God. To accuse oneself of falling short of infallibility is to
arrogate to oneself the godhead thus implied. Well, thought Cadfael, willing to
learn, a shade specious, perhaps, but I may need that very argument myself some
day. Bear it in mind! Blundering
blindly ahead with a burly young novice beside him, northwards across the
Corve, Cadfael groped through a chill white mist, and knew that they were all
wasting their time. They might probe the drifts as they would, but the weather
had the laugh of them, covering everything in the same blank pall. They
all drew in again resignedly to Bromfield when they judged the time to be spent
and the work impossible. The porter had set fresh pine torches in the shelter
of the arched gateway to provide a beacon glow homeward, for fear some of the
searchers should themselves go astray and be lost, and from time to time he set
the bell ringing as an added guide. The hunters came back snow-caked and weary,
and empty-handed. Cadfael went to Matins and Lauds before seeking his bed. The
order of observances must not be utterly disrupted, even to go out in defense
of innocent lives. Nothing could now be done before dawn. Not by men. But God,
after all, knew where the lost might be found, and it would do no harm to put
in a word in that quarter, and admit the inadequacy of human effort. He
arose at the bell for Prime, and went down with the rest in the winter darkness
to the cold church. The snow had ceased at the first approach
of morning, as it had done for several days, and the reflected light from all
that depth of whiteness brought a pure and ghostly pallor even before dawn.
After the office Cadfael ploughed his way alone down towards the gatehouse. The
world around him was a waste of white broken by shadowy dark shapes of walls
and buildings, but the porter had kept his torches burning hopefully under the
archway, and they shed a full, reddish light over the stonework, and into the
outer world beyond. To replenish them he had had to open the wicket in the gate
and pass through, and as Cadfael approached he was in the act of re-entering,
pausing in shelter to stamp off snow before he came within, and closed the
wicket again behind him. Thus
it happened that he was facing inwards while Cadfael was facing out, and only
Cadfael saw what he saw. The wicket was lofty, to admit mounted men, and
Brother Porter was short and slight, and stooping to shake his skirts clear.
Behind him, and not many paces behind, two faces suddenly glowed out of the dimness
into the flickering light of the torches, and shone clear before Cadfael’s
eyes. Their suddenness and their beauty took his breath away for a moment, as
though a miracle had caused them to appear out of the very air. No heavenly
visitors, however, these, but most vividly and vitally of this world. The
girl’s hood had fallen back on her neck, the red light flowed over a great
disordered coil of dark hair, a wide, clear forehead, arched, imperious black
browns, large dark eyes too brilliant to be black, by the reflections in them
the darkest and reddest of browns. She had, for all her coarse country clothes,
a carriage of the head and a lance-like directness of gaze that queens might
have copied. The lines that swooped so graciously over her cheekbones and down
to full, strongly folded lips and resolute chin made so suave a moulding that
Cadfael’s finger-ends, once accomplished in such caresses, stroked down from
brow to throat in imagination, and quivered to old memories. The
other face hung beyond and above her left shoulder almost cheek to brow with
her. She was tall, but the man behind her was taller, he was stooped
protectively and watchfully to bring his face close to hers. A long, spare,
wide-browed face with a fine scimitar of a nose and a supple bow
of a mouth, and the dilated, fearless golden eyes of a hawk. His head was
bared, and capped closely with blue-black hair, coiling vigorously at his
temples and sweeping back thick and lustrous over a lofty skull. Cadfael had
visions of that face terminating in a short, pointed beard, and with fine-drawn
moustaches over the long, fastidious lips. With just such faces had he seen, in
his time, proud, mailed Syrians wheeling their line of charge outside Antioch.
This face had the same dark coloring and sculptured shape, like cast bronze,
but this face was shaven clean in the Norman fashion, the rich hair cropped,
the head framed by rough, dun-colored homespun, a local peasant’s wear. Well,
they happen, the lightning-strokes of God, the gifted or misfortunates who are
born into a world where they nowhere belong, the saints and scholars who come
to manhood unrecognized, guarding the swine in the forest pastures among the
beechmast, the warrior princes villein-born and youngest in a starving clan,
set to scare the crows away from the furrow. Just as hollow slave-rearlings are
cradled in the palaces of kings, and come to rule, however ineptly, over men a
thousand times their worth. But
this one would not be lost. It needed only that flashing glimpse of the black-lashed
golden eyes to make it certain they would burn their way before him to wherever
he set out to go. And
all in the brief moment while the porter was ridding himself of the snow he had
collected on his skirts. For the next moment he had stepped within, and closed
the wicket behind him, just in time to cut off, short of the gates, the dual
vision of youth that was surely advancing to ask for entry. Brother
Cadfael closed his eyes, opened them hopefully, and closed them again upon
dazzled recollection that might almost have been delusion. In the between-light
of dawn, in the grip of a hard winter, and complicated by the pleasurable,
warming glow of torchlight, what dreams may not come! He
had taken but three more labored paces through the fall, and the porter had
barely reached the door of his lodge, when the bell pealed at the gate. The porter turned, startled. He had been
preoccupied first with reaching up to the sconces in which his torches were
set, and then hurrying back into shelter, and he had seen nothing stirring in
the lingering darkness without. Only after his back was turned had the two—if
they were real indeed!—stepped within range of the light. He hoisted resigned
shoulders, and waded back to open the small grid that would show him who stood
without. What he saw astonished him still more, it seemed, but it spurred him
into instant action. The great latch lifted, and the lofty wicket swung open. And
there she stood, tall, meek and still confronting them, in a too-large gown of
faded brown homespun, a coarse short cloak and ragged-edged capuchon flung back
from her head, the sheaf of dark hair tumbling to her shoulders. The sting of
cold air had brought out a rosy flush on her cheekbones, in a skin otherwise
creamy-white and smooth as ivory. “May
I enter and take shelter here a while?” she said in the mildest of voices and
humblest of manners, but with that confidence and calm about her that could not
be quenched. “Through weather and mishap and the distresses of war I am here
alone. I think you have been looking for me. My name is Ermina Hugonin.” While
the porter was conducting her excitedly into his lodge, and hurrying to inform
Prior Leonard and Hugh Beringar of the sudden appearance of the missing lady at
their gates, Brother Cadfael lost no time in slipping into the roadway and
casting a shrewd eye on the empty countryside in all directions. Empty it was,
to all appearance. There were corners, copses, bushes, any of which could
quickly conceal the departure of a young and swift-moving man, and either her
companion had chosen to vanish among these, or the falcon had indeed taken wing
and flown. As for tracks in the snow, a few early-rising good men with sheep to
dig out or beasts to feed had already gone to and fro past the gatehouse, and among
their traces who was to pick out one man’s foot? She had spoken truth, if a
somewhat deceptive truth; she entered here alone. But two had approached the
gate, though only one rang to ask admittance. Now
why should such a man, bringing a lost girl to safety, avoid
showing his face within? And why, pondered Cadfael, should not the one man who
was aware of the evasion make it known openly to all? On the other hand until
he knew of a good reason one way or the other, why should he? First hear and
consider what the lady had to say. He
went back very thoughtfully to the lodge, where the porter had hurried to prod
his fire into life and seat her beside it. She sat self-contained and silent,
her wet shoes and skirts beginning to steam gently in the warmth. “You
are also a brother of this house?” she asked, raising dark eyes to study him. “No,
I am a monk of Shrewsbury. I came here to tend a brother who has been lying
sick here.” He wondered if any word of Brother Elyas’ misfortunes had reached
her, but she gave no sign of knowing anything of a wounded monk, and he forbore
from mentioning a name. Let her tell her own story once for all, before Hugh
and the prior as witnesses, then he might know where he himself stood. “You
know how diligently you have been sought since you fled from Worcester? Hugh
Beringar, who is deputy sheriff of the shire, is here in Bromfield, partly on
that very quest.” “I
heard it,” she said, “from the forester who has sheltered me. I know from them,
too, that my brother has been here, while I have been hunting for him. And only
now that I find my way here myself do I learn that he is again lost, and half
the night men have been out searching for him. All this countryside knows of
it. I fear you have made a poor exchange,” she said with sudden, flashing
bitterness, “gaining me and losing Yves. For I am the one who has cost you all
so much trouble and time.” “Your
brother was safe and in excellent health,” said Cadfael firmly, “as late as
Compline last night. There is no need to suppose that we shall fail of finding
him again, for he cannot have gone far. The sheriff’s men in Ludlow will have
had their orders overnight, and be out by now. And so will Hugh Beringar, as
soon as he has seen you safe and well, and heard whatever you can tell him.” Hugh
was at the door by then, and the brothers had hastily cleared a path through
the drifts to bring the girl almost dry-shod up to the guest-hall. Prior
Leonard himself led her in to warmth and food and a comfortable
seat by the fire. He was distressed that there was no woman guest to provide
her a change of clothing. “That
shall be seen to,” said Beringar shortly. “Josce de Dinan has a household full
of women, I’ll get from them whatever is needed. But you had better get out of
those wet skirts, madam, if it must needs be into habit and sandals. You have
nothing with you but what you wear?” “I
gave what I have in exchange for what I wear,” she said with composure, “and
for the hospitality that was given me without thought of reward. But some money
I still have about me. I can pay for a gown.” They
left her to strip beside the fire, and provided her the habit and shoes of a
novice. When she opened the door to them again, and bade them in, it was with
the grace of a countess welcoming guests. She had let down and combed her mass
of dark hair, it was drying into curls on her shoulders, and swung like heavy,
lustrous curtains either side of her face. Wrapped in the black habit, and
girdled close about the waist, she returned to her chair and braced herself,
facing the squarely, the most beautiful novice Bromfield had ever housed. She
had spread out her wet clothes to dry on a bench beside the fire. “My
lord,” she said, “and Father Prior, to say this briefly, I have been the cause
of great trouble and cost to you and many others, and I am sensible of it. It
was not intended, but I did it. Now that I am come to make what amends I may, I
hear that my brother, who was here in safety, and whom I hoped to join here,
has gone forth overnight and vanished again. I cannot but lay this, with the
rest, to my own charge, and I am sorry. If there is anything I can do to help
in the search for him…” “There
is but one thing you can do to help us all,” said Hugh firmly, “and take one
anxiety, at least, off our hands. You can remain here, not setting a foot
outside these walls, until we find and bring your brother to join you. Let us
at least be sure that you are safe, and cannot be lost again.” “I
could wish better, but what you order, I will do. For this while,” she added,
and jutted her lip at him. “Then
there are things I need to know from you, now, shortly, and the
rest can wait. You are but a part of my business here. The king’s peace is also
my business, and you, I think, have good reason to know that the king’s peace
is being flouted in these parts. We know from Yves you left him and Sister
Hilaria at Cleeton, and sent word to Evrard Boterei to come and fetch you away
to his manor of Callowleas. We have seen what is left of Callowleas, and we
have been to Ledwyche looking for you, and heard from Boterel that you reached
there with him safely, but rode out while he lay in fever from his wounds got
in the fighting, and went to look for the companions you had left behind. What
had befallen Callowleas could well befall others, no wonder you were in
desperate anxiety.” She
sat gnawing her underlip and staring at him with unwavering eye, her brows
drawn close. “Since Evrard has told you all this, I need only confirm it. He is
recovered, I trust? Yes, I did fear for them. There was good cause.” “What
happened to you? Boterel had already told us that you did not return, and from
the time he recovered his wits and found you were gone, he has been searching
for you constantly. It was folly to set out alone.” Surprisingly,
her lips contorted in a wry smile. She had already admitted to folly. “Yes, I
am sure he has been hunting high and low for me. We may set his mind at rest
now. No, I did not reach Cleeton. I don’t know these ways, and I was benighted,
and then the snow came… In the dark I lost myself utterly, and had a fall, and
the horse bolted. I was lucky to be found and taken in by a forester and his
wife, lifelong I shall be grateful to them. I told them about Yves, and how I
feared for him, and the forester said he would send up to Cleeton and find out
what had happened, and so he did. He brought word how poor John’s holding was
ravaged, the night after Callowleas, and how Yves was lost even before— the
same night I committed my greatest fault and folly.” Her head reared proudly
and her back stiffened as she declared her regret, and with fiery stare dared
anyone else here present either to echo her self-condemnation, or attempt to
deprecate it. “Thanks be to God, John and his family escaped alive. And as for
their losses, I take them as my debts, and they shall be repaid. But one relief
they brought me from Cleeton,” she said, quickening into warmth
and affection, “for they told me Sister Hilaria that was gone, well before the
raiders came, for the good brother of Pershore came back, in his anxiety over
us, and he brought her away safely.” The
dead silence passed unnoticed, she was so glad of that one consolation. One
innocent escaped from the landslide her light-hearted escapade had set in
motion. “All
this time, while I stayed with them, we have been sending about for news of
Yves, for how could I make any move until I knew how he fared? And only
yesterday morning we heard at last that he was here, safe. So I came.” “Only
in time,” owned Hugh, “to find him lost again just as you are found. Well, I
trust he need not be lost for long, and if I leave you without ceremony, it is
to look for him.” Cadfael
asked mildly: “You found you own way here, alone?” She
turned her head sharply, and gave him the wide, challenging gaze of her dark
eyes, her face still calm and wary. “Robert
showed me the way—the forester’s son.” “My
business,” said Hugh, “is also with these outlaws who have set up house
somewhere in the hills, and hunted you out of Callowleas and Druel out of his
holding. I mean to have out enough men to smoke out every last yard of those
uplands. But first we’ll find the two we’ve lost.” He rose briskly, and with a
meaningful gesture of his dark head and lift of an urgent eyebrow drew Cadfael
away with him out of the room. “For
all I can see, the girl knows nothing of what happened to Sister Hilaria, and
nothing of Brother Elyas. I have my men and as many of Dinan’s mustering to
take up this hunt, and small time to break unpleasant news gently. Stay here
with her, Cadfael, make sure she doesn’t elude us again—and tell her! She’ll
have to know. The more truths we can put together, the nearer we shall be to
clearing out this nest of devils once for all, and going home for Christmas to
Aline and my new son.” She
was hungry, and had a healthy appetite, Cadfael judged, at any time. It was
plenteous activity that kept her slender as a young hind. She
ate with pleasure, though her face remained guarded, thoughtful and withdrawn.
Cadfael let her alone until she sat back with a sigh of physical content. Her
brows were still drawn close, and her eyes looked rather inward than outward.
Then, quite suddenly, she was looking at him, and with sharp attention. “It
was you who found Yves and brought him here? So Father Prior said.” “By
chance it was,” said Cadfael. “Not
only chance. You went to look for him.” That commended him; her face warmed.
“Where was it? Was he very cold and wretched?” “He
was in all particulars a young gentleman very much in command of himself. And
he had found, as you did, that simple country people can be hospitable and kind
without thought of reward.” “And
since then both you and he have been looking for me! While I was looking for
him! Oh, God!” she said softly and with dismayed reverence. “All this I began.
And so mistakenly! I did not know even myself. I am not now the same woman.” “You
no longer wish to marry Evrard Boterei?” asked Cadfael placidly. “No,”
she said as simply. “That is over. I thought I loved him. I did think so! But
that was children’s play, and this bitter winter is real, and those birds of
prey in that eyrie up there are real, and death is real, and very close at
every step, and I have brought my brother into danger by mere folly, and now I
know that my brother is more to me by far than ever was Evrard. But never say I
said so,” she flared, “when he comes back. He is vain enough already. It was he
told you what I had done?” “It
was. And how he tried to follow you, and lost himself, and was sheltered in the
forest assart where I found him.” “And
he blamed me?” she said. “In
his shoes, would not you?” “It
seems to me so long ago,” she said, wondering, “and I have changed so much. How
is it that I could do so much harm, and mean none? At least I was thankful when
they told me that that good brother from Pershore—how I wish I had listened
to him!—had come back to look for us, and taken Sister Hilaria away with him.
Were they still here when you came from Shrewsbury? Did she go on, or turn back
to Worcester?” She
had arrived at what was for her a simple question before he was ready, and the
flat silence fell like a stone. She was very quick. The few seconds it took him
to marshal words lasted too long. She had stiffened erect, and was staring at
him steadily with apprehensive eyes. “What
is it I do not know?” There
was no way but forward, and plainly. “What will give you no comfort in the
hearing, and me no joy in the telling,” said Brother Cadfael simply. “On the
night when your upland wolves sacked Druel’s house, they had already done as
much to a lonely hamlet nearer here, barely two miles from Ludlow. Between the
two, on their way back to their lair, it seems that they encountered, by cruel
ill-luck, the two after whom you ask. It was already evening when they left
Druel’s holding, and the night was wild, with high winds and blinding snow. It
may be they went astray. It may be they tried to take shelter somewhere through
the worst. They fell in the way of thieves and murderers.” Her
face was marble. Her hands gripped desperately at the arms of her chair, the
knuckles bone-white. In a mere thread of a whisper she asked: “Dead?” “Brother
Elyas was brought back here barely alive. Your brother was watching with him
last night when they both went out into the snow, who can guess why? Sister
Hilaria we found dead.” There
was no sound from her for a long moment, no tear, no exclamation, no protest.
She sat containing whatever grief and guilt and hopeless anger possessed her,
and would show none of it to the world. After a while she asked in a low and
level voice: “Where is she?” “She
is here, in the church, coffined and awaiting burial. In this iron frost we
cannot break the ground, and it may be the sisters at Worcester will want to
have her taken back to them when that is possible. Until then Father Prior will
find her a tomb in the church.” “Tell me,” said Ermina with bleak but
quiet urgency, “all that befell her. Better to know the whole of it than to
guess.” In
simple and plain words he told her the manner of that death. At the end of it
she stirred out of her long stillness, and asked: “Will you take me to her? I
should like to see her again.” Without
a word and without hesitation he rose, and led the way. His readiness she
accepted thankfully; he knew that he had gained with her. She would not be
hemmed in, or sheltered from what was her due. In the chapel where Sister
Hilaria lay in her new coffin, made in the brothers’ own workshop and lined
with lead, it was almost as cold as out in the frost, and the body had not
suffered any flawing of its serene beauty. She was not yet covered. Ermina
stood motionless by the trestles a long time, and then herself laid the white
linen face-cloth back over the delicate face. “I
loved her very much,” she said, “and I have destroyed her. This is my work.” “It
is nothing of the kind,” said Cadfael firmly. “You must not take to yourself
more than your due. What you yourself did, that you may rue, and confess, and
do penance for, to your soul’s content, but you may not lift another man’s sins
from his shoulders, or usurp God’s right to be the only judge. A man did this,
ravisher and murderer, and he, and only he, must answer for it. Whatever action
of any other creature may have thrown our sister in his way, he had command of
the hands that killed and outraged her, he and no other. It’s of him her blood
will be required.” For
the first time she shook, and when she would have spoken she had not her voice
under control, and was forced to wait and wrestle for clear speech. “But
if I had not set my heart on that foolish marriage, if I had consented to go
with Brother Elyas straight here to Bromfield, she would be living now…” “Do
we know that? Might not you, too, have fallen into such hands? Child, if men
had not done as they did, any time these five centuries, of course things would
have gone on differently, but need they have been better? There is no profit in
ifs. We go on from where we stand, we answer for our own evil, and leave to God
our good.” Ermina wept, suddenly and irresistibly,
but would not be seen to weep. She swept away from him to kneel trembling at
the altar, and remained there a long time. He did not follow her, but waited
patiently until she chose to rejoin him. When she came back her face was
drained but calm. She looked very tired, and very young and vulnerable. “Come
back to the fire,” said Cadfael. “You’ll take cold here.” She
went with him docilely, glad to settle beside the hearth again. The shivering
left her, she lay back and half-closed her eyes, but when he made a move as if
to leave her she looked up quickly. “Brother Cadfael, when they sent from
Worcester to ask for news of us, was there word said of our uncle d’Angers
being in England?” “There
was. Not only in England but in Gloucester, with the empress.” That was what she
had meant, though she had been feeling her way towards it cautiously. “Openly
and fairly he asked leave to come into the king’s territories himself to look
for you, and leave was refused. The sheriff promised a search by his own men,
but would not admit any of the empress’s party.” “And
should any such be found here and taken—in the search of us—what would happen
to him?” “He
would be held prisoner of war. It is the sheriff’s duty to deny to the king’s
enemies the service of any fighting man who falls into his hands, you must not
wonder at it. A knight lost to the empress is a knight’s gain to the king.” He
saw how doubtfully and anxiously she eyed him, and smiled. “It is the sheriff’s
duty. It is not mine. Among men of honor and decent Christian life I see no
enemies, on either side. Mine is a different discipline. With any man who comes
only to rescue and fetch away children to their proper guardian, I have no
quarrel.” She
frowned momentarily at the word children, and then laughed, with angry honesty,
at the very instinct that showed her still a child. “Then you would not betray
such a man even to your friend?” Cadfael
sat down opposite her and settled himself comfortably, for it seemed she had
matters on her mind, and wished to unburden herself. “I have told you, I take
no side here, and Hugh Beringar would not expect me to go
always his way in every particular. He does his work and I mine. But I must
tell you that he has already some knowledge of a presence in these parts, a
stranger, who came to Cleeton enquiring for all you three who left Worcester
together. A countryman by his dress, they said, young, tall and dark, eyed and
beaked like a hawk, black-haired and dark-skinned.” She was listening intently,
her underlip caught between her teeth, and at every detail the color flamed and
faded in her cheeks. “And one that wore a sword under his cloak,” said Cadfael.
She
sat very still, making up her mind. The face at her shoulder in the torchlight
of the gatehouse hung vividly in Cadfael’s imagination, and surely even more
urgently in hers. For a moment he thought she would prevaricate, shrug off the
image, declare her guide to be no more than she had said, a forester’s son. But
then she leaned forward and began to speak with vehement eagerness. “I
will tell you! I will tell you, and not even exact any promise, for I know I
need not. You will not give him up. What I said was true, that I was taken in
and helped by the forester and his wife. But the second day that I was there
with them, there came a youth asking for news of such a company as I had,
before I shattered it. Dressed as I was when you first saw me today, still he
knew me for what I was, and so did I him, for nothing could show him less than
noble. He spoke French freely, but English a little slowly. He told me that my
uncle had returned, and was in Gloucester with the empress, and had sent him
secretly to find us and bring us safe to him. His errand is that, and nothing
more, but here he goes with danger all about him, knowing he may fall into the
sheriff’s hands.” “He
has eluded them so far,” said Cadfael mildly. “He may very well go on slipping
through our fingers to the end, and hale you away with him to Gloucester.” “But
not without Yves. I will not go without my brother, he knows that. I did not
want to come here, but he so wished it. Let me know, he said, that you at least
are in safety, and leave the hunt to me. And I have done and I will do what he bids me. But I could not bear it if through his care for us he
fell into the king’s hands, and was left to rot in a prison.” “Never
go looking for disaster,” said Cadfael cheerfully. “Expect the best, and walk
so discreetly as to invite it, and then leave all to God. You have not given
this paladin a name.” No, but he had a face, and a memorable face, too. She
was buoyantly young. Grief was fiercely felt, but so was hope, so was joy, so
was the adulation of heroes. The very thought of her champion had lifted her
out of the shadows of guilt and death, she glowed as she spoke of him. “They
call him Olivier de Bretagne—it is a name they gave him in his own land,
because of his parentage. For he was born in Syria, and his mother was of that
country, and his father a Frankish knight of the Crusade, from England. He
leaned to his father’s faith, and made his way to Jerusalem to join his
father’s people, and there he took service with my uncle, six years ago now. He
is his favorite squire. Now he has come home with him, and who else would be
trusted with this search?” “And
with his small experience here and halting English,” said Cadfael
appreciatively, “he was not afraid to venture into these stormy regions, among
his lord’s enemies?” “He
is not afraid of anything! He is bravery itself! Oh, Brother Cadfael, you do
not know how fine he is! If you could only once see him, you must become his
friend!” Cadfael
did not say that he had seen him, that requisite first time, briefly, like the
blazing recollection of a dream. He was thinking, with nostalgic fondness, that
some other lonely soul wearing the Cross had found, somewhere in that burning
land of sun and sea and sand, a woman to his liking, who must have liked him no
less, if she had borne him such a son. The east was full of glorious bastards.
That one of them should come home to his father’s land, baptized into his
father’s faith, was no marvel. No need to look beyond the admirable fruit. “You
have that promise you did not ask,” said Brother Cadfael. “Olivier is safe with
me. I will do nothing to uncover him. In your need or his, I will stand your friend.”
Chapter
Nine YVES
STARTED AWAKE OUT OF AN INVOLUNTARY DOZE, instantly aware of movement and
sound, though both seemed so distant and faint that they might have been no
more than the fading shreds of a dream. Under his arm Brother Elyas lay in exhausted
sleep, sunk far too deep for dreaming, and briefly at peace. His breathing was
quiet and steady. The boy felt rather than heard by its rhythm how strongly
Elyas had survived the night that might well have killed him, tenacious even of
a life that tormented him. Yet
something, Yves was sure, he had heard, some human sound. Not the wind, for
that had dropped, and as he sat very still, listening with ears stretched, he
was sensible of absolute silence. There is nothing more silent than deep snow,
until men break the spell. And there it came again, small and distant but no
illusion, the faint murmuring of voices, a mere snatch, gone in an instant. And
again, some strained moments later, the tiny jingle of metal, a horse’s harness
clashing. Yves got to his feet stiffly, careful not to disturb the sleeper, and
fumbled his way to the door. It was still only the deep twilight that comes
before the promise of dawn, but the waste of snow before him cast up an eerie
pallor. The night was well advanced, and already there were men abroad. Men
with horses! Yves left the door of the hut closed but unbarred, and struggled out into the drifts, in haste lest the promise of help
should pass by before he could intercept it. Somewhere
down the slope, out of sight beyond a thicket of snow-heaped bushes and a clump
of trees bowed down and turned white like the heads of tired old men, someone
laughed, and again a bridle rang. The travellers, as he had hoped, were coming
from the direction of Ludlow and Bromfield. Fearful that they might pass by,
and never notice the hut at all, Yves plunged downhill, stumbling and wading,
found a ridge which the wind had partially stripped, and broke into an eager
run. Skirting the bushes, he began to thread the copse, fending his way through
the darkness of the close-set trees with hands outstretched. The voices were
drawing nearer, loud, unsubdued voices, still wordless, but a most welcome
sound. Someone raised a snatch of song, someone broke in with a loud remark,
and there was more laughter. Yves was somewhat disconcerted to hear it, even
indignant. If these were a party searching for the wanderers, they did not
sound too anxious about their errand. But even if he was mistaken in thinking
them Hugh Beringar’s men, what did that matter? They were men, at any rate, and
they could help him. Nearing
the far edge of the copse, and with eyes now growing more accustomed to the
eerie twilight, he caught glimpses of movement between the trees. He burst out
into the open with their line strung before him, more of them than he had
thought, ten or a dozen at least. Three horses, and four pack-ponies,
well-loaded, blew forth pale clouds of frosty breath. Even in the dimness he
knew the shapes of sword and axe and bow. These men went heavily armed through
the ending of the night, but not in the disciplined order of Hugh Beringar’s
men-at-arms, rather raggedly and merrily, and soiled with smoke. Faintly but
unmistakably, the stink of burning wafted from them, and the pack-ponies were
loaded high with grain-sacks, wine-skins, pots, bundled clothing, the carcases
of two slaughtered sheep. His
heart misgave him. Hastily he made to draw back into cover, but he had been
seen, and one of the men afoot loosed a mock hunting-call, and darted into the
trees to cut off his retreat. Another took up the cry, and there were the pair
of them, with spread arms and broad grins, between him and
return. A moment more, and half a dozen were all around him. He tried to slip
between them and make off in the opposite direction from the hut, instinctively
aware that whatever happened he must not betray the presence close by of
Brother Elyas. But a long arm reached for him almost lazily, took him by the
liripipe of his capuchon and a fistful of his hair, and hauled him painfully out
to the open ride. “Well,
well!” crowed his captor, turning him about by the grip on his hair. “What’s
such a small nightbird doing abroad at this hour?” Yves
struggled, but was quick to sense that he achieved nothing. Dignity forbade
that he should wriggle or beg. He grew still under the large hand that held
him, and said with creditable steadiness: “Let me go! You’re hurting me. I’m
doing no harm.” “Unwary
nightbirds get their necks wrung,” said one, and went through the motions of
wringing, with lean and dirty hands. “Especially if they peck.” The
mounted man who led the column had halted and was looking back. A high,
peremptory voice demanded: “What game have you caught there? Bring him, let me
see. I want no spies bearing tales back to the town.” They
laid hands willingly on Yves and hauled him forward to where the tallest of the
three horses stood. The horse, being mainly white, was plainly visible, the man
on his back loomed only as a great shadow against the sky. When he shifted a
little in the saddle to stare down at the captive, some stray gleam of lambent
light flowed over the links of chain mail, and flickered out like spent
lightning. Afoot, he might not be a very tall man, but the breadth of his
shoulders and breast, and the lion’s mane of thick hair that covered his head
and flowed down on to his chest in a bushy beard made him look immense. He sat
his horse as if they made one powerful body between them. He was all the more
frightening because his face was but a shadow, and there was nothing to be read
in it. “Hale
him close,” he ordered impatiently. “Here to my knee. Let me see him.” Yves
felt his head yanked back by the hair, to lift his face to
view. He stiffened his back and his lips, and stared up in silence. “Who
are your, boy? What’s your name?” It was no common country voice, but one
accustomed to lordship and to being obeyed. “They
call me Jehan,” lied Yves, and did his best to avoid having his own manner of
speech so easily recognized. “What
are you doing here at this hour? Are you here alone?” “Yes,
my lord. My father folds his sheep up yonder.” He pointed firmly in the
opposite direction from the hut where Elyas, he hoped, still lay asleep.
“Yesterday some of them strayed, and we cane out early looking for them. Father
went t’other way there, and sent me this. I’m no spy, what should I be spying
on? We’re only bothered for the sheep.” “So!
A shepherd, eh? And a very pretty little shepherd, too,” said the voice above
him drily. “In good broadcloth that cost enough when it was new. Now take
breath and tell me again: who are you?” “My
lord, I’ve told you true! I’m only Jehan, the shepherd’s lad from Whitbache…”
It was the only manor he could remember to the west and on the near side of
Corve. He had no idea why it should raise a bellow of rough laughter from all
the listening crew, and his blood chilled at hearing the short, harsh bark of
mirth that came from the man above him. His own fright angered him. He set his
jaw and glared up into the shadowy face. “You have no right to question me when
I am about lawful business and do no wrong. Tell your man to loose hold of me.”
Instead,
the voice, interested but unmoved, said shortly: “Hand me up that toy he wears
at his belt. Let me see what our shepherds are sporting against wolves this
year.” Rough
handling had plucked aside the fullness of Yves’ cloak, and left his belt
exposed to view, the little dagger dangling. Willing hands unbuckled it and
handed it up. “So
they favor silver,” said their lord musingly, “and precious pebbles set in
their hilts. Very fine!” He looked up, aware of the first lightening of the sky
to eastward. “Time’s too short for starting his tongue wagging here, and my
feet grow cold. Bring him! Alive! Amuse yourselves if you
must, but stop short of damaging him. He may be valuable.” He
turned at once and spurred forward, his two mounted companions bearing him
company. Yves was left to the mercies of the underlings. There was never a
moment when he had the remotest chance of breaking away. They valued him, or their
lord’s orders, so highly that at every turn three of them had a grip on him.
They took his own belt, and strapped it round him just above the elbows, to
deny him the use of his arms, and though it had a foot to spare about his
waist, to close it thus they drew it painfully tight. They found a short cord
to tie his wrists before him, palms together, and a long rope to attach him, by
a running noose around his neck, to the pack-saddle of the hindmost pony. If he
lagged, the noose would tighten. If he hurried he could raise his bound hands
high enough to grasp the rope and slacken it enough to breathe, but he could
not raise them high enough to get hold of the noose itself and keep it slack.
He was shrewd enough to realize that if he fell they would stop to pick him up.
They had been told to deliver him wherever their lord was bound, alive and
repairable. But short of killing, they were pleased to avail themselves of the
permission they had been given to use him for their amusement. He
tried to shrug a fold of his cloak into the noose when they slung it over his
head, and someone laughed aloud and clouted him on the ear and dragged the
obstruction loose. It was at that moment that Yves remembered that under the
collar of that same cloak lay hidden the ring brooch that fastened it. It was
very old, a Saxon piece with a formidable pin, the only weapon he had about him
now, and they had not discovered it. “Now,
little bird, fly!” said his first captor, wheezing with laughter. “But bear in
mind you’re flown on a crйance. No making off into the sky for you.” And he
strode away to set the column moving again after its master. Between sleep,
fright and anger, Yves stood shivering and in a daze so long that the first
jerk on his tether half-choked him. He had to grasp and scurry and clutch at
his leash to recover, and a wave of raucous laughter washed back over him in
recompense. But after that he soon found that their
jest could be made as amusing or as tame as he chose. For they had to move so
modestly with their booty that he had no real difficulty in keeping up. Their
loads were heavy and unwieldy, his was very light, and once fully awake, very
agile. For the first few minutes he took care to give them some occasion for
laughter, falling behind and then rushing to preserve his neck. These repeated
recoveries brought him well acquainted with the pony to which he was tied, and
its load, which was two great sacks of grain, slung in balance, and two equally
vast goatskins, surely of wine, behind the grain, with an erection of bundled
cloth and slung pots on top. When he scuttled up close he was moving with his
cheek almost against the hair of the goatskin on his side. It bulged and
undulated with the liquid within. Moreover, when he came thus close he was at
the very end of this ponderous procession, and hidden by the lofty load from
those who went before. And the way, though clearly they knew it too well to be
much aggrieved at its drifts, still put delays enough in their path, they soon
forgot to look behind. Under
the lurching load, Yves stretched up his bound hands as far as they would go,
and felt under the collar of his cloak for the brooch. No one could see him
here, he shrank close to the pony’s patient, laboring quarter. Fumbling fingers
found the edge of the metal, and felt for the ring of the pin, to draw it
forth. His arms, bound cruelly tight, ached with tension, and his finger-ends
were growing numb. Doggedly he kept his hold, and began to coax the brooch
loose, terrified that he might drop it, from pure strain, when it came out from
the folds of cloth. If he could free it and retain his hold with arms lowered,
until the use and the blood returned to his hands, he knew he could manipulate
it thereafter. The
point of the pin sprang loose, and the round brooch almost slipped from his
hold. He closed both hands upon it in desperation, and the point pierced his
finger. He bore the prick gratefully, drew his hands down still impaled, let
the blood flow freely down his aching arms and into his hands, and the thin ooze
from the wound slide unregarded down his finger until he could feel power there
again. He had the precious thing, sharp as a dagger. He took
some minutes before he dared try to make use of it, nursing it between his
locked palms, flexing his fingertips against it until they felt nimble and
supple as ever. The
full goatskin wallowed beside his cheek, the morning twilight hid him. The
leather, though rubbed bare of hair in places, and soft and portly with age,
was tough, but the pin of the brooch was strong, and protruded the length of
his little finger beyond the ring. It took him some moments to work it through
the hide at the lowest part of the swaying bag, the yielding folds slithered
away from him so vexingly, but he leaned a shoulder hard against it to hold it
still, and the pin slid through. A
satisfying spurt of dark red followed as he drew the pin out again, and he
looked down in hope, even in elation, to see the sudden red splash like blood
in the whiteness of the snow beneath his feet. After the first gush the hole
contracted again, but the weight of the wine kept it open, and trickled a thin
drip along the way, and he thought it would do. It would not sink into the snow
and be lost, for the frost was hard enough to seal it as it fell. And that way,
dripping so meagrely, the load would last a long way. He hoped, long enough.
But in case it should become too fine to be followed, from time to time he
punched the skin, and found he could force out a brief jet, a tiny pool of wine
to confirm what had gone before. The
dawn, grey and still and turning now to white mist that cut off all distances,
was well upon them. A cold dawn, in which a few starved birds wheeled
hopelessly. They had timed their return to the lair to be safe within before
full light. If they were now near, Yves thought the depletion in the leaky
wineskin might pass for a natural loss. They had been climbing for a long time.
Lofty, bleak and inhospitable, the uplands of Titterstone Clee received them.
Even in thick mist they knew where they were going, and knew when they drew
near; they had begun to prod the pack-beasts and hurry the line along, scenting
refuge, food and rest. Yves
took thought for his precious brooch, and managed to thread it inside the hem
of his short tunic, out of sight. That freed his bound hands to grasp the rope
that had begun to tighten uncomfortably round his neck when he
tired, and haul himself along by it. It could not be far now. They had smelled
their nest. From
barren, misty desert, without features within the short distance the eye could
see, but always climbing, suddenly they were moving between close, low-growing
trees, with rising rocks just discernible behind. Then it seemed that they
emerged again upon an open summit, and there before them rose a high stockade,
with a narrow gate in it, and over it showed a dark, squat, broad tower. There
were men on watch, the gate opened as they approached. Within,
there were low, rough lean-to buildings all round the stockade, and men in
plenty moving about between them. Below the tower a long hall extended. Yves
heard cattle lowing and sheep calling plaintively. All was timber, all was new,
raw and crude, but solid and formidably manned. No wonder they moved at ease in
the night, insolently aware of their numbers, and of the strength of their
secret fortress. Before
they entered the gate Yves had the wit to draw back the length of his leash,
well away from the punctured wine-skin, and blunder in droopingly, like one
exhausted and cowed. Since sighting the stockade he had let the leaky skin
alone, so that it dripped only a meager droplet by the time they halted in the
snowy bailey. A leaky skin was no great marvel, and the pair to it, at least,
was sound. And he had luck, for his first captor made haste to undo him and
haul him away by the scruff of the neck, before anyone had noticed the thin red
drip, and cursed at half a wineskin lost on the journey. Yves
went where he was dragged, scrambling meekly up the steps into the hall, and
through the seething warmth and smokiness and stunning noise within. Torches
burned along the walls, well primed out from the timber, a great fire blazed on
a stone-laid hearth in the midst, and twenty voices at least plaited a lattice
of noise though the haze, loud, merry and secure. Of furniture there was
little, a few hewn benches, great tables on trestles of rough logs. Men teemed
and many turned to stare and grin at the passage of this small prisoner. At
the far end of the hall there was a low dais, and here there were candles in tall
sconces, hangings of tapestry, and carved chairs round a table
spread with food and drinking horns and pitchers of ale, where three men sat.
Yves felt himself hoisted unceremoniously by a fistful of his garments at the
neck, heaved bodily to the dais, and flung down on his knees at the feet of the
man who sat at the end of the table. Almost he fell flat on his face, but
fended himself off with his still bound hands, and hung for a moment knocked
clean out of breath. “My
lord, here’s your shepherd as you ordered, safe and sound. We’re unloading the
goods, and all’s well. Not a soul stirring on the way.” Yves
gathered himself sturdily and got to his feet. He took time to draw a deep
breath and steady the shaking of his knees before he looked up into the face of
the chief of these night-birds. Mounted
and looming in the twilight, the man had seemed immense. Easy now in his great
chair, he was seen to be no more than common tall, but very powerfully built,
wide-shouldered, deep-chested. After a savage fashion he was very comely. Now
with the candlelight to show him clearly he was more like a lion than ever, for
the thick mane of curling hair and the glossy, untrimmed beard were tawny, and
the large eyes, narrowed but sharp as a cat’s beneath heavy lids, were of the
same coloring. His lips, left naked among all that profusion of dull gold, were
full and curled and proud. He eyed Yves in silence from head to foot, while
Yves stared as doughtily back at him, and kept his mouth shut rather out of
discretion than fright. There could be worse moments to come. At least now they
were back from another successful raid, laden with booty, eating and drinking
and in high content with themselves. And the lion seemed in good humor. If his
slow smile was mocking, it was at least a smile. “Loose
him,” he said. The
belt was unbuckled from Yves’ cramped arms, the cord untied from his wrists. He
stood rubbing the blood back into aching arms, kept his eyes warily on the
lion’s face, and waited. A number of the henchmen in the hall had drawn in at
his back, grinning, to watch. “You’ve
bitten out your tongue on the way?” asked the bearded man amiably. “No, my lord. I can speak when I have
something to say.” “You
might be well advised to think of something to say now, at once. Something
nearer truth than you told me under the copse there.” Yves
could not see that boldness was going to do him any harm here, or the
discretion of fear very much good. He said bluntly: “I am hungry, my lord. You
would hardly find a truer word than that. And I take it as between gentlemen
that you feed your guests.” The
lion threw back his tawny head and loosed a shout of laughter that was echoed
down the hall. “And I take that to be a confession. Gentle, are you? Now tell
me more, and you shall eat. No more hunting for lost sheep. Who are you?” He
meant to know. And for all his present easy mood, if he was balked he would not
mind by what means he got what he wanted. Yves spent a few seconds too long
considering what he had better say, and got an earnest of what might follow
obduracy. A long arm reached out, gripped him by the forearm, and with a casual
twist dropped him wincing to his knees. The other hand clenched in his hair and
forced his head back, to stare up into a face still calmly smiling. “When
I ask, wise men answer. Who are you?” “Let
me up and I’ll tell you,” said Yves through his teeth. “Tell,
brat, and I may let you up. I may even feed you. A strutting little cockerel of
the nobility you may be, but many a cock has got his neck wrung for crowing too
loud.” Yves
shifted a little to ease his pain, drew deep breath to have his voice steady,
and got out his name. This was no time for the stupidity of heroism, not even
for obstinate insistence on his dignity. “My
name is Yves Hugonin. My family is noble.” The
hands released him. The bearded man leaned back in his chair at ease. His face
had not changed, he had not been at all angry; anger had little part in his
proceedings, which were entirely cold. Predatory beasts feel no animosity against
their prey, and no compunction, either. “A
Hugonin, eh? And what were you doing, Yves Hugonin, where we found you, alone
in the early morning of such a winter day?” “I
was trying to find my way to Ludlow,” said Yves. He rose from
his knees and shook his disordered hair back from his face. Not a word must be
said of anyone but himself; he picked his way delicately between truth and
falsehood.” I was at school with the monks in Worcester. When the town was
attacked they sent me away to escape the fighting and slaughter there. I was
with some other people, trying to reach any safe town, but in the storms we
were separated. Country people have fed and sheltered me, and I was making my
way to Ludlow as best I could.” He
hoped it sounded convincing. He did not want to have to invent details. He
still recalled with misgivings the shout of laughter it had provoked when he
mentioned the manor of Whitbache, and claimed residence there, and wondered
uneasily why. “Where
did you spend last night, then? Not in the open!” “In
a hut in the fields. I thought I should get to Ludlow before night, but when
the snow came on, and I lost my way. When the wind dropped and it stopped
snowing,” he said, talking to evade further probing, “I set out again. And then
I heard you, and thought you might set me right.” The
bearded man considered, eyeing him with the disturbing smile that contained
merriment without warmth. “And here you are, with a stout roof over your head,
a good fire at your back, and food and drink for you if you behave yourself
seemly. There’s a price, of course, to pay for your bed and board. Hugonin! And
Worcester… Are you son to that Geoffrey Hugonin who died a few years back? The
most of his lands, I recall, lay in that shire.” “I’m
his son and his heir, if ever I come to it.” “Ah!
There should be no difficulty, then, in paying for your entertainment.” The
narrowed eyes gleamed satisfaction. “Who stands guardian to your lordship now?
And why did he let you go stravaging off into the winter so poorly provided,
and alone?” “He
was only newly arrived in England from the Holy Land, he knew nothing of it. If
you send now, you may hear of him in Gloucester, he is of the empress’s party.”
The lion shrugged that off indifferently. In the civil war he belonged to neither
side, and cared nothing which side others chose. He had set up his own party,
and acknowledged no other. But certainly he would extort
ransom as cheerfully from one as from the other. “His name is Laurence
d’Angers,” said Yves, “my mother’s brother.” That name was known, and welcomed
with satisfaction. “He will pay handsomely to have me back,” said Yves. “So
sure?” The bearded man laughed. “Uncles are not always to anxious to ransom
nephews who will one day come into great estates. Some have been known to
prefer to leave them unredeemed, to be hustled out of the world as
unprofitable, and come into the inheritance themselves.” “He
would not come into my inheritance,” said Yves. “I have a sister, and she is
not here in this extreme.” It pierced him with sudden renewed dismay that he
did not know where she was at this moment, and her situation might be just as
dire as his own, but he kept his voice steady and his countenance wooden. “And
my uncle is an honorable man,” he said stiffly. “He will ransom me and never
grudge it. So he gets me back alive and undamaged,” he added emphatically. “Complete
to every hair,” said the lion, laughing, “if the price is right.” He gestured
to the fellow who stood at Yves’ shoulder. “I put him in your charge. Feed him,
let him warm himself by the fire, but if you let him slip through your fingers,
your own neck pays for it. When he has eaten, lock him away safe in the tower.
He’ll be worth far more than all the plunder we’ve brought from Whitbache.” Brother
Elyas awoke from the dreamless peace of sleep to the agonizing dream of waking
life. It was daylight, lines of pale morning slid between the boards of the
hut, cold and white. He was alone. But there had been someone else, that he
remembered. There had been a boy, a boy who had kept him company sturdily, and
lain by him in the hay, a warmth by his side. Now there was no one. Brother
Elyas missed him. In the snow they had clung together in mutual kindness,
trying to alleviate more than the cold and the cruelty of the wind. Whatever
became of him, he must find the boy, and make sure that no harm should come to
him. Children have a right to life, a right so many of their elders have
forfeited by follies, by failures, by sins. He was outcast, but the boy was
innocent and pure, and must not be surrendered to danger and death. Elyas rose, and went to open the door.
Under the eaves, where the wind had driven the snow away, leaving only a thin
layer, the small footmarks showed clearly, only the powdering of a late squall
clouding them. They turned right, down the slope, and there in the deeper snow
a short, vigorous body had ploughed a jagged furrow, round the bank of bushes,
down into the coppice of trees. Elyas
followed where the boy had led. Beyond the belt of trees there was a beaten
track that crossed on an almost level course, climbing gently towards the east.
Horses had passed this way, and men afoot with them, enough men to carve out a
flattened road. They had come from the west. Had they taken the boy away with
them towards the east? There would be no tracing one child’s passage here, but
surely he had run and struggled down the slope to join them. In
his dream, which neither cold nor pain could penetrate, and only the memory of
the boy could influence, Brother Elyas turned towards the east, and set out
along the track the unknown company had taken. The furrow they had ploughed
through barren level, even fall and drift was simple to follow, the weaving
route was surely older than all the pathways here, made to render the climb
equable and easy. It wound along the hillside in a long curve. Elyas had gone
some three hundred paces when he saw beneath him the first splash of dark red
in the white. Someone
had shed blood. Only a little blood, but a dotted line of ruby beads continued
from it, and in a few moments he found another blossom of blood at his feet.
The sun was rising now, pale through the mist, which lifted with the day. The
red gleamed, frozen on the surface of the snow. Not even the brief noon sun
would thaw it away, though the wind might spread blown snow over it. Brother
Elyas followed, drop by drop along the way where someone had bled. Blood can
requite blood. If someone had taken and hurt the boy, then a man already
fingered by despair and death might still die to some purpose. Immune
from any further onslaughts of cold, pain and fear, on sandalled feet through
frozen drifts, Brother Elyas went in search of Yves. Chapter
Ten BROTHER
CADFAEL CAME OUT FROM HIGH MASS with Prior Leonard, into the brief and grudging
sunshine of the middle hours of the day, and the sudden glitter reflected from
the banked piles of snow. A number of the priory tenants had mustered to help
in the search for the missing pair, while the light was favorable and no snow
falling. Prior Leonard pointed out one of them, a big, bluff fellow in his
prime, with red hair just salted with grey, and the weather beaten face and
far-gazing blue eyes of the hillman. “That
is Reyner Dutton, who brought Brother Elyas in to us in the first place. I feel
shame to think what he must be feeling, now the poor man has slipped through
our fingers after all.” “No
blame at all to you,” said Cadfael glumly. “The fault was mine, if there’s any
question of blame.” He studied Reyner’s solid person thoughtfully. “You know,
Leonard, I have been wondering about this flight. Which of us has not! It seems
Elyas, once something set him off, went about it with great determination. This
was no simple clambering out of bed and wandering at large. Barely a quarter of
an hour, and they were well away. And plainly the boy could not turn or
dissuade him, but he would go wherever it was he was going. He had an end in
view. It need not be a reasonable end, but it meant something to him. How if he
had suddenly recalled the attack that all but killed him, and
set off to return to that place where it happened? That was the last he knew,
before memory and almost life were taken from him. He might feel driven to
resume there, in this twilight state of his mind.” Prior
Leonard conceded, though doubtfully: “It might be so. Or may he not have
recalled his own errand from Pershore, and started back to his duty there? It
might take a man so, his wits being still so shaken up in him.” “It
comes to me now,” said Cadfael earnestly, “that I have never been to the spot
where Elyas was attacked, though I suppose it must be not far from where our
sister was killed. And that again has been fretting me.” But he forbore from
spelling out what he found peculiar about it, for Leonard had been a man of the
cloister from puberty, serenely content and blissfully innocent, and there was
no need to trouble him by reflecting aloud that the night of Hilaria’s death
had been a blizzard as intense as the night just past, that even lust has its
preference for a modicum of shelter, and of shelter he had seen none close to
her icy grave. A bed of snow and ice, and a coverlet of howling wind, do not
constitute the most conducive of circumstances for rape. “I was meaning to go
out with the rest,” he said, “as soon as I have take a bite to eat. How if I
should borrow Reyner to bring me to the place where he found Brother Elyas? As
well begin there as anywhere.” “That
you could,” agreed the prior, “if you are sure the girl will bide quietly here,
and not try to take some action of her own.” “She’ll
bide,” said Cadfael confidently, “and give you no trouble.” And so she would,
but not for his asking. She would wait here obediently because one Olivier, a
paragon, had ordered her to do so. “Come, and we’ll ask your man if he’ll be my
guide.” The
prior drew his tenant out of the group before it moved off from the gatehouse,
and made them acquainted. Clearly Reyner had a warm relationship with his lord,
and was ready to fall in cheerfully with whatever course Leonard suggested. “I’ll
take you there, brother, gladly. The poor man, to be out again in this, when
it’s almost been the death of him once. And he making such a
good recovery. A madness must have come on him, to want out on such a night.” “Had
you not better take two of our mules?” wondered the prior. “The place may not
be far, but how far beyond may it not take you, if you should find a trace to
follow? And your horse has been worked hard since coming here, Cadfael. Our
beasts are fresh and hardy.” It
was not an offer to be refused. Mounted or afoot, travelling would be slow, but
better mounted. Cadfael went to snatch a hasty dinner, and returned to help
Reyner saddle the mules. They set forth eastward along a road by this time well
trampled. The best of the day would last them perhaps four hours, and after
that they must be prepared for a possible return of the snow, as well as fading
light. They left Ludlow distant on their right hand, and went on along the
beaten road. The sky hung heavy and grey before them, though a feeble sun still
shone upon this stretch of their way. “Surely
it was not on the very highroad you found him?” said Cadfael, as Reyner made no
move to turn aside. “Very
close, brother, a little to the north of it. We’d come down the slope below the
Lacy woods, and all but fell over him lying naked there in the snow. I tell
you,” said Reyner forcibly, “I’ll take it very ill if we lose him now, after
such an escape, and him as near death when we picked him up as ever man was and
lived to tell it. To filch a good man back from the grave, and cheat those
devils who did their worst to thrust him under, that did my heart good. Well,
please God we’ll haul him back from the edge a second time. I hear you had a
lad went with him,” said Reyner, turning his far-sighted blue eyes on Cadfael.
“One that was lost before time, and now to seek again. I call it handsome, in
one so young, to stick like a burr where he could not persuade. We’ll be after
the pair of them, every hale man who tills or keeps stock around these parts.
We are near, brother. Here we leave the road and bear left.” But
not far. A shallow bowl only a few minutes from the road, lined with bushes and
two squat hawthorn trees on the upper side, to the north. “Just
here he lay,” said Reyner. It
had been well worth coming, for this posed glaring problems.
It fitted the marauding pattern of that night, yes. The outlaws had come from
their early raid south of the road, and crossed, it seemed, somewhere here, to
climb to some track well known to them, by which they could return unnoticed
into the wilderness of Titterstone Clee. Here they could well have happened on
Brother Elyas, and killed him more for sport than for his gown and linen,
though not despising the small pickings of the supposed corpse. Granted all
that, but then, where was Sister Hilaria? Cadfael
turned to look northwards, into the gentle upland across which he had ridden
with Yves before him. The brook where he had found Sister Hilaria lay somewhere
up there, well away from the road. North and east from here, he judged at least
a mile. “Come
up the fields with me, Reyner. There is a place I want to view again.” The
mules climbed easily, the wind having scoured away some of last night’s fall.
Cadfael set his course by memory, but it did not fall far astray. One thin
little brook clashed under the hooves, in the suave hollows the snow lay
cushioned over brushes and low trees. They were long out of sight of the road,
waves of snowy ground cutting them off, as they continued to climb. They hit the
tributary of the Ledwyche brook somewhat downstream, had there been any stream
flowing, from the place where Sister Hilaria had been laid, and retraced its
gently rising course until they came to the unmistakable spot where the
coffin-shaped hole had been hacked in the ice. Even the previous night’s snow,
though it smoothed off the razor-sharp outlines, kept the remembrance alive.
This was the place where her murderers had thrown and abandoned her. More
than a mile from where Brother Elyas had been battered and left for dead! Not
here, thought Cadfael, looking round at a hillside as bare and bleak, almost,
as the bald, craggy head of Clee. It did not happen here. She was brought here
afterwards. But why? These outlaws otherwise had left all their victims where
they fell, and cared nothing to hide them. And if she had been brought here,
from where? No one would choose to carry a dead body very far.
Somewhere nearby there must be some kind of shelter. “They’ll
be running sheep, rather than cattle, up here,” he said, scanning the slopes
above them. “So
they do, but they’ll have got the most of them folded now. It’s ten years since
we had a spell such as this.” “Then
there’ll be a hut or two, somewhere about, for the shepherds’ use. Would you
know where the nearest may be?” “A
piece back along the traverse here towards Bromfield, the half of a mile it
might be.” That must be along the selfsame track Cadfael had ridden with Yves
on his saddle-bow, going home to Bromfield from Thurstan’s assart in the
forest. He could not recall seeing such a hut that day, but evening had been
setting in by then. “We’ll
go that way,” he said, and turned his mule back along the path. A
good half-mile it certainly was before Reyner pointed left, to a shallow bowl
below the track. The roof of the hut was almost completely screened by the
mounds of snow that covered it. Only a straight black shadow under the eaves
betrayed its presence from above. They descended the gentle slope to come round
to the southern side, where the door was, and found it thrust open, and saw by
the sill of the previous night’s snow along the threshold that it had not stood
thus longer than a matter of hours, for within there was no snow, except for
the infinitely fine powder blown between the boards. Cadfael
halted on the brink. In two places, close together, a foot had trampled flat
the ridge of snow which had built against the door while it remained closed. A
line of icicles fringed the eaves, and successive noons had warmed them enough
to drip for a brief while each day, and freeze again before the approach of
evening, for the roof was open to the south, and sheltered from the north by
the rise of the land. A slow drip fell as Cadfael gazed, and a line of fine
black perforations punctured the whiteness of the layer of snow below the
eaves, where the wind during the night had already thinned it. At the corner of
the hut the drips had bored a small pit, revealing the ripe, rounded brownness
of something that was not turf nor soil. Cadfael stirred more
snow away with the toe of his boot. Frost
is a great preserver. All the sunshine of all the noons had not produced thaw
enough to do more than pierce the crest of this pile of horse-droppings with
one tiny shaft. The next snow would cover it again, and the frost seal it. But
the hole the drip had bored in it went too deep to be the result of this one
day’s grudging sun. No knowing exactly how many days had passed since a horse
had stood here, but Cadfael judged it might be as many as five or six.
Tethered? The wood of the hut was rough-hewn, and there were props under the
low, projecting eaves to which a bridle could easily be hitched. He
might never have noticed the hair, pale almost to white as it was, if a sudden
rising breeze had not caused it to flutter, somewhat above the level of his
eye, from the rough timber of the corner. Had it been motionless it would have
passed for one with the snow plastered and frozen there. It was the wind that
had shaken the weight from its waving strands, and given it play to catch his
eyes. He detached it carefully from the splinters that held it, and smoothed
out in his hand a tress of coarse, springy hair the color of fading primroses.
The horse tethered here had rubbed shoulder and mane against the corner of the
hut, and left a token behind. And
this must be the nearest roof to the brook where he had found her. And given a
horse to carry it, it would be no great labor to transport the body of a
murdered girl that distance. But that might be going too fast. Better see what
else the place had to tell, before he jumped to such doubtful conclusions. He
stowed away the scrap of horse-hair carefully in the breast of his habit, and
went into the hut. The slight tempering of the bitter air without closed round
him gratefully, and the dry, faint odor of the piled hay tickled his nostrils.
Behind him, Reyner watched in attentive silence. Someone
had done well with his hay harvest in the past season, and had still a
plentiful store here. A bed and bedding provided together, a stout roof
overhead—yes, anyone benighted would be thankful to hit on such a refuge.
Someone had made use of it in the night just past, the great pile of hay was
pressed down by the weight of a long body. So it might have
been during other nights. So it might have been by two bodies. Yes, this could
well be the place he was looking for. Yet even this place was at least half a
mile from the spot where Brother Elyas had been left for dead, and his
murderers had been making their way home, not scouring half a mile of deserted
countryside. “Are
you thinking,” wondered Reyner, watching him, “that it may be the pair we’re
seeking who were in here last night? For someone was, and there are two
breadths of foot have trampled the snow on the doorsill here.” “It
could be so,” said Cadfael abstractedly. “Let’s hope so, for whoever was here
went forth live and able this morning, it seems, and has left tracks we’ll
follow in a moment. If we’ve found all there is to be found here.” “What
more can there be, and they gone?” But Reyner watched Cadfael’s concentration
with respect, and was willing to use his own eyes. He came within, looked all
round him sharply, and stirred the great pile of hay with a vigorous foot. “Not
bad lying, if they got this far. They may haven taken no real harm, after all.”
His disturbance of the pile had loosed a wave of scent and a tickling haze of
dust, and uncovered a corner of black cloth, well buried under the load. He
stooped and tugged at it, and a long black garment emerged, unrolling in his
hands, creased and dusty. He held it up, astonished. “What’s here? Who would
throw away a good cloak?” Cadfael
took it from him and spread it out to see. A plain travelling cloak, in the
coarse black cloth of the Benedictines. A man’s cloak, a monk’s cloak. The
cloak of Brother Elyas? He
dropped it without a word, and plunged both arms into the pile, scooping a way
down to the floor like a terrier after a rat. More black cloth there, rolled up
and thrust deep, deep, to be hidden from all eyes. He brought up the roll and
shook it out, and a crumpled ball of white fell clear. He snatched it back and
smoothed it in his hands, the austere linen wimple of a nun, soiled now and
crushed. And the black, held up to view, was a slender habit tied with its own
girdle, and a short cloak of the same cloth. And all thrust away into hiding,
where no chance shepherd would ever think to delve until all that hay was used.
Cadfael spread out the habit and felt at
the right shoulder, sleeve and breast, and the traces, all but invisible in the
shroud in black, confided to his touch what his eyes could not distinguish. On
the right breast a patch the size of a man’s hand was stiff and caked, crusted
threads crumbled away as he handled it. The folds of shoulder and sleeve bore
streaks and specks of the same corruption. “Blood?”
said Reyner, watching and marveling. Cadfael
did not answer that. He was grimly rolling up habit and cloaks together, the
wimple tucked inside, and hoisting the bundle under his arm. “Come, let’s see
where they went, who slept the night here.” There
was no question where the hut’s last occupants had gone. From the thin layer of
snow before the door, where the prints of large feet and small ones showed
clearly, two tracks led downhill and merged, first with the broken slurring of
people forging through a moderate fall, then ploughing a furrow to the knee and
the hip through fluctuating drifts, down towards the bank of bushes and the
coppice of burdened trees below. They followed, leading the mules and keeping to
the narrow way carved out by those they pursued. It rounded the bushes, but
cleft a passage through the belt of trees, where the branches had held off much
of the fall. They emerged upon the level where the tracks of a number of men
and horses crossed them, coming from the west and moving east. Cadfael stared
eastward, marking the course of the tracks till they faded from sight in
distance, bearing downward here towards the drainage valley of the brooks, and
surely preserving the same direct line and rising again beyond, pointing
straight at the wilderness of Titterstone Clee. “Did
we cross such tracks, coming up from the road? For you see the line they take.
We came from below, we end above. We must have crossed.” “We
were not looking for such, then,” said Reyner sensibly. “And the wind may have
blotted them out here and there.” “True,
so it may.” He had been bent on reaching the empty coffin in the ice, he had
not been paying attention to the ground. “Well, let’s see what we have here.
Whoever they were, they halted, they came circling, here where the tracks from
above come forth from the trees.” “A horse turned and stood, here,” said
Reyner, probing ahead. “Then he wheeled and went on. So did they all. Let’s
follow a short way.” The
first scarlet flower of blood sprang up under their feet within three hundred
paces. A chain of ruby beads wavered on for as far again, and there was a
second starry bloom, and beyond, the chain continuing, thin and clear. The
frozen snow held its dyes well. They were at the peak of the day, the brief
clarity would soon be gone, but while it was at its height it showed them the
frowning outline of the Clee straight before them, the goal of this ancient
pathway. Distant, savage and lonely, a fit place for wolves. “Friend,”
said Cadfael, halting with his eyes on that ominous skyline, “I think you and I
part company here. By all that I can see, these are last night’s tracks, and
they mean several horses and many men, and something aboard that dripped blood.
Slaughtered sheep, perhaps? Or wounded men? The band we have to root out come
from up there, and if they were not out about their grisly business last night,
these tracks lie. There’s a holding somewhere binding up its wounds and laying
out its dead, at the very least grieving for its goods and gear. Turn back,
Reyner, follow these traces back to where they burned and stole last night, and
go take the word to Hugh Beringar, to save what can be saved. Into Ludlow, if
Hugh Beringar is not yet back—Josce de Dinan has as much to lose as any.” “And
you, brother?” demanded Reyner doubtfully. “I’m
going ahead, to follow them the way they took. Whether they’ve borne our pair
away with them or not, this is our best chance to find where they’ve made their
nest. Oh, never fret!” he said, seeing his companion frown and hesitate to
leave him, “I’ll mind my going. I’m no beginner at this. But here, take these
back with you, and leave them with Prior Leonard until I come.” He drew out the
strand of primrose mane, mindful of its importance, and made it secure in the
middle of the role of clothing. “Tell him I’ll be with him before night.” He
had gone no more than a quarter of a mile when he crossed the tracks of
Reyner’s mule and his own, climbing to the brook. Loose,
powdery snow had already been blown over the path there, but if he had been
keeping his eyes open he must have seen that a number of travelers had passed
that way, though he would not necessarily have read any sinister meaning into
that, for the snow-spume had covered the dotted line of red. From
that point on the track dipped gently to cross the Ledwyche brook and the
Dogditch brook, its tributary from the north-east, threading its way between
holdings on either side without ever sighting them, and at once began to climb
again steadily. An old, old road, maintaining its level as easily as possible
over undulating country, until it was forced to climb more steeply, as every
approach must, to mount to that inhospitable summit, a bleak, blistering mile
of rock, starved turf, broken escarpment and treacherous, shivering moss. The
face of Clee thus approached presented surfaces of sheer cliff striated with
the brief glare of sunlight. There the path certainly could not go, yet it
still aimed like an arrow for the wall of rock. Soon it must veer either to
right or left, to circle the hill as it climbed, and remembering the ravaging
of John Druel’s holding, Cadfael judged that it must bear to the right. That
way they had certainly returned home on that night, leaving the village of Cleeton
well below, too strongly manned to be a quick or an easy prey so late towards
dawn. Some
minutes later his guess was borne out, for the path inclined to the right, and
began to follow the course of a small brook, muted now by ice, that flowed down
out of the mass, until it dwindled in the higher reaches, and ended in a hollow
of frozen moss, which the track carefully skirted. The rocky bulk of the hill
loomed on his left hand now, but often hidden from view by the folds of ground
near to him, even by rare stands of stunted trees. Circling always, he climbed,
until he saw below him in its bowl the desolate remains of Druel’s house and
byres. The next curve of the spiral took him higher, and the ruin passed from
his sight. In
the rocky hillside on his left hand appeared a sudden cleft, so narrow that he
might have missed it if the frail string of red drops had not turned into it.
The valley within was deep and dark, and cut off at once much of the light and
all the force of the wind. Herbage grew here, glad of the shelter,
and had built up soil enough to support swart, strong trees. He could not
be far from the summit, and he must have made more than half the circuit of the
hill by this time. Whatever was at the end of this rough approach must back
upon the sheer cliffs of the south-western face, and it might well be that it
could be reached by no other way, except by birds. In
that thin and lofty air sounds carried far. Deep into the ravine, Cadfael had
already halted to consider his next move when the distant metallic chinking
came down to him in a regular rhythm. Somewhere above him a smith was at work.
Then, faintly but clearly, he heard cattle lowing. If
this was their gateway, it might be strongly watched, and if he was within
earshot the stronghold could not be far. He dismounted, led his mule well into
the trees, and there tethered him. There was no longer any question in his mind
that he had found his way to the outlaw company who had killed and pillaged
across this countryside to the very gates of Ludlow. Who else would have built
in this hidden and formidable place? Where
he would not venture in the open he might still penetrate with caution. He
threaded a silent way up through the trees, and between their dark tops saw the
grey pallor of the sky. Into that pallor a squat dark shape projected, the top
of a wooden tower. He was drawing near to the source of the brook which had
carved out so deep a cleft, and before him, viewed through the trees, a plateau
of rock and snow opened. He saw the long, staked line of a high stockade, the
crests of roofs within, the long ridge of the hall, with the tower at its end.
Not a high tower, built solid and low to withstand the winds, but tall enough
to have the master’s view of all that surrounded it. For the outline of wall
and tower stood stark on the sky. They had no need to guard their rear, except
from falcons. Behind the castle the cliffs fell sheer. From a distance, Cadfael
reflected, not even the tower would be visible as separate from the dark rock
from which it rose. He
stood for a while memorizing what he saw and heard, for Hugh would need every
detail he could get. The enclosing wall was high, topped with pointed stakes
set close, and by the heads he saw appear and vanish again above the serrated
crest, there were watch-platforms at frequent intervals, if
not a guard-walk the whole way round. Voices floated clearly from within the
pale, wordless but insistent, many voices, shouting, laughing, even singing.
The armourer continued his busy hammering, cattle bellowed, sheep bleated, and
the hum of much busy coming and going made a confident music. They were quite
unafraid, within there, they felt themselves equal to anything the hampered,
divided law of the land could do against them. Whoever commanded there must
have gathered to him the lawless, restless, masterless men of two or three
shires, happy at seeing England torn in two, and its open wounds inviting their
teeth. Cloud
was settling low overhead. Cadfael turned and made his way back to his mule,
and with heightened care led him, still in the shelter of the trees, down to
the opening of the ravine, and waited and listened for a while before mounting
and riding. He went back the way he had come, and never encountered a living
soul until he was well down towards the lowlands. There he could very well have
branched left and descended to the highroad from Cleobury, but he did not do
it, preferring to retrace his course all along the road the reivers used. He
needed to know it well, for the night’s snow, if it came as was now customary,
might grievously disguise it. It
was dark by the time he came out on to the road within a mile of Bromfield, and
made his way thankfully and wearily home. Hugh
Beringar did not come back until Compline, and rode in tired, hungry, and for
all the cold, sweating from his exertions. Cadfael went to join him over his
late supper, as soon as he came from the church. “You
found the place, then? Reyner brought you word where last night’s devilry
fell?” He was answered by the grimness of Hugh’s face. “And
told me what you were about at the other end of it. I hardly thought to find
you home before me—faith, or at all, undamaged! Need you always be the one to
put your hand straight into the hornet’s nest?” “Where
was it they burned and slew, last night?” “At
Whitbache. Barely two miles north of Ludlow, and they strode
in and out again as freely as in their own bailey.” It fitted well. Their way
home from Whitbache would run below the hut to the old road, just as Cadfael
had witnessed it. “I was back in Ludlow when your man came, I fetched Dinan out
to come with me. Every house pillaged, every soul hewn down. Two women escaped
by running away into the woods, and carried their babes with them, all that
ails them is cold and horror, but the rest—one man may live to tell it, and two
young lads, but all hurt. And the rest, dead. We’ve taken them into the town,
the quick and the dead. They’re Dinan’s people, he’ll see them cared for. And
have blood for their blood, given half a chance.” “Both
you and he may have your chance,” said Cadfael. “Reyner Dutton found what he
was seeking, and so did I.” Hugh’s
head, inclined wearily back against the wall, jerked erect again sharply, and
his eyes regained their brightness. “You found the den these wolves are using?
Tell!” Cadfael
told the whole story in detail. The clearer the picture they could draw now of
the problem confronting them, the better the chance of dealing with it with
little loss. For it was not going to be easy. “As
far as I can see, there is but that one road to them. Behind the fortress the
ground still rises somewhat, to the rim of the cliff. Whether their stockade
continues round the rear of the bailey I could not see. With that drop at their
backs they may have felt it unnecessary. I daresay the rocks could be climbed,
in a better time of year, but in this ice and snow no one would dare attempt
it. And being the men they are, I fancy they have store of stones and boulders
ready in case any should venture.” “And
the place is indeed so strong? I marvel how they’ve contrived so much building
in secrecy.” “A
place so remote and harsh, who goes there? A few holdings clinging to the lower
slopes, but what is there to draw an honest man above? Not even good grazing.
And, Hugh, they have an army within there, the scourings of God knows how wide
a swathe of middle England, labor in plenty. And Clee Forest at their feet, and
stone all about them, the only crop that summit bears. You know and I know how fast a castle can be reared, given the timber and the need.”
“But
runaway villeins turned robber, and petty thieves fleeing from the towns, and
such fry, do not build on such a scale, but make themselves hovels in the
woods,” said Hugh. “Someone of more weight has the rule there. I wonder who! I
do wonder!” “Tomorrow,
if God please,” said Cadfael, “we may find out.” “We?”
Briefly and distractedly Hugh smiled at him. “I thought you had done with arms,
brother! You think our two are within there?” “So
the tracks would seem to show. It is not certain that those who slept in the
hut through the night, and ran down to meet the horsemen, were Yves and Elyas,
but man and boy they were, and do you know of any other such couple gone astray
in the night? Yes, I do think they have fallen into the hands of these rogues.
Armed or unarmed, Hugh, I am coming with you to get them out.” Hugh
regarded him steadily, and said outright what was on his mind. “Would they
bother to burden themselves with Elyas? The boy, yes, his very clothes mark him
out as worthy prey. But a penniless monk, wandering in his wits? Once already
they’ve battered him all but to death. You think they would hesitate the second
time?” “If
they had discarded him,” said Cadfael firmly, “I should have found his body
lying. I did not find it. There is no way, Hugh, of knowing what is truth, but
to go out and exact it from those who know.” “That
we will do,” said Hugh. “At first light tomorrow I go to the town, to order out
on the king’s business every man Josce de Dinan can muster, along with my own
men. He owes allegiance, and he will pay it. He has no more use for anarchy in
his own baileywick than King Stephan himself.” “A
pity,” said Cadfael, “that we cannot take them at first dawn, but that would
lose us a day. And we need the daylight more than they do, they knowing their
ground so much better.” His mind was away planning the assault, which was no
business now of his, nor had been for many years, but the old enthusiasm still
burned up at the scent of action. He caught Hugh’s smiling
eye, and was ashamed. “Pardon, I forgot myself, unregenerate as I am.” He
turned back to what was his concern, the matter of troubled souls. “There is
more to show you, though it has no immediate link with this devils’ castle.” He
had brought the roll of black clothing with him. He unrolled it upon the
trestles, drawing aside the creased white wimple and the strand of creamy mane.
“These I found in the hay, in that hut, buried well from sight, if Reyner had
not kicked the pile apart. See for yourself what lay in that hiding-place. And
this—this from without, snagged in the rough wood at the corner of the hut, and
a pile of horse-droppings left at the spot.” He
told that tale with the same exactness, needing another mind to work upon these
discoveries. Hugh watched and listened with frowning attention, quickened
utterly from his weariness and alert to every implication. “Hers
and his?” he said at the end of it. “Then they were there together.” “So
I read it, also.” “Yet
he was found some distance from this hut. Naked, stripped of his habit—but his
cloak left behind where they sheltered. And if you are right, then Elyas sets
off wildly back to this very place. By what compulsion? How drawn?” “This,”
said Cadfael, “I cannot yet read. But I doubt not it can be read, with God’s
help.” “And
hidden—well hidden, you say. They might have lain unnoticed well into the
spring, and been an unreadable riddle when they did reappear. Cadfael, have
these wolves hidden any part of their worst deeds? I think not. What they break,
they let lie where it falls.” “Devils
do so,” said Cadfael, “being without shame.” “But
perhaps not without fear? Yet there is no sense in it, take it all in all. I
cannot see where this leads. I am none too happy,” owned Hugh ruefully, “when I
try.” “Nor
I,” said Cadfael. “But I can wait. There will be sense in it, when we know
more.” And he added sturdily: “And it may not be so dismaying as we think for.
I do not believe that evil and good can be so dismally plaited together that
they cannot be disentangled.” Neither of them had heard the door of the
room open or close, the small anteroom of the guest-hall, where Hugh’s supper
had been laid. But when Cadfael went out with his bundle of clothing under his
arm, she was there outside in the stone passage, the tall, dark girl with her
sleepless, proud, anxious eyes huge in her pale face, and her black hair a
great, swaying cloud round her shoulders, and he knew by the strained urgency
of her face that she had come in innocence, hearing voices, and looked within,
and drawn back in awe of what she saw. She had shrunk into the shadows, waiting
and hoping for him. She was shivering when he took her firmly by the arm and
led her away in haste to where the remnants of the day’s fire still burned
sullenly in the hall, banked to continue live until morning. But for the surly
glow, it was in darkness there. He felt her draw breath and relax a little,
being thus hidden. He leaned to stab at the fire, not too roughly, and get an
answering red and gratifying warmth out of it. “Sit
down here and warm yourself, child. There, sit back and fear nothing. This same
morning, on my life, Yves was live and vigorous, and tomorrow we shall bring
him back, if man can do it.” The
hand with which she had gripped his sleeve released him slowly. She let her
head rest back against the wall, and spread her feet to the fire. She had on
the peasant gown in which she had entered at the gate, and her feet were bare. “Girl
dear, why are you not long ago asleep? Can you not leave anything to us, and
beyond us to God?” “It
was God let her die,” said Ermina, and shuddered. “They are hers—I know, I saw!
The wimple and the gown, they are Hilaria’s. What was God doing when she was
befouled and murdered?” “God
was taking note of all,” said Cadfael, “and making place beside him for a
little saint without spot. Would you wish her back from thence?” He
sat down beside her, not touching, very considerate of her grief and remorse.
Who had more to answer for? And who needed more gentle usage and guidance, in
respect for her self-destroying rage? “They are hers, are they not? I could not
sleep, I came to see if anyone had news, and I heard your voices there. I was
not listening, I only opened the door, and saw.” “You
did no harm,” he said mildly. “And I will tell you all I know, as you deserve.
Only I warn you again, you may not take to yourself the guilt of the evil
another has done. Your own, yes, that you may. But this death, at whosoever’s
door it lights, comes not near you. Now, will you hear?” “Yes,”
she said, at once docile and uncompromising in the dark. “But if I may not
arrogate blame, I am noble, and I will demand vengeance.” “That
also belongs to God, so we are taught.” “It
is also a duty of my blood, for so I was taught.” It
was every bit as legitimate a discipline as his own, and she was just as
dedicated. He was not even sure, sitting beside her and feeling her passionate
commitment, that he did not share her aim. If there was a severance, yet they
did not go so far apart. What they had in common, he reasoned, was a thirst for
justice, which she, bred into another estate, called vengeance. Cadfael said
nothing. A devotion so fierce might burn long enough to carry all before it, or
it might soften and concede some degree of its ferocity. Let her find her own
way, after eighteen her spirit might abate its fury as it saddened and became
reconciled to the human condition. “Will
you show me?” she said almost humbly. “I would like to handle her habit, I know
you have it there.” Yes, almost humbly, she was feeling her way to some end of
her own. Humility in her would always be a means to an end. But of her
whole-hearted affection for the lost friend there could be no doubt at all. “It
is here,” said Cadfael, and unrolled the bundle on the bench between them,
putting aside the cloak that belonged to Brother Elyas. The wisp of creamy mane
drifted out of the folds and lay at her foot, stirring like a living thing in
the draught along the floor. She picked it up and sat gazing down at it from under
drawn brows for some moments, before she looked up questioningly at Cadfael. “And
this?” “A
horse stood tethered under the eaves of that hut for some
time, and left his droppings in the snow, and this rubbed off from his mane
against the rough boards.” “That
night?” she said. “Who
can be sure? But the droppings were well buried, not new. It could have been
that night.” “The
place where you found her,” said Ermina, “was not close?” “Not
so close that a man would willingly carry a body there, even to hide the
circumstances of his guilt—unless he had a horse to bear the burden.” “Yes,”
she said, “that was my thought, also.” She put the pale strands from her
gently, and took the habit into her hands. He watched her drape it over her
knees, and run her hands softly over the folds. Her fingers found the stiffened
places, halted over the patch on the right breast, traced the folded creases
that ran from it, and returned to the source. “This
is blood?” she questioned, wondering. “But she did not bleed. You told me how
she died.” “That
is true. This blood cannot be hers. But blood it is. There were faint traces on
her body, where there was no wound.” “Faint
traces!” said Ermina, lifting to his face one flash of her dark eyes. She
spread her palm upon the patch that stiffened the breast of the gown, opening
her fingers wide to span the clotted stain that was more than a faint trace. A
stain from without, then, not from within. “His blood? The man who killed her?
Well done, if she drew blood from him! And yet… I would have clawed out his
eyes, but she? So slight and so gentle…” Suddenly
she was still, quite still, brooding with the habit raised in both hands to her
breast, as it would hang if she put it on, and the red glow from the fire
gilding her face and kindling reflected fires in her eyes. When she stirred
again, it was to rise calmly and shake out the creases, and that done, she
folded the garment meticulously, smoothing out the edges to make all neat. “May
I keep this in my charge? Until,” she said with considered emphasis, “it is
needed to confront her murderer?” Chapter
Eleven IN
THE EARLY MORNING LIGHT Hugh Beringar rode from Bromfield for Ludlow, to muster
his forces for the march, and Brother Cadfael pulled on his boots, kilted his
habit for riding, took his cloak, and went with him. Besides his function as
guide, he had loaded his scrip with dressings and ointments for fresh wounds,
of which there might be plenty before this day ended. He
saw nothing of Ermina before they departed, and was glad to believe that she
must still be fast asleep, and at peace. There was a tension and withdrawal
about her that made him uneasy, for no good reason that he could see. It was
not simple fear for her brother that weighed on her heart, nor the grief and
guilt she had already confessed and was determined to purge by penitence. That
braced, armed stillness with which she had taken her leave the previous night,
clasping Sister Hilaria’s habit, stayed in his mind as much resembling the
virgin knight’s bathed and accoutred vigil before his first battle. Blessed
be Olivier de Bretagne, who had somehow found a way to master her, ousting an
immature fantasy of love from her heart, and at whose command she would even
remain still and inactive, and leave the burden of the day to others, wholly
against her nature. But why, then, should he think of her as armed, alert and
about to do battle? Meantime they had their own battle to
fight and win. At
Ludlow Josce de Dinan marched out from the castle the force Hugh demanded of
him, and came himself at their head, a big, burly, full-fleshed man of middle
age, ruddy of face and well-mounted. Hugh had asked in particular for archers,
and got them. In these border shires there were plenty of men skilled with the
short bow, and Cadfael estimated that from the rim of the trees at the head of
the gully to the stockade should be just within their range. From the shelter
of the branches they could provide cover for an advance, by picking off any
defenders who mounted the guard-walk within. A pity that the trees spanned
barely a quarter of the open plateau, where the ravine still gave them
protection from the bleakest winds, and even there they shrank to dwarf size at
the crest. That open arena troubled Cadfael. There would be archers within as
well as without, and loopholes to allow them a clear field without exposing
them to shafts from the attackers. He had no delusions about the quality of the
enemy’s dispositions. Whoever had erected that fortress in that lofty place
knew what he was about, and by the carefree bustle within he had mustered a
formidable garrison. The
march was easier than they had expected. The night’s snow had begun later and
ended earlier than for some days, and without the worst winds, and Cadfael had
the path well in mind. The air, still as frosty, was starkly clear here on the
lower ground, but thin, bright mist cut off all summits. That might well be to
their advantage when they drew close to their goal, affording at least a veil
over their movements. “Such
a morning,” judged Cleeton, “if they have been out at all in the night, they
would make sure of being home and invisible early. Given a remission like this,
country people will be out betimes. These night-owls have no objection to
leaving their traces where they strike, but so far they’ve avoided being seen,
except by their victims. Those who blunder into their way by chance they kill,
unless they have a value living. But with one fat plucking only a night ago,
maybe they won’t have stirred abroad. If that’s so, they’ll be home and
wakeful, and less drunk than after a fat foray, which is a pity.” He
rode ahead, with Hugh on one side, and Josce de Dinan a
careless pace to the rear on the other. Dinan was too big a man, in every
sense, to strain to keep his horse’s nose level with that of Hugh’s mount, or
resent serving under a younger and less experienced man. He had no need to
stress his own worth. Cadfael took to him. He had never before seen this
supposedly dubious ally, but he thought him a man to be valued, and lost only
with grief. “They
may have outposts at the approaches,” said Hugh. Cadfael
considered, and doubted it. “Towards the foot or even halfway up, their man
would be too distant to give fair warning, and too isolated for his own safety.
And the best defense of the gully is that it looks so narrow and blind it must
usually pass unnoticed. I was following a plain trail. I shall not miss the
place. And in between, all is open. I think they rely on secrecy, and if that’s
penetrated, on their strength.” The
world before them lay bleak and unpeopled, the great hump of land ahead,
turbaned in cloud, was a steely blue shadow. Cadfael viewed the sculptured
land, narrowed his eyes, and steered his remembered course. In places the
night’s fall had smoothed out yesterday’s tracks, but here and there they still
showed faintly as dimpled hollows in the new surface. When they drew near to
the stony bulk before them he slowed his pace, and went with raised head,
trying to pierce the haze that hid the crest of the cliffs. He could see no
square dark ridge reared above the bulk of the rock, though the outline of the
rock itself showed very faintly through the veil. If he could not see the
tower, there was hope that no watcher from the tower could see this approaching
force, even though they moved openly and in considerable numbers. Better get
them past this stage as quickly as possible, and round the first curve of the
spiral pathway. When
the long gradual climb brought them out on the bleak waste of the summit, and the
fissure in the rocky ground opened on their left, Hugh halted his company and
sent scouts ahead. But there was no movement, no sign of life but the wheeling
of a few birds in the sky above. The cleft was so narrow that it seemed likely
it must close after a few paces, and could hardly be expected to lead anywhere.
“It
widens, within,” said Cadfael, “and goes on opening steadily
towards the source of the stream, like most upland brooks. There are trees most
of the way, though they’re dwarfed above.” They
entered the defile, and deployed their numbers among the trees on either side.
The mist was lifting by the time Hugh stood within the highest screen of trees,
looking out over the open bowl of sparse grass and rock and snow to the
stockade. The first step out of cover by any man, and the alarm would be given
at once. From this thin fringe of trees onward there was no cover at all. And
the distance, Cadfael saw with concern, was greater than he had thought, great
enough to decimate the ranks of any attacking host, if there were competent
bowmen and a proper watch within the walls. Josce
de Dinan eyed the length of the stockade and the bulk of the tower within.
“You’ll not give them formal call to surrender? I see no need, and good reason
against it.” So
did Hugh. Why give away the weapon of surprise, if indeed they had managed to
spread their archers and men-at-arms round the meager crescent of cover without
being observed. If they could get even halfway to the walls before the archers
sprang into concerted action along the guard-walk, they could save lives. “No.
These men have done pillage, violence, and murder without mercy, I need give
them nothing. Let’s dispose our forces to the best advantage, and then have at
them before they’re ‘ware.” His
bowmen had distributed all round the crescent. His men afoot in three groups
were spaced along the rim, and his handful of mounted men in two groups
between, to converge on the gate and break their way in, to make a way for the
following footmen. There
was a stillness when all was ready, before Hugh, from his place as spear-head
of one mounted party, spurred forward and raised his arm for the onset. He from
the left and Dinan from the right burst out from cover and charged for the
gate, the footmen pouring after them. The bowmen in the edge of the trees
loosed one volley together, and then drew and shot at will, watching for any
head that appeared above the stockade. Cadfael, left behind with the archers,
marveled that the attack could begin almost in silence but for
the thudding of hooves, and even that muffled by the snow. The next moment
there was uproar within the walls, a frantic scrambling of men to the
loopholes, and then an answering hail of arrows. But that first charge had
almost succeeded, for the gate had been unbarred, and by the time the guards
had clapped it to, Hugh and Dinan and five or six more were under the wall,
hidden from the defenders within, and heaving with all their might to burst
into the bailey. Within,
men swarmed to hold the gate closed and bar it securely, and the din of shouted
orders and confused movements washed back and forth like storm-water in a
foundering ship. The stout gate was ajar, quivering, and the running foot
soldiers flung themselves into the human ram to hurl it wide and break into the
bailey. From
high above their heads a great voice suddenly bellowed like thunder: “Hold, you
below! King’s men or whatever you be, stand, and look up here! Look, I say! Put
up and quit my gates, or take this infant carrion with you!” All
heads within and without the gate came up with a jerk to stare at the top of
the tower, and on both sides archers froze with bows drawn, and lance and sword
were lowered. Between two of the crude timber merlons of the parapet Yves stood
balanced, held by a great hand gripping his clothes in the small of the back,
and over the merlon beside him leaned a raging, bristling head, tawny gold,
long hair and beard streaming in a capricious wind that could hardly be felt
below. A mailed hand held a naked dagger at the boy’s throat. “You
see him?” roared the lion, glaring down with eyes fire-gold with fury. “You
want him? Living? Then draw off! Haul off out of range, out of sight, or I cut
his throat now and throw him down.” Hugh
stood holding the sword he had drawn to probe through the yielding chink of the
gate, and stared up with a white, fixed face. Yves was stiff as a beam of wood,
looking neither down nor up, but straight before him at empty sky. He never
made a sound. “I
do not know you, sir,” said Hugh, carefully and low, “but I am the king’s man
here, and I say to you, you have now no refuge, here or
anywhere. Harm him, and I will be your death. Be advised. Come down, yield
yourself and all these your men and trust to find some mercy that way, for
otherwise there is none.” “And
I say to you, king’s man, take your rabble out of my sight, now, without
argument, or you may have this piglet, bled ready for eating. Now, I say! Turn
and go! Shall I show you?” The point of the dagger pricked, in the clear air they
saw the little bubble of blood that grew, and burst, and slid down in a fine
thread. Hugh
clapped his sword into the scabbard without another word, mounted and wheeled
his horse, and waved all his men back from the stockade, back into the trees,
back out of sight. Behind him he heard vast laughter that still resembled the
hungry roar of a hunting lion. Archers
and all had shrunk far back to be invisible, watching that threat. They drew
together in stunned silence, down among the trees. This was deadlock indeed.
They knew they dared not advance, and that resplendent wild beast in the tower
knew just as surely that they would not depart. “But
I know him, if you do not,” said Josce de Dinan. “A by-blow of the Lacy clan by
a younger son of the house. His brother the right side the sheets, after the
father married, is a tenant of mine. This one served in France some years, for
Normandy against Anjou. They call him Alain le Gaucher, because he’s
left-handed.” Even
those who had seen the man now for the first time needed no reminders. It was
the left hand that had held the dagger against the boy’s throat, and turned the
point quite coldly to pierce the skin. Yves
felt himself hoisted by the small of his back, in the fist that gripped the
fullness of his clothes and bruised his spine with hard knuckles, and dumped
hard upon his feet on the timbers of the roof. The jarring shock ran up from
his heels to his head, and shook his eyes wide open. He had been so intent upon
uttering no sound that he had bitten his tongue, the blood ran warm within his
lower lip. He swallowed it, and braced his quaking feet into the planks under
him. The thin thread of blood trickling down his neck from the
prick of the dagger hardly troubled him, and was already drying. He
had never yet been so frightened, as he had never been so rough-handled,
suddenly plucked erect by the neck, hauled up confusing staircases in the dark,
windowless bulk of the tower, finally dragged up a last vertical ladder and
through a heavy trap to the dazzle of daylight on the roof. The lion’s voice
had roared in his ears, the lion’s own fist had hoisted him to the parapet,
with a furious lunge that might well have hurled him over. By instinct he had
held his tongue, and made no sound. Now, suddenly released, he felt his knees
give way under him, and stiffened them indignantly. He still had not uttered
word or cry. He held that thought to him like an accolade, and stood doggedly
waiting for the pounding of his heart to ease. It was an achievement that he
stood erect at all. Alain
le Gaucher stood with hands spread along the merlons, grimly watching the
besiegers draw off into the gully. The three of his men who had followed him
aloft here stood waiting for his orders. So did Yves, bracing himself not to
quail when the thick, powerful body swung round on him, and the fiery eyes hung
on him with calculating intensity. “So
the brat has his value still, if not in money! Good reason to hold him fast, we
may have to make further use of him to the same end. Oh, they’ll not go far out
of sight, I know—not yet, not until they’ve tried every roundabout way they can
find, and been baulked at every attempt by a small knife at a small piglet’s
throat. Now we know they’ll dance to our tune. Imp, you may yet be worth an
army to us.” Yves
found no comfort in that. They would not even seek a ransom for him, his value
as a hostage being far higher, now that their fortress was known. They could
not hide it again, and enjoy the secrecy of their night exploits by wiping out
every witness, as before. But for some while, at least, they could go on
repeating the threat to kill their prisoner, perhaps even bargain with his life
for freedom to march out unchallenged and resume their activities elsewhere.
But no, Hugh Beringar would not so tamely give up, nor would he leave a hostage
in such hands a moment longer than he must. He would find some way, short of
frontal assault, of breaking into this lair. Yves did his best
to believe that, and kept his face expressionless and his mouth shut. “You,
Guarin, stay here with him. You shall be relieved of the watch before dark, and
he’ll give you no trouble. Short of clambering over the parapet and dashing his
brains out below, what can he do? And I fancy he’s not yet so mad with fear as
to choose that way. Who knows, he may even come to like the life with us—eh,
chicken?” He jabbed a hard finger into Yves’s ribs and laughed. “Have your
dagger ready. If they come out of hiding, if you see any of them making
roundabout to come at us, challenge on the instant, and repeat the threat. And
if they persist,” he said, with a sudden snap of large teeth like a trap
closing, “bleed him! If it comes to worse yet, I’ll take the knife myself. Me
they’ll believe!” The
man called Guarin nodded and grinned, and loosened his dagger in its sheath,
suggestively. “The
rest of you, down, and we’ll make better dispositions. I want a watch on every
foot of our boundaries. They’ll be probing busily before they give up from the
cold. There’s no sheriff born is going to camp in the open up here in such a
winter. Not for longer than a night.” There
was a ring set into the trap, by which to lift it. He set his own great hand to
it, and heaved it out as easily as lifting a ladle, and dropped it with a
hollow thud upon the boards. Below, it could be secured by bolts, the metal
rang as it fell. “We’ll
shut you up here, for safety’s sake. Never fret, you shall have your food
brought, and quit your watch by twilight, but with this chick fresh from the
egg I take no chances. He’s too effective a tool to risk.” He clouted Yves on
the shoulder in passing, as forthrightly as he had stroked the knife across his
throat, and plunged through the trap, swinging down the tall ladder to the next
floor. His men followed him briskly. Guarin hauled the trap into place, and
they both heard the bolts slide into their sockets below, and the last man
clambering down the ladder. The
two of them were left in their rough timber eyrie, staring at each other. There
was frozen snow under their feet, and frost in the air they breathed. Yves
licked dried blood from his lip, and looked about him for the most favorable ground. The tower had been built high enough to command as wide
a view as possible, without allowing its own outline to stare too obviously
above the line of the rock. The wall surrounding it rose breast-high to him
before the merlons began, he could lean between them and look out every way,
but to the rear, above the sheer cliffs, he could see only the rim of the
escarpment, and beyond, the distant land below. The space up here was too wide
and open to be comfortable, wind and weather could make it a bitter ordeal,
though this day was better than any that had gone before. Within
his vision nothing now stirred, except for the fierce bustle inside the bailey,
where every watch-point was being manned, and every loophole supplied with an
archer. The king’s men had gone to earth like foxes. Yves selected the
snow-free corner of his ground, backing into the wind, and sat down on the
boards there with his back hunched against the timbers and his arms hugging his
knees. Every contact nursed a shred of warmth. He was going to need all he
could get. But so was Guarin. Not
one of the worst of them, this Guarin. Yves had taken the measure of many of
those close about their chieftain, by this time, he knew those who took
pleasure in hurting, in defiling, in making other human creatures writhe and
abase themselves. And there were more than enough of them, but this Guarin was
none. The boy had even learned how some of them had come into this service, and
could pick out worst from best. Some were footpads, murderers, thieves from
choice, born to prey on their own kind. Some were petty tricksters from the
towns, who had fled from justice and taken refuge where even their small skills
could be used. Some were runaway villeins who had committed some angry revolt
against tyranny, and put themselves on the wrong side of the law. Several were
of better birth, younger sons and landless knights who considered themselves soldiers
of fortune in this company. Some were even men disabled in honest service, and
cast off when they were of no further profit; but these were few, and trapped,
they did not belong in this garrison, but had blundered into it by ill-fortune,
and could not get loose. Guarin
was a big, slow-witted, easy-going soul, without cruelty. He
had no objection, as far as Yves could see, to robbing and sacking and burning,
provided others did the killing. He would go with the crowd and behave himself
conformably, but he would rather not let blood himself if it could be avoided.
But for all that, he would carry out his orders. It was the only way he knew of
ensuring a share with the rest, all the food he needed, and all the drink, a
roof above him, and a fire. If his lord told him point-blank to kill, he would
kill and never hesitate. The
day enlarged over the two of them, and brightened. The murderous weather, if it
had not yet softened, held a kind of promise. It was past noon when someone
thumped merrily at the trap, hauled back the bolts below, and rose out of the
dark, wood-scented pit of the tower with a bag of bread and meat and a pitcher
of hot, spiced ale for the watchman. There was enough for two, and Guarin
spared a portion for his prisoner. They were lavish with their provender. They
had the provisions from at least four local holdings to feed them. The
food and drink helped for a while, but as the day wore away the cold came down
again and bit hard. Guarin stamped about the boards to keep himself warm, constantly
patrolling in order to keep watch in every direction, and paid no attention to
his prisoner except for a hard stare now and again to remind him that he was
helpless, and had better not attempt anything on his own behalf. Yves fell into
an uneasy doze for a while, and awoke so cold and stiff that he found it
necessary to get up and stamp his feet and clap his arms vigorously to get his
blood flowing again. His guard laughed at that, and let him dance and exercise
as he liked. What harm could he do? The
light was beginning to fail. Yves fell to pacing the tower a few steps behind
his watchman, peering out at every embrasure upon a world still peopled only by
his enemies. On the precipice side, in particular, he craned perilously to see
below, but still had only the barren cliff-edge and the distance before him.
That entire side of the square tower looked out upon the sky. But at the
eastern corner, while Guarin’s back was turned, Yves found a rough join in the
timbers by which he could gain a foothold and hoist himself up to achieve
a better view. Below him the rim of rock levelled out, and by straining
perilously round towards the void he could see at last that the stockade did
not continue all round the castle, but terminated where it met the cliff-edge.
Here at the corner the drop was not quite sheer, he could see the first jagged
folds over the edge, every ledge with its smooth burden of untrodden snow. All
that motionless, empty whiteness everywhere, as though the friends on whom he
relied had deserted him. But
the whiteness was not quite motionless, nor the rocky landscape quite empty.
Yves blinked in disbelief, seeing the outline of one hanging drift move, and
show for an instant the shape of a raised head, a shadowy visage lifted briefly
to judge the next stage of a solitary and perilous climb. The next moment there
was nothing to be seen there, at the extreme edge of the stockade and some ten
yards down the broken face, but a mound of snow. Yves stared, straining
anxious, elated eyes, but there was no more movement. A
shout behind him caused him to slither down frantically from his perch, even
before Guarin’s hand plucked him down and shook him heartily. “What are you
about? Fool, there’s no way down there for you.” He laughed at the thought, but
blessedly did not look where the boy had been looking. “As well get your throat
slit as break your bones at the bottom of that fall.” He
kept his grip on the boy’s shoulder, and marched him along before him, as if he
really believed his prisoner might yet slip through his fingers and cost him
dear. Yves went where he was hustled, and thought it wise to whine a little
about his usage, to keep the man amused and distracted. For
now he was sure he had not been deceived. There was a man down there among the
rocks, a man who had covered his dark garments with a white linen sheet to move
invisibly in the snow, a man who had clambered at his peril, surely not up the
whole cliff-face, but laboriously round the rim from the trees, just below
vision, to make his way out across the rock face beyond the stockade, and into
the bailey where no one watched, where it was thought impenetrable. And in so
disciplined a fashion, slow-moving even in this icy coldness, able to freeze
into ice himself, and be part of the rocks and the winter. And
now he was waiting for the dark, before venturing the last perilous passage. Yves
trotted submissively where the hand gripping his shoulder drove him, and hugged
to his heart the blazing conviction that he was not abandoned, that heroes exerted
themselves on his behalf, that heroism was also required of him before all was
won, and that he must not fall short. Darkness
had closed in, and Guarin was the one complaining, before his relief came
clattering up the ladder, shot back the bolts, and heaved up the trap to emerge
on the roof. This
one was decidedly not among the least offensive, a bristle-bearded,
pock-marked, flat-nosed cutpurse with a malicious fist, and dirty nails that
liked pinching. Yves had some few bruises from him already, and gnawed a
dubious lip at seeing him burst up out of the depths. He knew no name for him.
Possibly he had never had a name, only some epithet by which he might be known,
short of proper parentage or Christian baptism. Guarin
was none too fond of him, either, he grunted vexation at such a late relief,
when he had been promised it before dark. They snarled at each other before
parting, which left Yves time to shrink into his sheltered corner out of sight
and mind. There might be a bleak interval. But there was someone out there in
the enclosing night, not so far away, coming to his aid. Guarin
grumbled and clumped his way down the long ladder, and Yves heard the bolts
shot home. They had their orders. He was left isolated here with this
unpredictable cutthroat, who would stop only short of his lord’s ban. He dared
not kill or maim. Short of either, no doubt he would take it for granted he had
free leave to hurt. Yves
sat back against the solid timber wall, shrunken into his corner with back to
the wind. It was made clear to him at once that his new guard felt no goodwill
towards him, blaming him for the discomfort of being perched up here in the
frosty night, instead of below by the fire. “Pest
of a brat,” he snarled, and kicked savagely at the boy’s ankles in passing, “we
should have cut your throat there on the road where we first met you. If the
king’s men had found you dead they’d have had no call to hunt
for you living, and we should have been snug and merry here still.” All of
which, Yves had to own as he drew in his feet and sat hunched in his corner,
was probably true enough. He made himself as small as he could, and held his
tongue, but silence did nothing to placate his custodian, rather it seemed to
infuriate him. “If
I had my way, you should dangle from one of these merlons for the kites. And
never think you’ll escape it in the end. Whatever bargain they strike over you,
it can be broken once we’re clear away. What’s to stop you being promised in
return for passage, and delivered up carrion? Devil take you, answer me!” He
kicked out again viciously, driving his toe deliberately at the boy’s groin.
The stab was not quite evaded, as Yves rolled hastily away, and cost him a gasp
of pain and rage. “What’s
to stop it?” he flashed, goaded. “Only that your lord still keeps some dregs of
his breeding, and puts some small value on his word. And you’d best do his
bidding to the letter, for this moment he has far more use for me than he has
for you. He could swing you from a merlon with a light heart and nothing to
lose.” He
knew he had been a fool, but he was sick of trying to be wise against his
nature. He saw the great fist coming for his hair, and dived below it and
sprang clear. On this limited ground he might be cornered in the end, but he
was lighter and faster than his tormentor, and at least movement was warmer
than keeping still. The man came after him, shrewd enough to do his cursing
low-voiced, for any bellowing up here was liable to fetch someone up to enquire
the cause. He muttered his obscenities as he charged, both thick arms flailing
for a hold. “What, you naked chick, use such insolence to me, would you? Big
talk from a thrapple I could wring one-handed? If your neck’s safe, is that
warrant for your skin? Or a few teeth down your saucy throat?” In
the act of slipping beneath a grasping arm, Yves saw beyond his enemy’s
shoulder the heavy trap in the floor beginning to rise. They had been too
intent on each other to hear the bolts being withdrawn, even if it had not been
done with unusual care and quietness. The head that emerged, though
seen only by this late twilight, which below must be already full darkness, was
none that Yves knew, and came forth so steadily and silently that his heart
leaped with desperate hope. How do you recognize at first sight someone who
cannot possibly be a member of an outlaw gang of thieves and murderers? If the
guard turned fully about now, he would be looking straight at the newcomer, who
was just setting foot to the boards and rising erect. This raving, fumbling
wretch must not turn! And if Yves eluded him now he would turn, to follow and
punish. Yves
slipped in the frozen snow, or seemed to slip, and the threshing fist had him
by the breast of his cotte and slammed him back against the parapet. The fellow
to it gripped his hair and forced his head up, as the creature spat copiously
in his face, and laughed in triumph. Wrenching aside as best he could from the
infamy, and unable to raise a hand to wipe the slime away, Yves saw the
invading stranger straighten to his full height, without haste or sound, and
lower the trap back into place, eyes fixed all the while on the writhing pair
pinned to the wall before him. He did not quit the sensible precaution to rush
to the rescue. It was the greatest of praise, and Yves felt his heart swell
with gratitude and admiration. For he had just been shown that his act had been
understood and appreciated, that he was not a mere victim, but a partner in
this secret and splendid war. He
saw the first rapid, silent stride taken towards him, and then his head was
buffeted violently aside by a great blow on the cheek, and a second that
knocked him back again, and turned him dizzy and faint. To make all sure, he
raised his voice in a frantic whine, not too loudly, but enough to cover the
movements of one who must be already close: “Don’t! You’re hurting me! Let me
go! I’m sorry, I’m sorry… don’t hit me…” Something of a crow about the tone,
and his hackles erected all the time, but this creature did not know the
difference, he was chuckling and quaking with merriment. He
was still laughing when the long arm took him about the face, muzzling his
mouth, and jerked him backwards top the boards, and a long-legged, agile,
youthful body dropped astride him, drove a knee into his belly, and therewith
all the wind out of him, and jolting off his conical steel
helmet, calmly hoisted him high enough to drive his skull back against the wood
with stunning force, laying him out on the floor limp as a landed fish, and
just as silent. Yves
dropped ecstatically upon the pair of them, like a half-trained hawk stooping,
and fell to unbuckling the belt that held the guard’s sword and dagger. His
hands were shaking, but he went about it eagerly, peeled loose the arms, and
shoved the belt towards the stranger, who was waiting for it with commending
and commendable placidity and patience, and had it drawn tightly round the
guard’s upper arms, hobbling them behind his back, before he turned to look
closely at his helper. He was smiling. The light here was only from a haze of
stars, but very pure and clear, and the smile was unmistakable. He
reached a hand into the ample breast of the brown homespun cotte he wore,
hauled out a long white roll of linen, and held it out to Yves. “Wipe
your face,” said a calm, low voice, in which both smile and praise were
implicit, “before I use it to make this loud mouth mute.” Chapter
Twelve YVES
SCRUBBED THE SLIME FROM HIS CHEEK AND BROW in awed and fascinated silence,
round eyes fixed all the while upon the face that fronted him across the
sprawled body of his tormentor. The faint starlight caught the gleam of white
teeth, and bright eyes that shone like amber. The capuchon had fallen back from
ruffled black hair that did not curl, but curved and clasped in a thick cap
about a shapely, vigorous head. Every line and every movement cried out his
youth and audacity. Yves gazed and lost his heart. He had had heroes before,
his own father among them, but this one was new and young, and above all,
present. “Give!”
said his ally briefly, and snapped demanding fingers for the length of linen,
which Yves hastily surrendered. An end of the cloth was shoved briskly into the
guard’s open mouth, the length of it whipped about his head to make him blind
as well as dumb, and secured round his shoulders to the belt with which his
arms were already pinioned. For want of a cord to bind the prisoner’s legs, the
lacings of his leather jerkin were stripped out in a moment, made fast around
his ankles, and doubled back to tie his feet to his wrists in the small of his
back. He lay like a package made compact and neat to be slung one side of a
pony for carriage. Yves watched, great-eyed, marvelling at the economy of the
movements involved in the process. They eyed each other, in the breathing
space that followed, with mutual content. Yves opened his mouth to speak, and
was hushed by a forbidding finger on lips still reassuringly smiling. “Wait!”
said the deep, serene voice, just above a whisper. Whispers have no identity,
but carry alarmingly. This muted murmur reached no ears but the boy’s. “Let’s
see if we may leave the way I came.” Yves
crouched, charmed into stillness, ears pricked, listening and quivering. His
companion lay flat over the trap, an ear to the wood, and after a few moments
cautiously hoisted one edge to peer down into the timber-scented darkness of
the tower below. From outside, about the bailey and the guard-walk along the
stockade, came the sounds of movements and voices, from a garrison on the
alert, but below among the shadowy beams there was silence and stillness. “We
may essay. Follow close and do as I do.” He
lifted the trap and swung himself down the ladder by his hands, agile as a cat,
and Yves scurried after him. In the dimness of the floor below they froze
again, backs to the darkest wall, but nothing moved to threaten them. There
were fixed stairs, rough but solid, from the corner of this level. They had
reached the middle of the flight and could hear the hum and bustle of activity
in the hall, and see the flickering of torches and firelight round the rim of a
great door below. One more flight, and they would be in the base of the tower,
and level with the hall, only that door between them and Alain le Gaucher and
his outlaws. A long arm drew Yves close, and again held him still to listen and
watch. The
base of the tower was half of rock and half of beaten earth, and the air that
came up to them was colder here than between the massive timbers above. Peering
down fearfully, Yves could see in a far corner the foot of a deep embrasure,
and felt the strong draught that blew from it. There was a narrow outer door
upon the night, surely the door by which his rescuer had entered, and if they
could but reach it unobserved they might yet make their way back by the same
route, out of this enemy stronghold. He would not be afraid, with this superb
being as a guide, even to venture the traverse of the rocks in
the dark. What one had done alone, surely two could do together. It
was the first tread of that final staircase that undid them. Until then all had
been solid and silent, but as soon as a foot was set on this warped board it
tilted and settled again with a loud clap, and the echoes took the impact and
flung it about the tower in a chain of hollow reverberations. In the hall someone
cried out an alarm, there was a rushing of feet, and the great door was flung
open, spilling forth firelight and armed men. “Back!”
snapped the stranger instantly, and whipped round without hesitation to hoist
the boy before him up the flight they had just descended. “Up to the roof,
quickly!” There was no other way of retreat, and the brief check below to
accustom eyes to the darkness after the lighted hall could last only a moment.
It was already over, the foremost man loosed a great bellow of alarm and rage,
and came for the stairs in a bull’s rush, with three or four more on his heels.
The blast of the uproar they raised almost blew the fleeing pair up the steps
of the tower. Where
the long flight ended, the ladder in sight, Yves felt himself lifted and flung
halfway up to the open trap, and that was the height of a tall man. He gripped
and climbed, but looking over his shoulder and hesitating, loth to leave his
companion behind, until he was ordered sharply: “Go! Up, quickly!” He completed
the climb in a wild scramble, and flung himself down on his belly by the trap,
craning anxiously over the rim, just in time to see, in a confusion of shadows
further confused by the starlight through the trap, how the foremost pursuer
came lurching up the narrow wooden treads of the stairway, drawn sword
flailing. A big, bulky man, blocking off from view those who followed him. Yves
had not even noticed, until that moment, that his ally already wore a sword.
The one they had taken from the guard still lay here on the roof, though Yves
had possessed himself of the dagger and buckled it proudly to his belt as
substitute for the one taken from him. The brief flash of a blade, like distant
lightning, stabbed the darkness below, a trick of starlight following its slashing
course. The outlaw loosed an outraged yell, his short sword struck from his
hand and flung below to clatter on the boards. The next moment
a braced foot took him in the chest and hurled him backwards while he was off
balance. Down he went in a long, echoing fall, and swept his followers down
with him. The stairway was narrow and unguarded, two or three went backwards
under their leader’s massive weight, one at least went over the side, to a
heavier fall below. The
young man turned without another glance, and sprang halfway up the ladder to
the roof, and in a moment was beside Yves. The naked sword he swung glittering
along the ice of the roof, and leaned to grip the uprights of the ladder with
both muscular hands, and haul it aloft after him. As soon as Yves had recovered
his wits he leaned eagerly to clutch from rung to rung and help to hoist the
weight. With all his might, and all the breath he had regained, he heaved and
exulted. The ladder had been braced against a wooden bar both below and above,
but not fixed. It rose blithely, out of reach of the tallest long before the
first of the attackers erupted furiously below and leaped to try and hold it. The
lower end rose clear, tilted aside and clattered on the roof, ringing a glassy
cry from the splintered ice. The roars of anger below fumed out of the open
trap, and Yves leaned to drag the cover over to shut them out, but his ally
waved him aside, and the bewitched boy drew back obediently. Whatever his hero
did would be right and wise. And
his hero, palpably smiling, though the smile was hidden in the dark, simply
took their prisoner, now uneasily stirring in his bonds, by the cord that bound
his feet to his wrists in the small of his back, dragged him to the trap,
upended him judiciously so that his head should not take the impact below, and
tipped him almost gently through the trap to fall upon his friends, and lay two
or three of them flat on the boards. Their startled and aggrieved outcry was
cut off when the trap was clapped into place above. “Quick,
now,” said the placid voice almost chidingly, “here with the ladder, here over
the trap. So! Now you lie there upon that end, and I upon this, and who will
shift us?” Yves
lay as he had been ordered, flat on his belly on the ladder, his face buried in
his arms, panting and shivering, for a long time. The boards under him throbbed
to the din below, spent in ugly fury six feet short of
reaching the trap. And if they did rear something that would enable them to
reach it, how were they to shift it or penetrate it? The trap fitted close, no
lance nor sword could be thrust through the cracks. Even if they should climb
up and batter a way through with an axe, only one could emerge at a time, and
they two above were armed and ready. Yves lay braced, willing his weight to be
double, spreading arms and legs, holding his breath. For all the bitter cold,
he was in a lavish sweat. “Look
up, my heart,” said the voice at the other end of the ladder, almost gaily,
“and show me that gallant face again, bruises, grime and all. Let me look at my
prize!” Yves
lifted his head from his arms and stared dazedly along the ladder into bright,
gold-gleaming eyes and an indulgent, glittering smile. A young, oval face under
that thick, close cap of black hair, high-cheekboned, thin-black-browed,
long-lipped, and with a lean, arrogant beak of a nose, like a scimitar.
Smooth-shaven as a Norman, smooth-skinned as a girl, but of an olive, glossy
smoothness. “Take
breath, and let them rave, they’ll tire of it. If we failed to get past them,
neither can they get at us. We have time to think. Only keep well below the
parapet. They know their ground, and might think it worth setting their archers
to watch for an unwary head.” “How
if they set fire to the tower and burn us out?” wondered Yves, trembling as
much with excitement as fear. “They’re
no such fools. They could not, without setting the hall ablaze with it.
Moreover, why be in haste to do anything, when they know we cannot break out?
Here in the cold or in a cell below, they have us cornered. At as this moment,
true enough. You and I, Messire Yves Hugonin, have some thinking of our own to
do.” He cocked his head, raising a hand for silence, to listen to the babel of
voices below, which had sunk into a low, conspiratorial muttering. “They grow
content. We’re securely trapped up here, they’ll leave us to freeze. They’re
needed below, all that’s wanted here is a couple of men to watch our only way
out. They can wait to flay us.” The
prospect did not seem to dismay him at all, he stated it serenely. Below them
the hum of consultation receded and stilled. He had judged
accurately, Alain le Gaucher knew how to concentrate on what was most urgent,
and needed all his company to man his stockade. Let his prisoners, lords though
they might be of a tower-top some dozen or so paces square, enjoy their
lordship until it chilled them into helplessness, and if need be, killed them.
Whatever they did, they could not get away. A
wary, suspicious stillness fell below. And the cold, no question of it, was
biting sharply, congealing into the deepest, darkest and deadliest of the
night. The
young man eased from his braced listening, and turned to reach a long arm
towards the boy. “Come close, let’s share what warmth we have. Come! In a while
we may move, but now we’ll hold down the lid together over hell a little
longer. While we consider what to do next.” Yves
wriggled thankfully along the ladder and was drawn warmly into the embracing
arm. They settled together until they found mutual ease, and fitted snugly into
one comforting mass. Yves drew breath deep into him, and leaned his cheek
almost shyly into this admired and welcoming shoulder. “You
know me, sir,” he said hesitantly. “I do not know you.” “You
shall, Yves, you shall. I had no leisure until now to present myself
respectfully to your lordship. To any but you, my friend, I am Robert, son to
one of the foresters of Clee Forest. To you…” He turned his head to meet the
boy’s round-eyed, earnest stare, and smiled. “To you I can freely be what I really
am, if you can keep a blank face and a still tongue when needed. I am one of
the newest and least of the esquires of your uncle, Laurence d’Angers, and my
name is Olivier de Bretagne. My lord is waiting anxiously in Gloucester for
news of you. I am sent to find you, and I have found you. And be sure, I will
not now lose you again.” Yves
sat speechless, lost between bewilderment, joy and apprehension. “Truly? My
uncle sent you to find us and take us to him? They did tell me in Bromfield
that he was seeking us—my sister and me.” The thought of Ermina made him
tremble and falter, for what was the use of being found while she
remained lost? “She—my sister… She left us! I don’t know where she is!” It
ended in a forlorn wisp of sound. “Ah,
but I have the better of you there, for I do know! Make your mind easy about
Ermina. She is safe and well in the Bromfield you abandoned. True, believe me!
Would I lie to you? I myself took her there to join you, only to find before
ever we reached the gate that you were away again on a quest of your own.” “I
couldn’t help it, I had to go…” It
was almost too much to take in, so suddenly. Yves gulped down wonder and grew
coherent. Now that he need no longer worry and grieve over Ermina’s fate,
whatever the perils hanging over his own, he recoiled for support into
resentment against her for ever bringing him and so many others to this pass.
“You don’t knew her! She won’t be bidden,” he warned indignantly. “When she
finds I’m gone she may do anything! It was she who caused all this, and if the
fit takes her she’ll fly off again on some made folly. You don’t know her as I
do!” He
thought it an innocent stranger’s over-confidence that Olivier laughed, however
softly and amiably. “She’ll be bidden! Never fret, she’ll be waiting in
Bromfield. But I think you have a story to tell me, before I tell mine. Heave
it off your heart! You may, we had better not move from here yet. I hear
someone stirring below.” Yves had heard nothing. “You left Worcester a
fugitive, that I know, and how your sister left you, and why, that I know, too.
She has told me, and made no secret of it. And if it please you to know the
best, no, she is not married, nor like to be yet, but thinks herself well out
of a foolish mistake. And now what of you, after her going?” Yves
nestled into the rough homespun shoulder, and poured out the whole of it, from
his first wanderings in the forest to the remembered comfort and kindness of
Father Leonard and Brother Cadfael at Bromfield, the tragedy of Sister Hilaria,
and the desperate sally after poor, possessed Elyas. “And
I left him there, never thinking…” Yves shrank from remembering the words
Brother Elyas had spoken, as they lay side by side in the night. That was
something he could not share, even with this admirable being.
“I’m afraid for him. But I did leave the door unbarred. Do you think they would
find him? In good time?” “In
God’s time,” said Olivier positively, “which is always good. Your God cares for
the sick in mind, and will see to it the lost are found,” Yves
was quick to note the strangeness of the chosen words. “My God?” he said,
looking up with sharp curiosity into the dark face so close above his own. “Oh,
mine also, though I came to Christendom somewhat roundabout. My mother, Yves,
was a Muslim woman of Syria, my father was a crusader of Robert of Normandy’s
following, from this same England, and sailed for home again before ever I was
born. I took his faith and went to join his people in Jerusalem as soon as I
came a man. That’s where I found service with my lord your uncle, and when he
returned here I came back with him. I am a Christian soul like you, though I
chose it, where you were born to it. And I feel in my bones, Yves, that you
will encounter your Brother Elyas again none the worse for the cold night you
spent. We’d best be giving our minds rather to how you and I are to get safely
out of here.” “How
did you ever get in?” wondered Yves. “How did you know I was here?” “I
did not know it, until this rogue lord of yours hoisted you on the wall there
with a knife at your throat. But I saw them pass by with their booty, at some
distance, and thought it worth tracking such a company to its den. If they were
harrying the countryside by night, and you lost by night… It was possible they
might take prisoners, if there was profit to be made out of them.” “Then
you saw, you know, that we have an army of our friends close at hand,” said
Yves, suddenly glowing with a new and wonderful idea. “Of
your friends, surely. But mine? Friends better avoided, no blame to them. Have
you not understood that I am your uncle’s man, and your uncle is liegeman to
the Empress Maud? I have no wish to fall into the sheriffs hands and sit
drumming my heels in a Shropshire prison. Though I owe them a favor, too, for
it was under cover of their onslaught that I made my way round
and on to the rocks below unnoticed, while these vermin within rushed to slam
the gates. I should never have succeeded but for the distraction they provided.
And once round the stockade in the dark, what difference between one lumpish
ruffian stalking the bailey and all the others? I knew where they had left you.
I saw your guard relieved.” “Then
you saw that the only reason Hugh Beringar drew his men off was because they
threatened to kill me. And he is not gone far, I know it, he would not give up
so easily. And now, don’t you see, there is no one holding a knife at my
throat, and no reason why they should not attack!” Olivier
had caught his drift, and was eyeing him with respect and amusement. His gaze
roved speculatively from the guard’s discarded sword, lying in its sheath under
the wall, to the battered conical steel helmet which had rolled into a corner
beside it. The amber eyes in their deep, black-lashed settings, came back to
Yves, dancing. “A
pity we have no trumpets to sound the onset, but the makings of a very
serviceable drum we certainly have. Under the wall with it, then, and try what
you can do, while I stand guard here. They’ll have but a matter of minutes to
spend trying to hack their way through at us, after that they’ll be busy below,
if your friends out there are as quick-witted as you.” Chapter
Thirteen BROTHER
CADFAEL HAD SPENT THE ENTIRE DAY PROWLING THROUGH THE BELT OF TREES, from one
end of the crescent to the other, and back again, studying every fold of ground
between him and the stockade, in search of even the most tenuous cover by
which, once darkness came, a man might hope to approach nearer. Hugh would not
allow any man to show himself in the open, and had gone to great pains, while
deploying his forces as widely as possible, to keep them well out of sight.
Alain le Gaucher could not get out, and the sheriff’s powers could not get in,
and absolute deadlock had Hugh gnawing his knuckles in frustration. Small doubt
but there were lavish supplies of stolen meat and grain within, enough to keep
the garrison snugly for some time. Starving them out would be a long business,
and starve the unfortunate boy in the process. Le Gaucher might be willing to
surrender him in return for free passage out for himself and all his men, but
that would only be to place some other unhappy region under the same scourge.
Not even a last resort! It was Hugh’s business to restore order and do justice
in this shire, and he meant to see it done. He
had singled out from his ranks a number of men who claimed skill in climbing,
and were born and bred in hill country, and drawn them back out of the ravine,
to prospect round the summit in both directions, and see if they could find a level where it might be possible to climb out and
penetrate the enclosure from the rear without being seen from above. The slight
rise of the lip of land behind the fortress afforded cover, but from below it
was seen to be cover for a sheer drop where only birds could hope to find
foothold. The only remaining possibility was where they could not reconnoiter
without being seen, and provoking a blade at the boy’s throat yet again. Close
to the stockade there might just be ground enough to let a man inch his way
round to the rear, if he had a good head for heights. But to make the assay he
would have had to cross a part of that bleak expanse of open rock, making Yves’
death likely and his own certain. But
in the darkness, yes, perhaps. If the covering of snow complicated movement, yet
there were places where bare rock cropped out to break the betraying pallor.
But the night came all too tranquilly, lambent light from snow and stars, a
clear sky, crackling with frost. This one night when fresh snow and driving
winds might have made vision delusive, and covered dark garments with their own
protective veil, no gale blew and no flake descended. And the stillness and
silence were such that even the snapping of a buried branch underfoot might
carry as far as the stockade. Cadfael
was just reflecting ruefully on this hush when it was abruptly shattered,
blasted apart with a violence that made him jump almost out of his skin.
Reverberating across from the summit came a loud metallic clanging like a
great, ill-made bell, stroke on jarring stroke beating out a merciless peal
that went on and on, piercing, demanding, a pain to the ears. Back among the
trees men started to their feet, and ventured as near as they dared to the
open, to stare across at the castle, and within the stockade, no less, arose
shouts and bellowing and clamor that told Cadfael this music was none of
theirs, had not been planned, was neither welcomed nor understood. If something
had gone wrong within, then something profitable might yet be made of it
without. The
din was coming from the top of the tower. Someone up there was industriously
thrashing away at a shield, or a gong of some kind, however improvised. Why
should any man of the garrison be sounding so furious a tocsin, when no attack
had been threatened? And the noise had provoked other noises
within the stockade, muffled and wordless but unmistakably angry, dismayed and
vengeful. A great voice that could only belong to de Gaucher was roaring
orders. Surely all attention had been diverted from the enemy without to the unexpected
onslaught within. Cadfael
acted almost without thought. There was an undulation in the rock surface
halfway to the stockade, a narrow black blot breaking the uniform whiteness. He
broke from the shelter of the trees and ran for it, and dropped full-length
along it, where his black habit could lie motionless and pass unremarked if
anyone was still keeping guard. He doubted if they were. The relentless
clanging continued tirelessly, though someone’s arm must be beginning to ache
by this time. Cautiously he raised his head to watch the serrated crest of the
tower, clear against the sky. The rhythm of the discordant bell faltered and
changed, and as it halted for a moment Cadfael saw a head peep cautiously out
between the merlons. There were ominous splintering, crashing sounds now,
dulled by the thick timbering of the tower, as though someone was wielding an
axe. The head appeared a second time. Cadfael waved an arm, black sleeve plain
against the snow, and shouted: “Yves!” Doubtful
if he was heard, though the clear air carried sounds with meticulous accuracy.
Certainly he was seen. The head—it barely topped the parapet—craned into view
recklessly for a moment, to shriek in shrillest excitement: “Come on! Bid them
come on! We hold the tower! We are two, and armed!” Then he vanished behind the
merlon, and none too soon, for at least one bowman within the stockade had been
watching the same serrated outline, and his arrow struck the edge of the
embrasure, and stuck there quivering. Defiantly the clangor from the tower
resumed its resolute beat. Cadfael
picked himself up from his niche in the rock, regardless of danger, and ran for
the trees. At least one arrow followed him, but fell short, somewhat to his
surprise when he heard its shuddering flight extinguished in the snow behind
him. He must still have a better turn of speed than be had thought, at least
when running for his own life and many others. He plunged breathless into
cover, and into the arms of Hugh Beringar, and was aware by the stir and quiver
all along the fringe of the trees that Hugh also had employed
these few minutes to good effect, for his lines were drawn ready for action,
waiting only the urgent word. “Set
on!” said Cadfael, puffing for breath. “That’s Yves sounding for us, he says he
holds the tower. Someone has reached him, God known how. No danger now but from
our delay.” There
was no more delay. Hugh was away on the instant, and into the saddle before the
words were spent. He from the left and Josce de Dinan from the right broke from
the trees and drove in upon the gates of Alain le Gaucher’s castle, with all
their foot-men streaming full tilt behind them, and a file of torches
spluttering into life after, to fire the fringe buildings within. Brother
Cadfael, left unceremoniously thus, stood for a while to get his breath back,
and then, almost resentfully, resigned himself to the recollected fact that he
had long ago forsworn arms. No matter, there was nothing in his vows to prevent
him from following unarmed where the armed men led. Cadfael was striding
purposefully across the open expanse of snow, torn up now by many hooves and
many feet, by the time the assault converged in a spear-head to hurtle against
the gates, and drive them in. For
all the industrious din he himself was making, Yves heard the charge of the
sheriff’s men, and felt the tower shake as they hit the gate like a
sledge-hammer, and burst the holding timbers in a shower of flying splinters.
The clamor of hand-to-hand battle filled the bailey, but about that he could do
nothing; but here the very boards under them were heaving and groaning to a
fury of axe-blows from below, and Olivier, sword drawn and long legs spread,
was holding down ladder and trap against the onslaught. The ladder heaved at
every blow, but while it held its place the trap could not be raised, and even
if it should be breached, only a hand or a head could be first exposed, and
either would be at Olivier’s mercy. And at this extreme, Olivier would have no
mercy. Braced from crown to heel, he bestrode the enemy’s entry, balancing his
weight, sword poised to pierce or slash the first flesh that offered. Yves dropped his aching arm, and let the
steel helmet roll away from between his feet, but then, with a better thought,
scrambled after it and clapped it on his head. Why refuse any degree of
protection that offered? He even remembered to stoop well below the parapet as
he flexed his cramped hand, took a fresh grip on the hilt of the sword, and
plunged across the roof to embrace Olivier, and plant his own feet on the rungs
of the ladder that held them secure, to add his weight to the barrier. There
were already splits visible in the wood of the trap, and splinters flew both
above and below, but there was nowhere yet that a blade could be thrust through.
“Nor
will be,” said Olivier in confident reassurance. “You hear that?” It was the
roaring voice of Alain le Gaucher himself, echoing hollowly up the dark spaces
of the towers. “He’s calling off his hounds, they’re needed more desperately
below.” The
axe struck once more, a mighty blow that clove clean through an already
splintered board, and sent a long triangle of shining blade into view beneath
the ladder. But that was the last. The striker had trouble freeing his blade
again, and cursed over it, but made no further assault. They heard a great
scurrying down the stairs, and then all was quiet within the tower. Beneath, in
the bailey, the whole enclosure was filled with the babel and struggle and
clamor of arms, but up here under the starry calm of the sky the two of them
stood and looked at each other in the sudden languor of relief, no longer
threatened. “Not
that he would not make the same foul use of you,” said Olivier, sheathing his
sword, “if he could but get his hands on you. But if he spends time on hewing
you out of your lair, he will already have lost what your throat might save.
He’ll seek to fight off this attack before he troubles you again.” “He
will not do it!” said Yves, glowing. “Listen! They are well within. They’ll
never give back now, they have him in a noose.” He peered out from behind a
merlon over the confused fighting below. All the space of the bailey seethed
and swayed with struggling men, a churning, tumultuous darkness like a stormy
night sea, but lit by fiery glimpses where the torches still burned. “They’ve
fired the gatehouse. They’re leading out all the horses and
cattle—and fetching down all the archers from the walls… Should we not go down
and help them?” “No,”
said Olivier firmly. “Not unless we must, not until we must. If you fell into
the wrong hands now, all this would be thrown away, all to do again. The best
you can do for your friends is to stay out of reach, and deny this rogue baron
the one weapon that could save him.” It
was good sense, though none too welcome to an excited boy longing for prodigies
to perform. But if Olivier ordered it, Yves accepted it. “You
may be a hero some other day,” said Olivier drily, “where there’s less at stake
and you can put only your own neck in peril. Your part now is to wait in patience,
even if it cost you more. And since we have time now, and may be mortally short
of it before long, listen to me carefully. When we are loosed from here, and
all over, I shall leave you. Go back to join your sister at Bromfield, let your
friends have the satisfaction of uniting you in safety. I have no doubt they
would send you with a good escort to your uncle in Gloucester, as they
promised, but I have a fancy to finish my work and deliver you myself, as I was
sent out to do. This mission is mine, and I’ll complete it.” “But
how will you manage?” Yves wondered anxiously. “With
your help—and certain other help which I know where to find. Give me two days,
and I will have horses and supplies ready for us. If all goes well, two nights
from this night that’s wearing away under us, I will come to Bromfield for you.
Tell your sister so. After Compline, when the brothers will be bound for their
beds, and you will be thought to be in yours. Ask no more questions, but tell
her I shall come. And should I be forced to have speech here with the sheriff’s
men, or should you be asked about me after I vanish—tell me, Yves, who was it
made his way in here to find you?” Yves
understood. He said at once: “It was Robert, the forester’s son who brought
Ermina to Bromfield, and happened on this place while he was searching for me.”
He added dubiously: “But they’ll wonder at such a deed in a forester, when all
the sheriff’s men were already searching. Unless,” he went on, curling a
disdainful lip, “they think that every man living will risk
his life for Ermina, just because she is handsome. She is handsome,” he
conceded generously, “but all too well she knows it and makes use of it. Don’t
ever let her make a fool of you!” Olivier
was peering out over the battlefield below, where a long tongue of fire had
sprung from the burning gates and reached the roof of one of the byres. His
dark and private smile was hidden from the boy. “You may let them think me her
besotted slave, if it convinces them,” he said. “Tell them what you please that
will serve the purpose. And bear my message, and be ready when I come for you.”
“I
will!” vowed Yves fervently. “I will do all as you tell me.” They
watched the fire spread along the stockade from roof to roof, while the
fighting within continued as fiercely and confusedly as ever. The garrison had
poured out to the defence greater numbers than anyone had suspected, and all to
many of them experienced and powerful fighters. Yves and Olivier looked on from
their eyrie intently, as the serpent of fire began to burn uncomfortably near
to the corner of the hall itself. If it touched the tower, all that draughty,
beam-braced interior would act as a chimney, and they would be isolated at the
top of a ferocious blaze. Already the crackling and exploding of burning beams
threatened to drown out the din of fighting. “This
grows too hot,” said Olivier, frowning. “Better brave the devil below than wait
for the one that’s coming to us here.” They
hauled the ladder aside, and heaved up the mangled trap. Splinters jutted and
fell, and a thin curl of smoke, hardly a breath as yet, coiled up out of the
recesses of the tower. Olivier did not wait to lower the ladder, but slid
through to hang by his hands, and dropped lightly to the floor below, and Yves
followed him valiantly, to be caught neatly in mid-air by the waist, and set
down silently. Olivier set off down the staircase, a hand extended behind him
to hold the boy close. The air here was still cold, but from somewhere smoke
was drifting steadily, obscuring the edges of the steps so that they were
constrained to feel their way at every tread. The babble of
battle grew more distant, a constant buzzing from without the thick walls. Even
when they reached the rock floor of the tower, and saw by the dim remains of
torches and firelight the outline of the great door to the hall, standing ajar,
there was no stir of foot or sound of voices within. Every man must be out in
the bailey, battling to fend off the sheriff’s forces, or else, by this time
just as possibly, to break through the circle somehow and make his escape. Olivier
made for the narrow outer door by which he had entered in the first place,
lifted the heavy latch and tugged, but the door did not give. He braced a foot
against the wall and heaved again, but the door remained fast shut. “The
devil damn them! They’ve barred it without, after they treed us. Through the
hall, and keep close behind me.” The
very act of thrusting the great door open wide enough for them to slip through,
as silently as possible, for fear some cautious or wounded outlaw should still
be lurking, brought into play a cross-draught, and a sudden tongue of fire
leaped up in the far corner of the hall, licked its way up the beams of the
roof, and spat burning splinters below to smoulder in Alain le Gaucher’s
tapestried chairs, and bring to life three or four new buds of flame that
opened marvelously into great crimson flowers. Those red and gold blazons were
all they could see clearly through the smoke that thickened as abruptly as the
fire had burst in. They groped and stumbled through a deserted wilderness of
overturned benches and trampled and spilled dishes, trestle tables fallen
aslant, hangings dragged down, torches burned out and adding to the pall of
smoke that stung their eyes and was drawn chokingly into their throats. Before
them, beyond this obscure and perilous wilderness, the pandemonium of struggle
and violence blew in on a freezing draught through the half-open main door of
the hall. At the top of the sliver of open air thus uncovered, a single star
showed, unbelievably pure and distant. They covered their mouths and nostrils
and made for it, with eyes streaming and smarting. They
were almost at the doorway when a ripple of flame flowed suddenly along the
surface of a roofbeam, peeling off the unplaned surface in a flurry of sparks,
and caught the coarse homespun curtain that served to shut out
the cold wind when the doors were closed and the household home at night. The
dry, hairy cloth went up in a gush of flame, and fell in their path, a great
folded cushion of fire. Olivier kicked it furiously aside, and swung Yves
before him round the billowing bonfire towards the doorway. “Out!
Get to the open, and hide!” If
Yves had obeyed him to the letter, he might well have escaped notice, but
having reached clear air, with the sweep of the steps and the loud turmoil of
the bailey before him, he turned to look back anxiously, for fear the fire,
blaming now to a man’s height, had trapped Olivier within. The pause cost him
and his friends all that they had gained together, for more than half the
bailey was then in Beringar’s hands, and the remnant of the garrison driven
back into a tight knot of fighting round the hall, and while Yves’ back was
turned upon his enemies, and he hung hesitating whether to rush back to stretch
a hand to his friend, Alain le Gaucher, hard-pressed at the foot of the steps
to his own hall, cut a wide swathe before him to clear his ground, and leaped
backwards up the wide timber stairway. They all but collided, back to back.
Yves turned to run, too late. A great hand shot out and gripped him by the
hair, and a roar of triumph and defiance rose even above the clamor of arms and
the thunderous crackling of bursting beams. In a moment le Gaucher had his back
against the pillar of his doorway, secure from attack from the rear, and the
boy clamped to his body before him, with a naked sword, already red, braced
across his throat. “Stand,
every man! Down arms and draw off!” bellowed the lion, his tawny man bristling
and glaring in the flickering light of the fires. “Back! Further, I say! Let me
see a clear space before me. If any man so much as draw bow, this imp dies
first. I have got my warranty again! Now, king’s man, where are you? What will
you pay for his life? A fresh horse, free passage out, and no pursuit, on your
oath, or I slit his throat, and his blood be on your head!” Hugh
Beringar thrust through to the fore and stood, eyes levelled upon le Gaucher.
“Draw back,” he said without turning his head. “Do as he says.” The
entire circle, king’s men and outlaw’s men together, drew back
inch by inch and left a great space of trampled and stained snow before the
steps of the hall. Hugh moved back with them, though keeping his place in
front. What else could he do? The boy’s head was strained back against his
captor’s body, the steel touching his stretched neck. A false move and he would
be dead. A few of the garrison began to edge out of the press, backwards
towards the stockade and the gate, in the hope of finding a way out while all
eyes were on the pair isolated at the top of the steps. The guard on the gate
would deal with them, but who would deal with this ruthless and desperate
creature? Everyone retreated before him. Not
everyone! Through the press, unnoticed by any until he reached the open space,
came lurching a strange and solitary figure, limping and wavering, but marching
ahead out of the crowd without pause, straight towards the steps. The red light
of the fires trembled over him. A tall, emaciated man in a black habit, the
cowl dropped back on his shoulders. Two puckered scars crossed his tonsured
head. There was blood on his sandalled feet—he left stains on the snow as he
trod— and blood on his brow from a fall in the rocky ground. Great, hollow eyes
in a livid face stared upon Alain le Gaucher. A pointing hand accused him. A
loud, imperious voice cried out at him: “Leave
go of the boy! I have come for him, he is mine.” Intent
upon Hugh Beringar, le Gaucher had not seen the newcomer until then. His head
jerked round, astonished that anyone should break the silence he had imposed,
or dare to cross the neutral ground he had exacted. The
shock was brief, but shattering while it lasted, and it lasted long enough. For
one moment Alain le Gaucher saw his dead man advancing on him, terrible,
invulnerable and fearless, saw the wounds he himself had inflicted still
bloody, and the face he had murdered corpse-pale. He forgot the hostage. His
hands sank nervelessly, and the sword with them. The next instant he knew past
doubt that the dead do not rise, and recovered himself with a scream of rage
and scorn, but too late to recover his ascendancy. Yves had slid from between
his hands like an eel, dived under his arm and darted away down the steps. Running blindly, he collided with a
welcome solidity and warmth, and clung panting and spent, his eyes closed.
Brother Cadfael’s voice said in his ear: “Softly, now, you’re safe enough. Come
and help me with Brother Elyas, for he’ll go nowhere without you, now he’s found
you. Come, let’s get him out of this, you and I together, and do what we can
for him.” Yves
opened his eyes, still panting and trembling, and turned to stare back at the
doorway of the hall. “My friend is in there… my friend who helped me!” He
broke off there, drawing in breath to heave a huge, hopeful, fearful sigh. For
Hugh Beringar, the instant the hostage was free, had darted forward to do
battle, but another was before him. Out of the smoke and fire-shot blackness of
the doorway surged Olivier, soiled and singed and sword in hand, sprang past le
Gaucher to find elbow-room, and in passing struck him on the cheek with the
flat of the blade, by way of notice of intent. The tawny mane flew as le
Gaucher sprang round to face him. The silence that had exploded in shudderings
of wonder at the apparition of Brother Elyas fell again like a stone. Everyone
heard clearly the voice that trumpeted disdainfully: “Now have ado with a man!”
There
would be no moving Yves now, not until this last duel was resolved. Cadfael
kept hold of him thankfully, though he need not have troubled, for the boy’s
small fists were clenched in his sleeve for mortal reassurance. Brother Elyas,
his bearings lost, looked about him for his boy, and came limping painfully to
touch, to comfort and be comforted, and Yves, without for an instant taking his
worshipping eyes from Olivier, detached one hand from his hold on Cadfael to
accept Elyas’ clasp just as fiercely. For him everything now depended on this
man to man encounter, from head to foot he was quivering with partisan passion.
Both Cadfael and Elyas felt it and were infected by it, and stared as he stared
upon this tall, agile, slender person poised with spread feet at the top of the
steps. For all his smoke-soiled visage and common country garments, Cadfael
knew him again. And
no one meddled, not even Hugh, who might have intervened by virtue of his
office. Between his men and these thieves and murderers there would be no more
fighting until this fight was over. There was that about the
challenge that forbade interference. It
did not appear a very even combat, le Gaucher double his opponent in age and
weight and experience, if not in reach and agility. And it did not last long.
Le Gaucher, once he had viewed his challenger, came on confidently in a steady,
battering onslaught, bent on driving the young man from his stance and
backwards down the steps. Yet after long, increasingly furious attacks the
boy—a mere half-trained peasant, at that!—had scarcely shifted his balance, not
given back a pace, and everywhere the hacking blade crashed in, his sword was
there to turn it aside. He stood and seemed at ease, while his adversary
flailed at him and wasted energy. Yves gazed with huge, praying eyes, rigid
from crown to toe. Elyas clung mutely to the hand he clasped, and quivered to
its tension. Brother Cadfael watched the young man Olivier, and recalled
disciplines he had almost forgotten, a manner of sword-play bred from the clash
of east and west, and borrowing from both. There
was no moving this swordsman, if he gave an inch one moment he regained it the
next, added to it the next. It was le Gaucher who was being edged back by
degrees to the rim of the steps, while he wasted his strength to no avail. The
lion lunged once more, with all his weight. His heel was too near the edge of
the icy stir, his lunge too reckless, the forward pressure slid his rearward
foot from under him, and he hung out of balance, struggling for recovery.
Olivier sprang forward like a hunting leopard, and drove down with all his
weight, clean through the disrupted guard and into the exposed breast. The
sword went in halfway to the hilt, and he braced both feet and leaned back on
his heel to hoist his blade clear. The
lion’s carcase dropped from the withdrawing point, arms spread, flew outwards
on its back, landed three steps lower, and rolled ponderously, with an awful
dignity, from stair to stair, to come to rest on its face at Hugh Beringar’s
feet, and bled what was left of its life away into the defiled snow. Chapter
Fourteen IT
WAS OVER, ONCE THEIR LEADER WAS DEAD, and seen to be dead. They broke in all
directions, some running to try and find a way of escape, some fighting to the
death, some bargaining vainly, some having the sense to surrender and hope to
make a passable case for themselves thereafter. There were over sixty prisoners
to be rounded up, besides the dead, any amount of plunder to drag out from hall
and stores before all went up in fire, a passable flock of stolen sheep and
herd of cattle to feed and water until they could be driven down to better
lodging. Dinan undertook the custody of the prisoners, captured within his
lordship. No need to doubt his adherence to law where his own writ was
challenged. The
fire spread, and when all that was savable was brought out, they spread the
flames of intent. The castle stood solitary, clear of the trees, on solid rock,
it could burn to the bone and threaten nothing else. It had been a stain upon
the countryside in its short and ignoble life, it might well be a passing
blemish in its death. The
strangest thing, though unremarked by most in the general turmoil, was the
disappearance of the unknown champion only minutes after he had felled the
castellan. Every eye had followed that prodigious fall, and by the time they
had stirred out of their daze and looked about, the chaos of flight and capture
had broken out all around, and no one had seen the young
countryman make off silently into the night. “Gone
like a shadow,” said Hugh, “when I should have liked to know him better. And
never a word as to where he may be found, when the king’s Grace owes him a debt
any sane man would be eager to collect. You are the only one who has spoken
with him, Yves. Who is this paladin?” Half-drunk
with the lassitude of relief after stress, and the exhaustion of safety after
terror, Yves said what he had been taught to say, and fronted Hugh with a clear
stare and guileless face as he did so. “That was the forester’s son who
sheltered Ermina, and brought her to Bromfield. It was he told me she’s there.
I knew nothing of that until then. She is really there?” “She
is, safe enough. And what is the name of this forester’s son? And more to the
purpose,” said Hugh thoughtfully, “where did he learn his swordcraft?” “His
name is Robert. He told me he was searching for me, as he promised Ermina he
would, and he saw the raiders coming back here, and followed their tracks. I
know no more about him,” said Yves stoutly, and if he blushed as he said it,
the night covered the blush. “Certainly
we seem to breed redoutable foresters in these parts,” said Hugh drily. But he
did not press it further. “And
now,” said Cadfael, intent on his own business, “if you’ll lend me four good
men, and let us have the use of all these fresh horses, they’ll be better on
the move to the Bromfield stables, now they’ve no roof over their heads here,
and I can get these two home to their beds. I can leave you my scrip. We’ll rig
a litter for Brother Elyas, and purloin whatever blankets and brychans are
still unburned to wrap him up on the way.” “Take
what you need,” said Hugh. There were seven horses fresh from the stable,
besides the common hill-ponies Yves had seen used to bring home plunder.
“Stolen, all or most of them,” said Hugh, looking them over. “I’ll have Dinan
give it out wherever they’ve had losses, they can come to Bromfield and claim
their own. The cattle and sheep we’ll bring into Ludlow later, after the fellow
at Cleeton has picked out his. But best get Brother Elyas away as fast as you can, if he’s to live. The marvel is he’s survived even this
far.” Cadfael
marshalled his helpers to good effect, and took his pick of the furnishings
dragged out of the burning hall, to swaddle Brother Elyas in a cocoon of
blankets, and fashion a secure cradle for him between two horses. He took
thought to load, also, two sacks of fodder from the ransacked stores, in case
the sudden arrival of seven horses should tax the resources of Bromfield. The
spurt of energy and authority that had animated Elyas when there was most need
of him had deserted him as soon as his work was done, and his boy delivered. He
yielded himself into their hands docilely, and let them do what they would with
him, astray between apathy and exhaustion, and half dead with cold. Cadfael
eyed him with much concern. Unless some new fire could be kindled in him, to
make life an imperative as it had been when he saw Yves threatened, Elyas would
die. Cadfael
took Yves on his own saddle-bow, as once before, for the child was now so weary
that he could not walk without stumbling, and if allowed to ride would probably
fall asleep in the saddle. A good Welsh brychan wrapped him for warmth, and
before they had wound their way down the spiral path and into easier country,
as briskly as was safe in the dark, his chin was on his chest, and his
breathing had eased and lengthened into deep sleep. Cadfael shifted him gently
to rest in the hollow of his shoulder, and Yves stretched a little, turned his
face warmly into the breast of Cadfael’s habit, and slept all the way back to
Bromfield. Once
well away into the fields, Cadfael looked back. The sheer bulk of the hill rose
blackly, crested with a coronal of fire. It would take Beringar and Dinan the
rest of the night to round up all their prisoners, and shift the beasts down to
Cleeton, where John Druel might know bis own, and thence on to Ludlow. The
terror was over, and more economically than might have been expected. Over for
this time, thought Cadfael. Over, perhaps, for this shire, if Prestcote and
Hugh can keep their grip as firm in the future. But where royal kinsfolk are
tearing each other for a crown, lesser men will ride the time for their own
gain, without scruple or mercy. And
where they did so, he reflected, every villainy for miles
around would be laid at their door, and some of the crimes might well be laid
there unjustly. Even villains should bear only the guilt that belongs to them.
And never, now, could Alain le Gaucher speak up in his own defense, and say:
“This, and this, and this I have done—but this, this despoiling and murder of a
young nun, this deed is none of mine.” They
came to Bromfield about Prime, and rode in at the gatehouse into a court swept
clear. No new snow had fallen in the night. The change was coming, by noon
there might even be the brief promise of a thaw. Yves awoke, yawned, stretched
and remembered. He was wide awake in a moment, unwinding himself from his
wrappings and scrambling down to help carry Brother Elyas back to his forsaken
bed. Hugh’s men-at-arms took the horses to stable. And Brother Cadfael,
glancing up towards the guest-hall, saw the door flung open, and Ermina peering
out across the twilit court. The
torch above the door lit up a face utterly vulnerable in its wild mingling of
hope and dread. She had heard the horses, and rushed out just as she was,
barefoot, her hair loose about her shoulders. Her eyes lit upon Yves, busy
unloosing the bindings of Brother Elyas’ litter, and suddenly her face softened
and glowed into so dazzling a radiance of joy and gratitude that Cadfael stood
and stared from pure pleasure. The worst shadow soared from her like a bird
rising, and was gone. She still had a brother. Yves,
perhaps fortunately, was so busy with his sick protйgй and protector that he
never glanced in her direction. And Cadfael was not in any way surprised when
she did not rush to welcome and embrace, but withdrew softly and stealthily
into the guest-hall, and closed the door. Accordingly,
he did not hurry the boy away too hastily from the small infirmary room where
they had brought Brother Elyas, and Yves did not run to be embraced, either. He
knew, he had been assured over and over, that she was here waiting for him.
Both of them required a little time to prepare for the reunion. Only when he
had dressed Brother Elyas’ wounded and frost-pinched feet, packed them round
with soft wool and warmed tiles, bathed his face and hands and
fed him spiced and honeyed wine, and heaped him with the lightest covering he
had to hand, did Cadfael take Yves firmly by the shoulder, and steer him
towards the guest-hall. She
was sitting by the fire, sewing at a gown brought for her from Ludlow, to alter
it to her own measure, and none too willingly to judge by her scowl, when Yves
entered with Brother Cadfael ‘s hand on his shoulder. She put her work aside,
and rose. Perhaps she saw attack in her brother’s jutting lip and levelled eye,
for she stepped forward briskly, and kissed him in a chill, admonishing, female
manner. “And
a fine dance you have led everyone,” she said severely, “running off into the
night like that, without a word to a soul.” “That
you should be the one to say so, who have caused all this pother!” Yves
retorted loftily. “I have brought my affair to success, madam. You ran off into
the night without a word to a soul, and come back profitless and as arrogant as
ever, but you had better sing a lower tune if you want to be listened to here.
We have had more urgent matters to think about.” “You’ll
have plenty to say to each other,” said Brother Cadfael, benignly blind and deaf
to bickering, “and plenty of time hereafter to say it. But now Yves should be
in his bed, for he’s had a couple of nights that could wear out any man. He
needs a long day’s sleep, and if I have a physician’s authority, I order it.” She
rose to it with alacrity, though still scowling. She had his bed ready,
probably smoothed with her own hands, she would shoo him into it like a
hen-wife harrying her chicks, and when he was in it, and fast asleep, she would
probably hang over him possessively, and have food ready for him when he
stirred. But never, never would she admit that she had grieved and fretted over
him, even wept, or that she had bitterly repented her rash departure. And
surely that was well, for the boy would be dismayed and embarrassed if ever she
bent her neck to him and begged forgiveness. “Leave
well alone until this evening,” said Cadfael contentedly, and went away and
left them to argue their way to a truce. He returned to Brother Elyas, sat
beside him a careful while, saw that he slept, corpse-like but deeply, and went
to his own bed. Even physicians have need of the simple
medicines, now and then. Ermina
came looking for him before Vespers, for which office he had asked Prior
Leonard to call him. Hugh Beringar had not yet returned, no doubt he was still
busy at Ludlow with the bestowal of the prisoners and the storage of the stock
and other plunder brought down from Clee. This day was an interlude of
thanksgiving for one peril past, but also a breathing-space in preparation for
tasks still to be completed. “Brother
Cadfael,” said Ermina, very neat, grave and quiet in the doorway of the
infirmary. “Yves is asking for you. There is still something on his mind, and I
know he will not tell me, of all people. But you he wants. Will you come to him
after Vespers? He will have had his supper then, and be ready for you.” “I
will come,” said Cadfael. “And
I have been wondering,” she said, and hesitated. “Those horses you brought back
this morning… they came from that thieves’ nest there?” “They
did. Stolen from all these local holdings they have preyed on. Hugh Beringar is
sending out to all who have had such losses to come and claim their own. The
cattle and sheep are penned in Ludlow. John Druel may have picked out already
some that are his. The horses I borrowed, they were fresh and ready for work.
Why? What’s in your mind concerning them?” “There
is one I believe belongs to Evrard.” It was a long time since she had spoken
his name, it sounded almost strange on her tongue, as if she remembered him
from many years past, and after long forgetfulness. “They will be sending word
to him, too?” “Surely.
Callowleas was stripped bare, there may well be other stock of his to be
reclaimed.” “If
he does not already know that I am here,” said Ermina, “I hope no one will tell
him. It is not that I mind him knowing I am safe and well. But I would as soon
he did not expect to see me.” There
was nothing strange in that. She had put that whole mistaken episode behind
her, she might well wish to avoid the embarrassment and pain
of meeting him again face to face, and having to make vain play with words over
something already dead. “I
doubt there’ll have been any message sent but the same to all,” said Cadfael.
“Come and speak for your stolen property. And come they will. A pity there are
losses that can never be made good.” “Yes,”
she said, “great pity. We can’t restore them their dead—only their cattle.” Yves
had risen from his long sleep cleansed of every fear for himself or his sister,
and secure in his complete trust in Olivier to accomplish every miracle to
which he turned his hand. He had washed and brushed and combed himself
fittingly as for a thanksgiving festival, and observed with surprised approval
that while he slept, Ermina had mended the rent in the knee of his hose, and
laundered his only shirt and dried it by the fire. Her actions often failed to
match her words, though he had never really noticed it before. And
then, not forgotten but only put aside while more desperate matters still
hounded him, the question of Brother Elyas rose unresolved into his mind, and
took possession of it wholly. It grew so monstrous and so insistent that he
could not long contain it alone, and though Hugh Beringar was fair and
approachable, Hugh Beringar was also the law, and bound by his office. But
Brother Cadfael was not the law, and would listen with an open mind and a
sympathetic ear. Yves
had finished his supper when Cadfael came, and Ermina wisely took her sewing
and went away into the hall to have a better light for her work, leaving them
together. Yves
found no way of beginning but directly, a leap into the cold and terror of
remembrance. “Brother Cadfael,” he blurted wretchedly, “I’m frightened for
Brother Elyas. I want to tell you. I don’t know what we ought to do. I haven’t
said a word to anyone yet. He has told me things—no, he was not speaking to me,
he did not tell me, but I heard. I couldn’t choose but hear!” “There’s
been no time yet for you tell what happened when he led you away in the night,”
said Cadfael reasonably, “but you may tell it now. But first, there are things
I have not yet told you. If I tell them first, it may be a
help to you. I know where he led you, and I know how you left him in the hut,
hoping for help, and fell into the hands of outlaws and murderers. Was it there
in the hut that he spoke out these things that so trouble you?” “In
his sleep,” said Yves unhappily. “It is not fair dealing to listen to what a
man says in his sleep, but I couldn’t help it. I was so anxious about him, I
needed to know, if there was any way of helping him… Even before, when I was
sitting by his bed… It was because I spoke of Sister Hilaria, and told him she
was dead. Nothing else had touched him, but her name… It was terrible! It was
as if he had not known till then that she was dead, and yet he blamed himself
for her death. He cried out to the stones of the house to fall on him and bury
him. And he got up… I couldn’t stop or hold him. I ran to find you, but
everyone was at Compline.” “And
when you ran back to him,” said Cadfael mildly, “he was gone. And so you went
after him.” “I
had to, I was left to care for him. I thought in time he would tire, and I
could turn him and lead him back, but I couldn’t. So what could I do but go
with him?” “And
he led you to the hut—yes, that we understood. And there these words passed,
that so torment you. Don’t be afraid to speak them. All that you did was done
for his sake, believe that this, too, you may be doing for his sake.” “But
he accused himself,” whispered Yves, trembling at the memory. “He said—he said
that it was he who killed Sister Hilaria!” The
very quietness with which this was received shook him into despairing tears.
“He was in such anguish, so torn… How can we give him up to be branded a
murderer? But how can we hide the truth? Himself he said it. And yet I am sure
he is not evil, he is good. Oh, Brother Cadfael, what are we to do?” Cadfael
leaned across the narrow trestle and took firm hold of the boy’s tight-clasped
hands between his own. “Look at me, Yves, and I’ll tell you what we shall do.
What you have to do is to put away all fears, and try to remember the very
words he used. All of them, if you can. ‘He said that it was he who killed
Sister Hilaria!’ Did he indeed say that? Or is that what you understood
by what he said? Give me the man’s own words and what I have to do is listen to
those words, and to no others, and see what can be made of them. Now! Go back
to that night in the hut. Ely as spoke in his sleep. Begin there. Take your
time, there is no haste.” Yves
scrubbed a moist cheek against his shoulder, and raised doubtful but trusting
eyes to Cadfael’s face. He thought back dutifully, gnawed an unsteady lip, and
began hesitantly: “I was asleep, I think, though I was trying not to sleep. He
was lying on his face, but I could hear his voice clearly. He said: My
sister—forgive me all my sin, my weakness. I, who have been your death! he
said. That I’m sure of, that is word for word. I, who have been your death!” He
shook and halted there, afraid that that alone might be enough. But Cadfael
held him by the hands and nodded understanding, and waited. “Yes,
and then?” “Then—do
you remember how he called on Hunydd? And you said you thought she was his
wife, who died? Well, next he said: Hunydd! She was like you, warm and trusting
in my arms. After six months starving, he said, such hunger. I could not bear
the burning, he said, body and soul…” The
words were returning in full now, as if they had been carved into his memory.
Until now he had wished only to forget them, now, when he consented to
remember, they came clearly. “Go
on. There was more.” “Yes.
He changed then, he said no, don’t forgive me, bury me and put me out of mind.
I am unworthy, he said, weak, inconstant…” There was a long pause, as there had
been that night, before Brother Elyas cried out his mortal frailty aloud. “He
said: She clung to me, she had no fear, being with me. And then he said:
Merciful God, I am a man, full of blood, with a man’s body and a man’s desires.
And she is dead, he said, who trusted me!” He
stared, white-faced, amazed to see Brother Cadfael unshaken, thoughtful and
calm, considering him across the table with a grave smile. “Don’t
you believe me? I’ve told you truly. All those things he said.” “I do believe you. Surely he said them.
But think—his travelling cloak was there in the hut, together with her cloak
and habit. And hidden! And she taken away from that place, and put into the
brook, and he found some distance away, also. If he had not led you back to the
hut we should not have known the half of these things. Surely I believe all
that you have told me, even so you must believe and consider those things I
have been able to tell you. It is not enough to say that a thing is so because
of one fragment of knowledge, even so clear as a confession, and put away out
of sight those other things known, because they cannot be explained. An answer
to a matter of life and death must be an answer that explains all.” Yves
gazed blankly, understanding the words, but seeing no hope or help in them.
“But how can we find such an answer? And if we find it, and it is the wrong
answer…” he faltered, and shook again. “Truth
is never a wrong answer. We will find it, Yves, by asking the one who knows.”
Cadfael rose briskly, and drew the boy up with him. “Take heart, nothing is
ever quite what it seems. You and I will go and speak yet again with Brother
Elyas.” Brother
Elyas lay weak and mute as before, yet not as before, for his eyes were open,
intelligent and illusionless, windows on a great, contained grief for which
there was no cure. He had a memory again, though it brought him nothing but
pain. He knew them, when they sat down one on either side his bed, the boy
hopelessly astray and afraid of what might come of this, Cadfael solid and
practical and ready with an offered drink, and a fresh dressing for the
frost-gnawed feet. The fierce strength of a man in his robust prime had stood
Brother Elyas, physically at least, in good stead, he would not even lose toes,
and his chest was clear. Only his grieved mind rejected healing. “The
boy here tells me,” said Cadfael simply, “that you have recovered the part of
your memory that was lost. That’s well. A man should possess all his past, it
is waste to mislay any. Now that you know all that happened, the night they
left you for dead, now you can come back from the dead a whole man,
not the half of a man. Here is this boy of yours to prove the world had need of
you last night, and has need of you still.” The
hollow eyes watched him from the pillow, and the face was wrung with a bitter
spasm of rejection and pain. “I
have been at your hut,” said Cadfael. “I know that you and Sister Hilaria took
shelter there when the snowstorm was at its worst. A bad night, one of the
worst of this bad December. It grows more clement now, we shall have a thaw.
But that night was bitter frost. Poor souls caught out in it must lie in each
other’s arms to live through it. And so did you with her, to keep the woman
alive.” The dark eyes had burned into fierce life, even the wandering mind grew
intent. “I, too,” said Cadfael with deliberation, “have known women, in my
time. Never unwilling, never without love. I know what I’m saying.” A
voice harsh with disuse, but intelligent and aware, said faintly: “She is dead.
The boy told me. I am the cause. Let me go after her and fall at her feet. So
beautiful she was, and trusted me. Little and soft in my arms, and clung, and
confided… Oh, God!” pleaded Brother Elyas, “was it well done to try me so
sorely, and I emptied and starving? I could not bear the burning…” “That
I comprehend,” said Cadfael. “Neither could I have borne it. I should have been
forced to do as you did. In my fear for her if I stayed, and for my own soul’s
salvation, which is not such a noble motive as all that, I should have left her
there asleep, and gone out into the snow and frost of that night, far away from
her, to watch the night out as best I could, and return to her in the dawn,
when we could go forth together and finish that journey. As you did.” Yves
leaned forward glittering with enlightenment, holding his breath for the
answer. And Brother Elyas, turning his head tormentedly on his pillow, mourned
aloud: “Oh, God, that ever I left her so! That I had not the steadfastness and
faith to endure the longing… Where was the peace they promised me? I crept away
and left her alone. And she is dead!” “The
dead are in God’s hand,” said Cadfael, “Hunydd and Hilaria both. You may not
wish them back. You have an advocate there. Do you suppose
that she forgets that when you went out into the cold you left her your cloak,
wrapped about her for warmth, and fled from her with only your habit, to bear
the rigor of the winter all those hours to dawn? It was a killing night.” The
voice from the bed said harshly: “It was not enough to help or save. I should
have been strong enough in faith to bear the temptation laid on me, to stay
with her though I burned… .” “So
you may tell your confessor,” said Cadfael firmly, “when you are well enough to
return to Pershore. But you shall, you must shun the presumption of condemning
yourself beyond what he sees as your due. All that you did was done out of care
for her. What as amiss may be judged. What was done well will be approved. If
you had stayed with her, there is no certainty that you could have changed what
befell.” “At
worst I could have died with her,” said Brother Elyas. “But
so you did in essence. Death from violence fell upon you in your loneliness
that same night, as death of cold you had accepted already. And if you were
delivered from both, and find you must suffer still many years of this life,”
said Cadfael, “it is because God willed to have you so survive and so suffer.
Beware of questioning the lot dealt out to you. Say it now, to God and us who hear
you, say that you left her living, and meant to return to her with the morning,
if you lived out the night, and to bring her safely where she would be. What
more was required of you?” “More
courage,” lamented the gaunt mask on the pillow, and wrung out a bitter but
human smile. “All was done and undone as you have said. All was well-meant. God
forgive me what was badly done.” The
lines of his face had softened into humility, the stress of his voice eased
into submission. There was no more he had to remember or confess, everything
was said and understood. Brother Elyas stretched his long body from crown to
imperilled toes, shuddered and collapsed into peace. His very feebleness came
to his aid, he sank without resistance into sleep. The large eyelids expanded,
lines melted from about brow and mouth and deep eye-sockets.
He floated down into a prodigious profound of penitence and forgiveness. “Is
it true?” asked Yves in an awed whisper, as soon as they had closed the door
softly upon Brother Elyas’ sleep. “It
is, surely. A passionate soul, who asks too much of himself, and under-values
what he gives. He braved the frosty night and the blinding snow without his
cloak, rather than sully Sister Hilaria with even the tormented presence of
desire. He will live, he will be reconciled with both his body and his soul. It
takes time,” said Brother Cadfael tolerantly. If
a thirteen-year-old boy understood less than all of this, or understood it only
in the academic way of one instructed in an art never yet practiced, Yves gave
no sign of it. The eyes fixed brightly upon Cadfael’s face were sharply
intelligent. Grateful, reassured and happy, he put the last burden away from
him. “Then
it was the outlaw raiders who found her, after all,” he said, “alone as she
was, after Brother Elyas had left her.” Cadfael
shook his head. “They found and struck down Brother Elyas, as I think it was
their way to kill any who by chance encountered them on their forays, and might
bear witness against them. But here—no, I think not. Before dawn followed that
same night they had time to strike at Druel’s farmstead. I do not believe they
went half a mile out of their way to reach the hut. Why should they? They knew
of nothing there for them. And besides, they would not have troubled to move
her body elsewhere, and the good gowns they would have taken with them. No,
someone came by the hut because it was on his way, and entered it, I fancy,
because the blizzard was at its height, and he thought fit to shelter through
the worst of it.” “Then
it could have been anyone,” said Yves, indignant and dismayed at the affront to
justice, “and we may never know.” It
was in Cadfael’s mind then that there was already one person who knew, and the
morrow would see it put to the proof. But he did not say so. “Well, at least,”
he said instead, “you need have no more anxiety for Brother Elyas. He is as
good as shriven, and he will live and thrive, and do honor to our
order. And if you are not sleepy again yet, you may sit with him for a while.
He claimed you for his boy in a good hour, and you may be his serviceable boy
still, while you are here.” Ermina
was sitting by the hall fire, still stitching relentlessly at a sleeve of the
gown. Working against time, thought Cadfael, when she looked up only briefly,
and at once returned to labor unaccustomed and uncongenial. She gave him a
smile, but it was a grave and shadowy one. “All
is well with Yves,” said Cadfael simply. “He was fretting over words Brother
Elyas spoke in his sleep, that seemed to be confession of murder, but were no
such thing.” He told her the whole of it. Why not? She was becoming a woman
before his eyes, fettered by responsibilities suddenly realized and heroically
accepted. “There is nothing weighing on his heart now, except the fear that the
true murderer may go undiscovered.” “He
need not fear,” said Ermina, and looked up and smiled, a different smile, at
once secretive and confiding. “God’s justice must be infallible, it would be
sin to doubt it.” “At
least,” said Cadfael noncommittally, “he will be ready and willing to go with
you now. Even eager. Your Olivier has a worshipper who would follow him to the
world’s end.” The
bright, proud stare of her eyes came up to him sharply, the firelight waking
sparks of deep red in the depths. “He has two,” she said. “When
is it to be?” “How
did you know?” she asked, with a little curiosity but no surprise or
consternation. “Would
such a man leave his work unfinished, and let another send home, however
gallantly, the charges he was sent to find? Of course he means to complete the
task himself. What else?” “You
will not stand in his way?” But she waved that aside with the hand that held
the needle. “Pardon! I know you will not. You have seen him now, you know how
to recognize a man! He sent me word by Yves. He will come tomorrow, about
Compline, when the household makes ready for bed.” Cadfael
thought it over, and said judicially: “I would leave departure
until the brothers rise for Matins and Lauds, there will then be no porter on
the gate, he will be in church with the rest. And no further stir until Prime.
You and the boy could sleep some hours before riding. And if he comes during
Compline, I can bring him within until time to leave. If you will trust me with
the charge?” “And
thank you for it,” she said without hesitation. “We will do as you advise.” “And
you,” said Brother Cadfael, watching her seam lengthen with fierce stitch after
stitch, “will you be as ready as Yves to leave this place by tomorrow’s
midnight?” She
looked up yet again, without haste or concealment, but without confiding,
either, and the sinking firelight caught the red glow again in her eyes, while
her face was a pure mask. “Yes, I shall be ready,” she said, and glanced down
at the sewing in her lap before she added: “My work here will be done.” Chapter Fifteen THE
NIGHT WAS CLEAR, STARRY AND STILL, barely on the edge of frost. The sun emerged
with dawn, and for the second night there had been no fresh snow. The drifts
dwindled, even before the slow, quiet thaw set in, the kind of thaw that clears
paths by gradual, almost stealthy erosion, and causes no floods. Hugh
Beringar had got back late in the evening, after overseeing the total
destruction of what the fire had left, and the removal of a startling
collection of plunder. The clutter of lean-to cells along the stockade had
yielded up the remains of two murdered prisoners, tortured until they
surrendered whatever they had of value, and three more still alive after the
same treatment. They were being nursed in Ludlow, where Josce de Dinan had
secured the survivors of the garrison in chains. Of the attacking force, there
were some eighteen wounded, many more with minor grazes, but none dead. It
might have been a deal more costly. Prior
Leonard strode radiantly about his court in the chill but brilliant sunlight,
glittering with relief that his region was delivered from a pestilence, the
missing pair safe within his walls, and Brother Elyas mute with wonder and
grace in his bed, and bent upon life, whether blissful or baleful. He looked up
with clear, patient eyes now, and took exhortation and reproof
alike with humility and gladness. His mind was whole, his body would not be
long in following. Not
long after High Mass the claimants began to come in to look for their horses,
as doubtless they were flocking to Ludlow to pick out their own cows and sheep.
Some, no doubt, would be claimed by more than one, and give rise to great
quarrels and the calling in of neighbors to identify the disputed stock. But
here there were only a handful of horses, and little ground for the opportunist
greed of the cunning. Horses know their owners as well as the owners know their
horses. Even the cows in Ludlow would have plenty to say about where they
belonged. John
Druel was among the first to come, having walked all the way from Cleeton, and
he had no need to urge his ownership, for the stout brown mountain cob strained
and cried after him as soon as he showed his face in the stable-yard, and their
meeting was an embrace. The cob blew sweetly in John’s ear, and John hugged him
about the neck, looked him over from head to hocks, and wept on his cheek. The
cob was his only horse, worth a fortune to him. Yves had seen him come, and ran
to tell Ermina, and the pair of them came flying to greet him and force on him
such favors as they still had about them to give. A
wife from Whitbache came to claim her dead husband’s mare. A thin, grave boy
from the same manor came in shyly and humbly to call a solid work-horse of hill
stock, and it went to him hesitantly, wanting his sire, but acknowledged the
child of the same blood with a human sigh. Not
until dinner was over in the refectory, and Brother Cadfael emerged again into
the midday sparkle of sun on snow, did Evrard Boterel ride in at the gatehouse,
dismount, and look round him for someone to whom he might most properly address
himself. He was still somewhat pale and lean from his fever, but much recovered
in the vigor of his movement and the clarity of his eye, and he stood with
reared head and imperious stare, even frowning a little that no groom ran at
once to take his bridle. A fine figure of a young man, fair as his horse’s
mane, and well aware of his handsome appearance and his dominant nobility. Such
comeliness might well take any young woman’s fancy. What did a young
fellow with these advantages have to do to lose his hold? Reality, Ermina had
said, had rudely invaded her idyllic fantasy. Well! But was that enough? Prior
Leonard, all goodwill, came beaming down the court with his gangling stride, to
greet the visitor civilly, and conduct him into the stable-yard. One of Hugh’s
men, seeing the saddled horse untended, and being himself at leisure, came to
take the bridle, and Boterel relinquished his mount as to a servant, without a
further glance, and went with the prior. He
had come alone. If he had indeed a stolen horse to reclaim, he must take him
home on a leading rein. Brother
Cadfael looked round at the guest-hall, very thoughtfully, and saw Ermina in
her peasant gown come forth from the doorway and cross to the church, rapid and
light, and bearing something rolled up beneath her arm. The dark arch of the
porch swallowed her, as the walled enclosure of the stables had swallowed her
sometime suitor. Yves would certainly be sitting now with Brother Elyas, his
jealously guarded protйgй and patient, on whom he waited with proprietorial
zeal. Out of sight and out of peril. No arrows loosed here could strike at him.
Without
haste, Cadfael stepped out into the cleared court and crossed towards the church,
but tempered his going so judiciously that his path converged upon that by
which Evrard Boterel and Hugh together emerged from the stables and made for
the gatehouse. They, too, were taking their time, and Evrard was sunning into
vivacity and smiles; the deputy sheriff was a study worth cultivating. Behind
them a lay groom led a fine bay mare, chestnut-maned. Cadfael
reached the spot where their paths would cross, and there halted before the
open, dim doorway of the church, so that they, too, came naturally to a halt.
Boterel recognized the brother who had dressed his wound once in the manor of
Ledwyche, and made gracious acknowledgment. “I
trust I see you fully restored to health,” said Cadfael civilly. His eyes was
on Hugh, curious to see if he had taken note of the waiting horse, which the
man-at-arms was walking to and from about the court with an admiring eye on his
gait and a gentling hand on his neck. There was not much escaped Beringar’s
eye, but his face gave away nothing of his thoughts. Cadfael’s
thumbs pricked. He had no part to play here, on the face of it, yet his
instinct drew him into a complex affair as yet only partly understood. “I
thank you, brother, I am indeed mending, if not mended,” said Evrard buoyantly.
“Little
enough to thank me for,” said Cadfael. “But have you yet thanked God? It would
be a fair return for mercies, from one preserved in life and limb, and in
recovery of so fine a property as this mare of yours. After coils and cruelties
in which so many have died, honest men and innocent virgins.” He was facing the
open door to the church, he caught the dark quiver of movement within, that
froze again into stillness. “For grace, come within now, and say a prayer for
those less fortunate—even the one we have coffined here, ready for burial.” He
feared he had said too much, and was relieved to see Boterel confident and
unshaken, turning towards the doorway with the light smile of one humoring a
well-meaning churchman by consenting to a harmless gesture without
significance. “Very
willingly, brother!” Why not? There had been dead left behind to the care of
these or others in every rogue raid from Clee, small wonder if one of the last
of them lay here newly coffined. He stepped jauntily up the stone stair and
into the dim, cold nave, Cadfael close at his shoulder. Hugh Beringar, dark
brows drawn down, followed as far as the threshold, and there stood astride,
closing the way back. The
radiance of the sunlit snow fell behind them, turning them momentarily
half-blind. The great, cold, twilit bulk enclosed them, the lamp on the high
altar made an eye of fire ahead, very small and distant, and the only other
light within was from the narrow windows, which laid pale bars across the tiles
of the floor. The
red eye of the lamp went out suddenly. She must have come quite rapidly the few
yards from the mortuary chapel to stand between, but in the brief darkness her
movements had been silent and invisible. She came forward in a sweeping, hushed
glide, advancing upon Evrard Boterel with hand extended, as in vain entreaty
that turned abruptly into a stabbing accusation. He hardly knew what caused the
dim air to vibrate until she surged into the first pallid bar
of light, veil and cowl drawn close about her face, a slender Benedictine nun
in a habit crumpled and soiled from the straw of the hut, the right breast and
shoulder clotted and stiffened into a rusty blot of congealed blood. Then pale
grey light took her and showed every seamed fold, even the smears that marred
her sleeve, as she had fought him and ripped his young wound open again while
he lay upon her. She never made a sound, only flew towards him silently along
the tiles of the floor. He
gave a great lurch backwards into Brother Cadfael’s shoulder, and uttered a
muffled moan of terror, whipping up a hand to cross his body against the
unbelievable assault. Under the close-drawn hood great eyes blazed at him, and
still she came on. “No—no!
Keep from me! You are dead…” It
was only a strangled whisper in his throat, as her voice might have been
quenched under his hands; but Cadfael heard it. And it was enough, even though
Evrard had gathered himself the next moment, and braced himself to stand his
ground, stiffening almost breast to breast with her as she stepped into the
light and became flesh, tangible and vulnerable. “What
fool’s play is this? Do you shelter madwomen here? Who is this creature?” She
flung back the cowl from her head and dragged off the wimple, shaking out her
great burden of black hair over the befouled breast of Sister Hilaria’s gown,
and showed him the fierce, marble face and burning eyes of Ermina Hugonin. He
was as little prepared for that apparition as for the other. Perhaps he had
been thinking her safely dead somewhere under the forest drifts, since he had received
no news of her. Perhaps he had concluded that he had nothing now to fear from
anything she might have to urge against him, at least not in this world, and he
had little consideration for any other. He gave back one hasty step before her,
but could give no more, because Cadfael and Hugh stood one on either side
between him and the open door. But he gathered himself together gallantly, and
faced her with a hurt, bewildered countenance, appealing against inexplicable
ill-usage. “Ermina!
What can this mean? If you live, why have you not sent me
word? What is this you are trying to do to me? Have I deserved it? Surely you
know I have been wearing out myself and all my household, searching for you?” “I
know it,” she said, in a voice small and hard, cold as the ice that had
prisoned and preserved Sister Hilaria. “And if you had found me, and no other
by, I should have gone the same way my dearest friend went, since you knew by
then you would never get me to wed you. Married or buried, there was no third way
for me, else I could tell all too much for your comfort and honor. And I have
never said one word here to bring you to account, never a word for myself,
since I brought it on myself, and was as much to blame as you. But knowing what
I know now, and for her—Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times, I accuse you,
murderer, ravisher, I name you, Evrard Boterel, as the killer of my sweet
Hilaria…” “You
are out of your wits!” he cried, riding indignantly over her accusation. “Who
is this woman you speak of? What do I know of any such person? Since the day
you left me I’ve lain in fever and sickness. All my household will say so…” “Oh,
no! On, no! Not that night! You rode out after me, to recover me for your
honor’s sake, to silence me, either by marriage or murder. Never deny it! I saw
you ride! You think I was fool enough to believe I could outrun you on foot? Or
terrified enough to lose my wits and run like a fool hare, zigzag, leaving
tracks plain for you? I laid my traces no further than the trees, towards the
Ludlow road where you would expect me to run, and made my way back roundabout
to hide half the night among the timber you had stacked for your coward
defenses. I saw you go, Evrard, and I saw you return, with your wound
fresh-broken and bloodied on you. I did not run until you were helped within to
your bed and the worst of the blizzard over, and I knew I could run at my own
pace, with the dawn barely an hour away. And while I was hiding from you, you
killed her!” she wrung out, burning up like a bitter fire of thorns. “On your
way back from a fruitless hunt, you found a lone woman, and took your revenge
for what I did to you, and all that you could not do to me. We killed her!”
cried Ermina. “You and I between us! I am as guilty as you!” “What are you saying?” He had called up a
little courage, a little confidence. If she raved, he would have become
soothing, solicitous, sure of himself, and even in her cold assurance he could
find a foothold for his own. “Certainly I rode out to look for you, how could I
leave you to die in the frost? I had a fall, weak from my wound as I was, and
broke it open again and bled—yes, that is truth. But the rest? I hunted you all
that night, as long as I could endure, and never did I halt in my search for
you. If I came back empty-handed and bleeding, do you accuse me of that? I know
nothing of this woman you speak of…” “Nothing?”
said Cadfael at his shoulder. “Nothing of a shepherd’s hut close to the track
you would be riding, back from the Ludlow road towards Ledwyche? I know, for
I’ve ridden in the opposite way. Nothing of a young nun asleep in the hay
there, wrapped in a good man’s cloak? Nothing of a freezing brook handy on your
way home, afterwards? It was not a fall that ripped your wound open again, it
was the doughty fight she made for her honor in the cold night, where you had
out your fury and lust upon her for want of another prey, more profitable to
your ambitions. Nothing of the cloaks and habit hidden under the straw, to cast
the crime on those guilty of everything else that cried to heaven here?
Everything but this!” The
cold, pale light cast all shapes into marble, the shadows withdrew and left
them stark. It was not long past noon of a sunlit day without. It was
moon-chill and white here within. Ermina stood like a carving in stone, staring
now in silence upon the three men before her. She had done what she had to do. “This
is folly,” said Evrard Boterel arduously, as against great odds. “I rode out
swathed, after the wounds I got in the storming of Callowleas, I rode back home
bleeding through my bindings, what of that? A freezing night of blizzard and
snow, and I had taken a fall. But this woman, this nun—the shepherd’s hut—these
mean nothing to me, I never was there, I do not even know where it is…” “I
have been there,” said Brother Cadfael, “and found in the snow the droppings of
a horse. A tall horse, that left a fistful of his mane roven in the rough
boards under the eaves. Here it is!” He had the wavy
cream-colored strands in his hand. “Shall I match them with your gelding, there
without? Shall we stretch you over the habit you see before you, and match your
wound with the blood that soils it? Sister Hilaria did not bleed. Your wound I
have seen, and know.” Evrard
hung for one long moment motionless, drawn up tall like a strung doll between
the woman before him and the men behind. Then he shrank and sank, with a long,
despairing moan, and collapsed on his knees on the tiles of the nave, fists
clutched hard to his heart, and fair hair fallen forward over his face, the
palest point in the bar of light where he kneeled. “Oh,
God forgive, God forgive… I only meant to hush her, not to kill… not to kill…” “And
it may even be true,” said Ermina sitting hunched and stiff by the fire in the
hall, the storm of her tears past, and nothing left but a great weariness. “He
may not have meant to kill. What he says may be sooth.” What
he had said, bestirring himself out of despair to make the best case he could
for his life, was that he had turned for home again from his search by reason
of the blizzard, and been driven to take shelter through the worst of it when
he came to the hut, never thinking to find anyone there before him. But
presented with a sleeping woman at his mercy, he had taken her out of spite and
rage against all women for Ermina’s sake. And when she awoke and fought him, he
owned he had not been gentle. But he never meant to kill! Only to silence her,
with the skirts of her habit pressed over her face. And then she lay limp and
lifeless, and he could not revive her, and he stripped the gown from her, and
hid all the garments under the straw, and took her with him as far as the
brook, to make of her merely one more victim of the outlaws who had sacked
Callowleas. “Where
he first came by that eloquent wound,” said Brother Cadfael, watching her pale
face, and marking the convulsion of a bitter smile, that came and went like a
grimace of pain on her mouth. “I
know—so he told you! And I let it stand! In gallant defense of his manor and
his men! I tell you, he never drew sword, he left his people
to be slaughtered, and ran like a rat. And forced me with him! No man of my
blood ever before turned his back and abandoned his own people to die! This he
did to me, and I cannot forgive it. And I had thought I loved him! I will tell
you,” she said, “how he got that wound of his that betrayed him in the end. All
that first day at Ledwyche he drove his men at cutting fence-pales and building
barricades, and he with never a scratch on him. And all that day I brooded and
was shamed, and in the evening, when he came, I told him I would not marry him,
that I would not match with a coward. He had not touched me until then, he had
been all duty and service, but when he saw he would lose both me and my lands,
then it was another story.” Cadfael
understood. Marriage by rape, once the thing was done, and privately, would be
accepted by most families as preferable to causing an ugly scandal and starting
a feud. No uncommon practice to take first and marry after. “I
had a dagger,” she said grimly. “I have it still. It was I who wounded him, and
I struck for his heart, but it went astray and ripped down from shoulder to
arm. Well, you have seen…” She looked down at the folded habit that lay beside
her on the bench. “And while he was raving and cursing and dripping blood, and
they were running to staunch his wound and bandage him, I slipped out into the
night and ran. He would follow me, that I knew. He could not afford to let me
escape him, after that, marry or bury were the only ways. He would expect me to
run towards the road and the town. Where else? So I did, but only until the
woods covered my traces, and then I circled back and hid. I told you, I saw him
ride out, weakened as he was, in a great rage, the way I knew he would go.” “Alone?”
“Of
course alone. He would not want witnesses for either rape or murder. Those
within had their orders. And I saw him ride back, freshly bloodied through his
bandages, though I thought nothing of it then but that he had exerted himself
too rashly.” She shuddered at the thought of that exertion. “When he was
cheated of me, he took out his venom on the first woman who fell in his way,
and so avenged himself. For myself I would not have accused him. I had the
better of him, and I had brought it on myself. But what had
she done?” It
was the eternal question, and the one to which there exists no answer. Why do
the innocent suffer? “And
yet,” she said doubtfully, “it may be true what he says. He was not used to
being thwarted, it made him mad… He had a devil’s temper. God forgive me, I
used almost to admire him for it once…” Yes,
it might be true that he had killed without meaning to, and in panic sought to
cover up his deed. Or it might be that he had reasoned coldly that a dead woman
could never accuse him, and made sure of her eternal silence. Let those judge
who were appointed to do the judging, here in this world. “Don’t
tell Yves!” said Ermina. “I will do that, when the time comes. But not here.
Not now!” No,
there was no need to say any word to the boy of the battle that was over.
Evrard Boterel was gone to Ludlow under armed escort, and there was no sign in
the great court that ever a crime had been uncovered. Peace came back to
Bromfield very softly, almost stealthily. In less than half an hour it would be
time for Vespers. “After
supper,” said Cadfael, “you should go to your bed, and get some hours of sleep,
and the boy also. I will keep watch and let your squire in.” He
had chosen his words well. It was like the coming of the thaw outside. She lifted
her face to him like a flower opening, and all the bitter sadness of guilt and
folly regretted melted away and fell from her before such a radiance that
Cadfael’s eyes dazzled. From death and the past she leaned eagerly to life and
the future. He did not think she was making any mistake this time, nor that any
power would now turn her from her allegiance. There
was a small congregation in the parish part of the church even at Compline that
night, a dozen or so goodmen of the district, come to offer devout thanks for
deliverance from terror. Even the weather partook of the general grace, for
there was barely a touch of frost in the air, and the sky was
clear and starry. Not a bad night for setting out on a journey. Cadfael
knew what to look for by now, but for all that it took him a little time to
single out the bowed black head for which he was searching. Marvelous that a
creature so remarkable could become at will so unremarked. When Compline ended,
it was no surprise to count the villagers leaving, and make them one less than
had entered. Olivier could not only look like a local lad when he pleased, he
could also vanish into shadow without a sound, and remain as still as the
stones about him. They
were all gone, the villagers to their homes, the brothers to the warming-room
for half an hour of relaxation before bed. The chill dark bulk of the church
was silent. “Olivier,”
said Brother Cadfael, “come forth and be easy. Your wards are getting their
rest until midnight, and have trusted you to me.” The
shadows stirred, and gave forth the shape of a lean, lissome, youthful body,
instantly advancing to be seen. He had not thought wise or fit to bring his
sword with him into a sacred place. He trod without sound, light as a cat. “You
know me?” “From
her I know you. If the boy promised silence, be content, he has kept his word.
She chose to trust me.” “Then
so can I,” said the young man, and drew nearer. “You have privilege here? For I
see you come and go as you please.” “I
am not a brother of the house, but of Shrewsbury. I have a patient here
mending, my justification for an irregular life. At the battle up there you saw
him—the same distraught soul who marched into peril of his life and gave Yves
the chance to break free.” “I
am much in his debt.” The voice was low, earnest and assured. “And in yours,
too, I think, for you must be the brother to whom the boy ran, the same of whom
he spoke, the one who first brought him safe to this house. The name he gave
you I do not remember.” “My
name is Cadfael. Wait but a moment, till I look out and see if all are within…”
In the sinking glow of torchlight, the last of the evening, the court showed
its pattern of black and white as the paths crossed, empty,
quiet and still. “Come!” said Cadfael. “We can offer you a warmer place to
wait, if not a holier. I advised leaving while the brethren are at Matins and
Lauds, for the porter will also attend, and I can let you out at the wicket in
peace. But your horses?” “They
are handy, and in shelter,” said Olivier serenely. “There is a boy goes with
me, orphaned at Whitbache, he has them in charge. He will wait until we come. I
will go with you, Brother Cadfael.” He tasted the name delicately if
inaccurately, finding it strange on his tongue. He laughed, very softly, surrendering
his hand to be led half-blind wherever his guide wished. Thus hand in hand they
went out by the cloister, and threaded the maze to the infirmary door. In
the inner room Brother Elyas lay monumentally asleep, long, splendid and calm,
stretched on his back, with lean hands easy on his breast, and face serene and
handsome. A tomb-figure carved to flatter and ennoble the dead man beneath, but
this man lived and breathed evenly, and the large, rounded lids over his
sleeping eyes were placid as a child’s. Brother Elyas gathered within him the
grace that healed body and mind, and made no overwheening claim on a guilt
beyond his due. No
need to agonize any more over Brother Elyas. Cadfael closed the door on him,
and sat down in the dim anteroom with his guest. They had, perhaps, as much as
two hours before midnight and Matins. The
small room, bare and stony and lit by only one candle, had a secret intimacy
about it at this late hour. They were quiet together, the young man and the
elder, eyeing each other with open and amiable curiosity. Long silences did not
disturb them, and when they spoke their voices were low, reflective and at
peace. They might have known each other life long. Life long? The one of them
could surely be no more than five or six and twenty, and a stranger from a
strange land. “You
may have a hazardous journey yet,” said Cadfael. “In your shoes I would leave
the highways after Leominster, and avoid Hereford.” He grew enthusiastic, and
went into some detail about the route to be preferred, even drawing a plan of
the ways as he remembered them, with a charcoal stick on the stones of the
floor. The boy leaned and peered, all willing attention, and
looked up into Cadfael’s face at close quarters with a mettlesome lift of the
head and a swift, brilliant smile. Everything about him was stirring and
strange, and yet from time to time Cadfael caught his breath as at a fleeting
glimpse of something familiar, but so long past that the illusion was gone
before he could grasp it, and search back in his memory for the place and the
time where it belonged. “All
this you are doing in pure goodwill,” said Olivier, his smile at once
challenging and amused, “and you know nothing of me! How can you be sure I am
fit to be trusted with this errand, and take no advantage for my lord and my
empress?” “Ah,
but I do know something of you, more than you may think. I know that you are
called Olivier de Bretagne, and that you came with Laurence d’Angers from
Tripoli. I know that you have been in his service six years, and are his most
trusted squire. I know that you were born in Syria, of a Syrian mother and a
Frankish knight, and that you made your way to Jerusalem to join your father’s
people and your father’s faith.” And I know more, he thought, recalling the
girl’s rapt face and devout voice as she praised her paladin. I know that
Ermina Hugonin, who is well worth winning, has set her heart on you, and will
not easily give up, and by that amber stare of yours, and the blood mounting to
your brow, I know that you have set your heart on her, and that you will not
undervalue your own worth by comparison with her, or let any other make it a
barrier between you, no matter in what obscure way you came into this world.
Between the two of you, it would be a bold uncle who would stand in your way. “She
does indeed trust you!” said Olivier, intent and solemn. “So
she may, and so may you. You are here on an honorable quest, and have done well
in it. I am for you, and for them, sister and brother both. I have seen their
mettle and yours.” “But
for all that,” owned Olivier, relaxing into a rueful smile, “she has somewhat
deceived you and herself. For her every Frankish soldier of the Crusade could
be nothing less than a noble knight. And the most of them were none, but
runaway younger sons, romantic boys from the byre and the field, rogues one
leap ahead of the officers for theft or highway robbery or breaking open some
church almsbox. No worse than most other men, but no better.
Not even every lord with a horse and a lance was another Godfrey of Bouillon or
Guimar de Massard. And my father was no knight, but a simple man-at-arms of
Robert of Normandy’s forces. And my mother was a poor widow who had a booth in
the market of Antioch. And I am their bastard, got between faiths between
peoples, a mongrel afterthought before they parted. But for all that, she was
beautiful and loving, and he was brave and kind, and I think myself well
mothered and fathered, and the equal of any man living. And I shall make that
good before Ermina’s kin, and they will acknowledge it and give her to me!” His
deep, soft voice had grown urgent, and his hawk-face passionately earnest, and
at the end of it he drew breath deep, and smiled. “I do not know why I tell you
all this, except that I have seen you care for her, and wish her the future she
deserves. I should like you to think well of me.” “I
am a common man myself,” said Cadfael comfortably, “and have found as good in
the kennel as in the court. She is dead, your mother?” “Else
I would not have left her. I was fourteen years old when she died.” “And
your father?” “I
never knew him, nor he me. He sailed for England from St. Symeon after their
last meeting, and never knew he had left her a son. They had been lovers long
before, when he came fresh to Syria. She never would tell me his name, though
often she praised him. There cannot be much amiss,” said Olivier thoughtfully,
“with a mating that left her such fondness and pride.” “Half
mankind matches without ritual blessing,” said Cadfael, surprised at the
stirring of his own thoughts. “Not necessarily the worse half. At least no
money passes then, and no lands are prized before the woman.” Olivier
looked up, suddenly aware of the oddity of these exchanges, and laughed, but
softly, not to disturb the sleeper next door. “Brother, these walls are hearing
curious confidences, and I am learning how wide is the Benedictine scope. I
might well imagine you speak of your own knowledge.” “I
was in the world forty years,” said Cadfael simply, “before I chose this
discipline for my cure. I have been soldier, sailor and
sinner. Even crusader! At least that was pure, however the cause fell short of
my hopes. I was very young then. I knew both Tripoli and Antioch, once. I knew
Jerusalem. They will all have changed now, that was long ago.” Long
ago, yes—twenty-seven years since he had left those shores! The
young man grew talkative at finding so knowledgeable a companion. For all his
knightly ambitions and his dedication to a new faith, a part of him leaned back
with longing to his native land. He began to talk of the royal city, and of old
campaigns, to question eagerly of events before ever he was born, and to extol
the charm of remembered places. “I
wonder, though,” admitted Cadfael wryly, recalling how far his own cause had
often fallen short, and how often the paynim against whom he had fought had
seemed to him the nobler and the braver, “I wonder, born into such a faith,
that you should find it easy to leave it, even for a father.” He rose as he
spoke, recollecting how time must be passing. “I should be waking them. It
cannot be long to the Matins bell.” “It
was not easy at all,” said Olivier, pondering in some surprise that the same
doubt had so seldom troubled him. “I was torn, a long time. It was from my
mother I had, as it were, the sign that turned the scale. Given the difference
in our tongues, my mother bore the same name as your Lady Mary…” Behind
Cadfael’s back the door of the little room had opened very softly. He turned
his head to see Ermina, flushed and young from sleep, standing in the doorway. “…
she was called Mariam,” said Olivier. “I
have roused Yves,” said Ermina, just above a whisper. “I am ready.” Her
eyes, huge and clear, all the agonizing of the day washed away by sleep, clung
to Olivier’s face, and at the sound of her voice he flung up his head and
answered the look as nakedly as if they had embraced heart to heart. Brother
Cadfael stood amazed and enlightened. It was not the name the boy had spoken,
it was the wild rise of his head, the softened light over his cheek and brow,
the unveiled, unguarded blaze of love, turning the proud male face momentarily
into a woman’s face, one known and remembered through twenty-seven years of
absence. Cadfael turned like a man in a dream, and
left them together, and went to help a sleepy Yves to dress and make ready for
his journey. He
let them out by the wicket door while the brothers were at Matins. The girl
took a grave and dignified leave, and asked his prayers. The boy, still half
asleep, lifted his face for the kiss proper between respected elder and
departing child, and the young man, in generous innocence and in
acknowledgement of a parting probably lifelong, copied the tribute and offered
an olive cheek. He did not wonder at Cadfael’s silence, for after all, the
night demanded silence and discretion. Cadfael
did not stand to watch them go, but closed the wicket again, and went back to
sit beside Brother Elyas, and let the wonder and the triumph wash over him in
wave on wave of exultation. Nunc dimittis! No need to speak, no need to make
any claim, or trouble in any way the course Olivier had set himself. What need
had he now of that father of his? But I have seen him, rejoiced Cadfael, I have
had him by the hand in the darkness, I have sat with him and talked of time
past, I have kissed him, I have had cause to be glad of him, and shall have
cause to be glad lifelong. There is a marvelous creature in the world with my
blood in his veins, and Mariam’s blood, and what does it matter whether these eyes
ever see him again? And yet they may, even in this world! Who knows? The
night passed sweetly over him. He fell asleep where he sat, and dreamed of
unimaginable and undeserved mercies until the bell rang for Prime. He
thought it politic, on reflection, to be the first to discover the defection
and raise the mild alarm. There was a search, but the guests were gone, and it
was not the business of the brothers to confine or pursue them, and the only
anxiety Prior Leonard expressed was for the fugitives themselves, that they
might go in safety, and come safely to their proper guardian. Indeed, Prior
Leonard received the whole affair with a degree of complacency that Cadfael
found faintly suspicious, though it might have been only a reflection of the
distracted elation he himself could not quite dissemble. The discovery that
Ermina had stripped the rings from her fingers and left them,
with the carefully folded habit, on Sister Hilaria’s sealed coffin as an
offering, absolved the runaways from the charge of ingratitude. “But
what the deputy sheriff will say is another matter,” sighed Prior Leonard,
snaking an apprehensive head. Hugh
did not present himself until it was time for High Mass, and heard the news
with a very appropriate and official show of displeasure, only to shrug it off
as of secondary importance, considering the weightier matters he had dealt with
successfully. “Well,
they have saved us an escort, then, and so they get safe to d’Angers, so much
the better if it’s at his expense. We have rooted out that lair of wolves, and
sent a murderer off this morning towards Shrewsbury, and that was the chief of
my business here. And I’m off after my men within the hour, and you may as well
ride with me, Cadfael, for I fancy your business here is just as well concluded
as mine.” Brother
Cadfael thought so, too. Elyas had no more need of him, and to linger where
those three had been had no more meaning now. At noon he saddled up and took
his leave of Leonard and rode with Hugh Beringar for Shrewsbury. The
sky was veiled but benign, the air cold but still and clear, a good day for
going home well content. They had not ridden thus knee to knee in peace and
without haste for some time, and the companionship was good, whether in speech
or silence. “So
you got your children away without a hitch,” said Hugh innocently. “I thought
it could safely be left to you.” Cadfael
gave him a measuring and mildly resentful look, and could feel no great
surprise.”I should have known! I thought you made and kept yourself very scarce
overnight. I suppose it wouldn’t have done for a deputy sheriff with your
reputation for sharpness to sleep the night through while his hostages slipped
away quietly for Gloucester .” Not to speak of their escort, he thought, but
did not say. Hugh had noted the quality of the supposed forester’s son, and
even guessed at his purpose, but Hugh did not know his name and lineage. Some
day, when wars ended and England became one again, some day Hugh might be told
what now Cadfael hugged his heart in secret. But not yet! It
was too new a visitation, he could spare none of the miraculous, the
astonishing grace. “From Ludlow ,” he said, “I grant you could hardly be
expected to hear the wicket at Bromfield open and close at midnight. You did
not leave Boterel in Dinan’s care, then?” “I
was none too sure there would not be another departure in the night,” said
Hugh. “He is Dinan’s tenant. We have taken confession from him, but I would
rather have him safe under lock and key in Shrewsbury castle.” “Will
he hang, do you think?” “I
doubt it. Let those judge whose work is judging. My work is to hold the ways
safe for travellers, as far as man can, and apprehend murderers. And let honest
men, women and children go their ways freely, with my goodwill.” They
were more than halfway to Shrewsbury and the light still good, and Hugh’s pace
began to quicken, and his gaze to prick eagerly ahead, hungry for the first
sight of the hill-top towers within the wall. Aline would be waiting for him,
proud and fond, and deep in happy preparations for the Christmas feast. “My
son will be grown out of knowledge during these days I’ve been away. All must
be very well with them both, or Constance would have been sending after me. And
you have not even seen my son yet, Cadfael!” But
you have seen mine, thought Cadfael, rapt and silent beside him, though you do
not know it. “Long-boned
and strong—he’ll be taller than his father by a head…” He
is taller by a head, Cadfael exulted. Taller by a head and something to spare.
And what paragons of beauty and gallantry may not spring from his union with
that imperial girl! “Wait
until you see him! A son to be proud of!” Cadfael
road mute and content, still full of the wonder and astonishment, all elation
and all humility. Eleven more days to the Christmas feast, and no shadow
hanging over it now, only a great light. A time of births, of triumphant
begettings, and this year how richly celebrated—the son of the young woman from
Worcester, the son of Aline and Hugh, the son of Mariam, the Son of Man… A
son to be proud of! Yes, amen! About
the Author ELLIS PETERS is
the nom-de-crime of English novelist Edith Pargeter, author of scores of
books under her own name. She is the recipient of the Silver Dagger Award,
conferred by the Crime Writers Association in Britain, as well as the coveted
Edgar, awarded by the Mystery Writers of America. Miss Pargeter is also well
known as a translator of poetry and prose from the Czech and has been awarded
the Gold Medal and Ribbon of the Czechoslovak Society for Foreign Relations for
her services to Czech literature. She passed away in 1995, at the age of 82, at
home in her beloved Shropshire. The Virgin in the Ice The winter of 1139 will disrupt Brother Cadfael’s tranquil life in
Shrewsbury with the most disturbing of events. Raging civil war has sent
refugees fleeing north from Worcester. Among them are two orphans from a noble
family, a boy of thirteen and an eighteen-year-old girl of great beauty, and
their companion, a young Benedictine nun. But the trio, never reaching
Shrewsbury, have disappeared somewhere in the wild countryside. Cadfael feels
afraid for these three lost lambs, but another call for help sends him to the
church of Saint Mary. A wounded monk, found naked and bleeding at the roadside,
will surely die without Cadfael’s healing arts. Why this holy man has been
attacked and what his fevered ravings reveal soon give Brother Cadfael a clue
to the fate of the missing travelers. Now Cadfael sets out on a dangerous quest
to find them. The road will lead him to a chill and terrible murder and a tale
of passion gone awry. And at journey’s end awaits a vision of what is best and
worst in humankind. The Sixth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael,
of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury By Ellis Peters IT
WAS EARLY IN NOVEMBER of 1139 that the tide of civil war, lately so sluggish
and inactive, rose suddenly to sweep over the city of Worcester, wash away half
its livestock, property and women, and send all those of its inhabitants who
could get away in time scurrying for their lives northwards away from the
marauders, to burrow into hiding wherever there was manor or priory, walled
town or castle strong enough to afford them shelter. By the middle of the month
a straggle of them had reached Shrewsbury, and subsided thankfully into the
hospitable embrace of monastery or town, to lick their wounds and pour out
their grievances. They
were not in too bad case, apart from the old or sick, for the winter had not
yet begun to bite hard. The weather-wise foretold that there was bitter cold in
store, heavy snows and hard and prolonged frosts, but as yet the land lay dour,
cloudy and mild, with capricious winds, but clear of frost or snow. “Thanks
be to God!” said Brother Edmund, the infirmarer, devoutly. “Or we should have
had more burials on our hands than three, and they all past their three score
and ten.” Even
so, he was hard put to it to find beds in his hospice for all those who needed
them, and there was thick straw laid down in the stone hall for the overflow.
They would live to return to their spoiled city before the Christmas feast, but now, exhausted and apathetic with shock, they needed all his care,
and the abbey’s resources were stretched to their limits. A few fugitives with
distant relatives in the town had been taken into the houses of their kin, and
were warmly provided. A pregnant woman near her time had been taken, husband
and all, into the town house of Hugh Beringar, the deputy sheriff of the shire,
at the insistence of his wife, whom he had brought here to the security of the
town, complete with her women, midwife, physician and all, because she, too,
looked forward to giving birth before the Nativity, and had a welcome for any
who came in the same expectation, and in any kind of need. “Our
Lady,” remarked Brother Cadfael ruefully to his good friend Hugh, “had no such
reception.” “Ah,
there is but one of my lady! Aline would take in every homeless dog she saw in
the streets, if she could. This poor girl from Worcester will do well enough
now, there’s nothing amiss with her that rest won’t mend. We may yet have two
births here for this Christmas, for she can’t well be moved until she’s safely
over her lying-in. But I daresay most of your guests will soon be shrugging off
their fears and heading for home.” “A
few have left already,” said Cadfael, “and more of the hale ones will be off
within days. It’s natural they should want to get home and repair what they
can. They say the king is on his way to Worcester with a strong force. If he
leaves the garrison better found, they should be safe over the winter. Though
they’ll need to draw stores from eastwards, for their own reserves will all
have been carried off.” Cadfael
knew from old experience the look, the stench, the desolation of a gutted town,
having been both soldier and sailor in his young days, and seen service far afield.
“And besides wanting to reclaim what’s left of their store before Christmas,”
he said, “there’s the spur of the winter coming. If the roads are cleared of
bad customs now, at least they can travel dry-shod and warm enough, but another
month, another week it may be, and who knows how deep the snow will be?” “Whether
the roads are cleared of bad customs,” said Beringar in wary reflection, “is
more than I should care to say. We have a pretty firm hold here
in Shropshire —thus far! But there’s ominous word from east and north, besides
this uneasiness along the border. When the king is all too busy in the south,
and his mind on where his Flemings’ next pay is to come from, and his energy
mostly wasted in wavering from one target to another, ambitious men in remoter
parts are liable to begin to spread their honors into palatines, and set up
kingdoms of their own. And given the example, the lesser fry will follow it.” “In
a land at war with itself,” agreed Cadfael sombrely, “you may take it as
certain that order breaks down, and savagery breaks out.” “Not
here, it shall not,” said Hugh grimly. “Prestcote has kept a close rein, and in
so far as it falls to me as his man, so will I.” For Gilbert Prestcote, King
Stephen’s sheriff of Shropshire, was planning to keep Christmas in the chief
manor of his own honor, in the north of the county, and the castle garrison and
the rule of law throughout the southern half of the shire would be left in
Beringar’s hands. This attack on Worcester might be only a foretaste of further
such raids. All the border towns were at risk, as well from the precarious
loyalties of constables and garrisons as from the enterprise of the enemy. More
than one lord in this troubled land had already changed his allegiance, more
than one would do so in the future, some, perhaps, for the second or third
time. Churchmen, barons and all, they were beginning to look first to their own
interests, and place their loyalty where it seemed likely to bring them the
greater profit. And it would not be long before some of them came to the
conclusion that their interests could be served just as well by flouting both
contendants for the crown, and setting up on their own account. “There
was some talk of your castellan in Ludlow being none too reliable,” observed
Cadfael. “For all King Stephen set him up in the honor of Lacy, and trusted
Ludlow castle to him, there have been rumors he was casting his eyes toward the
empress. Touch and go with him, as I heard it, if the king had not been close
and with a sharp eye on him.” Anything
Cadfael had heard, Hugh had certainly heard. There was not a sheriff in the
land who had not all his intelligencers alerted, these days, and
his own ear to the ground. If Josce de Dinan, in Ludlow, had indeed been
contemplating defection, and thought better of it, Hugh was content to accept
his present steadfastness, but with reservations, and was watching him still.
Distrust was only one of the lesser horrors of civil war, but saddening enough.
It was well that there could still be absolute trust between tried friends. In
these days there was no man living who might not suddenly have acute need of a
steady and stout back braced against his own. “Ah,
well, with King Stephen on his way to Worcester with an army, no one is going
to lift finger or show face until he draws off again. But for all that, I never
stop listening and watching.” Hugh rose from the bench against the wall of
Cadfael’s workshop, brief refuge from the world. “Now I am going home to my own
bed, for once—even if I am banished from my wife’s by my own arrogant brat. But
what would a devout religious like you know about a father’s tribulations!” What,
indeed? “You must all come to it,” said Brother Cadfael complacently, “you
married men. Third and unwanted where two are lost in admiring each other. I
shall go to Compline and say a prayer for you.” He
went first, however, to the infirmary, to check with Brother Edmund on one or
two patients who were slow in their recovery from their wanderings, being
feeble from age or poverty and hunger, and renew the dressing on a knife-wound
which was ill to heal, and only then went to Compline, there to pray for many
more, besides his friend, his friend’s wife, and his friend’s child to come,
this winter child. England
was already frozen into a winter years long, and he knew it. King Stephen was
crowned, and held, however slackly, most of England. The Empress Maud, his
rival for the throne, held the west, and came with a claim the equal of
Stephen’s. Cousins, most uncousinly, they tore each other and tore England
between them, and yet life must go on, faith must go on, the stubborn defiance
of fortune must go on in the husbandry of the year, season after season, plough
and harrow and seed, tillage and harvest. And here in the cloister and the
church, the sowing and tillage and harvest of souls. Brother Cadfael had no
fear for mankind, whatever became of mere men. Hugh’s child
would be a new generation, a new beginning, a new affirmation, spring in
midwinter. It
was on the last day of November that Brother Herward, sub-prior of the
Benedictine monastery of Worcester, appeared at chapter in the fraternal house
of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Shrewsbury, where he had arrived the previous
night, and been entertained in Abbot Radulfus’ own lodging as a cherished
guest. Most of the brothers had no knowledge of his coming, and wondered who
this could be, brought in courteously by their own abbot, and seated at his
right hand. For once Brother Cadfael knew no more than his fellows. The
abbot and his guest made a sharp contrast. Radulfus was tall, erect, vigorous,
with strong, austere features, magisterially calm. When needed, he could blaze,
and those scorched drew back advisedly, but his fire was always in control. The
man who entered beside him was meager, small and slight of body, grey of
tonsure, still tired after his journey, but his ageing eyes were direct of
gaze, and his mouth set into lines of patience and endurance. “Our
brother, Sub-Prior Herward of Worcester,” said the abbot, “has come to us with
an errand in which I have been unable to help him. Since many of you here have
been active in serving those unfortunates who came to us from that city, it is
possible that you may have heard from them something which may be to the
purpose. I have therefore asked him to repeat his request here to all.” The
visitor rose, to be better seen and heard by all present. “I am sent to make
enquiry after two noble children who were in Benedictine care in our town, and
fled from it when the attack fell upon us. They have not returned, and we have
traced their steps as far as the borders of this county and there lost them. It
was their intention to make for Shrewsbury, and therefore, since our order is
responsible for them, I came to find out whether they ever reached here. Father
Abbot tells me that to his knowledge they never did, but it may be that some
others among the fugitives may have seen them or got word of them in their
travels, and spoken of them here among you. I should be grateful for any news that
might lead to their safe recovery. And these are their names: the
girl Ermina Hugonin, almost eighteen years of age, who was in the care of our
sister convent in Worcester, and her brother Yves Hugonin, who was in our
charge, and is only thirteen. They are orphaned of both parents, and their
uncle and natural guardian has long been overseas in the Holy Land, and is only
now returned, to be met by the news of their loss. It will be understood here,”
said Brother Herward wryly, “that we feel ourselves greatly to blame for having
failed in our charge, though to say truth, we are not wholly at fault. As this
thing befell, it was taken out of our hands.” “In
such confusion and peril,” agreed Radulfus ruefully, “it would be much to ask
of any man that he should order all successfully. But children of such tender
age…” Brother
Edmund asked hesitantly: “Are we to understand that they left Worcester alone?”
He had not meant to sound either incredulous or censorious, but Brother Herward
bowed his head meekly to the implied reproach. “I
would not wish to excuse myself or any of my house. Yet it fell out, perhaps,
not quite as you suppose. That attack came in the early morning, but on the
south side it was held, and we did not hear how grave it showed, or how great the
force coming against us, until later, when they came about, and broke in by the
north. It so happened that the boy Yves was visiting his sister, and they were
quite cut off from us. The Lady Ermina is, dare I say, a headstrong young
woman. In such a case, though the sisters thought best to gather in their
church and abide the issue there, trusting that even these marauders—for I must
tell you many were already drunk and wild—would respect their cloth, and do
them no more harm than to steal, perhaps, their more valuable furnishings—the
sisters, I say, held that faith required them to remain, but the Lady Ermina
thought otherwise, and would slip away out of the town, as so many did, and
make away into some safe and distant refuge. And since she would not be
dissuaded, and her brother held with her, the young nun who was her tutor there
offered that she would go with them, to see them safe into shelter. When all
the raiders were gone, and we had put out the fires, and seen to the dead and
wounded, only then did we get word that they had escaped out of the city and
intended to reach Shrewsbury. They were well provided, though
without horses, since all were seized at sight. The girl had her jewels, and
store of money, and wit enough not to let them be seen on the way. And sorry I
am to say it, it was well that she would go, for these men of Gloucester did
not respect the sisters as they had hoped and trusted, but ravaged and burned,
stole away some, the youngest and best-favored among the novices, and bitterly misused
the prioress who tried to prevent. The girl did well to venture, and I pray she
and her brother, and Sister Hilaria with them, are safe in shelter somewhere
this moment. But alas, I do not know.” Brother
Denis the hospitaller, who knew every soul who came within the gates, said
regretfully: “I grieve to have to tell you, but quite surely they never arrived
here. We have had no such party. But come with me and speak with every fugitive
we are still sheltering here in the guest-hall, and the few in the infirmary,
in case they can tell you anything of use. For of course we knew nothing of
these young people until now, and therefore have not asked about them.” “Or
again it may be,” suggested Brother Matthew the cellarer, “that they knew of
some kinsman or tenant or old servant here in the town, and therefore have
passed us by, and are now within the walls.” “It
is possible,” agreed Herward, brightening a little. “But I think Sister Hilaria
would prefer to bring them here, to our own order for protection.” “If
there are none here who can help,” said the abbot briskly, “the next move is
certainly to consult the sheriff. He will know who has been received within the
town. You did mention, brother, that the uncle of this young pair is newly come
home from Palestine. There are channels he may use to approach the authorities
here. How is it that he is not pursuing this enquiry in person? For surely he
cannot cast the blame all on you.” Brother
Herward heaved a great sigh that first stiffened his little frame, and then let
it collapse dispiritedly into limpness. “The uncle is a knight of Angevin
blood—they are his sister’s children—by name Laurence d’Angers. Newly home from
the Crusade he is, but to Gloucester, to join the forces of the empress. It is
also true that he did not arrive there until after this
onslaught, and bears no blame for it, as he took no part in it. But no man from
Gloucester dare show his face now in our city. The king is there with a great
force, and an angry man, like every ruined burgess of the town. The search for
these children is deputed to our house, perforce. Nevertheless, this is a quest
for creatures absolutely innocent, and I shall so present it to the sheriff.” “And
you shall have my voice,” Radulfus assured him. “But first, since none here can
provide us news…?” He looked inquiringly round the chapterhouse, and found only
shaken heads. “Very well, we must inquire among our guests. The names, the
youth of the parties, the presence of the nun, may yield us some useful word.” Nevertheless,
Cadfael, filing out from chapter among the rest, could not believe that
anything would come of such inquiry. He had spent much of his time, in recent
days, helping Brother Edmund house and doctor the exhausted travellers, and
never a word had been said of any such trio encountered on the way. Travellers’
tales enough there had been, freely spilled for the listening, but none of a
Benedictine sister and two noble children loose on the roads with never a man
to guard them. And
the uncle, it seemed, was the empress’s man, as Gilbert Prestcote was the
king’s man, to the hilt and bitterness between the factions was flaring up like
a torch in tinder over the sack of Worcester. The omens were not good. Abbot
Radulfus would lend his own persuasions to the envoy’s, and this very day, too,
but what countenance the two of them would get for Laurence d’Angers was a
dubious speculation. The
sheriff received his petitioners courteously and gravely in his own apartment
in the castle, and listened with an impassive face to the story Herward had to
tell. A sombre man, black-browed and black-bearded, and his natural cast of
countenance rather forbidding than reassuring, but for all that a fair-minded
man in his stern fashion, and one who stood by his word and his men, provided
they kept the standards he demanded of them. “I am sorry,” he said when Herward
had done, “to hear of this loss, and sorrier still that I must
tell you at once you will be seeking your party in vain here in Shrewsbury.
Since this attack took place I have had word brought to me of every soul from
Worcester who has entered the town, and these three are not among them. Many
have already left again for home, now that his Grace has reinforced the
garrison in Worcester. If, as you say, the uncle of these children has now
returned to England, and is a man of substance, can he not undertake the search
in person?” It
was Herward’s weakness that he had withheld, up to that point, all but the name
of that nobleman, putting off the evil moment. And as yet the name meant
nothing, beyond a knight with the credit or the Crusade shedding lustre upon
him, newly arrived from the Holy Land, where a relatively secure peace held at
this time. But no help for it, the truth would out. “My
lord,” owned Herward, sighing, “Laurence d’Angers is willing and anxious to
make search for his nephew and niece, but for that he requires your
countenance, or the special dispensation of his Grace the king. For he returned
home as an Angevin owing allegiance to the Empress Maud, and had attached
himself and his men to her forces at Gloucester.” He hurried on, to have all
said while speech was allowed him, for the sheriff’s level brows had drawn
together into a steely bar above eyes now narrowed and bright in understanding.
“He had not arrived in Gloucester until a week after the attack, he took no
part in it, knew nothing of it, cannot be held responsible for it. He came only
to discover that his kin were lost, and all his desire is to find them and see
them into safety. But it is impossible for a man of Gloucester to come near
Worcester now, or to enter the king’s lands except by special safe-conduct.” “So
you,” said Prestcote after a daunting pause, “are acting on his behalf—the
king’s enemy.” “With
respect, my lord,” said Herward with spirit, “I am acting on behalf of a young
girl and a boy of tender years, who have done nothing to make them enemies to
king or empress. I am not concerned with faction, only with the fate of two
children who were in the charge of our order until this evil
befell. Is it not natural that we should feel responsible for them, and do all
we can in conscience to find them?” “Natural
enough,” allowed the sheriff dryly, “and moreover, as a man of Worcester
yourself you’re hardly likely to feel any great warmth towards the king’s
enemies, or want to give them aid or comfort.” “We
suffered from them, like the rest of Worcester, my lord. King Stephen is our
sovereign, and as such we acknowledge him. The only duty I feel here is to the
children. Consider what must be the dismay, the anxiety, of their natural
guardian! All he asks—all we ask for him—is leave to enter the king’s lands,
not in arms, and search for his niece and nephew without hindrance. I do not
say such a man, however innocent of this murderous raid, and even with his
Grace’s safe-conduct and countenance, would be utterly safe among the men of
our shire or yours, but that risk he is willing to take. If you will give him
safe-conduct, he pledges himself to pursue this quest, and no other end. He
will go unarmed, and with only one or two attendants to help him. He will take
no action but to find his wards. My lord, I entreat it of you, for their sake.”
Abbot
Radulfus added his own plea, very restrainedly. “From a Crusader of unblemished
repute, I believe such a pledge may be accepted without question.” The
sheriff considered, darkly and in frowning silence, for some minutes, and then
said with chill deliberation: “No. I will issue no safe-conduct, and if the
king himself were here and minded to grant it, I would urge him to the
contrary. After what has happened, any man of that faction found in any part of
my territory will be treated as a prisoner of war, if not as a spy. If he be
taken in any ill circumstances, his life may be forfeit, and even if on no
wrong errand, his liberty. It is not a matter of his intent alone. Even a man
so pledged, and true enough to his pledge, might take back with him knowledge
of castles and garrisons that would stand the enemy in good stead later. Also,
and above all, it is my duty to combat the king’s enemies and reduce their
forces wherever chance offers, and if I can pluck away a good knight from them
I will do it. No affront to Sir Laurence d’Angers, whose reputation, as far as
I know it, is honorable enough, but he shall not have his
safe-conduct, and if he ventures without it, let him look to his head. No doubt
he did not come home from Palestine to rot in a prison. If he risks it, it is
his own choice.” “But
the girl Ermina,” began Herward in dismayed appeal, “and her brother, a mere
child—are they to be left unsought?” “Have
I said so? Sought they shall be, to the best I can provide, but by my own men.
And if found, they shall be delivered safely to their uncle’s care. I will send
out orders to all my castellans and officers, to look out for such a company of
three, and make due inquiries after them. But I will not admit the empress’s
knight to the lands I administer for the king.” It
was all they would get from him, and they knew it by voice and face, and made
the best of it. “It
would help,” suggested Radulfus mildly, “if Brother Herward gives you some
description of the three. Though I do not know if he is well acquainted with
the girl, or the nun, her tutor…” “They
came several times to visit the boy,” said Herward. “I can picture them all
three. Your officers should inquire after these—Yves Hugonin, thirteen years
old, heir to a considerable portion of his father, is not over-tall for his
age, but sturdy and well-set-up, with a round, rosy face, and both hair and
eyes dark brown. I saw him the morning this coil began, in bright blue cotte,
cloak and capuchon, and grey hose. For the women—Sister Hilaria will be known
best by her habit, but I should tell you that she is young, not above five and
twenty, and well-favored, a slender woman and graceful. And the girl Ermina…”
Brother Herward hesitated, gazing beyond the sheriff’s shoulder, as if to
recall more perfectly someone but seldom seen, yet vividly impressed on his
vision. “She
will be eighteen very shortly, I do not know the precise day. Darker than her
brother, almost black of hair and eye, tall, vigorous… They report her quick of
mind and wit, and of strong will.” It
was hardly a detailed description of her physical person, yet it established
her with surprising clarity. All the more when Brother Herward
ended almost absently, as if to himself: “She would be reckoned very
beautiful.” Brother
Cadfael heard about it from Hugh Beringar, after the couriers had ridden out to
the castles and manors, and carried the word to the towns, to be cried
publicly. What Prescote had promised, that he performed to the letter before he
took himself off to the peace of his own manor to keep Christmas with his
family. The very announcement of the sheriff’s interest in the missing siblings
should cast a protecting shadow over them if anyone in this shire did encounter
them. Herward had set off back to Worcester with a guarded party by then, his
errand only partially successful. “Very
beautiful!” repeated Hugh, and smiled. But it was a concerned and rueful smile.
Such a creature, wilful, handsome, daring, let loose in a countryside waiting
for winter and menaced by discord, might all too easily come to grief. “Even
sub-priors,” said Cadfael mildly, stirring the bubbling cough linctus he was
simmering over his brazier in the workshop, “have eyes. But with her youth, she
would be vulnerable even if she were ugly. Well, for all we know they may be
snug and safe in shelter this moment. A great pity this uncle of theirs is of
the other persuasion, and cannot get countenance to do his own hunting.” “And
newly back from Jerusalem,” mused Hugh, “no way to blame for what his faction
did to Worcester. He’ll be too recent in the service to be known to you, I
suppose?” “Another
generation, lad. It’s twenty-six years since I left the Holy Land.” Cadfael
lifted his pot from the brazier, and stood it aside on the earth floor to cool
gradually overnight. He straightened his back carefully. He was not so far from
sixty, even it he did not look it by a dozen years. “Everything will be changed
there now, I doubt. The lustre soon tarnished. From which port did they say he
sailed?” “Tripoli,
according to Herward. In your unregenerate youth I suppose you must have known
that city well? It seems to me there’s not much of that coast you haven’t
covered in your time.” “It
was St. Symeon I favored myself. There were good craftsmen in
the shipyards there, a fine harbor, and Antioch only a few miles upriver.” He
had good cause to remember Antioch, for it was there he had begun and ended his
long career as a crusader, and his love affair with Palestine, that lovely,
inhospitable, cruel land of gold and sand and drought. From this quiet, busy
harbor in which he had chosen at last to drop anchor, he had had little time to
hark back to those remembered haunts of his youth. The town came back to him
now vividly, the lush green of the river valley, the narrow, grateful shade of
the streets, the babel of the market. And Mariam, selling her fruits and
vegetables in the Street of the Sailmakers, her young, fine-boned face honed
into gold and silver by the fierce sunlight, her black, oiled hair gleaming
beneath her veil. She had graced his arrival in the east, a mere boy of
eighteen, and his departure, a seasoned soldier and seafarer of thirty-three. A
widow, young, passionate and lonely, a woman of the people, not to everyone’s
taste, too spare, too strong, too scornful. The void left by her dead man had
ached unbearably, and drawn in the young stranger heart and soul into her life,
to fill the gap. For a whole year he had known her, before the forces of the
Cross had moved on to invest Jerusalem. There
had been other women, before her and after. He remembered them with gratitude,
and with no guilt at all. He had given and received pleasure and kindness. None
had ever complained of him. If that was a poor defense from the formal
viewpoint, nevertheless he felt secure behind it. It would have been an insult
to repent of having loved a woman like Mariam. “They
have alliances there that ensure peace now, if only for a time,” he said
reflectively, “I suppose an Angevin lord might well feel he’s more needed here
than there, now it’s his own liege lady in the lists. And the man bears a good
name, from all I hear. A pity he comes when hate’s at its height.” “A
pity there should be cause for hate between decent men,” agreed Hugh wryly. “I
am the king’s man, I chose him with my eyes open. I like Stephen, and am not
likely to leave him for any lure. But I can see just as plainly why a baron of Anjou should rush home to serve his lady every whit as loyally as
I serve Stephen. What a bedevilment of all our values, Cadfael, is this civil
war!” “Not
all,” said Cadfael sturdily. “There never was, for all I could ever learn, a
time when living was easy and peaceful. Your boy will grow up into a better
ordered world. There, I’ve finished here for tonight, and it must be nearly
time for the bell.” They
went out together into the cold and dark of the garden, and felt on their faces
the first flakes of the first snow of the winter. The air was full of a
drifting unease, but the fall was light and fitful here. Further south it set
in heavily, borne on a north-westerly wind, dry, fine snow that turned the
night into a white, whirling mist, shrouding outlines, burying paths, blown
into smooth, breaking waves only to be lifted and hurled again into new shapes.
Valleys filled to a treacherous level, hillsides were scoured clean. Wise men
stayed within their houses, clapped to shutter and door, and stopped the chinks
between the boards, where thin white fingers reached through. The first snow,
and the first hard frost. Thank God, thought Cadfael, hastening his steps as he
heard the Compline bell begin to sound, Herward and his company will be far on their
way home now, they’ll weather this well enough. But
what of Ermina and Yves Hugonin, astray somewhere between here and Worcester,
and what of the young Benedictine sister who had offered, in her gallant
innocence, to go with them and see them safe into sanctuary? Chapter
Two ON
THE FIFTH DAY OF DECEMBER, about noon, a traveller from the south, who had
slept the night at Bromfield Priory, some twenty-odd miles away, and had the
good fortune to find the highroad, at least, in passable condition, brought an
urgent message into Shrewsbury abbey. Prior Leonard of Bromfield had been a
monk of Shrewsbury until his promotion, and was an old friend of Brother
Cadfael’s, and familiar with his skills. “In
the night,” the messenger reported, “some decent fellows of that country
brought in a wounded man to the priory, found by the wayside stripped and
hacked, and left for dead. And half-dead he is, and his case very bad. If he
had lain out all night in the frost he’d have been frozen stiff by morning. And
Prior Leonard asked would I bring word here to you, for though they’ve some
knowledge of healing, this case is beyond them, and he said you have experience
from the wars, and may be able to save the man. If you could come, and bide
until he mends—or until the poor soul’s lost!—it would be a great comfort and
kindness.” “If
abbot and prior give me leave,” said Cadfael, concerned, “then most gladly.
Footpads preying on the roads so close to Ludlow? What are things come to,
there in the south?” “And
the poor man a monk himself, for they knew him by his tonsure.” “Come with me,” said Cadfael, “and we’ll
put it to Prior Robert.” Prior
Robert heard the plea with sympathy, and raised no objection, since it was not
he who must ride out all those miles in haste, in what was now the shrewd grip
of winter. He took the request in his turn to the abbot, and came again with
his approval granted. “Father
Abbot bids you take a good horse from the stables, for you’ll need him. You
have leave for as long as may be necessary, and we’ll send and have Brother
Mark come in from Saint Giles in the meantime, for I think Brother Oswin is not
yet practiced enough to be left in charge alone.” Cadfael
agreed, fervently but demurely. A willing and devoted soul, but hardly
competent to look after all the winter ailments that might crop up in his
tutor’s absence. Mark would leave his lepers on the outskirts of the town with
regret, but God willing it need not be for very long. “What
of the roads?” he asked the messenger, who was stabling his own beast as
Cadfael chose his. “You made good time here, and so must I back.” “The
worst is the wind, brother, but it’s blown the highroad almost clear in all but
a few bad places. It’s the byways that are clean buried. If you leave now you
won’t fare too badly. Better going south than north, at least you’ll have the
wind at your back.” Cadfael
took some thought over filling his scrip, for he had medicines, salves and
febrifuges not to be found in every infirmary cupboard, and the commoner sorts
Bromfield could provide. The less weight he carried, the better speed he would
make. He took stout boots and a thick travelling cloak over his habit and
belted the folds securely about his waist. If the errand had not been so grim,
he would have relished the prospect of a justified trip back into the world,
and the rare permission to take his pick of the stables. He had campaigned in
wintry conditions as well as in burning sun, the snow did not daunt him, though
he was shrewd enough to respect it, and treat it with caution. All
these four days since the first snow the weather had followed a fixed pattern,
with brief sunshine around noon, gathering cloud thereafter, fresh snow falling
late in the evening and well into the night, and always iron
frost. Around Shrewsbury the snowfalls had been light and powdery, the pattern
of white flakes and black soil constantly changing as the wind blew. But as
Cadfael rode south the fields grew whiter, the ditches filled. The branches of
trees sagged heavily towards the ground under their load, and by mid-afternoon
the leaden sky was sagging no less heavily earthwards, in swags of blue-black
cloud. If this went on, the wolves would be moving down from the hills and
prowling hungrily among the haunts of men. Better to be an urchin under a
hedgerow, sleeping the winter away, or a squirrel holed up snugly with his
hoarded stores. It had been a good autumn for nuts and acorns. Riding
was pleasure to him, even riding alone and in the bitter cold. The chance
seldom came his way now, it was one of the delights he had given up for the
quiet of the cloister and the sense of having discovered his true place. In
every decision there must be some regrets. He hunched his back solidly against
the malice of the wind, and saw the first driven flakes, fine as dust, whirl by
him and outpace his horse, while he felt nothing in his shroud of cowl and
cloak. He was thinking of the man who waited for him at the end of this
journey. Himself
a monk, the messenger had said. Of Bromfield? Surely not. If he had been one of
theirs they would have named him. A monk loose and alone about the roads in the
mid of the night? On what errand? Or in flight from what, before he fell into
the mercies of robbers and murderers? Others must have ranged through the same
countryside, in flight from the rape of Worcester, and where were they now?
Perhaps this cowled wanderer had made his way painfully out of the same
holocaust? The
snow thickened, two fine curtains of spume driving past him one on either side,
cloven by his sturdy body and waving away ahead of him like the ends of a gauze
scarf, drawing him forward. Perhaps four times on this ride he had exchanged
greetings in passing with other human creatures, and all of them close to home.
In such a season only the desperate travel. It
was dark by the time he reached the gatehouse of Bromfield,
crossing the foot-bridge over the little River Onny. His horse had had enough
by then, and was blowing frostily, and twitching irritable shoulders and
flanks. Cadfael lighted down gladly between the torches in the gateway, and let
a lay brother take the bridle. Before him the familiar court opened, straighter
than at Shrewsbury, and the shapes of the monastic buildings gilded here and
there by the flame of a torch. The church of Saint Mary loomed dark in
darkness, large and noble for such a modest foundation. And striding out of
shadows across the court came Prior Leonard himself, a long, loose-jointed
heron of a man, pointed beak anxiously advanced, arms flapping like wings. The
court under his feet, surely swept during the day, already bore a smooth, frail
coating of snow. By morning it would be crisp and deep underfoot, unless the
wind that brought it removed half of it again to hurl it elsewhere. “Cadfael?”
The prior was near-sighted, he had to peer and narrow his eyes even by
daylight, but he groped for a hand that came to meet his, and held and knew it.
“Thank God you could come! I fear for him… But such a ride… Come within, come
within, I have provision made for you, and a meal. You must be both hungry and
weary!” “First
let me see him,” said Cadfael briskly, and set off purposefully up the slope of
the court, leaving his broad boot-prints plain in the new-fallen whiteness.
Prior Leonard strode beside him, long legs curbed to his friend’s shorter pace,
still talking volubly. “We
have him in a room apart, for quietness, and watched constantly. He breathes,
but snoringly, like a man with a broken head. He has not spoken word or opened
eye since they brought him. Bruises darken on him everywhere, but those would
heal. But a knife was used on him, he has bled too much, though the wound is
stanched now. Through here— the inner room is less cold…” The
infirmary stood a little apart, sheltered from the wind by the mass of the
church. They went in, and shut the heavy door against the malice of the night,
and Leonard led the way through to the small, bare cell where a little oil-lamp
burned beside a bed. A young brother rose from his knees at their entry,
and drew back from the sick man’s bedside to make room for them. The
patient lay under piled covers, stretched on his back like a man coffined.
Certainly he breathed, with a groaning effort, but the intake of breath barely
lifted the blanket over his breast, and the face upturned on the pillow was
motionless, eyes closed, cheeks hollow and blue beneath thrusting bones. His
head was bandaged, covering the tonsure, and the brow beneath the wrappings was
swollen and bruised, so misshapen that one eye was sunken in folds of battered
flesh. No telling how he would look in health, but Cadfael judged that he was
well-made, and certainly not old, probably no older than thirty-five. “The
marvel is,” whispered Leonard, “that no bones are broken. Unless, indeed, his
skull… But you’ll examine him thoroughly, later…” “No
better time than now,” said Cadfael practically, and shed his cloak and went to
work, setting down his scrip on the stone floor. There was a small brazier
burning in a corner, but for all that, when he slid his hands under the covers
and felt at flank and thigh and foot, the unresponsive flesh was everywhere
deadly cold. They had wrapped him well, but it was not enough. “Lay
stones over your hob in the kitchen,” said Cadfael, “get them hot and wrap them
in flannel. We’ll pack him round with warmth, and change them as they cool.
This is not the cold of winter, but the chill of man’s mishandling, we must get
him out of it, or he never will wake. I’ve known men shattered by horror or
cruelty turn their backs on the world and die, when there was nothing mortal
ailed their bodies. Have you made shift to get any food or drink into him at
all?” “We
have tried but he cannot swallow. Even a trickle of wine only runs from his
mouth again.” A broken mouth, battered by fists or cudgels. Probably he had
lost teeth. But no, Cadfael drew back the upper lip delicately, and the strong
white teeth showed, even, clenched and large. The
young brother had slipped away silently to see about heating stones or bricks
in the kitchen. Cadfael turned back the covers, and viewed the naked body from
head to foot. They had left him so, under a linen sheet, to
have only a clean, smooth surface touching his many bruises and broken grazes.
The knife-wound under his heart was bandaged close. Cadfael did not unbind it; no
need to doubt that every wound had been scrupulously cleaned and dressed. But
he slid his fingers under the upper folds, and felt along the bones beneath. “It
was meant to finish him. But the knife struck the rib, and they did not wait to
make certain. In health this must be a fine man—see the build of him. Three or
four at least did this to him.” He
did what he could for the many injuries that showed some angry signs of
festering, drawing on his stock of salves tried over years, but let the lesser
and clean abrasions alone. They brought the heated stones, two or three eager
young brothers hovering anxiously, and packed the battered form round with
them, close but not touching, and trotted away devotedly to heat more. A good
hot brick at the long, bony feet; for if the feet stay cold, all stays cold,
said Cadfael. And then the bludgeoned head. He unwound the bandages, Leonard
supporting the man’s shoulders. The tonsure emerged unmistakable, thick, bushy
brown hair framing a pate scarred by two or three still oozing wounds. So thick
and strong the hair, of such vigorous growth, that even the ring of it might
well have saved him a broken skull. Cadfael felt delicately all round the
cupola of bone, and could not find a hollow that gave to his touch. He drew breath
in cautious hope. “His
wits will have been shaken up into confusion, but I do believe his skull is
whole. We’ll bind it up again for his comfort in lying, and for warmth. I can
find no break.” When
all was done, the mute body lay as before; hard to detect any change that did
not stem from the handling of others. But the warm stones zealously renewed as
they cooled had had their effect. His flesh felt softer and human to the touch,
capable of healing. “We
may leave him now,” said Cadfael, staring down at him with a considering frown.
“I’ll watch with him through the night, and get my sleep tomorrow by daylight,
when we see better how he fares. But I say he’ll live. Father Prior, by your leave, I’m ready now for that supper you promised me. And
before all, for I’m too stiff to fend for myself, get a stout youngster to haul
off these boots.” Prior
Leonard himself waited on his guest at supper, and freely admitted his relief
at having a more experienced physician at hand. “For I never had your knowledge,
nor the means of acquiring it, and never, God knows, have I had so wretched and
broken a creature left at my door. I thought I had a dead man on my hands,
before ever I brought him in and tried to stop the bleeding, and wrap him up
against the frost. And how he came by this usage we may never get to know.” “Who
brought him in?” asked Cadfael. “A
tenant of ours near Henley, Reyner Dutton, a good husbandman. That was the
first night of snow and frost, and Reyner had lost a strayed heifer, one of the
venturesome kind that will wander and break loose, and he was out after her
with a couple of his lads. They stumbled on this poor soul by the wayside, and
left all to carry him here to shelter as fast as they could. It was a wild
night, driving squalls and stone blind when they came. I doubt if he can have
lain there long, or he would not be living now, as cold as it was and is.” “And
these who helped him had seen nothing of any footpads? Met with no hindrance
themselves?” “Nothing.
But there was no seeing more than a dozen paces, men could pass close and never
know it. Likely they were lucky not to meet the same fate, though three of
them, perhaps, would be enough to daunt any footpads. They know this
countryside like their own palms. A stranger would have had to lie up somewhere
and wait till he could see his way. In these drifts, and with such a wind
blowing, and the snow so dry and fine, paths appear and vanish twice in a day
or more. You could walk a mile, and think you knew every landmark, and see
nothing you recognized on the way back.” “And
this sick man of ours—no one knows him here?” Prior
Leonard stared startled and embarrassed surprise. “Why, yes! Did I never make
that plain? Well, my messenger was enlisted in great haste, there was no time
to make a long tale of it. Yes, this is a Benedictine brother of Pershore, who came on an errand from his abbot. We have been treating with
them for a finger-bone of Saint Eadburga, whose relics, as you know, they
possess, and this is the brother who was entrusted with bringing it here to us
in its reliquary. He delivered it safely some days ago. The night of the first
of the month he arrived here, and stayed to witness the offices when we
installed it.” “Then
how,” demanded Cadfael, gaping, “did he come to be picked out of the snow and
brought back to you naked only a day or two later? You’re surely grown somewhat
careless with your guests, Leonard!” “But
he left us, Cadfael! The day before yesterday he said he must prepare to leave
early in the morning, and be on his way. And as soon as he had breakfasted
yesterday he left, and I do assure you, well provided for the first part of his
journey. We know no more than you how he came to be stricken down still so
close to us, and you see he cannot yet speak, to make all plain. Where he had
been between yesterday’s dawn and the thick of the night no one knows, but
certainly not where he was found, or we should be tolling for him, not trying
to heal him.” “Howbeit,
at least you know him. How much do you know of him? He gave you a name?” The
prior hoisted bony shoulders. What does a name tell about a man? “His name is
Elyas. I think, though he never said, not long in the cloister. A taciturn
man—in particular, I think, he would not speak of himself. He did eye the
weather somewhat anxiously. We thought it natural, since he had to brave the
way home, but now I fancy there was more in it than that, for he did say
something of a party he had left by Foxwood, coming from Cleobury, some people
he encountered there in flight from Worcester, and urged to come here with him
for safety, but they would push on over the hills for Shrewsbury. The girl, he
said, was resolute, and she called the tune.” “Girl?”
Cadfael stiffened erect, ears pricked. “There was a girl holding the rein?” “So
it seemed.” Leonard blinked in surprise at such interest in the phenomenon. “Did
he say who else was in her company? Was there a boy spoken of?
And a nun in charge of them?” He realized ruefully the folly of any such
attitude to this relationship. It was the girl who called the tune! “No,
he never told us more. But I did think he was anxious about them, for you see,
the snow came after he reached us, and over those bleak hills… He might well
wonder.” “You
think he may have gone to seek them? To find assurance they had made the
crossing safely, and were on a passable way to Shrewsbury? It would not be so
far aside from his way.” “It
could be so,” said Leonard, and was mute, searching Cadfael’s face with a
worried frown, waiting for enlightenment. “I
wonder, I wonder if he found them—if he was bringing them here for refuge!” He
was talking to himself, for the prior was left astray, patiently regarding him.
And if he was, thought Cadfael silently, what, in God’s name, had become of
them now? Their only helper and protector battered senseless and left for dead,
and those three, where? But as yet there was no proof that these were the
hapless Hugonins and their young nun. Many poor souls, girls among them, had
fled from the despoiled city of Worcester. Headstrong
girls, who called the tune? Well, he had known them crop up in cottage no less
than in castle, in croft and toft, and among the soil-bound villein families,
too. Women were as various as men. “Leonard,”
he said earnestly, leaning across the table, “have you had no proclamation from
the sheriff about two young things lost from Worcester in the company of a nun
of the convent there?” The
prior shook a vague but troubled head. “I don’t recall such a message, no. Are
you telling me that these… Brother Elyas certainly felt some anxiety. You think
these he spoke of may be the ones being sought?” Cadfael
told him the whole of it, their flight, the search for them, the plight of
their uncle, threatened with capture and prison if he ventured across the king’s
borders in quest of them. Leonard listened in growing dismay. “It could be so,
indeed. If this poor brother could but speak!” “But
he did speak. He told you he left them at Foxwood, and they
were bent on crossing the hills still towards Shrewsbury. That would mean their
venturing clean over the flank of Clee, to Godstoke, where they would be in the
lands of Wenlock priory, and in good enough hands.” “But
a bitter, bleak way over,” mourned the prior, aghast. “And that heavy snow the
next night.” “There’s
no certainty,” Cadfael reminded him cautiously. “Barely a suspicion. A quarter
of Worcester fled this way to escape the slaughter. Better I should keep watch
on this patient of ours than waste time on speculation. For only he can tell us
more, and besides, him we already have, he was laid at our doors, and him we
must keep. Go to Compline, Leonard, and pray for him, and I’ll do as much by
his bed. And if he speaks, never fret, I’ll be awake enough to catch his drift,
for all our sakes.” In
the night the first sudden but infinitesimal change took place. Brother Cadfael
was long accustomed to sleeping with one eye open, and both ears. On his low
stool beside the bed he drowsed thus, arms folded, head lowered, one elbow
braced on the wooden frame of the bed, to quicken to any move. But it was his
hearing that pricked him awake to stoop with held breath. For Elyas had just
drawn his first deeper, longer, eased breath, that went down through his
misused body from throat to stretched feet, groaning at the disturbed pains
that everywhere gored him. The horrid snore in his throat had softened, he drew
air, painful though it was, down into his midriff hungrily, like a starving man
grasping at food. Cadfael saw a great quiver pass over the mangled face and
past the swollen lips. The tip of a dry tongue strove to moisten, and shivered
and withdrew from pain, but the lips remained parted. The strong teeth
unclenched to let out a long, sighing groan. Cadfael
had honeyed wine standing in a jug beside the brazier, to keep warm. He
trickled a few drops between the swollen lips, and had the satisfaction of
seeing the unconscious face contort in muscular spasm, and the throat labor to
swallow. When he touched a finger to the man’s lips, again closed, they parted
in thirsty response. Drop by drop, patiently, a good portion of the drink went
down. Only when response failed at last did Cadfael abandon the process. Cold, oblivious absence had softened gradually into sleep, now that a
little warmth had been supplied him both within and without. A few days of
lying still, for his wits to settle again right way up in his head, thought
Cadfael, and he’ll come round and be on his way back to us. But whether he’ll
remember much of what befell him is another matter. He had known men, after
such head injuries, revive to recall every detail of their childhood and past
years, but no recollection whatever of recent injury. He
removed the cooling brick from the foot of the bed, fetched a replacement from
the kitchen, and sat down to resume his vigil. This was certainly sleep now,
but a very uneasy sleep, broken by whimpers and moans, and sudden shudders that
passed all down the long body. Once or twice Elyas labored in evident distress,
throat and lips and tongue trying to frame words, but achieving only anguished,
indecipherable sounds, or no sounds at all. Cadfael leaned close, to catch the
first utterance that should have meaning. But the night passed, and his vigil
had brought him nothing coherent. Perhaps
the sounds that measured out the cloistral day were able to reach some quiet
core of habit even within the sufferer’s disrupted being, for at the note of
the bell for Prime he fell suddenly quiet, and his eyelids fluttered and strove
to open, but closed again wincingly against even this subdued light. His throat
worked, he parted his lips and began to attempt speech. Cadfael leaned close,
his ear to the struggling mouth. “…
madness…” said Elyas, or so Cadfael thought he said. “Over Clee,” he grieved,
“in such snows…” He turned his head on the pillow, and hissed with the pain.
“So young… wilful…” He was lapsing again into a better sleep, his disquiet
easing. In a voice thread-fine but suddenly clearly audible: “The boy would
have come with me,” said Brother Elyas. That
was all. He lay once again motionless and mute. “He
has the turn for life,” said Cadfael, when Prior Leonard came in to inquire
after the patient as soon as Prime ended, “but there’ll be no hurrying him.” An
earnest young brother stood dutifully by to relieve him of his watch. “When he
stirs you may feed him the wine and honey, you’ll find he’ll take it now. Sit
close and mark me any word he says. I doubt if you’ll have
anything more to do for him, while I get my sleep, but there’s a ewer for his
use if he needs it. And should he begin to sweat, keep him well covered but
bathe his face to give him ease. God willing, he’ll sleep. No man can do for
him what sleep will do.” “You’re
content with him?” asked Leonard anxiously, as they went out together. “He’ll
do?” “He’ll
do very well, given time and quietness.” Cadfael was yawning. He wanted
breakfast first, and a bed after, for all the morning hours. After that, and
another look at the dressings on head and ribs, and all the minor hurts that
had threatened suppuration, he would have a better idea of how to manage both
the nursing of Brother Elyas and the pursuit of the lost children. “And
has he spoken? Any sensible word?” pressed Leonard. “He
has spoken of a boy, and of the madness of attempting to cross the hills in
such snows. Yes, I believe he did encounter the Hugonin pair and their nun, and
try to bring them into shelter here with him. It was the girl who would go her
own way,” said Cadfael, brooding on this unknown chit who willed to venture the
hills in both winter and anarchy. “Young and wilful, he said,” But however mad
and troublesome they may be, the innocent cannot be abandoned. “Feed me,” said
Cadfael, returning to first needs, “and then show me a bed. Leave the absent
for later. I’ll not quit Brother Elyas as long as he needs me. But I tell you
what we may well do, Leonard, if you’ve a guest in your hall here making for
Shrewsbury today. You might charge him to let Hugh Beringar know that we have
here what I take to be the first news of the three people he’s seeking.” “That
I’ll certainly do,” said Prior Leonard, “for there’s a cloth merchant of the
town on his way home for the Christmas feast, he’ll be off as soon as he’s
eaten, to get the best of the day. I’ll go and deliver him the message this
minute, and do you go and get your rest.” Before
night Brother Elyas opened his eyes for the second time, and this time, though
the return to light caused him to blink a little, he kept them open, and after
a few moments opened them wide in blank wonder, astonished by everything
on which they rested. Only when the prior stooped close at Cadfael’s shoulder
did the brightness of recognition quicken in the sick man’s eyes. This face, it
seemed, he knew. His lips parted, and a husky whisper emerged, questioning but
hopeful: “Father
Prior…?” “Here,
brother,” said Leonard soothingly. “You are here with us, safe in Bromfield.
Rest and gather strength, you have been badly hurt, but here you are in
shelter, among friends. Trouble for nothing… ask for whatever you need.” “Bromfield…”
whispered Elyas, frowning. “I had an errand to that place,” he said, troubled,
and tried to raise his head from the pillow. “The reliquary… oh, not lost…?” “You
brought it faithfully,” said Leonard. “It is here on the altar of our church,
you kept vigil with us when we installed it. Do you not remember? Your errand
was done well. All that was required of you, you performed.” “But
how… My head hurts…” The sighing voice faded, the dark brows drew together in
mingled anxiety and pain. “What is this weighs on me? How am I come to this?” They
told him, with cautious gentleness, how he had gone forth again from the
priory, to make his way home to his own abbey of Pershore, and how he had been
brought back broken and battered and abandoned for dead. At the name of
Pershore he grasped gladly, there he knew he belonged, and from there he
remembered he had set forth to bring Saint Eadburga’s finger-bone to Bromfield,
avoiding the perilous route by Worcester. Even Bromfield itself came back to
him gradually. But of what had befallen him after his departure he knew
nothing. Whoever had so misused him, they were gone utterly from his disturbed
mind. Cadfael leaned to him, urging gently: “You
did not meet them again? The girl and boy who would press on over the hills to
Godstoke? Foolish, but the girl would go, and her younger brother could not
persuade her…” “What
girl and boy were these?” wondered Elyas blankly, and drew his drawn brows more
painfully close. “And
a nun—do you not recall a nun who travelled with them?” He
did not. The effort at recall caused him agitation, he dragged at memory and
produced only the panic desperation of failure, and in his
wandering state failure was guilt. All manner of undischarged obligations
drifted elusive behind his haunted eyes, and could not be captured. Sweat broke
on his forehead, and Cadfael wiped it gently away. “Never
fret, but lie still and leave all to God, and under God, to us. Your part was
done well, you may take your rest.” They
tended his bodily needs, anointed his wounds and grazes, fed him a broth made
from their austere stores of meat for the infirmary, with herbs and oatmeal,
read the office with him before bed, and still, by the knotting of his brows,
Brother Elyas pursued the memories that fled him and would not be snared. In
the night, in the low hours when the spirit either crosses or draws back from
the threshold of the world, the sleeper was shaken by recollection and dream
together. But his utterances then were broken and mumbled, and so clearly painful
to his progress that Cadfael, who had reserved to himself that most perilous
watch, bent his energies all to soothing away the torment from his patient’s
mind, and easing him back into healthful sleep. Cadfael was relieved before
dawn, and Elyas slept. The body rallied and healed. The mind wandered and
shunned remembrance. Cadfael
slept until noon, and arose to find his patient at rest in wakefulness as he
had not been in sleep, very docile, without much pain, and well tended by an
elderly brother with long experience of nursing the sick. The day was clear,
and the light would last well. Though the frost was unbroken, and without doubt
there would be fresh snow in the night, at this hour the sun and the remaining
hours of daylight tempted. “He’s
well enough cared for.” said Cadfael to the prior. “I may leave him for a few
hours with an easy mind. That horse of mine is rested now, and the ways none so
bad until the next fall comes or the wind rises. I’ll ride as far as Godstoke,
and ask if these truants ever reached there, and whether they’ve moved on, and
by what road. Six days it must be now since he parted from them, at Foxwood you
said. If they came safely to the lands of Wenlock priory they may well have
made their way either to Wenlock or Shrewsbury by now, and all the coil over
them will be done. Then we can all breathe freely.” Chapter Three GODSTOKE,
SUNK IN ITS DEEP, WOODED VALLEY BETWEEN THE HILLS, was held by the priory of
Wenlock, a third of the manor fanned in demesne, the rest leased out to life
tenants, a prosperous settlement, and well-found in stores and firing for the
winter. Once over the bleak hills and into this sheltered place, a party of
fugitives could rest and be at ease, and make their way onward at their own
pace, moving from manor to manor of the prior’s wide-ranging properties. But
these fugitives had never reached Godstoke. The prior’s steward was quite
certain. “We
got word already they were being sought, and though we had no great call to
suppose they would be heading this way, any more than by Ludlow or any other
road, I’ve had inquiry made everywhere. You may take it as sure, brother, that
they did not reach us.” “The
last known of them,” said Brother Cadfael, “was at Foxwood. From Cleobury they
were in company with a brother of our order, who urged them to come on with him
to Bromfield, but they would continue north over the hills. It seemed to me
they must make for you.” “So
I would say also,” agreed the steward. “But they did not come.” Cadfael
considered. He was not perfectly familiar with these parts, yet he knew them
well enough to make his way. If they had not passed here, small
profit in searching beyond. And though it would be possible to work backwards
along the way they should have taken to reach this place, and look for traces
of them between here and Foxwood, that would certainly have to wait for another
day. This one was already too far spent. Dusk was closing in faintly, and he
had better make his way back by the nearest way. “Well,
keep watch in case some word reaches you. I’m for Bromfield again.” He had come
by the most used roads, but they were less than direct, and he had a good eye
for country. “If I make straight southwesterly from here, I take it that’s the
way the crow flies for Bromfield. How are the tracks?” “You’ll
be threading part of Clee Forest if you try it, but keep the sunset a little on
your right hand and you’ll not go wrong. And the brooks are no stay, nor have
been since the frost set in.” The
steward started him off in the direction he should go, and saw him out of the
wooded hollow and on to the narrow, straight track between gentle hills,
turning his back upon the great, hunched bulk of Brown Clee, and his left
shoulder on the grimmer, more rugged shape of Titterstone Clee. The sunlight
had long withdrawn, though the sun itself had still some way to sink, and hung
in a dull red ball behind veils of thin grey cloud. The inevitable nocturnal
snow should not begin for an hour or two yet. The air was very still and very
cold. After
a mile he was in the forest. The branches still held up roofs of frozen snow,
trailing long icicles where the noon sun had had room to penetrate, and the
ground underfoot, deep in leaf-mold and needles, was easy riding. The trees
even created a measure of warmth. Clee was a royal forest, but neglected now,
as much of England was surely being neglected, left to rot or to be
appropriated by opportunist local magnates, while king and empress fought out
their battle for the crown. Lonely country, this, and wild, even within ten
miles of castle and town. Assarts were few and far between. The beasts of the
chase and the beasts of the warren had it for their own domain, but in such a
winter even the deer would starve without some judicious nursing from men.
Fodder too precious to be wasted by the farmer might still be put out
by the lord to ensure the survival of his game in a bad season. Cadfael passed
one such store, trampled and spread by the hungry beasts, the snow patterned
with their slots all around. The hereditary forester was still minding his
duties, no matter which of the two rival rulers claimed his estate. The
sun, seen briefly between the trees, hung very low now, evening had begun to
gather like an overhanging cloud, while the ground below still had light
enough. Before him the trees drew apart, restoring an hour of the failing day.
Someone had carved out an assart, a clearing of narrow garden and field about a
low cottage. A man was folding his two or three goats, herding them before him
into a wattled enclosure. He looked up alertly at the rustle of crisp snow and
frozen leaf under hooves. A sturdy, squat husbandman no more than forty years
old, in good brown homespun and leggings of home-tanned leather. He had made a
good job of his lonely holding, and stood erect to face the traveller as soon
as he had penned his goats. Narrowed eyes surveyed the monastic habit, the tall
and vigorous horse, the broad, weathered face beneath the cowl. “God
bless the holding and the holder,” said Cadfael, reining in by the wattle
fence. “God
be with you, brother!” His voice was even and deep, but his eyes were wary.
“Whither bound?” “To
Bromfield, friend. Am I going right?” “True
enough to your road. Keep on as you are, and in a half-mile you come to the
Hopton brook. Cross it, and bear a little to your left over the two lesser
brooks that run into it. After the second the track forks. Bear right, level
along the slope, and you’ll come out to the road beyond Ludlow, a mile from the
priory.” He
did not ask how a Benedictine brother came to be riding this obscure way at
such an hour. He did not ask anything. He spread his solid bulk across the
gateway of his enclosure like a portcullis, but with courteous face and
obliging tongue. It was the eyes that said he had something within to cover
from view, and also that he was storing every sight and sound to be delivered
faithfully elsewhere. Yet whoever hewed this holding out of the forest could be
nothing less than a practical, honest man. “Thanks
for your rede,” said Cadfael. “Now help me with another matter if you can. I am
a monk of Shrewsbury, now nursing a brother of our order from Pershore, in the
infirmary of Bromfield priory. Our sick brother frets over certain people he
met on their way to Shrewsbury from Worcester, in flight from the sacking of
the city. They would not turn west with him for Bromfield, they would hold
northwards this way. Tell me if you have seen hide or hair of such.” He
described them, in doubt of his own intuition until he saw the man cast one swift
glance over his shoulder towards his cottage, and again confront him
unblinking. “No
such company has come my way in this woodland,” he said steadily. “And why
should they? I’m on the way to nowhere.” “Travellers
in strange country and snow may very well find themselves on the road to
nowhere, and lost to anywhere,” said Cadfael. “You’re none so far from
Godstoke, where I’ve already been inquiring. Well, if any or all of these three
should come your way, give them the word that they’re sought by all the shire
and the abbeys of Worcester and Shrewsbury, and when they’re found they shall
have safe escort wherever they would be. Worcester is re-garrisoned now, and
anxious about its strays. Say so, if you meet with them.” The
wary eyes stared him thoughtfully in the face. The man nodded, and said: “I
will say so. If ever I do meet with them.” He
did not move from his place before the gate until Cadfael had shaken his rein
and moved on along the track, yet when Cadfael reached the shelter of the trees
and turned to look back, the cottager had vanished with some speed into his
house, as if he had an errand that would not wait. Cadfael rode on, but at a
slow, ambling walk, and once well out of sight, halted and sat listening. The
small, cautious sounds of movement behind him were his reward. Someone
light-footed and shy was following him, trying at the same time to hurry and
remain unheard. A sly glance over his shoulder afforded him a fleeting glimpse
of a blue cloak that whisked aside into cover. He idled, letting the pursuer
draw nearer, and then suddenly reined aside and turned to look back
openly. All sounds ceased instantly, but the leaning branches of a beech
sapling quivered and shed a few flakes of powdery snow. “You
may come forth,” said Cadfael mildly. “I am a monk of Shrewsbury, no threat to
you or any. The goodman told you true.” The
boy stepped out of hiding and stood in the open ride, legs braced well apart,
ready to run if he saw fit, or stand his ground sturdily. A small, stocky boy
with a round shock-head of brown hair, large unwavering brown eyes, and a
formidably firm mouth and chin belying the childish fullness of his cheeks. The
bright blue cotte and cloak were somewhat soiled and crumpled now, as if he had
slept wild in the woods in them, as perhaps he had, and there was a tear in one
knee of the grey hose, but he still wore them with the large assurance of his
own nobility. He had a little dagger at his belt, the sheath ornamented with
silver, sign enough of his worth to have tempted many a man. He had fallen into
good hands at this recent stay, whatever had happened to him earlier. “He
said…” The boy advanced a step or two, reassured. “His name is Thurstan. He and
his wife have been good to me. He said that here was one I could trust, a Benedictine
brother. He said you have been looking for us.” “He
said truly. For you, I think, must be Yves Hugonin.” The
boy said: “Yes. And may I come with you to Bromfield?” “Yves,
very heartily you may, and a warm welcome you’ll get from all those who are out
hunting for you. Since you fled from Worcester your uncle d’Angers is come back
from the Holy Land, and reached Gloucester only to hear you were lost, and he’s
been sending about to have you sought all through this shire. Main glad he’ll
be to get you back whole and well.” “My
uncle d’Angers?” The boy’s face wavered between eagerness and doubt. “In
Gloucester? But… but it was men from Gloucester…” “It
was, we know, but none of his doing. Never trouble your head over the divisions
that keep him from coming himself to find you, nor you nor I can help those.
But we’re pledged to return you to him safe and sound, and that
you may rely on. But the search is for three, and here we are fobbed off with
but one. Where are your sister and her governess?” “I
don’t know!” It came almost in a wail. The boy’s resolute chin shook for a
moment, and recovered gallantly. “I left Sister Hilaria safe at Cleeton, I hope
she is safe there still, but what she would do when she found herself alone…
And my sister… My sister is the cause of all this! She went off with her lover,
in the night. He came for her, I am sure she sent him word to fetch her away. I
tried to follow them, but then the snow came…” Cadfael
drew breath in mingled wonder, dismay and relief. Here was at least one of the
three safely netted, another might be snug if distracted at Cleeton still, and
the third, even if she had committed a great folly, seemed to be in the hands
of someone who held her dear, and presumably meant her nothing but good. There
might yet be a happy ending to all. But meantime, it bade fair to be a very
long and confused story, and here was dusk falling, the rim of the sun already
dipped, and several miles to go, and the best thing to be done was to get this
one back to Bromfield, and make sure he did not wander to be lost again. “Come,
let’s get you home before night falls on us. Come up before me, your light
weight won’t worry this fellow. Your foot on mine, so…” The boy had to reach
high. His hand was firm and eager in Cadfael’s, he came up with a spring, and
settled himself snugly. His body, at first tensed, relaxed with a great sigh. “I
have thanked Thurstan, and said farewell to him,” he said in a soft, gruff
voice, reviewing his own behavior scrupulously. “I gave him half what was left
in my purse, but it was not very much. He said he did not want nor need it, and
I was welcome, but I had nothing else to give him, and I could not go and never
leave a token.” “There
may be a time, some day, to visit him again,” said Cadfael comfortably. The boy
had been well brought up, and felt his status and its obligations. There was
much to be said for the monastic education. “I
should like that,” said the child, wriggling himself warmly into the hollow of
Cadfael’s shoulder. “I would have given him my dagger, but he
said I should need it, and what would he do with such a thing, when he dared
not show it for fear of being thought to have stolen it.” He
seemed to have put away for the present his worries over the two women he had
somehow mislaid in the snow, in his gratitude at being relieved of anxiety on
his own account. Thirteen years old, they said he was. He had a right to be
glad when someone else took charge of him. “How
long have you been there with them?” “Four
days. Thurstan said I’d best wait until someone trusty came by, for there are
stories of footpads about the hills and the woods, and in this snow, if I set
out alone, I might get lost again. I was lost, two whole days,” said Yves,
staring remembered terrors firmly in the eye. “I slept in a tree, for fear of
wolves.” He was not complaining, rather doing his best not to boast. Well, let
him talk, easing his heart of loneliness and fright like a man stretching his
feet to a good fire after a dangerous journey. The real story he had to tell
could wait until proper attention could be paid to it. If all turned out well,
he might be able to point the way to both the missing ladies, but what mattered
now was to reach Bromfield before complete darkness fell. They
went briskly wherever the forest thinned and the lingering light showed their
way clearly. The first floating flakes of new snow drifted languidly on the air
as they came down to the Hopton brook, and crossed it on solid ice, Cadfael
lighting down to lead the horse over. From that point they bore somewhat to the
left, though veering gradually away from the course of the brook, and came to
the first of the little tributaries that flowed down into it, from the long,
gentle slope on their right hand. Every stream was still, frozen now for many
days. The sun was gone, only an angry glow remained in the west, sullen under
leaden greyness. The wind was rising, the snow beginning to sting their faces.
Here the forest was broken by scattered holdings and fields, and occasionally a
sheep shelter, roughly propped with its back to the wind. Shapes began to
dissolve into a mere mottle of shadows, but for fugitive gleams of reflected
light from surfaces of ice, and the bluish mounds where untrodden snow had
drifted deep. The
second brook, still and silent like the rest, was a shallow,
reed-fringed, meandering serpent of silver. The horse disliked the feel of the
ice under him, and Cadfael dismounted again to lead him over. The wide, glassy
surface shone opaque from every angle, except when looking directly down into
it, and Cadfael was watching his own foothold as he crossed, for his boots were
worn and smooth. Thus his eye caught, for a moment only, the ghostly pallor
beneath the ice to his left, before the horse slithered and recovered, hoisting
himself into the snowy grass on the further side. Cadfael
was slow to recognize, slower to believe, what he had seen. Half an hour later,
and he would not have been able to see it at all. Fifty paces on, with a
thicket of bushes between, he halted, and instead of remounting, as Yves
expected, put the bridle into the boy’s hands, and said with careful calm:
“Wait a moment for me. No, we need not turn off yet, this is not the place
where the tracks divide. Something I noticed there. Wait!” Yves
wondered, but waited obediently, as Cadfael turned back to the frozen brook.
The pallor had been no illusion from some stray reflected gleam, it was there
fixed and still, embedded in the ice. He went down on his knees to look more
closely. The
short hairs rose on his neck. Not a yearling lamb, as he had briefly believed
it might be. Longer, more shapely, slender and white. Out of the encasing,
glassy stillness a pale, pearly oval stared up at him with open eyes. Small,
delicate hands had floated briefly before the frost took hold, and hovered open
at her sides, a little upraised as if in appeal. The white of her body and the
white of her torn shift which was all she wore seemed to Cadfael to be smirched
by some soiling color at the breast, but so faintly that too intent staring
caused the mark to shift and fade. The face was fragile, delicate, young. A
lamb, after all. A lost ewe-lamb, a lamb of God, stripped and violated and
slaughtered. Eighteen years old? It could well be so. By
this token, Ermina Hugonin was at once found and lost. Chapter
Four THERE
WAS NOTHING TO BE DONE HERE at this hour, alone as he was, and if he lingered,
the boy might come to see what kept him so long. He rose from his knees in
haste, and went back to where the horse stamped and fidgeted, eager to get back
to his stable. The boy was looking round for him curiously, rather than
anxiously. “What
was it? Is there something wrong?” “Nothing
to fret you.” Not yet, he thought with a pang, not until you must know. At
least let’s feed you, and warm you, and reassure you your own life is safe
enough, before you need hear word of this. “I thought I saw a sheep caught in
the ice, but I was mistaken.” He mounted, and reached round the boy to take the
reins. “We’d best make haste. We’ll have full darkness on us before we reach
Bromfield.” Where
the track forked they bore right as they had been instructed, a straight
traverse along the slope, easy to follow. The boy’s sturdy body grew heavier
and softer in Cadfael’s arm, the brown head hung sleepy on his shoulder. You at
least, thought Cadfael, mute in his anger and grief, we’ll put out of harm’s
way, if we could not save your sister. “You
have not told me your name,” said Yves, yawning. “I don’t know what to call
you.” “My
name is Cadfael, a Welshman from Trefriw, but now of Shrewsbury abbey. Where, I
think, you were bound.” “Yes,
so we were. But Ermina—my sister’s name is Ermina—she must always have her own
way. I have far more sense than she has! If she’d listened to me we would never
have got separated, and we should all have been safe in Shrewsbury by now. I
wanted to come to Bromfield with Brother Elyas—you do know about Brother
Elyas?—and so did Sister Hilaria, but not Ermina, she had other plans. This is
all her fault!” And
small doubt, by now, that that was true, Brother Cadfael reflected wretchedly,
clasping the innocent judge who lay warm and confiding in his arm. But surely
our little faults do not deserve so crushing a penalty. Without time to
reconsider, to repent, to make reparation. Youth destroyed for a folly, when
youth should be allowed its follies on the way to maturity and sense. They
were coming down on to the good, trodden road between Ludlow and Bromfield.
“Praise God!” said Cadfael, sighting the torches at the gatehouse, yellow
terrestrial stars glowing through a fragile but thickening curtain of snow. “We
are here!” They
rode in at the gate, to be confronted by a scene of unexpected activity in the
great court. The snow within was stamped into intricate patterns of hooves, and
about the stables two or three grooms, certainly not of the household, were
busy rubbing down horses and leading them to their stalls. Beside the door of
the guest-hall Prior Leonard stood in earnest conversation with a lithe young
man of middle height, still cloaked and hooded, and his back turned, but it was
a back Cadfael knew very well by now. Hugh Beringar had come in person to probe
into the first news of the lost Hugonins, and brought, by the look of it, two
or three more officers with him. His
ear was as sharp as ever, he turned towards the arrivals and came striding
before ever the horse halted. The prior followed, eager and hopeful at sight of
two returning where only one went forth. Cadfael
was down by the time they approached, and Yves, dazzled and excited, had
recovered from his sleepiness and braced himself to encounter with a nobleman’s
assurance whoever bore down on him. He set both plump paws to the pommel
of the saddle, and vaulted down into the snow. A long way down for his short stature,
but he lit like an acrobat, and stretched erect before Beringar’s amused and
approving eye. “Make
your bow, Yves, to Hugh Beringar, the deputy sheriff of this shire,” said
Cadfael. “And to Prior Leonard of Bromfield, your host here.” And to Hugh, aside,
he said fervently, while the boy made his solemn reverences: “Ask him nothing,
yet, get him within!” Between
them they made a reasonable job of it, quick in response to each other from old
habit. Yves was soon led away contentedly with Leonard’s bony but benevolent
hand on his shoulder, to be warmed and fed and made much of before bed. He was
young, he would sleep this night. He was cloister-educated, he would stir in
response to the bells for office, and find nothing but reassurance, and sleep
again heartily. “For
God’s sake,” said Cadfael, heaving a great sigh as soon as the boy was safely
out of sight, “come within, somewhere quiet, where we can talk. I never
expected you here in person, seeing the ties you have at home…” Beringar had
taken him companionably by the arm, and was hurrying him into the doorway of
the prior’s lodging, and eyeing him intently along his shoulder as they shook
the snow from boots and cloaks on the threshold. “We had but a first breath of
news of our quarry, I never thought it could tear you away, though thanks be,
it did!” “I’ve
left all in very good order behind me,” said Hugh. He had come to meet his
friend expecting a glow of good news, and found himself confronted with a
gravity that promised little but trouble. “If you have burdens on your mind
here, Cadfael, at least you may be easy about affairs in Shrewsbury. The very
day you left us, our son was born, a fine, lusty lad as yellow-haired as his
mother, and the pair of them flourishing. And for good measure, the Worcester
girl has given her man a son, too, only one day after. The house is full of
exultant women, and no one is going to miss me for these few days.” “Oh,
Hugh, the best of news! I’m happy for you both.” It was right and fitting,
Cadfael thought, a life emerging in defiance of a death. “And
all went well for her? She had not too hard a time of it?” “Oh,
Aline has the gift! She’s too innocent to understand that there can be pain in
a thing so joyful as birth, so she felt none. Faith, even if I hadn’t had this
errand to occupy me, I was as near being elbowed out of my own house as makes
no matter. Your prior’s message came very aptly. I have three men here with me,
and twenty-two more I have quartered on Josce de Dinan in Ludlow castle, to be
at hand if I need them, and to give him a salutary jolt if he really is in two
minds about changing sides. He cannot be in any doubt now that I have my eye on
him. And now,” said Hugh, drawing up a chair to the fire in the prior’s parlor,
“you owe me a story, I fancy, and for my life I can’t tell what to expect of
it. Here you come riding in with the boy we’ve been hunting on your saddle-bow,
and yet a face on you as bleak as the sky, when you should be beaming. And not
a word to be got out of you until he was safe out of earshot. Where did you
find him?” Cadfael
sat back with a small groan of weariness and stiffness after his chill ride.
There was no longer any urgent need for action. In the night they would never
find the place, especially now that the wind was high and the fresh snow
altering the landscape on all sides, blowing hillsides naked, filling in
hollows, burying what yesterday had uncovered. He could afford to sit still and
feel the warmth of the fire on his legs, and tell what he had to tell at his
own pace, since there was nothing to be done about it until daylight. “In
an assart in Clee Forest, in shelter with a decent cottar and his wife, who
would not let him take his chance alone through the woods until some
trustworthy traveller came by to bear him company. Me they considered fit for
the task, and he came with me willingly enough.” “But
he was there alone? A pity,” said Hugh with a wry grimace, “that you did not
find his sister, too, while you were about it.” “I
am only too afraid,” said Cadfael, the warmth of the fire heavy on his eyelids,
“that I have indeed found her.” The
silence lasted a shorter time than it seemed. The significance of that last
utterance there was no mistaking. “And
cold.” Cold as ice, encased in ice. The first bitter frost had provided her a
glassy coffin, preserving her flesh immaculate and unchanged to accuse her
destroyer. “Tell
me,” said Hugh, intent and still. Cadfael
told him. The whole story would have to be told again when Prior Leonard came,
for he, too, must help to stand between the boy and too early and too sudden
knowledge of his loss. But in the meantime it was a relief to heave the burden
from his heart, and know that this was now Hugh’s responsibility as much as his
own. “Can
you find the place again?” “By
daylight, yes, I’ll find it. In darkness, no use trying. It will be a fearful
thing… We shall have to take axes to hew her out of the ice, unless the thaw
comes.” It was a forlorn hope, there was no possible sign of a thaw. “That
we’ll face when we come to it,” said Hugh somberly. “Tonight we’d best get the
boy’s story out of him, and see if we can gather from it how she ever came
where you happened on her. And where, in heaven’s name, is the nun who fled
with her?” “According
to Yves, he left her in Cleeton, safe enough. And the girl—poor fool!—he says
went off with a lover. But I took him no further into matters, it was towards
the end of the day, and the most urgent thing was to get one, at least, into
safety.” “True
enough, and you did well. We’ll wait for the prior, and until the boy’s fed and
warmed and easy. Then between us we’ll hope to get out of him all he knows, and
more, perhaps, than he realizes he knows, without betraying that he’s lost a
sister. Though he’ll have to learn it soon or late,” said Hugh unhappily. “Who
else knows the poor girl’s face?” “But
not tonight, let him sleep soundly tonight. Time enough,” said Cadfael heavily,
“when we’ve brought her in and made her as comely as may be, before he need see
her.” Supper
and security had done much for Yves, and his own natural resilience had done
even more. He sat in the prior’s parlor before Compline, face to face with Hugh
Beringar, and with Prior Leonard and Brother Cadfael in
watchful attendance, and told his story with bluntness and brevity. “She
is very brave,” he said judicially, giving his sister her due, “but very
obstinate and self-willed. All the way from Worcester I did feel she had
something up her sleeve, and was taking advantage of having to run away. We had
to go roundabout at first, and slowly, because there were bands of soldiers
roaming even miles from the town, so it took us a long time to get safely to
Cleobury, and there we stayed one night, and that was the night Brother Elyas
was there, too, and he came with us as far as Foxwood, and wanted us to come
with him into Bromfield for safety, and I wanted that, too, and so did Sister
Hilaria. From here we could have got an escort into Shrewsbury, and it would
not have been a much longer way. But Ermina would not have it! She must always
have her own way, and she would go on over the hills to Godstoke. No use my
arguing, she never listens, she claims that being the elder makes her the
wiser. And if we others had gone with Brother Elyas she would still have gone
on over the hills alone, so what could we do but go with her?” He blew out his
lips in a disgusted breath. “Certainly
you could not leave her,” agreed Beringar reasonably. “So you went on, to spend
the next night at Cleeton?” “It’s
close by Cleeton, a solitary holding. Ermina had a nurse once who married a
tenant of that manor, so we knew we could get a bed there. The man’s name is
John Druel. We got there in the afternoon, and I remembered afterwards that
Ermina was talking apart with the son of the house, and then he went away, and
we didn’t see him again until evening. I never thought of it then, but now I’m
sure she sent him with a message. That was what she intended all along. For a
man came late in the evening, with horses, and took her away. I heard the stir,
and I got up and looked out… Two horses there were, and he was just helping her
up into the saddle…” “He?”
said Hugh. “You knew him?” “Not
his name, but I do remember him. When my father was alive he used to visit
sometimes, if there was hunting, or for Christmas or Easter. Many guests used
to come, we always had company. He must be son or nephew to one
of my father’s friends. I never paid him much attention, nor he never noticed
me, I was too young. But I do remember his face, and I think… I think he has
been visiting Ermina now and then in Worcester.” If
he had, they must have been very decorous visits, with a sponsoring sister
always in attendance. “You
think she sent him word to come and fetch her?” asked Hugh. “This was no abduction?
She went willingly?” “She
went gaily!” Yves asserted indignantly. “I heard her laughing. Yes, she sent
for him, and he came. And that was why she would go that way, for he must have
a manor close by, and she knew she could whistle him to her. She will have a
great dower,” said the baron’s heir solemnly, his round, childish cheeks
flushing red with outrage. “And my sister would never endure to have her
marriage made for her in the becoming way, if it went against her choice. I
never knew a rule she would not break, shamelessly…” His
chin shook, a weakness instantly and ruthlessly suppressed. All the arrogant
pride of all the feudal houses of Anjou and England in this small package, and
he loved as much as he hated her, or more, and never, never must he see her
mute and violated and stripped to her shift. Hugh
took up the questioning with considerate calm. “And what did you do?” The jolt
back into facts was salutary. “No
one else had heard,” said Yves, rallying, “unless it was the boy who carried her
message, and he had surely been told not to hear anything. I was still dressed,
there being only one bed, which the women had, so I rushed out to try and stop
them. Older she may be, but I am my father’s heir! I am the head of our family
now.” “But
afoot,” said Hugh, pricking him back to the real and sorry situation, “you
could hardly keep their pace. And they were away before you could hale them
back to answer to you.” “No,
I couldn’t keep up, but I could follow. It had begun to snow, they left tracks,
and I knew they could not be going very far. Far enough to lose me!” he owned,
and bit a lip that did not quite know whether to curl up or down. “I followed
as long as I could by their tracks, and it was uphill, and the wind
rose, and there was so much snow the tracks were soon covered. I couldn’t find
the way forward or back. I tried to keep what I thought was the direction
they’d taken, but I don’t know how much I may have wandered, or where I went. I
was quite lost. All night I was in the forest, and the second night Thurstan
found me and took me home with him. Brother Cadfael knows. Thurstan said there
were outlaws abroad, and I should stay with him until some safe traveller came
by. And so I did. And now I don’t know,” he said, visibly sinking into his
proper years, “where Ermina went with her lover, or what has become of Sister
Hilaria. She would wake to find the two of us gone, and I don’t know what she
would do. But she was with John and his wife, they surely wouldn’t let her come
to harm.” “This
man who took your sister away,” pressed Beringar. “You don’t know his name, but
you do remember he was acceptable in your father’s house. If he has a manor in
the hills, within easy reach of Cleeton, no doubt we can trace him. I take it
he might, had your father lived, have been a possible suitor for your sister,
even in a more approved fashion?” “Oh,
yes,” said the boy seriously, “I think he well might. There were any number of
young men used to come, and Ermina, even when she was only fourteen or fifteen,
would ride and hunt with the best of them. They were all men of substance, or
heirs to good estates. I never noticed which of them she favored.” He would
have been playing with toy warriors and falling off his first pony then,
uninterested in sisters and their admirers. “This one is very handsome,” he
said generously. “Much fairer than me. And taller than you, sir.” That would
not make him a rarity, Beringar’s modest length of steel and sinew had been
under-estimated by many a man to his cost. “I think he must be about
twenty-five or six. But his name I don’t know. There were so many came visiting
to us.” “Now
there is one more thing,” said Cadfael, “in which Yves may be able to help us,
if I may keep him from his bed a few minutes more. You know, Yves, you spoke of
Brother Elyas, who left you at Foxwood?” Yves
nodded, attentive and wondering. “Brother
Elyas is here in the infirmary. After leaving for home, his
errand done, he was attacked by footpads in the night and badly hurt, and the
countrymen who found him brought him here to be cared for. I am sure he is on
the mend now, but he has not been able to tell us anything about what happened
to him. He has no memory of these recent days, only in his sleep he seems to
struggle with some half-recalled distress. Waking, his mind is blank, but in
sleep he has mentioned you, though not by name. The boy would have gone with
me, he said. Now if he claps eyes on you, safe and well, it might be the sight
will jog his memory. Will you try it with me?” Yves
rose willingly, if somewhat apprehensively, looking to Beringar for
confirmation that he had done all that was required of him here. “I am sorry he
has come to harm. He was kind… Yes, whatever I can do for him…” On
the way to the sickroom, with no other witness by, he slipped his hand
thankfully, like an awed child, into Brother Cadfael’s comfortable clasp, and
clung tightly. “You
mustn’t mind that he is bruised and disfigured. All that will pass, I promise
you.” Brother
Elyas was lying mute and still, while a younger brother read to him from the
life of Saint Remigius. His bruises and distortions were already subsiding, he
seemed free from pain, he had taken food during the day, and at the office bell
his lips would move soundlessly on the words of the liturgy. But his open eyes
dwelt unrecognizingly upon the boy who entered, and wandered away again
languidly into the shadowy corners of the room. Yves crept to the bedside on
tiptoe, great-eyed. “Brother
Elyas, here is Yves come to see you. You remember Yves? The boy you met at
Cleobury, and parted from at Foxwood.” No,
nothing, nothing but the faint tremor of desperate anxiety troubling the
patient face. Yves ventured close, and timidly laid his hand over the long, lax
hand that lay upon the covers, but it remained chill and unresponsive under his
touch. “I
am sorry you have been hurt. We walked together those few miles. I wish we had
kept your company all the way…” Brother Elyas stared and quivered,
shaking his head helplessly. “No,
let him be,” said Cadfael, sighing. “If we press him he grows agitated. No
matter, he has time. Only let his body revive as it is doing, and memory can
wait. It was worth the trying, but he is not ready for us yet. Come, you’re
dropping with sleep, let’s get you safely into your bed.” They
arose at dawn, Cadfael and Hugh and his men, and went out into a world which
had again changed its shape in the night, hillocks levelled and hollows filled
in, and a spume of fine snow waving like a languid plume from every crest, in
the subsiding winds. They took axes with them, and a litter of leather thongs
strung between two poles, and a linen cloth to cover her, and they went in dour
silence, none of them with anything to say until words were to the point for
the grim work in hand. The fall had stopped at the coming of daylight, as it
had now ever since that first night when Yves had set off doggedly to trail his
errant sister. Iron frost had begun the next night, and that same night some
nocturnal beast had ravished and murdered the girl they went out now to seek,
for the ice had taken her to itself very shortly after she had been put into an
already congealing stream. Of that Cadfael was certain. They
found her, after some questing and probing in new snow, swept the fresh fall
from the ice, and looked down upon her, a girl in a mirror, a girl spun from
glass. “Good
God!” said Hugh in awe. “She’s younger than the boy!” So slight, so childlike,
did the shadowy form appear. But
they were there, perforce, to break her rest and take her away for Christian
burial, though it seemed almost a violation to shatter the smoothness of the
ice that encase her. They did it with care, well aside from the delicate,
imprisoned flesh, and it proved hard work enough. For all the bite of the
frost, they were sweating when they hoisted out heavily the girl and her cold
coffin, laid her like a piece of statuary in the thongs of the litter, covered
her with the linen cloth, and carried her slowly back to Bromfield. Not a drop
fell from the ice until they had it stowed privately in the chill, bare
mortuary of the priory. Then the glittering edges began to
soften and slide, and drip into the channel where the water flowed away from
the washing of the dead. The
girl lay remote and pale within her lucid shroud, and yet grew steadily more
human and closer to life, to pain and pity and violence, and all the mortal lot
of mankind. Cadfael dared not leave the place for long, because the boy Yves
was now up and active, and inquisitive about everything, and no one could guess
where he would appear next. He was well brought up, and his manners were
charming, but with his inbred conviction of privilege and his very proper
thirteen-year-old energy, he might yet prove a hazard. It
was past ten, and High Mass in progress, when the shell of ice had dwindled so
far that the girl began to emerge, the tips of thin, pale fingers and stretched
toes, her nose, as yet only a minute pearl, and the first curling strands of
hair, a fine lace on either side her forehead. It was those curls that first
caught Cadfael’s acute attention. For they were short. He wound a few fine
threads on his finger, and they made but a turn and a half. And they were no
darker than dark gold, and would be even fairer as they dried. Then he bent to
the calm stare of her open eyes, still thinly veiled with ice. Their color
seemed to him the soft, dim purple of irises, or the darkest grey of lavender
flowers. The
face emerged as Mass ended. After the air touched her, bruises began to darken
on cheek and mouth. The tips of her small breasts broke the glaze over them.
And now Cadfael could see clearly the smear that darkened her flesh and her
linen there, on the right side, a reddish mark like a graze, faintly mottled
from shoulder to breast. He knew the traces of blood. The ice had taken her
before the stilling water could wash the stain away. Now it might pale as the
remaining ice thawed, but he would know how it had lain, and where to look for
the source. Well
before noon she was freed of her shell, and softening into his hands, slender
and young, her small, shapely head covered all over with an aureole of short
bronze curls, like an angel in an Annunciation. Cadfael went to fetch Prior
Leonard, and they cared for her together, not yet to wash her body, not until
Hugh Beringar had viewed it, but to compose her worthily in her everlasting
stillness. To the throat they covered her with a linen sheet,
and made her ready to be seen. Hugh
came, and stood by her silently. Eighteen could well be her age, so white and
slim and tranquil, gone far beyond them. And beautiful, as reported? Yes, that
she was. But was this the dark, headstrong, spoiled daughter of the nobility,
who had insisted on her own way in despite of the times, the winter, the war
and all? “Look!”
said Cadfael, and turned back the linen to show the crumpled folds of her
shift, just as they had emerged from the ice. The dull, reddish smear speckled
her right shoulder, the edge of her shift, and the creases over her right
breast. “Stabbed?”
said Hugh, looking up into Cadfael’s face. “There
is no wound. See now!” He drew down the linen and showed the flesh beneath.
Only a smudge or two showed on her pale skin. He wiped them away, and she shone
white without blemish. “Certainly not stabbed. The night frost that took her
closed in very quickly, and preserved these marks, faint as they are. But she
did not bleed. Or if she did,” he added bleakly, “it was not from knife-wounds,
and not there. More likely she fought him—him or them, such wolves hunt
happiest in packs!—and drew blood. A clawed face, it might be, or a hand or
wrist as she tried to force him off. Bear it in mind, Hugh, as I will also.” He
covered her again reverently. The alabaster face looked up from veiled eyes
into the vault, supremely unmoved, and her head of clipped curls was beginning
to shine like a halo as it dried. “She
begins to bruise,” said Hugh, and drew a fingertip over her cheekbone and down
to the faint discolorations round her lips. “But her throat is unmarked. She
was not strangled.” “Smothered,
surely, in the act of ravishment.” They
were all three so intent upon the dead girl that they had not heard the
footsteps that approached the closed door of the room, and even had they been
listening, the footsteps were light enough to be missed, though they came
briskly and without conceal. The first they knew of the boy’s coming was the
white burst of reflected light from the snow, as the door was opened wide to
the wall, and Yves marched over the threshold with the innocent
boldness of his kind. No creeping ingratiatingly through a narrow chink for
him, nothing he did was done by half-measures. The abruptness with which they
all whirled upon him, and their frowning consternation gave him sharp pause and
mild offense. Both Hugh and Prior Leonard stepped quickly between him and the
trestle on which the body lay. “You
should not be here, child,” said the prior, flustered. “Why
should I not, Father? No one has told me I should be at fault. I was looking
for Brother Cadfael.” “Brother
Cadfael will come out to you in a little while. Go back to the guest-hall and
wait for him there…” It
was late to ward him off, he had seen, beyond the sheltering shoulders, enough
to tell him what lay behind. The linen sheet, quickly drawn up, the
unmistakable shape, and one glimpse of short, bright hair where the linen, too
hastily drawn, had folded back on itself. His face grew still and wary, his
eyes large, and his tongue was silenced. The
prior laid a hand gently on his shoulder and made to turn him back to the doorway.
“Come, you and I will go together. Whatever is to be told, you shall hear
later, but leave it now.” Yves
stood his ground, and went on staring. “No,”
said Cadfael unexpectedly, “let him come.” He came out from behind the trestle,
and took a step or two towards the boy. “Yves, you are a sensible man, no need
to pretend to you, after your travels, that violence and danger and cruelty do
not exist, and men do not die. We have here a dead body, not known to us. I
would have you look at it, if you will, and say if you know this face. You need
not fear anything ill to see.” The
boy drew near steadily and with set face, and eyed the shrouded form with
nothing worse than awe. Doubtful if it had ever entered his head, thought
Cadfael, that this might be his sister, or indeed a woman. He had seen the
dilated eyes fix on the short, curling hair; it was a young man Yves expected.
Nevertheless, Cadfael would have approached this somewhat differently if he had
not been certain already, in his own mind, that this dead girl, whoever she
might be, was not Ermina Hugonin. Beyond that he had only a
pitiful suspicion. But Yves would know. He
drew down the sheet from her face. The boy’s hands, clenched together before
him, tightened abruptly. He drew in breath hard, but made no other sound for a
long moment. He shook a little, but not much. The wide-eyed stare he raised to
Cadfael’s questioning face was one of shocked bewilderment, almost of
disbelief. “But
how is this possible? I thought… I don’t understand! She…” He gave up, shaking
his head violently, and hung over her again in fascinated pity and wonder. “I
do know her, of course I do, but how can she be here, and dead? This is Sister
Hilaria, who came with us from Worcester.” Chapter
Five BETWEEN
THEM THEY COAXED AND SHOOED HIM AWAY across the snowy court. Yves went still in
his daze, frowning helplessly over this sudden and inexplicable reappearance in
another place of someone he had left safe under a friendly roof some miles
away. He was too shaken and puzzled at first to realize fully the meaning of
what he had seen, but halfway to the guest-hall it hit him like a blow on the
head. He balked, gulped breath in a great sob, and startled himself, if no one
else, by bursting into tears. Prior Leonard would have clucked over him like a
dismayed hen, but Cadfael clapped him briskly on the shoulder, and said
practically: “Bear
up, my heart, for we’re going to need you. We have a malefactor to trace now,
and a wrong to avenge, and who but you can lead us straight to the place where
you left her? Where else should we start?” The
fit passed as abruptly as it had begun. Yves scrubbed at his smudged cheeks
hastily with his sleeve, and looked round alertly enough to see what he could
read in Hugh Beringar’s face. In Hugh the authority lay. The role of the
cloistered was to shelter and counsel and offer prayers, but justice and law
were the business of the sheriff. Yves was not a baron’s heir for nothing, he
knew all about the hierarchies. “That’s
true, I can take you straight from Foxwood to John Druel’s
holding, it lies higher than Cleeton village.” He caught eagerly at Hugh’s
sleeve, wise enough to ask nicely instead of demanding. “May I go with you and
show the way?” “You
may, if you’ll stay close and do all as you’re bidden.” Hugh was already
committed, Cadfael had seen to that. But far better for the boy to be out in
men’s company, and active, than to sit fretting here alone. “We’ll find you a
pony your size. Run, then, get your cloak and come after us to the stables.” Yves
ran, restored by the prospect of doing something to the purpose. Beringar
looked after him thoughtfully. “Go with him, Father Prior, if you will, see
that he has some food with him, for it may be a long day, and no matter how
large a dinner he’s eaten half an hour ago, he’ll be hungry before night.” And
to Cadfael he said, as they turned together towards the stables: “You, I know,
will do whatever you fancy doing, and I’m always glad of your company, if your
charges, live and dead, can spare you. But you’ve had some hard riding these
last days…” “For
an ageing man,” said Cadfael. “As
well I did not say so! I doubt you could outlast me, for all your great burden
of years. What of Brother Elyas, though?” “He
needs no more from me, now, than a visit or two each day, to see that nothing’s
turned back for him and gone amiss. His body is recovering well. And as for the
part of his mind that’s astray, my being here won’t cure it. It will come back
of itself one day, or it will cease to be missed. He’s well looked after. As
she was not!” he said sadly. “How
did you know,” asked Hugh, “that it could not be the child’s sister?” “The
cropped hair, first. A month now since they left Worcester, long enough to
provide her that halo we have seen. Why should the other girl clip her locks?
And then, the coloring. Ermina, so Herward said, is almost black of hair and
eye, darker brown than her brother. So is not this lady. And they did say, as I
remember, the nun was also young, no more than five and twenty or so. No, I was
sure he was safe from that worst threat. Thus far!” said Cadfael soberly. “Now we have to find her, and make sure he never shall have to
uncover another known face and set a name to it. I have the same obligations as
you, and I’m coming with you.” “Go
get yourself booted and ready, then,” said Hugh, without surprise, “and I’ll
saddle you one of my own remounts. I came well prepared for any tangles you
might get me into. I know you of old.” To
Foxwood was a fairly easy ride, being a used highway, but from Foxwood they
climbed by even higher ways, and on tracks more broken and steep. The vast
flank of Titterstone Clee rose here to a bleak plateau, with the highest ground
towering over them on the left hand, in cloud that dropped lower as the
afternoon passed its peak. Yves rode close at Hugh’s side, intent and
important. “We
can leave the village away on our right, the holding lies above here. Over this
ridge there’s a bowl of fields John has, and a sheep-pen up the hill.” Hugh
reined in suddenly, and sat with head raised, sniffing the air with stretched
nostrils. “Are you getting the same waft I have in my nose? What should a
husbandman be burning at this end of the year?” The
faint but ominous stink hung in the air, stirred by a rising wind. One of the
men-at-arms at Beringar’s back said with certainty: “Three or four days old,
and snowed over, but I smell timber.” Hugh
spurred forward up the climbing track, between bushes banked with snow, and up
to the crest where the ground declined into the hollow. In the sheltered bowl
trees grew, providing a wind-break for byre and barn and house, and partly
screening the holding from view. They could see the stone walls of the
sheep-pen on the rising ground beyond, but not until they had wound their way
through the first belt of trees did John Druel’s tenant-farm reveal itself to
their appalled sight. Yves uttered a muted howl of dismay, and reached to
clutch at Brother Cadfael’s arm. The
corner-posts of blackened buildings stood stark out of the drifts of snow, the
timbers of roof and barn, what remained of them, jutted in charred ruin where
they had fallen. A desolation in which nothing moved, nothing lived, even the near-by trees shrivelled and brown. The Druel homestead was
emptied of livestock, stores and people, and burned to the ground. They
threaded the forlorn wreckage in grim silence, Hugh’s eyes intent on every
detail. The iron frost had prevented worse stinks than burning, for in the
littered yard they found the hacked bodies of two of the household dogs. Though
some two or three fresh falls of snow had covered the traces since the
holocaust, it seemed that a party of raiders at least ten or twelve strong had
committed this outrage, driving off the sheep and the household cow, emptying
the bam, and probably the house, too, of anything portable, stringing the fowls
together by the legs, for scattered feathers still blew about the ground and
clung to the blackened beams. Hugh
dismounted, and clambered in among the wreckage of the house and barns. His men
were quartering all the ground within and without the enclosing wall, probing
the drifts. “They’ve
killed them,” said Yves in a small, hollow voice. “John and his wife, and
Peter, and the shepherd—killed them all, or carried them off, as they carried
off Sister Hilaria.” “Hush!”
said Cadfael. “Never jump to meet the worst until you’ve looked about you well.
You know what they’re looking for?” The searchers were turning to exchange
looks and shrugs, and drawing together again to the yard. “Bodies! And they’ve
found none. Only the dogs, poor creatures. They did their proper work, and gave
the alarm. Now we’d best hope they gave it in time.” Hugh
came picking his way back from the barn, beating soiled palms together. “No
dead here to find. Either they had warning enough to run for it, or they’ve
been dragged off with the raiders. And I doubt if masterless men living wild
would bother with captives. Kill they might, but take prisoners, of this simple
kind, that I doubt. But I wonder which way they came? As we did, or by tracks
of their own, along the hillside here above? If there were no more than ten of
them, they’d keep to their measure, and the village might be too strong to
tempt them.” “There
was one sheep slaughtered by the fold,” said his sergeant, back
from the hillside. “There’s a traverse comes along the slope there, that might
be their path if they wanted to avoid Cleeton and pick off some meat less well
defended.” “Then
Druel may have got his family away towards the village.” Hugh pondered, frowning
at the drifts that had covered all traces of coming and going of men and
beasts. “If the dogs gave tongue for the sheep, there may have been time. Let’s
at least go and ask in the village what they know of it. We may yet find them
all alive,” he said, clapping Yves reassuringly on the shoulder, “even if
they’ve lost their home and goods.” “But
not Sister Hilaria,” said Yves, clinging to a quarrel which had become his own,
and bitterly felt. “If they could run away in time, why could they not save
Sister Hilaria?” “That
you shall ask them, if by God’s grace we do find them. I do not forget Sister
Hilaria. Come, we’ve found all we are going to find here.” “One
small thing,” said Cadfael. “When you heard the horses, Yves, in the dark, and
ran out to try to follow your sister, which way did they lead you from here?” Yves
turned to view the sorry remains of the house from which he had run. “To the
right, there, behind the house. There’s a little stream comes down, it was not
frozen then— they started up the slope beside it. Not towards the top of the
hills, but climbing round the flank.” “Good!
That direction we may try, another day. I’m done, Hugh, we can go.” They
mounted and turned back by the way they had come, out of the desolation and
ruin of the hollow, over the ridge between the trees, and down the track
towards the village of Cleeton. A hard place, bleak to farm, meager to crop,
but good for sheep, the rangy upland sheep that brought the leanest meat but
the longest fleeces. Across the uphill edge of the settlement there was a crude
but solid stockade, and someone was on the watch for strangers arriving, for a
whistle went before them into the huddle of house, shrill and piercing. By the
time they rode in there were three or four sturdy fellows on hand to receive
them. Hugh smiled. Outlaws living wild, unless they had considerable numbers
and sufficient arms, might be wise to fight shy of Cleeton. He gave them good-day and made himself
known. Doubtful if men in isolated places hoped much from the king’s
protection, or the empress’s either, but a county sheriff did offer hope of his
being on their side in the fight to survive. They brought their reeve, and
answered questions eagerly. Yes, they knew of the destruction of John Druel’s
holding, and yes, John was safe here, sheltered and fed by the village, at
least alive if he had lost everything but life. And his wife and son with him,
and the shepherd who labored for him, all saved. A long-legged boy ran eagerly
to bring Druel to answer for himself. At
sight of the lean, wiry husbandman approaching, Yves scrambled down from his
saddle and ran to meet him, incoherent in his relief. The man came up with an
arm about the boy’s shoulders. “My
lord, he says you’ve been up there… where my home was. God knows how grateful I
am for the kindness here, that won’t let us starve when all our goods and gear
are gone, but what’s to become of us poor souls that work hard to make a
living, if it’s to be clawed away in a night, and the roof burned over us? It’s
hard to live solitary in the hills,” he said roundly, “at best. But outlawry
the like of this we never thought to see.” “Friend,”
said Beringar ruefully, “you may take it I never looked for it, either.
Reparation for your losses I cannot offer, but some of what was yours may still
be recovered, if we can trace the raiders who took it from you. The boy, here,
lodged with you several nights since, and his sister with him…” “And
vanished from us in the night,” said John, and gave Yves a disapproving frown. “That
we know, he has told us, and he, at least, had sound reasons, and took his own
grave risks. But what we need from you is some account of this attack that fell
upon you… when?” “Two
nights after the lady and the lad fled us. The night of the fourth of the month,
it was, but very late, towards dawn. We woke to hear the dogs going mad, and
rushed out thinking there might be wolves, in such hard weather. For the dogs
were chained, d’you see?—and wolves they were, but of the
two-legged kind! Once out, we could hear the sheep bellowing up the hill and
see torches up there. Then they begin to come bounding down the slope, knowing
the dogs had given the alarm. I don’t know how many men, there might have been
a dozen or more. We could not stand, we could only run. From the ridge there we
saw the barn take fire. The wind was wild, we knew it must all burn out. And
here we are, master, bereft, to make a new start from villeinry, if there’s a
yardland to be had under any lord. But with our lives, thanks be to God!” “So
they came first to your sheep-fold,” said Hugh. “From which direction along
that slope?” “From
the south,” said John at once, “but not from the road—higher on the hill. They
came down at us.” “And
you have no notion who they may be, or from where? You’ve had no rumor
beforehand of outlaws setting up anywhere near?” No,
there had been no warning until then. It had come out of the blue, between
midnight of the fourth, and pre-dawn of the fifth. “One
more question,” said Hugh. “Since you brought off your family with their lives,
what became of the nun of Worcester who lodged with you the night of the
second, along with this young man and his sister? That they left you that night
we know. What of the nun?” “Why,
she was well out of it,” said Druel thankfully. “I had not her on my heart that
night of the burning. She was gone, the afternoon before. Rather late it was
for the daylight, but not too far gone. And a safe escort along the way, I
reckoned she would do well enough. In a sad, distracted way she’d been, the
poor girl, when she found she’d been left alone, but she did not know where to
look for her chicks, and neither did we, and what was she to do?” “Someone
came for her?” asked Hugh. “A
Benedictine brother. She knew him, he had walked a part of the way with them
before, and urged them to go with him to Bromfield, she said. So he urged then,
and when she told him how she was forsaken, he said all the more she should put
herself and her trouble into the hands of others, who would search for her
charges for her, and keep her safe until they were found. He’d
had to make his way here from Foxwood, asking after her,” said John, making
allowance for the waning of the day when he had reached them. “I never saw
woman so thankful to have a friend take her in care. She went with him, and I
make no doubt she came safe to Bromfield.” Yves
stood dumb. “She came,” said Hugh drily, rather to himself than to any other.
Safe? Yes, take it as large as words will hold, yes, she came safe. Sinless,
conscientious, brave, who at this moment was safer than Sister Hilaria, an
innocent gone straight to God? “A
strange thing followed, though,” said Druel, “for the next day, while we were
here telling our tale, and the good folk making room for us in their homes,
like Christians as they are, there came a young man afoot, up from the road by
the proper way, and asked after just such a party as we had housed. Had any
here news, he said, of a young nun of Worcester, in company with two young
gentlefolk, brother and sister, making towards Shrewsbury. We were full of our
own troubles, but we told him all we knew, and how they were all gone from us
before ever this evil befell. And he listened and went away. Up to the wreck of
my holding, first, but after that I cannot tell where.” “A
stranger to all here?” asked Hugh, looking round the circle that had gathered,
for by then the women had come forth, and hung attentive on the outskirts. “Never
seen before,” said the reeve emphatically. “What
manner of man, then?” “Why,
by his dress husbandman or shepherd like any of us here, a brown homespun man.
Not so much as thirty years old, nearer five or six and twenty. Bigger than
your lordship, but built like you, light and long. And dark, a black-rimmed eye
on him with a yellow glint, like a hawk. And black hair under his hood.” The
women had drawn closer in silence, quiet-eyed and prick-eared. Their interest
in the stranger was all the plainer because not one of them voiced it, or
volunteered any detail concerning him. Whoever he was, he had made an
impression upon the women of Cleeton, and they did not mean to miss
anything they could glean about him, or surrender anything they had already
gleaned. “Dark-skinned,”
said Druel, “and beaked like a hawk, too. A very comely man.” Yes, so the attentive
eyes of the women said. “There was something I thought slow about his speech,
now I come to recall…” Hugh
took him up alertly on that. “As though he were not at home in the common
English?” John
had not thought of that for himself; he considered it stolidly. “It might be
that. Or as if he had a small stumble of the tongue, like.” Well,
if English was not his proper tongue, what was? Welsh? Easily possible here
along the borders, but what would a Welshman be doing asking after the
fugitives from Worcester? Angevin, then? Ah, that was another matter. “If
ever you should hear or see more of him,” said Hugh, “send me word into Ludlow
or Bromfield, and you shall not be losers. And for you, friend, let’s own
honestly there’s little chance of recovering all or most of your losses, but
some of your stock we may yet win back for you if we can trace these outlaws to
their lair. We’ll do our best to that end, be sure.” He
wheeled his horse, and led the way towards the downward track, the others
following, but he did not hurry, for one of the young women had drawn off in
that direction, and was eyeing him meaningly over her shoulder. As Hugh came by
she closed alongside, and laid a hand to his stirrup-leather. She knew what she
was about, she had moved far enough to be out of earshot of the village. “My
lord…” She looked up at him with sharp blue eyes, and spoke in a purposeful
undertone. “One more thing I can tell you about the dark man, that no one else
saw. I said no word, for fear they would close up against him if they knew. He
was a very well-looking man, I trusted him, even if he was not what he seemed…”
“In
what particular?” asked Hugh, just as quietly. “He
kept his cloak close about him, my lord, and in the cold that was no marvel.
But when he went away I followed a little, and I saw how the folds hung at his
left side. Country lad or no, he wore a sword.” “So they went from here together,” said
Yves, as they rode down towards the highroad, where they must haste if they
were to use the remainder of the daylight. He had been very silent, struggling
with revelations that seemed only to make the pattern of events more complex
and entangled. “He came back to look for us all, and found only Sister Hilaria.
It was evening already, they would be caught in the darkness and the snow. And
these same robbers and murderers who have ruined poor John must have attacked
them, and left them both for dead.” “So
it would seem,” said Hugh somberly. “We have a plague among us that needs
burning out before it spreads. But what are we to make of this simple
countryman who wore a sword under his cloak?” “And
asking after us!” Yves recalled, marvelling. “But I know no one like that.” “What
like was the young lord who took away your sister?” “Not
black, nor like a hawk, rather fair-skinned, and fair in the hair, too. And
besides, even if he came seeking the two of us she’d left behind, he would not
come up from the highroad, not according to the way we set off when I followed
them. And he would not come dressed as a peasant, either. Nor alone.” All
of which was shrewd sense. There were, of course, other possibilities. The men
of Gloucester, elated by their gains, might well be sending agents in disguise
into these regions, probing for any weak spots, and such envoys, thought Cadfael,
might have been told to pursue, at the same time, the search for Laurence
d’Angers’ nephew and nice, strayed in the Worcester panic. “Let
it lie by a while,” said Beringar, half-grim and half-appreciative, as if he
looked forward to interesting encounters. “We shall certainly hear more of
Cleeton’s dark stranger, if we just bide quiet and bear his image in mind.” They
were within two miles of Ludlow before the expected snow began with the dusk.
They drew close cloak and capuchon, and rode sturdily with heads down, but so
close to home that they were in no danger of losing the road.
Hugh parted from them under the walls of Ludlow, to ride in to his company
there, leaving two of his men to escort Cadfael and the boy the short way on to
Bromfield. Even Yves had lost his tongue by then, a little drunk with fresh air
and exercise, and already growing hungry, for all he had eaten his hunk of
bread and strip of hard bacon long before. He sat braced and stolid in the
saddle, hunched under his hood, but emerged from it with a face like a rosy
apple as soon as they lighted down in the great court at the priory. Vespers
was long over. Prior Leonard was hovering, watchful and uneasy, for the return
of his fledgling, and ventured out into the thick haze of snow to reclaim him
and bring him in to supper. It
was after Compline when Beringar rode in, let his tired mount be led away to
the stables, and came to find Cadfael, who was sitting by the bed where Brother
Elyas already slept his secret, remote and troubled sleep. At sight of Hugh’s
face, full of hard tidings, Cadfael laid a finger to his lip, and rose to steal
away from the bedside into the anteroom, where they could talk without
disturbing the sleeper. “Our
friend above Cleeton,” said Hugh, sitting back with a great sigh against the
panelled wall, “is not the only one who had fallen victim, Cadfael. We have the
devil among us, no question. Ludlow’s in a hum tonight. It seems one of Dinan’s
archers has an old father at a hamlet south of Henley, a free tenant holding
from Mortimer, and today the lad went off to visit, to see how the old man was
making out in this hard weather. A holding not two miles from Ludlow, though
solitary. He found the place as we found Druel’s homestead. Not burned,
though—smoke or flames would have been seen, and brought Dinan out with all his
force like a swarm of bees disturbed. But swept clear of life, goods, gear and
all. And there the folk did not escape. Butchered, every one, except for one
poor idiot wretch the archer found wandering from house to house, foraging for
any crumbs left to live on.” Brother
Cadfael gaped at him in appalled wonder. “That they should dare, so near a
strong town!” “Trying
out their claws, in despite of a well-found garrison. And the one man left
alive, who hid in the woods until the raiders left, may be uncertain in his
wits, but he saw it all, and has given an account that makes
excellent sense, and for my part, I think him a good witness. And he says there
were about twenty men, and they had daggers, axes and swords among them. Three,
he says, were mounted. They came about midnight, and in a few hours had driven
off all the stock and departed into the night. And he has small notion of how
many days he has been solitary and starving there, but such things as the
changes of weather he understands very well, and he says, and will not be
shifted, that this took place on the night of the first hard frost, when all
the brooks stopped flowing.” “I
take your meaning,” said Cadfael, and gnawed his knuckles in fierce thought.
“The same two-legged wolves? The same night, surely. The first hard frost!
About midnight this slaughter and pillage by Henley… As if they set out
deliberately to blacken Dinan’s face!” “Or
mine,” said Hugh grimly. “Or
King Stephen’s! Well, so they moved off with their spoils maybe two hours after
midnight. They would not move fast, driving cattle and carrying food and grain.
Not long before dawn they ransacked and burned John Druel’s holding, high on
Clee. And in between—would you not say, Hugh?—in between they happened on
Brother Elyas and Sister Hilaria, and after their fashion let loose in a little
exuberant sport, leaving both dead or dying. Could there be two such bands out
on their grisly business on the same night? A wild night, a blizzard night,
that might well keep even thieves and vagabonds close to home. There are here
men who know these parts like their own palms, Hugh, and neither snow nor frost
can cage them.” “Two
such bands?” said Hugh, darkly pondering. “No, that’s out of the reckoning. And
consider the line they took that night. The night’s ventures began here under
our noses—that’s the furthest range of their foray. They returned eastward,
crossing the highway—for somewhere there your Brother Elyas was found—and
before dawn they were rounding the high shoulder of Titterstone Clee, where
they burned out Druel’s holding. It may not even have been in their plan,
simply a frolic by men drunk with success. But it was on their
way home, for they’d want to be snug and unseen by dawn. Agreed?” “Agreed.
And are you thinking, Hugh, what I am thinking? Yves rushes out to recall his
sister from her folly, and strikes off from that holding uphill, perhaps not on
the same level, but surely in the same direction your outlaws took on their way
home, two nights later. Somewhere in those uplands lies the manor to which his
sister fled with her lover. Does it not look as though he may have taken her to
a house far too close neighbor to the devil to be a safe place either for him
or for her?” “I
have already made my dispositions,” Hugh assured him with grim satisfaction,
“with that in mind. There’s a great swathe of upland there, some of it
forested, some of it rock, and bleak as death, too barren even for sheep. The
workable manors there go no higher than Druel’s homestead, and even there nest
in the sheltered places. Tomorrow at first light I’m going out with Dinan to
follow that same line the boy took, and see if I can find what he lost himself
seeking, the manor where the girl was taken. First, if we can, let’s get her
safe out of it. Then we may go after this challenger who spits in the face of
law, with no hostages at stake.” “But
leave the boy here!” said Cadfael, more peremptorily than he had intended. Hugh
looked down at him with a wry and burdened smile. “We shall be away before ever
he opens his eyes. Do you think I dare risk confronting him with another and
dearer corpse, with your fierce eye on me? No, if luck’s with us we’ll bring
him his sister, either intact or a wife irreclaimable, and they shall fight it
out between them, he, she and the lover! If luck turns her back on us—well,
then you may be needed. But once this girl’s well out of it, this burden is
mine, and you may take care of your patient and sit quietly at home.” Cadfael
watched the night through with Brother Elyas, and got nothing more for his
pains than he had known already. The barrier remained immovable. When a dutiful
brother came to relieve him, he went to his bed, and slept as soon as he lay
down. He had the gift. There was no profit in laying awake
fretting for what would, in any case, have to be faced on awaking, and he had
long ago sloughed off the unprofitable. It took too much out of a man, of what
would be needed hereafter. He
awoke only when he was roused by Prior Leonard, which was in the early
afternoon, a couple of hours at least after he had intended to be up and doing.
By which time Hugh was back from his foray into the hills, and tramped in weary
and bleak of countenance to share a late dinner, and report the fruits of his
labors. “There
is a manor known as Callowleas, a quarter-circle round the flank of Clee from
Druel’s place, and much on the same level.” Hugh paused to frown over his own
choice of words. “There was such a manor! It has been wiped out, drained,
filleted like a fish. What we found was Druel’s homestead over again, but to
another degree. This was a thriving manor, and now it’s a snowy waste, a number
of bodies buried or frozen there, nothing living left to speak. We’ve brought
back the first of the dead into Ludlow, and left men breaking out others from
the drifts. No telling how many they’ll find. By the covering of snow, I should
judge this raid took place even before the frost set in.” “Do
you tell me?” Cadfael sat staring, appalled. “Then before the raids of which we
already know, and before our little nun was killed, and Brother Elyas reduced
to his haunted condition he lies in now. Now you have your finger on a fixed
place, is there a name and a lord to go with it? Dinan will know all these
tenants who hold from him, and it must be his writ, the old Lacy writ, that
runs there.” “It
is. The manor of Callowleas is held from him by a young man who came into his
father’s honor only two years ago. Of suitable fortune, person, and age, yes.
His name is Evrard Boterei. Not a great family, but respected. By many tokens,
he may well be the man.” “And
this place lies in the right direction? The way the girl fled with her lover?”
It was a grim reflection, but Hugh shook his head emphatically at despondency. “Ah,
but wait! Nothing’s certain yet, Yves could not name the man. But even if it is
so—as I believe it must be—no need yet to bury the girl. For Dinan pointed out
that Boterel also holds the manor of Ledwyche, down in the
valley of the Dogditch brook, and there’s a good downhill track continues on
that way from Callowleas, into forest, and thick forest at that. A little over
three miles between the two holdings. We followed it a short way, though I own
I had little hope of finding any traces, even if some of the household had
escaped the slaughter that way. We had better fortune that I expected, or maybe
deserved. Look, this is what I found!” He
drew it out from the breast of his cotte, and held it up over his fist, a net
of fine gold filigree threads on a band of embroidered ribbon, made to pass
round the head when the hair was netted, and tie over the brow. The bow in
which it had been tied had been dragged askew, but not undone, for the band had
torn apart a little aside from it. “Caught
in thick woodland, well down the path. They were in haste, whoever rode that
way, they cut through a dense thicket to come the quickest way down the slope,
there were broken twigs hanging to bear witness. I say they, but I fancy one
horse only, with two riders. A low branch caught and dragged this from her
head. And since that gives us every hope that the wearer got away safely from
that terror, we may very well show this to Yves, and say how it was found. If
he knows it for hers, then I’m bound for Ledwyche, to see if luck’s still on
our side.” There
was no hesitation. The moment Yves set eyes on the handful of gold cobweb, his
eyes opened wide and grew luminous with hope and eagerness. “That
is my sister’s!” he said, shining. “It was too fine for the journey, but I know
she had it with her. For him she might wear it! Where did you find it?” Chapter
Six THIS
TIME THEY TOOK YVES WITH THEM, partly because, though he might have accepted
Hugh’s fiat gracefully if refused, he would have been restless and miserable
all the time of waiting, and partly because, in addition to being the only one
who could positively identify Ermina’s suitor when found, he was indeed the man
of his blood here, the head of his household, and had every right to partake in
the search for his lost sister, now they knew she should be well alive. “But
this is the same way we came down from Thurstan’s assart,” he said, after they
had turned off the highroad by the bridge over the Corve. “Must we continue
so?” “We
must, for some while. Well past the place where you and I would as soon not
be,” said Cadfael simply, divining his unease. “But we need not turn our eyes
away. There is nothing evil there. Neither earth nor water nor air have any
part in man’s ill-doing.” And with an attentive but cautious eye on the boy’s
grave face he said: “You may grieve, but you must not begrudge that she is
gone. Her welcome is assured.” “She
was, of all of us, the only best,” said Yves, abruptly eloquent. “You don’t
know! Never out of temper, always patient and kind and very brave. She was much
more beautiful than Ermina!” He
was thirteen, but taught and gifted, perhaps, somewhat beyond
his years, and he had gone afoot in Sister Hilaria’s gallant and gentle company
many days, close and observant. And if he had glimpsed for the first time a
mature kind of love, surely it had been a most innocent and auspicious kind,
even now after the apparent mutilation of loss. Yves had come to no harm. In
the past two days he seemed to have grown in stature, and taken several long
strides away from his infancy. He
did not avert his eyes when they came to the brook, but he was silent, and so
remained until after they had crossed the second brook also; but from that
point they veered to the right, and came into open woodland, and the new vistas
revived his interest in the world about him, and brightened his eyes again. The
brief winter sunlight, which had again drawn down slender icicles from eaves
and branches, was already past, but the light was clear and the air still, and
the patterns of black and white and dusky greens had their own somber beauty. They
crossed the Hopton brook, still motionless as before, half a mile lower down
its course than when they had come to Godstoke together. “But we must have been
very near,” said Yves, marvelling that he might have passed almost within touch
of his sister that day, and never known it. “Still
a mile or so to go.” “I
hope she may be there!” “So
do we all,” said Hugh. They
came to the manor of Ledwyche over a slight ridge, and emerged from woodland to
look down an equally gentle slope towards the Ledwyche brook, into which all
the others drained before it flowed on, mile after mile, southward to join the
River Theme. Beyond the watered valley the ground rose again, and there,
directly before them in the distance, hung the vast, bleak outline of
Titterstone Clee, its top shrouded in low cloud. But in between, the valley lay
sheltered on all sides from the worst winds. Trees had been cleared from round
the manor, except for windbreaks left for protection to crops and stock in the
most open places. From their ridge they looked down at an impressive array of
buildings, the manor-house itself built long and steep-roofed over a squat
undercroft, the entire visible sweep of the stockade lined
within with barn and byre and store. A considerable holding, and surely a
temptation to the hungry and covetous, in these lawless times, but perhaps too
strongly manned to be easy prey. It
seemed, however, that the holder was not quite easy about his property, for as
they drew nearer they could see that on the narrow timber bridge that crossed
the brook beyond the manor, men were working busily, erecting a barrier of
logs, and above the old, dark wood of the stockade, and especially along that eastward
side, glared the white, new wood of recent building. The lord of the manor was
heightening his fences. “They
are here, surely,” said Hugh, staring. “Here lives a man who has taken warning,
and does not mean to be caught by surprise a second time.” They
rode down with rising hopes to the open gate in the stockade, which here to the
west was still only breast-high. Nevertheless, even on this side an archer rose
in the gate to challenge them, and his bow was strung, and if he had not an
arrow braced, he had a quiver on his shoulder. He
was a shrewd fellow, so quick to measure the good equipment of the men-at-arms
at Hugh’s back that he had changed his wary front for a smile before ever Hugh
could recite his name and titles. “My
lord, you’ve very welcome. The lord sheriff’s deputy could not come better. If
our lord had known you were so near he would have sent to you. For he could not
well come himself… But ride in, my lord, ride in, and my boy here will run for
the steward.” The
boy was already in full flight across the trampled snow within the pale. By the
time they had ridden across to the stone stairway that led up to the great door
of the hall, the steward was scurrying out to receive them, a stout elderly
man, russet of beard and bald of head. “I
am seeking Evrard Boterei,” said Hugh, descending with a flurry of snow at his
heel. “He’s within?” “He
is, my lord, but not yet in full health. He has been in a sharp fever, but it
mends gradually. I’ll bring you to him.” He
went before, stumping up the steep stairs, and Hugh followed him close, with
Brother Cadfael and Yves on his heels. Within the great hall,
at this hour of this winter day, and with hardly a soul using it and hardly a
torch to light it, thick gloom hung heavy, warmed only grudgingly by the
dampened fire on the stones of the central hearth. All the manor’s menfolk were
working on the defense. A middle-aged matron jingled her keys along the passage
behind the screens, a couple of maids whispered and peered from the kitchen. The
steward brought them with a flourish into a small room at the upper end of the
hall, where a man lay back languidly in a great, cushioned chair, with wine and
a smoky oil-lamp on a table at his side. One small window was unshuttered, but
the light it provided was growing dim, and the yellow flame from the wick of
the lamp cast deceptive shadows, and gave them only a dusky view of the face
that turned towards them as the door was opened. “My
lord, here are the sheriff’s officers come south to Ludlow.” The steward had
softened his bluff voice to the coaxing tone he might have used to a child, or
a very sick man. “The lord Hugh Beringar comes to see you. We shall have help
if we should need it, you can put your mind at rest.” A
long and muscular but slightly shaky hand was put out to move the lamp, so that
it might show host and visitors to each other more clearly. A low-pitched voice
said, over somewhat quick and shallow breath: “My lord, you’re heartily
welcome. God knows we seem to have need of you in these parts.” And to the
steward he said: “Bring more lights, and some refreshment.” He leaned forward
in the chair, gathering himself with an effort. “You find me in some disarray,
I am sorry for it. They tell me I have been in fever some days. I am out of
that now, but it has left me weaker than I care to be.” “So
I see, and I am sorry,” said Hugh. “I brought a force south here, I must tell
you, upon other business, but by chance it has taken me to your manor above at
Callowleas. I have seen, sir, what has been done to you there. I am glad that
you, and some, at least, of your people escaped alive from that massacre, and I
intend to make it my business to find and root out whatever nest of vultures
brought that upon you. I see you have been busy strengthening
your own defenses.” “As
best we can.” A
woman brought candles, disposed them silently in sconces on the walls, and
withdrew. The sudden brightness brought them all vividly close, eyes startled
wide. Yves, who had stood rooted and stiff by Cadfael’s side, a lordling ready
to confront his enemy, suddenly clutched at Cadfael’s sleeve and softened in
uncertainty. The
man in the great chair looked no more than twenty-four or twenty-five. He had
heaved himself forward, and the cushions had slid down at his back. He
presented to the light a face pale and hollow-cheeked, the eyes large and dark,
and sunken into bruised hollows, glittering still with the hectic brilliance of
fever. His thick fair hair was rumpled and on end from the pillows that had
propped him. But no question, this was a very handsome and engaging person, and
when in health a tall and athletic one. He was clothed and booted, plainly he
had been out during the day among his men, ill-advisedly, for his boots were
wet and dark with melted snow. He was bending his brows now and peering
attentively at his three visitors, and when his gaze reached the boy, it halted
and hung there. He was not sure. He shook his head a little, peered again, and
pondered, frowning. “You
know the boy?” asked Hugh mildly. “He is Yves Hugonin, here seeking a lost
sister. If you can help us, we shall be greatly relieved, both he and I. For I
think you did not retreat from Callowleas alone. Caught in a tree along the
woodland track that bears this way, we found this.” He drew out the thimbleful
of gilt thread that expanded to a filigree globe in the palm of his hand. “Do
you know it?” “Only
too well!” said Evrard Boterei harshly, and closed, for an instant, large full
eyelids over too-bright eyes. He opened them again to look directly at Yves.
“You are the young brother? Forgive me that I could not be sure of you. I have
not seen you but once, I think, since you were a child. Yes, this is hers.” “You
brought her here with you,” said Hugh, not questioning, stating. “Safe out of
that attack.” “Yes—safe!
Yes, I brought her here.” There was a fine dew of sweat on
Evrard’s broad brow, but his eyes were wide open and clear. “We
have been in search of her and her companions” said Hugh, “ever since the
sub-prior of Worcester came to Shrewsbury asking after them, since all trace of
them had been lost after their flight. If she is here, send for her.” “She
is not here,” said Evrard heavily. “Nor do I know where she is. All these days
between, either I or men of mine have been hunting for her.” He set his long
hands to the arms of his chair, and hauled himself shakily to his feet. “I will
tell you!” he said. He
stalked about the room as he told them, a gaunt young man, filled with restless
energy, but enfeebled by his days of sickness. “I
was a frequent and welcome guest in her father’s house. This boy will know that
is truth. She grew up in beauty, and I loved her. I did and do love her! Since
she was orphaned I have ridden three times to Worcester to see her, and borne
myself as I must to be admitted there, and never did I have any evil design on
her, but intended to ask for her hand when I might. For her proper guardian now
is her uncle, and he is in the Holy Land. All we could do was wait for his
return. When I heard of the sack of Worcester all my prayer was that she should
be escaped well out of it. I never thought of any gain to me, nor that she
might be fled this way, until she sent her boy up from Cleeton…” “On
which day was that?” demanded Hugh, cutting in sharply. “On
the second day of this month. Come by night, she said, and fetch me away, for I
am here waiting for you. Never a word of any others along with her. I knew only
what she told me, and I went as she asked, with a horse for her, and brought
her away to Callowleas. She had taken me by surprise,” he said, jerking up his
head in defensive challenge, “but I wished of all things to wed her, and so did
she me. And I brought her there, and used her with all honor, and with her
consent I sent out to bring a priest to marry us. But the next night, before
ever he reached us, we were all undone.” “I have seen the ruin they left,” said
Hugh. “From which direction did they come? In what numbers?” “Too
many for us! They were into the bailey and into the house before ever we knew
what was happening. I cannot tell whether they came round the flank of the
hill, or over the crests at us, for they broke in round half our stockade,
ringing us from above and from the east. God knows I may have been too taken up
with Ermina to set as strict a watch as I should have done, but there had been
no warning, never a word until then of any such banditry in the land. It fell
like lightning-stroke. Their numbers I can hardly guess, but surely as many as
thirty, and well-armed. We were but half that, and caught easy and
half-sleeping after supper. We did what we could—I came by some hurts…” Cadfael
had already observed how he held one arm and shoulder hunched and still, the
left, where a right-handed opponent would lunge for his heart. “I had Ermina to
save, I dared not attempt more. I took her and rode. The downhill way was still
possible. They did not follow us. They were busy.” His mouth twisted in a
painful grimace. “We came here safely.” “And
then? How comes it that you have lost her again?” “You
cannot charge me more bitterly than I have accused myself,” said Evrard
wearily. “I am ashamed to face the boy here, and own how I let her slip through
my hands. It is little excuse to say, however truly, that I had bled too much,
and fell into my bed too weak to move. My leech may say what he can for me, I
will not plead. But by the next day this prod here in my shoulder had taken bad
ways, and the fever set in. By evening, when I had my wits for a while, and
asked for her, they told me she had been frantic with tears for her brother,
left behind at the house from which I took her. Now that she knew there were
such cutthroats abroad in these parts, she could not rest until she knew him
safe, and so she took horse in the middle of the day, and left word she would
ride to Cleeton to inquire after him. And she did not return.” “And
you did not follow her!” accused Yves, stiff as a lance and quivering by
Cadfael’s side. “You let her go alone, and stayed nursing your grazes!” “Neither
the one nor the other,” said Boterel, but gently and ruefully. “I did not let
her go, for I did not know she was gone. And I did, when I
learned of it—as my people here will tell you—I did get up from my bed and go
out to hunt for her. It was the cold of that night, I think, and the rubbing of
my clothes and the motion of riding, that fetched me down for so long. Sorry I
am, I swooned and fell out of the saddle, and those I had with me carried me
home the miles I’d ridden. I never reached Cleeton.” “As
well for you,” said Hugh drily, “for that night the very house she was seeking
was gutted and burned, and the family driven out.” “So
I have now been told. You do not think I have left things so, and never stirred
to try and find her? But she was not there when the holding was attacked. If
you have been there, and spoken with those who sheltered her, you know so much.
She never got there. I have had men out hunting for her all this time, even
though I myself was a useless wretch laid here shivering and raving. And now
that I have my legs under me again I shall go on searching. Until I find her!”
he said vehemently, and shut his mouth with a snap of strong teeth. There
was nothing more for them here, nothing to be gained and little to be blamed,
it seemed. The girl had set in motion the whole disastrous course, doubly
headstrong in decamping with her lover in the first place, and afterwards,
because he was stricken down, in setting off alone to try and amend what she
had done so sadly amiss. “If
you hear of any word of her,” said Hugh, “send to tell me at Bromfield, where I
am lodged, or in Ludlow, where you will find my men.” “I
shall, my lord, without fail.” Evrard fell back again among his untidy pillows,
and flinched at a twinge of pain, shifting his shoulder tenderly to ease it. “Before
we go,” said Brother Cadfael, “can I not dress your wound again for you? For I
see that it gives you trouble, and I fancy you have still a raw surface there
that sticks to your dressing, and may do further damage. You have a physician
here tending you?” The
young man’s hollow eyes opened wide at this kindly interest. “My leech, I
called him, I know. He’s none, but he has some skill, from
experience. I think he has looked after me pretty well. You are wise in such
matters, brother?” “Like
your own man, from long practice. I have often dealt with wounds that have
taken bad course. What has he used on you?” He was curious about other men’s
prescriptions, and there was clean linen bandaging, and a clay ointment jar
laid aside on a shelf by the wall. Cadfael lifted the lid and sniffed at the
greenish salve within. “Centaury, I think, and the yellow mild nettle, both
good. He knows his herbs. I doubt if you could do better. But since he is not
here, and you are in discomfort, may I assay?” Evrard
lay back submissively and let himself be handled. Cadfael unlaced the ties of
the young man’s corte, and drew the left shoulder gently out from the wide
sleeve, until the shirt could also be drawn down, and his arm freed. “You
have been out and active today, this binding is rubbed into creases, and dried
hard, no wonder it hurts you. You should lie still a day or two yet, and let it
rest.” It was his physician’s voice, practical, confident, even a little
severe. His patient listened meekly, and let himself be unwound from his
wrappings, which enveloped both shoulder and upper arm. The last folds were
stained in a long slash that ran from above the heart down to the underside of
the arm, with a thin, dark line of blood that ebbed out on either side into
pale, dried fluid. Here Cadfael went delicately, steadying the flesh against
every turn of the linen. The folds creaked stiffly free. A
long slash that could have killed him, but instead had been deflected outwards,
to slice down into the flesh of his arm. Not deep nor dangerous, though he
might well have bled copiously until it was staunched, and since he had ridden
hard that same night, no wonder he had lost blood enough to enfeeble him. It
was healing now from either end, and healing clean, but certainly, by exertion or
some contagion of dirt entering, it had been ugly and festering, and even now,
in the centre of the wound, the flesh showed pink, soft and angry. Cadfael
cleansed it with a morsel of the linen, and applied a new plaster coated with
the herbal salve. The pallid young face stared up at him all the while with
unblinking, bruised eyes, wondering and mute. “You have no other wounds?” asked
Cadfael, winding a fresh bandage about his dressing. “Well, rest this one a day
or two longer, and rest your own uneasy mind with it, for we are all on the
same quest. Take a little air in the middle of the day, if the sun comes, but
keep from cold and give your body time. There, now your sleeve, so… But it
would be wise to have these boots off, wrap yourself in your gown, and make
yourself content.” The
hollow eyes followed his withdrawal, marvelling. He found his voice to follow
them with thanks only as they were leaving. “You
have a gifted touch, brother. I feel myself much eased. God be with you!” They
went out to their horses and the gradually fading light. Yves was dumb. He had
come to challenge, and remained to feel sympathy, though almost against his
will. He was new to wounds and pain and sickness, until the shock of Worcester
he had lived indulged, sheltered, a child. And for his sister’s sake he was
deep in bitter disappointment and anxiety, and wanted no promptings from
anyone. “He
has what he claims,” said Brother Cadfael simply, when they were cresting the
ridge and heading down into the trees. “A thrust meant for his heart, rubbed
raw again later, and poisoned by some foulness that got into the wound. He has
been in fever, sure enough, and fretted gouts from his flesh. Everything speaks
him true.” “And
we are no nearer finding the girl,” said Hugh. The
nightly clouds were gathering, the sky drooping over their heads, an ominous
wind stirring. They made all the haste they could to get back into Bromfield
before the snow began. Chapter
Seven AFTER
VESPERS THAT NIGHT the wind rose violently, the vague wisps of snow that
drifted aimlessly on the air changed to thin, lashing whips, driving
horizontally against the walls and piling new layers of white against every
windward surface. By the time supper was over, and Brother Cadfael scurried
across the great court to the infirmary to look at his patient, the world
outside was an opaque, shifting, blinding mass of flakes, growing ever thicker.
This was to be a blizzard night. The wolves might well be abroad again. They
knew their ground exceedingly well, and weather that might daunt the innocent
had no terrors for them. Brother
Elyas had been allowed out of his bed for the first time, and was reclining
propped by his pillow, bony and shrunken in his voluminous habit. His head
wounds had healed over, his body mended of itself, but the constitution of his
mind had not the same strength. With mute submission he did whatever he was
bidden, with low and listless voice he gave thanks humbly for all that was done
for him, but with sunken eyes and painfully knotted brows he stared beyond the
walls of his cell, as if half-seeing and half-deluding himself that he saw that
part of him that had been reft away and never returned. Only in sleep, and
particularly when falling asleep or awaking out of sleep, was he agitated and
shaken, as if between waking life and the gentler semblance of
death the veil that hid his lost memory from him thinned but did not quite
part. Yves
had followed Cadfael across the court, restless and anxious. He was hovering
outside the door of the sickroom when Cadfael came out. “Should
you not be in your bed, Yves? Such a long, hard day as you’ve had!” “I
don’t want to sleep yet,” pleaded the boy querulously. “I’m not tired. Let me
sit with him for you until after Compline. I’d rather have something to do.”
And indeed it might be the best thing for him, to be doing something for
someone else, and feeding a draught of herbs to Brother Elyas might spill a
drop of comfort to soothe his own troubles and disappointments. “He still
hasn’t said anything to help us? He doesn’t remember us?” “Not
yet. There is a name he calls sometimes in his sleep, but none of our
acquaintance.” He called for her as for a thing hopelessly lost, an irreparable
grief but not an anxiety, she being beyond pain or danger. “Hunydd. In his
deepest sleep he calls for Hunydd.” “A
strange name,” said Yves, wondering. “Is it a man or a woman?” “A
woman’s name—a Welshwoman. I think, though I do not know, that she was his
wife. And dearly loved, too dearly to leave him in peace if she is only a few
months dead. Prior Leonard said of him, not long in the cloister. He may well
have tried to escape from what was hard to bear alone, and found it no easier
among any number of brethren.” Yves
was looking up at him with a man’s eyes, steady and grave. Even sorrows as yet
well out of his range he could go far towards understanding. Cadfael shook him
amiably by the shoulder. “There, yes, sit by him if you will. After Compline
I’ll bring someone to take your place. And should you need me, I’ll not be far away.”
Elyas
dozed, opened his eyes, and dozed again. Yves sat still and silent beside the
bed, attentive to every change in the gaunt but strong and comely face, and
pleased and ready when the invalid asked for a drink, or needed an arm to help
him turn and settle comfortably. In the wakeful moments the boy
tried tentatively to reach a mind surely not quite closed against him, talking
shyly of the winter weather, and the common order of the day within these
walls. The hollow eyes watched him as though from a great distance, but
attentively. “Strange,”
said Elyas suddenly, his voice low and creaky with disuse. “I feel that I
should know you. Yet you are not a brother of the house.” “You
have known me,” said Yves, eager and hopeful. “For a short time we were
together, do you remember? We came from Cleobury together, as far as Foxwood.
My name is Yves Hugonin.” No,
the name meant nothing. Only the face, it seemed touched some chord in his
disrupted memory. “There was snow threatening,” he said. “I had a reliquary to
deliver here, they tell me I brought it safely. They tell me! All I know is
what they tell me.” “But
you will remember,” said Yves earnestly. “It will come clear to you again. You
may trust what they tell you, no one would deceive you. Shall I tell you more
things? True things, that I know?” The
wondering, doubting face watched him, and made no motion of rejection. Yves
leaned close, and began to talk solemnly and eagerly about what was past. “You
were coming from Pershore, but roundabout, to avoid the trouble in Worcester.
And we had run from Worcester, and wanted to reach Shrewsbury. At Cleobury we
were all lodged overnight, and you would have had us come here to Bromfield
with you, as the nearest place of safety, and I wanted to go with you, but my
sister would not, she would go on over the hills. We parted at Foxwood.” The
face on the pillow was not responsive, but seemed to wait with a faint, patient
hope. The wind shook the stout shutter covering the window, and filtered
infinitely tiny particles of snow into the room, to vanish instantly. The
candle flickered. The whine of the gale outside was a piercingly desolate
sound. “But
you are here,” said Elyas abruptly, “far from Shrewsbury still. And alone! How
is that, that you should be alone?” “We
were separated.” Yves was not quite easy, but if the sick man was beginning to
ask questions thus intelligently, the threads of his torn
recollections might knit again and present him a whole picture. Better to know
both the bad and the good, since there was no guilt in it for him, he was the
blameless victim, and surely knowledge should be healing. “Some kind country
people sheltered me, and Brother Cadfael brought me here. But my sister… We are
seeking her. She left us of her own will!” He could not resist that cry, but
would not accuse her further. “I am sure we shall find her safe and well,” he
said manfully. “But
there was a third,” said Brother Elyas, so softly, so inwardly, that it seemed
he spoke to himself. “There was a nun…” And now he was not looking at Yves, but
staring great-eyed into the vault above him, and his mouth worked agitatedly. “Sister
Hilaria,” said Yves, quivering in response. “A
nun of our order…” Elyas set both hands to the sides of his bed, and sat up
strongly. Something had kindled in the deeps of his haunted eyes, a yellow,
crazed light too vivid to be merely a reflection from the candle’s flame.
“Sister Hilaria…” he said, and now at last he had found a name that meant
something to him, but something so terrible that Yves reached both hands to
take him by the shoulders, and urge him to lie down again. “You
mustn’t fret—she is not lost, she is here, most reverently tended and coffined.
It is forbidden to wish her back, she is with God.” Surely they must have told
him, but maybe he had not understood. Death could not be hidden away. He would
grieve, naturally, but that is permitted. But you may not begrudge it that she
has left us, Brother Cadfael had said. Brother
Elyas uttered a dreadful, anguished sound, yet so quiet that the howl of the
wind at the shutter almost drowned it. He clenched both hands into large, bony
fists, and struck them against his breast. “Dead!
Dead? In her youth, in her beauty—trusting me! Dead! Oh, stones of this house,
fall and cover me, unhappy! Bury me out of the sight of men…” Barely
half of it was clear, the words crowded so thick on his tongue, choking him,
and Yves in his alarm and dismay was hardly capable of listening, he cared only
to allay this storm he had innocently provoked. He stretched an arm
across Elyas’ breast, and tried to soothe him back to his pillow, his
young, whole strength pitted against this demented vigor. “Oh,
hush, hush, you mustn’t vex yourself so. Lie down, you’re too weak to rise… Oh,
don’t, you frighten me! Lie down!” Brother
Elyas sat rigidly upright, staring through the wall, gripping both hands
against his heart, whispering what might have been prayers, or self-reproaches,
or feverish, garbled recollections of times past. Against that private
obsession all the force Yves could exert had no influence. Elyas was no longer
even aware of him. If he spoke to any, it was to God, or to some creature
invisible. Yves
turned and fled for help, closing the door behind him. Through the infirmary he
ran full tilt, and out into the piled, whirling, howling snow of the court,
across to the cloister and the warming-room, where surely they would be at this
hour. He fell once, and plucked himself shivering out of a drift, halting to
clear his eyes. The whole night was a rain of goosefeathers, but cold, cold,
and the wind that flung them in his face cut like a knife. He stumbled and
slithered to the door of the church, and there halted, hearing the chanting
within. It was later than he had thought. Compline had already begun. He
had been too well schooled in the courtesies and proper observancies, he could
not for any cause burst in upon the officer and bawl for help. He hung still
for a few moments to get his breath and snake the snow from his hair and
lashes. Compline was not long, surely he could go back and battle with his
disordered charge until the office was over. Then there would be help in
plenty. He had only to keep Brother Elyas quiet for a quarter of an hour. He
turned, half-blinded as soon as he left cover, and battled his way back through
the drifts, laboring hard with his short, sturdy legs, and lowering his head
like a little fighting bull against the wind. The
outer door of the infirmary stood open wide, but he was all too afraid that he
had left it so in his haste. He blundered along the passage within, fending
himself off from the walls with both hands as he shook off the snow that clung
to his face. The door of the sickroom was also wide open. That
brought him up with a jolt that jarred him to the heels. The
room was empty, the coverings of the bed hung low to the floor. Brother Elyas’
sandals, laid neatly side by side under the head of the bed, were gone. And so
was Brother Elyas, just as he had risen from his sick-bed, clothed, habited but
without cloak or covering, out into the night of the ninth of December, into
such a blizzard as had raged the night he came by his all but mortal injuries,
and Sister Hilaria by her death. The only name that had reached him in his
solitary place. Yves
charged back along the passage to the doorway, and out into the storm. And
there were tracks, though he had not seen them when he entered, because he had
not expected them to be there, nor would they last long. They were filling
fast, but they showed, large feet tramping down the steps and across the court,
not towards the church, no—straight for the gatehouse. And Brother Porter had
leave to attend Compline. They
were still chanting in the church, and Elyas could not have got far. Yves ran
to grab his cloak from the porch of the guest-hall, and bolted like a startled
hare, in convulsive leaps, towards the gatehouse. The tracks were filling fast,
they lingered only as shallowing pits in the whiteness, picked out by the
shadows cast from the few burning torches. But they reached and quitted the
gate. The world without was nothing but a boiling whiteness, and the depth of
the fall made walking hard labor for his short legs, but he plodded on
relentlessly. The tracks turned right. So did Yves. Some
way along the road, wading blindly, with no sense of direction left to him in a
snowfall that looked the same wherever he turned his face, but where the ground
below him was still dimpled faintly with the furrows and pits of passage, he
glimpsed in a momentary emptiness cleared by the gale’s caprice, a black shadow
flitting before him. He fixed his eyes upon it, and plunged determinedly after.
It
took him a long time to overtake his quarry. It was incredible how fast Elyas
went, striding, thrusting, ploughing his way, so that now a torn furrow showed
where he had passed. In sandals, bare-headed, a sick man—only some terrible
force of passion and despair could give him such strength.
Moreover, which frightened Yves more than ever, he seemed to know where he was
going, or else to be drawn to some desperate meeting-place without his own
knowledge or will. The line he sheered through the drifts looked
arrow-straight. Nevertheless,
Yves did overtake him at last, struggling closer with every step, until he was
able to stretch out his hand and catch at the wide sleeve of the black habit.
The arm swung steadily, as though Elyas remained totally unaware of the weight
dragging at him. Almost he plucked himself clear, but Yves clung with both
hands, and heaving himself in front of the striding figure, wound his arms
about its middle and held on, blocking the way forward with all his weight, and
blinking up through the blinding snow into a face as chill and immovable as a
death-mask. “Brother
Elyas, come back with me! You must come back—you’ll die out here!” Brother
Elyas moved on inexorably, forcing his incubus before him, hampered but
undeterred. Yves maintained his hold, and went with him, but hanging back hard,
and pleading insistently: “You’re ill, you should be in your bed. Come back
with me! Where is it you want to go? Turn back now, let me take you home…” But
perhaps he was not going anywhere, only trying to get away from somewhere, or
from someone, from himself, from whatever it was that had come back to him like
lightning-stroke, and driven him mad. Yves pleaded breathlessly and
insistently, but in vain. He could not turn him or persuade him. There was
nothing left but to go with him. He took a firm grip on the black sleeve, and
set himself to keep pace with his charge. If they could find any cottage, or
meet with any late traveller he could ask for shelter or help. Surely Brother
Elyas must weaken and fail at last, and let himself be prevailed upon to accept
any aid that offered. But who would be out on such a night? Who but a poor
madman and his sorry keeper! Well, he had offered to take care of Brother
Elyas, and he would not let go of him, and if he could not protect him from his
own frenzy, he could at least share the penalty. And strangely, in a little
while they were moving together as one, and Brother Elyas, though his face
remained fixed and his purpose secret, laid an arm about Yves’
shoulders and drew him close against his side, and small, instinctive motions
of mutual kindness arose between them, to ease the labor and the cold and the
loneliness. Yves
had no longer any idea of where they were, though he knew that long ago they
had left the road. He thought they had crossed a bridge, and that could not
have been anything but the River Corve. Somewhere on that upland slope, then. A
poor chance of finding a cottage here, even if the snow gave over and let them
see their way. But
it seemed that Brother Elyas knew his way, or was guided to the place where he
could not choose but go, for some awful, penitential purpose of which only he
knew. A thicket of thorny bushes, heaped with snow, snatched at their garments,
sheltering a shallow hollow in the slope. Yves stumbled against a hard, dark
surface, and grazed his knuckles on rough wood. A low but sturdy hut, built to
give shelter to shepherds in the lambing, and store fodder and litter. The door
was held by a heavy bar, but Brother Elyas drew it clear and thrust the door
open. They burst through into blessed darkness, Elyas stooping his head low
beneath the lintel. The door, clapped to against the wind, fitted snugly, and
suddenly they were in blindness, stillness and comparative silence. After the
blizzard without, this was almost warmth, and the smell of old but dry hay,
stirred by their feet, promised bed and blankets together. Yves shook off snow,
and his heart lifted hopefully. Here Brother Elyas might survive the night. And
before dawn, before he awakes, thought the boy, I can slip out and bar the door
on him, while I go to find someone to help me, or carry a message for me. I’ve
held on to him thus far, I won’t lose him now. Brother
Elyas had moved away from him. He heard the rusting whisper of the hay as a
man’s weight was flung down into it. The howl of the wind outside ebbed into a
desolate moaning. Yves crept forward with hand extended, and touched a stooped
shoulder, caked with snow. The pilgrim had reached his strange shrine, and was
on his knees. Yves shook the snow from the folds of the black habit, and felt
Elyas shuddering beneath his hand, as though he contained by force what should
have been deep and bitter sobbing. Now that they were in utter
darkness the thread that bound them seemed to have drawn them closer together.
The kneeling man was whispering almost soundlessly, and though all words were
lost, the desperation of their import was plain. Yves
felt his way into the pile of hay beside him, and with an arm about the tense
shoulders tried to draw Elyas down to lie at rest, but for a long while the
pressure was resisted. At last the lean body softened and sank forward with a
muted, wordless groan, whether in consent to the boy’s urging or in the
collapse of exhaustion there was no telling. He lay stretched on his face, his
forehead on his arms, and Yves raked up the hay on either side to fold him in
with at least a measure of warmth, and lay down beside him. After
a while he knew by the long, deep breathing that Elyas slept. Yves
lay holding him, pressed close to his side, determined not to sleep. He was
cold and weary, and in great need of thought, but his mind was numbed and unwilling.
He did not want to remember the words Brother Elyas had spoken, much less try
to make out their meaning, for whatever it might be, it was terrible. All he
could do now for this broken man, for whom he felt so obstinate and strange an
affection, having taken the responsibility for him, was to make certain that he
could not escape again to wander and be lost, and to go out and seek help for
him in the morning. To which end he must stay awake. For
all that, he may have been very close to dozing when he was startled into
wakefulness again by a voice beside him, not whispering now, only muffled by
the cradling arms. “Sister…
my sister… Forgive me my weakness, my mortal sin—I, who have been your death!”
And after a long pause he said: “Hunydd—she was like you, even so warm and
confiding in my arms… After six months starving, suddenly such hunger—I could
not bear the burning, body and soul!” Yves
lay still, clasping him, unable to move, unable to stop listening. “No,
do not forgive! How dare I ask? Let the earth close on me and put me out of
mind… Craven, inconstant—unworthy.” A longer silence yet. Brother Elyas was
still asleep, and out of his sleep he gave voice to his torments, uncovered
now, mercilessly remembered. He slept and writhed. Never before had Yves felt
himself enlarged to contain either such horror, or such fierce and protective
pity. “She
clung to me… she had no fear at all, being with me! Merciful God, I am a man,
full of blood, with a man’s body, a man’s desires!” cried Brother Elyas in a
muted howl of pain. “And she is dead, who trusted in me…” Chapter
Eight BROTHER
CADFAEL CAME BACK FROM COMPLINE to see Elyas settled for the night, and brought
a young brother with him to relieve Yves of his watch. They found the door
standing open, the bed wildly disturbed, and the room empty. There
might, of course, have been explanations less dire than the obvious one, but
Cadfael made straight for the outer door again at a purposeful run, and looked
for the signs he had not looked for when entering. The court had been
crisscrossed with new tracks at the end of Compline, and even these the
continuing snow was rapidly obliterating, but there were still traces of
someone who had set a straight course for the gatehouse. Mere dimples in the
whiteness, but discernible. And the boy gone, too! What could have erupted
there in the sickroom to spur Elyas into such unreasonable and perilous action,
after his long apathy and submission? Certainly if he had taken it into his
disordered head to do something drastic a half-grown lad would not have been
able to stop him, and more than likely pride would not let Yves abandon a
creature for whom he had assumed, however briefly, the responsibility. He was
getting to know Yves fairly well by now. “You
run to the guest-hall,” he ordered the young brother briskly, “tell Hugh
Beringar what’s amiss, and make sure they are not within there.
I’ll go to Prior Leonard, and we’ll have the whole household searched.” Leonard
took the news with concern and distress, and had every brother scouring the
enclave at once, even to the grange court and the barns. Hugh Beringar came
forth booted and cloaked, in resigned expectation of the worst, and was short
with any who got in his way. With both the secular and the cloistral law directing,
the search did not take long, and was fruitless. “My
fault entire,” Cadfael owned bitterly. “I entrusted the poor wretch to a boy
hardly less wretched. I should have had more sense. Though how or why this can
have arisen between them is more than I can see. But I should not have taken
the least risk with either of them. And now my foolishness has lost them both,
the most forlorn pair this house held, who should have been guarded at every
step.” Hugh
was already busy disposing the men he had here at hand. “One to Ludlow, as far
as the gate, where either they’ll have passed, or you may have them kept safely
if they arrive hereafter. And you go with him, but to the castle, have out ten
men, and bring them down to the gate, where I’ll come. Wake up Dinan, too, let
him sweat, the boy’s son to a man he must have known, and nephew to one he may
well want to have dealings with soon. I won’t risk men by sending them out in
this beyond a mile or so, or in less than pairs, but our pair can’t have got
far.” He turned on Cadfael just as vehemently, and clouted him hard between the
shoulders. “And you, my heart, stop talking such arrogant foolery! The man
seemed quiet and biddable, and the boy needed using, and could be trusted to
the hilt, as you very well know. If they’ve miscarried, it’s none of your
blame. Don’t arrogate to yourself God’s own role of apportioning blame and
praise, even when the blame lands on your own shoulders. That’s a kind of
arrogance, too. Now come on, and we’ll see if we can’t bring home the two of
them out of this cold purgatory. But I tell you what I shall be telling my
fellows at Ludlow—move out no more than an hour from home, keep touch, and turn
back on the hour, as near as you can judge. I’m not losing more men into the
snow this night. At dawn, if we’ve caught nothing before, we’ll take up the
search in earnest.” With those orders they went forth into
the blizzard, hunting in pairs, and obscurely comforted, in Cadfael’s case at
least, by the reflection that it was a pair they were hunting. One man alone
can give up and subside into the cold and die, far more easily than two
together, who will both brace and provoke each other, wrangle and support, give
each other warmth and challenge each other’s endurance. In extremes, not to be
alone is the greatest aid to survival. He
had taken Hugh’s impatient reproof to heart, too, and it gave him reassurance
no less. It was all too easy to turn honest anxiety over someone loved into an
exaltation of a man’s own part and duty as protector, a manner of usurpation of
the station of God. To accuse oneself of falling short of infallibility is to
arrogate to oneself the godhead thus implied. Well, thought Cadfael, willing to
learn, a shade specious, perhaps, but I may need that very argument myself some
day. Bear it in mind! Blundering
blindly ahead with a burly young novice beside him, northwards across the
Corve, Cadfael groped through a chill white mist, and knew that they were all
wasting their time. They might probe the drifts as they would, but the weather
had the laugh of them, covering everything in the same blank pall. They
all drew in again resignedly to Bromfield when they judged the time to be spent
and the work impossible. The porter had set fresh pine torches in the shelter
of the arched gateway to provide a beacon glow homeward, for fear some of the
searchers should themselves go astray and be lost, and from time to time he set
the bell ringing as an added guide. The hunters came back snow-caked and weary,
and empty-handed. Cadfael went to Matins and Lauds before seeking his bed. The
order of observances must not be utterly disrupted, even to go out in defense
of innocent lives. Nothing could now be done before dawn. Not by men. But God,
after all, knew where the lost might be found, and it would do no harm to put
in a word in that quarter, and admit the inadequacy of human effort. He
arose at the bell for Prime, and went down with the rest in the winter darkness
to the cold church. The snow had ceased at the first approach
of morning, as it had done for several days, and the reflected light from all
that depth of whiteness brought a pure and ghostly pallor even before dawn.
After the office Cadfael ploughed his way alone down towards the gatehouse. The
world around him was a waste of white broken by shadowy dark shapes of walls
and buildings, but the porter had kept his torches burning hopefully under the
archway, and they shed a full, reddish light over the stonework, and into the
outer world beyond. To replenish them he had had to open the wicket in the gate
and pass through, and as Cadfael approached he was in the act of re-entering,
pausing in shelter to stamp off snow before he came within, and closed the
wicket again behind him. Thus
it happened that he was facing inwards while Cadfael was facing out, and only
Cadfael saw what he saw. The wicket was lofty, to admit mounted men, and
Brother Porter was short and slight, and stooping to shake his skirts clear.
Behind him, and not many paces behind, two faces suddenly glowed out of the dimness
into the flickering light of the torches, and shone clear before Cadfael’s
eyes. Their suddenness and their beauty took his breath away for a moment, as
though a miracle had caused them to appear out of the very air. No heavenly
visitors, however, these, but most vividly and vitally of this world. The
girl’s hood had fallen back on her neck, the red light flowed over a great
disordered coil of dark hair, a wide, clear forehead, arched, imperious black
browns, large dark eyes too brilliant to be black, by the reflections in them
the darkest and reddest of browns. She had, for all her coarse country clothes,
a carriage of the head and a lance-like directness of gaze that queens might
have copied. The lines that swooped so graciously over her cheekbones and down
to full, strongly folded lips and resolute chin made so suave a moulding that
Cadfael’s finger-ends, once accomplished in such caresses, stroked down from
brow to throat in imagination, and quivered to old memories. The
other face hung beyond and above her left shoulder almost cheek to brow with
her. She was tall, but the man behind her was taller, he was stooped
protectively and watchfully to bring his face close to hers. A long, spare,
wide-browed face with a fine scimitar of a nose and a supple bow
of a mouth, and the dilated, fearless golden eyes of a hawk. His head was
bared, and capped closely with blue-black hair, coiling vigorously at his
temples and sweeping back thick and lustrous over a lofty skull. Cadfael had
visions of that face terminating in a short, pointed beard, and with fine-drawn
moustaches over the long, fastidious lips. With just such faces had he seen, in
his time, proud, mailed Syrians wheeling their line of charge outside Antioch.
This face had the same dark coloring and sculptured shape, like cast bronze,
but this face was shaven clean in the Norman fashion, the rich hair cropped,
the head framed by rough, dun-colored homespun, a local peasant’s wear. Well,
they happen, the lightning-strokes of God, the gifted or misfortunates who are
born into a world where they nowhere belong, the saints and scholars who come
to manhood unrecognized, guarding the swine in the forest pastures among the
beechmast, the warrior princes villein-born and youngest in a starving clan,
set to scare the crows away from the furrow. Just as hollow slave-rearlings are
cradled in the palaces of kings, and come to rule, however ineptly, over men a
thousand times their worth. But
this one would not be lost. It needed only that flashing glimpse of the black-lashed
golden eyes to make it certain they would burn their way before him to wherever
he set out to go. And
all in the brief moment while the porter was ridding himself of the snow he had
collected on his skirts. For the next moment he had stepped within, and closed
the wicket behind him, just in time to cut off, short of the gates, the dual
vision of youth that was surely advancing to ask for entry. Brother
Cadfael closed his eyes, opened them hopefully, and closed them again upon
dazzled recollection that might almost have been delusion. In the between-light
of dawn, in the grip of a hard winter, and complicated by the pleasurable,
warming glow of torchlight, what dreams may not come! He
had taken but three more labored paces through the fall, and the porter had
barely reached the door of his lodge, when the bell pealed at the gate. The porter turned, startled. He had been
preoccupied first with reaching up to the sconces in which his torches were
set, and then hurrying back into shelter, and he had seen nothing stirring in
the lingering darkness without. Only after his back was turned had the two—if
they were real indeed!—stepped within range of the light. He hoisted resigned
shoulders, and waded back to open the small grid that would show him who stood
without. What he saw astonished him still more, it seemed, but it spurred him
into instant action. The great latch lifted, and the lofty wicket swung open. And
there she stood, tall, meek and still confronting them, in a too-large gown of
faded brown homespun, a coarse short cloak and ragged-edged capuchon flung back
from her head, the sheaf of dark hair tumbling to her shoulders. The sting of
cold air had brought out a rosy flush on her cheekbones, in a skin otherwise
creamy-white and smooth as ivory. “May
I enter and take shelter here a while?” she said in the mildest of voices and
humblest of manners, but with that confidence and calm about her that could not
be quenched. “Through weather and mishap and the distresses of war I am here
alone. I think you have been looking for me. My name is Ermina Hugonin.” While
the porter was conducting her excitedly into his lodge, and hurrying to inform
Prior Leonard and Hugh Beringar of the sudden appearance of the missing lady at
their gates, Brother Cadfael lost no time in slipping into the roadway and
casting a shrewd eye on the empty countryside in all directions. Empty it was,
to all appearance. There were corners, copses, bushes, any of which could
quickly conceal the departure of a young and swift-moving man, and either her
companion had chosen to vanish among these, or the falcon had indeed taken wing
and flown. As for tracks in the snow, a few early-rising good men with sheep to
dig out or beasts to feed had already gone to and fro past the gatehouse, and among
their traces who was to pick out one man’s foot? She had spoken truth, if a
somewhat deceptive truth; she entered here alone. But two had approached the
gate, though only one rang to ask admittance. Now
why should such a man, bringing a lost girl to safety, avoid
showing his face within? And why, pondered Cadfael, should not the one man who
was aware of the evasion make it known openly to all? On the other hand until
he knew of a good reason one way or the other, why should he? First hear and
consider what the lady had to say. He
went back very thoughtfully to the lodge, where the porter had hurried to prod
his fire into life and seat her beside it. She sat self-contained and silent,
her wet shoes and skirts beginning to steam gently in the warmth. “You
are also a brother of this house?” she asked, raising dark eyes to study him. “No,
I am a monk of Shrewsbury. I came here to tend a brother who has been lying
sick here.” He wondered if any word of Brother Elyas’ misfortunes had reached
her, but she gave no sign of knowing anything of a wounded monk, and he forbore
from mentioning a name. Let her tell her own story once for all, before Hugh
and the prior as witnesses, then he might know where he himself stood. “You
know how diligently you have been sought since you fled from Worcester? Hugh
Beringar, who is deputy sheriff of the shire, is here in Bromfield, partly on
that very quest.” “I
heard it,” she said, “from the forester who has sheltered me. I know from them,
too, that my brother has been here, while I have been hunting for him. And only
now that I find my way here myself do I learn that he is again lost, and half
the night men have been out searching for him. All this countryside knows of
it. I fear you have made a poor exchange,” she said with sudden, flashing
bitterness, “gaining me and losing Yves. For I am the one who has cost you all
so much trouble and time.” “Your
brother was safe and in excellent health,” said Cadfael firmly, “as late as
Compline last night. There is no need to suppose that we shall fail of finding
him again, for he cannot have gone far. The sheriff’s men in Ludlow will have
had their orders overnight, and be out by now. And so will Hugh Beringar, as
soon as he has seen you safe and well, and heard whatever you can tell him.” Hugh
was at the door by then, and the brothers had hastily cleared a path through
the drifts to bring the girl almost dry-shod up to the guest-hall. Prior
Leonard himself led her in to warmth and food and a comfortable
seat by the fire. He was distressed that there was no woman guest to provide
her a change of clothing. “That
shall be seen to,” said Beringar shortly. “Josce de Dinan has a household full
of women, I’ll get from them whatever is needed. But you had better get out of
those wet skirts, madam, if it must needs be into habit and sandals. You have
nothing with you but what you wear?” “I
gave what I have in exchange for what I wear,” she said with composure, “and
for the hospitality that was given me without thought of reward. But some money
I still have about me. I can pay for a gown.” They
left her to strip beside the fire, and provided her the habit and shoes of a
novice. When she opened the door to them again, and bade them in, it was with
the grace of a countess welcoming guests. She had let down and combed her mass
of dark hair, it was drying into curls on her shoulders, and swung like heavy,
lustrous curtains either side of her face. Wrapped in the black habit, and
girdled close about the waist, she returned to her chair and braced herself,
facing the squarely, the most beautiful novice Bromfield had ever housed. She
had spread out her wet clothes to dry on a bench beside the fire. “My
lord,” she said, “and Father Prior, to say this briefly, I have been the cause
of great trouble and cost to you and many others, and I am sensible of it. It
was not intended, but I did it. Now that I am come to make what amends I may, I
hear that my brother, who was here in safety, and whom I hoped to join here,
has gone forth overnight and vanished again. I cannot but lay this, with the
rest, to my own charge, and I am sorry. If there is anything I can do to help
in the search for him…” “There
is but one thing you can do to help us all,” said Hugh firmly, “and take one
anxiety, at least, off our hands. You can remain here, not setting a foot
outside these walls, until we find and bring your brother to join you. Let us
at least be sure that you are safe, and cannot be lost again.” “I
could wish better, but what you order, I will do. For this while,” she added,
and jutted her lip at him. “Then
there are things I need to know from you, now, shortly, and the
rest can wait. You are but a part of my business here. The king’s peace is also
my business, and you, I think, have good reason to know that the king’s peace
is being flouted in these parts. We know from Yves you left him and Sister
Hilaria at Cleeton, and sent word to Evrard Boterei to come and fetch you away
to his manor of Callowleas. We have seen what is left of Callowleas, and we
have been to Ledwyche looking for you, and heard from Boterel that you reached
there with him safely, but rode out while he lay in fever from his wounds got
in the fighting, and went to look for the companions you had left behind. What
had befallen Callowleas could well befall others, no wonder you were in
desperate anxiety.” She
sat gnawing her underlip and staring at him with unwavering eye, her brows
drawn close. “Since Evrard has told you all this, I need only confirm it. He is
recovered, I trust? Yes, I did fear for them. There was good cause.” “What
happened to you? Boterel had already told us that you did not return, and from
the time he recovered his wits and found you were gone, he has been searching
for you constantly. It was folly to set out alone.” Surprisingly,
her lips contorted in a wry smile. She had already admitted to folly. “Yes, I
am sure he has been hunting high and low for me. We may set his mind at rest
now. No, I did not reach Cleeton. I don’t know these ways, and I was benighted,
and then the snow came… In the dark I lost myself utterly, and had a fall, and
the horse bolted. I was lucky to be found and taken in by a forester and his
wife, lifelong I shall be grateful to them. I told them about Yves, and how I
feared for him, and the forester said he would send up to Cleeton and find out
what had happened, and so he did. He brought word how poor John’s holding was
ravaged, the night after Callowleas, and how Yves was lost even before— the
same night I committed my greatest fault and folly.” Her head reared proudly
and her back stiffened as she declared her regret, and with fiery stare dared
anyone else here present either to echo her self-condemnation, or attempt to
deprecate it. “Thanks be to God, John and his family escaped alive. And as for
their losses, I take them as my debts, and they shall be repaid. But one relief
they brought me from Cleeton,” she said, quickening into warmth
and affection, “for they told me Sister Hilaria that was gone, well before the
raiders came, for the good brother of Pershore came back, in his anxiety over
us, and he brought her away safely.” The
dead silence passed unnoticed, she was so glad of that one consolation. One
innocent escaped from the landslide her light-hearted escapade had set in
motion. “All
this time, while I stayed with them, we have been sending about for news of
Yves, for how could I make any move until I knew how he fared? And only
yesterday morning we heard at last that he was here, safe. So I came.” “Only
in time,” owned Hugh, “to find him lost again just as you are found. Well, I
trust he need not be lost for long, and if I leave you without ceremony, it is
to look for him.” Cadfael
asked mildly: “You found you own way here, alone?” She
turned her head sharply, and gave him the wide, challenging gaze of her dark
eyes, her face still calm and wary. “Robert
showed me the way—the forester’s son.” “My
business,” said Hugh, “is also with these outlaws who have set up house
somewhere in the hills, and hunted you out of Callowleas and Druel out of his
holding. I mean to have out enough men to smoke out every last yard of those
uplands. But first we’ll find the two we’ve lost.” He rose briskly, and with a
meaningful gesture of his dark head and lift of an urgent eyebrow drew Cadfael
away with him out of the room. “For
all I can see, the girl knows nothing of what happened to Sister Hilaria, and
nothing of Brother Elyas. I have my men and as many of Dinan’s mustering to
take up this hunt, and small time to break unpleasant news gently. Stay here
with her, Cadfael, make sure she doesn’t elude us again—and tell her! She’ll
have to know. The more truths we can put together, the nearer we shall be to
clearing out this nest of devils once for all, and going home for Christmas to
Aline and my new son.” She
was hungry, and had a healthy appetite, Cadfael judged, at any time. It was
plenteous activity that kept her slender as a young hind. She
ate with pleasure, though her face remained guarded, thoughtful and withdrawn.
Cadfael let her alone until she sat back with a sigh of physical content. Her
brows were still drawn close, and her eyes looked rather inward than outward.
Then, quite suddenly, she was looking at him, and with sharp attention. “It
was you who found Yves and brought him here? So Father Prior said.” “By
chance it was,” said Cadfael. “Not
only chance. You went to look for him.” That commended him; her face warmed.
“Where was it? Was he very cold and wretched?” “He
was in all particulars a young gentleman very much in command of himself. And
he had found, as you did, that simple country people can be hospitable and kind
without thought of reward.” “And
since then both you and he have been looking for me! While I was looking for
him! Oh, God!” she said softly and with dismayed reverence. “All this I began.
And so mistakenly! I did not know even myself. I am not now the same woman.” “You
no longer wish to marry Evrard Boterei?” asked Cadfael placidly. “No,”
she said as simply. “That is over. I thought I loved him. I did think so! But
that was children’s play, and this bitter winter is real, and those birds of
prey in that eyrie up there are real, and death is real, and very close at
every step, and I have brought my brother into danger by mere folly, and now I
know that my brother is more to me by far than ever was Evrard. But never say I
said so,” she flared, “when he comes back. He is vain enough already. It was he
told you what I had done?” “It
was. And how he tried to follow you, and lost himself, and was sheltered in the
forest assart where I found him.” “And
he blamed me?” she said. “In
his shoes, would not you?” “It
seems to me so long ago,” she said, wondering, “and I have changed so much. How
is it that I could do so much harm, and mean none? At least I was thankful when
they told me that that good brother from Pershore—how I wish I had listened
to him!—had come back to look for us, and taken Sister Hilaria away with him.
Were they still here when you came from Shrewsbury? Did she go on, or turn back
to Worcester?” She
had arrived at what was for her a simple question before he was ready, and the
flat silence fell like a stone. She was very quick. The few seconds it took him
to marshal words lasted too long. She had stiffened erect, and was staring at
him steadily with apprehensive eyes. “What
is it I do not know?” There
was no way but forward, and plainly. “What will give you no comfort in the
hearing, and me no joy in the telling,” said Brother Cadfael simply. “On the
night when your upland wolves sacked Druel’s house, they had already done as
much to a lonely hamlet nearer here, barely two miles from Ludlow. Between the
two, on their way back to their lair, it seems that they encountered, by cruel
ill-luck, the two after whom you ask. It was already evening when they left
Druel’s holding, and the night was wild, with high winds and blinding snow. It
may be they went astray. It may be they tried to take shelter somewhere through
the worst. They fell in the way of thieves and murderers.” Her
face was marble. Her hands gripped desperately at the arms of her chair, the
knuckles bone-white. In a mere thread of a whisper she asked: “Dead?” “Brother
Elyas was brought back here barely alive. Your brother was watching with him
last night when they both went out into the snow, who can guess why? Sister
Hilaria we found dead.” There
was no sound from her for a long moment, no tear, no exclamation, no protest.
She sat containing whatever grief and guilt and hopeless anger possessed her,
and would show none of it to the world. After a while she asked in a low and
level voice: “Where is she?” “She
is here, in the church, coffined and awaiting burial. In this iron frost we
cannot break the ground, and it may be the sisters at Worcester will want to
have her taken back to them when that is possible. Until then Father Prior will
find her a tomb in the church.” “Tell me,” said Ermina with bleak but
quiet urgency, “all that befell her. Better to know the whole of it than to
guess.” In
simple and plain words he told her the manner of that death. At the end of it
she stirred out of her long stillness, and asked: “Will you take me to her? I
should like to see her again.” Without
a word and without hesitation he rose, and led the way. His readiness she
accepted thankfully; he knew that he had gained with her. She would not be
hemmed in, or sheltered from what was her due. In the chapel where Sister
Hilaria lay in her new coffin, made in the brothers’ own workshop and lined
with lead, it was almost as cold as out in the frost, and the body had not
suffered any flawing of its serene beauty. She was not yet covered. Ermina
stood motionless by the trestles a long time, and then herself laid the white
linen face-cloth back over the delicate face. “I
loved her very much,” she said, “and I have destroyed her. This is my work.” “It
is nothing of the kind,” said Cadfael firmly. “You must not take to yourself
more than your due. What you yourself did, that you may rue, and confess, and
do penance for, to your soul’s content, but you may not lift another man’s sins
from his shoulders, or usurp God’s right to be the only judge. A man did this,
ravisher and murderer, and he, and only he, must answer for it. Whatever action
of any other creature may have thrown our sister in his way, he had command of
the hands that killed and outraged her, he and no other. It’s of him her blood
will be required.” For
the first time she shook, and when she would have spoken she had not her voice
under control, and was forced to wait and wrestle for clear speech. “But
if I had not set my heart on that foolish marriage, if I had consented to go
with Brother Elyas straight here to Bromfield, she would be living now…” “Do
we know that? Might not you, too, have fallen into such hands? Child, if men
had not done as they did, any time these five centuries, of course things would
have gone on differently, but need they have been better? There is no profit in
ifs. We go on from where we stand, we answer for our own evil, and leave to God
our good.” Ermina wept, suddenly and irresistibly,
but would not be seen to weep. She swept away from him to kneel trembling at
the altar, and remained there a long time. He did not follow her, but waited
patiently until she chose to rejoin him. When she came back her face was
drained but calm. She looked very tired, and very young and vulnerable. “Come
back to the fire,” said Cadfael. “You’ll take cold here.” She
went with him docilely, glad to settle beside the hearth again. The shivering
left her, she lay back and half-closed her eyes, but when he made a move as if
to leave her she looked up quickly. “Brother Cadfael, when they sent from
Worcester to ask for news of us, was there word said of our uncle d’Angers
being in England?” “There
was. Not only in England but in Gloucester, with the empress.” That was what she
had meant, though she had been feeling her way towards it cautiously. “Openly
and fairly he asked leave to come into the king’s territories himself to look
for you, and leave was refused. The sheriff promised a search by his own men,
but would not admit any of the empress’s party.” “And
should any such be found here and taken—in the search of us—what would happen
to him?” “He
would be held prisoner of war. It is the sheriff’s duty to deny to the king’s
enemies the service of any fighting man who falls into his hands, you must not
wonder at it. A knight lost to the empress is a knight’s gain to the king.” He
saw how doubtfully and anxiously she eyed him, and smiled. “It is the sheriff’s
duty. It is not mine. Among men of honor and decent Christian life I see no
enemies, on either side. Mine is a different discipline. With any man who comes
only to rescue and fetch away children to their proper guardian, I have no
quarrel.” She
frowned momentarily at the word children, and then laughed, with angry honesty,
at the very instinct that showed her still a child. “Then you would not betray
such a man even to your friend?” Cadfael
sat down opposite her and settled himself comfortably, for it seemed she had
matters on her mind, and wished to unburden herself. “I have told you, I take
no side here, and Hugh Beringar would not expect me to go
always his way in every particular. He does his work and I mine. But I must
tell you that he has already some knowledge of a presence in these parts, a
stranger, who came to Cleeton enquiring for all you three who left Worcester
together. A countryman by his dress, they said, young, tall and dark, eyed and
beaked like a hawk, black-haired and dark-skinned.” She was listening intently,
her underlip caught between her teeth, and at every detail the color flamed and
faded in her cheeks. “And one that wore a sword under his cloak,” said Cadfael.
She
sat very still, making up her mind. The face at her shoulder in the torchlight
of the gatehouse hung vividly in Cadfael’s imagination, and surely even more
urgently in hers. For a moment he thought she would prevaricate, shrug off the
image, declare her guide to be no more than she had said, a forester’s son. But
then she leaned forward and began to speak with vehement eagerness. “I
will tell you! I will tell you, and not even exact any promise, for I know I
need not. You will not give him up. What I said was true, that I was taken in
and helped by the forester and his wife. But the second day that I was there
with them, there came a youth asking for news of such a company as I had,
before I shattered it. Dressed as I was when you first saw me today, still he
knew me for what I was, and so did I him, for nothing could show him less than
noble. He spoke French freely, but English a little slowly. He told me that my
uncle had returned, and was in Gloucester with the empress, and had sent him
secretly to find us and bring us safe to him. His errand is that, and nothing
more, but here he goes with danger all about him, knowing he may fall into the
sheriff’s hands.” “He
has eluded them so far,” said Cadfael mildly. “He may very well go on slipping
through our fingers to the end, and hale you away with him to Gloucester.” “But
not without Yves. I will not go without my brother, he knows that. I did not
want to come here, but he so wished it. Let me know, he said, that you at least
are in safety, and leave the hunt to me. And I have done and I will do what he bids me. But I could not bear it if through his care for us he
fell into the king’s hands, and was left to rot in a prison.” “Never
go looking for disaster,” said Cadfael cheerfully. “Expect the best, and walk
so discreetly as to invite it, and then leave all to God. You have not given
this paladin a name.” No, but he had a face, and a memorable face, too. She
was buoyantly young. Grief was fiercely felt, but so was hope, so was joy, so
was the adulation of heroes. The very thought of her champion had lifted her
out of the shadows of guilt and death, she glowed as she spoke of him. “They
call him Olivier de Bretagne—it is a name they gave him in his own land,
because of his parentage. For he was born in Syria, and his mother was of that
country, and his father a Frankish knight of the Crusade, from England. He
leaned to his father’s faith, and made his way to Jerusalem to join his
father’s people, and there he took service with my uncle, six years ago now. He
is his favorite squire. Now he has come home with him, and who else would be
trusted with this search?” “And
with his small experience here and halting English,” said Cadfael
appreciatively, “he was not afraid to venture into these stormy regions, among
his lord’s enemies?” “He
is not afraid of anything! He is bravery itself! Oh, Brother Cadfael, you do
not know how fine he is! If you could only once see him, you must become his
friend!” Cadfael
did not say that he had seen him, that requisite first time, briefly, like the
blazing recollection of a dream. He was thinking, with nostalgic fondness, that
some other lonely soul wearing the Cross had found, somewhere in that burning
land of sun and sea and sand, a woman to his liking, who must have liked him no
less, if she had borne him such a son. The east was full of glorious bastards.
That one of them should come home to his father’s land, baptized into his
father’s faith, was no marvel. No need to look beyond the admirable fruit. “You
have that promise you did not ask,” said Brother Cadfael. “Olivier is safe with
me. I will do nothing to uncover him. In your need or his, I will stand your friend.”
Chapter
Nine YVES
STARTED AWAKE OUT OF AN INVOLUNTARY DOZE, instantly aware of movement and
sound, though both seemed so distant and faint that they might have been no
more than the fading shreds of a dream. Under his arm Brother Elyas lay in exhausted
sleep, sunk far too deep for dreaming, and briefly at peace. His breathing was
quiet and steady. The boy felt rather than heard by its rhythm how strongly
Elyas had survived the night that might well have killed him, tenacious even of
a life that tormented him. Yet
something, Yves was sure, he had heard, some human sound. Not the wind, for
that had dropped, and as he sat very still, listening with ears stretched, he
was sensible of absolute silence. There is nothing more silent than deep snow,
until men break the spell. And there it came again, small and distant but no
illusion, the faint murmuring of voices, a mere snatch, gone in an instant. And
again, some strained moments later, the tiny jingle of metal, a horse’s harness
clashing. Yves got to his feet stiffly, careful not to disturb the sleeper, and
fumbled his way to the door. It was still only the deep twilight that comes
before the promise of dawn, but the waste of snow before him cast up an eerie
pallor. The night was well advanced, and already there were men abroad. Men
with horses! Yves left the door of the hut closed but unbarred, and struggled out into the drifts, in haste lest the promise of help
should pass by before he could intercept it. Somewhere
down the slope, out of sight beyond a thicket of snow-heaped bushes and a clump
of trees bowed down and turned white like the heads of tired old men, someone
laughed, and again a bridle rang. The travellers, as he had hoped, were coming
from the direction of Ludlow and Bromfield. Fearful that they might pass by,
and never notice the hut at all, Yves plunged downhill, stumbling and wading,
found a ridge which the wind had partially stripped, and broke into an eager
run. Skirting the bushes, he began to thread the copse, fending his way through
the darkness of the close-set trees with hands outstretched. The voices were
drawing nearer, loud, unsubdued voices, still wordless, but a most welcome
sound. Someone raised a snatch of song, someone broke in with a loud remark,
and there was more laughter. Yves was somewhat disconcerted to hear it, even
indignant. If these were a party searching for the wanderers, they did not
sound too anxious about their errand. But even if he was mistaken in thinking
them Hugh Beringar’s men, what did that matter? They were men, at any rate, and
they could help him. Nearing
the far edge of the copse, and with eyes now growing more accustomed to the
eerie twilight, he caught glimpses of movement between the trees. He burst out
into the open with their line strung before him, more of them than he had
thought, ten or a dozen at least. Three horses, and four pack-ponies,
well-loaded, blew forth pale clouds of frosty breath. Even in the dimness he
knew the shapes of sword and axe and bow. These men went heavily armed through
the ending of the night, but not in the disciplined order of Hugh Beringar’s
men-at-arms, rather raggedly and merrily, and soiled with smoke. Faintly but
unmistakably, the stink of burning wafted from them, and the pack-ponies were
loaded high with grain-sacks, wine-skins, pots, bundled clothing, the carcases
of two slaughtered sheep. His
heart misgave him. Hastily he made to draw back into cover, but he had been
seen, and one of the men afoot loosed a mock hunting-call, and darted into the
trees to cut off his retreat. Another took up the cry, and there were the pair
of them, with spread arms and broad grins, between him and
return. A moment more, and half a dozen were all around him. He tried to slip
between them and make off in the opposite direction from the hut, instinctively
aware that whatever happened he must not betray the presence close by of
Brother Elyas. But a long arm reached for him almost lazily, took him by the
liripipe of his capuchon and a fistful of his hair, and hauled him painfully out
to the open ride. “Well,
well!” crowed his captor, turning him about by the grip on his hair. “What’s
such a small nightbird doing abroad at this hour?” Yves
struggled, but was quick to sense that he achieved nothing. Dignity forbade
that he should wriggle or beg. He grew still under the large hand that held
him, and said with creditable steadiness: “Let me go! You’re hurting me. I’m
doing no harm.” “Unwary
nightbirds get their necks wrung,” said one, and went through the motions of
wringing, with lean and dirty hands. “Especially if they peck.” The
mounted man who led the column had halted and was looking back. A high,
peremptory voice demanded: “What game have you caught there? Bring him, let me
see. I want no spies bearing tales back to the town.” They
laid hands willingly on Yves and hauled him forward to where the tallest of the
three horses stood. The horse, being mainly white, was plainly visible, the man
on his back loomed only as a great shadow against the sky. When he shifted a
little in the saddle to stare down at the captive, some stray gleam of lambent
light flowed over the links of chain mail, and flickered out like spent
lightning. Afoot, he might not be a very tall man, but the breadth of his
shoulders and breast, and the lion’s mane of thick hair that covered his head
and flowed down on to his chest in a bushy beard made him look immense. He sat
his horse as if they made one powerful body between them. He was all the more
frightening because his face was but a shadow, and there was nothing to be read
in it. “Hale
him close,” he ordered impatiently. “Here to my knee. Let me see him.” Yves
felt his head yanked back by the hair, to lift his face to
view. He stiffened his back and his lips, and stared up in silence. “Who
are your, boy? What’s your name?” It was no common country voice, but one
accustomed to lordship and to being obeyed. “They
call me Jehan,” lied Yves, and did his best to avoid having his own manner of
speech so easily recognized. “What
are you doing here at this hour? Are you here alone?” “Yes,
my lord. My father folds his sheep up yonder.” He pointed firmly in the
opposite direction from the hut where Elyas, he hoped, still lay asleep.
“Yesterday some of them strayed, and we cane out early looking for them. Father
went t’other way there, and sent me this. I’m no spy, what should I be spying
on? We’re only bothered for the sheep.” “So!
A shepherd, eh? And a very pretty little shepherd, too,” said the voice above
him drily. “In good broadcloth that cost enough when it was new. Now take
breath and tell me again: who are you?” “My
lord, I’ve told you true! I’m only Jehan, the shepherd’s lad from Whitbache…”
It was the only manor he could remember to the west and on the near side of
Corve. He had no idea why it should raise a bellow of rough laughter from all
the listening crew, and his blood chilled at hearing the short, harsh bark of
mirth that came from the man above him. His own fright angered him. He set his
jaw and glared up into the shadowy face. “You have no right to question me when
I am about lawful business and do no wrong. Tell your man to loose hold of me.”
Instead,
the voice, interested but unmoved, said shortly: “Hand me up that toy he wears
at his belt. Let me see what our shepherds are sporting against wolves this
year.” Rough
handling had plucked aside the fullness of Yves’ cloak, and left his belt
exposed to view, the little dagger dangling. Willing hands unbuckled it and
handed it up. “So
they favor silver,” said their lord musingly, “and precious pebbles set in
their hilts. Very fine!” He looked up, aware of the first lightening of the sky
to eastward. “Time’s too short for starting his tongue wagging here, and my
feet grow cold. Bring him! Alive! Amuse yourselves if you
must, but stop short of damaging him. He may be valuable.” He
turned at once and spurred forward, his two mounted companions bearing him
company. Yves was left to the mercies of the underlings. There was never a
moment when he had the remotest chance of breaking away. They valued him, or their
lord’s orders, so highly that at every turn three of them had a grip on him.
They took his own belt, and strapped it round him just above the elbows, to
deny him the use of his arms, and though it had a foot to spare about his
waist, to close it thus they drew it painfully tight. They found a short cord
to tie his wrists before him, palms together, and a long rope to attach him, by
a running noose around his neck, to the pack-saddle of the hindmost pony. If he
lagged, the noose would tighten. If he hurried he could raise his bound hands
high enough to grasp the rope and slacken it enough to breathe, but he could
not raise them high enough to get hold of the noose itself and keep it slack.
He was shrewd enough to realize that if he fell they would stop to pick him up.
They had been told to deliver him wherever their lord was bound, alive and
repairable. But short of killing, they were pleased to avail themselves of the
permission they had been given to use him for their amusement. He
tried to shrug a fold of his cloak into the noose when they slung it over his
head, and someone laughed aloud and clouted him on the ear and dragged the
obstruction loose. It was at that moment that Yves remembered that under the
collar of that same cloak lay hidden the ring brooch that fastened it. It was
very old, a Saxon piece with a formidable pin, the only weapon he had about him
now, and they had not discovered it. “Now,
little bird, fly!” said his first captor, wheezing with laughter. “But bear in
mind you’re flown on a crйance. No making off into the sky for you.” And he
strode away to set the column moving again after its master. Between sleep,
fright and anger, Yves stood shivering and in a daze so long that the first
jerk on his tether half-choked him. He had to grasp and scurry and clutch at
his leash to recover, and a wave of raucous laughter washed back over him in
recompense. But after that he soon found that their
jest could be made as amusing or as tame as he chose. For they had to move so
modestly with their booty that he had no real difficulty in keeping up. Their
loads were heavy and unwieldy, his was very light, and once fully awake, very
agile. For the first few minutes he took care to give them some occasion for
laughter, falling behind and then rushing to preserve his neck. These repeated
recoveries brought him well acquainted with the pony to which he was tied, and
its load, which was two great sacks of grain, slung in balance, and two equally
vast goatskins, surely of wine, behind the grain, with an erection of bundled
cloth and slung pots on top. When he scuttled up close he was moving with his
cheek almost against the hair of the goatskin on his side. It bulged and
undulated with the liquid within. Moreover, when he came thus close he was at
the very end of this ponderous procession, and hidden by the lofty load from
those who went before. And the way, though clearly they knew it too well to be
much aggrieved at its drifts, still put delays enough in their path, they soon
forgot to look behind. Under
the lurching load, Yves stretched up his bound hands as far as they would go,
and felt under the collar of his cloak for the brooch. No one could see him
here, he shrank close to the pony’s patient, laboring quarter. Fumbling fingers
found the edge of the metal, and felt for the ring of the pin, to draw it
forth. His arms, bound cruelly tight, ached with tension, and his finger-ends
were growing numb. Doggedly he kept his hold, and began to coax the brooch
loose, terrified that he might drop it, from pure strain, when it came out from
the folds of cloth. If he could free it and retain his hold with arms lowered,
until the use and the blood returned to his hands, he knew he could manipulate
it thereafter. The
point of the pin sprang loose, and the round brooch almost slipped from his
hold. He closed both hands upon it in desperation, and the point pierced his
finger. He bore the prick gratefully, drew his hands down still impaled, let
the blood flow freely down his aching arms and into his hands, and the thin ooze
from the wound slide unregarded down his finger until he could feel power there
again. He had the precious thing, sharp as a dagger. He took
some minutes before he dared try to make use of it, nursing it between his
locked palms, flexing his fingertips against it until they felt nimble and
supple as ever. The
full goatskin wallowed beside his cheek, the morning twilight hid him. The
leather, though rubbed bare of hair in places, and soft and portly with age,
was tough, but the pin of the brooch was strong, and protruded the length of
his little finger beyond the ring. It took him some moments to work it through
the hide at the lowest part of the swaying bag, the yielding folds slithered
away from him so vexingly, but he leaned a shoulder hard against it to hold it
still, and the pin slid through. A
satisfying spurt of dark red followed as he drew the pin out again, and he
looked down in hope, even in elation, to see the sudden red splash like blood
in the whiteness of the snow beneath his feet. After the first gush the hole
contracted again, but the weight of the wine kept it open, and trickled a thin
drip along the way, and he thought it would do. It would not sink into the snow
and be lost, for the frost was hard enough to seal it as it fell. And that way,
dripping so meagrely, the load would last a long way. He hoped, long enough.
But in case it should become too fine to be followed, from time to time he
punched the skin, and found he could force out a brief jet, a tiny pool of wine
to confirm what had gone before. The
dawn, grey and still and turning now to white mist that cut off all distances,
was well upon them. A cold dawn, in which a few starved birds wheeled
hopelessly. They had timed their return to the lair to be safe within before
full light. If they were now near, Yves thought the depletion in the leaky
wineskin might pass for a natural loss. They had been climbing for a long time.
Lofty, bleak and inhospitable, the uplands of Titterstone Clee received them.
Even in thick mist they knew where they were going, and knew when they drew
near; they had begun to prod the pack-beasts and hurry the line along, scenting
refuge, food and rest. Yves
took thought for his precious brooch, and managed to thread it inside the hem
of his short tunic, out of sight. That freed his bound hands to grasp the rope
that had begun to tighten uncomfortably round his neck when he
tired, and haul himself along by it. It could not be far now. They had smelled
their nest. From
barren, misty desert, without features within the short distance the eye could
see, but always climbing, suddenly they were moving between close, low-growing
trees, with rising rocks just discernible behind. Then it seemed that they
emerged again upon an open summit, and there before them rose a high stockade,
with a narrow gate in it, and over it showed a dark, squat, broad tower. There
were men on watch, the gate opened as they approached. Within,
there were low, rough lean-to buildings all round the stockade, and men in
plenty moving about between them. Below the tower a long hall extended. Yves
heard cattle lowing and sheep calling plaintively. All was timber, all was new,
raw and crude, but solid and formidably manned. No wonder they moved at ease in
the night, insolently aware of their numbers, and of the strength of their
secret fortress. Before
they entered the gate Yves had the wit to draw back the length of his leash,
well away from the punctured wine-skin, and blunder in droopingly, like one
exhausted and cowed. Since sighting the stockade he had let the leaky skin
alone, so that it dripped only a meager droplet by the time they halted in the
snowy bailey. A leaky skin was no great marvel, and the pair to it, at least,
was sound. And he had luck, for his first captor made haste to undo him and
haul him away by the scruff of the neck, before anyone had noticed the thin red
drip, and cursed at half a wineskin lost on the journey. Yves
went where he was dragged, scrambling meekly up the steps into the hall, and
through the seething warmth and smokiness and stunning noise within. Torches
burned along the walls, well primed out from the timber, a great fire blazed on
a stone-laid hearth in the midst, and twenty voices at least plaited a lattice
of noise though the haze, loud, merry and secure. Of furniture there was
little, a few hewn benches, great tables on trestles of rough logs. Men teemed
and many turned to stare and grin at the passage of this small prisoner. At
the far end of the hall there was a low dais, and here there were candles in tall
sconces, hangings of tapestry, and carved chairs round a table
spread with food and drinking horns and pitchers of ale, where three men sat.
Yves felt himself hoisted unceremoniously by a fistful of his garments at the
neck, heaved bodily to the dais, and flung down on his knees at the feet of the
man who sat at the end of the table. Almost he fell flat on his face, but
fended himself off with his still bound hands, and hung for a moment knocked
clean out of breath. “My
lord, here’s your shepherd as you ordered, safe and sound. We’re unloading the
goods, and all’s well. Not a soul stirring on the way.” Yves
gathered himself sturdily and got to his feet. He took time to draw a deep
breath and steady the shaking of his knees before he looked up into the face of
the chief of these night-birds. Mounted
and looming in the twilight, the man had seemed immense. Easy now in his great
chair, he was seen to be no more than common tall, but very powerfully built,
wide-shouldered, deep-chested. After a savage fashion he was very comely. Now
with the candlelight to show him clearly he was more like a lion than ever, for
the thick mane of curling hair and the glossy, untrimmed beard were tawny, and
the large eyes, narrowed but sharp as a cat’s beneath heavy lids, were of the
same coloring. His lips, left naked among all that profusion of dull gold, were
full and curled and proud. He eyed Yves in silence from head to foot, while
Yves stared as doughtily back at him, and kept his mouth shut rather out of
discretion than fright. There could be worse moments to come. At least now they
were back from another successful raid, laden with booty, eating and drinking
and in high content with themselves. And the lion seemed in good humor. If his
slow smile was mocking, it was at least a smile. “Loose
him,” he said. The
belt was unbuckled from Yves’ cramped arms, the cord untied from his wrists. He
stood rubbing the blood back into aching arms, kept his eyes warily on the
lion’s face, and waited. A number of the henchmen in the hall had drawn in at
his back, grinning, to watch. “You’ve
bitten out your tongue on the way?” asked the bearded man amiably. “No, my lord. I can speak when I have
something to say.” “You
might be well advised to think of something to say now, at once. Something
nearer truth than you told me under the copse there.” Yves
could not see that boldness was going to do him any harm here, or the
discretion of fear very much good. He said bluntly: “I am hungry, my lord. You
would hardly find a truer word than that. And I take it as between gentlemen
that you feed your guests.” The
lion threw back his tawny head and loosed a shout of laughter that was echoed
down the hall. “And I take that to be a confession. Gentle, are you? Now tell
me more, and you shall eat. No more hunting for lost sheep. Who are you?” He
meant to know. And for all his present easy mood, if he was balked he would not
mind by what means he got what he wanted. Yves spent a few seconds too long
considering what he had better say, and got an earnest of what might follow
obduracy. A long arm reached out, gripped him by the forearm, and with a casual
twist dropped him wincing to his knees. The other hand clenched in his hair and
forced his head back, to stare up into a face still calmly smiling. “When
I ask, wise men answer. Who are you?” “Let
me up and I’ll tell you,” said Yves through his teeth. “Tell,
brat, and I may let you up. I may even feed you. A strutting little cockerel of
the nobility you may be, but many a cock has got his neck wrung for crowing too
loud.” Yves
shifted a little to ease his pain, drew deep breath to have his voice steady,
and got out his name. This was no time for the stupidity of heroism, not even
for obstinate insistence on his dignity. “My
name is Yves Hugonin. My family is noble.” The
hands released him. The bearded man leaned back in his chair at ease. His face
had not changed, he had not been at all angry; anger had little part in his
proceedings, which were entirely cold. Predatory beasts feel no animosity against
their prey, and no compunction, either. “A
Hugonin, eh? And what were you doing, Yves Hugonin, where we found you, alone
in the early morning of such a winter day?” “I
was trying to find my way to Ludlow,” said Yves. He rose from
his knees and shook his disordered hair back from his face. Not a word must be
said of anyone but himself; he picked his way delicately between truth and
falsehood.” I was at school with the monks in Worcester. When the town was
attacked they sent me away to escape the fighting and slaughter there. I was
with some other people, trying to reach any safe town, but in the storms we
were separated. Country people have fed and sheltered me, and I was making my
way to Ludlow as best I could.” He
hoped it sounded convincing. He did not want to have to invent details. He
still recalled with misgivings the shout of laughter it had provoked when he
mentioned the manor of Whitbache, and claimed residence there, and wondered
uneasily why. “Where
did you spend last night, then? Not in the open!” “In
a hut in the fields. I thought I should get to Ludlow before night, but when
the snow came on, and I lost my way. When the wind dropped and it stopped
snowing,” he said, talking to evade further probing, “I set out again. And then
I heard you, and thought you might set me right.” The
bearded man considered, eyeing him with the disturbing smile that contained
merriment without warmth. “And here you are, with a stout roof over your head,
a good fire at your back, and food and drink for you if you behave yourself
seemly. There’s a price, of course, to pay for your bed and board. Hugonin! And
Worcester… Are you son to that Geoffrey Hugonin who died a few years back? The
most of his lands, I recall, lay in that shire.” “I’m
his son and his heir, if ever I come to it.” “Ah!
There should be no difficulty, then, in paying for your entertainment.” The
narrowed eyes gleamed satisfaction. “Who stands guardian to your lordship now?
And why did he let you go stravaging off into the winter so poorly provided,
and alone?” “He
was only newly arrived in England from the Holy Land, he knew nothing of it. If
you send now, you may hear of him in Gloucester, he is of the empress’s party.”
The lion shrugged that off indifferently. In the civil war he belonged to neither
side, and cared nothing which side others chose. He had set up his own party,
and acknowledged no other. But certainly he would extort
ransom as cheerfully from one as from the other. “His name is Laurence
d’Angers,” said Yves, “my mother’s brother.” That name was known, and welcomed
with satisfaction. “He will pay handsomely to have me back,” said Yves. “So
sure?” The bearded man laughed. “Uncles are not always to anxious to ransom
nephews who will one day come into great estates. Some have been known to
prefer to leave them unredeemed, to be hustled out of the world as
unprofitable, and come into the inheritance themselves.” “He
would not come into my inheritance,” said Yves. “I have a sister, and she is
not here in this extreme.” It pierced him with sudden renewed dismay that he
did not know where she was at this moment, and her situation might be just as
dire as his own, but he kept his voice steady and his countenance wooden. “And
my uncle is an honorable man,” he said stiffly. “He will ransom me and never
grudge it. So he gets me back alive and undamaged,” he added emphatically. “Complete
to every hair,” said the lion, laughing, “if the price is right.” He gestured
to the fellow who stood at Yves’ shoulder. “I put him in your charge. Feed him,
let him warm himself by the fire, but if you let him slip through your fingers,
your own neck pays for it. When he has eaten, lock him away safe in the tower.
He’ll be worth far more than all the plunder we’ve brought from Whitbache.” Brother
Elyas awoke from the dreamless peace of sleep to the agonizing dream of waking
life. It was daylight, lines of pale morning slid between the boards of the
hut, cold and white. He was alone. But there had been someone else, that he
remembered. There had been a boy, a boy who had kept him company sturdily, and
lain by him in the hay, a warmth by his side. Now there was no one. Brother
Elyas missed him. In the snow they had clung together in mutual kindness,
trying to alleviate more than the cold and the cruelty of the wind. Whatever
became of him, he must find the boy, and make sure that no harm should come to
him. Children have a right to life, a right so many of their elders have
forfeited by follies, by failures, by sins. He was outcast, but the boy was
innocent and pure, and must not be surrendered to danger and death. Elyas rose, and went to open the door.
Under the eaves, where the wind had driven the snow away, leaving only a thin
layer, the small footmarks showed clearly, only the powdering of a late squall
clouding them. They turned right, down the slope, and there in the deeper snow
a short, vigorous body had ploughed a jagged furrow, round the bank of bushes,
down into the coppice of trees. Elyas
followed where the boy had led. Beyond the belt of trees there was a beaten
track that crossed on an almost level course, climbing gently towards the east.
Horses had passed this way, and men afoot with them, enough men to carve out a
flattened road. They had come from the west. Had they taken the boy away with
them towards the east? There would be no tracing one child’s passage here, but
surely he had run and struggled down the slope to join them. In
his dream, which neither cold nor pain could penetrate, and only the memory of
the boy could influence, Brother Elyas turned towards the east, and set out
along the track the unknown company had taken. The furrow they had ploughed
through barren level, even fall and drift was simple to follow, the weaving
route was surely older than all the pathways here, made to render the climb
equable and easy. It wound along the hillside in a long curve. Elyas had gone
some three hundred paces when he saw beneath him the first splash of dark red
in the white. Someone
had shed blood. Only a little blood, but a dotted line of ruby beads continued
from it, and in a few moments he found another blossom of blood at his feet.
The sun was rising now, pale through the mist, which lifted with the day. The
red gleamed, frozen on the surface of the snow. Not even the brief noon sun
would thaw it away, though the wind might spread blown snow over it. Brother
Elyas followed, drop by drop along the way where someone had bled. Blood can
requite blood. If someone had taken and hurt the boy, then a man already
fingered by despair and death might still die to some purpose. Immune
from any further onslaughts of cold, pain and fear, on sandalled feet through
frozen drifts, Brother Elyas went in search of Yves. Chapter
Ten BROTHER
CADFAEL CAME OUT FROM HIGH MASS with Prior Leonard, into the brief and grudging
sunshine of the middle hours of the day, and the sudden glitter reflected from
the banked piles of snow. A number of the priory tenants had mustered to help
in the search for the missing pair, while the light was favorable and no snow
falling. Prior Leonard pointed out one of them, a big, bluff fellow in his
prime, with red hair just salted with grey, and the weather beaten face and
far-gazing blue eyes of the hillman. “That
is Reyner Dutton, who brought Brother Elyas in to us in the first place. I feel
shame to think what he must be feeling, now the poor man has slipped through
our fingers after all.” “No
blame at all to you,” said Cadfael glumly. “The fault was mine, if there’s any
question of blame.” He studied Reyner’s solid person thoughtfully. “You know,
Leonard, I have been wondering about this flight. Which of us has not! It seems
Elyas, once something set him off, went about it with great determination. This
was no simple clambering out of bed and wandering at large. Barely a quarter of
an hour, and they were well away. And plainly the boy could not turn or
dissuade him, but he would go wherever it was he was going. He had an end in
view. It need not be a reasonable end, but it meant something to him. How if he
had suddenly recalled the attack that all but killed him, and
set off to return to that place where it happened? That was the last he knew,
before memory and almost life were taken from him. He might feel driven to
resume there, in this twilight state of his mind.” Prior
Leonard conceded, though doubtfully: “It might be so. Or may he not have
recalled his own errand from Pershore, and started back to his duty there? It
might take a man so, his wits being still so shaken up in him.” “It
comes to me now,” said Cadfael earnestly, “that I have never been to the spot
where Elyas was attacked, though I suppose it must be not far from where our
sister was killed. And that again has been fretting me.” But he forbore from
spelling out what he found peculiar about it, for Leonard had been a man of the
cloister from puberty, serenely content and blissfully innocent, and there was
no need to trouble him by reflecting aloud that the night of Hilaria’s death
had been a blizzard as intense as the night just past, that even lust has its
preference for a modicum of shelter, and of shelter he had seen none close to
her icy grave. A bed of snow and ice, and a coverlet of howling wind, do not
constitute the most conducive of circumstances for rape. “I was meaning to go
out with the rest,” he said, “as soon as I have take a bite to eat. How if I
should borrow Reyner to bring me to the place where he found Brother Elyas? As
well begin there as anywhere.” “That
you could,” agreed the prior, “if you are sure the girl will bide quietly here,
and not try to take some action of her own.” “She’ll
bide,” said Cadfael confidently, “and give you no trouble.” And so she would,
but not for his asking. She would wait here obediently because one Olivier, a
paragon, had ordered her to do so. “Come, and we’ll ask your man if he’ll be my
guide.” The
prior drew his tenant out of the group before it moved off from the gatehouse,
and made them acquainted. Clearly Reyner had a warm relationship with his lord,
and was ready to fall in cheerfully with whatever course Leonard suggested. “I’ll
take you there, brother, gladly. The poor man, to be out again in this, when
it’s almost been the death of him once. And he making such a
good recovery. A madness must have come on him, to want out on such a night.” “Had
you not better take two of our mules?” wondered the prior. “The place may not
be far, but how far beyond may it not take you, if you should find a trace to
follow? And your horse has been worked hard since coming here, Cadfael. Our
beasts are fresh and hardy.” It
was not an offer to be refused. Mounted or afoot, travelling would be slow, but
better mounted. Cadfael went to snatch a hasty dinner, and returned to help
Reyner saddle the mules. They set forth eastward along a road by this time well
trampled. The best of the day would last them perhaps four hours, and after
that they must be prepared for a possible return of the snow, as well as fading
light. They left Ludlow distant on their right hand, and went on along the
beaten road. The sky hung heavy and grey before them, though a feeble sun still
shone upon this stretch of their way. “Surely
it was not on the very highroad you found him?” said Cadfael, as Reyner made no
move to turn aside. “Very
close, brother, a little to the north of it. We’d come down the slope below the
Lacy woods, and all but fell over him lying naked there in the snow. I tell
you,” said Reyner forcibly, “I’ll take it very ill if we lose him now, after
such an escape, and him as near death when we picked him up as ever man was and
lived to tell it. To filch a good man back from the grave, and cheat those
devils who did their worst to thrust him under, that did my heart good. Well,
please God we’ll haul him back from the edge a second time. I hear you had a
lad went with him,” said Reyner, turning his far-sighted blue eyes on Cadfael.
“One that was lost before time, and now to seek again. I call it handsome, in
one so young, to stick like a burr where he could not persuade. We’ll be after
the pair of them, every hale man who tills or keeps stock around these parts.
We are near, brother. Here we leave the road and bear left.” But
not far. A shallow bowl only a few minutes from the road, lined with bushes and
two squat hawthorn trees on the upper side, to the north. “Just
here he lay,” said Reyner. It
had been well worth coming, for this posed glaring problems.
It fitted the marauding pattern of that night, yes. The outlaws had come from
their early raid south of the road, and crossed, it seemed, somewhere here, to
climb to some track well known to them, by which they could return unnoticed
into the wilderness of Titterstone Clee. Here they could well have happened on
Brother Elyas, and killed him more for sport than for his gown and linen,
though not despising the small pickings of the supposed corpse. Granted all
that, but then, where was Sister Hilaria? Cadfael
turned to look northwards, into the gentle upland across which he had ridden
with Yves before him. The brook where he had found Sister Hilaria lay somewhere
up there, well away from the road. North and east from here, he judged at least
a mile. “Come
up the fields with me, Reyner. There is a place I want to view again.” The
mules climbed easily, the wind having scoured away some of last night’s fall.
Cadfael set his course by memory, but it did not fall far astray. One thin
little brook clashed under the hooves, in the suave hollows the snow lay
cushioned over brushes and low trees. They were long out of sight of the road,
waves of snowy ground cutting them off, as they continued to climb. They hit the
tributary of the Ledwyche brook somewhat downstream, had there been any stream
flowing, from the place where Sister Hilaria had been laid, and retraced its
gently rising course until they came to the unmistakable spot where the
coffin-shaped hole had been hacked in the ice. Even the previous night’s snow,
though it smoothed off the razor-sharp outlines, kept the remembrance alive.
This was the place where her murderers had thrown and abandoned her. More
than a mile from where Brother Elyas had been battered and left for dead! Not
here, thought Cadfael, looking round at a hillside as bare and bleak, almost,
as the bald, craggy head of Clee. It did not happen here. She was brought here
afterwards. But why? These outlaws otherwise had left all their victims where
they fell, and cared nothing to hide them. And if she had been brought here,
from where? No one would choose to carry a dead body very far.
Somewhere nearby there must be some kind of shelter. “They’ll
be running sheep, rather than cattle, up here,” he said, scanning the slopes
above them. “So
they do, but they’ll have got the most of them folded now. It’s ten years since
we had a spell such as this.” “Then
there’ll be a hut or two, somewhere about, for the shepherds’ use. Would you
know where the nearest may be?” “A
piece back along the traverse here towards Bromfield, the half of a mile it
might be.” That must be along the selfsame track Cadfael had ridden with Yves
on his saddle-bow, going home to Bromfield from Thurstan’s assart in the
forest. He could not recall seeing such a hut that day, but evening had been
setting in by then. “We’ll
go that way,” he said, and turned his mule back along the path. A
good half-mile it certainly was before Reyner pointed left, to a shallow bowl
below the track. The roof of the hut was almost completely screened by the
mounds of snow that covered it. Only a straight black shadow under the eaves
betrayed its presence from above. They descended the gentle slope to come round
to the southern side, where the door was, and found it thrust open, and saw by
the sill of the previous night’s snow along the threshold that it had not stood
thus longer than a matter of hours, for within there was no snow, except for
the infinitely fine powder blown between the boards. Cadfael
halted on the brink. In two places, close together, a foot had trampled flat
the ridge of snow which had built against the door while it remained closed. A
line of icicles fringed the eaves, and successive noons had warmed them enough
to drip for a brief while each day, and freeze again before the approach of
evening, for the roof was open to the south, and sheltered from the north by
the rise of the land. A slow drip fell as Cadfael gazed, and a line of fine
black perforations punctured the whiteness of the layer of snow below the
eaves, where the wind during the night had already thinned it. At the corner of
the hut the drips had bored a small pit, revealing the ripe, rounded brownness
of something that was not turf nor soil. Cadfael stirred more
snow away with the toe of his boot. Frost
is a great preserver. All the sunshine of all the noons had not produced thaw
enough to do more than pierce the crest of this pile of horse-droppings with
one tiny shaft. The next snow would cover it again, and the frost seal it. But
the hole the drip had bored in it went too deep to be the result of this one
day’s grudging sun. No knowing exactly how many days had passed since a horse
had stood here, but Cadfael judged it might be as many as five or six.
Tethered? The wood of the hut was rough-hewn, and there were props under the
low, projecting eaves to which a bridle could easily be hitched. He
might never have noticed the hair, pale almost to white as it was, if a sudden
rising breeze had not caused it to flutter, somewhat above the level of his
eye, from the rough timber of the corner. Had it been motionless it would have
passed for one with the snow plastered and frozen there. It was the wind that
had shaken the weight from its waving strands, and given it play to catch his
eyes. He detached it carefully from the splinters that held it, and smoothed
out in his hand a tress of coarse, springy hair the color of fading primroses.
The horse tethered here had rubbed shoulder and mane against the corner of the
hut, and left a token behind. And
this must be the nearest roof to the brook where he had found her. And given a
horse to carry it, it would be no great labor to transport the body of a
murdered girl that distance. But that might be going too fast. Better see what
else the place had to tell, before he jumped to such doubtful conclusions. He
stowed away the scrap of horse-hair carefully in the breast of his habit, and
went into the hut. The slight tempering of the bitter air without closed round
him gratefully, and the dry, faint odor of the piled hay tickled his nostrils.
Behind him, Reyner watched in attentive silence. Someone
had done well with his hay harvest in the past season, and had still a
plentiful store here. A bed and bedding provided together, a stout roof
overhead—yes, anyone benighted would be thankful to hit on such a refuge.
Someone had made use of it in the night just past, the great pile of hay was
pressed down by the weight of a long body. So it might have
been during other nights. So it might have been by two bodies. Yes, this could
well be the place he was looking for. Yet even this place was at least half a
mile from the spot where Brother Elyas had been left for dead, and his
murderers had been making their way home, not scouring half a mile of deserted
countryside. “Are
you thinking,” wondered Reyner, watching him, “that it may be the pair we’re
seeking who were in here last night? For someone was, and there are two
breadths of foot have trampled the snow on the doorsill here.” “It
could be so,” said Cadfael abstractedly. “Let’s hope so, for whoever was here
went forth live and able this morning, it seems, and has left tracks we’ll
follow in a moment. If we’ve found all there is to be found here.” “What
more can there be, and they gone?” But Reyner watched Cadfael’s concentration
with respect, and was willing to use his own eyes. He came within, looked all
round him sharply, and stirred the great pile of hay with a vigorous foot. “Not
bad lying, if they got this far. They may haven taken no real harm, after all.”
His disturbance of the pile had loosed a wave of scent and a tickling haze of
dust, and uncovered a corner of black cloth, well buried under the load. He
stooped and tugged at it, and a long black garment emerged, unrolling in his
hands, creased and dusty. He held it up, astonished. “What’s here? Who would
throw away a good cloak?” Cadfael
took it from him and spread it out to see. A plain travelling cloak, in the
coarse black cloth of the Benedictines. A man’s cloak, a monk’s cloak. The
cloak of Brother Elyas? He
dropped it without a word, and plunged both arms into the pile, scooping a way
down to the floor like a terrier after a rat. More black cloth there, rolled up
and thrust deep, deep, to be hidden from all eyes. He brought up the roll and
shook it out, and a crumpled ball of white fell clear. He snatched it back and
smoothed it in his hands, the austere linen wimple of a nun, soiled now and
crushed. And the black, held up to view, was a slender habit tied with its own
girdle, and a short cloak of the same cloth. And all thrust away into hiding,
where no chance shepherd would ever think to delve until all that hay was used.
Cadfael spread out the habit and felt at
the right shoulder, sleeve and breast, and the traces, all but invisible in the
shroud in black, confided to his touch what his eyes could not distinguish. On
the right breast a patch the size of a man’s hand was stiff and caked, crusted
threads crumbled away as he handled it. The folds of shoulder and sleeve bore
streaks and specks of the same corruption. “Blood?”
said Reyner, watching and marveling. Cadfael
did not answer that. He was grimly rolling up habit and cloaks together, the
wimple tucked inside, and hoisting the bundle under his arm. “Come, let’s see
where they went, who slept the night here.” There
was no question where the hut’s last occupants had gone. From the thin layer of
snow before the door, where the prints of large feet and small ones showed
clearly, two tracks led downhill and merged, first with the broken slurring of
people forging through a moderate fall, then ploughing a furrow to the knee and
the hip through fluctuating drifts, down towards the bank of bushes and the
coppice of burdened trees below. They followed, leading the mules and keeping to
the narrow way carved out by those they pursued. It rounded the bushes, but
cleft a passage through the belt of trees, where the branches had held off much
of the fall. They emerged upon the level where the tracks of a number of men
and horses crossed them, coming from the west and moving east. Cadfael stared
eastward, marking the course of the tracks till they faded from sight in
distance, bearing downward here towards the drainage valley of the brooks, and
surely preserving the same direct line and rising again beyond, pointing
straight at the wilderness of Titterstone Clee. “Did
we cross such tracks, coming up from the road? For you see the line they take.
We came from below, we end above. We must have crossed.” “We
were not looking for such, then,” said Reyner sensibly. “And the wind may have
blotted them out here and there.” “True,
so it may.” He had been bent on reaching the empty coffin in the ice, he had
not been paying attention to the ground. “Well, let’s see what we have here.
Whoever they were, they halted, they came circling, here where the tracks from
above come forth from the trees.” “A horse turned and stood, here,” said
Reyner, probing ahead. “Then he wheeled and went on. So did they all. Let’s
follow a short way.” The
first scarlet flower of blood sprang up under their feet within three hundred
paces. A chain of ruby beads wavered on for as far again, and there was a
second starry bloom, and beyond, the chain continuing, thin and clear. The
frozen snow held its dyes well. They were at the peak of the day, the brief
clarity would soon be gone, but while it was at its height it showed them the
frowning outline of the Clee straight before them, the goal of this ancient
pathway. Distant, savage and lonely, a fit place for wolves. “Friend,”
said Cadfael, halting with his eyes on that ominous skyline, “I think you and I
part company here. By all that I can see, these are last night’s tracks, and
they mean several horses and many men, and something aboard that dripped blood.
Slaughtered sheep, perhaps? Or wounded men? The band we have to root out come
from up there, and if they were not out about their grisly business last night,
these tracks lie. There’s a holding somewhere binding up its wounds and laying
out its dead, at the very least grieving for its goods and gear. Turn back,
Reyner, follow these traces back to where they burned and stole last night, and
go take the word to Hugh Beringar, to save what can be saved. Into Ludlow, if
Hugh Beringar is not yet back—Josce de Dinan has as much to lose as any.” “And
you, brother?” demanded Reyner doubtfully. “I’m
going ahead, to follow them the way they took. Whether they’ve borne our pair
away with them or not, this is our best chance to find where they’ve made their
nest. Oh, never fret!” he said, seeing his companion frown and hesitate to
leave him, “I’ll mind my going. I’m no beginner at this. But here, take these
back with you, and leave them with Prior Leonard until I come.” He drew out the
strand of primrose mane, mindful of its importance, and made it secure in the
middle of the role of clothing. “Tell him I’ll be with him before night.” He
had gone no more than a quarter of a mile when he crossed the tracks of
Reyner’s mule and his own, climbing to the brook. Loose,
powdery snow had already been blown over the path there, but if he had been
keeping his eyes open he must have seen that a number of travelers had passed
that way, though he would not necessarily have read any sinister meaning into
that, for the snow-spume had covered the dotted line of red. From
that point on the track dipped gently to cross the Ledwyche brook and the
Dogditch brook, its tributary from the north-east, threading its way between
holdings on either side without ever sighting them, and at once began to climb
again steadily. An old, old road, maintaining its level as easily as possible
over undulating country, until it was forced to climb more steeply, as every
approach must, to mount to that inhospitable summit, a bleak, blistering mile
of rock, starved turf, broken escarpment and treacherous, shivering moss. The
face of Clee thus approached presented surfaces of sheer cliff striated with
the brief glare of sunlight. There the path certainly could not go, yet it
still aimed like an arrow for the wall of rock. Soon it must veer either to
right or left, to circle the hill as it climbed, and remembering the ravaging
of John Druel’s holding, Cadfael judged that it must bear to the right. That
way they had certainly returned home on that night, leaving the village of Cleeton
well below, too strongly manned to be a quick or an easy prey so late towards
dawn. Some
minutes later his guess was borne out, for the path inclined to the right, and
began to follow the course of a small brook, muted now by ice, that flowed down
out of the mass, until it dwindled in the higher reaches, and ended in a hollow
of frozen moss, which the track carefully skirted. The rocky bulk of the hill
loomed on his left hand now, but often hidden from view by the folds of ground
near to him, even by rare stands of stunted trees. Circling always, he climbed,
until he saw below him in its bowl the desolate remains of Druel’s house and
byres. The next curve of the spiral took him higher, and the ruin passed from
his sight. In
the rocky hillside on his left hand appeared a sudden cleft, so narrow that he
might have missed it if the frail string of red drops had not turned into it.
The valley within was deep and dark, and cut off at once much of the light and
all the force of the wind. Herbage grew here, glad of the shelter,
and had built up soil enough to support swart, strong trees. He could not
be far from the summit, and he must have made more than half the circuit of the
hill by this time. Whatever was at the end of this rough approach must back
upon the sheer cliffs of the south-western face, and it might well be that it
could be reached by no other way, except by birds. In
that thin and lofty air sounds carried far. Deep into the ravine, Cadfael had
already halted to consider his next move when the distant metallic chinking
came down to him in a regular rhythm. Somewhere above him a smith was at work.
Then, faintly but clearly, he heard cattle lowing. If
this was their gateway, it might be strongly watched, and if he was within
earshot the stronghold could not be far. He dismounted, led his mule well into
the trees, and there tethered him. There was no longer any question in his mind
that he had found his way to the outlaw company who had killed and pillaged
across this countryside to the very gates of Ludlow. Who else would have built
in this hidden and formidable place? Where
he would not venture in the open he might still penetrate with caution. He
threaded a silent way up through the trees, and between their dark tops saw the
grey pallor of the sky. Into that pallor a squat dark shape projected, the top
of a wooden tower. He was drawing near to the source of the brook which had
carved out so deep a cleft, and before him, viewed through the trees, a plateau
of rock and snow opened. He saw the long, staked line of a high stockade, the
crests of roofs within, the long ridge of the hall, with the tower at its end.
Not a high tower, built solid and low to withstand the winds, but tall enough
to have the master’s view of all that surrounded it. For the outline of wall
and tower stood stark on the sky. They had no need to guard their rear, except
from falcons. Behind the castle the cliffs fell sheer. From a distance, Cadfael
reflected, not even the tower would be visible as separate from the dark rock
from which it rose. He
stood for a while memorizing what he saw and heard, for Hugh would need every
detail he could get. The enclosing wall was high, topped with pointed stakes
set close, and by the heads he saw appear and vanish again above the serrated
crest, there were watch-platforms at frequent intervals, if
not a guard-walk the whole way round. Voices floated clearly from within the
pale, wordless but insistent, many voices, shouting, laughing, even singing.
The armourer continued his busy hammering, cattle bellowed, sheep bleated, and
the hum of much busy coming and going made a confident music. They were quite
unafraid, within there, they felt themselves equal to anything the hampered,
divided law of the land could do against them. Whoever commanded there must
have gathered to him the lawless, restless, masterless men of two or three
shires, happy at seeing England torn in two, and its open wounds inviting their
teeth. Cloud
was settling low overhead. Cadfael turned and made his way back to his mule,
and with heightened care led him, still in the shelter of the trees, down to
the opening of the ravine, and waited and listened for a while before mounting
and riding. He went back the way he had come, and never encountered a living
soul until he was well down towards the lowlands. There he could very well have
branched left and descended to the highroad from Cleobury, but he did not do
it, preferring to retrace his course all along the road the reivers used. He
needed to know it well, for the night’s snow, if it came as was now customary,
might grievously disguise it. It
was dark by the time he came out on to the road within a mile of Bromfield, and
made his way thankfully and wearily home. Hugh
Beringar did not come back until Compline, and rode in tired, hungry, and for
all the cold, sweating from his exertions. Cadfael went to join him over his
late supper, as soon as he came from the church. “You
found the place, then? Reyner brought you word where last night’s devilry
fell?” He was answered by the grimness of Hugh’s face. “And
told me what you were about at the other end of it. I hardly thought to find
you home before me—faith, or at all, undamaged! Need you always be the one to
put your hand straight into the hornet’s nest?” “Where
was it they burned and slew, last night?” “At
Whitbache. Barely two miles north of Ludlow, and they strode
in and out again as freely as in their own bailey.” It fitted well. Their way
home from Whitbache would run below the hut to the old road, just as Cadfael
had witnessed it. “I was back in Ludlow when your man came, I fetched Dinan out
to come with me. Every house pillaged, every soul hewn down. Two women escaped
by running away into the woods, and carried their babes with them, all that
ails them is cold and horror, but the rest—one man may live to tell it, and two
young lads, but all hurt. And the rest, dead. We’ve taken them into the town,
the quick and the dead. They’re Dinan’s people, he’ll see them cared for. And
have blood for their blood, given half a chance.” “Both
you and he may have your chance,” said Cadfael. “Reyner Dutton found what he
was seeking, and so did I.” Hugh’s
head, inclined wearily back against the wall, jerked erect again sharply, and
his eyes regained their brightness. “You found the den these wolves are using?
Tell!” Cadfael
told the whole story in detail. The clearer the picture they could draw now of
the problem confronting them, the better the chance of dealing with it with
little loss. For it was not going to be easy. “As
far as I can see, there is but that one road to them. Behind the fortress the
ground still rises somewhat, to the rim of the cliff. Whether their stockade
continues round the rear of the bailey I could not see. With that drop at their
backs they may have felt it unnecessary. I daresay the rocks could be climbed,
in a better time of year, but in this ice and snow no one would dare attempt
it. And being the men they are, I fancy they have store of stones and boulders
ready in case any should venture.” “And
the place is indeed so strong? I marvel how they’ve contrived so much building
in secrecy.” “A
place so remote and harsh, who goes there? A few holdings clinging to the lower
slopes, but what is there to draw an honest man above? Not even good grazing.
And, Hugh, they have an army within there, the scourings of God knows how wide
a swathe of middle England, labor in plenty. And Clee Forest at their feet, and
stone all about them, the only crop that summit bears. You know and I know how fast a castle can be reared, given the timber and the need.”
“But
runaway villeins turned robber, and petty thieves fleeing from the towns, and
such fry, do not build on such a scale, but make themselves hovels in the
woods,” said Hugh. “Someone of more weight has the rule there. I wonder who! I
do wonder!” “Tomorrow,
if God please,” said Cadfael, “we may find out.” “We?”
Briefly and distractedly Hugh smiled at him. “I thought you had done with arms,
brother! You think our two are within there?” “So
the tracks would seem to show. It is not certain that those who slept in the
hut through the night, and ran down to meet the horsemen, were Yves and Elyas,
but man and boy they were, and do you know of any other such couple gone astray
in the night? Yes, I do think they have fallen into the hands of these rogues.
Armed or unarmed, Hugh, I am coming with you to get them out.” Hugh
regarded him steadily, and said outright what was on his mind. “Would they
bother to burden themselves with Elyas? The boy, yes, his very clothes mark him
out as worthy prey. But a penniless monk, wandering in his wits? Once already
they’ve battered him all but to death. You think they would hesitate the second
time?” “If
they had discarded him,” said Cadfael firmly, “I should have found his body
lying. I did not find it. There is no way, Hugh, of knowing what is truth, but
to go out and exact it from those who know.” “That
we will do,” said Hugh. “At first light tomorrow I go to the town, to order out
on the king’s business every man Josce de Dinan can muster, along with my own
men. He owes allegiance, and he will pay it. He has no more use for anarchy in
his own baileywick than King Stephan himself.” “A
pity,” said Cadfael, “that we cannot take them at first dawn, but that would
lose us a day. And we need the daylight more than they do, they knowing their
ground so much better.” His mind was away planning the assault, which was no
business now of his, nor had been for many years, but the old enthusiasm still
burned up at the scent of action. He caught Hugh’s smiling
eye, and was ashamed. “Pardon, I forgot myself, unregenerate as I am.” He
turned back to what was his concern, the matter of troubled souls. “There is
more to show you, though it has no immediate link with this devils’ castle.” He
had brought the roll of black clothing with him. He unrolled it upon the
trestles, drawing aside the creased white wimple and the strand of creamy mane.
“These I found in the hay, in that hut, buried well from sight, if Reyner had
not kicked the pile apart. See for yourself what lay in that hiding-place. And
this—this from without, snagged in the rough wood at the corner of the hut, and
a pile of horse-droppings left at the spot.” He
told that tale with the same exactness, needing another mind to work upon these
discoveries. Hugh watched and listened with frowning attention, quickened
utterly from his weariness and alert to every implication. “Hers
and his?” he said at the end of it. “Then they were there together.” “So
I read it, also.” “Yet
he was found some distance from this hut. Naked, stripped of his habit—but his
cloak left behind where they sheltered. And if you are right, then Elyas sets
off wildly back to this very place. By what compulsion? How drawn?” “This,”
said Cadfael, “I cannot yet read. But I doubt not it can be read, with God’s
help.” “And
hidden—well hidden, you say. They might have lain unnoticed well into the
spring, and been an unreadable riddle when they did reappear. Cadfael, have
these wolves hidden any part of their worst deeds? I think not. What they break,
they let lie where it falls.” “Devils
do so,” said Cadfael, “being without shame.” “But
perhaps not without fear? Yet there is no sense in it, take it all in all. I
cannot see where this leads. I am none too happy,” owned Hugh ruefully, “when I
try.” “Nor
I,” said Cadfael. “But I can wait. There will be sense in it, when we know
more.” And he added sturdily: “And it may not be so dismaying as we think for.
I do not believe that evil and good can be so dismally plaited together that
they cannot be disentangled.” Neither of them had heard the door of the
room open or close, the small anteroom of the guest-hall, where Hugh’s supper
had been laid. But when Cadfael went out with his bundle of clothing under his
arm, she was there outside in the stone passage, the tall, dark girl with her
sleepless, proud, anxious eyes huge in her pale face, and her black hair a
great, swaying cloud round her shoulders, and he knew by the strained urgency
of her face that she had come in innocence, hearing voices, and looked within,
and drawn back in awe of what she saw. She had shrunk into the shadows, waiting
and hoping for him. She was shivering when he took her firmly by the arm and
led her away in haste to where the remnants of the day’s fire still burned
sullenly in the hall, banked to continue live until morning. But for the surly
glow, it was in darkness there. He felt her draw breath and relax a little,
being thus hidden. He leaned to stab at the fire, not too roughly, and get an
answering red and gratifying warmth out of it. “Sit
down here and warm yourself, child. There, sit back and fear nothing. This same
morning, on my life, Yves was live and vigorous, and tomorrow we shall bring
him back, if man can do it.” The
hand with which she had gripped his sleeve released him slowly. She let her
head rest back against the wall, and spread her feet to the fire. She had on
the peasant gown in which she had entered at the gate, and her feet were bare. “Girl
dear, why are you not long ago asleep? Can you not leave anything to us, and
beyond us to God?” “It
was God let her die,” said Ermina, and shuddered. “They are hers—I know, I saw!
The wimple and the gown, they are Hilaria’s. What was God doing when she was
befouled and murdered?” “God
was taking note of all,” said Cadfael, “and making place beside him for a
little saint without spot. Would you wish her back from thence?” He
sat down beside her, not touching, very considerate of her grief and remorse.
Who had more to answer for? And who needed more gentle usage and guidance, in
respect for her self-destroying rage? “They are hers, are they not? I could not
sleep, I came to see if anyone had news, and I heard your voices there. I was
not listening, I only opened the door, and saw.” “You
did no harm,” he said mildly. “And I will tell you all I know, as you deserve.
Only I warn you again, you may not take to yourself the guilt of the evil
another has done. Your own, yes, that you may. But this death, at whosoever’s
door it lights, comes not near you. Now, will you hear?” “Yes,”
she said, at once docile and uncompromising in the dark. “But if I may not
arrogate blame, I am noble, and I will demand vengeance.” “That
also belongs to God, so we are taught.” “It
is also a duty of my blood, for so I was taught.” It
was every bit as legitimate a discipline as his own, and she was just as
dedicated. He was not even sure, sitting beside her and feeling her passionate
commitment, that he did not share her aim. If there was a severance, yet they
did not go so far apart. What they had in common, he reasoned, was a thirst for
justice, which she, bred into another estate, called vengeance. Cadfael said
nothing. A devotion so fierce might burn long enough to carry all before it, or
it might soften and concede some degree of its ferocity. Let her find her own
way, after eighteen her spirit might abate its fury as it saddened and became
reconciled to the human condition. “Will
you show me?” she said almost humbly. “I would like to handle her habit, I know
you have it there.” Yes, almost humbly, she was feeling her way to some end of
her own. Humility in her would always be a means to an end. But of her
whole-hearted affection for the lost friend there could be no doubt at all. “It
is here,” said Cadfael, and unrolled the bundle on the bench between them,
putting aside the cloak that belonged to Brother Elyas. The wisp of creamy mane
drifted out of the folds and lay at her foot, stirring like a living thing in
the draught along the floor. She picked it up and sat gazing down at it from under
drawn brows for some moments, before she looked up questioningly at Cadfael. “And
this?” “A
horse stood tethered under the eaves of that hut for some
time, and left his droppings in the snow, and this rubbed off from his mane
against the rough boards.” “That
night?” she said. “Who
can be sure? But the droppings were well buried, not new. It could have been
that night.” “The
place where you found her,” said Ermina, “was not close?” “Not
so close that a man would willingly carry a body there, even to hide the
circumstances of his guilt—unless he had a horse to bear the burden.” “Yes,”
she said, “that was my thought, also.” She put the pale strands from her
gently, and took the habit into her hands. He watched her drape it over her
knees, and run her hands softly over the folds. Her fingers found the stiffened
places, halted over the patch on the right breast, traced the folded creases
that ran from it, and returned to the source. “This
is blood?” she questioned, wondering. “But she did not bleed. You told me how
she died.” “That
is true. This blood cannot be hers. But blood it is. There were faint traces on
her body, where there was no wound.” “Faint
traces!” said Ermina, lifting to his face one flash of her dark eyes. She
spread her palm upon the patch that stiffened the breast of the gown, opening
her fingers wide to span the clotted stain that was more than a faint trace. A
stain from without, then, not from within. “His blood? The man who killed her?
Well done, if she drew blood from him! And yet… I would have clawed out his
eyes, but she? So slight and so gentle…” Suddenly
she was still, quite still, brooding with the habit raised in both hands to her
breast, as it would hang if she put it on, and the red glow from the fire
gilding her face and kindling reflected fires in her eyes. When she stirred
again, it was to rise calmly and shake out the creases, and that done, she
folded the garment meticulously, smoothing out the edges to make all neat. “May
I keep this in my charge? Until,” she said with considered emphasis, “it is
needed to confront her murderer?” Chapter
Eleven IN
THE EARLY MORNING LIGHT Hugh Beringar rode from Bromfield for Ludlow, to muster
his forces for the march, and Brother Cadfael pulled on his boots, kilted his
habit for riding, took his cloak, and went with him. Besides his function as
guide, he had loaded his scrip with dressings and ointments for fresh wounds,
of which there might be plenty before this day ended. He
saw nothing of Ermina before they departed, and was glad to believe that she
must still be fast asleep, and at peace. There was a tension and withdrawal
about her that made him uneasy, for no good reason that he could see. It was
not simple fear for her brother that weighed on her heart, nor the grief and
guilt she had already confessed and was determined to purge by penitence. That
braced, armed stillness with which she had taken her leave the previous night,
clasping Sister Hilaria’s habit, stayed in his mind as much resembling the
virgin knight’s bathed and accoutred vigil before his first battle. Blessed
be Olivier de Bretagne, who had somehow found a way to master her, ousting an
immature fantasy of love from her heart, and at whose command she would even
remain still and inactive, and leave the burden of the day to others, wholly
against her nature. But why, then, should he think of her as armed, alert and
about to do battle? Meantime they had their own battle to
fight and win. At
Ludlow Josce de Dinan marched out from the castle the force Hugh demanded of
him, and came himself at their head, a big, burly, full-fleshed man of middle
age, ruddy of face and well-mounted. Hugh had asked in particular for archers,
and got them. In these border shires there were plenty of men skilled with the
short bow, and Cadfael estimated that from the rim of the trees at the head of
the gully to the stockade should be just within their range. From the shelter
of the branches they could provide cover for an advance, by picking off any
defenders who mounted the guard-walk within. A pity that the trees spanned
barely a quarter of the open plateau, where the ravine still gave them
protection from the bleakest winds, and even there they shrank to dwarf size at
the crest. That open arena troubled Cadfael. There would be archers within as
well as without, and loopholes to allow them a clear field without exposing
them to shafts from the attackers. He had no delusions about the quality of the
enemy’s dispositions. Whoever had erected that fortress in that lofty place
knew what he was about, and by the carefree bustle within he had mustered a
formidable garrison. The
march was easier than they had expected. The night’s snow had begun later and
ended earlier than for some days, and without the worst winds, and Cadfael had
the path well in mind. The air, still as frosty, was starkly clear here on the
lower ground, but thin, bright mist cut off all summits. That might well be to
their advantage when they drew close to their goal, affording at least a veil
over their movements. “Such
a morning,” judged Cleeton, “if they have been out at all in the night, they
would make sure of being home and invisible early. Given a remission like this,
country people will be out betimes. These night-owls have no objection to
leaving their traces where they strike, but so far they’ve avoided being seen,
except by their victims. Those who blunder into their way by chance they kill,
unless they have a value living. But with one fat plucking only a night ago,
maybe they won’t have stirred abroad. If that’s so, they’ll be home and
wakeful, and less drunk than after a fat foray, which is a pity.” He
rode ahead, with Hugh on one side, and Josce de Dinan a
careless pace to the rear on the other. Dinan was too big a man, in every
sense, to strain to keep his horse’s nose level with that of Hugh’s mount, or
resent serving under a younger and less experienced man. He had no need to
stress his own worth. Cadfael took to him. He had never before seen this
supposedly dubious ally, but he thought him a man to be valued, and lost only
with grief. “They
may have outposts at the approaches,” said Hugh. Cadfael
considered, and doubted it. “Towards the foot or even halfway up, their man
would be too distant to give fair warning, and too isolated for his own safety.
And the best defense of the gully is that it looks so narrow and blind it must
usually pass unnoticed. I was following a plain trail. I shall not miss the
place. And in between, all is open. I think they rely on secrecy, and if that’s
penetrated, on their strength.” The
world before them lay bleak and unpeopled, the great hump of land ahead,
turbaned in cloud, was a steely blue shadow. Cadfael viewed the sculptured
land, narrowed his eyes, and steered his remembered course. In places the
night’s fall had smoothed out yesterday’s tracks, but here and there they still
showed faintly as dimpled hollows in the new surface. When they drew near to
the stony bulk before them he slowed his pace, and went with raised head,
trying to pierce the haze that hid the crest of the cliffs. He could see no
square dark ridge reared above the bulk of the rock, though the outline of the
rock itself showed very faintly through the veil. If he could not see the
tower, there was hope that no watcher from the tower could see this approaching
force, even though they moved openly and in considerable numbers. Better get
them past this stage as quickly as possible, and round the first curve of the
spiral pathway. When
the long gradual climb brought them out on the bleak waste of the summit, and the
fissure in the rocky ground opened on their left, Hugh halted his company and
sent scouts ahead. But there was no movement, no sign of life but the wheeling
of a few birds in the sky above. The cleft was so narrow that it seemed likely
it must close after a few paces, and could hardly be expected to lead anywhere.
“It
widens, within,” said Cadfael, “and goes on opening steadily
towards the source of the stream, like most upland brooks. There are trees most
of the way, though they’re dwarfed above.” They
entered the defile, and deployed their numbers among the trees on either side.
The mist was lifting by the time Hugh stood within the highest screen of trees,
looking out over the open bowl of sparse grass and rock and snow to the
stockade. The first step out of cover by any man, and the alarm would be given
at once. From this thin fringe of trees onward there was no cover at all. And
the distance, Cadfael saw with concern, was greater than he had thought, great
enough to decimate the ranks of any attacking host, if there were competent
bowmen and a proper watch within the walls. Josce
de Dinan eyed the length of the stockade and the bulk of the tower within.
“You’ll not give them formal call to surrender? I see no need, and good reason
against it.” So
did Hugh. Why give away the weapon of surprise, if indeed they had managed to
spread their archers and men-at-arms round the meager crescent of cover without
being observed. If they could get even halfway to the walls before the archers
sprang into concerted action along the guard-walk, they could save lives. “No.
These men have done pillage, violence, and murder without mercy, I need give
them nothing. Let’s dispose our forces to the best advantage, and then have at
them before they’re ‘ware.” His
bowmen had distributed all round the crescent. His men afoot in three groups
were spaced along the rim, and his handful of mounted men in two groups
between, to converge on the gate and break their way in, to make a way for the
following footmen. There
was a stillness when all was ready, before Hugh, from his place as spear-head
of one mounted party, spurred forward and raised his arm for the onset. He from
the left and Dinan from the right burst out from cover and charged for the
gate, the footmen pouring after them. The bowmen in the edge of the trees
loosed one volley together, and then drew and shot at will, watching for any
head that appeared above the stockade. Cadfael, left behind with the archers,
marveled that the attack could begin almost in silence but for
the thudding of hooves, and even that muffled by the snow. The next moment
there was uproar within the walls, a frantic scrambling of men to the
loopholes, and then an answering hail of arrows. But that first charge had
almost succeeded, for the gate had been unbarred, and by the time the guards
had clapped it to, Hugh and Dinan and five or six more were under the wall,
hidden from the defenders within, and heaving with all their might to burst
into the bailey. Within,
men swarmed to hold the gate closed and bar it securely, and the din of shouted
orders and confused movements washed back and forth like storm-water in a
foundering ship. The stout gate was ajar, quivering, and the running foot
soldiers flung themselves into the human ram to hurl it wide and break into the
bailey. From
high above their heads a great voice suddenly bellowed like thunder: “Hold, you
below! King’s men or whatever you be, stand, and look up here! Look, I say! Put
up and quit my gates, or take this infant carrion with you!” All
heads within and without the gate came up with a jerk to stare at the top of
the tower, and on both sides archers froze with bows drawn, and lance and sword
were lowered. Between two of the crude timber merlons of the parapet Yves stood
balanced, held by a great hand gripping his clothes in the small of the back,
and over the merlon beside him leaned a raging, bristling head, tawny gold,
long hair and beard streaming in a capricious wind that could hardly be felt
below. A mailed hand held a naked dagger at the boy’s throat. “You
see him?” roared the lion, glaring down with eyes fire-gold with fury. “You
want him? Living? Then draw off! Haul off out of range, out of sight, or I cut
his throat now and throw him down.” Hugh
stood holding the sword he had drawn to probe through the yielding chink of the
gate, and stared up with a white, fixed face. Yves was stiff as a beam of wood,
looking neither down nor up, but straight before him at empty sky. He never
made a sound. “I
do not know you, sir,” said Hugh, carefully and low, “but I am the king’s man
here, and I say to you, you have now no refuge, here or
anywhere. Harm him, and I will be your death. Be advised. Come down, yield
yourself and all these your men and trust to find some mercy that way, for
otherwise there is none.” “And
I say to you, king’s man, take your rabble out of my sight, now, without
argument, or you may have this piglet, bled ready for eating. Now, I say! Turn
and go! Shall I show you?” The point of the dagger pricked, in the clear air they
saw the little bubble of blood that grew, and burst, and slid down in a fine
thread. Hugh
clapped his sword into the scabbard without another word, mounted and wheeled
his horse, and waved all his men back from the stockade, back into the trees,
back out of sight. Behind him he heard vast laughter that still resembled the
hungry roar of a hunting lion. Archers
and all had shrunk far back to be invisible, watching that threat. They drew
together in stunned silence, down among the trees. This was deadlock indeed.
They knew they dared not advance, and that resplendent wild beast in the tower
knew just as surely that they would not depart. “But
I know him, if you do not,” said Josce de Dinan. “A by-blow of the Lacy clan by
a younger son of the house. His brother the right side the sheets, after the
father married, is a tenant of mine. This one served in France some years, for
Normandy against Anjou. They call him Alain le Gaucher, because he’s
left-handed.” Even
those who had seen the man now for the first time needed no reminders. It was
the left hand that had held the dagger against the boy’s throat, and turned the
point quite coldly to pierce the skin. Yves
felt himself hoisted by the small of his back, in the fist that gripped the
fullness of his clothes and bruised his spine with hard knuckles, and dumped
hard upon his feet on the timbers of the roof. The jarring shock ran up from
his heels to his head, and shook his eyes wide open. He had been so intent upon
uttering no sound that he had bitten his tongue, the blood ran warm within his
lower lip. He swallowed it, and braced his quaking feet into the planks under
him. The thin thread of blood trickling down his neck from the
prick of the dagger hardly troubled him, and was already drying. He
had never yet been so frightened, as he had never been so rough-handled,
suddenly plucked erect by the neck, hauled up confusing staircases in the dark,
windowless bulk of the tower, finally dragged up a last vertical ladder and
through a heavy trap to the dazzle of daylight on the roof. The lion’s voice
had roared in his ears, the lion’s own fist had hoisted him to the parapet,
with a furious lunge that might well have hurled him over. By instinct he had
held his tongue, and made no sound. Now, suddenly released, he felt his knees
give way under him, and stiffened them indignantly. He still had not uttered
word or cry. He held that thought to him like an accolade, and stood doggedly
waiting for the pounding of his heart to ease. It was an achievement that he
stood erect at all. Alain
le Gaucher stood with hands spread along the merlons, grimly watching the
besiegers draw off into the gully. The three of his men who had followed him
aloft here stood waiting for his orders. So did Yves, bracing himself not to
quail when the thick, powerful body swung round on him, and the fiery eyes hung
on him with calculating intensity. “So
the brat has his value still, if not in money! Good reason to hold him fast, we
may have to make further use of him to the same end. Oh, they’ll not go far out
of sight, I know—not yet, not until they’ve tried every roundabout way they can
find, and been baulked at every attempt by a small knife at a small piglet’s
throat. Now we know they’ll dance to our tune. Imp, you may yet be worth an
army to us.” Yves
found no comfort in that. They would not even seek a ransom for him, his value
as a hostage being far higher, now that their fortress was known. They could
not hide it again, and enjoy the secrecy of their night exploits by wiping out
every witness, as before. But for some while, at least, they could go on
repeating the threat to kill their prisoner, perhaps even bargain with his life
for freedom to march out unchallenged and resume their activities elsewhere.
But no, Hugh Beringar would not so tamely give up, nor would he leave a hostage
in such hands a moment longer than he must. He would find some way, short of
frontal assault, of breaking into this lair. Yves did his best
to believe that, and kept his face expressionless and his mouth shut. “You,
Guarin, stay here with him. You shall be relieved of the watch before dark, and
he’ll give you no trouble. Short of clambering over the parapet and dashing his
brains out below, what can he do? And I fancy he’s not yet so mad with fear as
to choose that way. Who knows, he may even come to like the life with us—eh,
chicken?” He jabbed a hard finger into Yves’s ribs and laughed. “Have your
dagger ready. If they come out of hiding, if you see any of them making
roundabout to come at us, challenge on the instant, and repeat the threat. And
if they persist,” he said, with a sudden snap of large teeth like a trap
closing, “bleed him! If it comes to worse yet, I’ll take the knife myself. Me
they’ll believe!” The
man called Guarin nodded and grinned, and loosened his dagger in its sheath,
suggestively. “The
rest of you, down, and we’ll make better dispositions. I want a watch on every
foot of our boundaries. They’ll be probing busily before they give up from the
cold. There’s no sheriff born is going to camp in the open up here in such a
winter. Not for longer than a night.” There
was a ring set into the trap, by which to lift it. He set his own great hand to
it, and heaved it out as easily as lifting a ladle, and dropped it with a
hollow thud upon the boards. Below, it could be secured by bolts, the metal
rang as it fell. “We’ll
shut you up here, for safety’s sake. Never fret, you shall have your food
brought, and quit your watch by twilight, but with this chick fresh from the
egg I take no chances. He’s too effective a tool to risk.” He clouted Yves on
the shoulder in passing, as forthrightly as he had stroked the knife across his
throat, and plunged through the trap, swinging down the tall ladder to the next
floor. His men followed him briskly. Guarin hauled the trap into place, and
they both heard the bolts slide into their sockets below, and the last man
clambering down the ladder. The
two of them were left in their rough timber eyrie, staring at each other. There
was frozen snow under their feet, and frost in the air they breathed. Yves
licked dried blood from his lip, and looked about him for the most favorable ground. The tower had been built high enough to command as wide
a view as possible, without allowing its own outline to stare too obviously
above the line of the rock. The wall surrounding it rose breast-high to him
before the merlons began, he could lean between them and look out every way,
but to the rear, above the sheer cliffs, he could see only the rim of the
escarpment, and beyond, the distant land below. The space up here was too wide
and open to be comfortable, wind and weather could make it a bitter ordeal,
though this day was better than any that had gone before. Within
his vision nothing now stirred, except for the fierce bustle inside the bailey,
where every watch-point was being manned, and every loophole supplied with an
archer. The king’s men had gone to earth like foxes. Yves selected the
snow-free corner of his ground, backing into the wind, and sat down on the
boards there with his back hunched against the timbers and his arms hugging his
knees. Every contact nursed a shred of warmth. He was going to need all he
could get. But so was Guarin. Not
one of the worst of them, this Guarin. Yves had taken the measure of many of
those close about their chieftain, by this time, he knew those who took
pleasure in hurting, in defiling, in making other human creatures writhe and
abase themselves. And there were more than enough of them, but this Guarin was
none. The boy had even learned how some of them had come into this service, and
could pick out worst from best. Some were footpads, murderers, thieves from
choice, born to prey on their own kind. Some were petty tricksters from the
towns, who had fled from justice and taken refuge where even their small skills
could be used. Some were runaway villeins who had committed some angry revolt
against tyranny, and put themselves on the wrong side of the law. Several were
of better birth, younger sons and landless knights who considered themselves soldiers
of fortune in this company. Some were even men disabled in honest service, and
cast off when they were of no further profit; but these were few, and trapped,
they did not belong in this garrison, but had blundered into it by ill-fortune,
and could not get loose. Guarin
was a big, slow-witted, easy-going soul, without cruelty. He
had no objection, as far as Yves could see, to robbing and sacking and burning,
provided others did the killing. He would go with the crowd and behave himself
conformably, but he would rather not let blood himself if it could be avoided.
But for all that, he would carry out his orders. It was the only way he knew of
ensuring a share with the rest, all the food he needed, and all the drink, a
roof above him, and a fire. If his lord told him point-blank to kill, he would
kill and never hesitate. The
day enlarged over the two of them, and brightened. The murderous weather, if it
had not yet softened, held a kind of promise. It was past noon when someone
thumped merrily at the trap, hauled back the bolts below, and rose out of the
dark, wood-scented pit of the tower with a bag of bread and meat and a pitcher
of hot, spiced ale for the watchman. There was enough for two, and Guarin
spared a portion for his prisoner. They were lavish with their provender. They
had the provisions from at least four local holdings to feed them. The
food and drink helped for a while, but as the day wore away the cold came down
again and bit hard. Guarin stamped about the boards to keep himself warm, constantly
patrolling in order to keep watch in every direction, and paid no attention to
his prisoner except for a hard stare now and again to remind him that he was
helpless, and had better not attempt anything on his own behalf. Yves fell into
an uneasy doze for a while, and awoke so cold and stiff that he found it
necessary to get up and stamp his feet and clap his arms vigorously to get his
blood flowing again. His guard laughed at that, and let him dance and exercise
as he liked. What harm could he do? The
light was beginning to fail. Yves fell to pacing the tower a few steps behind
his watchman, peering out at every embrasure upon a world still peopled only by
his enemies. On the precipice side, in particular, he craned perilously to see
below, but still had only the barren cliff-edge and the distance before him.
That entire side of the square tower looked out upon the sky. But at the
eastern corner, while Guarin’s back was turned, Yves found a rough join in the
timbers by which he could gain a foothold and hoist himself up to achieve
a better view. Below him the rim of rock levelled out, and by straining
perilously round towards the void he could see at last that the stockade did
not continue all round the castle, but terminated where it met the cliff-edge.
Here at the corner the drop was not quite sheer, he could see the first jagged
folds over the edge, every ledge with its smooth burden of untrodden snow. All
that motionless, empty whiteness everywhere, as though the friends on whom he
relied had deserted him. But
the whiteness was not quite motionless, nor the rocky landscape quite empty.
Yves blinked in disbelief, seeing the outline of one hanging drift move, and
show for an instant the shape of a raised head, a shadowy visage lifted briefly
to judge the next stage of a solitary and perilous climb. The next moment there
was nothing to be seen there, at the extreme edge of the stockade and some ten
yards down the broken face, but a mound of snow. Yves stared, straining
anxious, elated eyes, but there was no more movement. A
shout behind him caused him to slither down frantically from his perch, even
before Guarin’s hand plucked him down and shook him heartily. “What are you
about? Fool, there’s no way down there for you.” He laughed at the thought, but
blessedly did not look where the boy had been looking. “As well get your throat
slit as break your bones at the bottom of that fall.” He
kept his grip on the boy’s shoulder, and marched him along before him, as if he
really believed his prisoner might yet slip through his fingers and cost him
dear. Yves went where he was hustled, and thought it wise to whine a little
about his usage, to keep the man amused and distracted. For
now he was sure he had not been deceived. There was a man down there among the
rocks, a man who had covered his dark garments with a white linen sheet to move
invisibly in the snow, a man who had clambered at his peril, surely not up the
whole cliff-face, but laboriously round the rim from the trees, just below
vision, to make his way out across the rock face beyond the stockade, and into
the bailey where no one watched, where it was thought impenetrable. And in so
disciplined a fashion, slow-moving even in this icy coldness, able to freeze
into ice himself, and be part of the rocks and the winter. And
now he was waiting for the dark, before venturing the last perilous passage. Yves
trotted submissively where the hand gripping his shoulder drove him, and hugged
to his heart the blazing conviction that he was not abandoned, that heroes exerted
themselves on his behalf, that heroism was also required of him before all was
won, and that he must not fall short. Darkness
had closed in, and Guarin was the one complaining, before his relief came
clattering up the ladder, shot back the bolts, and heaved up the trap to emerge
on the roof. This
one was decidedly not among the least offensive, a bristle-bearded,
pock-marked, flat-nosed cutpurse with a malicious fist, and dirty nails that
liked pinching. Yves had some few bruises from him already, and gnawed a
dubious lip at seeing him burst up out of the depths. He knew no name for him.
Possibly he had never had a name, only some epithet by which he might be known,
short of proper parentage or Christian baptism. Guarin
was none too fond of him, either, he grunted vexation at such a late relief,
when he had been promised it before dark. They snarled at each other before
parting, which left Yves time to shrink into his sheltered corner out of sight
and mind. There might be a bleak interval. But there was someone out there in
the enclosing night, not so far away, coming to his aid. Guarin
grumbled and clumped his way down the long ladder, and Yves heard the bolts
shot home. They had their orders. He was left isolated here with this
unpredictable cutthroat, who would stop only short of his lord’s ban. He dared
not kill or maim. Short of either, no doubt he would take it for granted he had
free leave to hurt. Yves
sat back against the solid timber wall, shrunken into his corner with back to
the wind. It was made clear to him at once that his new guard felt no goodwill
towards him, blaming him for the discomfort of being perched up here in the
frosty night, instead of below by the fire. “Pest
of a brat,” he snarled, and kicked savagely at the boy’s ankles in passing, “we
should have cut your throat there on the road where we first met you. If the
king’s men had found you dead they’d have had no call to hunt
for you living, and we should have been snug and merry here still.” All of
which, Yves had to own as he drew in his feet and sat hunched in his corner,
was probably true enough. He made himself as small as he could, and held his
tongue, but silence did nothing to placate his custodian, rather it seemed to
infuriate him. “If
I had my way, you should dangle from one of these merlons for the kites. And
never think you’ll escape it in the end. Whatever bargain they strike over you,
it can be broken once we’re clear away. What’s to stop you being promised in
return for passage, and delivered up carrion? Devil take you, answer me!” He
kicked out again viciously, driving his toe deliberately at the boy’s groin.
The stab was not quite evaded, as Yves rolled hastily away, and cost him a gasp
of pain and rage. “What’s
to stop it?” he flashed, goaded. “Only that your lord still keeps some dregs of
his breeding, and puts some small value on his word. And you’d best do his
bidding to the letter, for this moment he has far more use for me than he has
for you. He could swing you from a merlon with a light heart and nothing to
lose.” He
knew he had been a fool, but he was sick of trying to be wise against his
nature. He saw the great fist coming for his hair, and dived below it and
sprang clear. On this limited ground he might be cornered in the end, but he
was lighter and faster than his tormentor, and at least movement was warmer
than keeping still. The man came after him, shrewd enough to do his cursing
low-voiced, for any bellowing up here was liable to fetch someone up to enquire
the cause. He muttered his obscenities as he charged, both thick arms flailing
for a hold. “What, you naked chick, use such insolence to me, would you? Big
talk from a thrapple I could wring one-handed? If your neck’s safe, is that
warrant for your skin? Or a few teeth down your saucy throat?” In
the act of slipping beneath a grasping arm, Yves saw beyond his enemy’s
shoulder the heavy trap in the floor beginning to rise. They had been too
intent on each other to hear the bolts being withdrawn, even if it had not been
done with unusual care and quietness. The head that emerged, though
seen only by this late twilight, which below must be already full darkness, was
none that Yves knew, and came forth so steadily and silently that his heart
leaped with desperate hope. How do you recognize at first sight someone who
cannot possibly be a member of an outlaw gang of thieves and murderers? If the
guard turned fully about now, he would be looking straight at the newcomer, who
was just setting foot to the boards and rising erect. This raving, fumbling
wretch must not turn! And if Yves eluded him now he would turn, to follow and
punish. Yves
slipped in the frozen snow, or seemed to slip, and the threshing fist had him
by the breast of his cotte and slammed him back against the parapet. The fellow
to it gripped his hair and forced his head up, as the creature spat copiously
in his face, and laughed in triumph. Wrenching aside as best he could from the
infamy, and unable to raise a hand to wipe the slime away, Yves saw the
invading stranger straighten to his full height, without haste or sound, and
lower the trap back into place, eyes fixed all the while on the writhing pair
pinned to the wall before him. He did not quit the sensible precaution to rush
to the rescue. It was the greatest of praise, and Yves felt his heart swell
with gratitude and admiration. For he had just been shown that his act had been
understood and appreciated, that he was not a mere victim, but a partner in
this secret and splendid war. He
saw the first rapid, silent stride taken towards him, and then his head was
buffeted violently aside by a great blow on the cheek, and a second that
knocked him back again, and turned him dizzy and faint. To make all sure, he
raised his voice in a frantic whine, not too loudly, but enough to cover the
movements of one who must be already close: “Don’t! You’re hurting me! Let me
go! I’m sorry, I’m sorry… don’t hit me…” Something of a crow about the tone,
and his hackles erected all the time, but this creature did not know the
difference, he was chuckling and quaking with merriment. He
was still laughing when the long arm took him about the face, muzzling his
mouth, and jerked him backwards top the boards, and a long-legged, agile,
youthful body dropped astride him, drove a knee into his belly, and therewith
all the wind out of him, and jolting off his conical steel
helmet, calmly hoisted him high enough to drive his skull back against the wood
with stunning force, laying him out on the floor limp as a landed fish, and
just as silent. Yves
dropped ecstatically upon the pair of them, like a half-trained hawk stooping,
and fell to unbuckling the belt that held the guard’s sword and dagger. His
hands were shaking, but he went about it eagerly, peeled loose the arms, and
shoved the belt towards the stranger, who was waiting for it with commending
and commendable placidity and patience, and had it drawn tightly round the
guard’s upper arms, hobbling them behind his back, before he turned to look
closely at his helper. He was smiling. The light here was only from a haze of
stars, but very pure and clear, and the smile was unmistakable. He
reached a hand into the ample breast of the brown homespun cotte he wore,
hauled out a long white roll of linen, and held it out to Yves. “Wipe
your face,” said a calm, low voice, in which both smile and praise were
implicit, “before I use it to make this loud mouth mute.” Chapter
Twelve YVES
SCRUBBED THE SLIME FROM HIS CHEEK AND BROW in awed and fascinated silence,
round eyes fixed all the while upon the face that fronted him across the
sprawled body of his tormentor. The faint starlight caught the gleam of white
teeth, and bright eyes that shone like amber. The capuchon had fallen back from
ruffled black hair that did not curl, but curved and clasped in a thick cap
about a shapely, vigorous head. Every line and every movement cried out his
youth and audacity. Yves gazed and lost his heart. He had had heroes before,
his own father among them, but this one was new and young, and above all,
present. “Give!”
said his ally briefly, and snapped demanding fingers for the length of linen,
which Yves hastily surrendered. An end of the cloth was shoved briskly into the
guard’s open mouth, the length of it whipped about his head to make him blind
as well as dumb, and secured round his shoulders to the belt with which his
arms were already pinioned. For want of a cord to bind the prisoner’s legs, the
lacings of his leather jerkin were stripped out in a moment, made fast around
his ankles, and doubled back to tie his feet to his wrists in the small of his
back. He lay like a package made compact and neat to be slung one side of a
pony for carriage. Yves watched, great-eyed, marvelling at the economy of the
movements involved in the process. They eyed each other, in the breathing
space that followed, with mutual content. Yves opened his mouth to speak, and
was hushed by a forbidding finger on lips still reassuringly smiling. “Wait!”
said the deep, serene voice, just above a whisper. Whispers have no identity,
but carry alarmingly. This muted murmur reached no ears but the boy’s. “Let’s
see if we may leave the way I came.” Yves
crouched, charmed into stillness, ears pricked, listening and quivering. His
companion lay flat over the trap, an ear to the wood, and after a few moments
cautiously hoisted one edge to peer down into the timber-scented darkness of
the tower below. From outside, about the bailey and the guard-walk along the
stockade, came the sounds of movements and voices, from a garrison on the
alert, but below among the shadowy beams there was silence and stillness. “We
may essay. Follow close and do as I do.” He
lifted the trap and swung himself down the ladder by his hands, agile as a cat,
and Yves scurried after him. In the dimness of the floor below they froze
again, backs to the darkest wall, but nothing moved to threaten them. There
were fixed stairs, rough but solid, from the corner of this level. They had
reached the middle of the flight and could hear the hum and bustle of activity
in the hall, and see the flickering of torches and firelight round the rim of a
great door below. One more flight, and they would be in the base of the tower,
and level with the hall, only that door between them and Alain le Gaucher and
his outlaws. A long arm drew Yves close, and again held him still to listen and
watch. The
base of the tower was half of rock and half of beaten earth, and the air that
came up to them was colder here than between the massive timbers above. Peering
down fearfully, Yves could see in a far corner the foot of a deep embrasure,
and felt the strong draught that blew from it. There was a narrow outer door
upon the night, surely the door by which his rescuer had entered, and if they
could but reach it unobserved they might yet make their way back by the same
route, out of this enemy stronghold. He would not be afraid, with this superb
being as a guide, even to venture the traverse of the rocks in
the dark. What one had done alone, surely two could do together. It
was the first tread of that final staircase that undid them. Until then all had
been solid and silent, but as soon as a foot was set on this warped board it
tilted and settled again with a loud clap, and the echoes took the impact and
flung it about the tower in a chain of hollow reverberations. In the hall someone
cried out an alarm, there was a rushing of feet, and the great door was flung
open, spilling forth firelight and armed men. “Back!”
snapped the stranger instantly, and whipped round without hesitation to hoist
the boy before him up the flight they had just descended. “Up to the roof,
quickly!” There was no other way of retreat, and the brief check below to
accustom eyes to the darkness after the lighted hall could last only a moment.
It was already over, the foremost man loosed a great bellow of alarm and rage,
and came for the stairs in a bull’s rush, with three or four more on his heels.
The blast of the uproar they raised almost blew the fleeing pair up the steps
of the tower. Where
the long flight ended, the ladder in sight, Yves felt himself lifted and flung
halfway up to the open trap, and that was the height of a tall man. He gripped
and climbed, but looking over his shoulder and hesitating, loth to leave his
companion behind, until he was ordered sharply: “Go! Up, quickly!” He completed
the climb in a wild scramble, and flung himself down on his belly by the trap,
craning anxiously over the rim, just in time to see, in a confusion of shadows
further confused by the starlight through the trap, how the foremost pursuer
came lurching up the narrow wooden treads of the stairway, drawn sword
flailing. A big, bulky man, blocking off from view those who followed him. Yves
had not even noticed, until that moment, that his ally already wore a sword.
The one they had taken from the guard still lay here on the roof, though Yves
had possessed himself of the dagger and buckled it proudly to his belt as
substitute for the one taken from him. The brief flash of a blade, like distant
lightning, stabbed the darkness below, a trick of starlight following its slashing
course. The outlaw loosed an outraged yell, his short sword struck from his
hand and flung below to clatter on the boards. The next moment
a braced foot took him in the chest and hurled him backwards while he was off
balance. Down he went in a long, echoing fall, and swept his followers down
with him. The stairway was narrow and unguarded, two or three went backwards
under their leader’s massive weight, one at least went over the side, to a
heavier fall below. The
young man turned without another glance, and sprang halfway up the ladder to
the roof, and in a moment was beside Yves. The naked sword he swung glittering
along the ice of the roof, and leaned to grip the uprights of the ladder with
both muscular hands, and haul it aloft after him. As soon as Yves had recovered
his wits he leaned eagerly to clutch from rung to rung and help to hoist the
weight. With all his might, and all the breath he had regained, he heaved and
exulted. The ladder had been braced against a wooden bar both below and above,
but not fixed. It rose blithely, out of reach of the tallest long before the
first of the attackers erupted furiously below and leaped to try and hold it. The
lower end rose clear, tilted aside and clattered on the roof, ringing a glassy
cry from the splintered ice. The roars of anger below fumed out of the open
trap, and Yves leaned to drag the cover over to shut them out, but his ally
waved him aside, and the bewitched boy drew back obediently. Whatever his hero
did would be right and wise. And
his hero, palpably smiling, though the smile was hidden in the dark, simply
took their prisoner, now uneasily stirring in his bonds, by the cord that bound
his feet to his wrists in the small of his back, dragged him to the trap,
upended him judiciously so that his head should not take the impact below, and
tipped him almost gently through the trap to fall upon his friends, and lay two
or three of them flat on the boards. Their startled and aggrieved outcry was
cut off when the trap was clapped into place above. “Quick,
now,” said the placid voice almost chidingly, “here with the ladder, here over
the trap. So! Now you lie there upon that end, and I upon this, and who will
shift us?” Yves
lay as he had been ordered, flat on his belly on the ladder, his face buried in
his arms, panting and shivering, for a long time. The boards under him throbbed
to the din below, spent in ugly fury six feet short of
reaching the trap. And if they did rear something that would enable them to
reach it, how were they to shift it or penetrate it? The trap fitted close, no
lance nor sword could be thrust through the cracks. Even if they should climb
up and batter a way through with an axe, only one could emerge at a time, and
they two above were armed and ready. Yves lay braced, willing his weight to be
double, spreading arms and legs, holding his breath. For all the bitter cold,
he was in a lavish sweat. “Look
up, my heart,” said the voice at the other end of the ladder, almost gaily,
“and show me that gallant face again, bruises, grime and all. Let me look at my
prize!” Yves
lifted his head from his arms and stared dazedly along the ladder into bright,
gold-gleaming eyes and an indulgent, glittering smile. A young, oval face under
that thick, close cap of black hair, high-cheekboned, thin-black-browed,
long-lipped, and with a lean, arrogant beak of a nose, like a scimitar.
Smooth-shaven as a Norman, smooth-skinned as a girl, but of an olive, glossy
smoothness. “Take
breath, and let them rave, they’ll tire of it. If we failed to get past them,
neither can they get at us. We have time to think. Only keep well below the
parapet. They know their ground, and might think it worth setting their archers
to watch for an unwary head.” “How
if they set fire to the tower and burn us out?” wondered Yves, trembling as
much with excitement as fear. “They’re
no such fools. They could not, without setting the hall ablaze with it.
Moreover, why be in haste to do anything, when they know we cannot break out?
Here in the cold or in a cell below, they have us cornered. At as this moment,
true enough. You and I, Messire Yves Hugonin, have some thinking of our own to
do.” He cocked his head, raising a hand for silence, to listen to the babel of
voices below, which had sunk into a low, conspiratorial muttering. “They grow
content. We’re securely trapped up here, they’ll leave us to freeze. They’re
needed below, all that’s wanted here is a couple of men to watch our only way
out. They can wait to flay us.” The
prospect did not seem to dismay him at all, he stated it serenely. Below them
the hum of consultation receded and stilled. He had judged
accurately, Alain le Gaucher knew how to concentrate on what was most urgent,
and needed all his company to man his stockade. Let his prisoners, lords though
they might be of a tower-top some dozen or so paces square, enjoy their
lordship until it chilled them into helplessness, and if need be, killed them.
Whatever they did, they could not get away. A
wary, suspicious stillness fell below. And the cold, no question of it, was
biting sharply, congealing into the deepest, darkest and deadliest of the
night. The
young man eased from his braced listening, and turned to reach a long arm
towards the boy. “Come close, let’s share what warmth we have. Come! In a while
we may move, but now we’ll hold down the lid together over hell a little
longer. While we consider what to do next.” Yves
wriggled thankfully along the ladder and was drawn warmly into the embracing
arm. They settled together until they found mutual ease, and fitted snugly into
one comforting mass. Yves drew breath deep into him, and leaned his cheek
almost shyly into this admired and welcoming shoulder. “You
know me, sir,” he said hesitantly. “I do not know you.” “You
shall, Yves, you shall. I had no leisure until now to present myself
respectfully to your lordship. To any but you, my friend, I am Robert, son to
one of the foresters of Clee Forest. To you…” He turned his head to meet the
boy’s round-eyed, earnest stare, and smiled. “To you I can freely be what I really
am, if you can keep a blank face and a still tongue when needed. I am one of
the newest and least of the esquires of your uncle, Laurence d’Angers, and my
name is Olivier de Bretagne. My lord is waiting anxiously in Gloucester for
news of you. I am sent to find you, and I have found you. And be sure, I will
not now lose you again.” Yves
sat speechless, lost between bewilderment, joy and apprehension. “Truly? My
uncle sent you to find us and take us to him? They did tell me in Bromfield
that he was seeking us—my sister and me.” The thought of Ermina made him
tremble and falter, for what was the use of being found while she
remained lost? “She—my sister… She left us! I don’t know where she is!” It
ended in a forlorn wisp of sound. “Ah,
but I have the better of you there, for I do know! Make your mind easy about
Ermina. She is safe and well in the Bromfield you abandoned. True, believe me!
Would I lie to you? I myself took her there to join you, only to find before
ever we reached the gate that you were away again on a quest of your own.” “I
couldn’t help it, I had to go…” It
was almost too much to take in, so suddenly. Yves gulped down wonder and grew
coherent. Now that he need no longer worry and grieve over Ermina’s fate,
whatever the perils hanging over his own, he recoiled for support into
resentment against her for ever bringing him and so many others to this pass.
“You don’t knew her! She won’t be bidden,” he warned indignantly. “When she
finds I’m gone she may do anything! It was she who caused all this, and if the
fit takes her she’ll fly off again on some made folly. You don’t know her as I
do!” He
thought it an innocent stranger’s over-confidence that Olivier laughed, however
softly and amiably. “She’ll be bidden! Never fret, she’ll be waiting in
Bromfield. But I think you have a story to tell me, before I tell mine. Heave
it off your heart! You may, we had better not move from here yet. I hear
someone stirring below.” Yves had heard nothing. “You left Worcester a
fugitive, that I know, and how your sister left you, and why, that I know, too.
She has told me, and made no secret of it. And if it please you to know the
best, no, she is not married, nor like to be yet, but thinks herself well out
of a foolish mistake. And now what of you, after her going?” Yves
nestled into the rough homespun shoulder, and poured out the whole of it, from
his first wanderings in the forest to the remembered comfort and kindness of
Father Leonard and Brother Cadfael at Bromfield, the tragedy of Sister Hilaria,
and the desperate sally after poor, possessed Elyas. “And
I left him there, never thinking…” Yves shrank from remembering the words
Brother Elyas had spoken, as they lay side by side in the night. That was
something he could not share, even with this admirable being.
“I’m afraid for him. But I did leave the door unbarred. Do you think they would
find him? In good time?” “In
God’s time,” said Olivier positively, “which is always good. Your God cares for
the sick in mind, and will see to it the lost are found,” Yves
was quick to note the strangeness of the chosen words. “My God?” he said,
looking up with sharp curiosity into the dark face so close above his own. “Oh,
mine also, though I came to Christendom somewhat roundabout. My mother, Yves,
was a Muslim woman of Syria, my father was a crusader of Robert of Normandy’s
following, from this same England, and sailed for home again before ever I was
born. I took his faith and went to join his people in Jerusalem as soon as I
came a man. That’s where I found service with my lord your uncle, and when he
returned here I came back with him. I am a Christian soul like you, though I
chose it, where you were born to it. And I feel in my bones, Yves, that you
will encounter your Brother Elyas again none the worse for the cold night you
spent. We’d best be giving our minds rather to how you and I are to get safely
out of here.” “How
did you ever get in?” wondered Yves. “How did you know I was here?” “I
did not know it, until this rogue lord of yours hoisted you on the wall there
with a knife at your throat. But I saw them pass by with their booty, at some
distance, and thought it worth tracking such a company to its den. If they were
harrying the countryside by night, and you lost by night… It was possible they
might take prisoners, if there was profit to be made out of them.” “Then
you saw, you know, that we have an army of our friends close at hand,” said
Yves, suddenly glowing with a new and wonderful idea. “Of
your friends, surely. But mine? Friends better avoided, no blame to them. Have
you not understood that I am your uncle’s man, and your uncle is liegeman to
the Empress Maud? I have no wish to fall into the sheriffs hands and sit
drumming my heels in a Shropshire prison. Though I owe them a favor, too, for
it was under cover of their onslaught that I made my way round
and on to the rocks below unnoticed, while these vermin within rushed to slam
the gates. I should never have succeeded but for the distraction they provided.
And once round the stockade in the dark, what difference between one lumpish
ruffian stalking the bailey and all the others? I knew where they had left you.
I saw your guard relieved.” “Then
you saw that the only reason Hugh Beringar drew his men off was because they
threatened to kill me. And he is not gone far, I know it, he would not give up
so easily. And now, don’t you see, there is no one holding a knife at my
throat, and no reason why they should not attack!” Olivier
had caught his drift, and was eyeing him with respect and amusement. His gaze
roved speculatively from the guard’s discarded sword, lying in its sheath under
the wall, to the battered conical steel helmet which had rolled into a corner
beside it. The amber eyes in their deep, black-lashed settings, came back to
Yves, dancing. “A
pity we have no trumpets to sound the onset, but the makings of a very
serviceable drum we certainly have. Under the wall with it, then, and try what
you can do, while I stand guard here. They’ll have but a matter of minutes to
spend trying to hack their way through at us, after that they’ll be busy below,
if your friends out there are as quick-witted as you.” Chapter
Thirteen BROTHER
CADFAEL HAD SPENT THE ENTIRE DAY PROWLING THROUGH THE BELT OF TREES, from one
end of the crescent to the other, and back again, studying every fold of ground
between him and the stockade, in search of even the most tenuous cover by
which, once darkness came, a man might hope to approach nearer. Hugh would not
allow any man to show himself in the open, and had gone to great pains, while
deploying his forces as widely as possible, to keep them well out of sight.
Alain le Gaucher could not get out, and the sheriff’s powers could not get in,
and absolute deadlock had Hugh gnawing his knuckles in frustration. Small doubt
but there were lavish supplies of stolen meat and grain within, enough to keep
the garrison snugly for some time. Starving them out would be a long business,
and starve the unfortunate boy in the process. Le Gaucher might be willing to
surrender him in return for free passage out for himself and all his men, but
that would only be to place some other unhappy region under the same scourge.
Not even a last resort! It was Hugh’s business to restore order and do justice
in this shire, and he meant to see it done. He
had singled out from his ranks a number of men who claimed skill in climbing,
and were born and bred in hill country, and drawn them back out of the ravine,
to prospect round the summit in both directions, and see if they could find a level where it might be possible to climb out and
penetrate the enclosure from the rear without being seen from above. The slight
rise of the lip of land behind the fortress afforded cover, but from below it
was seen to be cover for a sheer drop where only birds could hope to find
foothold. The only remaining possibility was where they could not reconnoiter
without being seen, and provoking a blade at the boy’s throat yet again. Close
to the stockade there might just be ground enough to let a man inch his way
round to the rear, if he had a good head for heights. But to make the assay he
would have had to cross a part of that bleak expanse of open rock, making Yves’
death likely and his own certain. But
in the darkness, yes, perhaps. If the covering of snow complicated movement, yet
there were places where bare rock cropped out to break the betraying pallor.
But the night came all too tranquilly, lambent light from snow and stars, a
clear sky, crackling with frost. This one night when fresh snow and driving
winds might have made vision delusive, and covered dark garments with their own
protective veil, no gale blew and no flake descended. And the stillness and
silence were such that even the snapping of a buried branch underfoot might
carry as far as the stockade. Cadfael
was just reflecting ruefully on this hush when it was abruptly shattered,
blasted apart with a violence that made him jump almost out of his skin.
Reverberating across from the summit came a loud metallic clanging like a
great, ill-made bell, stroke on jarring stroke beating out a merciless peal
that went on and on, piercing, demanding, a pain to the ears. Back among the
trees men started to their feet, and ventured as near as they dared to the
open, to stare across at the castle, and within the stockade, no less, arose
shouts and bellowing and clamor that told Cadfael this music was none of
theirs, had not been planned, was neither welcomed nor understood. If something
had gone wrong within, then something profitable might yet be made of it
without. The
din was coming from the top of the tower. Someone up there was industriously
thrashing away at a shield, or a gong of some kind, however improvised. Why
should any man of the garrison be sounding so furious a tocsin, when no attack
had been threatened? And the noise had provoked other noises
within the stockade, muffled and wordless but unmistakably angry, dismayed and
vengeful. A great voice that could only belong to de Gaucher was roaring
orders. Surely all attention had been diverted from the enemy without to the unexpected
onslaught within. Cadfael
acted almost without thought. There was an undulation in the rock surface
halfway to the stockade, a narrow black blot breaking the uniform whiteness. He
broke from the shelter of the trees and ran for it, and dropped full-length
along it, where his black habit could lie motionless and pass unremarked if
anyone was still keeping guard. He doubted if they were. The relentless
clanging continued tirelessly, though someone’s arm must be beginning to ache
by this time. Cautiously he raised his head to watch the serrated crest of the
tower, clear against the sky. The rhythm of the discordant bell faltered and
changed, and as it halted for a moment Cadfael saw a head peep cautiously out
between the merlons. There were ominous splintering, crashing sounds now,
dulled by the thick timbering of the tower, as though someone was wielding an
axe. The head appeared a second time. Cadfael waved an arm, black sleeve plain
against the snow, and shouted: “Yves!” Doubtful
if he was heard, though the clear air carried sounds with meticulous accuracy.
Certainly he was seen. The head—it barely topped the parapet—craned into view
recklessly for a moment, to shriek in shrillest excitement: “Come on! Bid them
come on! We hold the tower! We are two, and armed!” Then he vanished behind the
merlon, and none too soon, for at least one bowman within the stockade had been
watching the same serrated outline, and his arrow struck the edge of the
embrasure, and stuck there quivering. Defiantly the clangor from the tower
resumed its resolute beat. Cadfael
picked himself up from his niche in the rock, regardless of danger, and ran for
the trees. At least one arrow followed him, but fell short, somewhat to his
surprise when he heard its shuddering flight extinguished in the snow behind
him. He must still have a better turn of speed than be had thought, at least
when running for his own life and many others. He plunged breathless into
cover, and into the arms of Hugh Beringar, and was aware by the stir and quiver
all along the fringe of the trees that Hugh also had employed
these few minutes to good effect, for his lines were drawn ready for action,
waiting only the urgent word. “Set
on!” said Cadfael, puffing for breath. “That’s Yves sounding for us, he says he
holds the tower. Someone has reached him, God known how. No danger now but from
our delay.” There
was no more delay. Hugh was away on the instant, and into the saddle before the
words were spent. He from the left and Josce de Dinan from the right broke from
the trees and drove in upon the gates of Alain le Gaucher’s castle, with all
their foot-men streaming full tilt behind them, and a file of torches
spluttering into life after, to fire the fringe buildings within. Brother
Cadfael, left unceremoniously thus, stood for a while to get his breath back,
and then, almost resentfully, resigned himself to the recollected fact that he
had long ago forsworn arms. No matter, there was nothing in his vows to prevent
him from following unarmed where the armed men led. Cadfael was striding
purposefully across the open expanse of snow, torn up now by many hooves and
many feet, by the time the assault converged in a spear-head to hurtle against
the gates, and drive them in. For
all the industrious din he himself was making, Yves heard the charge of the
sheriff’s men, and felt the tower shake as they hit the gate like a
sledge-hammer, and burst the holding timbers in a shower of flying splinters.
The clamor of hand-to-hand battle filled the bailey, but about that he could do
nothing; but here the very boards under them were heaving and groaning to a
fury of axe-blows from below, and Olivier, sword drawn and long legs spread,
was holding down ladder and trap against the onslaught. The ladder heaved at
every blow, but while it held its place the trap could not be raised, and even
if it should be breached, only a hand or a head could be first exposed, and
either would be at Olivier’s mercy. And at this extreme, Olivier would have no
mercy. Braced from crown to heel, he bestrode the enemy’s entry, balancing his
weight, sword poised to pierce or slash the first flesh that offered. Yves dropped his aching arm, and let the
steel helmet roll away from between his feet, but then, with a better thought,
scrambled after it and clapped it on his head. Why refuse any degree of
protection that offered? He even remembered to stoop well below the parapet as
he flexed his cramped hand, took a fresh grip on the hilt of the sword, and
plunged across the roof to embrace Olivier, and plant his own feet on the rungs
of the ladder that held them secure, to add his weight to the barrier. There
were already splits visible in the wood of the trap, and splinters flew both
above and below, but there was nowhere yet that a blade could be thrust through.
“Nor
will be,” said Olivier in confident reassurance. “You hear that?” It was the
roaring voice of Alain le Gaucher himself, echoing hollowly up the dark spaces
of the towers. “He’s calling off his hounds, they’re needed more desperately
below.” The
axe struck once more, a mighty blow that clove clean through an already
splintered board, and sent a long triangle of shining blade into view beneath
the ladder. But that was the last. The striker had trouble freeing his blade
again, and cursed over it, but made no further assault. They heard a great
scurrying down the stairs, and then all was quiet within the tower. Beneath, in
the bailey, the whole enclosure was filled with the babel and struggle and
clamor of arms, but up here under the starry calm of the sky the two of them
stood and looked at each other in the sudden languor of relief, no longer
threatened. “Not
that he would not make the same foul use of you,” said Olivier, sheathing his
sword, “if he could but get his hands on you. But if he spends time on hewing
you out of your lair, he will already have lost what your throat might save.
He’ll seek to fight off this attack before he troubles you again.” “He
will not do it!” said Yves, glowing. “Listen! They are well within. They’ll
never give back now, they have him in a noose.” He peered out from behind a
merlon over the confused fighting below. All the space of the bailey seethed
and swayed with struggling men, a churning, tumultuous darkness like a stormy
night sea, but lit by fiery glimpses where the torches still burned. “They’ve
fired the gatehouse. They’re leading out all the horses and
cattle—and fetching down all the archers from the walls… Should we not go down
and help them?” “No,”
said Olivier firmly. “Not unless we must, not until we must. If you fell into
the wrong hands now, all this would be thrown away, all to do again. The best
you can do for your friends is to stay out of reach, and deny this rogue baron
the one weapon that could save him.” It
was good sense, though none too welcome to an excited boy longing for prodigies
to perform. But if Olivier ordered it, Yves accepted it. “You
may be a hero some other day,” said Olivier drily, “where there’s less at stake
and you can put only your own neck in peril. Your part now is to wait in patience,
even if it cost you more. And since we have time now, and may be mortally short
of it before long, listen to me carefully. When we are loosed from here, and
all over, I shall leave you. Go back to join your sister at Bromfield, let your
friends have the satisfaction of uniting you in safety. I have no doubt they
would send you with a good escort to your uncle in Gloucester, as they
promised, but I have a fancy to finish my work and deliver you myself, as I was
sent out to do. This mission is mine, and I’ll complete it.” “But
how will you manage?” Yves wondered anxiously. “With
your help—and certain other help which I know where to find. Give me two days,
and I will have horses and supplies ready for us. If all goes well, two nights
from this night that’s wearing away under us, I will come to Bromfield for you.
Tell your sister so. After Compline, when the brothers will be bound for their
beds, and you will be thought to be in yours. Ask no more questions, but tell
her I shall come. And should I be forced to have speech here with the sheriff’s
men, or should you be asked about me after I vanish—tell me, Yves, who was it
made his way in here to find you?” Yves
understood. He said at once: “It was Robert, the forester’s son who brought
Ermina to Bromfield, and happened on this place while he was searching for me.”
He added dubiously: “But they’ll wonder at such a deed in a forester, when all
the sheriff’s men were already searching. Unless,” he went on, curling a
disdainful lip, “they think that every man living will risk
his life for Ermina, just because she is handsome. She is handsome,” he
conceded generously, “but all too well she knows it and makes use of it. Don’t
ever let her make a fool of you!” Olivier
was peering out over the battlefield below, where a long tongue of fire had
sprung from the burning gates and reached the roof of one of the byres. His
dark and private smile was hidden from the boy. “You may let them think me her
besotted slave, if it convinces them,” he said. “Tell them what you please that
will serve the purpose. And bear my message, and be ready when I come for you.”
“I
will!” vowed Yves fervently. “I will do all as you tell me.” They
watched the fire spread along the stockade from roof to roof, while the
fighting within continued as fiercely and confusedly as ever. The garrison had
poured out to the defence greater numbers than anyone had suspected, and all to
many of them experienced and powerful fighters. Yves and Olivier looked on from
their eyrie intently, as the serpent of fire began to burn uncomfortably near
to the corner of the hall itself. If it touched the tower, all that draughty,
beam-braced interior would act as a chimney, and they would be isolated at the
top of a ferocious blaze. Already the crackling and exploding of burning beams
threatened to drown out the din of fighting. “This
grows too hot,” said Olivier, frowning. “Better brave the devil below than wait
for the one that’s coming to us here.” They
hauled the ladder aside, and heaved up the mangled trap. Splinters jutted and
fell, and a thin curl of smoke, hardly a breath as yet, coiled up out of the
recesses of the tower. Olivier did not wait to lower the ladder, but slid
through to hang by his hands, and dropped lightly to the floor below, and Yves
followed him valiantly, to be caught neatly in mid-air by the waist, and set
down silently. Olivier set off down the staircase, a hand extended behind him
to hold the boy close. The air here was still cold, but from somewhere smoke
was drifting steadily, obscuring the edges of the steps so that they were
constrained to feel their way at every tread. The babble of
battle grew more distant, a constant buzzing from without the thick walls. Even
when they reached the rock floor of the tower, and saw by the dim remains of
torches and firelight the outline of the great door to the hall, standing ajar,
there was no stir of foot or sound of voices within. Every man must be out in
the bailey, battling to fend off the sheriff’s forces, or else, by this time
just as possibly, to break through the circle somehow and make his escape. Olivier
made for the narrow outer door by which he had entered in the first place,
lifted the heavy latch and tugged, but the door did not give. He braced a foot
against the wall and heaved again, but the door remained fast shut. “The
devil damn them! They’ve barred it without, after they treed us. Through the
hall, and keep close behind me.” The
very act of thrusting the great door open wide enough for them to slip through,
as silently as possible, for fear some cautious or wounded outlaw should still
be lurking, brought into play a cross-draught, and a sudden tongue of fire
leaped up in the far corner of the hall, licked its way up the beams of the
roof, and spat burning splinters below to smoulder in Alain le Gaucher’s
tapestried chairs, and bring to life three or four new buds of flame that
opened marvelously into great crimson flowers. Those red and gold blazons were
all they could see clearly through the smoke that thickened as abruptly as the
fire had burst in. They groped and stumbled through a deserted wilderness of
overturned benches and trampled and spilled dishes, trestle tables fallen
aslant, hangings dragged down, torches burned out and adding to the pall of
smoke that stung their eyes and was drawn chokingly into their throats. Before
them, beyond this obscure and perilous wilderness, the pandemonium of struggle
and violence blew in on a freezing draught through the half-open main door of
the hall. At the top of the sliver of open air thus uncovered, a single star
showed, unbelievably pure and distant. They covered their mouths and nostrils
and made for it, with eyes streaming and smarting. They
were almost at the doorway when a ripple of flame flowed suddenly along the
surface of a roofbeam, peeling off the unplaned surface in a flurry of sparks,
and caught the coarse homespun curtain that served to shut out
the cold wind when the doors were closed and the household home at night. The
dry, hairy cloth went up in a gush of flame, and fell in their path, a great
folded cushion of fire. Olivier kicked it furiously aside, and swung Yves
before him round the billowing bonfire towards the doorway. “Out!
Get to the open, and hide!” If
Yves had obeyed him to the letter, he might well have escaped notice, but
having reached clear air, with the sweep of the steps and the loud turmoil of
the bailey before him, he turned to look back anxiously, for fear the fire,
blaming now to a man’s height, had trapped Olivier within. The pause cost him
and his friends all that they had gained together, for more than half the
bailey was then in Beringar’s hands, and the remnant of the garrison driven
back into a tight knot of fighting round the hall, and while Yves’ back was
turned upon his enemies, and he hung hesitating whether to rush back to stretch
a hand to his friend, Alain le Gaucher, hard-pressed at the foot of the steps
to his own hall, cut a wide swathe before him to clear his ground, and leaped
backwards up the wide timber stairway. They all but collided, back to back.
Yves turned to run, too late. A great hand shot out and gripped him by the
hair, and a roar of triumph and defiance rose even above the clamor of arms and
the thunderous crackling of bursting beams. In a moment le Gaucher had his back
against the pillar of his doorway, secure from attack from the rear, and the
boy clamped to his body before him, with a naked sword, already red, braced
across his throat. “Stand,
every man! Down arms and draw off!” bellowed the lion, his tawny man bristling
and glaring in the flickering light of the fires. “Back! Further, I say! Let me
see a clear space before me. If any man so much as draw bow, this imp dies
first. I have got my warranty again! Now, king’s man, where are you? What will
you pay for his life? A fresh horse, free passage out, and no pursuit, on your
oath, or I slit his throat, and his blood be on your head!” Hugh
Beringar thrust through to the fore and stood, eyes levelled upon le Gaucher.
“Draw back,” he said without turning his head. “Do as he says.” The
entire circle, king’s men and outlaw’s men together, drew back
inch by inch and left a great space of trampled and stained snow before the
steps of the hall. Hugh moved back with them, though keeping his place in
front. What else could he do? The boy’s head was strained back against his
captor’s body, the steel touching his stretched neck. A false move and he would
be dead. A few of the garrison began to edge out of the press, backwards
towards the stockade and the gate, in the hope of finding a way out while all
eyes were on the pair isolated at the top of the steps. The guard on the gate
would deal with them, but who would deal with this ruthless and desperate
creature? Everyone retreated before him. Not
everyone! Through the press, unnoticed by any until he reached the open space,
came lurching a strange and solitary figure, limping and wavering, but marching
ahead out of the crowd without pause, straight towards the steps. The red light
of the fires trembled over him. A tall, emaciated man in a black habit, the
cowl dropped back on his shoulders. Two puckered scars crossed his tonsured
head. There was blood on his sandalled feet—he left stains on the snow as he
trod— and blood on his brow from a fall in the rocky ground. Great, hollow eyes
in a livid face stared upon Alain le Gaucher. A pointing hand accused him. A
loud, imperious voice cried out at him: “Leave
go of the boy! I have come for him, he is mine.” Intent
upon Hugh Beringar, le Gaucher had not seen the newcomer until then. His head
jerked round, astonished that anyone should break the silence he had imposed,
or dare to cross the neutral ground he had exacted. The
shock was brief, but shattering while it lasted, and it lasted long enough. For
one moment Alain le Gaucher saw his dead man advancing on him, terrible,
invulnerable and fearless, saw the wounds he himself had inflicted still
bloody, and the face he had murdered corpse-pale. He forgot the hostage. His
hands sank nervelessly, and the sword with them. The next instant he knew past
doubt that the dead do not rise, and recovered himself with a scream of rage
and scorn, but too late to recover his ascendancy. Yves had slid from between
his hands like an eel, dived under his arm and darted away down the steps. Running blindly, he collided with a
welcome solidity and warmth, and clung panting and spent, his eyes closed.
Brother Cadfael’s voice said in his ear: “Softly, now, you’re safe enough. Come
and help me with Brother Elyas, for he’ll go nowhere without you, now he’s found
you. Come, let’s get him out of this, you and I together, and do what we can
for him.” Yves
opened his eyes, still panting and trembling, and turned to stare back at the
doorway of the hall. “My friend is in there… my friend who helped me!” He
broke off there, drawing in breath to heave a huge, hopeful, fearful sigh. For
Hugh Beringar, the instant the hostage was free, had darted forward to do
battle, but another was before him. Out of the smoke and fire-shot blackness of
the doorway surged Olivier, soiled and singed and sword in hand, sprang past le
Gaucher to find elbow-room, and in passing struck him on the cheek with the
flat of the blade, by way of notice of intent. The tawny mane flew as le
Gaucher sprang round to face him. The silence that had exploded in shudderings
of wonder at the apparition of Brother Elyas fell again like a stone. Everyone
heard clearly the voice that trumpeted disdainfully: “Now have ado with a man!”
There
would be no moving Yves now, not until this last duel was resolved. Cadfael
kept hold of him thankfully, though he need not have troubled, for the boy’s
small fists were clenched in his sleeve for mortal reassurance. Brother Elyas,
his bearings lost, looked about him for his boy, and came limping painfully to
touch, to comfort and be comforted, and Yves, without for an instant taking his
worshipping eyes from Olivier, detached one hand from his hold on Cadfael to
accept Elyas’ clasp just as fiercely. For him everything now depended on this
man to man encounter, from head to foot he was quivering with partisan passion.
Both Cadfael and Elyas felt it and were infected by it, and stared as he stared
upon this tall, agile, slender person poised with spread feet at the top of the
steps. For all his smoke-soiled visage and common country garments, Cadfael
knew him again. And
no one meddled, not even Hugh, who might have intervened by virtue of his
office. Between his men and these thieves and murderers there would be no more
fighting until this fight was over. There was that about the
challenge that forbade interference. It
did not appear a very even combat, le Gaucher double his opponent in age and
weight and experience, if not in reach and agility. And it did not last long.
Le Gaucher, once he had viewed his challenger, came on confidently in a steady,
battering onslaught, bent on driving the young man from his stance and
backwards down the steps. Yet after long, increasingly furious attacks the
boy—a mere half-trained peasant, at that!—had scarcely shifted his balance, not
given back a pace, and everywhere the hacking blade crashed in, his sword was
there to turn it aside. He stood and seemed at ease, while his adversary
flailed at him and wasted energy. Yves gazed with huge, praying eyes, rigid
from crown to toe. Elyas clung mutely to the hand he clasped, and quivered to
its tension. Brother Cadfael watched the young man Olivier, and recalled
disciplines he had almost forgotten, a manner of sword-play bred from the clash
of east and west, and borrowing from both. There
was no moving this swordsman, if he gave an inch one moment he regained it the
next, added to it the next. It was le Gaucher who was being edged back by
degrees to the rim of the steps, while he wasted his strength to no avail. The
lion lunged once more, with all his weight. His heel was too near the edge of
the icy stir, his lunge too reckless, the forward pressure slid his rearward
foot from under him, and he hung out of balance, struggling for recovery.
Olivier sprang forward like a hunting leopard, and drove down with all his
weight, clean through the disrupted guard and into the exposed breast. The
sword went in halfway to the hilt, and he braced both feet and leaned back on
his heel to hoist his blade clear. The
lion’s carcase dropped from the withdrawing point, arms spread, flew outwards
on its back, landed three steps lower, and rolled ponderously, with an awful
dignity, from stair to stair, to come to rest on its face at Hugh Beringar’s
feet, and bled what was left of its life away into the defiled snow. Chapter
Fourteen IT
WAS OVER, ONCE THEIR LEADER WAS DEAD, and seen to be dead. They broke in all
directions, some running to try and find a way of escape, some fighting to the
death, some bargaining vainly, some having the sense to surrender and hope to
make a passable case for themselves thereafter. There were over sixty prisoners
to be rounded up, besides the dead, any amount of plunder to drag out from hall
and stores before all went up in fire, a passable flock of stolen sheep and
herd of cattle to feed and water until they could be driven down to better
lodging. Dinan undertook the custody of the prisoners, captured within his
lordship. No need to doubt his adherence to law where his own writ was
challenged. The
fire spread, and when all that was savable was brought out, they spread the
flames of intent. The castle stood solitary, clear of the trees, on solid rock,
it could burn to the bone and threaten nothing else. It had been a stain upon
the countryside in its short and ignoble life, it might well be a passing
blemish in its death. The
strangest thing, though unremarked by most in the general turmoil, was the
disappearance of the unknown champion only minutes after he had felled the
castellan. Every eye had followed that prodigious fall, and by the time they
had stirred out of their daze and looked about, the chaos of flight and capture
had broken out all around, and no one had seen the young
countryman make off silently into the night. “Gone
like a shadow,” said Hugh, “when I should have liked to know him better. And
never a word as to where he may be found, when the king’s Grace owes him a debt
any sane man would be eager to collect. You are the only one who has spoken
with him, Yves. Who is this paladin?” Half-drunk
with the lassitude of relief after stress, and the exhaustion of safety after
terror, Yves said what he had been taught to say, and fronted Hugh with a clear
stare and guileless face as he did so. “That was the forester’s son who
sheltered Ermina, and brought her to Bromfield. It was he told me she’s there.
I knew nothing of that until then. She is really there?” “She
is, safe enough. And what is the name of this forester’s son? And more to the
purpose,” said Hugh thoughtfully, “where did he learn his swordcraft?” “His
name is Robert. He told me he was searching for me, as he promised Ermina he
would, and he saw the raiders coming back here, and followed their tracks. I
know no more about him,” said Yves stoutly, and if he blushed as he said it,
the night covered the blush. “Certainly
we seem to breed redoutable foresters in these parts,” said Hugh drily. But he
did not press it further. “And
now,” said Cadfael, intent on his own business, “if you’ll lend me four good
men, and let us have the use of all these fresh horses, they’ll be better on
the move to the Bromfield stables, now they’ve no roof over their heads here,
and I can get these two home to their beds. I can leave you my scrip. We’ll rig
a litter for Brother Elyas, and purloin whatever blankets and brychans are
still unburned to wrap him up on the way.” “Take
what you need,” said Hugh. There were seven horses fresh from the stable,
besides the common hill-ponies Yves had seen used to bring home plunder.
“Stolen, all or most of them,” said Hugh, looking them over. “I’ll have Dinan
give it out wherever they’ve had losses, they can come to Bromfield and claim
their own. The cattle and sheep we’ll bring into Ludlow later, after the fellow
at Cleeton has picked out his. But best get Brother Elyas away as fast as you can, if he’s to live. The marvel is he’s survived even this
far.” Cadfael
marshalled his helpers to good effect, and took his pick of the furnishings
dragged out of the burning hall, to swaddle Brother Elyas in a cocoon of
blankets, and fashion a secure cradle for him between two horses. He took
thought to load, also, two sacks of fodder from the ransacked stores, in case
the sudden arrival of seven horses should tax the resources of Bromfield. The
spurt of energy and authority that had animated Elyas when there was most need
of him had deserted him as soon as his work was done, and his boy delivered. He
yielded himself into their hands docilely, and let them do what they would with
him, astray between apathy and exhaustion, and half dead with cold. Cadfael
eyed him with much concern. Unless some new fire could be kindled in him, to
make life an imperative as it had been when he saw Yves threatened, Elyas would
die. Cadfael
took Yves on his own saddle-bow, as once before, for the child was now so weary
that he could not walk without stumbling, and if allowed to ride would probably
fall asleep in the saddle. A good Welsh brychan wrapped him for warmth, and
before they had wound their way down the spiral path and into easier country,
as briskly as was safe in the dark, his chin was on his chest, and his
breathing had eased and lengthened into deep sleep. Cadfael shifted him gently
to rest in the hollow of his shoulder, and Yves stretched a little, turned his
face warmly into the breast of Cadfael’s habit, and slept all the way back to
Bromfield. Once
well away into the fields, Cadfael looked back. The sheer bulk of the hill rose
blackly, crested with a coronal of fire. It would take Beringar and Dinan the
rest of the night to round up all their prisoners, and shift the beasts down to
Cleeton, where John Druel might know bis own, and thence on to Ludlow. The
terror was over, and more economically than might have been expected. Over for
this time, thought Cadfael. Over, perhaps, for this shire, if Prestcote and
Hugh can keep their grip as firm in the future. But where royal kinsfolk are
tearing each other for a crown, lesser men will ride the time for their own
gain, without scruple or mercy. And
where they did so, he reflected, every villainy for miles
around would be laid at their door, and some of the crimes might well be laid
there unjustly. Even villains should bear only the guilt that belongs to them.
And never, now, could Alain le Gaucher speak up in his own defense, and say:
“This, and this, and this I have done—but this, this despoiling and murder of a
young nun, this deed is none of mine.” They
came to Bromfield about Prime, and rode in at the gatehouse into a court swept
clear. No new snow had fallen in the night. The change was coming, by noon
there might even be the brief promise of a thaw. Yves awoke, yawned, stretched
and remembered. He was wide awake in a moment, unwinding himself from his
wrappings and scrambling down to help carry Brother Elyas back to his forsaken
bed. Hugh’s men-at-arms took the horses to stable. And Brother Cadfael,
glancing up towards the guest-hall, saw the door flung open, and Ermina peering
out across the twilit court. The
torch above the door lit up a face utterly vulnerable in its wild mingling of
hope and dread. She had heard the horses, and rushed out just as she was,
barefoot, her hair loose about her shoulders. Her eyes lit upon Yves, busy
unloosing the bindings of Brother Elyas’ litter, and suddenly her face softened
and glowed into so dazzling a radiance of joy and gratitude that Cadfael stood
and stared from pure pleasure. The worst shadow soared from her like a bird
rising, and was gone. She still had a brother. Yves,
perhaps fortunately, was so busy with his sick protйgй and protector that he
never glanced in her direction. And Cadfael was not in any way surprised when
she did not rush to welcome and embrace, but withdrew softly and stealthily
into the guest-hall, and closed the door. Accordingly,
he did not hurry the boy away too hastily from the small infirmary room where
they had brought Brother Elyas, and Yves did not run to be embraced, either. He
knew, he had been assured over and over, that she was here waiting for him.
Both of them required a little time to prepare for the reunion. Only when he
had dressed Brother Elyas’ wounded and frost-pinched feet, packed them round
with soft wool and warmed tiles, bathed his face and hands and
fed him spiced and honeyed wine, and heaped him with the lightest covering he
had to hand, did Cadfael take Yves firmly by the shoulder, and steer him
towards the guest-hall. She
was sitting by the fire, sewing at a gown brought for her from Ludlow, to alter
it to her own measure, and none too willingly to judge by her scowl, when Yves
entered with Brother Cadfael ‘s hand on his shoulder. She put her work aside,
and rose. Perhaps she saw attack in her brother’s jutting lip and levelled eye,
for she stepped forward briskly, and kissed him in a chill, admonishing, female
manner. “And
a fine dance you have led everyone,” she said severely, “running off into the
night like that, without a word to a soul.” “That
you should be the one to say so, who have caused all this pother!” Yves
retorted loftily. “I have brought my affair to success, madam. You ran off into
the night without a word to a soul, and come back profitless and as arrogant as
ever, but you had better sing a lower tune if you want to be listened to here.
We have had more urgent matters to think about.” “You’ll
have plenty to say to each other,” said Brother Cadfael, benignly blind and deaf
to bickering, “and plenty of time hereafter to say it. But now Yves should be
in his bed, for he’s had a couple of nights that could wear out any man. He
needs a long day’s sleep, and if I have a physician’s authority, I order it.” She
rose to it with alacrity, though still scowling. She had his bed ready,
probably smoothed with her own hands, she would shoo him into it like a
hen-wife harrying her chicks, and when he was in it, and fast asleep, she would
probably hang over him possessively, and have food ready for him when he
stirred. But never, never would she admit that she had grieved and fretted over
him, even wept, or that she had bitterly repented her rash departure. And
surely that was well, for the boy would be dismayed and embarrassed if ever she
bent her neck to him and begged forgiveness. “Leave
well alone until this evening,” said Cadfael contentedly, and went away and
left them to argue their way to a truce. He returned to Brother Elyas, sat
beside him a careful while, saw that he slept, corpse-like but deeply, and went
to his own bed. Even physicians have need of the simple
medicines, now and then. Ermina
came looking for him before Vespers, for which office he had asked Prior
Leonard to call him. Hugh Beringar had not yet returned, no doubt he was still
busy at Ludlow with the bestowal of the prisoners and the storage of the stock
and other plunder brought down from Clee. This day was an interlude of
thanksgiving for one peril past, but also a breathing-space in preparation for
tasks still to be completed. “Brother
Cadfael,” said Ermina, very neat, grave and quiet in the doorway of the
infirmary. “Yves is asking for you. There is still something on his mind, and I
know he will not tell me, of all people. But you he wants. Will you come to him
after Vespers? He will have had his supper then, and be ready for you.” “I
will come,” said Cadfael. “And
I have been wondering,” she said, and hesitated. “Those horses you brought back
this morning… they came from that thieves’ nest there?” “They
did. Stolen from all these local holdings they have preyed on. Hugh Beringar is
sending out to all who have had such losses to come and claim their own. The
cattle and sheep are penned in Ludlow. John Druel may have picked out already
some that are his. The horses I borrowed, they were fresh and ready for work.
Why? What’s in your mind concerning them?” “There
is one I believe belongs to Evrard.” It was a long time since she had spoken
his name, it sounded almost strange on her tongue, as if she remembered him
from many years past, and after long forgetfulness. “They will be sending word
to him, too?” “Surely.
Callowleas was stripped bare, there may well be other stock of his to be
reclaimed.” “If
he does not already know that I am here,” said Ermina, “I hope no one will tell
him. It is not that I mind him knowing I am safe and well. But I would as soon
he did not expect to see me.” There
was nothing strange in that. She had put that whole mistaken episode behind
her, she might well wish to avoid the embarrassment and pain
of meeting him again face to face, and having to make vain play with words over
something already dead. “I
doubt there’ll have been any message sent but the same to all,” said Cadfael.
“Come and speak for your stolen property. And come they will. A pity there are
losses that can never be made good.” “Yes,”
she said, “great pity. We can’t restore them their dead—only their cattle.” Yves
had risen from his long sleep cleansed of every fear for himself or his sister,
and secure in his complete trust in Olivier to accomplish every miracle to
which he turned his hand. He had washed and brushed and combed himself
fittingly as for a thanksgiving festival, and observed with surprised approval
that while he slept, Ermina had mended the rent in the knee of his hose, and
laundered his only shirt and dried it by the fire. Her actions often failed to
match her words, though he had never really noticed it before. And
then, not forgotten but only put aside while more desperate matters still
hounded him, the question of Brother Elyas rose unresolved into his mind, and
took possession of it wholly. It grew so monstrous and so insistent that he
could not long contain it alone, and though Hugh Beringar was fair and
approachable, Hugh Beringar was also the law, and bound by his office. But
Brother Cadfael was not the law, and would listen with an open mind and a
sympathetic ear. Yves
had finished his supper when Cadfael came, and Ermina wisely took her sewing
and went away into the hall to have a better light for her work, leaving them
together. Yves
found no way of beginning but directly, a leap into the cold and terror of
remembrance. “Brother Cadfael,” he blurted wretchedly, “I’m frightened for
Brother Elyas. I want to tell you. I don’t know what we ought to do. I haven’t
said a word to anyone yet. He has told me things—no, he was not speaking to me,
he did not tell me, but I heard. I couldn’t choose but hear!” “There’s
been no time yet for you tell what happened when he led you away in the night,”
said Cadfael reasonably, “but you may tell it now. But first, there are things
I have not yet told you. If I tell them first, it may be a
help to you. I know where he led you, and I know how you left him in the hut,
hoping for help, and fell into the hands of outlaws and murderers. Was it there
in the hut that he spoke out these things that so trouble you?” “In
his sleep,” said Yves unhappily. “It is not fair dealing to listen to what a
man says in his sleep, but I couldn’t help it. I was so anxious about him, I
needed to know, if there was any way of helping him… Even before, when I was
sitting by his bed… It was because I spoke of Sister Hilaria, and told him she
was dead. Nothing else had touched him, but her name… It was terrible! It was
as if he had not known till then that she was dead, and yet he blamed himself
for her death. He cried out to the stones of the house to fall on him and bury
him. And he got up… I couldn’t stop or hold him. I ran to find you, but
everyone was at Compline.” “And
when you ran back to him,” said Cadfael mildly, “he was gone. And so you went
after him.” “I
had to, I was left to care for him. I thought in time he would tire, and I
could turn him and lead him back, but I couldn’t. So what could I do but go
with him?” “And
he led you to the hut—yes, that we understood. And there these words passed,
that so torment you. Don’t be afraid to speak them. All that you did was done
for his sake, believe that this, too, you may be doing for his sake.” “But
he accused himself,” whispered Yves, trembling at the memory. “He said—he said
that it was he who killed Sister Hilaria!” The
very quietness with which this was received shook him into despairing tears.
“He was in such anguish, so torn… How can we give him up to be branded a
murderer? But how can we hide the truth? Himself he said it. And yet I am sure
he is not evil, he is good. Oh, Brother Cadfael, what are we to do?” Cadfael
leaned across the narrow trestle and took firm hold of the boy’s tight-clasped
hands between his own. “Look at me, Yves, and I’ll tell you what we shall do.
What you have to do is to put away all fears, and try to remember the very
words he used. All of them, if you can. ‘He said that it was he who killed
Sister Hilaria!’ Did he indeed say that? Or is that what you understood
by what he said? Give me the man’s own words and what I have to do is listen to
those words, and to no others, and see what can be made of them. Now! Go back
to that night in the hut. Ely as spoke in his sleep. Begin there. Take your
time, there is no haste.” Yves
scrubbed a moist cheek against his shoulder, and raised doubtful but trusting
eyes to Cadfael’s face. He thought back dutifully, gnawed an unsteady lip, and
began hesitantly: “I was asleep, I think, though I was trying not to sleep. He
was lying on his face, but I could hear his voice clearly. He said: My
sister—forgive me all my sin, my weakness. I, who have been your death! he
said. That I’m sure of, that is word for word. I, who have been your death!” He
shook and halted there, afraid that that alone might be enough. But Cadfael
held him by the hands and nodded understanding, and waited. “Yes,
and then?” “Then—do
you remember how he called on Hunydd? And you said you thought she was his
wife, who died? Well, next he said: Hunydd! She was like you, warm and trusting
in my arms. After six months starving, he said, such hunger. I could not bear
the burning, he said, body and soul…” The
words were returning in full now, as if they had been carved into his memory.
Until now he had wished only to forget them, now, when he consented to
remember, they came clearly. “Go
on. There was more.” “Yes.
He changed then, he said no, don’t forgive me, bury me and put me out of mind.
I am unworthy, he said, weak, inconstant…” There was a long pause, as there had
been that night, before Brother Elyas cried out his mortal frailty aloud. “He
said: She clung to me, she had no fear, being with me. And then he said:
Merciful God, I am a man, full of blood, with a man’s body and a man’s desires.
And she is dead, he said, who trusted me!” He
stared, white-faced, amazed to see Brother Cadfael unshaken, thoughtful and
calm, considering him across the table with a grave smile. “Don’t
you believe me? I’ve told you truly. All those things he said.” “I do believe you. Surely he said them.
But think—his travelling cloak was there in the hut, together with her cloak
and habit. And hidden! And she taken away from that place, and put into the
brook, and he found some distance away, also. If he had not led you back to the
hut we should not have known the half of these things. Surely I believe all
that you have told me, even so you must believe and consider those things I
have been able to tell you. It is not enough to say that a thing is so because
of one fragment of knowledge, even so clear as a confession, and put away out
of sight those other things known, because they cannot be explained. An answer
to a matter of life and death must be an answer that explains all.” Yves
gazed blankly, understanding the words, but seeing no hope or help in them.
“But how can we find such an answer? And if we find it, and it is the wrong
answer…” he faltered, and shook again. “Truth
is never a wrong answer. We will find it, Yves, by asking the one who knows.”
Cadfael rose briskly, and drew the boy up with him. “Take heart, nothing is
ever quite what it seems. You and I will go and speak yet again with Brother
Elyas.” Brother
Elyas lay weak and mute as before, yet not as before, for his eyes were open,
intelligent and illusionless, windows on a great, contained grief for which
there was no cure. He had a memory again, though it brought him nothing but
pain. He knew them, when they sat down one on either side his bed, the boy
hopelessly astray and afraid of what might come of this, Cadfael solid and
practical and ready with an offered drink, and a fresh dressing for the
frost-gnawed feet. The fierce strength of a man in his robust prime had stood
Brother Elyas, physically at least, in good stead, he would not even lose toes,
and his chest was clear. Only his grieved mind rejected healing. “The
boy here tells me,” said Cadfael simply, “that you have recovered the part of
your memory that was lost. That’s well. A man should possess all his past, it
is waste to mislay any. Now that you know all that happened, the night they
left you for dead, now you can come back from the dead a whole man,
not the half of a man. Here is this boy of yours to prove the world had need of
you last night, and has need of you still.” The
hollow eyes watched him from the pillow, and the face was wrung with a bitter
spasm of rejection and pain. “I
have been at your hut,” said Cadfael. “I know that you and Sister Hilaria took
shelter there when the snowstorm was at its worst. A bad night, one of the
worst of this bad December. It grows more clement now, we shall have a thaw.
But that night was bitter frost. Poor souls caught out in it must lie in each
other’s arms to live through it. And so did you with her, to keep the woman
alive.” The dark eyes had burned into fierce life, even the wandering mind grew
intent. “I, too,” said Cadfael with deliberation, “have known women, in my
time. Never unwilling, never without love. I know what I’m saying.” A
voice harsh with disuse, but intelligent and aware, said faintly: “She is dead.
The boy told me. I am the cause. Let me go after her and fall at her feet. So
beautiful she was, and trusted me. Little and soft in my arms, and clung, and
confided… Oh, God!” pleaded Brother Elyas, “was it well done to try me so
sorely, and I emptied and starving? I could not bear the burning…” “That
I comprehend,” said Cadfael. “Neither could I have borne it. I should have been
forced to do as you did. In my fear for her if I stayed, and for my own soul’s
salvation, which is not such a noble motive as all that, I should have left her
there asleep, and gone out into the snow and frost of that night, far away from
her, to watch the night out as best I could, and return to her in the dawn,
when we could go forth together and finish that journey. As you did.” Yves
leaned forward glittering with enlightenment, holding his breath for the
answer. And Brother Elyas, turning his head tormentedly on his pillow, mourned
aloud: “Oh, God, that ever I left her so! That I had not the steadfastness and
faith to endure the longing… Where was the peace they promised me? I crept away
and left her alone. And she is dead!” “The
dead are in God’s hand,” said Cadfael, “Hunydd and Hilaria both. You may not
wish them back. You have an advocate there. Do you suppose
that she forgets that when you went out into the cold you left her your cloak,
wrapped about her for warmth, and fled from her with only your habit, to bear
the rigor of the winter all those hours to dawn? It was a killing night.” The
voice from the bed said harshly: “It was not enough to help or save. I should
have been strong enough in faith to bear the temptation laid on me, to stay
with her though I burned… .” “So
you may tell your confessor,” said Cadfael firmly, “when you are well enough to
return to Pershore. But you shall, you must shun the presumption of condemning
yourself beyond what he sees as your due. All that you did was done out of care
for her. What as amiss may be judged. What was done well will be approved. If
you had stayed with her, there is no certainty that you could have changed what
befell.” “At
worst I could have died with her,” said Brother Elyas. “But
so you did in essence. Death from violence fell upon you in your loneliness
that same night, as death of cold you had accepted already. And if you were
delivered from both, and find you must suffer still many years of this life,”
said Cadfael, “it is because God willed to have you so survive and so suffer.
Beware of questioning the lot dealt out to you. Say it now, to God and us who hear
you, say that you left her living, and meant to return to her with the morning,
if you lived out the night, and to bring her safely where she would be. What
more was required of you?” “More
courage,” lamented the gaunt mask on the pillow, and wrung out a bitter but
human smile. “All was done and undone as you have said. All was well-meant. God
forgive me what was badly done.” The
lines of his face had softened into humility, the stress of his voice eased
into submission. There was no more he had to remember or confess, everything
was said and understood. Brother Elyas stretched his long body from crown to
imperilled toes, shuddered and collapsed into peace. His very feebleness came
to his aid, he sank without resistance into sleep. The large eyelids expanded,
lines melted from about brow and mouth and deep eye-sockets.
He floated down into a prodigious profound of penitence and forgiveness. “Is
it true?” asked Yves in an awed whisper, as soon as they had closed the door
softly upon Brother Elyas’ sleep. “It
is, surely. A passionate soul, who asks too much of himself, and under-values
what he gives. He braved the frosty night and the blinding snow without his
cloak, rather than sully Sister Hilaria with even the tormented presence of
desire. He will live, he will be reconciled with both his body and his soul. It
takes time,” said Brother Cadfael tolerantly. If
a thirteen-year-old boy understood less than all of this, or understood it only
in the academic way of one instructed in an art never yet practiced, Yves gave
no sign of it. The eyes fixed brightly upon Cadfael’s face were sharply
intelligent. Grateful, reassured and happy, he put the last burden away from
him. “Then
it was the outlaw raiders who found her, after all,” he said, “alone as she
was, after Brother Elyas had left her.” Cadfael
shook his head. “They found and struck down Brother Elyas, as I think it was
their way to kill any who by chance encountered them on their forays, and might
bear witness against them. But here—no, I think not. Before dawn followed that
same night they had time to strike at Druel’s farmstead. I do not believe they
went half a mile out of their way to reach the hut. Why should they? They knew
of nothing there for them. And besides, they would not have troubled to move
her body elsewhere, and the good gowns they would have taken with them. No,
someone came by the hut because it was on his way, and entered it, I fancy,
because the blizzard was at its height, and he thought fit to shelter through
the worst of it.” “Then
it could have been anyone,” said Yves, indignant and dismayed at the affront to
justice, “and we may never know.” It
was in Cadfael’s mind then that there was already one person who knew, and the
morrow would see it put to the proof. But he did not say so. “Well, at least,”
he said instead, “you need have no more anxiety for Brother Elyas. He is as
good as shriven, and he will live and thrive, and do honor to our
order. And if you are not sleepy again yet, you may sit with him for a while.
He claimed you for his boy in a good hour, and you may be his serviceable boy
still, while you are here.” Ermina
was sitting by the hall fire, still stitching relentlessly at a sleeve of the
gown. Working against time, thought Cadfael, when she looked up only briefly,
and at once returned to labor unaccustomed and uncongenial. She gave him a
smile, but it was a grave and shadowy one. “All
is well with Yves,” said Cadfael simply. “He was fretting over words Brother
Elyas spoke in his sleep, that seemed to be confession of murder, but were no
such thing.” He told her the whole of it. Why not? She was becoming a woman
before his eyes, fettered by responsibilities suddenly realized and heroically
accepted. “There is nothing weighing on his heart now, except the fear that the
true murderer may go undiscovered.” “He
need not fear,” said Ermina, and looked up and smiled, a different smile, at
once secretive and confiding. “God’s justice must be infallible, it would be
sin to doubt it.” “At
least,” said Cadfael noncommittally, “he will be ready and willing to go with
you now. Even eager. Your Olivier has a worshipper who would follow him to the
world’s end.” The
bright, proud stare of her eyes came up to him sharply, the firelight waking
sparks of deep red in the depths. “He has two,” she said. “When
is it to be?” “How
did you know?” she asked, with a little curiosity but no surprise or
consternation. “Would
such a man leave his work unfinished, and let another send home, however
gallantly, the charges he was sent to find? Of course he means to complete the
task himself. What else?” “You
will not stand in his way?” But she waved that aside with the hand that held
the needle. “Pardon! I know you will not. You have seen him now, you know how
to recognize a man! He sent me word by Yves. He will come tomorrow, about
Compline, when the household makes ready for bed.” Cadfael
thought it over, and said judicially: “I would leave departure
until the brothers rise for Matins and Lauds, there will then be no porter on
the gate, he will be in church with the rest. And no further stir until Prime.
You and the boy could sleep some hours before riding. And if he comes during
Compline, I can bring him within until time to leave. If you will trust me with
the charge?” “And
thank you for it,” she said without hesitation. “We will do as you advise.” “And
you,” said Brother Cadfael, watching her seam lengthen with fierce stitch after
stitch, “will you be as ready as Yves to leave this place by tomorrow’s
midnight?” She
looked up yet again, without haste or concealment, but without confiding,
either, and the sinking firelight caught the red glow again in her eyes, while
her face was a pure mask. “Yes, I shall be ready,” she said, and glanced down
at the sewing in her lap before she added: “My work here will be done.” Chapter Fifteen THE
NIGHT WAS CLEAR, STARRY AND STILL, barely on the edge of frost. The sun emerged
with dawn, and for the second night there had been no fresh snow. The drifts
dwindled, even before the slow, quiet thaw set in, the kind of thaw that clears
paths by gradual, almost stealthy erosion, and causes no floods. Hugh
Beringar had got back late in the evening, after overseeing the total
destruction of what the fire had left, and the removal of a startling
collection of plunder. The clutter of lean-to cells along the stockade had
yielded up the remains of two murdered prisoners, tortured until they
surrendered whatever they had of value, and three more still alive after the
same treatment. They were being nursed in Ludlow, where Josce de Dinan had
secured the survivors of the garrison in chains. Of the attacking force, there
were some eighteen wounded, many more with minor grazes, but none dead. It
might have been a deal more costly. Prior
Leonard strode radiantly about his court in the chill but brilliant sunlight,
glittering with relief that his region was delivered from a pestilence, the
missing pair safe within his walls, and Brother Elyas mute with wonder and
grace in his bed, and bent upon life, whether blissful or baleful. He looked up
with clear, patient eyes now, and took exhortation and reproof
alike with humility and gladness. His mind was whole, his body would not be
long in following. Not
long after High Mass the claimants began to come in to look for their horses,
as doubtless they were flocking to Ludlow to pick out their own cows and sheep.
Some, no doubt, would be claimed by more than one, and give rise to great
quarrels and the calling in of neighbors to identify the disputed stock. But
here there were only a handful of horses, and little ground for the opportunist
greed of the cunning. Horses know their owners as well as the owners know their
horses. Even the cows in Ludlow would have plenty to say about where they
belonged. John
Druel was among the first to come, having walked all the way from Cleeton, and
he had no need to urge his ownership, for the stout brown mountain cob strained
and cried after him as soon as he showed his face in the stable-yard, and their
meeting was an embrace. The cob blew sweetly in John’s ear, and John hugged him
about the neck, looked him over from head to hocks, and wept on his cheek. The
cob was his only horse, worth a fortune to him. Yves had seen him come, and ran
to tell Ermina, and the pair of them came flying to greet him and force on him
such favors as they still had about them to give. A
wife from Whitbache came to claim her dead husband’s mare. A thin, grave boy
from the same manor came in shyly and humbly to call a solid work-horse of hill
stock, and it went to him hesitantly, wanting his sire, but acknowledged the
child of the same blood with a human sigh. Not
until dinner was over in the refectory, and Brother Cadfael emerged again into
the midday sparkle of sun on snow, did Evrard Boterel ride in at the gatehouse,
dismount, and look round him for someone to whom he might most properly address
himself. He was still somewhat pale and lean from his fever, but much recovered
in the vigor of his movement and the clarity of his eye, and he stood with
reared head and imperious stare, even frowning a little that no groom ran at
once to take his bridle. A fine figure of a young man, fair as his horse’s
mane, and well aware of his handsome appearance and his dominant nobility. Such
comeliness might well take any young woman’s fancy. What did a young
fellow with these advantages have to do to lose his hold? Reality, Ermina had
said, had rudely invaded her idyllic fantasy. Well! But was that enough? Prior
Leonard, all goodwill, came beaming down the court with his gangling stride, to
greet the visitor civilly, and conduct him into the stable-yard. One of Hugh’s
men, seeing the saddled horse untended, and being himself at leisure, came to
take the bridle, and Boterel relinquished his mount as to a servant, without a
further glance, and went with the prior. He
had come alone. If he had indeed a stolen horse to reclaim, he must take him
home on a leading rein. Brother
Cadfael looked round at the guest-hall, very thoughtfully, and saw Ermina in
her peasant gown come forth from the doorway and cross to the church, rapid and
light, and bearing something rolled up beneath her arm. The dark arch of the
porch swallowed her, as the walled enclosure of the stables had swallowed her
sometime suitor. Yves would certainly be sitting now with Brother Elyas, his
jealously guarded protйgй and patient, on whom he waited with proprietorial
zeal. Out of sight and out of peril. No arrows loosed here could strike at him.
Without
haste, Cadfael stepped out into the cleared court and crossed towards the church,
but tempered his going so judiciously that his path converged upon that by
which Evrard Boterel and Hugh together emerged from the stables and made for
the gatehouse. They, too, were taking their time, and Evrard was sunning into
vivacity and smiles; the deputy sheriff was a study worth cultivating. Behind
them a lay groom led a fine bay mare, chestnut-maned. Cadfael
reached the spot where their paths would cross, and there halted before the
open, dim doorway of the church, so that they, too, came naturally to a halt.
Boterel recognized the brother who had dressed his wound once in the manor of
Ledwyche, and made gracious acknowledgment. “I
trust I see you fully restored to health,” said Cadfael civilly. His eyes was
on Hugh, curious to see if he had taken note of the waiting horse, which the
man-at-arms was walking to and from about the court with an admiring eye on his
gait and a gentling hand on his neck. There was not much escaped Beringar’s
eye, but his face gave away nothing of his thoughts. Cadfael’s
thumbs pricked. He had no part to play here, on the face of it, yet his
instinct drew him into a complex affair as yet only partly understood. “I
thank you, brother, I am indeed mending, if not mended,” said Evrard buoyantly.
“Little
enough to thank me for,” said Cadfael. “But have you yet thanked God? It would
be a fair return for mercies, from one preserved in life and limb, and in
recovery of so fine a property as this mare of yours. After coils and cruelties
in which so many have died, honest men and innocent virgins.” He was facing the
open door to the church, he caught the dark quiver of movement within, that
froze again into stillness. “For grace, come within now, and say a prayer for
those less fortunate—even the one we have coffined here, ready for burial.” He
feared he had said too much, and was relieved to see Boterel confident and
unshaken, turning towards the doorway with the light smile of one humoring a
well-meaning churchman by consenting to a harmless gesture without
significance. “Very
willingly, brother!” Why not? There had been dead left behind to the care of
these or others in every rogue raid from Clee, small wonder if one of the last
of them lay here newly coffined. He stepped jauntily up the stone stair and
into the dim, cold nave, Cadfael close at his shoulder. Hugh Beringar, dark
brows drawn down, followed as far as the threshold, and there stood astride,
closing the way back. The
radiance of the sunlit snow fell behind them, turning them momentarily
half-blind. The great, cold, twilit bulk enclosed them, the lamp on the high
altar made an eye of fire ahead, very small and distant, and the only other
light within was from the narrow windows, which laid pale bars across the tiles
of the floor. The
red eye of the lamp went out suddenly. She must have come quite rapidly the few
yards from the mortuary chapel to stand between, but in the brief darkness her
movements had been silent and invisible. She came forward in a sweeping, hushed
glide, advancing upon Evrard Boterel with hand extended, as in vain entreaty
that turned abruptly into a stabbing accusation. He hardly knew what caused the
dim air to vibrate until she surged into the first pallid bar
of light, veil and cowl drawn close about her face, a slender Benedictine nun
in a habit crumpled and soiled from the straw of the hut, the right breast and
shoulder clotted and stiffened into a rusty blot of congealed blood. Then pale
grey light took her and showed every seamed fold, even the smears that marred
her sleeve, as she had fought him and ripped his young wound open again while
he lay upon her. She never made a sound, only flew towards him silently along
the tiles of the floor. He
gave a great lurch backwards into Brother Cadfael’s shoulder, and uttered a
muffled moan of terror, whipping up a hand to cross his body against the
unbelievable assault. Under the close-drawn hood great eyes blazed at him, and
still she came on. “No—no!
Keep from me! You are dead…” It
was only a strangled whisper in his throat, as her voice might have been
quenched under his hands; but Cadfael heard it. And it was enough, even though
Evrard had gathered himself the next moment, and braced himself to stand his
ground, stiffening almost breast to breast with her as she stepped into the
light and became flesh, tangible and vulnerable. “What
fool’s play is this? Do you shelter madwomen here? Who is this creature?” She
flung back the cowl from her head and dragged off the wimple, shaking out her
great burden of black hair over the befouled breast of Sister Hilaria’s gown,
and showed him the fierce, marble face and burning eyes of Ermina Hugonin. He
was as little prepared for that apparition as for the other. Perhaps he had
been thinking her safely dead somewhere under the forest drifts, since he had received
no news of her. Perhaps he had concluded that he had nothing now to fear from
anything she might have to urge against him, at least not in this world, and he
had little consideration for any other. He gave back one hasty step before her,
but could give no more, because Cadfael and Hugh stood one on either side
between him and the open door. But he gathered himself together gallantly, and
faced her with a hurt, bewildered countenance, appealing against inexplicable
ill-usage. “Ermina!
What can this mean? If you live, why have you not sent me
word? What is this you are trying to do to me? Have I deserved it? Surely you
know I have been wearing out myself and all my household, searching for you?” “I
know it,” she said, in a voice small and hard, cold as the ice that had
prisoned and preserved Sister Hilaria. “And if you had found me, and no other
by, I should have gone the same way my dearest friend went, since you knew by
then you would never get me to wed you. Married or buried, there was no third way
for me, else I could tell all too much for your comfort and honor. And I have
never said one word here to bring you to account, never a word for myself,
since I brought it on myself, and was as much to blame as you. But knowing what
I know now, and for her—Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times, I accuse you,
murderer, ravisher, I name you, Evrard Boterel, as the killer of my sweet
Hilaria…” “You
are out of your wits!” he cried, riding indignantly over her accusation. “Who
is this woman you speak of? What do I know of any such person? Since the day
you left me I’ve lain in fever and sickness. All my household will say so…” “Oh,
no! On, no! Not that night! You rode out after me, to recover me for your
honor’s sake, to silence me, either by marriage or murder. Never deny it! I saw
you ride! You think I was fool enough to believe I could outrun you on foot? Or
terrified enough to lose my wits and run like a fool hare, zigzag, leaving
tracks plain for you? I laid my traces no further than the trees, towards the
Ludlow road where you would expect me to run, and made my way back roundabout
to hide half the night among the timber you had stacked for your coward
defenses. I saw you go, Evrard, and I saw you return, with your wound
fresh-broken and bloodied on you. I did not run until you were helped within to
your bed and the worst of the blizzard over, and I knew I could run at my own
pace, with the dawn barely an hour away. And while I was hiding from you, you
killed her!” she wrung out, burning up like a bitter fire of thorns. “On your
way back from a fruitless hunt, you found a lone woman, and took your revenge
for what I did to you, and all that you could not do to me. We killed her!”
cried Ermina. “You and I between us! I am as guilty as you!” “What are you saying?” He had called up a
little courage, a little confidence. If she raved, he would have become
soothing, solicitous, sure of himself, and even in her cold assurance he could
find a foothold for his own. “Certainly I rode out to look for you, how could I
leave you to die in the frost? I had a fall, weak from my wound as I was, and
broke it open again and bled—yes, that is truth. But the rest? I hunted you all
that night, as long as I could endure, and never did I halt in my search for
you. If I came back empty-handed and bleeding, do you accuse me of that? I know
nothing of this woman you speak of…” “Nothing?”
said Cadfael at his shoulder. “Nothing of a shepherd’s hut close to the track
you would be riding, back from the Ludlow road towards Ledwyche? I know, for
I’ve ridden in the opposite way. Nothing of a young nun asleep in the hay
there, wrapped in a good man’s cloak? Nothing of a freezing brook handy on your
way home, afterwards? It was not a fall that ripped your wound open again, it
was the doughty fight she made for her honor in the cold night, where you had
out your fury and lust upon her for want of another prey, more profitable to
your ambitions. Nothing of the cloaks and habit hidden under the straw, to cast
the crime on those guilty of everything else that cried to heaven here?
Everything but this!” The
cold, pale light cast all shapes into marble, the shadows withdrew and left
them stark. It was not long past noon of a sunlit day without. It was
moon-chill and white here within. Ermina stood like a carving in stone, staring
now in silence upon the three men before her. She had done what she had to do. “This
is folly,” said Evrard Boterel arduously, as against great odds. “I rode out
swathed, after the wounds I got in the storming of Callowleas, I rode back home
bleeding through my bindings, what of that? A freezing night of blizzard and
snow, and I had taken a fall. But this woman, this nun—the shepherd’s hut—these
mean nothing to me, I never was there, I do not even know where it is…” “I
have been there,” said Brother Cadfael, “and found in the snow the droppings of
a horse. A tall horse, that left a fistful of his mane roven in the rough
boards under the eaves. Here it is!” He had the wavy
cream-colored strands in his hand. “Shall I match them with your gelding, there
without? Shall we stretch you over the habit you see before you, and match your
wound with the blood that soils it? Sister Hilaria did not bleed. Your wound I
have seen, and know.” Evrard
hung for one long moment motionless, drawn up tall like a strung doll between
the woman before him and the men behind. Then he shrank and sank, with a long,
despairing moan, and collapsed on his knees on the tiles of the nave, fists
clutched hard to his heart, and fair hair fallen forward over his face, the
palest point in the bar of light where he kneeled. “Oh,
God forgive, God forgive… I only meant to hush her, not to kill… not to kill…” “And
it may even be true,” said Ermina sitting hunched and stiff by the fire in the
hall, the storm of her tears past, and nothing left but a great weariness. “He
may not have meant to kill. What he says may be sooth.” What
he had said, bestirring himself out of despair to make the best case he could
for his life, was that he had turned for home again from his search by reason
of the blizzard, and been driven to take shelter through the worst of it when
he came to the hut, never thinking to find anyone there before him. But
presented with a sleeping woman at his mercy, he had taken her out of spite and
rage against all women for Ermina’s sake. And when she awoke and fought him, he
owned he had not been gentle. But he never meant to kill! Only to silence her,
with the skirts of her habit pressed over her face. And then she lay limp and
lifeless, and he could not revive her, and he stripped the gown from her, and
hid all the garments under the straw, and took her with him as far as the
brook, to make of her merely one more victim of the outlaws who had sacked
Callowleas. “Where
he first came by that eloquent wound,” said Brother Cadfael, watching her pale
face, and marking the convulsion of a bitter smile, that came and went like a
grimace of pain on her mouth. “I
know—so he told you! And I let it stand! In gallant defense of his manor and
his men! I tell you, he never drew sword, he left his people
to be slaughtered, and ran like a rat. And forced me with him! No man of my
blood ever before turned his back and abandoned his own people to die! This he
did to me, and I cannot forgive it. And I had thought I loved him! I will tell
you,” she said, “how he got that wound of his that betrayed him in the end. All
that first day at Ledwyche he drove his men at cutting fence-pales and building
barricades, and he with never a scratch on him. And all that day I brooded and
was shamed, and in the evening, when he came, I told him I would not marry him,
that I would not match with a coward. He had not touched me until then, he had
been all duty and service, but when he saw he would lose both me and my lands,
then it was another story.” Cadfael
understood. Marriage by rape, once the thing was done, and privately, would be
accepted by most families as preferable to causing an ugly scandal and starting
a feud. No uncommon practice to take first and marry after. “I
had a dagger,” she said grimly. “I have it still. It was I who wounded him, and
I struck for his heart, but it went astray and ripped down from shoulder to
arm. Well, you have seen…” She looked down at the folded habit that lay beside
her on the bench. “And while he was raving and cursing and dripping blood, and
they were running to staunch his wound and bandage him, I slipped out into the
night and ran. He would follow me, that I knew. He could not afford to let me
escape him, after that, marry or bury were the only ways. He would expect me to
run towards the road and the town. Where else? So I did, but only until the
woods covered my traces, and then I circled back and hid. I told you, I saw him
ride out, weakened as he was, in a great rage, the way I knew he would go.” “Alone?”
“Of
course alone. He would not want witnesses for either rape or murder. Those
within had their orders. And I saw him ride back, freshly bloodied through his
bandages, though I thought nothing of it then but that he had exerted himself
too rashly.” She shuddered at the thought of that exertion. “When he was
cheated of me, he took out his venom on the first woman who fell in his way,
and so avenged himself. For myself I would not have accused him. I had the
better of him, and I had brought it on myself. But what had
she done?” It
was the eternal question, and the one to which there exists no answer. Why do
the innocent suffer? “And
yet,” she said doubtfully, “it may be true what he says. He was not used to
being thwarted, it made him mad… He had a devil’s temper. God forgive me, I
used almost to admire him for it once…” Yes,
it might be true that he had killed without meaning to, and in panic sought to
cover up his deed. Or it might be that he had reasoned coldly that a dead woman
could never accuse him, and made sure of her eternal silence. Let those judge
who were appointed to do the judging, here in this world. “Don’t
tell Yves!” said Ermina. “I will do that, when the time comes. But not here.
Not now!” No,
there was no need to say any word to the boy of the battle that was over.
Evrard Boterel was gone to Ludlow under armed escort, and there was no sign in
the great court that ever a crime had been uncovered. Peace came back to
Bromfield very softly, almost stealthily. In less than half an hour it would be
time for Vespers. “After
supper,” said Cadfael, “you should go to your bed, and get some hours of sleep,
and the boy also. I will keep watch and let your squire in.” He
had chosen his words well. It was like the coming of the thaw outside. She lifted
her face to him like a flower opening, and all the bitter sadness of guilt and
folly regretted melted away and fell from her before such a radiance that
Cadfael’s eyes dazzled. From death and the past she leaned eagerly to life and
the future. He did not think she was making any mistake this time, nor that any
power would now turn her from her allegiance. There
was a small congregation in the parish part of the church even at Compline that
night, a dozen or so goodmen of the district, come to offer devout thanks for
deliverance from terror. Even the weather partook of the general grace, for
there was barely a touch of frost in the air, and the sky was
clear and starry. Not a bad night for setting out on a journey. Cadfael
knew what to look for by now, but for all that it took him a little time to
single out the bowed black head for which he was searching. Marvelous that a
creature so remarkable could become at will so unremarked. When Compline ended,
it was no surprise to count the villagers leaving, and make them one less than
had entered. Olivier could not only look like a local lad when he pleased, he
could also vanish into shadow without a sound, and remain as still as the
stones about him. They
were all gone, the villagers to their homes, the brothers to the warming-room
for half an hour of relaxation before bed. The chill dark bulk of the church
was silent. “Olivier,”
said Brother Cadfael, “come forth and be easy. Your wards are getting their
rest until midnight, and have trusted you to me.” The
shadows stirred, and gave forth the shape of a lean, lissome, youthful body,
instantly advancing to be seen. He had not thought wise or fit to bring his
sword with him into a sacred place. He trod without sound, light as a cat. “You
know me?” “From
her I know you. If the boy promised silence, be content, he has kept his word.
She chose to trust me.” “Then
so can I,” said the young man, and drew nearer. “You have privilege here? For I
see you come and go as you please.” “I
am not a brother of the house, but of Shrewsbury. I have a patient here
mending, my justification for an irregular life. At the battle up there you saw
him—the same distraught soul who marched into peril of his life and gave Yves
the chance to break free.” “I
am much in his debt.” The voice was low, earnest and assured. “And in yours,
too, I think, for you must be the brother to whom the boy ran, the same of whom
he spoke, the one who first brought him safe to this house. The name he gave
you I do not remember.” “My
name is Cadfael. Wait but a moment, till I look out and see if all are within…”
In the sinking glow of torchlight, the last of the evening, the court showed
its pattern of black and white as the paths crossed, empty,
quiet and still. “Come!” said Cadfael. “We can offer you a warmer place to
wait, if not a holier. I advised leaving while the brethren are at Matins and
Lauds, for the porter will also attend, and I can let you out at the wicket in
peace. But your horses?” “They
are handy, and in shelter,” said Olivier serenely. “There is a boy goes with
me, orphaned at Whitbache, he has them in charge. He will wait until we come. I
will go with you, Brother Cadfael.” He tasted the name delicately if
inaccurately, finding it strange on his tongue. He laughed, very softly, surrendering
his hand to be led half-blind wherever his guide wished. Thus hand in hand they
went out by the cloister, and threaded the maze to the infirmary door. In
the inner room Brother Elyas lay monumentally asleep, long, splendid and calm,
stretched on his back, with lean hands easy on his breast, and face serene and
handsome. A tomb-figure carved to flatter and ennoble the dead man beneath, but
this man lived and breathed evenly, and the large, rounded lids over his
sleeping eyes were placid as a child’s. Brother Elyas gathered within him the
grace that healed body and mind, and made no overwheening claim on a guilt
beyond his due. No
need to agonize any more over Brother Elyas. Cadfael closed the door on him,
and sat down in the dim anteroom with his guest. They had, perhaps, as much as
two hours before midnight and Matins. The
small room, bare and stony and lit by only one candle, had a secret intimacy
about it at this late hour. They were quiet together, the young man and the
elder, eyeing each other with open and amiable curiosity. Long silences did not
disturb them, and when they spoke their voices were low, reflective and at
peace. They might have known each other life long. Life long? The one of them
could surely be no more than five or six and twenty, and a stranger from a
strange land. “You
may have a hazardous journey yet,” said Cadfael. “In your shoes I would leave
the highways after Leominster, and avoid Hereford.” He grew enthusiastic, and
went into some detail about the route to be preferred, even drawing a plan of
the ways as he remembered them, with a charcoal stick on the stones of the
floor. The boy leaned and peered, all willing attention, and
looked up into Cadfael’s face at close quarters with a mettlesome lift of the
head and a swift, brilliant smile. Everything about him was stirring and
strange, and yet from time to time Cadfael caught his breath as at a fleeting
glimpse of something familiar, but so long past that the illusion was gone
before he could grasp it, and search back in his memory for the place and the
time where it belonged. “All
this you are doing in pure goodwill,” said Olivier, his smile at once
challenging and amused, “and you know nothing of me! How can you be sure I am
fit to be trusted with this errand, and take no advantage for my lord and my
empress?” “Ah,
but I do know something of you, more than you may think. I know that you are
called Olivier de Bretagne, and that you came with Laurence d’Angers from
Tripoli. I know that you have been in his service six years, and are his most
trusted squire. I know that you were born in Syria, of a Syrian mother and a
Frankish knight, and that you made your way to Jerusalem to join your father’s
people and your father’s faith.” And I know more, he thought, recalling the
girl’s rapt face and devout voice as she praised her paladin. I know that
Ermina Hugonin, who is well worth winning, has set her heart on you, and will
not easily give up, and by that amber stare of yours, and the blood mounting to
your brow, I know that you have set your heart on her, and that you will not
undervalue your own worth by comparison with her, or let any other make it a
barrier between you, no matter in what obscure way you came into this world.
Between the two of you, it would be a bold uncle who would stand in your way. “She
does indeed trust you!” said Olivier, intent and solemn. “So
she may, and so may you. You are here on an honorable quest, and have done well
in it. I am for you, and for them, sister and brother both. I have seen their
mettle and yours.” “But
for all that,” owned Olivier, relaxing into a rueful smile, “she has somewhat
deceived you and herself. For her every Frankish soldier of the Crusade could
be nothing less than a noble knight. And the most of them were none, but
runaway younger sons, romantic boys from the byre and the field, rogues one
leap ahead of the officers for theft or highway robbery or breaking open some
church almsbox. No worse than most other men, but no better.
Not even every lord with a horse and a lance was another Godfrey of Bouillon or
Guimar de Massard. And my father was no knight, but a simple man-at-arms of
Robert of Normandy’s forces. And my mother was a poor widow who had a booth in
the market of Antioch. And I am their bastard, got between faiths between
peoples, a mongrel afterthought before they parted. But for all that, she was
beautiful and loving, and he was brave and kind, and I think myself well
mothered and fathered, and the equal of any man living. And I shall make that
good before Ermina’s kin, and they will acknowledge it and give her to me!” His
deep, soft voice had grown urgent, and his hawk-face passionately earnest, and
at the end of it he drew breath deep, and smiled. “I do not know why I tell you
all this, except that I have seen you care for her, and wish her the future she
deserves. I should like you to think well of me.” “I
am a common man myself,” said Cadfael comfortably, “and have found as good in
the kennel as in the court. She is dead, your mother?” “Else
I would not have left her. I was fourteen years old when she died.” “And
your father?” “I
never knew him, nor he me. He sailed for England from St. Symeon after their
last meeting, and never knew he had left her a son. They had been lovers long
before, when he came fresh to Syria. She never would tell me his name, though
often she praised him. There cannot be much amiss,” said Olivier thoughtfully,
“with a mating that left her such fondness and pride.” “Half
mankind matches without ritual blessing,” said Cadfael, surprised at the
stirring of his own thoughts. “Not necessarily the worse half. At least no
money passes then, and no lands are prized before the woman.” Olivier
looked up, suddenly aware of the oddity of these exchanges, and laughed, but
softly, not to disturb the sleeper next door. “Brother, these walls are hearing
curious confidences, and I am learning how wide is the Benedictine scope. I
might well imagine you speak of your own knowledge.” “I
was in the world forty years,” said Cadfael simply, “before I chose this
discipline for my cure. I have been soldier, sailor and
sinner. Even crusader! At least that was pure, however the cause fell short of
my hopes. I was very young then. I knew both Tripoli and Antioch, once. I knew
Jerusalem. They will all have changed now, that was long ago.” Long
ago, yes—twenty-seven years since he had left those shores! The
young man grew talkative at finding so knowledgeable a companion. For all his
knightly ambitions and his dedication to a new faith, a part of him leaned back
with longing to his native land. He began to talk of the royal city, and of old
campaigns, to question eagerly of events before ever he was born, and to extol
the charm of remembered places. “I
wonder, though,” admitted Cadfael wryly, recalling how far his own cause had
often fallen short, and how often the paynim against whom he had fought had
seemed to him the nobler and the braver, “I wonder, born into such a faith,
that you should find it easy to leave it, even for a father.” He rose as he
spoke, recollecting how time must be passing. “I should be waking them. It
cannot be long to the Matins bell.” “It
was not easy at all,” said Olivier, pondering in some surprise that the same
doubt had so seldom troubled him. “I was torn, a long time. It was from my
mother I had, as it were, the sign that turned the scale. Given the difference
in our tongues, my mother bore the same name as your Lady Mary…” Behind
Cadfael’s back the door of the little room had opened very softly. He turned
his head to see Ermina, flushed and young from sleep, standing in the doorway. “…
she was called Mariam,” said Olivier. “I
have roused Yves,” said Ermina, just above a whisper. “I am ready.” Her
eyes, huge and clear, all the agonizing of the day washed away by sleep, clung
to Olivier’s face, and at the sound of her voice he flung up his head and
answered the look as nakedly as if they had embraced heart to heart. Brother
Cadfael stood amazed and enlightened. It was not the name the boy had spoken,
it was the wild rise of his head, the softened light over his cheek and brow,
the unveiled, unguarded blaze of love, turning the proud male face momentarily
into a woman’s face, one known and remembered through twenty-seven years of
absence. Cadfael turned like a man in a dream, and
left them together, and went to help a sleepy Yves to dress and make ready for
his journey. He
let them out by the wicket door while the brothers were at Matins. The girl
took a grave and dignified leave, and asked his prayers. The boy, still half
asleep, lifted his face for the kiss proper between respected elder and
departing child, and the young man, in generous innocence and in
acknowledgement of a parting probably lifelong, copied the tribute and offered
an olive cheek. He did not wonder at Cadfael’s silence, for after all, the
night demanded silence and discretion. Cadfael
did not stand to watch them go, but closed the wicket again, and went back to
sit beside Brother Elyas, and let the wonder and the triumph wash over him in
wave on wave of exultation. Nunc dimittis! No need to speak, no need to make
any claim, or trouble in any way the course Olivier had set himself. What need
had he now of that father of his? But I have seen him, rejoiced Cadfael, I have
had him by the hand in the darkness, I have sat with him and talked of time
past, I have kissed him, I have had cause to be glad of him, and shall have
cause to be glad lifelong. There is a marvelous creature in the world with my
blood in his veins, and Mariam’s blood, and what does it matter whether these eyes
ever see him again? And yet they may, even in this world! Who knows? The
night passed sweetly over him. He fell asleep where he sat, and dreamed of
unimaginable and undeserved mercies until the bell rang for Prime. He
thought it politic, on reflection, to be the first to discover the defection
and raise the mild alarm. There was a search, but the guests were gone, and it
was not the business of the brothers to confine or pursue them, and the only
anxiety Prior Leonard expressed was for the fugitives themselves, that they
might go in safety, and come safely to their proper guardian. Indeed, Prior
Leonard received the whole affair with a degree of complacency that Cadfael
found faintly suspicious, though it might have been only a reflection of the
distracted elation he himself could not quite dissemble. The discovery that
Ermina had stripped the rings from her fingers and left them,
with the carefully folded habit, on Sister Hilaria’s sealed coffin as an
offering, absolved the runaways from the charge of ingratitude. “But
what the deputy sheriff will say is another matter,” sighed Prior Leonard,
snaking an apprehensive head. Hugh
did not present himself until it was time for High Mass, and heard the news
with a very appropriate and official show of displeasure, only to shrug it off
as of secondary importance, considering the weightier matters he had dealt with
successfully. “Well,
they have saved us an escort, then, and so they get safe to d’Angers, so much
the better if it’s at his expense. We have rooted out that lair of wolves, and
sent a murderer off this morning towards Shrewsbury, and that was the chief of
my business here. And I’m off after my men within the hour, and you may as well
ride with me, Cadfael, for I fancy your business here is just as well concluded
as mine.” Brother
Cadfael thought so, too. Elyas had no more need of him, and to linger where
those three had been had no more meaning now. At noon he saddled up and took
his leave of Leonard and rode with Hugh Beringar for Shrewsbury. The
sky was veiled but benign, the air cold but still and clear, a good day for
going home well content. They had not ridden thus knee to knee in peace and
without haste for some time, and the companionship was good, whether in speech
or silence. “So
you got your children away without a hitch,” said Hugh innocently. “I thought
it could safely be left to you.” Cadfael
gave him a measuring and mildly resentful look, and could feel no great
surprise.”I should have known! I thought you made and kept yourself very scarce
overnight. I suppose it wouldn’t have done for a deputy sheriff with your
reputation for sharpness to sleep the night through while his hostages slipped
away quietly for Gloucester .” Not to speak of their escort, he thought, but
did not say. Hugh had noted the quality of the supposed forester’s son, and
even guessed at his purpose, but Hugh did not know his name and lineage. Some
day, when wars ended and England became one again, some day Hugh might be told
what now Cadfael hugged his heart in secret. But not yet! It
was too new a visitation, he could spare none of the miraculous, the
astonishing grace. “From Ludlow ,” he said, “I grant you could hardly be
expected to hear the wicket at Bromfield open and close at midnight. You did
not leave Boterel in Dinan’s care, then?” “I
was none too sure there would not be another departure in the night,” said
Hugh. “He is Dinan’s tenant. We have taken confession from him, but I would
rather have him safe under lock and key in Shrewsbury castle.” “Will
he hang, do you think?” “I
doubt it. Let those judge whose work is judging. My work is to hold the ways
safe for travellers, as far as man can, and apprehend murderers. And let honest
men, women and children go their ways freely, with my goodwill.” They
were more than halfway to Shrewsbury and the light still good, and Hugh’s pace
began to quicken, and his gaze to prick eagerly ahead, hungry for the first
sight of the hill-top towers within the wall. Aline would be waiting for him,
proud and fond, and deep in happy preparations for the Christmas feast. “My
son will be grown out of knowledge during these days I’ve been away. All must
be very well with them both, or Constance would have been sending after me. And
you have not even seen my son yet, Cadfael!” But
you have seen mine, thought Cadfael, rapt and silent beside him, though you do
not know it. “Long-boned
and strong—he’ll be taller than his father by a head…” He
is taller by a head, Cadfael exulted. Taller by a head and something to spare.
And what paragons of beauty and gallantry may not spring from his union with
that imperial girl! “Wait
until you see him! A son to be proud of!” Cadfael
road mute and content, still full of the wonder and astonishment, all elation
and all humility. Eleven more days to the Christmas feast, and no shadow
hanging over it now, only a great light. A time of births, of triumphant
begettings, and this year how richly celebrated—the son of the young woman from
Worcester, the son of Aline and Hugh, the son of Mariam, the Son of Man… A
son to be proud of! Yes, amen! About
the Author ELLIS PETERS is
the nom-de-crime of English novelist Edith Pargeter, author of scores of
books under her own name. She is the recipient of the Silver Dagger Award,
conferred by the Crime Writers Association in Britain, as well as the coveted
Edgar, awarded by the Mystery Writers of America. Miss Pargeter is also well
known as a translator of poetry and prose from the Czech and has been awarded
the Gold Medal and Ribbon of the Czechoslovak Society for Foreign Relations for
her services to Czech literature. She passed away in 1995, at the age of 82, at
home in her beloved Shropshire. |
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