The Hermit of Eyton Forest bc-14 Read online

  ‘What kind of man was that? And how did he die?’ On this head he had questions enough to ask, startled out of his detachment and indifference.

  ‘We found him dead in the forest, a few miles from here, with a knife wound in his back. And robbed.’ Cadfael was never quite sure why he himself had become so reticent at this point, and why, for instance, he did not simply name the dead man. And had his companion persisted, as would surely have been natural enough, he would have answered freely. But there the questioning stopped. Rafe shrugged off the implied perils of riding alone in the forests of the border shires, and closed the low door of the stall on his contented horse.

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind. Go well armed, I say, or keep to the highroads.’

  He dusted his hands and turned towards the gateway of the yard. ‘Well, I’ll go and make ready for supper.’ And he was off at a purposeful walk, but not immediately towards the guest hall. Instead, he crossed to the archway of the cloister, and entered there. Cadfael found something so significant in that arrow-straight progress towards the church that he followed, candidly curious and officiously helpful, and finding Rafe of Coventry standing hesitant by the parish altar, looking round him at the multiplicity of chapels contained in transepts and chevet, directed him with blunt simplicity to the one he was looking for.

  ‘Through here. The arch is low, but you’re my build, no need to stoop your head.’

  Rafe made no effort to disguise or disclaim his purpose, or to reject Cadfael’s company. He gave him one calm, considering look, nodded his acknowledgements, and followed. And in the stony chill and dimming light of the chapel he crossed at once to the bier where Drogo Bosiet’s body lay reverently covered, with candles burning at head and feet, and lifted the cloth from the dead face.

  Very briefly he studied the fixed and pallid features, and again covered them, and the movements of his hands as they replaced the cloth had lost their urgency and tension. He had time even for simple human awe at the presence of death.

  ‘You don’t, by any chance, know him?’ asked Cadfael.

  ‘No, I never saw him before. God rest his soul!’ And Rafe straightened up from stooping over the bier, and drew a liberating breath. Whatever his interest in the body had been, it was over.

  ‘A man of property, by the name of Drogo Bosiet, from Northamptonshire. His son is expected here any day now.’

  ‘Do you tell me so? A bleak coming that will be for him.’ But the words he used now were coming from the surface of his mind only, and answers concerned him scarcely at all. ‘Have you many guests at this season? Of my own years and condition, perhaps? I should enjoy a game of chess in the evening, if I can find a partner.’

  If he had lost interest in Drogo Bosiet, it seemed he was still concerned to know of any others who might have come here as travellers. Any of his own years and condition!

  ‘Brother Denis could give you a match,’ said Cadfael, deliberately obtuse. ‘No, it’s a quiet time with us. You’ll find the hall half-empty.’ They were approaching the steps of the guest hall, side by side and easy together, and the late afternoon light, overcast and still, was beginning to dim into the dove grey of evening.

  ‘This man who was struck down in the forest,’ said Rafe of Coventry. ‘Your sheriff will surely have the hounds out after an outlaw so near the town. Is there suspicion of any man for the deed?’

  ‘There is,’ said Cadfael, ‘though there’s no certainty. A newcomer in these parts, who’s missing from his master’s service since the attack.’ And he added, innocently probing without seeming to probe: ‘A young fellow he is, maybe twenty years old

  ‘

  Not of Rafe’s years or condition, no! And of no interest to him, for he merely nodded his acceptance of the information, and by the indifference of his face as promptly discarded it. ‘Well, God speed their hunting!’ he said, dismissing Hyacinth’s guilt or innocence as irrelevant to whatever he had on that closed and armoured mind of his.

  At the foot of the guest hall steps he turned in, surely to examine, thought Cadfael, every man of middle years who would come to supper in hall. Looking for one in particular? Whose name, since he did not ask for names, would be unhelpful, because false? One, at any rate, who was not Drogo Bosiet of Northamptonshire!

  Chapter Eight

  HUGH came to the manor of Eaton early in the morning, with six mounted men at his back, and a dozen more deployed behind him between the river and the highroad, to sweep the expanse of field and forest from Wroxeter to Eyton and beyond. For a fugitive murderer they might have to turn the hunt westward, but Richard must surely be somewhere here in this region, if he had indeed set out to warn Hyacinth of the vengeance bearing down on him. Hugh’s party had followed the direct road from the Abbey Foregate to Wroxeter, an open, fast track, and thence by the most direct path into the forest, to Cuthred’s cell, where Richard would have expected to find Hyacinth. By young Edwin’s account he had been only a few minutes ahead of Bosiet, he would have made all haste and taken the shortest and fastest way. But he had never reached the hermitage.

  ‘The boy Richard?’ said the hermit, astonished. ‘You did not ask me of him yesterday, only of the man. No, Richard did not come. I remember the young lord well, God grant no harm has come to him! I did not know he was lost.’

  ‘And you’ve seen nothing of him since? It’s two nights now he’s been gone.’

  ‘No, I have not seen him. My doors are always open, even by night,’ said Cuthred, ‘and I am always here if any man needs me. Had the child been in any peril or distress within reach of me, he would surely have come running here. But I have not seen him.’

  It was simple truth that both doors stood wide, and the sparse furnishings of both living room and chapel were clear to view.

  ‘If you should get any word of him,’ said Hugh, ‘send to me, or to the abbey, or if you should see my men drawing these coverts round you—as you will give them the message.’

  ‘I will do so,’ said Cuthred gravely, and stood at the open gateway of his little garden to watch them ride away towards Eaton.

  John of Longwood came striding out from one of the long barns lining the stockade, as soon as he heard the dull drumming of many hooves on the beaten earth of the yard. His bare arms and balding crown were the glossy brown of oak timber, for he spent most of his time out and active in all weathers, and there was no task about the holding to which he could not turn his hand. He stared at sight of Hugh’s men riding in purposefully at the gate, but in wonder and curiosity rather than consternation, and came readily to meet them.

  ‘Well, my lord, what’s afoot with you so early?’ He had already taken in the significance of their array. No hounds, no hawks, but steel by their sides, and two of them archers shouldering bows. This was another kind of hunt. ‘We’ve had no trouble hereabouts. What’s the word from Shrewsbury?’

  ‘We’re looking for two defaulters,’ said Hugh briskly. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t heard we have a man murdered between here and the town, two nights ago. And the hermit’s boy is fled, and suspect of being the man’s runaway villein, with good reason to make away with him and run for the second time. That’s the one quarry we’re after.’

  ‘Oh, ay, we’d heard about him,’ said John readily, ‘but I doubt he’s a good few miles from here by this time. We’ve not seen hide or hair of him since late that afternoon, when he was here to fetch some honey cakes our dame had for Cuthred. She was not best pleased with him, neither, I heard her scolding. And for sure he was an impudent rogue. But the start he’s had, I fancy you won’t see him again. I never saw him carry steel, though,’ said John by way of a fair-minded afterthought, and frowned over the resultant doubt. ‘There’s a chance at least that some other put an end to his master. The threat to haul him back to villeinage would be enough to make the lad take to his heels, the faster the better. In unknown country his lord would be hard put to it to track him down. No need, surely, to kill him. Small inducement to stay and take the ris
k.’

  ‘The fellow’s neither convicted nor charged yet,’ said Hugh, ‘nor can be until he’s taken. But neither can he be cleared until then. And either way I want him. But we’re after another runaway, too, John. Your lady’s grandson, Richard, rode out of the abbey precinct that same evening, and hasn’t come back.’

  ‘The young lord!’ echoed John, stricken open-mouthed with astonishment and consternation. ‘Two nights gone, and only now we get to hear of it? God help us, she’ll run mad! What happened? Who fetched the lad away?’

  ‘No one fetched him. He up and saddled his pony and off he went, alone, of his own will. And what’s befallen him since nobody knows. And since one of the pair I’m seeking may be a murderer, I’m leaving no barn un-ransacked and no house unvisited, and with orders to every man to keep a sharp lookout for Richard, too. Granted you’re a good steward, John, not even you can know what mouse has crept into every byre and sheep fold and storehouse on the manor of Eaton. And that’s what I mean to know, here and everywhere between here and Shrewsbury. Go in and tell Dame Dionisia I’m asking to speak with her.’

  John shook his head helplessly, and went. Hugh dismounted, and advanced to the foot of the stairs that led up to the hall door, above the low undercroft, waiting to see how Dionisia would bear herself when she emerged from the broad doorway above. If she really had not heard of the boy’s disappearance until this moment, when her steward would certainly tell her, he could expect a fury, fuelled all the more by genuine dismay and grief. If she had, then she had had time to prepare herself to present a fury, but even so she might let slip something that would betray her. As for John, his honesty was patent. If she had the boy hidden away, John had had no part in it. He was not an instrument she would have used for such a purpose, for he was stubbornly determined to be Richard’s steward rather than hers.

  She came surging out from the shadow of the doorway, blue skirts billowing, imperious eyes smouldering.

  ‘What’s this I hear, my lord? It surely cannot be true! Richard missing?’

  ‘It is true, madam,’ said Hugh watching her intently, and undisturbed by the fact of having to look up to do it, as indeed he would have had to do even if she had come darting down the steps to his level, for she was taller than he. ‘Since the night before last he’s been gone from the abbey school.’

  She flung up her clenched hands with an indignant cry. ‘And only now am I told of it! Two nights gone! Is that the care they take of their children? And these are the people who deny me the charge of my own flesh and blood! I hold the abbot responsible for whatever distress or harm has come to my grandson. The guilt is on his head. And what are you doing, my lord, to recover the child? Two days you tell me he’s been lost, and late and laggard you come to let me know of it

  ‘

  The momentary hush fell only because she had to stop to draw breath, standing with flashing eyes at the head of the steps, tall and greying fair and formidable, her long patrician face suffused with angry blood. Hugh took ruthless advantage of the lull, while it lasted, for it would not last long.

  ‘Has Richard been here?’ he demanded bluntly, challenging her show of furious deprivation and loss.

  She caught her breath, standing open-mouthed. ‘Here! No, he did not come here. Should I be thus distraught if he had?’

  ‘You would have sent word to the abbot, no doubt,’ said Hugh guilelessly, ‘if he had come running home? They are no less anxious about him at the abbey. And he rode away alone, of his own will. Where should we first look for him but here? But you tell me he is not here, has not been here. And his pony has not come wandering home to his old stable?’

  ‘He has not, or I should have been told at once. If he’d come home riderless,’ she said, her nostrils flaring, ‘I would have had every man who is mine scouring the woods for Richard.’

  ‘My men are busy this minute doing that very thing,’ said Hugh. ‘But by all means turn out Richard’s people to add to the number, and welcome. The more the better. Since it seems we’ve drawn blank,’ he said, still thoughtfully studying her face, ‘and after all, he is not here.’

  ‘No,’ she blazed, ‘he is not here! No, he has not been here! Though if he left of his own will, as you claim, perhaps he meant to come home to me. And for whatever has befallen him on the way I hold Radulfus to blame. He is not fit to have charge of a noble child, if he cannot take better care of him.’

  ‘I will tell him so,’ said Hugh obligingly, and went on with aggravating mildness: ‘My present duty is to continue the search, then, both for Richard and for the thief who killed an abbey guest in Eyton forest. You need not fear, madam, that my search will not be thorough. Since I cannot expect you to make daily rounds of every corner of your grandson’s manor, no doubt you’ll be glad to allow me free access everywhere, to do that service for you. You’ll wish to set the example to your tenants and neighbours.’

  She gave him a long, long, hostile look, and as suddenly whirled on John of Longwood, who stood impassive and neutral at her elbow. In the gale of her movements her long skirt lashed like the tail of an angry cat.

  ‘Open my doors to these officers. All my doors! Let them satisfy themselves I’m neither harbouring a murderer nor hiding my own flesh and blood here. Let all our tenants know it’s my will they should submit to search as freely as I do. My lord sheriff,’ she said, looking down with immense dignity upon Hugh, ‘enter and search wherever you wish.’

  He thanked her with unabashed civility, and if she saw the glint in his eye, that just fell short of becoming an open smile, she scorned to acknowledge it, but turned her straight back and withdrew with a rapid and angry gait into the hall, leaving him to a search he already felt must prove fruitless. But there was no certainty, and if she had calculated that such a rash and sweeping invitation would be taken as proof, and send them away satisfied, even shamefaced, she was much deceived. Hugh set to work to probe every corner of Dionisia’s hall and solar, kitchens and stores, examined every cask and handcart and barrel in the undercroft, every byre and barn and stable that lined the stockade, the smith’s workshop, every loft and larder, and moved outward into the fields and sheep folds, and thence to the huts of every tenant and cotter and villein on Richard’s land. But they did not find Richard.

  Brother Cadfael rode for Eilmund’s assart in the middle of the afternoon, with the new crutches Brother Simon had cut to the forester’s measure slung alongside, good, sturdy props to bear a solid weight. The fracture appeared to be knitting well, the leg was straight and not shortened. Eilmund was not accustomed to lying by inactive, and was jealous of any other hands tending his woodlands. Once he got hold of these aids Annet would have trouble keeping him in. It was in Cadfael’s mind that her father’s helplessness had afforded her an unusual measure of freedom to pursue her own feminine ploys, no doubt innocent enough, but what Eilmund would make of them when he found out was another matter.

  Approaching the village of Wroxeter, Cadfael met with Hugh riding back towards the town, after a long day in the saddle. Beyond, in fields and woodlands, his officers were still methodically combing every grove and every headland, but Hugh was bound back to the castle alone, to collect together whatever reports had been brought in, and consider how best to cover the remaining ground, and how far the search must be extended if it had not yet borne fruit.

  ‘No,’ said Hugh, answering the unasked question almost as soon as they were within hail of each other, ‘she has not got him. By all the signs she did not even know you’d lost him until I brought the word, though it’s no great trick, I know, for any woman to put on such an exclaiming show. But we’ve parted every stalk of straw in her barns, and what we’ve missed must be too small ever to be found. No black pony in the stables. Not a soul but tells the same story, from John of Longwood down to the smith’s boy. Richard is not there. Not in any cottage or byre in this village. The priest turned out his house for us, and went with us round the manor, and he’s an honest man.’

&nb
sp; Cadfael nodded sombre confirmation of his own doubts. ‘I had a feeling there might be more to it than that. It would be worth trying yonder at Wroxeter, I suppose. Not that I see Fulke Astley as a likely villain he’s too fat and too cautious.’

  ‘I’m just come from there,’ said Hugh. ‘Three of my men are still prodding into the last corners, but I’m satisfied he’s not there, either. We’ll miss no one manor, cottage, assart, all. Of what falls alike on them all none of them can well complain. Though Astley did bristle at letting us in. A matter of his seigneurial dignity, for there was nothing there to find.’

  ‘The pony,’ said Cadfael, gnawing a considering lip, ‘must be shut away somewhere.’

  ‘Unless,’ said Hugh sombrely, ‘the other fugitive has ridden him hard out of the shire, and left the boy in such case that he cannot bear witness even when we find him.’

  They stared steadily upon each other, mutely admitting that it was a black and bitter possibility, but one that could not be altogether banished.

  ‘The child ran off to him, if that is indeed what he did,’ Hugh pursued doggedly, ‘without saying a word to any other. How if it was indeed to a rogue and murderer he went, in all innocence? The cob is a sturdy little beast, big for Richard, the hermit’s boy a light weight, and Richard the only witness. I don’t say it is so. I do say such things have happened, and could happen again.’

  ‘True, I would not dispute it,’ admitted Cadfael.

  There was that in his tone that caused Hugh to say with certainty: ‘But you do not believe it.’ It was something of which Cadfael himself had been less certain until that moment. ‘Do you feel your thumbs pricking? I know better than to ignore the omen if you do,’ said Hugh with a half-reluctant smile.

  ‘No, Hugh.’ Cadfael shook his head. ‘I know nothing that isn’t known to you, I am nobody’s advocate in this matter—except Richard’s—I’ve barely exchanged a word with this boy Hyacinth, never seen him but twice, when he brought Cuthred’s message to chapter and when he came to fetch me to the forester. All I can do is keep my eyes open between here and Eilmund’s house, and that you may be sure I shall do—perhaps even do a little beating of the bushes myself along the way. If I have anything to tell, be sure you’ll hear it before any other. Be it good or ill, but God and Saint Winifred grant us good news!’