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  “That will be bad news to Brother Prior,” said Cadfael mildly.

  “It’s bad news to me,” said Beringar ruefully. “For I have four horses in those same abbey stables, and while I might have a claim to retain them all for myself and my men, once the king has given me his commission, I can’t make any such claim at this moment with security. It might be allowed, it might not. And to be open with you, I have no intention of letting my two best horses be drafted for the king’s army. I want them out of here and in some private place, where they can escape Prestcote’s foraging parties, until this flurry is over.”

  “Only two?” said Cadfael innocently. “Why not all?”

  “Oh, come, I know you have more cunning than that. Would I be here without horses at all? If they found none of mine, they’d be hunting for all, and small chance I’d have left for royal favour. But let them take the two nags, and they won’t question further. Two I can afford. Brother Cadfael, it takes no more than a few days in this place to know that you are the man to take any enterprise in hand, however rough and however risky.” His voice was brisk and bland, even hearty, he seemed to intend no double meanings. “The lord abbot turns to you when he’s faced with an ordeal beyond his powers. I turn to you for practical help. You know all this countryside. Is there a place of safety where my horses can lie up for a few days, until this round-up is over?”

  So improbable a proposal Cadfael had not looked for, but it came as manna from heaven. Nor did he hesitate long over taking advantage of it for his own ends. Even if lives had not depended on the provision of those two horses, he was well aware that Beringar was making use of him without scruple, and he need have no scruples about doing as much in return. It went a little beyond that, even, for he had a shrewd suspicion that at this moment Beringar knew far too much of what was going on in his, Cadfael’s mind, and had no objection whatever to any guesses Cadfael might be making as to what was going on in his, Beringar’s. Each of us, he thought, has a hold of sorts upon the other, and each of us has a reasonable insight into the other’s methods, if not motives. It will be a fair fight. And yet this debonair being might very well be the murderer of Nicholas Faintree. That would be a very different duel, with no quarter asked or offered. In the meantime, make the most of what might or might not be quite accidental circumstances.

  “Yes,” said Cadfael, “I do know of such a place.”

  Beringar did not even ask him where, or question his judgment as to whether it would be remote enough and secret enough to be secure. “Show me the way tonight,” he said outright, and smiled into Cadfael’s face. “It’s tonight or never, the order will be made public tomorrow. If you and I can make the return journey on foot before morning, ride with me. Rather you than any!”

  Cadfael considered ways and means; there was no need to consider what his answer would be.

  “Better get your horses out after Vespers, then, out to St Giles. I’ll join you there when Compline is over, it will be getting dark then. It wouldn’t do for me to be seen riding out with you, but you may exercise your own horses in the evening as the fit takes you.”

  “Good!” said Beringar with satisfaction. “Where is this place? Have we to cross the river anywhere?”

  “No, nor even the brook. It’s an old grange the abbey used to maintain in the Long Forest, out beyond Pulley. Since the times grew so unchancy we’ve withdrawn all our sheep and cattle from there, but keep two lay brothers still -in the house. No one will look for horses there, they know it’s all but abandoned. And the lay brothers will credit what I say.”

  “And St Giles is on our way?” It was a chapel of the abbey, away at the eastern end of the Foregate.

  “It is. We’ll go south to Sutton, and then bear west and into the forest. You’ll have three miles or more to walk back by the shorter way. Without horses we may save a mile or so.”

  “I think my legs will hold me up for that distance,” said Beringar demurely. “After Compline, then, at St Giles.” And without any further word or question he left Cadfael’s side, lengthening his easy stride to gain ground; for Aline Siward was just emerging from the doorway of her house and turning towards the abbey gateway on her way to church. Before she had gone many yards Beringar was at her elbow; she raised her head and smiled confidingly into his face. A creature quite without guile, but by no means without proper pride or shrewd sense, and she opened like a flower at sight of this young man devious as a serpent, whatever else of good or ill might be said of him. That, thought Cadfael, watching them walk before him in animated conversation, ought to signify something in his favour? Or was it only proof of her childlike trustfulness? Blameless young women have before now been taken in by black-hearted villains, even murderers; and black-hearted villains and murderers have been deeply devoted to blameless young women, contradicting their own nature in this one perverse tenderness.

  Cadfael was consoled and cheered by the sight of Godith in church, nobody’s fool, nudging and whispering among the boys, and flicking him one rapid, questioning blue glance, which he answered with a reassuring nod and smile. None too well-founded reassurance, but somehow he would make it good. Admirable as Aline was, Godith was the girl for him. She reminded him of Arianna, the Greek boat-girl, long ago, skirts kilted above the knee, short hair a cloud of curls, leaning on her long oar and calling across the water to him …

  Ah, well! The age he had been then, young Torold had not even reached yet. These things are for the young. Meantime, tonight after Compline, at St Giles!

  Chapter Seven

  The ride out through Sutton into the Long Forest, dense and primitive through all but the heathy summits of its fifteen square miles, was like a sudden return visit to aspects of his past, night raids and desperate ambushes once so familiar to him as to be almost tedious, but now, in this shadowy, elderly form, as near excitement as he wished to come. The horse under -him was lofty and mettlesome and of high pedigree, he had not been astride such a creature for nearly twenty years, and the flattery and temptation reminded him of days past, when exalted and venturesome companions made all labours and privations pleasurable.

  Hugh Beringar, once away from the used roads and into the trees and the night shadows, seemed to have no cares in the world, certainly no fear of any treachery on his companion’s part. He chattered, even, to pass the time along the way, curious about Brother Cadfael’s uncloistral past, and about the countries he had known as well as he knew this forest.

  “So you lived in the world all those years, and saw so much of it, and never thought to marry? And half the world women, they say?” The light voice, seemingly idle and faintly mocking, nevertheless genuinely questioned and required an answer.

  “I had thought to marry, once,” said Cadfael honestly, “before I took the Cross, and she was a very fair woman, too, but to say truth, I forgot her in the east, and in the west she forgot me. I was away too long, she gave up waiting and married another man, small blame to her.”

  “Have you ever seen her again?” asked Hugh.

  “No, never. She has grandchildren by now, may they be good to her. She was a fine woman, Richildis.”

  “But the east was also made up of men and women, and you a young crusader. I cannot but wonder,” said Beringar dreamily.

  “So, wonder! I also wonder about you,” said Cadfael mildly. “Do you know any human creatures who are not strangers, one to another?”

  A faint gleam of light showed among the trees. The lay brothers sat up late with a reed dip, Cadfael suspected playing at dice. Why not? The tedium here must be extreme. They were bringing these decent brothers a little diversion, undoubtedly welcome.

  That they were alive and alert to the slightest sound of an unexpected approach was soon proved, as both emerged ware and ready in the doorway. Brother Anselm loomed huge and muscular, like an oak of his own fifty-five years, and swung a long staff in one hand. Brother Louis, French by descent but born in England, was small and wiry and agile, and in this solitude kept a
dagger by him, and knew how to use it. Both of them came forth prepared for anything, placid of face and watchful of eye; but at sight of Brother Cadfael they fell to an easy grinning.

  “What, is it you, old comrade? A pleasure to see a known face, but we hardly looked for you in the middle of the night. Are you biding over until tomorrow? Where’s your errand?” They looked at Beringar with measuring interest, but he left it to Cadfael to do the dealing for him here, where the abbey’s writ ran with more force than the king’s.

  “Our errand’s here, to you,” said Cadfael, lighting down. “My lord here asks that you’ll give stabling and shelter for a few days to these two beasts, and keep them out of the public eye.” No need to bide the reason from these two, who would have sympathised heartily with the owner of such horseflesh in his desire to keep it. “They’re commandeering baggage horses for the army, and that’s no fit life for these fellows, they’ll be held back to serve in a better fashion.”

  Brother Anselm ran an appreciative eye over Beringar’s mount, and an affectionate hand over the arched neck. “A long while since the stable here had such a beauty in it! Long enough since it had any at all, barring Prior Robert’s mule when he visited, and he does that very rarely now. We expect to be recalled, to tell truth, this place is too isolated and unprofitable to be kept much longer. Yes, we’ll give you house-room, my fine lad, gladly, and your mate, too. All the more gladly, my lord, if you’ll let me get my leg across him now and again by way of exercise.”

  “I think he may carry even you without trouble,” acknowledged Beringar amiably. “And surrender them to no one but myself or Brother Cadfael.”

  “That’s understood. No one will set eyes on them here.” They led the horses into the deserted stable, very content with the break in their tedious existence, and with Beringar’s open-handed largesse for their services. “Though we’d have taken them in for the pleasure of it,” said Brother Louis truthfully. “I was groom once in Earl Robert of Gloucester’s household, I love a fine horse, one with a gloss and a gait to do me credit.”

  Cadfael and Hugh Beringar turned homeward together on foot. “An hour’s walking, hardly more,” said Cadfael, “by the way I’ll take you. The path’s too overgrown in parts for the horses, but I know it well, it cuts off the Foregate. We have to cross the brook, well upstream from the mill, and can enter the abbey grounds from the garden side, unnoticed, if you’re willing to wade.”

  “I believe,” said Beringar reflectively, but with complete placidity, “you are having a game with me. Do you mean to lose me in the woods, or drown me in the millrace?”

  “I doubt if I should succeed at either. No, this will be a most amicable walk together, you’ll see. And well worth it, I trust.”

  And curiously, for all each of them knew the other was making use of him, it was indeed a pleasant nocturnal journey they made,, the elderly monk without personal ambitions, and the young man whose ambitions were limitless and daring. Probably Beringar was working hard at the puzzle of why Cadfael had so readily accommodated him, certainly Cadfael was just as busy trying to fathom why Beringar had ever invited him to conspire with him thus; it did not matter, it made the contest more interesting. And which of them was to win, and to get the most out of the tussle, was very much in the balance.

  Keeping pace thus on the narrow forest path they were much of a height, though Cadfael was thickset and burly, and Beringar lean and lissome and light of foot. He followed Cadfael’s steps attentively, and the darkness, only faintly alleviated by starlight between the branches, seemed to bother him not at all. And lightly and freely he talked.

  “The king intends to move down into Gloucester’s country again, in more strength, hence this drive for men and horses. In a few more days he’ll surely be moving.”

  “And you go with him?” Since he was minded to be talkative, why not encourage him? Everything he said would be calculated, of course, but sooner or later even he might make a miscalculation.

  “That depends on the king. Will you credit it, Brother Cadfael, the man distrusts me! Though in fact I’d liefer be put in charge of my own command here, where my lands lie. I’ve made myself as assiduous as I dare — to see the same face too constantly might have the worst effect, not to see it in attendance at all would be fatal. A nice question of judgment.”

  “I feel,” said Cadfael, “that a man might have considerable confidence in your judgment. Here we are at the brook, do you hear it?” There were stones there by which to cross dryshod, though the water was low and the bed narrowed, and Beringar, having rested his eyes a few moments to assay the distance and the ground, crossed in a nicely balanced leap that served to justify Cadfael’s pronouncement.

  “Do you indeed?” resumed the young man, falling in beside him again as they went on. “Have a high opinion of my judgment? Of risks and vantages only? Or, for instance, of men? — And women?”

  “I can hardly question your judgment of men,” said Cadfael drily, “since you’ve confided in me. If I doubted, I’d hardly be likely to own it.”

  “And of women?” They were moving more freely now through open fields.

  “I think they might all be well advised to beware of you. And what else is gossiped about in the king’s court, besides the next campaign? There’s no fresh word of FitzAlan and Adeney being sighted?”

  “None, nor will be now,” said Beringar readily. “They had luck, and I’m not sorry. Where they are by now there’s no knowing, but wherever it is, it’s one stage on the way to France.”

  There was no reason to doubt him; whatever he was about he was making his dispositions by way of truth, not lies. So the news for Godith’s peace of mind was still good, and every day better, as the distance between her father and Stephen’s vengeance lengthened. And now there were two excellent horses well positioned on an escape road for Godith and Torold, in the care of two stalwart brothers who would release them at Cadfael’s word. The first step was accomplished. Now to recover the saddlebags from the river, and start them on their way. Not so simple a matter, but surely not impossible.

  “I see now where we are,” said Beringar, some twenty minutes later. They had cut straight across the mile of land enclosed by the brook’s wanderings, and stood again on the bank; on the other side the stripped fields of pease whitened in the starlight, and beyond their smooth rise lay the gardens, and the great range of abbey buildings. “You have a nose for country, even in the dark. Lead the way, I’ll trust you for an unpitted ford, too.”

  Cadfael had only to kilt his habit, having nothing but his sandals to get wet. He strode into the water at the point opposite the low roof of Godith’s hut, which just showed above the trees and bushes and the containing wall of the herbarium. Beringar plunged in after him, boots and hose and ail. The water was barely knee-deep, but clearly he cared not at all. And Cadfael noted how he moved, gently and steadily, hardly a ripple breaking from his steps. He had all the intuitive gifts of wild creatures, as alert by night as by day. On the abbey bank he set off instinctively round the edge of the low stubble of peasehaulms, to avoid any rustle among the dry roots soon to be dug in.

  “A natural conspirator,” said Cadfael, thinking aloud; and that he could do so was proof of a strong, if inimical, bond between them.

  Beringar turned on him a face suddenly lit by a wild smile. “One knows another,” he said. They had grown used to exchanging soundless whispers, and yet making them clear to be heard. “I’ve remembered one rumour that’s making the rounds, that I forgot to tell you. A few days ago there was some fellow hunted into the river by night, said to be one of FitzAlan’s squires. They say an archer got him behind the left shoulder, maybe through the heart. However it was, he went down, somewhere by Atcham his body may be cast up. But they caught a riderless horse, a good saddle-horse, the next day, sure to be his.”

  “Do you tell me?” said Cadfael, mildly marvelling. “You may speak here, there’ll be no one prowling in my herb-garden by night, and they’re u
sed to me rising at odd times to tend my brews here.”

  “Does not your boy see to that?” asked Hugh Beringar innocently.

  “A boy slipping out of the dortoir,” said Brother Cadfael, “would soon have cause to rue it. We take better care of our children here, my lord, than you seem to think.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. It’s well enough for seasoned old soldiers turned monk to risk the chills of the night, but the young things ought to be protected.” His voice was sweet and smooth as honey. “I was telling you of this odd thing about the horses … A couple of days later, if you’ll believe it, they rounded up another saddle-horse running loose, grazing up in the heathlands north of the town, still saddled. They’re thinking there was a single bodyguard sent out from the castle, when the assault came, to pick up Adeney’s daughter from wherever she was hidden, and escort her safely out of the ring round Shrewsbury. They think the attempt failed,” he said softly, “when her attendant took to the river to save her. So she’s still missing, and still thought to be somewhere here, close in hiding. And they’ll be looking for her, Brother Cadfael — they’ll be looking for her now more eagerly than ever.”

  They were up at the edge of the inner gardens by then. Hugh Beringar breathed an almost silent “Good night!” and was gone like a shadow towards the guest house.

  Before he slept out the rest of the night, Brother Cadfael lay awake long enough to do some very hard thinking. And the longer he thought,, the more convinced he became that someone had indeed approached the mill closely enough and silently enough to catch the last few sentences spoken within; and that the someone was Hugh Beringar, past all doubt. He had proved how softly he could move, how instinctively he adapted his movements to circumstances, he had provoked a shared expedition committing each of them to the other’s discretion, and he had uttered a number of cryptic confidences calculated to arouse suspicion and alarm, and possibly precipitate unwise action — though Cadfael had no intention of giving him that last satisfaction. He did not believe the listener had been within earshot long. But the last thing Cadfael himself had said gave away plainly enough that he intended somehow to get hold of two horses, retrieve the hidden treasury, and see Torold on his way with “her.” If Beringar had been at the door just a moment earlier, he must also have heard the girl named; but even without that he must surely have had his suspicions. Then just what game was he playing, with his own best horses, with the fugitives he could betray at any moment, yet had not so far betrayed, and with Brother Cadfael? A better and larger prize offered than merely one young man’s capture, and the exploitation of a girl against whom he had no real grudge. A man like Beringar might prefer to risk all and play for all, Torold, Godith and treasure in one swoop. For himself alone, as once before, though without success? Or for the king’s gain and favour? He was indeed a young man of infinite possibilities.