One Corpse Too Many bc-2 Page 18

  “What manner of tune,” she demanded, “for me? If I’m what you want, very well, here I am, what’s your will with me? I suppose I still have lands of my own, worth securing? Do you mean to stand on your rights, and marry me for them? Even if my father is dispossessed, the king might let my lands and me go to one of his new captains! Am I worth that much to you? Or is it just a matter of buying Stephen’s favour, by giving me to him as bait to lure better men back into his power?”

  “Neither,” said Beringar placidly. He was eyeing her braced shoulders and roused, contemptuous face with decided appreciation. “I admit, my dear, that I never felt so tempted to marry you before — you’re greatly improved from the fat little girl I remember. But to judge by your face, you’d as soon marry the devil himself, and I have other plans, and so, I fancy, have you. No, provided everyone here acts like a sensible creature, we need not quarrel. And if it needs saying for your own comfort, Godith, I have no intention of setting the hounds on your champion’s trail, either. Why should I bear malice against an honest opponent? Especially now I’m sure he finds favour in your eyes.”

  He was laughing at her, and she knew it, and took warning. It was not even malicious laughter, though she found it an offence. It was triumphant, but it was also light,

  teasing, almost affectionate. She drew back a step; she even cast one appealing glance at Brother Cadfael, but he was sitting slumped and apparently apathetic, his eyes on the ground. She looked up again, and more attentively, at Hugh Beringar, whose black eyes dwelt upon her with dispassionate admiration.

  “I do believe,” she said slowly, wondering, “that you mean it.”

  “Try me! You came here to find horses for your journey. There they are! You may mount and ride as soon as you please, you and the young squire here. No one will follow you. No one else knows you’re here, only I and my men. But you’ll ride the faster and safer if you lighten your loads of all but the necessaries of life,” said Beringar sweetly. “That bundle Brother Cadfael is so negligently sitting on, as if he thought he’d found a convenient stone — that I’ll keep, by way of a memento of you, my sweet Godith, when you’re gone.”

  Godith had just enough self-control not to look again at Brother Cadfael when she heard this. She had enough to do keeping command of her own face, not to betray the lightning-stroke of understanding, and triumph, and laughter, and so, she knew, had Torold, a few paces behind her, and equally dazzled and enlightened. So that was why they had slung the saddlebags on the tree by the ford, a mile to the west, a mile on their way into Wales. This prize here they could surrender with joyful hearts, but never a glimmer of joy must show through to threaten the success. And now it lay with her to perfect the coup, and Brother Cadfael was leaving it to her. It was the greatest test she had ever faced, and it was vital to her self-esteem for ever. For this man fronting her was more than she had thought him, and suddenly it seemed that giving him up was almost as generous a gesture as this gesture of his, turning her loose to her happiness with another man and another cause, only distraining the small matter of gold for his pains. For two fine horses, and a free run into Wales! And a kind of blessing, too, secular but valued.

  “You mean that,” she said, not questioning, stating. “We may go!”

  “And quickly, if I dare advise. The night is not old yet, but it matures fast. And you have some way to go.”

  “I have mistaken you,” she said magnanimously. “I never knew you. You had a right to try for this prize. I hope you understand that we had also a right to fight for it. In a fair win and a fair defeat there should be no heartburning. Agreed?”

  “Agreed!” he said delightedly. “You are an opponent after my own heart, and I think your young squire had better take you hence, before I change my mind. As long as you leave the baggage…”

  “No help for it, it’s yours,” said Brother Cadfael, rising reluctantly from his seat on guard. “You won it fairly, what else can I say?”

  Beringar surveyed without disquiet the mound of sacking presented to view. He knew very well the shape of the hump Cadfael had carried here from Severn, he had no misgivings.

  “Go, then, and good speed! You have some hours of darkness yet.” And for the first time he looked at Torold, and took his time about studying him, for Torold had held his peace and let her have her head in circumstances he could not be expected to understand, and with admirable self-restraint. “I ask your pardon, I don’t know your name.”

  “My name is Torold Blund, a squire of FitzAlan’s.”

  “I’m sorry that we never knew each other. But not sorry that we never had ado in arms, I fear I should have met my overmatch.” But he was very sunny about it, having got his way, and he was not really much in awe of Torold’s longer reach, and greater height. “You take good care of your treasure, Torold, I’ll take care of mine.”

  Sobered and still, watching him with great eyes that still questioned, Godith said: “Kiss me and wish me well! As I do you!”

  “With all my heart!” said Beringar, and turned her face up between his hands, and kissed her soundly. The kiss lasted long, perhaps to provoke Torold, but Torold watched and was not dismayed. These could have been brother and sister saying a fond but untroubled farewell. “Now mount, and good speed!”

  She went first to Brother Cadfael, and asked his kiss also, with a frantic quiver in her voice and her face that no one else saw or heard, and that might have been of threatened tears, or of almost uncontrollable laughter, or of both together. The thanks she said to him and to the lay brothers were necessarily brief, being hampered by the same wild mixture of emotions. She had to escape quickly, before she betrayed herself. Torold went to hold her stirrup, but Brother Anselm hoisted her between his hands and set her lightly in the saddle. The stirrups were a little long for her, he bent to shorten them to her comfort, and then she saw him look up furtively and flash her a grin, and she knew that he, too, had fathomed what was going on, and shared her secret laughter. If he and his comrade had been let into the whole plot from the beginning, they might not have played their parts so convincingly; but they were very quick to pick up all the undercurrents.

  Torold mounted Beringar’s roan, and looked down from the saddle at the whole group within the stockade. The archers had unstrung their bows, and stood by looking on with idle interest and some amusement, while the third man opened the gate wide to let the travellers pass.

  “Brother Cadfael, everything I owe to you. I shall not forget.”

  “If there’s anything owing,” said Cadfael comfortably, “you can repay it to Godith. And see you mind your ways with her until you bring her safe to her father,” he added sternly. “She’s in your care as a sacred charge, beware of taking any advantage.”

  Torold’s smile flashed out brilliantly for an instant, and was gone; and the next moment so was Torold himself, and Godith after him, trotting out briskly through the open gate into the luminosity of the clearing, and thence into the shadowy spaces between the trees. They had but a little way to go to the wider path, and the ford of the brook, where the saddlebags waited. Cadfael stood listening to the soft thudding of hooves in the turf, and the occasional rustling of leafy branches, until all sounds melted into the night’s silence. When he stirred out of his attentive stillness, it was to find that every other soul there had been listening just as intently. They looked at one another, and for a moment had nothing to say.

  “If she comes to her father a virgin,” said Beringar then, “I’ll never stake on man or woman again.”

  “It’s my belief,” said Cadfael, drily, “she’ll come to her father a wife, and very proper, too. There are plenty of priests between here and Normandy. She’ll have more trouble persuading Torold he has the right to take her, unapproved, but she’ll have her own ways of convincing him.”

  “You know her better than I,” said Beringar. “I hardly knew the girl at all! A pity!” he added thoughtfully.

  “Yet I think you recognised her the first time you
ever saw her with me in the great court.”

  “Oh, by sight, yes — I was not sure then, but within a couple of days I was. She’s not so changed in looks, only fined into such a springy young fellow.” He caught Cadfael’s eye, and smiled. “Yes, I did come looking for her, but not to hand her over to any man’s use. Nor that I wanted her for myself, but she was, as you said, a sacred charge upon me. I owed it to the alliance others made for us to see her into safety.”

  “I trust,” said Cadfael, “that you have done so.”

  “I, too. And no hard feelings upon either side?”

  “None. And no revenges. The game is over.” He sounded, he realised suddenly, appropriately subdued and resigned, but it was only the pleasant weariness of relief.

  “Then you’ll ride back with me to the abbey, and keep me company on the way? I have two horses here. And these lads of mine have earned their sleep, and if your good brothers will give them house-room overnight, and feed them, they may make their way back at leisure tomorrow. To sweeten their welcome, there’s two flasks of wine in my saddlebags, and a pasty. I feared we might have a longer wait, though I was sure you’d come.”

  “I had a feeling,” said Brother Louis, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, “for all the sudden alarm, that there was no real mischief in the wind tonight. And for two flasks of wine and a pasty we’ll offer you beds with pleasure, and a game of tables if you’ve a mind for it. We get very little company here.”

  One of the archers led in from the night Beringar’s two remaining horses, the tail, rangy dapple-grey and the sturdy brown cob, and placidly lay brothers and men-at-arms together unloaded the food and drink, and at Beringar’s orders made the unwieldy, sacking-wrapped bundle secure on the dapple’s croup, well balanced and fastened with Brother Anselm’s leather straps, provided with quite another end in view. “Not that I wouldn’t trust it with you on the cob,” Beringar assured Cadfael, “but this great brute will never even notice the weight. And his rider needs a hard hand, for he has a hard mouth and a contrary will, and I’m used to him. To tell truth, I love him. I parted with two better worth keeping, but this hellion is my match, and I wouldn’t change him.”

  He could not better have expressed what Cadfael was thinking about him. This hellion is my match, and I wouldn’t change him! He did his own spying, he gave away generously two valuable horses to discharge his debt to a bride he never really wanted, and he went to all manner of patient, devious shifts to get the girl safe and well out of his path, and lay hand upon the treasury, which was fair game, as she was not. Well, well, we live and learn in the book of our fellowmen!

  They rode together, they two alone, by the same road as once before, and even more companionably than then. They went without haste, unwinding the longer way back, the way fitter for horses, the way they had first approached the grange. The night was warm, still and gentle, defying the stormy and ungentle times with its calm assertion of permanent stability.

  “I am afraid,” said Hugh Beringar with compunction, “you have missed Matins and Lauds, and the fault is mine. IfI had not delayed everything, you might have been back for midnight. You and I should share whatever penance is due.”

  “You and I,” said Cadfael cryptically, “share a penance already. Well, I could not wish for more stimulating company. We many compound my offence by riding at ease. It is not often a man gets such a night ride, and safely, and at peace.”

  Then they were silent for some way, and thought their own thoughts, but somewhere the threads tangled, for after a while Beringar said with assurance: “You will miss her.” It was said with brisk but genuine sympathy. He had, after all, been observing and learning for some days.

  “Like a fibre gone from my heart,” owned Brother Cadfael without dismay, “but there’ll be others will fill the place. She was a good girl, and a good lad, too, if you’ll grant me the fancy. Quick to study, and a hard worker. I hope she’ll make as good a wife. The young man’s a fair match for her. You saw he favoured one shoulder? One of the king’s archers did his best to slice the round of it off him, but with Godith’s care now he’ll do well enough. They’ll reach France.” And after a moment’s thought he asked, with candid curiosity: “What would you have done if any one of us had challenged your orders and made a fight of it?”

  Hugh Beringar laughed aloud. “I fancy I should have looked the world’s fool, for of course my men knew better than to shoot. But the bow is a mighty powerful persuader, and after all, an unchancy fellow like me mightbe in earnest. Why, you never thought I’d harm the girl?”

  Cadfael debated the wisdom of answering that truthfully as yet, and temporised: “if I ever thought of it, I soon realised I was wrong. They could have killed before ever Torold stepped between. No, I soon gave up that error.”

  “And it does not surprise you that I knew what you had brought to the grange, and what you came to fetch tonight?”

  “No revelation of your cunning can surprise me any longer,” said Cadfael. “I conclude that you followed me from the river the night I brought it. Also that you had procured me to help you place the horses there for a dual purpose, to encourage me to transfer the treasure from wherever it was hidden, and to make it possible for those youngsters to escape, while the gold stayed here. The right hand duelling against the left, that fits you well. Why were you so sure it would be tonight?”

  “Faith, if I’d been in your shoes I would have got them away with all the haste I could, at this favourable time, when search had been made and failed. You would have had to be a fool to let the chance slip. And as I have found long ago, you are no fool, Brother Cadfael.”

  “We have much in common,” agreed Cadfael gravely. “But once you knew that lump you’re carrying there was safe in the grange, why did you not simply remove it, and make sure of it? You could still have let the children depart without it, just as they’ve done now.”

  “And sleep in my bed while they rode away? And never make my peace with Godith, but let her go into France believing me her enemy, and capable of such meanness? No, that I could not stomach. I have my vanity. I wanted a clean end, and no grudges. I have my curiosity, too. I wanted to see this young fellow who had taken her fancy. The treasure was safe enough until you chose to get them away, why should I be uneasy about it? And this way was far more satisfying.”

  “That,” agreed Cadfael emphatically, “it certainly was.” They were at the edge of the forest, and the open road at Sutton, and were turning north towards St Giles, all in amicable ease, which seemed to surprise neither of them.

  “This time,” said Beringar, “we’ll ride in at the gate house like orderly members of the household, even if the time is a little unusual. And if you have no objection, we may as well take this straight to your hut in the garden, and sit out the rest of the night, and see what we have here. I should like to see how Godith has been living in your care, and what skills she’s been acquiring. I wonder how far they’ll be by now?”

  “Halfway to Pool, or beyond. Most of the way it’s a good road. Yes, come and see for yourself. You went enquiring for her in the town, did you not? At Edric Flesher’s. Petronilla had the worst opinion of your motives.”

  “She would,” agreed Beringar, laughing. “No one would ever have been good enough for her chick, she hated me from the start. Ah, well, you’ll be able to put her mind at rest now.”

  They had reached the silent Abbey Foregate, and rode between the darkened houses, the ring of hooves eerie in the stillness. A few uneasy inhabitants opened their shutters a crack to look out as they passed, but their appearance -was so leisured and peaceful that no one could suspect them of harmful intent. The wary citizens went back to bed reassured. Over the high, enclosing wail the great church loomed on their left hand, and the narrow opening of the wicket showed in the dark bulk of the gate. The porter was a lay brother, a little surprised at being roused to let in two horsemen at such an hour, but satisfied, on recognising both of them, that they must have been employed
on some legitimate errand, no great marvel in such troublous times. He was incurious and sleepy, and did not wait to see them cross to the stables, where they tended their horses first, as good grooms should, before repairing to the garden hut with their load.

  Beringar grimaced when he hoisted it. “You carried this on your back all that way?” he demanded with raised brows.

  “I did,” said Cadfael truthfully, “and you witnessed it.”

  “Then I call that a noble effort. You would not care to shoulder it again these few paces?”

  “I could not presume,” said Cadfael. “It’s in your charge now.”

  “I was afraid of that!” But he was in high good humour, having fulfilled his idea of himself, made his justification in Godith’s eyes, and won the prize he wanted; and he had more sinew in his slenderness than anyone would have thought, for he lifted and carried the weight lightly enough the short way to the herbarium.

  “I have flint and tinder here somewhere,” said Cadfael, going first into the hut. “Wait till I make you a light, there are breakables all round us here.” He found his box, and struck sparks into the coil of charred cloth, and lit the floating wick in his little dish of oil. The flame caught and steadied, and drew tall and still, shedding a gentle light on all the strange shapes of mortars and flasks and bottles, and the bunches of drying herbs that made the air aromatic.

  “You are an alchemist,” said Beringar, impressed and charmed. “I am not sure you are not a wizard.” He set down his load in the middle of the floor, and looked about him with interest. “This is where she spent her nights?” He had observed the bed, still rumpled from Torold’s spasmodic and unquiet sleep. “You did this for her. You must have found her out the very first day.”