The Hermit of Eyton Forest Read online

  “I do not, but you are about to astonish me.”

  “I doubt if I am. That is Master Richard Ludel, the new lord of Eaton. Though plainly,” said Cadfael, wryly contemplating shadowed innocence, “he does not yet know it.”

  *

  Richard was sitting cross-legged on the grassy bank above the mill-pond, thoughtfully nibbling out the last shreds of white flesh from round his apple core, when one of the novices came looking for him.

  “Brother Paul wants you,” announced the messenger, with the austerely complacent face of one aware of his own virtue, and delivering a probably ominous summons to another. “He’s in the parlour. You’d best hurry.”

  “Me?” said Richard, round-eyed, looking up from his enjoyment of the stolen apple. No one had any great cause to be afraid of Brother Paul, the master of the novices and the children, who was the gentlest and most patient of men, but even a reproof from him was to be evaded if possible. “What does he want me for?”

  “You should best know that,” said the novice, with mildly malicious intent. “It was not likely he’d tell me. Go and find out for yourself, if you truly have no notion.”

  Richard committed his denuded core to the pond, and rose slowly from the grass. “In the parlour, you say?” The use of so private and ceremonial a place argued something grave, and though he was unaware of any but the most venial of misdeeds that could be laid to his account during the past weeks, it behoved him to be wary. He went off slowly and thoughtfully, trailing his bare feet in the coolness of the grass, deliberately scuffing hard little soles along the cobbles of the court, and duly presented himself in the small, dim parlour, where visitors from the outside world might occasionally talk in private with their cloistered sons.

  Brother Paul was standing with his back to the single window, rendering the small room even dimmer than it need have been. The straight, close-shorn ring of hair round his polished crown was still black and thick at fifty, and he habitually stood, as indeed he also sat, stooped a little forward, from so many years of dealing with creatures half his size, and desiring to reassure them rather than awe them with his stature and bearing. A kindly, scholarly, indulgent man, but a good teacher for all that, and one who could keep his chicks in order without having to keep them in terror. The oldest remaining oblatus, given to God when he was five years old, and now approaching fifteen and his novitiate, told awful stories of Brother Paul’s predecessor, who had ruled with the rod, and been possessed of an eye that could freeze the blood.

  Richard made his small obligatory obeisance, and stood squarely before his master, lifting to the light an impenetrable countenance, lit by two blue-green eyes of radiant innocence. A thin, active child, small for his years but agile and supple as a cat, with a thick, curly crest of light brown hair, and a band of golden freckles over both cheekbones and the bridge of his neat, straight nose. He stood with feet braced sturdily apart, toes gripping the floorboards, and stared up into Brother Paul’s face, dutiful and guileless. Paul was well acquainted with that unblinking gaze.

  “Richard,” he said gently, “come, sit down with me. I have something I must tell you.”

  That in itself was enough to discount one slight childish unease, only to replace it with another and graver, for the tone was so considerate and indulgent as to prophesy the need for comfort. But what Richard’s sudden flickering frown expressed was simple bewilderment. He allowed himself to be drawn to the bench and seated there within the circle of Brother Paul’s arm, bare toes just touching the floor, and braced there hard. He could be prepared for scolding, but here was surely something for which he was not prepared, and had no idea how to confront.

  “You know that your father fought at Lincoln for the king, and was wounded? And that he has since been in poor health.” Secure in robust, well-fed and well-tended youth, Richard hardly knew what poor health might be, except that it was something that happened to the old. But he said: “Yes, Brother Paul!” in a small, accommodating voice, since it was expected of him.

  “Your grandmother sent a groom to the lord sheriff this morning. He has brought a sad message, Richard. Your father has made his last confession and received his Saviour. He is dead, my child. You are his heir, and you must be worthy of him. In life and in death,” said Brother Paul, “he is in the hand of God. So are we all.”

  The look of thoughtful bewilderment had not changed. Richard’s toes shoved hard against the floor, and his hands gripped the edge of the bench on which he was perched.

  “My father is dead?” he repeated carefully.

  “Yes, Richard. Soon or late, it touches us all. Every son must one day step into his father’s place and take up his father’s duties.”

  “Then I shall be the lord of Eaton now?”

  Brother Paul did not make the mistake of taking this for a simple expression of self-congratulation on a personal gain, rather as an intelligent acceptance of what he himself had just said. The heir must take up the burden and the privilege his sire had laid down.

  “Yes, you are the lord of Eaton, or you will be as soon as you are of fit age. You must study to get wisdom, and manage your lands and people well. Your father would expect that of you.”

  Still struggling with the practicalities of his new situation, Richard probed back into his memory for a clear vision of this father who was now challenging him to be worthy. In his rare recent visits home at Christmas and Easter he had been admitted on arrival and departure to a sick-room that smelled of herbs and premature aging, and allowed to kiss a grey, austere face and listen to a deep voice, indifferent with weakness, calling him son and exhorting him to study and be virtuous. But there was little more, and even the face had grown dim in his memory. Of what he did remember he went in awe. They had never been close enough for anything more intimate.

  “You loved your father, and did your best to please him, did you not, Richard?” Brother Paul prompted gently. “You must still do what is pleasing to him. And you may say prayers for his soul, which will be a comfort also to you.”

  “Shall I have to go home now?” asked Richard, whose mind was on the need for information rather than comfort.

  “To your father’s burial, certainly. But not to remain there, not yet. It was your father’s wish that you should learn to read and write, and be properly instructed in figures. And you’re young yet, your steward will take good care of your manor until you come to manhood.”

  “My grandmother,” said Richard by way of explanation, “sees no sense in my learning my letters. She was angry when my father sent me here. She says a lettered clerk is all any manor needs, and books are no fit employment for a nobleman.”

  “Surely she will comply with your father’s wishes. All the more is that a sacred trust, now that he is dead.”

  Richard jutted a doubtful lip. “But my grandmother has other plans for me. She wants to marry me to our neighbour’s daughter, because Hiltrude has no brother, and will be the heiress to both Leighton and Wroxeter. Grandmother will want that more than ever now,” said Richard simply, and looked up ingenuously into Brother Paul’s slightly startled face.

  It took a few moments to assimilate this news, and relate it to the boy’s entry into the abbey school when he was barely five years old. The manors of Leighton and Wroxeter lay one on either side of Eaton, and might well be a tempting prospect, but plainly Richard Ludel had not concurred in his mother’s ambitious plans for her grandson, since he had taken steps to place the boy out of the lady’s reach, and a year later had made Abbot Radulfus Richard’s guardian, should he himself have to relinquish the charge too soon. Father Abbot had better know what’s in the wind, thought Brother Paul. For of such a misuse of his ward, thus almost in infancy, he would certainly not approve.

  Very warily he said, fronting the boy’s unwavering stare with a grave face: “Your father said nothing of what his plans for you might be, some day when you are fully grown. Such matters must wait their proper time, and that is not yet. You need not troubl
e your head about any such match for years yet. You are in Father Abbot’s charge, and he will do what is best for you.” And he added cautiously, giving way to natural human curiosity: “Do you know this child—this neighbour’s daughter?”

  “She isn’t a child,” Richard stated scornfully. “She’s quite old. She was betrothed once, but her bridegroom died. My grandmother was pleased, because after waiting some years for him, Hiltrude wouldn’t have many suitors, not being even pretty, so she would be left for me.”

  Brother Paul’s blood chilled at the implications. “Quite old” probably meant no more than a few years past twenty, but even that was an unacceptable difference. Such marriages, of course, were a commonplace, where there was property and land to be won, but they were certainly not to be encouraged. Abbot Radulfus had long had qualms of conscience about accepting infants committed by their fathers to the cloister, and had resolved to admit no more boys until they were of an age to make the choice for themselves. He would certainly look no more favourably on committing a child to the equally grave and binding discipline of matrimony.

  “Well, you may put all such matters out of your mind,” he said very firmly. “Your only concern now and for some years to come must be with your lessons and the pastimes proper to your years. Now you may go back to your fellows, if you wish, or stay here quietly for a while, as you prefer.”

  Richard slid out of the supporting arm readily and stood up sturdily from the bench, willing to face the world and his curious fellow pupils at once, and seeing no reason why he should shun the meeting even for a moment. He had yet to comprehend the thing that had happened to him. The fact he could grasp, the implications were slow to reach beyond his intelligence into his heart.

  “If there is anything more you wish to ask,” said Brother Paul, eyeing him anxiously, “or if you feel the need for comfort or counsel, come back to me, and we’ll go to Father Abbot. He is wiser than I, and abler to help you through this time.”

  So he might be, but a boy in school was hardly likely to submit himself voluntarily to an interview with so awesome a personage. Richard’s solemn face had settled into the brooding frown of one making his way through unfamiliar and thorny paths. He made his parting reverence and went out briskly enough, and Brother Paul, having watched him out of sight from the window, and seen no signs of imminent distress, went to report to the abbot what Dame Dionisia Ludel was said to be planning for her grandson.

  Radulfus heard him out with alert attention and a thoughtful frown. To unite Eaton with both its neighbouring manors was an understandable ambition. The resulting property would be a power in the shire, and no doubt the formidable lady considered herself more than capable of ruling it, over the heads of bride, bride’s father and infant bridegroom. Land greed was a strong driving force, and children were possessions expendable for so desirable a profit.

  “But we trouble needlessly,” said Radulfus, shaking the matter resolutely from his shoulders. “The boy is in my care, and here he stays. Whatever she may intend, she will not be able to touch him. We can forget the matter. She is no threat to Richard or to us.”

  Wise as he might be, this was one occasion when Abbot Radulfus was to find his predictions going far astray.

  Chapter 2

  THEY WERE ALL AT CHAPTER, on the twentieth morning of October, when the steward of the manor of Eaton presented himself, requesting a hearing with a message from his mistress.

  John of Longwood was a burly, bearded man of fifty, with a balding crown and neat, deliberate movements. He made a respectful obeisance to the abbot, and delivered his errand bluntly and practically, as one performing a duty but without committing himself to approval or disapproval.

  “My lord, Dame Dionisia Ludel sends me to you with her devout greetings, and asks that you will send back to her, in my charge, her grandson Richard, to take up his rightful place as lord of the manor of Eaton in his father’s room.”

  Abbot Radulfus leaned back in his stall and regarded the messenger with an impassive face. “Certainly Richard shall attend his father’s funeral. When is that to be?”

  “Tomorrow, my lord, before High Mass. But that is not my mistress’s meaning. She wants the young lord to leave his studies here and come to take his proper place as lord of Eaton. I’m to say that Dame Dionisia feels herself to be the proper person to have charge of him, now that he’s come into his inheritance, as she’s assured he shall do, without delay or hindrance. I have orders to bring him back with me.”

  “I fear, master steward,” said the abbot with deliberation, “that you may not be able to carry out your orders. Richard Ludel committed the care of his son to me, should he himself die before the boy came to manhood. It was his wish that his son should be properly educated, the better to manage his estate when he came to inherit. I intend to fulfil what I undertook. Richard remains in my care until he comes of age and takes control of his own affairs. Until which time, I am sure, you will serve him as well as you have served his father, and keep his lands in good heart.”

  “Very surely I will, my lord,” said John of Longwood, with more warmth than he had shown in delivering his mistress’s message. “My lord Richard has left all to me since Lincoln, and he never had cause to find fault, and neither shall his son ever be the loser by me. On that you may rely.”

  “So I do. And therefore we may continue here with easy minds, and take as good care of Richard’s schooling and wellbeing as you do of his estates.”

  “And what reply am I to take back to Dame Dionisia?” asked John, without any apparent disappointment or reluctance.

  “Say to your lady that I greet her reverently in Christ, and that Richard shall come tomorrow, as is due, properly escorted,” said the abbot with a slightly admonitory emphasis, “but that I have his father’s sacred charge to hold him in wardship myself until he is a man, and by his father’s wishes I shall abide.”

  “I will say so, my lord,” said John with a straight, wide stare and a deep reverence, and walked jauntily out of the chapterhouse.

  Brother Cadfael and Brother Edmund the infirmarer emerged into the great court just in time to see the messenger from Eaton mount his stocky Welsh cob at the gatehouse and ride unhurriedly out into the Foregate.

  “There goes a man, unless I’m much mistaken,” remarked Brother Cadfael sagely, “no way seriously displeased at taking back a flat refusal. Nor at all afraid of delivering it. A man might almost think he’ll savour the moment.”

  “He is not dependent on the dame’s good will,” said Brother Edmund. “Only the sheriff as overlord can threaten his tenure, until the boy is his own master, and John knows his worth. And so does she, for that matter, having a shrewd head and proper appreciation of good management. For the sake of peace he’ll do her bidding, he does not have to relish the task, only to keep his mouth shut.”

  And John of Longwood was a man of few words at the best of times, it would probably be no hardship to him to contain his dissent and keep a wooden face.

  “But this will not be the end of it,” Cadfael warned. “If she has a greedy eye on Wroxeter and Leighton she’ll not give up so easily, and the boy’s her only means of getting her hands on them. We shall yet hear more from Dame Dionisia Ludel.”

  *

  Abbot Radulfus had taken the warning seriously. Young Richard was accompanied to Eaton by Brother Paul, Brother Anselm and Brother Cadfael, a bodyguard stout enough to fend off even an attempt at abduction by force, which was unlikely in the extreme. Far more probable that the lady would try using the fond persuasions of affection and the ties of blood to work upon the boy with tears and blandishments, and turn him into a homesick ally in the enemy camp. If she had any such ideas, Cadfael reflected, studying Richard’s face along the way, she was under-estimating the innocent shrewdness of children. The boy was quite capable of weighing up his own interests and making the most of what advantages he had. He was happy enough at school, he had companions of his own age, he would not lightly abandon a kn
own and pleasant life for one as yet strange, devoid of brothers, and threatened with a bride already old in his eyes. No doubt he valued and longed for his inheritance, but his it was, and safe, and whether he stayed at school or came home, he would not yet be allowed to rule it as he wished. No, it would take more than grandmotherly tears and embraces to secure Richard’s alliance, especially tears and embraces from a source never before known to be demonstratively fond.

  It was a matter of seven miles or more from the abbey to the manor of Eaton, and for the honour and dignity of the monastery of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in attendance on so solemn an occasion, they were sent forth mounted. Dame Dionisia had sent a groom with a stout Welsh pony for her grandson, perhaps as a first move in a campaign to enlist him as her ally, and the gift had been received with greedy pleasure, but it would not therefore necessarily produce a return in kind. A gift is a gift, and children are shrewd enough, and have a sharp enough perception of the motives of their elders, to take what is offered unsolicited, without the least intention of paying for it in the fashion expected of them. Richard sat his new pony proudly and happily, and in the fine, dewy autumn morning and the pleasure of being loosed from school for the day, almost forgot the sombre reason for the ride. The groom, a long-legged boy of sixteen, loped cheerfully beside him, and led the pony as they splashed through the ford at Wroxeter, where centuries back the Romans had crossed the Severn before them. Nothing remained of their sojourn now but a gaunt, broken wall standing russet against the green fields, and a scattering of stones long ago plundered by the villagers for their own building purposes. In the place of what some said had been a city and a fortress there was now a flourishing manor blessed with fat, productive land, and a prosperous church that maintained four canons.