Leper of Saint Giles Page 8

  And who knows?… Who knows? With Iveta’s prayers on my side, and all the weight of my grudge into the bargain—for he has dealt foully by me!—who knows but I might prevail? Then, even if they wrung my neck for his lying charge, she would be delivered.

  To be honest, he did not think much of that conclusion, and not all for his own sake. For Iveta needed to be delivered not only from this detestable match, but from the guardian who preyed on her and her inheritance like murderous ivy on an oak, and would sell her to the next compliant bidder as nimbly as to this one. But even delay was salvation. Things could change. Picard could die. Only fend off tomorrow!

  If he was to accomplish anything he must get out of here, and somehow make his way in hiding back to the abbey, where all must be enacted. No hope at all by the Foregate, the road would be patrolled, the gatehouse and the parish door guarded, so much was certain. On every side but one the abbey grounds were surrounded by a high boundary wall. The remaining side was bordered by the Meole brook, no mean water hemming the gardens, but fordable or swimmable. Waters were no threat to Joscelin. If he could get across the Foregate, he could make his way down into the valley, and so back beyond the brook to the abbey precincts. There were copses and coverts there for shelter. And it was downstream the sheriff would be hunting him first.

  He turned, rustling, in his bed of hay, sneezed at the tickling of dust in his nostrils, and hastily smothered the sneeze. A fine object he must look to confront and blaze defiance at a baron of the realm, but it was the only hope he had. And to retain it even as a hope he must get out of here and across the Foregate into the valley while it was still night. With a rueful obeisance in the direction of Simon, who had wished him well, and wanted him to He here like a hare in its form until danger passed.

  He had no means of knowing the hour, but when he eased open the door of the hut, and looked out into the garden, the darkness was hearteningly deep. The dead silence was less pleasing; a breeze in the bushes would have covered a chance footstep. And once he was out of the shelter of the high walls even the darkness grew faintly luminous. But it was now or never, and everything seemed still and silent. He lifted the bar of the wicket door and slipped through, and began to make his way by touch of the wall round the bishop’s garden enclosure. A narrow belt of trees and a footpath separated the house from its neighbor, and brought him to the edge of the Foregate. He paused there to listen, and found all still. But by the degree of faint light he now found over the open roadway, it must be nearer dawn than he would have liked. Better make haste.

  He made a dash for it across the open, light on his feet for all his size, and was almost into the grass on the further side when a stone rolled under his foot with a brief, grating sound. Somewhere along the Foregate, towards the town, a voice exclaimed aloud, another answered with a muted shout, and feet began to run in his direction. There were guards still patrolling the roads out of the town. Joscelin darted onward, down the steep slope of grass towards the mill stream, and checked and dived into the cover of the bushes as he caught an echoing shout from below him. That way, too, was stopped. Two of the roving pickets between the roads were down there ahead of him, and climbing towards him now in a hurry.

  He had not yet been sighted by any of them, but there was only one hope, and that was to put as much space as possible between himself and pursuit as quickly as possible, and that meant by the road, where he could hope to show fleeter than the hunters. He scrambled back in haste and took to the grassy rim of the road, running like a deer towards Saint Giles. Behind him he heard those below in the valley calling to their companions, heard the answering shout: “The thief’s abroad! Come up!”

  The two on the road came pounding after, but he had a good start of them, and was confident he could outrun them and find a place to go to earth, short of the guard-post that would certainly be stationed on every road. But the next moment he heard a sound that chilled his blood, the sudden clatter of hooves emerging from grass onto a hard roadway. The two patrols from the valley were mounted.

  “After him! He’s for the open, ride him down!” bellowed one of the runners.

  And here they came at a canter, and these he could not hope to outrun, nor to evade the four of them for long if he turned from the road here. He reached Saint Giles, running frantically, and looking about him wildly for any hiding-place, and finding none. On his left the slope of grass rose to the wattle fence and the cemetery wall. Behind him the pursuit grew triumphantly vocal, though not yet close. The curve of the road had cut him off from their view.

  Out of the darkness along the wall an unexpected voice, low but peremptory, called: “Come! Quickly!”

  Joscelin swung towards the invitation instinctively, panting, and half-fell up the grassy slope and into the grasp of a long arm held out to him. A lean, tall figure in a voluminous dark cloak had risen from the ground and was ripping a hasty tunnel open in the stack of drying herbage in the angle of the wall. “Here!” said the voice featureless as the face. “Hide here!”

  Joscelin plunged head-first into the heap, and drew it about him frantically. He felt the old man resume his seat on the ground, spread his cloak again, and lean well back against the stack, felt the long spine erect and bony through cloak and gown and grass. Certainly old, certainly a man. The lowered voice might have belonged to either, muffled as it was, but the shoulders pressed well back against him were wide as his own. One hand reached back to grip his knee through the rustling stems, and enjoin stillness, and he froze in instant obedience. The man masking him had a special stillness of his own, a calm that eased Joscelin’s heart and mind by its benevolent contagion.

  They were coming. He heard the hoofbeats draw close, heard the foremost horse abruptly pulled up on its haunches, feet sliding on the gravel. He thought that the watcher by the wall had been seen; there was pre-dawn light enough for that, and they had a straight stretch of road ahead of them, and certainly empty. He heard one man dismount, and held his breath in the certainty that he was about to climb the slope.

  “Unclean!” called the old man warningly, and clashed the clapper of his dish loudly against the wooden rim. There was wary stillness. The climber had taken heed.

  Down the road the second man laughed. “He’d need to be mad to exchange even a gaol for a lazarhouse.” He raised his voice; the old and diseased must also be hard of hearing. “Hark, you, fellow! We’re on the heels of a wretch who’s wanted for thieving. He was headed this way. Have you seen him?”

  “No,” said the old man. His voice, besides being muffled behind a veil, was slow in articulation, as if speech gave him trouble; but with labor and patience the words emerged clearly. “I’ve seen no thief.”

  “How long have you been sitting there? Have you seen any man pass by here?”

  “The night long,” said the arduous voice. “And no one has passed by.”

  By the sound of it the two on foot had arrived by this time, out of breath. The four conferred in low tones. “He must have slipped aside into the trees and turned back,” said one. “Turn and take the right of the road. We’ll ride on to the barrier and make sure he’s not wormed his way ahead in cover, and then come back and take the left side.”

  The horses stirred and stamped again, and trotted ahead. The two on foot must have turned back to retrace their steps among the trees, beating the bushes for their quarry as they went. There fell a long silence, which Joscelin was afraid to break.

  “Stretch out and be easy,” said the old man at last, without turning his head. “We cannot move yet.”

  “I have an errand I must do,” said Joscelin, leaning close to the hooded ear to be heard. “For this respite God knows I thank you with all my heart, but I must somehow get to the abbey before daylight, or this liberty you’ve kept for me will not be worth keeping. I have a thing I must do there, for someone else’s sake.”

  “What is that thing?” asked the old man equably.

  “To prevent, if I can, this marriage they’re mak
ing today.”

  “Ah!” said the patient, deliberate voice. “Wherefore? And by what means? You may not stir yet, they will be back, and they will look this way and must see all as before. An old leper who has preferred a night under the stars to the cover of a roof—nothing more.” The grass rustled; it might have been the very slight stir of a sigh. “You understood what passed there? Are you afraid of leprosy, boy?”

  “No,” said Joscelin, and wavered and reconsidered. “Yes! I was, or I thought I was. I hardly know. I know I am more afraid of failing in what I must do.”

  “We have time,” said the old man. “If you are willing to tell me, I am listening.”

  Only to such a one, chance met and instantly trusted, could Joscelin have poured out the whole load that weighed on his heart. Suddenly it seemed the most natural thing possible that he should confide without restraint, keep nothing back of his indignant love, the wrong done him, and the greater wrongs done to Iveta. In the middle of his narration the controlling hand pressed his knee for silence and stillness, as the two mounted men passed by again towards the town. And when they were gone, the last echo of hooves lost along the road, he resumed as if the thread had never been broken.

  “And you have planned to hide yourself somewhere about the cloister,” mused the old man, at the end of it, “and burst forth to challenge your sometime lord to single combat, and so affront him that he shall not be able to deny you and keep his face?”

  “It is the only way I can see,” said Joscelin, though put in such clear terms, he did not think too well of its chances.

  “Then be in no haste about it,” said Lazarus, “until daylight comes, for a clapper-dish and a hood and veil can make you faceless and nameless as well as another. One thing I can tell you. Huon de Domville did not lie in his bed this night. He rode out beyond here, turning right from this road, and I have been here every moment since, and unless he knows of another way back, he has not returned. I think he must ride back by the same way he rode out, and until he passes this place, no bridegroom will present himself at the altar. Between us, you and I can make shift to watch for him. If he comes! But how if he never comes?”

  *

  It was the strangest night Joscelin had ever passed, and the strangest dawn. Faint mist came with the light, and the rising sun peered through it overhead, while it lay in great swathes in the valley beyond the road. But no Huon de Domville came trotting back towards the bishop’s house.

  “Stay in hiding,” said Lazarus at length, “until I come back.” And he rose and went into the hospice, to return presently with a hooded cloak like his own, and a blue linen cloth for a veil. “You may creep out and put them on. If you are not afraid to wear the habit of a dead man? He is in the cemetery there. When they come to die here, they leave such clothing behind, there’s store enough within. The linen they burn, the habits they clean as best they can. A big man he must have been, you’ll find it ample enough.”

  Joscelin did all that he was bidden, like a child, or a man in so unpredictable a dream that he must rely on his guide. In such a state it no longer seemed strange that he should open his heart to a leper, accept the protection of the leper cloak, and let himself be led into the hospital where the unfortunates were housed, without conscious fear or revulsion. This was the hand that had been held out to him, and he gripped it warmly and gratefully. He did not even ask how he should pass among the inmates. Surely their number must be known, and he was too large to escape notice. Whether Lazarus had already spoken a word in several ears, or whether the poor know by instinct when one of their fellows is in need, and deploy their movements so subtly as to contain and dissemble him, all those men and women mustered about Joscelin and hid him among them as they assembled in the church for Prime.

  Round about him he saw all manner of maimings and disfigurements, and found himself possessed unexpectedly by an overwhelming and unaccustomed humility. Not for a long time had he paid such devout attention to the words of the office, or felt himself so truly drawn into a company at worship.

  As for the watch on the road, outside, Lazarus had confided it to the little boy Bran, who knew very well the appearance of the man for whom he was to watch. All was being done for Joscelin by others, and as at this moment there was no resistance he could offer, and no repayment he could make, but to bow his head fervently among the rest and give profound thanks for present mercies. And so he did.

  Chapter 5

  THEY HAD ROUSED IVETA EARLY, for she had an elaborate toilet to make. Agnes and Madlen bathed, dressed and adorned her, swept up the gold mane of her hair in a dozen shining braids, coiled it in a filigree net, and bound it in a gold circlet stuck with stones. From the coronal a veil of gilt thread hung round neck and shoulders, over the stiff gold broidery of her gown. She submitted to all with a mute tongue and an icy face, so pale that her ivory ornaments looked dun by comparison. She turned obediently under their hands, bent her head as they instructed, did all that was demanded of her. When she was ready they stood her in the midst of the chamber, posed like a gowned statue for a saint’s niche, every fold of her dress coaxed out to perfection, and ordered her not to move, for fear of creasing her splendor. She stood as they had placed her and made no complaint, all the time that they were adorning themselves no less splendidly.

  Her uncle came, walked round her with narrowed eyes and critical grimace, twitched the folds of her veil into more severe symmetry, and expressed himself satisfied. Canon Eudo came, smooth and sanctimonious, complimented her not so much on her beauty or appropriate grandeur as on her great good fortune in this match, and the gratitude she owed her guardians for achieving it for her. The guests came, admired, envied, and went to take their places in the church.

  At the hour of ten, on other days earmarked for High Mass, her attendants formed at her back, and she was led forth into the main porch of the guest-hall on Picard’s arm, ready to go forth to meet her bridegroom when he came.

  There was only one thing amiss with the scrupulous arrangements, which up to this moment had worked to perfection. The bridegroom did not come.

  *

  No one, not even Picard, ventured to murmur or look askance for the first ten minutes. Huon de Domville was a law to himself, and though this marriage was certainly profitable to him, he regarded it as a condescension on his part. It was ungracious to come late, but no one doubted that he would come. But when ten more minutes had slipped away, and still no formal procession entered at the gatehouse, and no hoofbeats were heard along the Foregate, there began to be a shifting and murmuring, an uneasy shuffling of feet and then a whispering. Iveta stood in the forefront, and awoke out of her frost to the shivering of doubt all around her, and drew breath in wonder. She gave no sign, only the blood began to stir again in her face, and flush into her set lips, softening them into rose-leaves.

  Canon Eudo came floating elegantly from the church, but all his graces could not conceal his agitation. He spoke in low tones with Picard, whose brow was growing black and knotted with anxiety. Cadfael, coming late and in haste from the garden to take his place among the brothers, looked only at the bride, and could not take his eyes from the tiny golden doll they had made of her, not a thread of it real but the small, chill face melting among the gilt, and the quickening spark deep in her iris-purple eyes, making its live way up out of drowning fathoms to the light of day.

  She was among the first to catch the hurried clatter of hooves along the Foregate. She turned her eyes without daring to turn her head, as Simon Aguilon, in all his wedding finery, rode into the gateway, dropped his bridle into the porter’s hand, and swung hastily down to stride across the great court to the door of the guest-hall, in evident agitation.

  “My lord, I pray your pardon! Things have somehow gone amiss, we don’t know how…” He drew in Canon Eudo, the three heads leaned close, and Agnes hovered with pricked ears and drawn brows. The voices spilled abroad, none the less. Both abbot and prior had emerged from the church, and stood at a
dignified distance, in contained displeasure. They could not long be ignored.

  “Last night, when we left here to return home—I do his bidding, I do not question, how could I? He said to me that he had a fancy to ride a while, and I should go in, and bid the household go to bed, for he wanted no service that night, nor until he should say the word this morning. And so I did! What else? I thought he would be there asleep this morn, when his chamberlain looked in on him. I slept late myself. They shook me awake a good half-hour past Prime, and said he was not in his bed—nor had been, all night long, for the bed was not pressed.” The young man’s voice had risen, all those crowding in could hear. They were silent enough, all intent on that knot of consternation in the midst.

  “Father Abbot,” Simon turned to him with a hasty reverence, “we are greatly afraid that something must have happened to my lord. He has not been home all night, since he sent me in and dismissed all attendance. And very surely he would not be absent or late here, had he his freedom and health to keep the tryst. I fear he may have come by an injury, somehow—a fall, perhaps…. Night riding is risky, but he had a fancy for it. It wants only a crippling stone in a hoof, or a fox’s earth…”

  “He left you at the gate of the house?” asked Radulfus. “And rode on?”

  “Yes, towards Saint Giles. But I do not know which way he took, after that, or where he was bound, if indeed he had some purpose in mind. He told me nothing.”

  “It would be a first step,” said Radulfus drily, “to send out along that road for sign or word of him.”

  “So we have done, Father, but vainly. The superior at the hospital has seen nothing of him, and we have ridden further along the road without result. Before taking it further I had, of courtesy, to bring word here. But I have spoken to one of the sheriff’s sergeants, who was out with a patrol beating the woodlands for the prisoner they lost, and his men will be keeping watch also for any sign of my lord Domville. He has sent a man to tell the sheriff what has happened. Father, you will understand that I dared not be too quick to raise an alarm or question anything my lord does, but I think now it is time there should be a full search for him. He may be lying somewhere hurt and unable to rise.”