The Hermit of Eyton Forest

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 risk.”

“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.”

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!”

On that promise they parted, Hugh riding on to the castle to receive whatever news the watch might have for him thus late in the afternoon, Cadfael moving on through the village towards the edge of the woodland. He was in no hurry. He had much to think about. Strange how the very act of admitting that the worst was possible had so instantly strengthened his conviction that it had not happened and would not happen. Stranger still that as soon as he had stated truthfully that he knew nothing of Hyacinth, and had barely spoken a word to him, he should find himself so strongly persuaded that very soon that lack might be supplied, and he would learn, if not everything, all that he needed to know.

Eilmund had regained his healthy colour, welcomed company eagerly, and could not be restrained from trying out his crutches at once. Four or five days cooped up indoors was a sore test of his temper, but the relief of being able to hurple vigorously out into the garden, and finding himself a fast learner in the art of using his new legs, brought immediate sunny weather with him. When he had satisfied himself of his competence, he sat down willingly, at Annet’s orders, to share a supper with Cadfael.

“Though by rights I ought to be getting back,” said Cadfael, “now I know how well you’re doing. The bone seems to be knitting straight and true as a lance, and you’ll not need me here harrying you every day. And speaking of inconvenient visitors, have you had Hugh Beringar or his men here today searching the woods around? You’ll have heard before now they’re hunting Cuthred’s boy Hyacinth for suspicion of killing his master? And there’s young Richard missing, too.”

“We heard of the both only last night,” said Eilmund. “Yes, they were here this morning, a long line of the garrison men working their way along every yard of the forest between road and river. They even looked in my byre and henhouse. Will Warden grumbled himself it was needless folly, but he had his orders. Why waste time, he says, aggravating a good fellow we all know to be honest, but it’s as much as my skin’s worth to leave out a single hut or let my beaters pass by a solitary bush, with his lordship’s sharp eye on us all. Do you know, have they found the child?”

“No, not yet. He’s not at Eaton, that’s certain. If it’s any comfort, Eilmund, Dame Dionisia had to open her doors to the search, too. Noble and simple, they’ll all fare alike.”

Annet waited upon them in silence, bringing cheese and bread to the table. Her step was as light as always, her face as calm, only at the mention of Richard did her face cloud over in anxious sympathy. There was no knowing what went on behind her composed face, but Cadfael hazarded his own guesses. He took his leave in good time, against Eilmund’s hospitable urgings. “I’ve been missing too many services, these last days, I’d best get back to my duty, and at least put in an appearance for Compline tonight. I’ll come in and see you the day after tomorrow. You take care how you go. And, Annet, don’t let him stay on his feet too long. If he gives you trouble, take his props away from him.”

She laughed and said that she would, but her mind, Cadfael thought, was only half on what she said, and she had not made any move to second her father’s protest at such an early departure. Nor did she come out to the gate with him this time, but only as far as the door, and there stood to watch him mount, and waved when he looked back before beginning to thread the narrow path between the trees. Only when he had vanished did she turn and go back into the cottage. Cadfael did not go far. A few hundred yards into the woods there was a hollow of green surrounded by a deep thicket, and there he dismounted and tethered his horse, and made his way back very quietly and circumspectly to a place from which he could see the house door without himself being seen. The light was dimming gently into the soft green of dusk, and the hush was profound, only the last birdsong broke the forest silence.

In a few minutes Annet came out to the door again, and stood for a little while braced and still, her head alertly reared, looking all round the clearing and listening intently. Then, satisfied, she set off briskly out of the fenced garden and round to the rear of the cottage. Cadfael circled with her in the cover of the trees. Her hens were already securely shut in for the night, the cow was in the byre; from these customary evening tasks Annet had come back a good hour ago, while her father was trying out his crutches in the grassy levels of the clearing. It seemed there was one more errand she had to do before the full night came down and the door was closed and barred. And she went to it at a light and joyous run, her hands spread to part the bushes on either side as she reached the edge of the clearing, her light brown hair shaking loose from its coil and dancing on her shoulders, her head tilted back as though she looked up into the trees, darkening now over her head and dropping, silently and moistly, the occasional withered leaf, the tears of the aging year. She was not going far. No more than a hundred paces into the woods she halted, poised still in the same joyous attitude of flight, under the branches of the first of the ancient oaks, still in full but tarnished leafage. Cadfael, not far behind her in the shelter of the trees, saw her throw back her head and send a high, melodious whistle up into the crown of the tree. From somewhere high above a soft shimmering of leaves answered, dropping through the branches as an acorn might fall, and in a moment the descending shiver of movement reached the ground in the shape of a young man sudden and silent as a cat, who swung by his hands from the lowest bough and dropped lightly on his feet at Annet’s side. As soon as he touched ground they were in each other’s arms. So he had not been mistaken. The two of them had barely set eyes on each other when they fell to liking, blessed as they were with the good ground of his services to her father. With Eilmund laid up helpless in the house she could go freely about her own secret business of hiding and feeding a fugitive, but what would they do now that the forester was likely to be up and about, however limited his range must remain? Was it fair to present her father with such a problem in loyalties, and he an official involved with law, if only forest law? But there they stood linked, as candidly as children, with such a suggestion of permanence about their embrace that it surely would take more than father or lord or law or king to disentangle them. With her long mane of hair loosed, and her feet bare, and Hyacinth’s classic elegance of shape and movement, and fierce, disquieting beauty, they might have been two creatures bred out of the ancient forest, faun and nymph out of a profane but lovely fable. Not even the gathering twilight could dim their brightness.

Well, thought Cadfael, surrendering to the vision, if this is what we have to deal with, from this we must go on, for there’s no going back. And he stepped rustling out of the bushes, and walked towards them without conceal. They heard him and sprang round instantly with heads reared, cheek to cheek, like deer scenting danger. They saw him, and Annet flung out her arms and shut Hyacinth behind her against the bole of the tree, her face blanched and sharp as a sword, and as decisively Hyacinth laughed, lifted her bodily aside, and stepped before her.

“As if I needed the proof!” said Cadfael, to afford them whatever reassurance his voice might convey, and he halted without coming too close, though they knew already there was no point in running. “I’m not the law. If you’ve done no wrong you’ve nothing to fear from me.”

“It takes a bolder man than I am,” said Hyacinth’s clear voice softly, “to claim he’s done no wrong.” Even in the dimming light his sudden, unnerving smile shone perceptibly for a moment. “But I’ve done no murder, if that’s what you mean. Brother Cadfael, is it?”

“It is.” He looked from one roused and wary face to the other, and saw that they were breathing a little more easily and every moment less tensed for flight or attack. “Lucky for you they brought no hounds with them this morning. Hugh never likes to hunt a man with hounds. I’m sorry, lad, if my visit tonight kept you fretting longer than you need have done in your nest up there. I hope you spend your nights in better comfort.”

At that they both smiled, still somewhat cautiously and with eyes alert and wild, but they said nothing.

“And where did you hide through the sergeant’s search, that they never got wind of you at all?”

Annet made up her mind, with the same thorough practical resolution with which she did everything. She stirred and shook herself, the glossy cloak of her hair billowing into a pale cloud about her head. She drew breath deeply, and laughed. “If you must know, he was under the brychans of Father’s bed, while Will Warden sat on the bench opposite drinking ale with us, and his men peered in among my hens and forked through the hay in the loft, outside. You thought, I believe,” she said, coming close to Cadfael and drawing Hyacinth after her by the hand, “that Father was in ignorance of what I was doing. Did you hold that against me, even a little? No need, he knows all, has known it from the beginning, or at least from the moment this manhunt began. And now that you’ve found us out, had we not better all go into the house, and see what our four heads can come up with for the future, to get us all out of this tangle?”

“They’ll not come here again,” said Eilmund comfortably, presiding over this meeting in his house from the throne of his bed, the same bed under which Hyacinth had couched secure in the presence of the hunters. “But if they do, we’ll know of it in time. Never twice the same hiding place.”

“And never once any qualms that you might be hiding a murderer?” asked Cadfael, hopeful of being convinced.

“No need for any! From the start of it I knew I was not. And you shall know it, too. I’m talking of proof positive, Cadfael, not a mere matter of faith, though faith’s no mere matter, come to that. You were here last night, it was on your way back you found the man dead, and dead no more than an hour when you found him. Do you say aye to that?”

“More than willingly, if it helps your proof along.”

“And you left me when Annet here came back from doing the work that keeps her busy in the evening. You’ll call to mind I said she’d been long enough about it, and so she had, well above an hour. For good reason, she’d been meeting with this youngster here, and whatever they were about, they were in no hurry about it, which won’t surprise you greatly, I daresay. In short, these two were together in the woods a mile or so from here from the time she left you and me together, until she came back nigh on two hours later. And there young Richard found them, and this lad she brought back with her here, and ten minutes after you were gone she brought him in to me. No murderer, for all that while he was with her, or me, or the both of us, and in this house he slept that night. He never was near the man who was killed, and we can swear to it.”

“Then why have you not…” Cadfael began, and as hastily caught himself back from the needless question, and held up a hand to ward off the obvious answer. “No, say no word! I see very well why. My wits are grown dull tonight. If you came forward to tell Hugh Beringar he’s after a man proven innocent, true enough you could put that danger away from him. But if one Bosiet is dead, there’s another expected at the abbey any day now he may be there this minute, for all I know. As bad as his sire, so says the groom, and he has good reason to know, he bears the marks of it. No, I see how you’re bound.”

Hyacinth sat in the rushes on the floor at Annet’s feet, hugging his drawn up knees. He said without passion or emphasis, but with the calm finality of absolute resolution: “I am not going back there.”

“No, no more you shall!” said Eilmund heartily. “You’ll understand, Cadfael, that when I took the lad in, there was no question of murder at all. It was a runaway villein I chose to shelter, one with good reason to run, and one that had done me the best of turns any man could do for another. I liked him well, I would not for any cause have sent him back to be misused. And then, when the cry of murder did arise, I had no call to feel any differently, for I knew he had no part in it. It went against the grain not to be able to go out and say so to sheriff and abbot and all, but you see it was impossible. And the upshot of it is, here we are with the lad on our hands, and how are we best to make sure of his safety?”