“Where is he?” asked Hugh. “Not far, I fancy, if it was he who got word to young Richard that he could safely go through that marriage service. Who would be more likely to know Cuthred for an impostor?”
“No further,” said Cadfael, “than Eilmund’s cottage, and welcome there to father and daughter alike. And I’m bound there now to see how Eilmund’s faring. Shall I bring the boy back with me?”
“Better than that,” said Hugh heartily, “I’ll ride with you. Better not hale him out of cover until I’ve called off the hunt by official order, and made it known he has nothing to answer, and is free to walk the town and look for work like any other man.”
In the stable yard, when he went to saddle up, Cadfael found the bright chestnut horse with the white brow standing like a glossy statue under his master’s affectionate hands, content and trusting after easy exercise, and being polished to a rippling copper sheen. Rafe of Coventry turned to see who came, and smiled the guarded, calm smile with which Cadfael was becoming familiar. “Bound out again, Brother? This must be a wearing day you’ve had.”
“For all of us,” said Cadfael, hoisting down his saddle, “but we may hope the worst is over. And you? Have you prospered in your errand?”
“Well, I thank you! Very well! Tomorrow morning, after Prime,” he said, turning to face Cadfael fully, and his voice as always measured and composed, “I shall be leaving. I have already told Brother Denis so.” Cadfael went on with his preparations for a minute or two in silence. Converse with Rafe of Coventry found silences acceptable.
“If you’ll be riding far the first day,” he said then simply, “I think you may need my services before you set out. He drew blood,” he said briefly, by way of adequate explanation. And when Rafe was slow to answer: “A part of my function is to tend illness and injury. There is no seal of confession in my art, but there is a decent reticence.”
“I have bled before,” said Rafe, but he smiled, a degree beyond his common smile.
“As you choose. But I am here. If you need me, come to me. It is not wise to neglect a wound, nor to try it too far in the saddle.” He tested the girth, and gathered the reins to mount. The horse sidled and shifted playfully, eager for action.
“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Rafe, “and I thank you. You will not stop me leaving,” he said in amiable but solemn warning.
“Have I tried?” said Cadfael, and swung himself up into the saddle and rode out into the court.
“I never told all the truth,” said Hyacinth, seated beside the hearth in Eilmund’s cottage, with the firelight like a copper gloss on cheekbones and jaw and brow, “not even here to Annet. As to myself I did, she knows the worst I could tell. But not of Cuthred. I knew he was a rogue and a vagabond, but so was I, and I knew nothing worse of him than that, so I kept my mouth shut. One rogue in hiding doesn’t betray another. But now you tell me he’s a murderer. And dead!”
“And out of further harm,” said Hugh reasonably, “at least in this world. I need to know all you can tell. Where did you join fortunes with him?”
“At Northampton, at the Cluniac priory, as I told Annet and Eilmund, though not quite as I told it. He was no habited pilgrim then, he was in good dark clothes, with cloak and capuchon, and armed, though he kept his sword out of sight. It was almost by chance we got into talk, or I thought so. But I fancy he guessed I was running from something, and he made no secret he was, too, and suggested we might be safer and pass unnoticed together. We were both heading north and west. The pilgrim was his notion, he had the face and bearing for it. Well, you’ve seen him, you know. I stole the habit for him from the priory store. The scallop shell came easy. The medal of Saint James he had—it may even have been his by right, who knows? By the time we got to Buildwas he had his part by rote, and his hair and beard were well grown. And he came very apt to the dame at Eaton, for her own ends. Oh, she knew no worse of him than that he was willing to earn his keep with her. He said he was a priest, and she believed it. I knew he was none, he owned as much when we were alone. He laughed about it. But he had the gift of tongues, he could carry it off. She gave him the hermitage, so close and handy to the abbey’s woods, to do all the mischief he could in the abbot’s despite. I said that was my part, and he knew nothing of it, but I lied for him. He’d never blabbed on me, no more would I on him.”
“He abandoned you,” said Hugh flatly, “as soon as he knew the hunt was up for you. You need not scruple to speak out on his account.”
“Well—I live, and he’s dead,” said Hyacinth. “No call now for me to bear him any grudge. You know about Richard? I’d talked with him only once, but he took me so for a true man he’d hear no wrong of me, nor have me run to earth and dragged back into villeinage. That set me up again in my own respect. I never knew till afterwards that he’d been seized like that on his way back, but I was forced to run or hide, and chose to hide till I could make shift to find him. If it hadn’t been for Eilmund’s goodness to me, and after I’d been a thorn in his flesh, too, your men might have had me a dozen times over. But now you know I never laid hand on Bosiet. And Eilmund and Annet can tell you I’ve not been a step away from here since I came back from Leighton. What can have happened to Cuthred I know no more than you.”
“Less, I daresay,” said Hugh mildly, and looked across the fire at Cadfael, smiling. “Well, after all you may call yourself a lucky lad. From tomorrow you’ll be in no peril at the hands of any of my people, you can be off into the town and find yourself a master. And which of your names do you choose to keep for a new life? Best have but one, that we may all know with whom we have to deal.”
“Whichever is pleasing to Annet,” said Hyacinth. “It’s she will be calling me by it from this on lifelong.”
“I might have something to say to that,” grunted Eilmund from his corner on the other side of the hearth. “You mind your impudence, or I’ll make you sweat for my good will.” But he sounded remarkably complacent about it, as though they had already arrived at an understanding to which this admonitory growl was merely a gruff counterpoint.
“It was Hyacinth first pleased me,” said Annet. She had kept herself out of the circle until now, like a dutiful daughter, attentive with cup and pitcher, but wanting and needing no voice in the men’s affairs. Not from modesty or submission Cadfael judged, but because she already had what she wanted, and was assured no one, sheriff nor father nor overlord, had either the power or the will to wrest it from her. “You stay Hyacinth,” she said serenely, “and let Brand go.”
She was wise, there was no sense in going back, none even in looking back. Brand had been a villein and landless in Northamptonshire, Hyacinth would be a craftsman and free in Shrewsbury.
“In a year and a day,” said Hyacinth, “from the day I find a master to take me, I’ll come and ask for your good will, Master Eilmund. Not before!”
“And if I think you’ve earned it,” said Eilmund, “you shall have it.”
They rode home together in the deepening dusk, as they had so often ridden together since first they encountered in wary contention, wit against wit, and came to a gratifying stand at the end of the match, fast friends. The night was still and mild, the morning would be misty again, the lush valley fields a translucent blue sea. The forest smelled of autumn, ripe, moist earth, bursting fungus, the sweet, rich rot of leaves.