Miles snapped his fingers, abruptly grave again. “By God, yes! The sheriff can call off this hunt now, the quest’s over. But - Judith, I’d forgotten! There must be things here you don’t yet know. Martin Bellecote is here, and his boy helping him. Don’t go into the small chamber, they are coffining Bertred. He drowned in the Severn, two nights ago. I wish I had not to spoil this day with such ill news!”
“I have already been told,” said Judith levelly. “Brother Cadfael would not let me return here unprepared. An accident, I hear.” There was that in the sparsity of the words and the bleakness of her voice that caused Cadfael to check and look at her closely. She shared his own trouble. She found it almost impossible to accept that anything that had happened in connection with her person and her affairs during these June days was merely accidental.
“I am going now to find Hugh Beringar,” said Cadfael, and withdrew from them on the threshold to turn back into the street.
In Judith’s own private chamber they sat down together in sombre conference, Hugh, Sister Magdalen, Judith and Cadfael, greetings over, in mildly constrained formality. Miles had hovered, unwilling to be parted from the cousin he had regained, but with a respectful eye upon Hugh, half expecting to be dismissed, but with a protective hand on Judith’s shoulder, as if she might need defending. But it was Judith who sent him away. She did it with a sudden flush of family tenderness, looking up into his face with a faint, affectionate smile. “No, leave us, Miles, we shall have time later to talk as much as you wish, and you shall know whatever you need to ask, but now I would rather be without distractions. The lord sheriffs time is of value, and I owe him all my attention, after the great trouble I have caused him.”
Even then he hesitated, frowning, but then he closed his hand warmly on hers. “Don’t vanish again!” he said, and went light-footed out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
“The first and most urgent thing I have to tell you,” said Judith then, looking Hugh in the face, “I didn’t want him or my aunt to hear. They have been through enough anxiety for me, no need for them to know that I’ve been in danger of my life. My lord, there are footpads in the forest not a full mile from Godric’s Ford, preying on travellers by night. I was attacked there. One man at least, I cannot answer for more, though commonly they hunt in pairs, I believe. He had a knife. I have only a scratch on my arm to show for it, but he meant to kill. The next wayfarer may not be so lucky. This I had to tell you first.”
Hugh was studying her with an impassive face but intent eyes. In the hall Miles crossed the room, whistling, towards the shop.
“And this was on your way to Godric’s Ford?” said Hugh.
“Yes.”
“You were alone? By night in the forest? It was early morning when you vanished from Shrewsbury - on your way to the abbey.” He turned to Sister Magdalen. “You know of this?”
“I know of it from Judith,” said Magdalen serenely. “Otherwise, no, there has been no sign of outlawry so close to us. If any of the forest men had heard of such, I should have been told. But if you mean do I believe the story, yes, I believe it. I dressed her arm, and did as much for the man who came to her aid and drove off the outlaw. I know that what she tells you is true.”
“This is the fourth day since you disappeared,” said Hugh, turning his innocent black gaze again on Judith. “Was it wise to delay so long before giving me warning of masterless men coming so close? And the sisters themselves so exposed to danger? One of Sister Magdalen’s forester neighbours would have carried a message. And we should have known, then, that you were safe, and we need not fear for you. I could have sent men at once to sweep the woods clean.”
Judith hesitated only a moment, and even that rather with the effect of clearing her own mind than of considering deceit. Something of Magdalen’s confident tranquillity had entered into her. She said slowly, choosing her words: “My lord, my story for the world is that I fled from a load of troubles to take refuge with Sister Magdalen, that I have been with her all this time, and no man has anything to do with my going or my returning. But my story for you, if you will respect that, can be very different. There are true things I will not tell you, and questions I will not answer, but everything I do tell you, and every answer I give you, shall be the truth.”
“I call that a fair offer,” said Sister Magdalen approvingly, “and if I were you, Hugh, I would accept. Justice is a very fine thing, but not when it does more harm to the victim than to the wrongdoer. The girl comes well out of it, let it rest at that.”
“And on which night,” asked Hugh, not yet committing himself, “were you attacked in the forest?”
“Last night. Past midnight it must have been, probably an hour past.”
“A good hour,” said Magdalen helpfully. “We had just gone back to bed after Lauds.”
“Good! I’ll have a patrol go out there and quarter the woods for a mile around. But it’s unheard-of for any but occasionally the lads from Powys to give trouble in those parts, and if they move we usually have good warning of it. This must be some lone hand, a misused villein gone wild. Now,” said Hugh, and suddenly smiled at Judith, “tell me what you see fit, from the time you were dragged into a boat under the bridge by the Gaye, to last night when you reached the Ford. And for what I shall do about it you will have to trust me.”
“I do trust you,” she said, eyeing him long and steadily. “I believe you will spare me, and not force me to break my word. Yes, I was dragged away, yes, I have been held until two nights ago, and pestered to agree to a marriage. I will not tell you where, or by whom.”
“Shall I tell you?” offered Hugh.
“No,” she said in sharp protest. “If you know, at least let me be sure it was not from me, neither in word nor look. Within two days he was repenting what he did, bitterly, desperately, he could see no way out, to escape paying for it, and it had gained him nothing, and never would, and he knew it. Very heartily he wished himself safely rid of me, but if he let me go he feared I should denounce him, and if I was found it would equally be his ruin. In the end,” she said simply, “I was sorry for him. He had done me no violence but the first seizing me, he had tried to win me, he was too fearful, yes, and too well conditioned, to take me by force. He was helpless, and he begged me to help him. Besides,” she reasoned strongly, “I also wanted the thing ended without scandal, I wanted that far more than I wanted any revenge on him. By the end I didn’t want revenge at all, I was avenged. I had the mastery of him, I could make him do whatever I ordered. It was I who made the plan. He should take me by night to Godric’s Ford, or close, for he was afraid to be seen or known, and I would return home from there as if I had been there all that time. It was too late to set out that night, but the next night, last night, we rode together. He set me down barely half a mile from the Ford. And it was after that, when he was gone, that I was attacked.”
“You could not tell what manner of man? Nothing about him you could recognise or know again, by sight or by touch, scent, anything?”
“In the woods there, before the moon, it was raven-dark. And over so quickly. I have not told you yet who it was who came to my aid. Sister Magdalen knows, he came back with us this morning, we left him at his house in the Foregate. Niall Bronzesmith, who lives in the house that was mine once. How everything I am, and know, and feel, and everyone who draws near me,” she said with sudden passion, “spins around that house and those roses. I wish I had never left it, I could have given it to the abbey and still been its tenant. It was wrong to abandon the place where love was.”