Hermit of Eyton Forest (15 page)

“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!”