Hermit of Eyton Forest (16 page)

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?”

Chapter Nine

IT
WAS ALREADY TAKEN FOR GRANTED by all of them, it seemed, that Cadfael was on
their side, and wholeheartedly a party to their conspiracy. How could it be
otherwise? Here was absolute proof that the boy was no murderer, proof that
could be laid in Hugh Beringar’s hands with confidence in his justice, no
question of that. But it could not be done without exposing Hyacinth to the
very danger from which he had escaped once, and could hardly hope to escape a
second time. Hugh was bound by law as fast as any man, even his gift for
turning a blind eye and a deaf ear would not help Hyacinth if once Bosiet got
wind of where he was and who was sheltering him.

“Between
us,” said Cadfael, though somewhat dubiously, “we might be able to get you away
out of the county and into Wales, clean away from pursuit…”