Hermit of Eyton Forest (27 page)

“What
manner of horse was he riding when he halted overnight at Thame?” Aymer turned
from fastening the straps of his saddlebags in detached surprise, opened his
mouth to answer, and found himself at a loss, frowning thoughtfully over his
recollections of that night.

“He
was there before us. There were two horses in the priory stables when we came.
And he’d left before us next morning. But now you come to ask, when we got to
horse, the same two beasts we saw there the night before were still in their
stalls. That’s strange! What would such a well-found man, knightly by the look
of him and his arms—what would he be doing without a horse?”

“Ah,
well, he may have stabled it somewhere else,” said Cadfael, abandoning the
puzzle as trivial.

But
it was not trivial, it was the key to open a very strange door in the mind.
There before so many eyes lay the slayer and the slain, side by side, justice
already done. But who, then, had slain the slayer? They were gone, all of them,
Aymer on his father’s handsome light roan horse, Warin with the horse Aymer had
ridden on the outward journey now on a leading rein, the young groom with the
carter and the cart. After the first day-stages Aymer would probably be off at
speed, leaving the grooms to bring the coffin after at their slower pace, and
most likely sending other retainers back along the way to relieve them, once he
reached home.

In
the mortuary chapel Cadfael had seen Cuthred’s body laid out in seemly fashion,
hair and beard trimmed, not, perhaps, so closely as the knight at Thame had
worn them, but enough to display, in the fixed and austere tranquillity of
death, a face appropriate enough to a dignified religious. Unfair that a
murderer should look as noble in death as any of the empress’s paladins.

Hugh
was closeted with the abbot, and as yet had said no word to Cadfael of what he
made of Aymer’s witness, but by the very questions he had asked it was clear he
had made the same connections Cadfael had made, and could not have failed to
arrive at the same conclusion. He would speak of it first with Radulfus. My
part now, thought Cadfael, is to bring Hyacinth out of hiding, and let him
shake himself loose from all suspicion of wrongdoing. Barring, of course, the
occasional theft to fill his belly while he lived wild, and a lie or two by way
of preserving himself alive at all. And Hugh won’t grudge him those. And that
should settle the matter of Cuthred’s ordination once for all, if there’s still
any lingering question about it. A sudden conversion can turn a soldier into a
hermit, yes, but it takes much longer than that to make a priest. He waited for
Hugh in his workshop in the herb garden, where Hugh would certainly come
looking for him as soon as he left the abbot. It was quiet and aromatic and
homely within there, and Cadfael had been too much away from it of late. He
would have to be thinking of replenishing his stocks of the regular winter
needs very soon, before the coughs and colds began, and the elder joints
started to creak and groan. Brother Winfrid could be trusted to take excellent
care of all the work in the garden, the digging and weeding and planting, but
here within he had much to learn. One more ride, thought Cadfael, to see how
Eilmund does, and let Hyacinth know he can and should come forward and speak up
for himself, and then I shall be glad to settle down to work here at home.

Hugh
came in through the gardens and sat down beside his friend with a brief,
preoccupied smile, and was silent for some moments. “What I do not understand,”
he said then, “is why? Whatever he was, whatever he has done, aforetime, here
he seems to have lived blameless. What can there have been, perilous enough to
make him want to stop Bosiet’s mouth? It may be a suspect thing to change one’s
dress and appearance and way of life, but it is not a crime. What was there,
more than that, to justify murder? What is there of that enormity, except
murder itself?”

“Ah!”
said Cadfael with a relieved sigh. “Yes, I thought you had seen it all as I saw
it. But no, I do not think it was murder he had to hide in the obscurity of a
hermit’s gown and a forest cell. That was my first thought. But it is not so
simple.”

“As
so often,” said Hugh with his sudden, crooked smile, “I think you know
something that I do not. And what was that about his horse, down there in
Thame? What has his horse to do with it?”

“Not
his horse, but the fact that he had none. What’s a soldier or a knight doing
travelling on foot? But a pilgrim may, and never be noticed. But as to knowing
something I would have told you long ago if I had been let—yes, Hugh, I do. I
know where Hyacinth is. Against my will I promised to say nothing until Aymer
Bosiet had given up the pursuit and taken himself off home. As now he has, and
now the boy can come forward and speak for himself, as, trust me, he’s well
able to do.”

“So
that’s it,” said Hugh, eyeing his friend without any great surprise. “Well, who
can blame him for being wary, what does he know of me? And for all that I knew,
he could well have been Bosiet’s murderer, we knew of no other with as good a
cause. Now he need say no word on that score, the debt is known and paid. And
as for his freedom, he need fear nothing from me on that head. I have enough to
do without playing the errand boy for Northamptonshire. Bring him forth
whenever you like, he may yet shed light on some things we do not know.”

So
Cadfael thought, too, reflecting how little Hyacinth had had to say about his
relations with his sometime master. Candid enough, among friends, about his own
vagabondage and the mischief done in Eilmund’s coppice, he had scrupulously
refrained from casting any aspersions against Cuthred. But now that Cuthred was
dead and known for a murderer Hyacinth might be willing to extend his candour,
though surely he had known no great harm of his fellow traveller, and certainly
nothing of murder.

“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.