“Only too well!” said Evrard Boterei harshly, and closed, for an instant, large full eyelids over too-bright eyes. He opened them again to look directly at Yves. “You are the young brother? Forgive me that I could not be sure of you. I have not seen you but once, I think, since you were a child. Yes, this is hers.”
“You brought her here with you,” said Hugh, not questioning, stating. “Safe out of that attack.”
“Yes?safe! Yes, I brought her here.” There was a fine dew of sweat on Evrard’s broad brow, but his eyes were wide open and clear.
“We have been in search of her and her companions” said Hugh, “ever since the sub-prior of Worcester came to Shrewsbury asking after them, since all trace of them had been lost after their flight. If she is here, send for her.”
“She is not here,” said Evrard heavily. “Nor do I know where she is. All these days between, either I or men of mine have been hunting for her.” He set his long hands to the arms of his chair, and hauled himself shakily to his feet. “I will tell you!” he said.
He stalked about the room as he told them, a gaunt young man, filled with restless energy, but enfeebled by his days of sickness.
“I was a frequent and welcome guest in her father’s house. This boy will know that is truth. She grew up in beauty, and I loved her. I did and do love her! Since she was orphaned I have ridden three times to Worcester to see her, and borne myself as I must to be admitted there, and never did I have any evil design on her, but intended to ask for her hand when I might. For her proper guardian now is her uncle, and he is in the Holy Land. All we could do was wait for his return. When I heard of the sack of Worcester all my prayer was that she should be escaped well out of it. I never thought of any gain to me, nor that she might be fled this way, until she sent her boy up from Cleeton …”
“On which day was that?” demanded Hugh, cutting in sharply.
“On the second day of this month. Come by night, she said, and fetch me away, for I am here waiting for you. Never a word of any others along with her. I knew only what she told me, and I went as she asked, with a horse for her, and brought her away to Callowleas. She had taken me by surprise,” he said, jerking up his head in defensive challenge, “but I wished of all things to wed her, and so did she me. And I brought her there, and used her with all honor, and with her consent I sent out to bring a priest to marry us. But the next night, before ever he reached us, we were all undone.”
“I have seen the ruin they left,” said Hugh. “From which direction did they come? In what numbers?”
“Too many for us! They were into the bailey and into the house before ever we knew what was happening. I cannot tell whether they came round the flank of the hill, or over the crests at us, for they broke in round half our stockade, ringing us from above and from the east. God knows I may have been too taken up with Ermina to set as strict a watch as I should have done, but there had been no warning, never a word until then of any such banditry in the land. It fell like lightning-stroke. Their numbers I can hardly guess, but surely as many as thirty, and well-armed. We were but half that, and caught easy and half-sleeping after supper. We did what we could?I came by some hurts …” Cadfael had already observed how he held one arm and shoulder hunched and still, the left, where a right- handed opponent would lunge for his heart. “I had Ermina to save, I dared not attempt more. I took her and rode. The downhill way was still possible. They did not follow us. They were busy.” His mouth twisted in a painful grimace. “We came here safely.”
“And then? How comes it that you have lost her again?”
“You cannot charge me more bitterly than I have accused myself,” said Evrard wearily. “I am ashamed to face the boy here, and own how I let her slip through my hands. It is little excuse to say, however truly, that I had bled too much, and fell into my bed too weak to move. My leech may say what he can for me, I will not plead. But by the next day this prod here in my shoulder had taken bad ways, and the fever set in. By evening, when I had my wits for a while, and asked for her, they told me she had been frantic with tears for her brother, left behind at the house from which I took her. Now that she knew there were such cutthroats abroad in these parts, she could not rest until she knew him safe, and so she took horse in the middle of the day, and left word she would ride to Cleeton to inquire after him. And she did not return.”
“And you did not follow her!” accused Yves, stiff as a lance and quivering by Cadfael’s side. “You let her go alone, and stayed nursing your grazes!”
“Neither the one nor the other,” said Boterel, but gently and ruefully. “I did not let her go, for I did not know she was gone. And I did, when I learned of it?as my people here will tell you?I did get up from my bed and go out to hunt for her. It was the cold of that night, I think, and the rubbing of my clothes and the motion of riding, that fetched me down for so long. Sorry I am, I swooned and fell out of the saddle, and those I had with me carried me home the miles I’d ridden. I never reached Cleeton.”
“As well for you,” said Hugh drily, “for that night the very house she was seeking was gutted and burned, and the family driven out.”
“So I have now been told. You do not think I have left things so, and never stirred to try and find her? But she was not there when the holding was attacked. If you have been there, and spoken with those who sheltered her, you know so much. She never got there. I have had men out hunting for her all this time, even though I myself was a useless wretch laid here shivering and raving. And now that I have my legs under me again I shall go on searching. Until I find her!” he said vehemently, and shut his mouth with a snap of strong teeth.
There was nothing more for them here, nothing to be gained and little to be blamed, it seemed. The girl had set in motion the whole disastrous course, doubly headstrong in decamping with her lover in the first place, and afterwards, because he was stricken down, in setting off alone to try and amend what she had done so sadly amiss.
“If you hear of any word of her,” said Hugh, “send to tell me at Bromfield, where I am lodged, or in Ludlow, where you will find my men.”
“I shall, my lord, without fail.” Evrard fell back again among his untidy pillows, and flinched at a twinge of pain, shifting his shoulder tenderly to ease it.
“Before we go,” said Brother Cadfael, “can I not dress your wound again for you? For I see that it gives you trouble, and I fancy you have still a raw surface there that sticks to your dressing, and may do further damage. You have a physician here tending you?”
The young man’s hollow eyes opened wide at this kindly interest. “My leech, I called him, I know. He’s none, but he has some skill, from experience. I think he has looked after me pretty well. You are wise in such matters, brother?”
“Like your own man, from long practice. I have often dealt with wounds that have taken bad course. What has he used on you?” He was curious about other men’s prescriptions, and there was clean linen bandaging, and a clay
