“I could wish better, but what you order, I will do. For this while,” she added, and jutted her lip at him.
“Then there are things I need to know from you, now, shortly, and the rest can wait. You are but a part of my business here. The king’s peace is also my business, and you, I think, have good reason to know that the king’s peace is being flouted in these parts. We know from Yves you left him and Sister Hilaria at Cleeton, and sent word to Evrard Boterei to come and fetch you away to his manor of Callowleas. We have seen what is left of Callowleas, and we have been to Ledwyche looking for you, and heard from Boterel that you reached there with him safely, but rode out while he lay in fever from his wounds got in the fighting, and went to look for the companions you had left behind. What had befallen Callowleas could well befall others, no wonder you were in desperate anxiety.”
She sat gnawing her underlip and staring at him with unwavering eye, her brows drawn close. “Since Evrard has told you all this, I need only confirm it. He is recovered, I trust? Yes, I did fear for them. There was good cause.”
“What happened to you? Boterel had already told us that you did not return, and from the time he recovered his wits and found you were gone, he has been searching for you constantly. It was folly to set out alone.”
Surprisingly, her lips contorted in a wry smile. She had already admitted to folly. “Yes, I am sure he has been hunting high and low for me. We may set his mind at rest now. No, I did not reach Cleeton. I don’t know these ways, and I was benighted, and then the snow came … In the dark I lost myself utterly, and had a fall, and the horse bolted. I was lucky to be found and taken in by a forester and his wife, lifelong I shall be grateful to them. I told them about Yves, and how I feared for him, and the forester said he would send up to Cleeton and find out what had happened, and so he did. He brought word how poor John’s holding was ravaged, the night after Callowleas, and how Yves was lost even before? the same night I committed my greatest fault and folly.” Her head reared proudly and her back stiffened as she declared her regret, and with fiery stare dared anyone else here present either to echo her self-condemnation, or attempt to deprecate it. “Thanks be to God, John and his family escaped alive. And as for their losses, I take them as my debts, and they shall be repaid. But one relief they brought me from Cleeton,” she said, quickening into warmth and affection, “for they told me Sister Hilaria that was gone, well before the raiders came, for the good brother of Pershore came back, in his anxiety over us, and he brought her away safely.”
The dead silence passed unnoticed, she was so glad of that one consolation. One innocent escaped from the landslide her light-hearted escapade had set in motion.
“All this time, while I stayed with them, we have been sending about for news of Yves, for how could I make any move until I knew how he fared? And only yesterday morning we heard at last that he was here, safe. So I came.”
“Only in time,” owned Hugh, “to find him lost again just as you are found. Well, I trust he need not be lost for long, and if I leave you without ceremony, it is to look for him.”
Cadfael asked mildly: “You found you own way here, alone?”
She turned her head sharply, and gave him the wide, challenging gaze of her dark eyes, her face still calm and wary.
“Robert showed me the way?the forester’s son.”
“My business,” said Hugh, “is also with these outlaws who have set up house somewhere in the hills, and hunted you out of Callowleas and Druel out of his holding. I mean to have out enough men to smoke out every last yard of those uplands. But first we’ll find the two we’ve lost.” He rose briskly, and with a meaningful gesture of his dark head and lift of an urgent eyebrow drew Cadfael away with him out of the room.
“For all I can see, the girl knows nothing of what happened to Sister Hilaria, and nothing of Brother Elyas. I have my men and as many of Dinan’s mustering to take up this hunt, and small time to break unpleasant news gently. Stay here with her, Cadfael, make sure she doesn’t elude us again?and tell her! She’ll have to know. The more truths we can put together, the nearer we shall be to clearing out this nest of devils once for all, and going home for Christmas to Aline and my new son.”
She was hungry, and had a healthy appetite, Cadfael judged, at any time. It was plenteous activity that kept her slender as a young hind. She ate with pleasure, though her face remained guarded, thoughtful and withdrawn. Cadfael let her alone until she sat back with a sigh of physical content. Her brows were still drawn close, and her eyes looked rather inward than outward. Then, quite suddenly, she was looking at him, and with sharp attention.
“It was you who found Yves and brought him here? So Father Prior said.”
“By chance it was,” said Cadfael.
“Not only chance. You went to look for him.” That commended him; her face warmed. “Where was it? Was he very cold and wretched?”
“He was in all particulars a young gentleman very much in command of himself. And he had found, as you did, that simple country people can be hospitable and kind without thought of reward.”
“And since then both you and he have been looking for me! While I was looking for him! Oh, God!” she said softly and with dismayed reverence. “All this I began. And so mistakenly! I did not know even myself. I am not now the same woman.”
“You no longer wish to marry Evrard Boterei?” asked Cadfael placidly.
“No,” she said as simply. “That is over. I thought I loved him. I did think so! But that was children’s play, and this bitter winter is real, and those birds of prey in that eyrie up there are real, and death is real, and very close at every step, and I have brought my brother into danger by mere folly, and now I know that my brother is more to me by far than ever was Evrard. But never say I said so,” she flared, “when he comes back. He is vain enough already. It was he told you what I had done?”
“It was. And how he tried to follow you, and lost himself, and was sheltered in the forest assart where I found him.”
“And he blamed me?” she said.
“In his shoes, would not you?”
“It seems to me so long ago,” she said, wondering, “and I have changed so much. How is it that I could do so much harm, and mean none? At least I was thankful when they told me that that good brother from Pershore?how I wish I had listened to him!?had come back to look for us, and taken Sister Hilaria away with him. Were they still here when you came from Shrewsbury? Did she go on, or turn back to Worcester?”
