blackness of the doorway surged Olivier, soiled and singed and sword in hand, sprang past le Gaucher to find elbow-room, and in passing struck him on the cheek with the flat of the blade, by way of notice of intent. The tawny mane flew as le Gaucher sprang round to face him. The silence that had exploded in shudderings of wonder at the apparition of Brother Elyas fell again like a stone. Everyone heard clearly the voice that trumpeted disdainfully: “Now have ado with a man!”
There would be no moving Yves now, not until this last duel was resolved. Cadfael kept hold of him thankfully, though he need not have troubled, for the boy’s small fists were clenched in his sleeve for mortal reassurance. Brother Elyas, his bearings lost, looked about him for his boy, and came limping painfully to touch, to comfort and be comforted, and Yves, without for an instant taking his worshipping eyes from Olivier, detached one hand from his hold on Cadfael to accept Elyas’ clasp just as fiercely. For him everything now depended on this man to man encounter, from head to foot he was quivering with partisan passion. Both Cadfael and Elyas felt it and were infected by it, and stared as he stared upon this tall, agile, slender person poised with spread feet at the top of the steps. For all his smoke-soiled visage and common country garments, Cadfael knew him again.
And no one meddled, not even Hugh, who might have intervened by virtue of his office. Between his men and these thieves and murderers there would be no more fighting until this fight was over. There was that about the challenge that forbade interference.
It did not appear a very even combat, le Gaucher double his opponent in age and weight and experience, if not in reach and agility. And it did not last long. Le Gaucher, once he had viewed his challenger, came on confidently in a steady, battering onslaught, bent on driving the young man from his stance and backwards down the steps. Yet after long, increasingly furious attacks the boy?a mere half-trained peasant, at that!?had scarcely shifted his balance, not given back a pace, and everywhere the hacking blade crashed in, his sword was there to turn it aside. He stood and seemed at ease, while his adversary flailed at him and wasted energy. Yves gazed with huge, praying eyes, rigid from crown to toe. Elyas clung mutely to the hand he clasped, and quivered to its tension. Brother Cadfael watched the young man Olivier, and recalled disciplines he had almost forgotten, a manner of sword-play bred from the clash of east and west, and borrowing from both.
There was no moving this swordsman, if he gave an inch one moment he regained it the next, added to it the next. It was le Gaucher who was being edged back by degrees to the rim of the steps, while he wasted his strength to no avail.
The lion lunged once more, with all his weight. His heel was too near the edge of the icy stir, his lunge too reckless, the forward pressure slid his rearward foot from under him, and he hung out of balance, struggling for recovery. Olivier sprang forward like a hunting leopard, and drove down with all his weight, clean through the disrupted guard and into the exposed breast. The sword went in halfway to the hilt, and he braced both feet and leaned back on his heel to hoist his blade clear.
The lion’s carcase dropped from the withdrawing point, arms spread, flew outwards on its back, landed three steps lower, and rolled ponderously, with an awful dignity, from stair to stair, to come to rest on its face at Hugh Beringar’s feet, and bled what was left of its life away into the defiled snow.
Chapter Fourteen
It was over, once their leader was dead, and seen to be dead. They broke in all directions, some running to try and find a way of escape, some fighting to the death, some bargaining vainly, some having the sense to surrender and hope to make a passable case for themselves thereafter. There were over sixty prisoners to be rounded up, besides the dead, any amount of plunder to drag out from hall and stores before all went up in fire, a passable flock of stolen sheep and herd of cattle to feed and water until they could be driven down to better lodging. Dinan undertook the custody of the prisoners, captured within his lordship. No need to doubt his adherence to law where his own writ was challenged.
The fire spread, and when all that was savable was brought out, they spread the flames of intent. The castle stood solitary, clear of the trees, on solid rock, it could burn to the bone and threaten nothing else. It had been a stain upon the countryside in its short and ignoble life, it might well be a passing blemish in its death.
The strangest thing, though unremarked by most in the general turmoil, was the disappearance of the unknown champion only minutes after he had felled the castellan. Every eye had followed that prodigious fall, and by the time they had stirred out of their daze and looked about, the chaos of flight and capture had broken out all around, and no one had seen the young countryman make off silently into the night.
“Gone like a shadow,” said Hugh, “when I should have liked to know him better. And never a word as to where he may be found, when the king’s Grace owes him a debt any sane man would be eager to collect. You are the only one who has spoken with him, Yves. Who is this paladin?”
Half-drunk with the lassitude of relief after stress, and the exhaustion of safety after terror, Yves said what he had been taught to say, and fronted Hugh with a clear stare and guileless face as he did so. “That was the forester’s son who sheltered Ermina, and brought her to Bromfield. It was he told me she’s there. I knew nothing of that until then. She is really there?”
“She is, safe enough. And what is the name of this forester’s son? And more to the purpose,” said Hugh thoughtfully, “where did he learn his swordcraft?”
“His name is Robert. He told me he was searching for me, as he promised Ermina he would, and he saw the raiders coming back here, and followed their tracks. I know no more about him,” said Yves stoutly, and if he blushed as he said it, the night covered the blush.
“Certainly we seem to breed redoutable foresters in these parts,” said Hugh drily. But he did not press it further.
“And now,” said Cadfael, intent on his own business, “if you’ll lend me four good men, and let us have the use of all these fresh horses, they’ll be better on the move to the Bromfield stables, now they’ve no roof over their heads here, and I can get these two home to their beds. I can leave you my scrip. We’ll rig a litter for Brother Elyas, and purloin whatever blankets and brychans are still unburned to wrap him up on the way.”
“Take what you need,” said Hugh. There were seven horses fresh from the stable, besides the common hill- ponies Yves had seen used to bring home plunder. “Stolen, all or most of them,” said Hugh, looking them over. “I’ll have Dinan give it out wherever they’ve had losses, they can come to Bromfield and claim their own. The cattle and sheep we’ll bring into Ludlow later, after the fellow at Cleeton has picked out his. But best get Brother Elyas away as fast as you can, if he’s to live. The marvel is he’s survived even this far.”
Cadfael marshalled his helpers to good effect, and took his pick of the furnishings dragged out of the burning hall, to swaddle Brother Elyas in a cocoon of blankets, and fashion a secure cradle for him between two horses. He took thought to load, also, two sacks of fodder from the ransacked stores, in case the sudden arrival of seven horses should tax the resources of Bromfield. The spurt of energy and authority that had animated Elyas when there was most need of him had deserted him as soon as his work was done, and his boy delivered. He yielded himself into their hands docilely, and let them do what they would with him, astray between apathy and exhaustion, and half dead with cold. Cadfael eyed him with much concern. Unless some new fire could be kindled in him, to make life
