You’ve no inkling of anything untoward?’
Eudo shook his head vehemently. ‘I haven’t been up there since my father, God rest him, gave the field to the priory. They tell me there have been vagabonds lying up there in the cottage now and then, during the fair or overnight last winter if they were travelling, but who or what I don’t know. There was no harm ever reported or threatened, that I know of. This comes very strangely to me.’
‘To all of us,’ Hugh agreed ruefully, and took the offered cup. It was growing dim in the hall, and there was a fire already laid. Outside the open door the light showed faintly blue with mist, shot through with the faded gold of sunset. ‘You never heard of any woman going astray from her home in these parts, these last few years?’
‘No, none. My people live all around, they would have known, and it would have come to my ears soon enough. Or to my father’s, in his time. He had a good hold on everything that went on here, they brought everything to him, knowing he would not willingly let any man of his miscarry.’
‘I know that for truth,’ said Hugh heartily. ‘But you’ll not have forgotten, there was one woman who walked out of her house and went away without a word. And from that very croft.’
Eudo was staring at him again in open disbelief, great-eyed, even breaking into a broad grim at the very idea.
‘Ruald’s woman? You can’t mean it! Everyone knew about her going, that was no secret. And do you truly mean it could be so recent? But even if it could, and this poor wench bones already, that’s folly! Generys took herself off with another man, and small blame to her, when she found that if he was free to follow his bent, she was still bound. We would have seen to it that she would not want, but that was not enough for her. Widows can wed again, but she was no widow. You can’t surely believe, in good earnest, that this is Generys you have in the mortuary?’
‘I am at a total loss,’ Hugh admitted. ‘But the place and the time and the way they tore themselves apart must make a man wonder. As yet there are but the few of us know of this, but in a little while it must out, and then you’ll hear what every tongue will be whispering. Better if you should make enquiry among your own men for me, see if any of them has noted furtive things going on about that field, or doubtful fellows lurking in the cottage. Especially if any had women with them. If we can find some way of putting a name to the woman we shall be a long stride on the way.’
It seemed that Eudo had come to terms with the reality of death by this time, and was taking it seriously, though not as a factor which could or should be allowed to disturb the tenor of his own ordered existence. He sat thoughtfully gazing at Hugh over the wine cups, and considering the widening implications. ‘You think this woman was done to death secretly? Could Ruald be in any real danger of such a suspicion? I cannot believe ill of him. Certainly I will ask among my fellows, and send you word if I find out anything of note. But had there been anything, surely it would have found its way to me before.’
‘Nevertheless, do that service. A trifle that a man might let slip out of his mind lightly, in the ordinary way, could come to have a weighty meaning once there’s a death in the matter. I’ll be putting together all I can about Ruald’s end of it, and asking questions of many a one besides. He has seen what we found,’ said Hugh sombrely, ‘and could not say yes or no to her, and no blame to him, for it would be hard indeed for any man, if he lived with her many years, to recognise her face now.’
‘He cannot have harmed his wife,’ Eudo avowed sturdily. ‘He was already in the cloister, had been for three or four weeks, maybe more, while she was still there in the croft, before she went away. This is some other poor soul who fell foul of footpads, or some such scum, and was knifed or stabbed to death for the clothes she wore.’
‘Hardly that,’ said Hugh wryly. ‘She was clothed decently, laid out straight, and her hands folded on her breast over a little rough cross, cut from a hedge. As for the manner of her death, there’s no mark on her, no bone broken. There may have been a knife. Who’s to tell, now? But she was buried with some care and respect. That’s the strangeness of it.’
Eudo shook his head, frowning, over this growing wonder. ‘As a priest might?’ he hazarded doubtfully. ‘If he found her dead? But then he would have cried it aloud, and had her taken to church, surely.’
“There are some,’ said Hugh, ‘will soon be saying, “As a husband might,” if they were in bitter contention, and she drove him to violence first, and remorse afterwards. No, no need to fret yet for Ruald, he has been in the company of a host of brothers since before his wife was last seen whole and well. We’ll be patching together from their witness all his comings and goings since he entered his novitiate. And going back over the past few years in search of other women gone astray.’ He rose, eyeing the gathering dusk outside the door. ‘I’d best be getting back. I’ve taken too much of your time.’
Eudo rose with him, willing and earnest. ‘No, you did right to look this way first. And I’ll ask among my men, be sure. I still feel sometimes as though that field is my ground. You don’t let go of land, even to the Church, without feeling you’ve left stray roots in it. I think I’ve stayed away from it to avoid despite, that it was left waste. I was glad to hear of the exchange, I knew the abbey would make better use of it. To tell the truth, I was surprised when my father made up his mind to give it to Haughmond, seeing the trouble they’d have turning it to account.’ He had followed Hugh towards the outer door, to see his guest out and mounted, when he halted suddenly, and looked back at the curtained doorway in a corner of the great hall.
‘Would you look in for a moment, and say a neighbourly word to my mother, Hugh, while you’re here? She can’t get out at all now, and has very few visitors. She hasn’t been out of the door since my father’s burial. If you’d look in for a moment, it would please her.’
‘I will surely,’ said Hugh, turning at once.
‘But don’t tell her anything about this dead woman, it would only upset her, land that was ours so lately, and Ruald being our tenant
God knows she has enough to endure, we try to keep the world’s ill news away from her, all the more when it comes so near home.’
‘Not a word!’ agreed Hugh. ‘How is it with her since I saw her last?’
The young man shook his head. ‘Nothing changes. Only day by day she grows a little thinner and paler, but she makes no complaint. You’ll see. Go in to her!’ His hand was at the curtain, his voice lowered, to be heard only by Hugh. Plainly he was reluctant to go in with the guest, his vigorous youth was uneasy and helpless in the presence of illness, he could be excused for turning his eyes away. As soon as he opened the door of the solar and spoke to the woman within, his voice became unnaturally gentle and constrained, as to a stranger difficult, to approach, but to whom he owed affection. ‘Mother, here’s Hugh Beringar paying us a visit.’
Hugh passed by him, and entered a small room, warmed by a little charcoal brazier set on a flat slab of stone, and lit by a torch in a sconce on the wall. Close under the light the dowager lady of Longner sat on a bench against the wall, propped erect with rugs and cushions, and in her stillness and composure dominating the room. She was
