‘It was right that I should go where I was summoned, and do what it was laid on me to do. But that I should embrace my joy and wholly forget her wretchedness, that was ill done. Now the day is come when I cannot even recall her face, or the way she moved, only the disquiet she has left with me, too long unregarded, now come home in full. Wherever she may be, she has her requital. These six months past,’ he said grievously, ‘I have not even prayed for her peace. She has been clean gone out of mind, because I was happy.’
‘You visited her twice, I understand,’ said Hugh, ‘after you were received here as a postulant.’
‘I did, with Brother Paul, as he will tell you. I had goods which Father Abbot allowed me to give over to her, for her living. It was done lawfully. That was the first occasion.’
‘And when was that?’
“The twenty-eighth day of May, of last year. And again we went there to the croft in the first days of June, after I had made up the sum I had from selling my wheel and tools and what was left of use about the croft. I had hoped that she might have become reconciled, and would give me her forgiveness and goodwill, but it was not so. She had contended with me all those weeks to keep me at her side as before. But that day she turned upon me with hatred and anger, scorned to touch any part of what was mine, and cried out at me that I might go, for she had a lover worth the loving, and every tenderness ever she had had for me was turned to gall.’
‘She told you that?’ said Hugh sharply. ‘That she had another lover? I know that was the gossip, when she left the cottage and went away secretly. But you had it from her own lips?’
‘Yes, she said so. She was bitter that after she had failed to keep me at her side, neither could she now be rid of me and free in the world’s eyes, for still I was her husband, a millstone about her neck, and she could not slough me off. But that should not prevent, she said, but she would take her freedom by force, for she had a lover, a hundred times my worth, and she would go with him, if he beckoned, to the ends of the earth. Brother Paul was witness to all,’ said Ruald simply. ‘He will tell you.’
‘And that was the last time you saw her?’
‘That was the last time. By the end of that month of June she was gone.’
‘And since that time, have you ever been back to that field?’
‘No. I have worked on abbey land, in the Gaye for the most part, but that field has only now become abbey land. Early in October, a year ago now, it was given to Haughmond. Eudo Blount of Longner, who was my overlord, made the gift to them. I never thought to see or hear of the place again.’
‘Or of Generys?’ Cadfael interjected mildly, and watched the lines of Ruald’s thin face tighten in a brief spasm of pain and shame. And even these he would endure faithfully, mitigated and rendered bearable by the assurance of joy that now never deserted him. ‘I have a question to ask,’ said Cadfael, ‘if Father Abbot permits. In all the years you spent with her, had you ever cause to complain of your wife’s loyalty and fidelity, or the love she bore to you?’
Without hesitation Ruald said: ‘No! She was always true and fond. Almost too fond! I doubt I ever could match her devotion. I brought her out of her own land,’ said Ruald, setting truth before his own eyes and scarcely regarding those who overheard, ‘into a country strange to her, where her tongue was alien and her ways little understood. Only now do I see how much more she gave me than I ever had it in me to repay.’
It was early evening, almost time for Vespers, when Hugh reclaimed the horse Brother Richard had considerately stabled, and rode out from the gatehouse into the Foregate, and for a moment hesitated whether to turn left, and make for his own house in the town, or right, and continue the pursuit of truth well into the dusk. A faint blue vapour was already rising over the river, and the sky was heavily veiled, but there was an hour or more of light left, time enough to ride to Longner and back and have a word with young Eudo Blount. Doubtful if he had paid any attention to the Potter’s Field since it was deeded away to Haughmond, but at least his manor lay close to it, over the crest and in among the woodlands of his demesne, and someone among his people might almost daily have to pass that way. It was worth an enquiry.
He made for the ford, leaving the highway by the hospital of Saint Giles, and took the field path along the waterside, leaving the partially ploughed slope high on his left-hand side. Beyond the headland that bordered the new ploughland a gentle slope of woodland began above the water meadows, and in a cleared space within this belt of trees the manor of Longner stood, well clear of any flooding. The low undercroft was cut back into the slope, and stone steps led steeply up to the hall door of the living floor above. A groom was crossing the yard from the stable as Hugh rode in at the open gateway, and came blithely to take his bridle and ask his business with the master.
Eudo Blount had heard the voices below, and came out to his hall door to see who his visitor might be. He was already well acquainted with the sheriff of the shire, and greeted him warmly, for he was a young man cheerful and open by nature, a year established now in his lordship, and comfortable in his relationship with his own people and the ordered world around him. The burial of his father, seven months past now, and the heroic manner of his death, though a grief, had also served to ground and fortify the mutual trust and respect the new young lord enjoyed with his tenants and servants. The simplest villein holding a patch of Blount land felt a share in the pride due to Martel’s chosen few who had covered the king’s retreat from Wilton, and died in the battle. Young Eudo was barely twenty- three years old, and inexperienced, untravelled, as firmly bound to this soil as any villein in his holding, a big, homely, fair-skinned fellow with a shock of thick brown hair. The right management of a potentially prosperous manor, somewhat depleted in his grandfather’s time, would be an absorbing joy to him, and he would make a good job of it, and leave it to his eventual heir richer than he had inherited it from his father. At this stage, Hugh recalled, this young man was only three months married, and the gloss of fulfilment was new and shiny upon him.
‘I’m on an errand that can hardly be good news to you,’ said Hugh without preamble,’though no reason it should cause you any trouble, either. The abbey put in its plough team this morning in the Potter’s Field.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ said Eudo serenely. ‘My man Robin saw them come. I’ll be glad to see it productive, though it’s no business of mine now.’
‘We’re none of us overjoyed at the first crop it’s produced,’ said Hugh bluntly. “The plough has turned up a body from under the headland. We have a dead woman in the mortuary chapel at the abbey?or her bones, at least.’
The young man had halted in the act of pouring wine for his visitor, so abruptly that the pitcher shook and spilled red over his hand. He turned upon Hugh round, blue, astonished eyes, and stared open-mouthed.
‘A dead woman? What, buried there? Bones, you say?how long dead then? And who can it be?’
‘Who’s to know that? Bones is all we have, but a woman it is. Or was once. Dead perhaps as long as five years, so I’m advised, but no longer, and perhaps much less. Have you ever seen strangers there, or anything happening to make a man take notice? I know you had no need to keep a watch on the place, it has been Haughmond’s business for the past year, but since it’s so close, some of your men may have noted if there were intruders about.
