a very frail barrier most of the year,’ said Cadfael doubtfully. ‘But we have had great rains this winter season. But there’s both the ford and the bridge to guard.’ ‘True, but it takes no time there among good neighbours to raise a very fair muster. We are well thought of among the forest folk, and they are stout men.’ Four of the stout men of her army were regaling themselves in the gatehouse with meat and bread and ale at this moment, proud and content, set up in their own esteem, very properly, by their own exploits. The brook was high in flood already, but we contrived to pit the ford, in case they should still venture it, and then John Miller opened up all his sluices to swell the waters. As for the bridge, we sawed through the wood of the piers, leaving them only the last holt, and fastened ropes from them into the bushes. You’ll recall the banks are well treed both sides. We could pluck the piers loose from cover whenever we saw fit. And all the men of the forest came with bills and dung, forks and bows to line our bank, and deal with any who did get over.’ No question who had generalled that formidable reception. There she sat, solid, placid and comely, like a well, blessed village matron talking of the doings of her children and grandchildren, fond and proud of their precocious achievements, but too wise to let them see it.
‘The foresters,’ she said, ‘are as good archers as you will find anywhere, we had them spaced among the trees, all along our bank. And the men of the other bank were drawn aside in cover, to speed the enemy’s going when he ran.’ The abbot was regarding her with a warily respectful face, and brows that signalled his guarded wonder. ‘I recall,’ he said, ‘that Mother Mariana is old and frail. This attack must have caused her great distress and fear. Happy for her that she had you, and could delegate her powers to so stout and able a deputy.’ Sister Magdalen’s benign smile might, Cadfael thought, be discreet cover for her memory of Mother Mariana distracted and helpless with dread at the threat. But all she said was: ‘Our superior was not well at that time, but praise be, she is now restored. We entreated her to take with her the elder sisters, and shut themselves up in the chapel, with such sacred valuables as we have, and there to pray for our safe deliverance. Which doubtless availed us above our bills and bows, for all passed without harm to us.’ ‘Yet their prayers did not turn the Welsh back short of the planned attempt, I doubt,’ said Hugh, meeting her guileless eyes with an appreciative smile. ‘I see I shall have to mend a few fences down there. What followed? You say all fell out well. You used those ropes of yours?’ ‘We did. They came thick and fast, we let them load the bridge almost to the near bank, and then plucked the piers loose. Their first wave went down into the flood, and a few who tried the ford lost their footing in our pits, and were swept away. And after our archers had loosed their first shafts, the Welsh turned tail. The lads we had in cover on the other side took after them and sped them on their way. John Miller has closed his sluices now. Give us a couple of dry weeks, and we’ll have the bridge up again. The Welsh left three men dead, drowned in the brook, the rest they hauled out half, sodden, and dragged them away with them when they ran. All but one, and he’s the occasion for this journey of mine. There’s a very fine young fellow,’ she said, ‘was washed downstream, and we pulled him out bloated with water and far gone, if we had not emptied him, and pounded him alive to tell the tale. You may send and take him off our hands whenever you please. Things being as it seems they are, you may well have a use for him.’ ‘For any Welsh prisoner,’ said Hugh, glowing. ‘Where have you stowed him?’ ‘John Miller has him under lock and key, and guarded. I did not venture to try and bring him to you, for good reason. He’s sudden as a kingfisher and slippery as a fish, and short of tying him hand and foot I doubt if we could have held him.’ ‘We’ll undertake to bring him away safely,’ said Hugh heartily. ‘What manner of man do you make of him? And has he given you a name?’ ‘He’ll say no word but in Welsh, and I have not the knowledge of that tongue, nor has any of us. But he’s young, princely provided, and lofty enough in his manner to be princely born, no common kern. He may prove valuable if it comes to an exchange.’ ‘I’ll come and fetch him away tomorrow,’ promised Hugh, ‘and thank you for him heartily. By morning I’ll have a company ready to ride. As well I should look to all that border, and if you can bide overnight, sister, we can escort you home in safety.’ ‘Indeed it would be wise,’ said the abbot. ‘Our guest, hall and all we have is open to you, and your neighbours who have done you such good service are equally welcome. Far better return with the assurance of numbers and arms. Who knows if there may not be marauding parties still lurking in the forest, if they’re grown so bold?’ ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘We saw no sign of it on the way here. It was the men themselves would not let me venture alone. But I will accept your hospitality, Father, with pleasure, and be as grateful for your company, my lord,’ she said, smiling thoughtfully at Hugh, ‘on the way home.’ ‘Though, faith,’ said Hugh to Cadfael, as they crossed the court together, leaving Sister Magdalen to dine as the abbot’s guest, ‘it would rather become me to give her the generalship of all the forest than offer her any protection of mine. We should have had her at Lincoln, where our enemies crossed the floods, as hers failed to do. Riding south with her tomorrow will certainly be pleasure, it might well be profit. I’ll bend a devout ear to any counsel that lady chooses to dispense.’ ‘You’ll be giving pleasure as well as receiving it,’ said Cadfael frankly. ‘She may have taken vows of chastity, and what she swears she’ll keep. But she has not sworn never to take delight in the looks and converse and company of a proper man. I doubt they’ll ever bring her to consent to that, she’d think it a waste and a shame, so to throw God’s good gifts in his teeth.’ The party mustered after Prime next morning, Sister Magdalen and her four henchmen, Hugh and his half, dozen armed guards from the castle garrison. Brother Cadfael stood to watch them gather and mount, and took a warmly appreciative leave of the lady.
‘I doubt I shall be hard put to it, though,’ he admitted,’to learn to call you by your new name.’ At that her dimple dipped and flashed, and again vanished. ‘Ah, that! You are thinking that I never yet repented of anything I did, and I confess I don’t recall such a thing myself. No, but it was such a comfort and satisfaction to the women. They took me to their hearts so joyfully, the sweet things, a fallen sister retrieved. I couldn’t forbear giving them what they wanted and thought fitting. I am their special pride, they boast of me.’ ‘Well they may,’ said Cadfael,’seeing you just drove back pillage, ravishment and probable murder from their nest.’ Ah, that they feel to be somewhat unwomanly, though glad enough of the result. The doves were all aflutter, but then, I was never a dove,’ said Sister Magdalen, ‘and it’s only the men truly admire the hawk in me.’ And she smiled, mounted her little mule and rode off homeward surrounded by men who already admired her, and men who were more than willing to offer admiration. In the court or in the cloister, Avice of Thornbury would never pass by without turning men’s heads to follow her.
CHAPTER TWO.
BEFORE nightfall Hugh was back with his prisoner, having prospected the western fringe of the Long Forest and encountered no more raiding Welshmen and no masterless men living wild. Brother Cadfael saw them pass by the abbey gatehouse on their way up through the town to the castle, where this possibly valuable Welsh youth could be held in safekeeping and, short of a credible parole, doubtless under lock and key in some sufficiently impenetrable cell. Hugh could not afford to lose him.
Cadfael caught but a passing glimpse of him as they rode by in the early dusk. It seemed he had given some trouble on the way, for his hands were tied, his horse on a leading rein, his feet roped into the stirrups and an archer rode suggestively close at his rear. If these precautions were meant to secure him, they had succeeded, but if to intimidate, as the young man himself appeared to suppose, they had signally failed, for he went with a high, disdainful impudence, stretching up tall and whistling as he went, and casting over his shoulder at the archer occasional volleys of Welsh, which the man might not have endured so stolidly had he been able to understand their purport as well as Cadfael did. He was, in fact, a very forward and uppish young fellow, this prisoner, though it might have been partly bravado.
He was also a very well, looking young man, middling tall for a Welshman, with the bold cheekbones and chin and the ruddy colouring of his kind, and a thick tangle of black curls that fell very becomingly about his brow and ears, blown by the south, west wind, for he wore no cap. Tethered hands and feet did not hamper him from sitting his horse like a centaur, and the voice that teased his guards in insolent Welsh was light and clear. Sister Magdalen had said truly that his gear was princely, and his manner proclaimed him certainly proud and probably, thought Cadfael, spoiled to the point of ruin. Not a particularly rare condition in a well, made, personable and probably only son.
They passed, and the prisoner’s loud, melodious whistle of defiance died gradually along the Foregate and over the bridge. Cadfael went back to his workshop in the herbarium, and blew up his brazier to boil a fresh elixir of horehound for the winter coughs and colds.
