branches that caught at the braids, and the colour in her cheeks was rosy and roused, to match the brilliance of her eyes. She had brought in a few of the month’s lost leaves on her shoes. True, the byre lay just within the trees at the edge of the clearing, but there were no well-grown oaks there.
‘Well, now that you’re back, and I shan’t be leaving him to complain without a listener,’ said Cadfael, ‘I’d best be getting back before it’s full dark. Keep him off his feet for a few days yet, lass, and I’ll let him up on crutches soon if he behaves himself. At least he’s taken no harm from lying fast in the water, that’s a mercy.’
‘Thanks to Cuthred’s boy Hyacinth,’ Annet reminded them.
She flicked a swift glance at her father, and was pleased when he responded heartily: ‘And that’s truth if ever there was! He was as good as a son to me that day, and I don’t forget it.’
And was it fancy, or did Annet’s cheeks warm into a deeper rose? As good as a son to a man who had no son to be his right hand, but only this bright, confident, discreet and loving daughter?
‘Possess your soul in patience,’ advised Cadfael, rising, ‘and we’ll have you as sound as before. It’s worth waiting for. And don’t fret about the coppice, for Annet here will tell you they’ve made a good job of clearing the brook and shaved off the overhang of the bank. It will hold.’ He made fast his scrip to his girdle, and turned to the door.
‘I’ll see you to the gate,’ said Annet, and came out with him into the deep twilight of the clearing, where his horse was placidly pulling at the turf.
‘Girl,’ said Cadfael with his foot in the stirrup, ‘you blossom like a rose tonight.’
She was just taking up the loose tresses in her hands, and smoothing them back into neatness with the rest. She turned and smiled at him. ‘But I seem to have been through a thorn bush,’ she said.
Cadfael leaned from the saddle and delicately picked a sear oak leaf out of her hair. She looked up to see him twirling it gently between his fingers by the stem, and wonderfully she smiled. That was how he left her, roused and braced, and surely having made up her mind to go, undaunted, through all the thorny thickets that might be in the path between her and what she wanted. She was not ready yet to confide even in her father, but it troubled her not at all that Cadfael should guess at what was in the wind, nor had she any fear of a twisted ending. Which did not preclude the possibility that others might have good reason to fear on her account.
Cadfael rode without haste through the darkening wood. The moon was already up, and bright where it could penetrate the thickness of the trees. Compline must be long over by now, and the brothers making ready for sleep. The boys would be in their beds long ago. It was cool and fresh in the green-scented forest, pleasant to ride alone and at leisure, and have time to think of timeless things that could not be accommodated in the bustle of the day, sometimes not even during the holy office or the quiet times of prayer, where by rights they belonged. There was more room for them here under this night sky still faintly luminous round the rims of vision. Cadfael rode in a deep content of mind through the thickest part of the woodland growth, with a glimmer of light from the open fields ahead before him.
It was the rustling movement on his left, among the trees, that startled him out of his muse. Something vaguely pale in the gloom moved alongside him, and he heard the slight jingling of a horse’s bit and bridle. A riderless horse, wandering astray but saddled and bridled, for the small metallic sounds rang clear. He had not been riderless when he set out from his stable. In glimpses of moonlight between the branches the pale shape shone elusively, drawing nearer to the path. Cadfael had seen that light roan hide before, that same afternoon in the great court of the abbey.
He dismounted in haste, and called, advancing to take the slack bridle and run a hand over the dappled forehead. The saddle was still in place, but the straps that had held a small saddle-roll behind it had been sliced through. And where was the rider? And why, indeed, had he set out yet again, after returning empty-handed from a day’s hunting? Had someone provided him a clue to start him off again after his prey, even thus late at night?
Cadfael parted the bushes and turned in from the path, where he had first glimpsed the pale form moving. Here nothing seemed disturbed, the tangle of branches showed no disrupting passage. He worked back a little to emerge again on the path, and there, aside under the bushes in long grass, so hidden that he had ridden past it and seen no sign, he found what he had feared to find.
Drogo Bosiet lay sprawled on his face, sunk deep in the ripe autumnal herbage, and even against the dark colouring of his gown, Cadfael could just distinguish the darker blot that was his blood, welling out under his left shoulder blade, where the dagger that had killed him had plunged and been withdrawn.
Chapter Six
AT SO late an hour there was small chance of reaching immediate help at either abbey or castle, and none of deriving any knowledge from the darkening scene here in the forest. All Cadfael could do, thus alone, was to kneel beside the mute body and feel for a heartbeat or pulse, and listen for any faint sign of breathing. But though Drogo’s flesh was warm, and yielded pliably to handling, there was no breath in him, and the heart in his great chest, almost certainly pierced by the thrust from behind, was stonily still. He could not have been dead very long, but the gush of blood that had sprung out with the blade had ceased to flow, and was beginning to dry at its edges into a dark crust. More than an hour ago, Cadfael thought, judging by what signs he had, perhaps as much as two hours. And his saddle-roll cut loose and taken. Here, in our woods! When did any man ever hear of footpads so close? Or has some cutthroat from the town heard of Eilmund being laid up at home, and ventured to try his luck here for a chance traveller riding alone?
Delay could not harm Drogo now, and daylight might show at least some trace to lead to his murderer. Best leave him so, and take word to the castle, where there was always a guard waking, and leave a message for Hugh, to be delivered as soon as there was light. At midnight the brothers would rise for Matins, and the same grim news could and should be delivered then to Abbot Radulfus. The dead man was the abbey’s guest, and his son expected within a few days, and to the abbey he must be taken for proper and reverent care.
No, there was nothing more to be done for Drogo Bosiet, but at least he could get the horse back to his stable. Cadfael mounted, and gathered the loose bridle in his left hand, and the horse came with him docilely. There was no haste. He had until midnight. No need to save time, since even if he reached his bed before Matins, sleep would be impossible. Better take care of the horses and then wait for the bell.
Abbot Radulfus came early to the church for Matins, to find Cadfael waiting for him in the south porch as he crossed from his lodging. The bell in the dortoir was only just sounding. It takes but a few moments to say bluntly that a man is dead, and by an act of man, not of God.
Radulfus was never known to waste words in exclamation, and did not do so now at the news that a guest of his house had come to an unlawful end in the abbey’s own forest. The gross affront and grosser wrong he accepted in sombre silence, and the right and duty of retribution, as incumbent now upon the church as on the secular authority, he took up with a deep assenting nod of his head, and a grim tightening of his long, firm lips. In the hush while he thought, they heard the soft, sandalled steps of the brothers descending the night stairs.
