‘For God’s sake, boy,’ he said, sighing, ‘what was it you did to your overlord, there in Northamptonshire, to get yourself so bitterly hated? Did you indeed assault his steward?’
‘I did,’ acknowledged Hyacinth with satisfaction, and a red reminiscent spark kindled in his eyes. ‘It was after the last of the harvest, and there was a girl gleaning in the poor leavings in one of the demesne fields. There never was a girl safe from him if he came on her alone. It was only by chance I was near. He had a staff, and dropped her to swing at my head with it when I came at him. I got a few bruises, but I laid him flat against the stones under the headland, clean out of his wits. So there was nothing I could do but run for it. I’d nothing to leave, no land. Drogo distrained on my father two years before, when he was in his last illness and I had all to do, our fields and Bosiet’s harvest labour, and we ended in debt. He’d been after us a long while, he said I was for ever rousing his villeins against him
Well, if I was it was for their rights. There are laws to defend life and limb even for villeins, but they meant precious little in Bosiet’s manors. He’d have had me half-killed for attacking the steward. He’d have had me hanged if I hadn’t been profitable to him. It was the chance he’d been waiting for.’
‘How were you profitable to him?’ asked Cadfael.
‘I had a turn for fine leather-work belts, harness, pouches, and the like. When he’d made me landless he offered to leave me the toft if I’d bind myself to turn over all my work to him for my keep. I’d no choice, I was still his villein. But I began to do finer tooling and gilding. He wanted to get some favour out of the earl once, and he had me make a book cover to give him as a present. And then the prior of the Augustinian canons at Huntingdon saw it, and ordered a special binding for their great codex, and the sub-prior of Cluny at Northampton wanted his best missal rebound, and so it grew. And they paid well, but I got nothing out of it. Drogo’s done well out of me. That’s the other reason he wanted me back alive. And so will his son Aymer want me.’
‘If you have a trade the like of that at your finger-ends,’ said Eilmund approvingly, ‘you can make your way anywhere, once you’re free of these Bosiets. Our abbot might very well put some work your way, and some town merchant would be glad to have you in his employ.’
‘Where and how did you meet with Cuthred?’ asked Cadfael, curiously.
‘That was at the Cluniac priory in Northampton. I lay up for the night there, but I dared not go into the enclave, there were one or two there who knew me. I got food by sitting with the beggars at the gate, and when I was making off before dawn, Cuthred was for starting too, having spent the night in the guest hall.’ An abrupt dark smile plucked at the corners of Hyacinth’s eloquent lips. He kept his startling eyes veiled under their high-arched golden lids. ‘He proposed we should travel together. Out of charity, surely. Or so that I should not have to thieve for my food, and sink into a worse condition even than before.’ As abruptly he looked up, unveiling the full brilliance of wide eyes fixed full and solemnly on Eilmund’s face. The smile had vanished.
‘It’s time you knew the worst of me, I want no lies among this company. I came this way owing the world nothing, and ripe for any mischief, and a rogue and a vagabond I could be, and a thief I have been at need. Before you shelter me another hour, you should know what cause you have to think better of it. Annet,’ he said, his voice soft and assuaged on her name, ‘already knows what you must know too. You have that right. I told her the truth the night Brother Cadfael was here to set your bone.’
Cadfael remembered the motionless figure sitting patiently outside the cottage, the urgent whisper: ‘I must speak to you!’ And Annet coming out into the dark, and closing the door after her.
‘It was I,’ said Hyacinth with steely deliberation, ‘who dammed the brook with bushes so that your seedlings were flooded. It was I who undercut the bank and bridged the ditch so that the deer got into the coppice. It was I who shifted a pale of the Eaton fence to let out the sheep to the ash saplings. I had my orders from Dame Dionisia to be a thorn in the flesh to the abbey until they gave her her grandson back. That was why she set up Cuthred in his hermitage, to put me there as his servant. And I knew nothing then of any of you, and cared less, and I was not going to quarrel with what provided me a comfortable living and a safe refuge until I could do better. It’s my doing, more’s the pity, that the worse thing happened, and the tree came down on you and pinned you in the brook, my doing that you’re lamed and housebound here though that slip came of itself, I didn’t touch it again. So now you know,’ said Hyacinth, ‘and if you see fit to take the skin off my back for it, I won’t lift a hand to prevent, and if you throw me out afterwards, I’ll go.’ He reached up a hand to Annet’s hand and added flatly: ‘But not far!’
There was a long pause while two of them sat staring at him, intently and silently, and Annet watched them no less warily, all of them withholding judgement. No one had exclaimed against him, no one had interrupted this half-defiant confession. Hyacinth’s truth was used like a dagger, and his humility came very close to arrogance. If he was ashamed, it did not show in his face. Yet it could not have been easy to strip himself thus of the consideration and kindness father and daughter had shown him. If he had not spoken, clearly Annet would have said no word. And he had not pleaded, nor attempted any extenuation. He was ready to take what was due without complaint. Doubtful if anyone, however eloquent or terrible a confessor, would ever get this elusive creature nearer to penitence than this.
Eilmund stirred, settling his broad shoulders more easily against the wall, and blew out a great, gusty breath. ‘Well, if you brought the tree down on me, you also hoisted it off me. And if you think I’d give up a runaway villein to slavery again because he’d played a few foul tricks on me, you’re not well acquainted with my simple sort. I fancy the fright I gave you that day was all the thrashing you needed. And since then you’ve done me no more injury, for from all I hear there’s been quiet in the woods from that day. I doubt if the lady’s satisfied with her bargain. You show sense, and stay where you are.’
‘I told him,’ said Annet, confidently smiling, ‘you would not pay back injury for injury. I never said a word, I knew he would out with it himself. And Brother Cadfael knows now Hyacinth’s no murderer, and has owned to the worst he knows about himself. There’s not one of us here will betray him.’
No, not one! But Cadfael sat somewhat anxiously pondering what could best be done now. Betrayal was impossible, certainly, but the hunt would go on, and might well drag all these woods over again, and in the meantime Hugh, in his natural concentration on this most likely quarry, might be losing all likelihood of finding the real murderer. Even Drogo Bosiet was entitled to justice, however he infringed the rights of others. Withholding from Hugh the certainty and proof of Hyacinth’s innocence might be delaying the reassessment that would set in motion the pursuit of the guilty.
‘Will you trust me, and let me tell Hugh Beringar what you have told me? Give me leave,’ urged Cadfael hastily, seeing their faces stiffen in consternation, ‘to deal with him privately?’
‘No!’ Annet laid her hand possessively on Hyacinth’s shoulder, burning up like a stirred fire. ‘No, you can’t give him up! We have trusted you, you can’t fail us.’
‘No, no, no, not that! I know Hugh well, he would not willingly give up a villein to mistreatment, he is for justice even before law. Let me tell him only that Hyacinth is innocent, and show him the proof. I need say nothing as to how I know or where he is, Hugh will take my word. Then he can hold off this search and leave you alone until it’s safe for you to come forth and speak openly.’
