Hyacinth stole out from Eilmund’s cottage, and made his way through the deepest cover towards the river. He had been all that day pinned close within doors, for there had again been men of the garrison sweeping through the forest, and though their passage was rapid and cursory, for the aim was to carry the search further afield, and though they knew Eilmund, and felt no compulsion to investigate his holding a second time, they were still liable to look in on him in neighbourly fashion as they passed, and ask him casually if anything of note had come to his attention. Hyacinth did not take kindly to being shut within doors, nor, indeed, to hiding. By the evening he was chafing at his confinement, but by then the hunters were on their way back, abandoning the chase until the morrow, and he was free to do a little hunting of his own.
For all the wariness and fear he felt on his own account, and admitted with his infallible and fiery honesty, he could not rest for thinking of Richard, who had come running to warn him, so gallantly and thoughtlessly. But for that the boy would never have placed himself in danger. But why should there be danger to him in his own woods, among his own people? In a troubled England there were lawless men living wild, no doubt of that, but this shire had gone almost untouched by the war for more than four years now, and seemed to enjoy a degree of peace and order unmatched further south, and the town was barely seven miles distant, and the sheriff active and young, and even, so far as a sheriff can be, popular with his people. And the more Hyacinth thought about it, the more clear did it seem to him that the only threat to Richard that he had ever heard of was Dame Dionisia’s threat to marry him off to the two manors she coveted. For that she had persisted in every device she could think of. Hyacinth had been her instrument once, and could not forget it. She must be the force behind the boy’s disappearance.
True, the sheriff had descended on Eaton, searched every corner, and found no trace, and no one, in a household devoted to the boy, able to cast the least suspicion on Dionisia’s indignant innocence. She had no other property where she could hide either boy or pony. And though Fulke Astley might be willing to connive, feeling that he had as good a chance of securing Eaton as she had of getting her hands on his daughter’s inheritance, yet Wroxeter also had been searched thoroughly, and without success.
Today the hunt had moved on, and according to all that Annet had gathered from the returning sergeants it would continue as doggedly on the morrow, but it had not yet reached Leighton, two miles downriver. And though Astley and his household preferred to live at Wroxeter, the more remote manor of Leighton was also in his hold.
It was the only starting point Hyacinth could find, and it was worth a venture. If Richard had been caught in the woods by some of Astley’s men, or those from Eaton who were willing to serve Dionisia’s turn, it might well have been thought wisest to remove him as far as Leighton, rather than try to hide him nearer home. Moreover, if she still intended to force this marriage on the boy?there were ways of getting the right answers out of even the most stubborn children, more by guile than by terror?she needed a priest, and Hyacinth had been about the village of Eaton long enough to know that Father Andrew was an honest man, by no means a good tool for such a purpose. The priest at Leighton, less well acquainted with the ins and outs of the affair, might be more amenable.
At least it was one thing which could be tested. It was no use Eilmund counselling him sensibly and good- naturedly to stay where he was and not risk capture; even Eilmund understood and approved what he called folly. Annet had not tried to dissuade Hyacinth, only sensibly provided him a black, much worn coat of Eilmund’s too wide for him but excellent for moving invisibly by night, and a dark capuchon to shadow his face.
Between the forest and the meanderings of the river, downstream from the mill and the fisheries and the few cottages that served them, the open water meadows extended, and there the light still hung, and a faint ground mist lay veiling the green, and twined like a silver serpent along the river. But along the northern rim the forest continued, halfway to Leighton, and beyond that point the ground rose towards the last low foothills of the Wrekin, and he would have to make use of what scattered cover remained. But here where trees and grassland met he could move fast, keeping within the edge of the woods but benefiting by the light of the open fields, and the stillness and silence and the careful stealth of his own movements would ensure that he should get due warning of any other creature stirring in the night.
He had covered more than a mile when the first small sounds reached him, and he froze, and stood with pricked ears, listening intently. A single metallic note, somewhere behind him, harness briefly shaken. Then a soft brushing of bushes as something passed, and then, unmistakable though quiet, and still some distance away, a subdued voice ventured briefly what sounded like a question, and as meekly subsided. Not one person abroad in the dusk, but two, or why speak at all? And mounted, and keeping to the rim of the woodland like himself, when it would have been simpler by far to take to the meadows. Riders by night, no more anxious to be observed than he was, and going in the same direction. Hyacinth strained his ears to pick up the muted, leaf-cushioned tread of hooves, and try to determine the line they were taking through the trees. Close to the rim, for the sake of what light remained, but more concerned with secrecy than with haste.
Cautiously Hyacinth withdrew further into the forest, and stood motionless in cover to let them pass by. There was still enough light left to make them a little more than shadowy outlines as they came and passed in single file, first a tall horse that showed as a moving pallor, probably a light grey, with a big, gross man on his back, bearded, bare-headed, the folds of his capuchon draped on his shoulders. Hyacinth knew the shape and the bearing, had seen this very man mount and ride, thus sack-like but solid in the saddle, from Richard Ludel’s funeral. What was Fulke Astley doing here in the night, making his way thus furtively, not by the roads but through the forest, from one to the other of his own manors? For where else could he be bound?
And the figure that followed him, on a thickset cob, was certainly a woman, and could be nobody else but his daughter, surely, that unknown Hiltrude who seemed so old and unpleasing to young Richard.
So their errand, after all, was not so mysterious. Of course they would want the marriage achieved as soon as possible, if they had Richard in their hands. They had waited these few days until both Eaton and Wroxeter had been searched, but with the hunt being spread more widely they would wait no longer. Whatever risk they might be taking, once the match was a reality they could weather whatever storms followed. They could even afford to set Richard free to return to the abbey, for nothing and no one but the authority of the church could set him free from a wife.
And that being so, what could be done to prevent? There was no time to run back either to Eilmund’s house, and have Annet carry words to castle or abbey, or direct to the town, and Hyacinth still found himself humanly reluctant to throw his own chance of liberty to the winds. But it did not arise, there was no time left at all. If he went back, by the time rescue could arrive for Richard he would be married. Perhaps there might yet be time to find where they had hidden him, and whisk him away from under their noses. These two were in no hurry, and Dame Dionisia had still to make the short journey from Eaton without detection. And the priest?where would they have found a willing priest? Nothing could be done until a priest was there.
Hyacinth forsook the thick cover, and made his way deeper into the belt of forest, no longer intent on secrecy, only on speed. At the pace the riders were making he could outrun them on a path, and in this extremity he would venture even the highroad, if need be, and risk meeting others still out on their own lawful occasions. But there was a path, too near the open road for the Astleys to favour it, and merging into the road itself once it had crossed the upland ridge. Hyacinth reached it and ran, fleet and silent on the thick carpet of leaves too moist and limp to rustle under his feet.
Once out on to the open track and plunging downhill towards the village, still almost a mile distant, he drew off again into the fields dipping to the river, and ran from one scattered covert to another, assured now that he was ahead of Astley. He waded the little stream that came down from the foot of the Wrekin to reach the Severn here,
