from transgressing their rules. He looked up warily into the abbot’s face, shot an uneasy glance at Hugh, whose reactions as the secular authority were less calculable, and said earnestly: ‘Father, I said I would tell you, but I did not say I would tell any other. There is someone who might be harmed if I told what I know of him, and I know he has not deserved it. I can’t bring him into danger.’
‘I would not wish to make you break faith with any man,’ said Radulfus gravely. ‘Tomorrow I’ll hear your confession myself, and you shall tell me then, and rest happy that you’ve done right, and your confidence is sacred. Now you’d best get to your bed, for I fancy you need it. Take him away, Paul!’
Richard made his ceremonial reverences, glad to have got off so lightly; but as he passed where Hugh sat he hesitated and stopped, plainly with something still on his mind.
‘My lord, you said everyone at Leighton said I had never been there, of course they’d be afraid to say anything else. But did Hiltrude say so?’
Hugh could make connections perhaps faster than most men, but if he instantly made this one he gave no sign of it. With respectful gravity and a blank countenance he said: ‘That’s Astley’s daughter? I never spoke with her, she was not in the house.’
Not there! So she did not have to lie. She must have slipped out discreetly as soon as her father was gone. Richard said a relieved and grateful goodnight, and went away to his bed with a lightened heart.
‘She let him out, of course,’ said Hugh as soon as the door had closed after the boy. ‘She was a victim no less than he. Now I begin to see a pattern. Richard is seized as he rides back through Eyton forest, and what is there in Eyton forest and along that path but Eilmund’s cottage and the hermitage? And to the hermitage we know he did not go. And who should walk into Shrewsbury about noon this day and send me off hotfoot to Leighton, which otherwise I should not have reached before tomorrow, but Eilmund’s girl? And where she got the news she never clearly said, but some passing villager had said he’d seen a boy there who might well be Richard. And Richard, more forthrightly, will not say why he went off there alone, nor who told him the hermit is no true priest. Father, it seems to me that someone?let’s not go so far as to name him!?has very good friends among our acquaintance. I hope they are as good judges! Well, tomorrow, at any rate, there’ll be no hunting. Richard is safely home with you. And to tell truth, I doubt the other quarry will ever be flushed out of cover. Tomorrow our morning business is laid down for us. Let’s first see that resolved.’
As soon as Prime was over they mounted and rode, Abbot Radulfus, Hugh Beringar and Brother Cadfael, who in any case was bound for Eilmund’s cottage that day, to see how the forester was progressing. It was by no means the first time he had adjusted his legitimate visits to accommodate his reasoned curiosity. That he could count on Hugh to abet his plans was an added advantage, and an additional witness with a sharp eye for the infinitesimal changes by which the human countenance betrays itself might be invaluable in this encounter. The morning was clearer of mist than in recent days, there had arisen a steady, drying wind that was crisping the fallen leaves in the forest rides, and colouring in muted gold those that still hung on the trees. The first frost would set the crowns of the forest blazing in russets and browns and flame. Another week or two, thought Cadfael, and there’d be no shelter for Hyacinth in the trees when inconvenient visitors came to the cottage, even the oaks would be half- naked. But in a few more days, God willing, Aymer would have abandoned his revenge, cut his losses, and made off in haste to secure his gains at home. His father’s body was safely coffined, and though he had only two grooms with him, there was also Drogo’s good horse as a remount for a new master in a hurry, and he would find no difficulty in hiring litter bearers at every way-stage on his journey. He had already scoured the whole region without success, and showed distinct signs of fretting between two desired ends, of which surely the more profitable would win in the end. Hyacinth’s freedom might be nearer than he knew. And he had already served and deserved well, for who else could have got word to Richard that the hermit was not all he claimed to be? Hyacinth had travelled with him, known him well before he ever set foot in Buildwas. Hyacinth might well know things about his reverend master that were known to no one else.
The thick woodland hid the hermitage from them until they were very near. The sudden parting of the trees before them came always as a mild surprise, unveiling in an instant the small green clearing, the low pales that made a mere token fence about the garden, and the squat cell of grey stone, patched with the newer and paler grey of its recent repairs. The door of the house was open, as Cuthred had said it always was, to all who came. There was no one at work in the half-cleared garden, no sound from the interior of the cell, as they dismounted at the gateless gateway and tethered their horses. Cuthred must be within, by the silence perhaps at his prayers.
‘Go first, Father,’ said Hugh. ‘This is more within your writ than mine.’
The abbot had to stoop his head to pass through the stone doorway, and stood motionless for a moment within, until his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness. The single narrow window let in a subdued light at this hour by reason of the overhanging trees, and the shapes within the bare room took on substance only gradually, the narrow pallet against the wall, the small table and bench, the few vessels, plate and cup and pottery bowl. The doorless opening into the chapel revealed the stone block of the altar by the tiny glow of the lamp on it, but left all below in obscurity. The lamp had burned very low, was no more than a spark.
‘Cuthred!’ called Radulfus into the silence. ‘Are you within? The abbot of Shrewsbury greets you in the name and grace of God!’
There was no answer but the small, stony echo. Hugh stepped past and advanced into the chapel doorway, and there halted abruptly, drawing in hissing breath.
Cuthred was indeed within, but not at his prayers. He lay sprawled on his back beneath the altar, head and shoulders propped against the stone, as though he had fallen or been hurled backwards while facing the doorway. His habit billowed in dark folds round him, exposing sinewy feet and ankles, and the breast of the gown was matted and blackened by a long stain, where he had bled from the stab that killed him. His face, between the tangled dark fell of hair and beard, was contorted in a grimace which might have been of agony or of rage, the lips drawn back from strong teeth, the eyes glaring half-open. His arms were flung wide, and beside his right hand, as though released in the moment of falling, a long dagger lay spilled on the stone floor.
Priest or no, Cuthred was never going to testify in his own defence. There was no need to question or touch to see that he was some hours dead, and dead by violence.
‘Christ aid!’ said the abbot in a harsh whisper, and stood like stone over the body. ‘God have mercy on a murdered man! Who can have done this thing?’
Hugh was on his knees beside the dead man, touching flesh already grown chill and waxen in texture. There was nothing to be demanded now of the hermit Cuthred, and nothing to be done for him in this world, short of the final balance of justice. ‘Dead some hours at least. A second man struck down within my shire, and no requital yet for the first! For God’s sake, what is it let loose in these woods to such devilish effect?’
‘Can this possibly have any bearing,’ wondered the abbot heavily, ‘on what the boy has told us? Has someone struck first to prevent him ever answering in his own defence? To bury the proof with the man? There has been such resolute plotting over this marriage, all for greed of land, but surely it could not be carried so far as murder?’
