trees gave dark green shadow on either flank.
The two horsemen came at an easy walk, and halted briefly in the road, in front of the gates. Their voices, though pitched low, carried clearly in the great stillness.
“Go in, Simon,” said Domville. “I have a fancy to take the air a while. Send the grooms to bed.”
“And your chamber attendants, sir?”
“Dismiss them. Say I want no service tonight, nor until an hour past Prime tomorrow, unless I call. Make sure it’s understood those are my orders.”
The young man bowed his acquiescence without a word. The movement was just perceptible in the utter hush that surrounded it. The man in the shadows, concealing with disciplined stillness an illicit presence thus near the town, heard the slight rustle of a cloak, and the jingle of harness as a horse stirred. Then Simon wheeled obediently and trotted into the courtyard, and Domville shook his bridle and moved onward towards Saint Giles, first at a walk, then breaking into a brisk and purposeful trot.
A shadow among shadows moved along the grassy border of the road after him, with long, uneven strides that made no sound. For a lame man, going upon one foot mangled by disease, he moved at a surprising speed, but he could not maintain the effort for long. But as long as he could hold the steady hoofbeats within earshot, he followed, along the empty Foregate, past the hospice and church, out along the highway beyond. He recognized the moment when the sound, which had been receding steadily, abruptly fell silent, and judged on which side of the road the rider had turned off on to a grassy track. To that spot he continued, no longer in haste.
To the right of the road the ground fell away towards the valley of the Meole brook, and the mill leat that was drawn off from it. Here open woods and scattered copses clothed the slope, below in the valley the trees grew more thickly. Down through this rolling woodland went a grassy ride, wide enough and smooth enough to be ridden safely in the night, with starlight overhead, and half the leaves already shed. By that path Huon de Domville had descended; here the night was empty of sight or sound of him.
The old man turned, and made his way slowly back to Saint Giles, where all his fellows were within doors and asleep, and only he restless and waking. He did not go in, though the outer door was never locked, in case some unfortunate should come in the chill of the night. Before dawn this night might be chill enough, but it was clean and sweet-smelling, and had the pure stillness proper to solitary thought, and he was not sensitive to cold. Outside the fence, in the angle of the cemetery wall, there was a great pile of dried brushings from the final reaping of the grass slope between the hospital and the road. In a day or two it would be carried within to the barn, to store for fodder and litter for the beasts. The old man wrapped his cloak about him, and sat down there on the grass, drawn well back into the stack to have its softness and warmth about him. The clapper-dish that hung at his belt he laid beside him on the ground. There was no human creature stirring about him now to need warning of the presence of a leper.
He did not sleep. He sat with head erect and straight back, his hands folded together at rest within his lap, the maimed left one within the sound right. Nothing else in the night was quite so still.
Joscelin had slept for a while in his bed of hay. Simon had brought him bread and meat and wine as he had promised, and his clothes had dried on him; he had lain in less comfort many a time. Only his mind was uncomforted. It was all very well for Simon to speak calmly of being able to make the excuse that the gray needed exercise, and get him from behind locked doors in a day or two, and so help his friend to escape when the hunt slackened, as it must. What use was that? In one more day, let alone two, Iveta would have been sacrificed, and escape without her played no part in Joscelin’s plans. It was good of Simon to provide him this refuge, and sensible, no doubt, to advise him to stay within here until flight was possible. Very well-meant advice, and Joscelin was grateful, but he had no intention of taking it. A respite was most welcome, but would be wasted if it did not lead to action before ten o’clock on the morrow.
And here was he, alone, due to be pursued, if not shot, at sight, without a weapon, without a clear idea in his head, and only a few hours of grace left to him.
It was a simple conclusion, at any rate, that he could do nothing here, and if he was to remove himself elsewhere it would have to be during darkness. Even if he could have been provided with a dagger, and made his way undetected into the house, to Domville’s bedside while he slept, he knew he could not have used his advantage. It was all very fine talking wildly about killing, but Brother Cadfael had been perfectly right, he could not do it, not by stealth. As for an honest challenge in a good quarrel, Domville would laugh in his face before tossing him back to the sheriff. Not out of cowardice, either, Joscelin conceded. There were very few things in this world that Domville was afraid of, and very few antagonists in the lists he need be afraid of. I am no bad swordsman, Joscelin told himself judicially, but for all his years he could carve and eat me for his dinner. No, disdain, not caution, would reject me.
Unless … Unless I could beard him before abbot and canon and guests and all, and strike him in the face, something his dignity would not bear, something done publicly that must be wiped out publicly in blood. For that he might even ride roughshod over the sheriff and the law, for that he might forgo destroying me in slower ways, and want nothing but my heart spitted on his blade. For that he would forget Iveta and wedlock and all, until he had wiped out the insult. And what is more, if I could bring him to that point, he would be meticulous to the last hair, give me breathing-time, provide me a sword the length of his own, kill me punctiliously, honorably. Do him that justice, with weapons he fights fair, even if he sees no reason to extend that scruple to such matters as lying charges backed with forged evidence.
And who knows? … Who knows? With Iveta’s prayers on my side, and all the weight of my grudge into the bargain?for he has dealt foully by me!?who knows but I might prevail? Then, even if they wrung my neck for his lying charge, she would be delivered.
To be honest, he did not think much of that conclusion, and not all for his own sake. For Iveta needed to be delivered not only from this detestable match, but from the guardian who preyed on her and her inheritance like murderous ivy on an oak, and would sell her to the next compliant bidder as nimbly as to this one. But even delay was salvation. Things could change. Picard could die. Only fend off tomorrow!
If he was to accomplish anything he must get out of here, and somehow make his way in hiding back to the abbey, where all must be enacted. No hope at all by the Foregate, the road would be patrolled, the gatehouse and the parish door guarded, so much was certain. On every side but one the abbey grounds were surrounded by a high boundary wall. The remaining side was bordered by the Meole brook, no mean water hemming the gardens, but fordable or swimmable. Waters were no threat to Joscelin. If he could get across the Foregate, he could make his way down into the valley, and so back beyond the brook to the abbey precincts. There were copses and coverts there for shelter. And it was downstream the sheriff would be hunting him first.
He turned, rustling, in his bed of hay, sneezed at the tickling of dust in his nostrils, and hastily smothered the sneeze. A fine object he must look to confront and blaze defiance at a baron of the realm, but it was the only hope he had. And to retain it even as a hope he must get out of here and across the Foregate into the valley while it was still night. With a rueful obeisance in the direction of Simon, who had wished him well, and wanted him to He here like a hare in its form until danger passed.
