of the bishop of Winchester, and it was given to the bearer to secure him safe-conduct on the road.”
“But I bought it in good faith,” protested Daniel, dismayed. “I paid the man what he asked, the ring is mine, honestly come by.”
“From a thief. Your misfortune, lad, and it may teach you to be more wary of sudden kind acquaintances in the future who offer you rings to buy-wasn’t it so?-at somewhat less than you know to be their value? Travelling men rattling dice give nothing for nothing, but take whatever they can get. If they’ve emptied your purse for you, take warning for the next time. This must go back to the lord abbot in the morning. Let him deal with the owner.” He saw the goldsmith draw angry breath to complain of his deprivation, and shook his head to ward off the effort, not unkindly. “You have no remedy. Bite your tongue, Daniel, and go make your peace with your wife.”
The empress’s envoy rode gently up the Wyle in the deepening dark, keeping pace with Hugh’s smaller mount. His own was a fine, tall beast, and the young man in the saddle was long of body and limb. Afoot, thought Hugh, studying him sidelong, he will top me by a head. Very much of an age with me, I might give him a year or two, hardly more.
“Were you ever in Shrewbury before?”
“Never. Once, perhaps, I was just within the shire, I am not sure how the border runs. I was near Ludlow once. This abbey of yours, I marked it as I came by, a very fine, large enclosure. They keep the Benedictine Rule?”
“They do.” Hugh expected further questions, but they did not come. “You have kinsmen in the Order?”
Even in the dark he was aware of his companion’s grave, musing smile. “In a manner of speaking, yes, I have. I think he would give me leave to call him so, though there is no blood-kinship. One who used me like a son. I keep a kindness for the habit, for his sake. And did I hear you say there are pilgrims here now? For some particular feast?”
“For the translation of Saint Winifred, who was brought here four years ago from Wales. Tomorrow is the day of her arrival.” Hugh had spoken by custom, quite forgetting what Cadfael had told him of that arrival, but the mention of it brought his friend’s story back sharply to mind. “I was not in Shrewsbury then,” he said, withholding judgement. “I brought my manors to King Stephen’s support the following year. My own country is the north of the shire.”
They had reached the top of the hill, and were turning towards Saint Mary’s church. The great gate of Hugh’s courtyard stood wide, with torches at the gateposts, waiting for them. His message had been faithfully delivered to Aline, and she was waiting for them with all due ceremony, the bedchamber prepared, the meal ready to come to table. All rules, all times, bow to the coming of a guest, the duty and privilege of hospitality.
She met them at the door, opening it wide to welcome them in. They stepped into the hall, and into a flood of light from torches at the walls and candles on the table, and instinctively they turned to face each other, taking the first long look. It grew ever longer as their intent eyes grew wider. It was a question which of them groped towards recognition first. Memory pricked and realisation awoke almost stealthily. Aline stood smiling and wondering, but mute, eyeing first one, then the other, until they should stir and shed a clearer light.
“But I know you!” said Hugh. “Now I see you, I do know you.”
“I have seen you before,” agreed the guest. “I was never in this shire but the once, and yet…”
“It needed light to see you by,” said Hugh, “for I never heard your voice but the once, and then no more than a few words. I doubt if you even remember them, but I do. Six words only. “Now have ado with a man!” you said. And your name, your name I never heard but in a manner I take as it was meant. You are Robert, the forester’s son who fetched Yves Hugonin out of that robber fortress up on Titterstone Clee. And took him home with you, I think, and his sister with him.”
“And you are that officer who laid the siege that gave me the cover I needed,” cried the guest, gleaming. “Forgive me that I hid from you then, but I had no warranty there in your territory. How glad I am to meet you honestly now, with no need to take to flight.”
“And no need now to be Robert, the forester’s son,” said Hugh, elated and smiling. “My name I have given you, and the freedom of this house I offer with it. Now may I know yours?”
“In Antioch, where I was born,” said the guest, “I was called Daoud. But my father was an Englishman of Robert of Normandy’s force, and among his comrades in arms I was baptised a Christian, and took the name of the priest who stood my godfather. Now I bear the name of Olivier de Bretagne.”
They sat late into the night together, savouring each other now face to face, after a year and a half of remembering and wondering. But first, as was due, they made short work of Olivier’s errand here.
“I am sent,” he said seriously, “to urge all sheriffs of shires to consider, whatever their previous fealty, whether they should not now accept the proffered peace under the Empress Maud, and take the oath of loyalty to her. This is the message of the bishop and the council: This land has all too long been torn between two factions, and suffered great damage and loss through their mutual enmity. And here, say that I lay no blame on that party which is not my own, for there are valid claims on both sides, and equally the blame falls on both for failing to come to some agreement to end these distresses. The fortune at Lincoln might just as well have fallen the opposing way, but it fell as it did, and England is left with a king made captive, and a queen-elect free and in the ascendant. Is it not time to call a halt? For the sake of order and peace and the sound regulation of the realm, and to have a government in command which can and must put down the many injustices and tyrannies which you know, as well as I, have set themselves up outside all law. Surely any strong rule is better than no rule at all. For the sake of peace and order, will you not accept the empress, and hold your county in allegiance to her? She is already in Westminster now, the preparations for her coronation go forward. There is a far better prospect of success if all sheriffs come in to strengthen her rule.”
“You are asking me,” said Hugh gently, “to go back on my sworn fealty to King Stephen.”
“Yes,” agreed Olivier honestly, “I am. For weighty reasons, and in no treasonous mind. You need not love, only forbear from hating. Think of it rather as keeping your fealty to the people of this county of yours, and this land.”
“That I can do as well or better on the side where I began,” said Hugh, smiling. “It is what I am doing now, as best I can. It is what I will continue to do while I have breath. I am King Stephen’s man, and I will not desert him.”
“Ah, well!” said Olivier, smiling and sighing in the same breath. “To tell you truth, now I’ve met you, I expected nothing less. I would not go from my oath, either. My lord is the empress’s man, and I am my lord’s man, and if our positions were changed round, my answer would be the same as yours. Yet there is truth in what I have pleaded. How much can a people bear? Your labourer in the fields, your little townsman with a bare living to be looted from him, these would be glad to settle for Stephen or for Maud, only to be rid of the other. And I do what I am sent out
