his blunt brown nose, “but I dare wager most of them can be pricked out of the list as well known to some of their companions by their own right names, or by reason of their calling or condition. Solitaries may come, but they’re few and far between. Pilgrims are like starlings, they thrive on company. We’d best go and talk to Brother Denis. He’ll have sorted out most of them by now.”
Brother Denis had a retentive memory and an appetite for news and rumours that usually kept him the best- informed person in the enclave. The fuller his halls, the more pleasure he took in knowing everything that went on there, and the name and vocation of every guest. He also kept meticulous books to record the visitations.
They found him in the narrow cell where he kept his accounts and estimated his future needs, thoughtfully reckoning up what provisions he still had, and how rapidly the demands on them were likely to dwindle from the morrow. He took his mind from his store-book courteously in order to listen to what Brother Cadfael and the sheriff required of him, and produced answers with exemplary promptitude when asked to sieve out from his swollen household males of about twenty-five years, bred gentle or within modest reach of gentility, lettered, of dark colouring and medium tall build, answering to the very bare description of Luc Meverel. As his forefinger flew down the roster of his guests the numbers shrank remarkably. It seemed to be true that considerably more than half of those who went on pilgrimage were women, and that among the men the greater part were in their forties or fifties, and of those remaining, many would be in minor orders, either monastics or secular priests or would-be priests. And Luc Meverel was none of these.
“Are there any here,” asked Hugh, viewing the final list, which was short enough, “who came solitary?”
Brother Denis cocked his round, rosy, tonsured head aside and ran a sharp brown eye, very remiscent of a robin’s, down the list. “Not one. Young squires of that age seldom go as pilgrims, unless with an exigent lord-or an equally exigent lady. In such a summer feast as this we might have young friends coming together, to take the fill of the time before they settle down to sterner disciplines. But alone… Where would be the pastime in that?”
“Here are two, at any rate,” said Cadfael, “who came together, but surely not for pastime. They have puzzled me, I own. Both are of the proper age, and such word as we have of the man we’re looking for would fit either. You know them, Denis, that youngster who’s on his way to Aberdaron, and his friend who bears him company. Both lettered, both bred to the manor. And certainly they came from the south, beyond Abingdon, according to Brother Adam of Reading, who lodged there the same night.”
“Ah, the barefoot traveller,” said Denis, and laid a finger on Ciaran in the shrunken toll of young men, “and his keeper and worshipper. Yes, I would not put half a year between them, and they have the build and colouring, but you needed only one.”
“We could at least look at two,” said Cadfael. “If neither of them is what we’re seeking, yet coming from that region they may have encountered such a single traveller somewhere on the road. If we have not the authority to question them closely about who they are and whence they come, and how and why thus linked, then Father Abbot has. And if they have no reason to court concealment, then they’ll willingly declare to him what they might not as readily utter to us.”
“We may try it,” said Hugh, kindling. “At least it’s worth the asking, and if they have nothing to do with the man we are looking for, neither they nor we have lost more than half an hour of time, and surely they won’t grudge us that.”
“Granted what is so far related of these two hardly fits the case,” Cadfael acknowledged doubtfully, “for the one is said to be mortally ill and going to Aberdaron to die, and the other is resolute to keep him company to the end. But a young man who wishes to disappear may provide himself with a circumstantial story as easily as with a new name. And at all events, between Abingdon and Shrewsbury it’s possible they may have encountered Luc Meverel alone and under his own name.”
“But if one of these two, either of these two, should truly be the man I want,” said Olivier doubtfully, “then who, in the name of God, is the other?”
“We ask each other questions,” said Hugh practically, “which either of these two could answer in a moment. Come, let’s leave Abbot Radulfus to call them in, and see what comes of it.”
It was not difficult to induce the abbot to have the two young men sent for. It was not so easy to find them and bring them to speak for themselves. The messenger, sent forth in expectation of prompt obedience, came back after a much longer time than had been expected, and reported ruefully that neither of the pair could be found within the abbey walls. True, the porter had not actually seen either of them pass the gatehouse. But what had satisfied him that the two were leaving was that the young man Matthew had come, no long time after dinner, to reclaim his dagger, and had left behind him a generous gift of money to the house, saying that he and his friend were already bound away on their journey, and desired to offer thanks for their lodging. And had he seemed, it was Cadfael who asked it, himself hardly knowing why, had he seemed as he always was, or in any way disturbed or alarmed or out of countenance and temper, when he came for his weapon and paid his and his friend’s score?
The messenger shook his head, having asked no such question at the gate. Brother Porter, when enquiry was made direct by Cadfael himself, said positively: “He was like a man on fire. Oh, as soft as ever in voice, and courteous, but pale and alight, you’d have said his hair stood on end. But what with every soul within here wandering in a dream, since this wonder, I never thought but here were some going forth with the news while the furnace was still white-hot.” “Gone?” said Olivier, dismayed, when this word was brought back to the abbot’s parlour. “Now I begin to see better cause why one of these two, for all they come so strangely paired, and so strangely account for themselves, may be the man I’m seeking. For if I do not know Luc Meverel by sight, I have been two or three times his lord’s guest recently, and he may well have taken note of me. How if he saw me come, today, and is gone hence thus in haste because he does not wish to be found? He could hardly know I am sent to look for him, but he might, for all that, prefer to put himself clean out of sight. And an ailing companion on the way would be good cover for a man wanting a reason for his wanderings. I wish I might yet speak with these two. How long have they been gone?”
“It cannot have been more than an hour and a half after noon,” said Cadfael, “according to when Matthew reclaimed his dagger.”
“And afoot!” Olivier kindled hopefully. “And even unshod, the one of them! It should be no great labour to overtake them, if it’s known what road they will have taken.”
“By far their best way is by the Oswestry road, and so across the dyke into Wales. According to Brother Denis, that was Ciaran’s declared intent.”
“Then, Father Abbot,” said Olivier eagerly, “with your leave I’ll mount and ride after them, for they cannot have got far. It would be a pity to miss the chance, and even if they are not what I’m seeking, neither they nor I will have lost anything. But with or without my man, I shall return here.”
“I’ll ride through the town with you,” said Hugh, “and set you on your way, for this will be new country to you. But then I must be about my own business, and see if we’ve gathered any harvest from this morning’s hunt. I doubt they’ve gone deeper into the forest, or I should have had word by now. We shall look for you back before night, Olivier. One more night at the least we mean to keep you and longer if we can.”
