the Empress had crown and sceptre and all in her hands, FitzAlan in Normandy is known to have sent over a couple of scouts of his following, to sound out the extent of her support, and see if the time was ripe to bring a fresh force over to add to her strength. How they were discovered I haven’t heard, but when her fortunes were reversed, and the Queen brought her army up into London and beyond, these two venturers were cut off from return, and have been one leap ahead of capture ever since. One of them is thought to have got off successfully from Dunwich, but the other is still loose somewhere, and since he’s been hunted without result in the south, the cry is now that he’s made his way north to get out of range, and try to make contact with sympathisers of Anjou for help. So all the King’s sheriffs are ordered to keep a strict watch for him. After his rough treatment, Stephen’s in no mind to forgive and forget. I’m obliged to make a show of zeal, and that means making the matter public by proclamation, and so I shall. For my part, I’m glad to know that one of them has slipped overseas again safely, back to his wife. Nor would I be sorry if I heard that the second had followed him. Two bold boys venturing over here alone, putting their skins at risk for a cause?why should I have anything against them? Nor will Stephen, when he comes to himself.”
“You use very exact terms,” said Cadfael curiously. “How do you know they are mere boys? And how do you know that the one who’s fled back to Normandy has a wife?”
“Because, my Cadfael, it’s known who they are, the pair of them, youngsters very close to FitzAlan. The hart we’re still hunting is one Ninian Bachiler. And the lad who’s escaped us, happily, is a certain young fellow named Torold Blund, whom both you and I have good cause to remember.” He laughed, seeing how Cadfael’s face brightened in astonished pleasure. “Yes, the same long lad you hid in the old mill along the Gaye, some years back. And now reported as son-in-law to FitzAlan’s closest friend and ally, Fulke Adeney. Yes, Godith got her way!”
Good cause to remember, indeed! Cadfael sat warmed through by the recollection of Godith Adeney, for a short time his garden boy Godric to the outer world, and the young man she had helped him to succour and send away safely into Wales. Man and wife now, it seemed. Yes, Godith had got her way!
“To think,” said Hugh, “that I might have married her! If my father had lived longer, if I’d never come to Shrewsbury to put my newly inherited manors at Stephen’s disposal, and never set eyes on Aline, I might well have married Godith. No regrets, I fancy, on either side. She got a good lad, and I got Aline.”
“And you’re sure he’s slipped away safely out of England, back to her?”
“So it’s reported. And so may his fellow slip away, with my goodwill,” said Hugh heartily, “if he’s Torold’s match, and can oblige me by keeping well out of my way. Should you happen on him, Cadfael?you have a way of happening on the unexpected?keep him out of sight. I’m in no mind to clap a good lad into prison for being loyal to a cause which isn’t mine.”
“You have a good excuse for setting his case aside,” Cadfael suggested thoughtfully, “seeing you’re come home to find a slain man on the doorstep, and a priest at that.”
“True, I could argue that as the prior case,” agreed Hugh, setting his empty cup aside and rising to take his leave. “All the more as this affair is indeed laid right at my door, and for all I know young Bachiler may be a hundred miles away or more. A small show of zeal, however, won’t come amiss, or do any harm.”
Cadfael went out into the garden with him. Benet was just coming up over the far rim of the rose garden, where the ground sloped away to the pease fields and the brook. He was whistling jauntily as he came, and swinging an axe lightly in one hand, for a little earlier he had been breaking the ice on the fish ponds, to let air through to the denizens below.
“What did you say, Hugh, was the christened name of this young man Bachiler you’re supposed to be hunting?”
“Ninian or so he’s reported.”
“Ah, yes!” said Cadfael. “That was it?Ninian.”
Benet came back into the garden after his dinner with the lay servants, and looked about him somewhat doubtfully, kicking at the hard-frozen ground he had recently dug, and viewing the clipped hedges now silvered with rime that lasted day-long and increased by a fresh frilling of white every night. Every branch that stirred tinkled like glass. Every clod was solid as stone.
“What is there for me to do?” he demanded, tramping into Cadfael’s workshop. “This frost halts everything. No man could plough or dig, a day like this. Let alone copy letters,” he added, round eyed at the thought of the numb fingers in the scriptorium trying to line in a capital with precious gold-leaf, or even write an unshaken line. “They’re still at it, poor wretches. At least there’s some warmth in handling a spade or an axe. Can I split you some wood for the brazier? Lucky for us you need the fire for your brews, or we should be as blue and stiff as the scribes.”
“They’ll have lighted the fire in the warming room early, a day like this,” said Cadfael placidly, “and when they can no longer hold pen or brush steady they have leave to stop work. You’ve done all the digging within the walls here, and the pruning’s finished, no need to feel guilty if you sit idle for once. Or you can take a turn at these mysteries of mine if you care to. Nothing learned is ever quite wasted.”
Benet was ready enough to try his hand at anything. He came close, to peer curiously at what Cadfael was stirring in a stone pot on a grid on the side of the brazier. Here in their shared solitude he was quite easy, and had lost the passing disquiet and dismay that had dimmed his brightness on Christmas Day. Men die, and thinking men see a morsel of their own death in every one that draws close to them, but the young soon recover. And what was Father Ailnoth to Benet, after all? If he had done him a kindness in letting him come here with his aunt, the priest had none the less had the benefit of the boy’s willing service on the journey, a fair exchange.
“Did you visit Mistress Hammet last evening?” asked Cadfael, recalling another possible source of concern. “How is she now?”
“Still bruised and shaken,” said Benet, “but she has a stout spirit, she’ll do well enough.”
“She hasn’t been greatly worried by the sergeants? Hugh Beringar is home now, and he’ll want to hear everything from her own lips, but she need not trouble for that. Hugh has been told how it was, she need only repeat it to him.”
“They’ve been civility itself with her,” said Benet. “What is this you’re making?”
It was a large pot, and a goodly quantity of aromatic brown syrup bubbling gently in it. “A mixture for coughs and colds,” said Cadfael. “We shall be needing it any day now, and plenty of it, too.”
“What goes into it?”
“A great many things. Bay and mint, coltsfoot, hore-hound, mullein, mustard, poppy?good for the throat and the chest?and a small draught of the strong liquor I distil does no harm in such cases, either. But if you want work, here, lift out that big mortar
