interrupted the attack upon the rose-bush, and was killed for his pains, perhaps in mere panic, yet killed he was. What I do not understand is why anyone should wish to destroy the rose-bush in the first place. But for that inexplicable deed there would have been no interruption and no death. Who could want to hack down the bush? What possible motive could there be?”
“Ah, but, Father, there could!” Miles turned on him with feverish vehemence. “There were some not best pleased when my cousin gave away so valuable a property, worth the half of all she has. If the bush was hacked down and all the roses dead by the day of Saint Winifred’s translation, the rent could not be paid, and the terms of the charter would have been broken. The whole bargain could be repudiated.”
“Could,” Hugh pointed out briskly, “but would not. The matter would still be in the lady’s hands, she could remit the rent at will. And you see she had the will.”
“She could remit it,” Miles echoed with sharp intent, “if she were here to do it. But she is not here. Four days until the payment is due, and she has vanished. Time gained, time gained! Whoever failed to destroy the bush has now abducted my cousin. She is not here to grant or deny. What he did not accomplish by one way he now approaches by another.”
There was a brief, intent silence, and then the abbot said slowly: “Do you indeed believe that? You speak as one believing.”
“I do, my lord. I see no other possibility. Yesterday she announced her intention of making her gift unconditional. Today that has been prevented. There was no time to be lost.”
“Yet you yourself did not know what she meant to do,” said Hugh, “not until today. Did any other know of it?”
“Her maid owns she repeated it in the kitchen. Who knows how many heard it then, or got it from those who did? Such things come out through keyholes and the chinks of shutters. Moreover, Judith may have met with some acquaintance on the bridge or in the Foregate, and told them where she was bound. However lightly and thoughtlessly she had that provision written into the charter, the failure to observe it would render the bargain null and void. Father, you know that is true.”
“I do know it,” acknowledged Radulfus, and came at last to the unavoidable question: “Who, then, could possibly stand to gain by breaking the agreement, by whatever means?”
“Father, my cousin is young, and a widow, and a rich prize in marriage, all the richer if her gift to you could be annulled. There are a bevy of suitors about the town pursuing her, and have been now for a year and more, and every one of them would rather marry the whole of her wealth than merely the half. Me, I manage the business for her, I’m very well content with what I have, and with the wife I’m to marry before the year’s out, a good match. But even if we were not first cousins I should have no interest in Judith but as a loyal kinsman and craftsman should. But I cannot choose but know how she is pestered with wooers. Not that she encourages any of them, nor ever gives them grounds for hope, but they never cease their efforts. After three years and more of widowhood, they reason, her resolution must surely weaken, and she’ll be worn down into taking a second husband at last. It may be that one of them is running out of patience.”
“To name names,” said Hugh mildly, “may sometimes be dangerous, but to call a man a wooer is not necessarily to call him an abductor and murderer into the bargain. And I think you have gone so far, Master Coliar, that in this company you may as well go the rest of the way.”
Miles moistened his lips and brushed a sleeve across his beaded forehead. “Business looks to business for a match, my lord. There are two guildsmen in the town, at least, who would be only too glad to get hold of Judith’s trade, and both of them work in with us, and know well enough what she’s worth. There’s Godfrey Fuller does all the dyeing of our fleeces, and the fulling of the cloth at the end of it, and he’d dearly like to make himself the master of the spinning and weaving, too, and have all in one profitable basket. And then there’s old William Hynde, he has a wife still, but by another road he could get his hands on the Vestier property, for he has a young spark of a son who comes courting her day in, day out, and has the entry because they know each other from children. The father might be willing to use him as bait for a woman, though he’s drawn his purse-strings tight from paying the young fellow’s debts any longer. And the son ?if he could win her I fancy he’d be set up for life, but not dance to his father’s tune, more likely to laugh in his face. And that’s not the whole of it, for our neighbour the saddler is just of an age to feel the want of a wife, and in his plodding way has settled on her as suitable. And our best weaver chances to be a very good craftsmen and a fine-looking man, and fancies himself even prettier than he is, and he’s been casting sheep’s eyes at her lately, though I doubt if she even noticed. There’s more than one comely journeyman has caught his mistress’s eye and done very well for himself.”
“Hard to imagine our solid guildsmen resorting to murder and abduction,” objected the abbot, unwilling to accept so readily a suggestion so outrageous.
“But the murder,” Hugh pointed out alertly, “seems to have been done in alarm and terror, and probably never was intended. Yet having so far committed himself, why should a man stop at the second crime?”
“Still it seems to me a hazardous business, for from all I know or have heard about the lady, she would not easily give way to persuasion. Captive or free, she has thus far resisted all blandishments, she will not change now. I do understand,” said Radulfus ruefully, “what force of compulsion the common report may bring to bear in such a case, how a woman might feel it better to yield and marry than endure the scandal of suspicion and the ill will between families that must follow. But this lady, it seems to me, might well survive even that pressure. Then her captor would have gained nothing.”
Miles drew deep breath, and ran a hand through his fair curls, dragging them wildly awry. “Father, what you say is true, Judith is a strong spirit, and will not easily be broken. But, Father, there may be worse! Marriage by rape is no new thing. Once in a man’s power, hidden away with no means of escape, if coaxing and persuasion have no effect, there remains force. It has been known time and time again. My lord Beringar here will witness it happens among the nobility, and I know it happens among the commonalty. Even a town tradesman might resort to it at last. And I know my cousin, if once her virtue was lost, she might well think it best to mend her sorry state by marriage. Wretched though that remedy must be.”
“Wretched indeed!” agreed Radulfus with detestation. “Such a thing must not be. Hugh, this house is deeply committed here, the charter and the gift draw us in, and whatever aid we can lend you to recover this unhappy lady is at your disposal, men, funds, whatever you require. No need to ask ?take! And as for our prayers, they shall not be wanting. There is still some frail chance that no harm has come to her, and she may yet return home of her own volition, and wonder at this fury and alarm. But now we must reckon with the worst, and hunt as for a soul in danger.”
“Then we’d best be about it,” said Hugh, and rose to take his leave. Miles was on his feet with a nervous spring, eager and anxious, and would have been first out at the door if Cadfae! had not opened his mouth for the first time in this conference.
“I did hear, Master Coliar, indeed I know from Mistress Perle herself, that she has sometimes thought of leaving the world and taking the veil. Sister Magdalen talked with her about such a vocation a few days ago, I believe. Did
