“Neither living nor dead,” said Nicholas quickly, warding off the worst assumption. “No, it’s not what you think-it’s not what any of us could have dreamed.” Now that it came to the telling, he could only blurt out the whole of it as baldly and honestly as possible, and be done. “I searched in Wherwell, and in Winchester, until I found the prioress of Wherwell in refuge in Romsey abbey. She has held the office seven years, she knows every sister who has entered there in that time, and none of them is Juliana Cruce. Whatever has become of Juliana, she never reached Wherwell, never took vows there, never lived there-and cannot have died there. A blind ending!”
“She never came there?” Humilis echoed in an astonished whisper, staring with locked brows across the sunny garden.
“She never did! Always,” said Nicholas bitterly, “I come three years too late. Three years! And where can she have been all that time, with never a word of her here, where she left home and family, nor there, where she should have come to rest? What can have happened to her, between here and Wherwell? That region was not in turmoil then, the roads should have been safe enough. And there were four men with her, well provided.”
“And they came home,” said Humilis keenly. “Surely they came home, or Cruce would have been wondering and asking long ago. In God’s name, what can they have reported when they returned? No evil! None from other men, or there would have been an instant hue and cry, none of their own, or they would not have returned at all. This grows deeper and deeper.”
“I am going on to Lai,” said Nicholas, rising,”to let Cruce know, and have him hunt out and question those who rode with her. His father’s men will be his men now, whether at Lai or on some other of his manors. They can tell us, at least, where they parted from her, if she foolishly dismissed them and rode the last miles alone. I’ll not rest until I find her. If she lives, I will find her!”
Humilis held him by the sleeve, doubtfully frowning. “But your command… You cannot leave your duties for so long, surely?”
“My command,” said Nicholas, “can do very well without me now for a while. I’ve left them snug enough, encamped near Andover, living off the land, and my sergeants in charge, old soldiers well able to fill my place, the way things are now. For I have not told you the half. I’m so full of my own affairs, I have no time for kings. Did we not say, last time, that the empress must try to break out from Winchester soon, or starve where she was? She has so tried. After the disaster at Wherwell they must have known they could not hold out longer. Three days ago they marched out westward, towards Stockbridge, and William de Warenne and the Flemings fell on them and broke them to pieces. It was no retreat, it was headlong flight. Everything weighty about them they threw away. If ever they do come safe back to Gloucester it will be half naked. I’ll make a stay in the town and let Hugh Beringar know.”
Brother Cadfael, who had gone on with a little desultory weeding between his herb-beds, at a little distance, nevertheless heard all this with stretched ears and kindling blood, and straightened his back now to stare.
“And she-the empress? They have not taken her?” An empress for a king would be fair exchange, and almost inevitable, even if it meant not an ending, but stalemate, and a new beginning over the same exhausted and exhausting ground. Had Stephen been the one to capture the implacable lady, with his mad, endearing chivalry he would probably have given her a fresh horse and an escort, and sent her safely to Gloucester, to her own stronghold, but the queen was no such magnanimous idiot, and would make better use of a captive enemy.
“No, not Maud, she’s safely away. Her brother sped her off ahead with Brian FitzCount to watch over her, and stayed to rally the rearguard and hold off the pursuit. No, it’s better than Maud! He could have gone on fighting without her, but she’ll be hard put to it without him. The Flemings caught them at Stockbridge, trying to ford the river, and rounded up all those who survived. It’s the king’s match we’ve taken, the man himself, Robert of Gloucester!”
Chapter Seven
REGINALD CRUCE, WHETHER HE HAD, OR INDEED COULD WELL BE EXPECTED to have any deep affection for a half-sister so many years distant from him and so seldom seen, was not the man to be tolerant of any affront or injury towards any of his house. Whatever touched a Cruce reflected upon him, and roused his hackles like those of a pointing hound. He heard the story out in stoic silence but ever-growing resentment and rage, the more formidable for being under steely control.
“And all this is certain?” he said at length. “Yes, the woman would know her business, surely. The girl never came there. I was not in this matter at all, I was not here and did not witness either the going or the return, but now we will see! At least I know the names of those who rode with her, for my father spoke of the journey on his deathbed. He sent his closest, men he trusted-who would not, with his daughter? And he doted on her. Wait!”
He bellowed from the hall door for his steward, and in from the fading daylight, cooling now towards dusk, came a grey elder dried and tanned like old leather, but very agile and sinewy. He might have been older than the lord he had lost, and was in no awe of either father or son here, but plainly master of his own duties, and aware of his worth. He spoke as an equal, and easy in the relationship.
“Arnulf, you’ll remember,” said Reginald, waving him to a seat at the table with them, as free in acknowledgement of the association as his man, “when my sister went off to her convent, the lads my father sent off with her-the Saxon brothers, Wulfric and Renfred, and John Bonde, and the other, who was he? He went off with the draft, I know, soon after I came here…”
“Adam Heriet,” said the steward readily, and drew across the board the horn his lord filled for him. “Yes, what of them?”
“I want them, Arnulf, all of them-here.”
“Now, my lord?” If he was surprised, he took surprises in his stride.
“Now, or as soon as may be. But first, all these were of my father’s close household, you knew them better than ever I did. Would you count them trustworthy?”
“Out of question,” said the steward without hesitation, in a voice as dry and tough as his hide. “Bonde is a simpleton, or little better, but a hard worker and open as the day. The Saxon pair are clever and subtle, but clever enough to know when they have a good lord, and loyal enough to be grateful for him. Why?”
“And the other, Heriet? Him I hardly knew. That was when Earl Waleran demanded my service of men in arms, and I sent him whatever offered, and this Heriet put himself forward. They told me he was restless because my sister was gone from the manor. He was a favourite of hers, so I heard, and fretted for her.”
“That could be true,” said Arnulf the steward. “Certainly he was never the same after he came back from that journey. Such girl children can worm their way into a man and get at his heart. So she may have done with him. If you’ve known them from the cradle, they work deep into your marrow.”
Reginald nodded dourly. “Well, he went. Twenty men my overlord asked of me, and twenty men he got. It was about the time he had that contention of his against the bishops, and needed reinforcements. Well, wherever he may be now, Heriet is out of our reach. But the rest are all here?”