Hugh left his sergeants in the alley, and himself dismounted and went in through the dark booth to the yard beyond. A freckled boy of about seventeen was stooped over his jointer, busy bevelling a barrel-stave, and another a year or two younger was carefully paring long bands of willow for binding the staves together when the barrel was set up in its truss hoop. Yet a third boy, perhaps ten years old, was energetically sweeping up shavings and cramming them into bags for firing. It seemed that Walter had a full quiver of helpers in his business, for they were all alike, and all plainly sons of one father, and he the small, spry, dark man who straightened up from his shaving-horse, knife in hand.
“Serve you, sir?”
“Master cooper,” said Hugh, “I’m looking for one Adam Heriet, who I’m told is brother to your wife. They know nothing of his whereabouts at his nephew’s croft at Harpecote, but thought you might be in closer touch with him. If you can tell me where he’s to be found, I shall be grateful.”
There was a silence, sudden and profound. Walter stood gravely staring, and the hand that held the draw-knife with its curved blade sank quite slowly to hang at his side while he thought. Manual dexterity was natural to him, but thought came with deliberation, and slowly. All three boys stood equally mute and stared as their father stared. The eldest, Hugh supposed, must be Adam’s godson, if Edric had the matter aright.
“Sir,” said Walter at length, “I don’t know you. What’s your will with my wife’s kin?”
“You shall know me, Walter,” said Hugh easily. “My name is Hugh Beringar, I am sheriff of this shire, and my business with Adam Heriet is to ask him some questions concerning a matter three years old now, in which I trust he’ll be able to help us do right. If you can bring me to have speech with him, you may be helping him no less than me.”
Even a law-abiding man, in the circumstances, might have his doubts of that, but a law-abiding man with a decent business and a wife and family to look after would also take a careful look all round the matter before denying the sheriff a fair answer. Walter was no fool. He shuffled his feet thoughtfully in the sawdust and the small shavings his youngest son had missed in his sweeping, and said with every appearance of candour and goodwilclass="underline" “Why, my lord, Adam’s been away soldiering some years, but now it seems there’s almost quiet down in the southern parts, and he’s free to take his pleasure for a few days. You come very apt to your time, sir, as it chances, for he’s here within the house this minute.”
The eldest boy had made to start forward softly towards the house door by this, but his father plucked him unobtrusively back by the sleeve, and gave him a swift glance that froze him where he stood. “This lad here is Adam’s godson and namesake,” said Walter guilelessly, putting him forward by the hand which had restrained him. “You show the lord sheriff into the room, boy, and I’ll put on my coat and follow.”
It was not what the younger Adam had intended, but he obeyed, whether in awe of his father or trusting him to know best. But his freckled face was glum as he led the way through the door into the large single room that served as hall and sleeping-quarters for his elders. An uncovered window, open over the descent to the river, let in ample light on the centre of the room, but the corners receded into a wood-scented darkness. At a big trestle table sat a solid, brown-bearded, balding man with his elbows spread comfortably on the board, and a beaker of ale before him. He had the weathered look of a man who lives out of doors in all but the bleakest seasons, and an air of untroubled strength about his easy stillness. The woman who had just come in from her cupboard of a kitchen, ladle in hand, was built on the same generous fashion, and had the same rich brown colouring. It was from their father that the boys got their wiry build and dark hair, and the fair skins that dappled in the sun.
“Mother,” said the youth, “here’s the lord sheriff asking after Uncle Adam.”
His voice was flat and loud, and he halted a moment, blocking the doorway, before he moved within and let Hugh pass by him. It was the best he could do. The unshuttered window was large enough for an active man, if he had anything on his conscience, to vault through it and make off down the slope to a river he could wade now without wetting his knees. Hugh warmed to the loyal godson, and refrained from letting him see even the trace of a smile. A dreaming soul, evidently, who saw no use in a sheriff but to bring trouble to lesser men. But Adam the elder sat attentive and interested a reasonable moment before he got to his feet and gave amiable greeting.
“My lord, you have your asking. That name and title belongs to me.”
One of Hugh’s sergeants would be circling the slope below the window by now, while the other stayed with the horses. But neither the man nor the boy could have known that. Evidently Adam had seen action enough not to be easily startled or affrighted, and here had no reason he could see, so far, to be either.
“Be easy,” he said. “If it’s a matter of some of King Stephen’s men quitting their service, no need to look here. I have leave to visit my sister. You may have a few strays running loose, for all I know, but I’m none.”
The woman came to his side slowly and wonderingly, bewildered but not alarmed. She had a round, wholesome, rosy face, and honest eyes.
“My lord, here’s my good brother come so far to see me. Surely there’s no wrong in that?”
“None in the world,” said Hugh, and went on without preamble, and in the same mild manner: “I’m seeking news of a lady who vanished three years since. What do you know of Juliana Cruce?”
That was sheer blank bewilderment to mother and son, and to Walter, who had just come into the room at Hugh’s back, but it was plain enough vernacular to Adam Heriet. He froze where he stood, half-risen from the bench, leaning on the trestle table, and hung there staring into Hugh’s face, his own countenance wary and still. He knew the name, it had flung him back through the years, every detail of that journey he was recalling now, threading them frantically through his mind like the beads of a rosary in the hands of a terrified man. But he was not terrified, only alerted to danger, to the pains of memory, to the necessity to think fast, and perhaps select between truth, partial truth and lying. Behind that firm, impenetrable face he might have been thinking anything.
“My lord,” said Adam, stirring slowly out of his stillness, “yes, of her certainly I know. I rode with her, I and three others from her father’s household, when she went to take the veil at Wherwell. And I do know, seeing I serve in those parts, I do know how the nunnery there was burned out. But vanished three years since? How is that possible, seeing it was well known to her kin where she was living? Vanished now-yes, all too certainly, for I’ve been asking in vain since the fire. If you know more of my lady Juliana since then than I, I beg you tell me. I could get no word whether she’s living or dead.”
It had all the ring of truth, if he had not so strongly contained himself in those few moments of silence. It might be more than half truth, even so. If he was honest, he would have looked for her there, after the holocaust. If dishonest-well, he knew and could use the recent circumstances.
“You went with her to Wherwell,” said Hugh, answering nothing and volunteering nothing. “Did you then see her safe within the convent gates there?”
This silence was brief indeed, but pregnant. If he said yes, boldly, he lied. If not, at least he might be telling truth.
“No, my lord, I did not,” said Adam heavily. “I wish I had, but she would not have it so. We lay the last night at Andover, and then I went on with her the last few miles. When we came within a mile-but it was not within sight yet, and there were small woodlands between-she sent me back, and said she would go the end of the way alone. I did what she wished. I had done what she wished since I carried her in my arms, barely a year old,” he said, with the first flash of fire out of his dark composure, like brief lightning out of banked clouds.