“Our errand’s here, to you,” said Cadfael, lighting down. “My lord here asks that you’ll give stabling and shelter for a few days to these two beasts, and keep them out of the public eye.” No need to bide the reason from these two, who would have sympathised heartily with the owner of such horseflesh in his desire to keep it. “They’re commandeering baggage horses for the army, and that’s no fit life for these fellows, they’ll be held back to serve in a better fashion.”
Brother Anselm ran an appreciative eye over Beringar’s mount, and an affectionate hand over the arched neck. “A long while since the stable here had such a beauty in it! Long enough since it had any at all, barring Prior Robert’s mule when he visited, and he does that very rarely now. We expect to be recalled, to tell truth, this place is too isolated and unprofitable to be kept much longer. Yes, we’ll give you house-room, my fine lad, gladly, and your mate, too. All the more gladly, my lord, if you’ll let me get my leg across him now and again by way of exercise.”
“I think he may carry even you without trouble,” acknowledged Beringar amiably. “And surrender them to no one but myself or Brother Cadfael.”
“That’s understood. No one will set eyes on them here.” They led the horses into the deserted stable, very content with the break in their tedious existence, and with Beringar’s open-handed largesse for their services. “Though we’d have taken them in for the pleasure of it,” said Brother Louis truthfully. “I was groom once in Earl Robert of Gloucester’s household, I love a fine horse, one with a gloss and a gait to do me credit.”
Cadfael and Hugh Beringar turned homeward together on foot. “An hour’s walking, hardly more,” said Cadfael, “by the way I’ll take you. The path’s too overgrown in parts for the horses, but I know it well, it cuts off the Foregate. We have to cross the brook, well upstream from the mill, and can enter the abbey grounds from the garden side, unnoticed, if you’re willing to wade.”
“I believe,” said Beringar reflectively, but with complete placidity, “you are having a game with me. Do you mean to lose me in the woods, or drown me in the millrace?”
“I doubt if I should succeed at either. No, this will be a most amicable walk together, you’ll see. And well worth it, I trust.”
And curiously, for all each of them knew the other was making use of him, it was indeed a pleasant nocturnal journey they made,, the elderly monk without personal ambitions, and the young man whose ambitions were limitless and daring. Probably Beringar was working hard at the puzzle of why Cadfael had so readily accommodated him, certainly Cadfael was just as busy trying to fathom why Beringar had ever invited him to conspire with him thus; it did not matter, it made the contest more interesting. And which of them was to win, and to get the most out of the tussle, was very much in the balance.
Keeping pace thus on the narrow forest path they were much of a height, though Cadfael was thickset and burly, and Beringar lean and lissome and light of foot. He followed Cadfael’s steps attentively, and the darkness, only faintly alleviated by starlight between the branches, seemed to bother him not at all. And lightly and freely he talked.
“The king intends to move down into Gloucester’s country again, in more strength, hence this drive for men and horses. In a few more days he’ll surely be moving.”
“And you go with him?” Since he was minded to be talkative, why not encourage him? Everything he said would be calculated, of course, but sooner or later even he might make a miscalculation.
“That depends on the king. Will you credit it, Brother Cadfael, the man distrusts me! Though in fact I’d liefer be put in charge of my own command here, where my lands lie. I’ve made myself as assiduous as I dare — to see the same face too constantly might have the worst effect, not to see it in attendance at all would be fatal. A nice question of judgment.”
“I feel,” said Cadfael, “that a man might have considerable confidence in your judgment. Here we are at the brook, do you hear it?” There were stones there by which to cross dryshod, though the water was low and the bed narrowed, and Beringar, having rested his eyes a few moments to assay the distance and the ground, crossed in a nicely balanced leap that served to justify Cadfael’s pronouncement.
“Do you indeed?” resumed the young man, falling in beside him again as they went on. “Have a high opinion of my judgment? Of risks and vantages only? Or, for instance, of men? — And women?”
“I can hardly question your judgment of men,” said Cadfael drily, “since you’ve confided in me. If I doubted, I’d hardly be likely to own it.”
“And of women?” They were moving more freely now through open fields.
“I think they might all be well advised to beware of you. And what else is gossiped about in the king’s court, besides the next campaign? There’s no fresh word of FitzAlan and Adeney being sighted?”
“None, nor will be now,” said Beringar readily. “They had luck, and I’m not sorry. Where they are by now there’s no knowing, but wherever it is, it’s one stage on the way to France.”
There was no reason to doubt him; whatever he was about he was making his dispositions by way of truth, not lies. So the news for Godith’s peace of mind was still good, and every day better, as the distance between her father and Stephen’s vengeance lengthened. And now there were two excellent horses well positioned on an escape road for Godith and Torold, in the care of two stalwart brothers who would release them at Cadfael’s word. The first step was accomplished. Now to recover the saddlebags from the river, and start them on their way. Not so simple a matter, but surely not impossible.
“I see now where we are,” said Beringar, some twenty minutes later. They had cut straight across the mile of land enclosed by the brook’s wanderings, and stood again on the bank; on the other side the stripped fields of pease whitened in the starlight, and beyond their smooth rise lay the gardens, and the great range of abbey buildings. “You have a nose for country, even in the dark. Lead the way, I’ll trust you for an unpitted ford, too.”
Cadfael had only to kilt his habit, having nothing but his sandals to get wet. He strode into the water at the point opposite the low roof of Godith’s hut, which just showed above the trees and bushes and the containing wall of the herbarium. Beringar plunged in after him, boots and hose and ail. The water was barely knee-deep, but clearly he cared not at all. And Cadfael noted how he moved, gently and steadily, hardly a ripple breaking from his steps. He had all the intuitive gifts of wild creatures, as alert by night as by day. On the abbey bank he set off instinctively round the edge of the low stubble of peasehaulms, to avoid any rustle among the dry roots soon to be dug in.
“A natural conspirator,” said Cadfael, thinking aloud; and that he could do so was proof of a strong, if inimical, bond between them.
Beringar turned on him a face suddenly lit by a wild smile. “One knows another,” he said. They had grown used to exchanging soundless whispers, and yet making them clear to be heard. “I’ve remembered one rumour that’s making the rounds, that I forgot to tell you. A few days ago there was some fellow hunted into the river by night, said to be one of FitzAlan’s squires. They say an archer got him behind the left shoulder, maybe through the heart. However it was, he went down, somewhere by Atcham his body may be cast up. But they caught a riderless horse, a good saddle-horse, the next day, sure to be his.”
“Do you tell me?” said Cadfael, mildly marvelling. “You may speak here, there’ll be no one prowling in my herb-garden by night, and they’re used to me rising at odd times to tend my brews here.”