“What would you say,” asked Aline deliberately, “if I said that I was glad?”
“I should say that I would expect nothing else from you, and I honour you for it. I know you could not wish danger or pain or captivity to any creature, much less a blameless girl. I’ve learned so much of you, Aline.” The brief silence was charged, and when he resumed: “Aline — ” his voice sank so low that Godith could not distinguish the words. She did not want to, the tone was too intimate and urgent. But in a few moments she heard Aline say gently:
“You must not ask me to be very receptive tonight, this has been a harrowing day for so many. I can’t help but feel almost as weary as they must be. And as you! Leave me to sleep long tonight, there will be a better time for talking of these matters.”
“True!” he said, resuming the soldier on duty as though he squared his shoulders to a load again. “Forgive me, this was not the time. Most of my men are out of the gates by now, I’ll follow them, and let you rest. You may hear marching and the carts rolling for a quarter of an hour or so, after that it will be quiet.”
The voices receded, towards the outer door. Godith heard it opened, and after a few exchanged and inaudible words, closed again. She heard the bolt shot, and in a few moments more Aline tapped at the bedroom door. “You can safely open, he’s gone.”
She stood in the doorway, flushed and frowning, rather in private perplexity than displeasure. “It seems,” she said, and smiled in a way Adam Courcelle would have rejoiced to see, “that in sheltering you I’ve done him no wrong. I think he’s relieved at not finding you. They’re all going. It’s over. Now we have only to wait for Brother Cadfael and full darkness.”
In the hut in the herbarium Brother Cadfael fed, reassured and doctored his patient. Torold, once the first question had been answered so satisfactorily, lay down submissively on Godith’s bed, and let his shoulder be dressed again, and the gash in his thigh, already healed, nevertheless be well bandaged and padded. “For if you’re to ride into Wales this night,” said Cadfael, “we don’t want any damage or delays, you could all too easily break that open again.”
“Tonight?” said Torold eagerly. “Is it to be tonight? She and I together?”
“It is, it must, and high time, too. I don’t think I could stand this sort of thing much longer,” said Cadfael, though he sounded almost complacent about it. “Not that I’ve had too much of the pair of you, you understand, but all the same, I’ll be relieved when you’re well away towards Owain Gwynedd’s country, and what’s more, I’ll give you a token from myself to the first Welsh you encounter. Though you already have FitzAlan’s commendation to Owain, and Owain keeps his word.”
“Once mounted and started,” vowed Torold heartily, “I’ll take good care of Godith.”
“And so will she of you. I’ll see she has a pot of this salve I’ve been using on you, and a few things she may need.”
“And she took boat and load and all with her!” mused Torold, fond and proud. “How many girls could have kept their heads and done as well? And this other girl took her in! And brought you word of it, and so wisely! I tell you, Brother Cadfael, we breed fine women here in Salop.” He was silent for a moment, and grew thoughtful. “Now how are we to get her out? They may have left a guard. And anyhow, I can hardly be seen to walk out at the gate house, seeing the porter will know I never walked in that way. And the boat is there, not here.”
“Hush a while,” said Cadfael, finishing off his bandage neatly, “while I think. What about your own day? You’ve done well, it seems to me, and come out of it none the worse. And you must have left all open and innocent, for there’s been no whisper about the old mill. You caught the wind of them soon, it seems.”
Torold told him about the whole long, dangerous and yet inexpressibly tedious day of starting and stopping, running and hiding, loitering and hurrying. “I saw the company that combed the river bank and the mill, six armed men on foot, and an officer riding. But I’d made sure there was no sign of me left there. The officer went in first, alone, and then turned his men into it. I saw the same fellow again,” he recalled, suddenly alert to the coincidence, “this evening, when I crossed the ford and dived into the stack. He was riding the far bank up and down, between river and millrace, alone. I knew him by his seat in the saddle, and the horse he was riding. I’d made the crossing behind his back, and when he rode back downstream he halted right opposite, and sat and gazed straight at where I was hiding. I could have sworn he’d seen me. He seemed to be staring directly at me. And smiling! I was sure I was found out. But then he rode on. He can’t have seen me, after all.”
Cadfael put away his medicines very thoughtfully. He asked mildly: “And you knew him by his horse again? What was so notable about it?”
“The size and colour. A great, gaunt, striding beast, not beautiful but strong, and dappled clean through from creamy belly to a back and quarters all but black.”
Cadfael scrubbed at his blunt brown nose, and scratched his even browner tonsure. “And the man?”
“A young fellow hardly older than I. Black-avised, and a light build to him. All I saw of him this morning was the clothes he wore and the way he rode, very easy on what I should guess might be a hard-mouthed brute. But I saw his face tonight. Not much flesh, and bold bones, and black eyes and brows. He whistles to himself,” said Torold, surprised at remembering this. “Very sweetly!”
So he did! Cadfael also remembered. The horse, too, he recalled, left behind in the abbey stables when two better and less noticeable had been withdrawn. Two, their owner had said, he might be willing to sacrifice, but not all four, and not the pick of the four. Yet the cull had been made, and still he rode one of the remaining two, and doubtless the other, also, was still at his disposal. So he had lied. His position with the king was already assured, he had even been on duty in today’s raiding. Very selective duty? And if so, who had selected it?
“And you thought he had seen you cross?”
“When I was safe hidden I looked, and he’d turned my way. I thought he’d seen me moving, from the corner of his eye.”
That one, thought Cadfael, has eyes all round his head, and what he misses is not worth marking. But all he said to Torold was: “And he halted and stared across at you, and then rode on?”
“I even thought he lifted his bridle-hand a thought to me,” owned Torold, grinning at his own credulity. “By that time I doubt I was seeing visions at every turn, I was so wild to get to Godith. But then he just turned and rode on, easy as ever. So he can’t have seen me, after all.”
Cadfael pondered the implications of all this in wonder and admiration. Light was dawning as dusk fell into night. Not complete darkness yet, simply the departure of the sun, afterglow and all, leaving a faint greenish radiance along the west; not complete dawn, but a promising confirmation of the first elusive beams.
“He can’t have, can he?” demanded Torold, fearful that he might have drawn danger after him all too near to Godith.
“Never a fear of it,” said Cadfael confidently. “All’s well, child, don’t fret, I see my way. And now it’s time for me to go to Compline. You may drop the bolt after me, and lie down here on Godith’s bed and get an hour or so of sleep, for by dawn you’ll be needing it. I’ll come back to you as soon as service is over.”
He did, however, spare the few minutes necessary to amble through the stables, and was not surprised to note that neither the dapple-grey nor its companion, the broad-backed brown cob, was in its stall. An innocent visit to the guest hall after Compline further confirmed that Hugh Beringar was not there in the apartments for gentlefolk, nor were his three men-at-arms present among the commonalty. The porter recalled that the three retainers had gone forth soon after Beringar had ridden in from his day’s duties at the end of the hunt, about the time that Vespers ended, and Beringar himself had followed, in no apparent haste, an hour or so later.