Baudouin let out the breath he had been holding and felt the tension seep out of him. It will be all right, he told himself. Then, calmer, he turned his horse and trotted back along the track towards Lakehall.
I set off with Hrype that night. They’d undoubtedly have stopped me if I’d waited to ask permission and I could think of no excuse to offer to my sister to release me again from her service so, given the great urgency of doing something to help Sibert, overall it seemed simpler just to go. I hoped to be back before anyone became too anxious about me.
I was not worried about my safety at all. I felt secure with Hrype. It’s always a sound plan, if you’re going into possible danger, to have a sorcerer with you. There was danger; I hadn’t forgotten how I’d heard someone in the undergrowth the previous day, when I’d been on my way back to Goda’s after my visit to Lord Gilbert. I told Hrype about this and he said nothing, merely nodding briefly.
I had imagined we were going to have to walk all the way back to that clearing where the fat woman had sat by her well. I was very surprised when, a short distance along the track, Hrype dodged in beneath the trees and returned leading two horses. Well, a horse and a pony, actually, but nevertheless I was delighted.
‘Are they really for us to ride?’ I demanded eagerly. I had put my hand out cautiously to the pony — a bay — and he was snuffling his lips against my skin in a friendly sort of way.
‘They are.’ Hrype risked a smile.
‘But they don’t belong to you.’ I was pretty sure of that.
‘No, I have borrowed them,’ Hrype replied shortly.
‘Borrowed them?’ I wondered who, among Hrype’s acquaintances, could possibly have offered such largesse.
‘Better that you don’t know any more.’ Hrype’s words had a distinct finality about them and I did not dare pursue the matter.
I hoped it was going to be all right. The penalty for horse theft — if we were caught, would anyone believe that the horses had really been lent to us and we were fully intending to return them? — was hanging.
I realized then, if I had not done so before, just how far Hrype was prepared to go to save his nephew’s life.
We rode our purloined mounts as hard as we dared. Fortunately they were fresh and frisky, fat on summer grass and, it seemed, more than ready for an outing. We stopped for a couple of brief rests to refresh ourselves and water the horses, and late in the evening of the following day we were on the road east of Diss and I was straining my eyes to find the place where the track up from Dunwich joined it.
I found it at last, but by now it was too late to go on and approach the fat woman we had met by the well. She would doubtless have returned to her tiny hamlet and turned in for the night and we would not increase our chances of success by scaring her in the middle of the night.
Early the next day we were on our way.
We must have missed the place where Romain attacked Sibert and subsequently met his death, for before I knew it we were entering the clearing with the well. There was no one about. We dismounted and tethered the horses, then began searching down the faint tracks leading out of the clearing.
She found us before either Hrype or I managed to locate her cottage. We never did find it and for all I knew she could have been some spirit of the woods, only taking mortal form when people had need of her. That’s the sort of fanciful thought you tend to have when you travel with a sorcerer.
She looked at me with a smile of recognition. ‘It’s the little runaway!’ she exclaimed, dumping her empty vessel and reaching out to the chain that held the bucket, deep down inside the well. ‘Did you and your young man escape all right?’
I looked at Hrype. He nodded. Taking this as a sign to tell her, I did. ‘We reached the safety of our home, yes, but Sibert — that’s his name and he’s not really my young man — has been arrested for murder.’
Her eyes rounded in horrified fascination. ‘Murder! Who did he murder, then?’
‘Nobody,’ I said emphatically. ‘But someone says he did. This someone says there’s a witness to the killing and since it happened not far up the track that leads to the coast road, I — we — wondered if you might have been that witness.’
She was already shaking her head and I knew we had wasted our time. ‘I’m sorry, my lass,’ she said kindly, ‘but I saw nothing. I certainly saw no murder, and I thank the good Lord above for it.’ She was still shaking her head, from time to time repeating ‘Murder!’ softly under her breath, as if she scarcely believed it.
Hrype moved a few paces closer to her and, with a polite bow, said, ‘I am Sibert’s uncle. His mother is desperate. Is there anything you can tell us that might help?’
She looked at him, her face clenched in sympathy, and after a pause she said, ‘I saw this girl here and the young man. Sibert?’
‘Yes,’ Hrype and I said together.
‘Sibert. Yes, the two of them passed through the clearing and they both took a drink, although the young man seemed very nervous, very keen to be on his way. Yes.’ She put her hand up to her mouth, frowning in concentration. ‘Then a little later another young man came along and I remember I remarked to him that sometimes I don’t see a soul from one week’s end to another and here we were with three visitors in one day.’
‘What did this man look like?’ I asked. I could barely breathe.
‘He was older than your Sibert, but not much. He was broad-set, with thick, dark bobbed hair, and he wore a fine tunic, although it looked as if he’d been wearing it for days and sleeping in it.’ Romain. It had to be. I looked at Hrype and guessed he’d had the same thought. ‘We had a bit of a chat, and he — oh!’
She looked aghast at me and then at Hrype. Clearly she had recalled something else.
‘Go on,’ Hrype said quietly.
‘I described you to him, you and the lad,’ she said, turning to me. ‘I’m very sorry, I’m sure, if I’ve done harm by it! Oh, dear me!’ She was close to tears.
‘You weren’t to know,’ I said. ‘If he was on this path then he had already picked up our trail and all you did was to confirm that he was right.’
‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ She did not sound very reassured. ‘And now that poor lad stands accused of murder! Who did he kill?’ she asked again.
‘He did not kill anyone,’ I repeated very firmly.
‘No, no, of course not, you said so!’ Now she was blushing furiously, the fat red face scarlet with embarrassment. ‘Who do they say he’s killed?’
I did not think I could bring myself to say it. Hrype gave the answer.
‘He is accused of murdering the other young man, the one who was following him and this girl.’
‘No!’
‘He didn’t do it!’ I said yet again. The murder had clearly come as a great shock to her so I knew, as Hrype must do too, that she was not Baudouin de la Flèche’s witness. She might know who was, however. ‘Do others live around here?’ I asked.
‘Round here? Some, in the little hamlet down the track, although we are very few,’ she replied.
‘Nevertheless, could one of them have been the witness?’ Hrype asked.
The fat woman shrugged. ‘Perhaps. I haven’t heard anyone speak of it and I dare say I’d have heard tell, by now, of such a thing. . ’ She frowned in concentration. ‘We do get passers-by too, although, like I said, not many and three in a day’s a rarity.’
We appeared to have come to a dead end. She had seen nobody but Sibert, me and then, a little later, Romain. Whoever it was who saw the murder must have waited around until Baudouin came along and then told him what he’d just seen.
Baudouin.
What was it Hrype had said when he came to our house that awful night? Baudouin was worried for Romain’s safety and he set out to look for him.