“I may, brother, I may, who knows! Will you come forth again and speak for me, if I do?”
“Gladly. I’m a Gwynedd man myself. Take my greetings back with you to the mountains. And good speed on the way!”
“God keep you!” said Rhodri, still beaming, and clapped him buoyantly on the shoulder, and set off towards the riverside.
Hugh had no sooner set foot in the hall when Aline flew into his arms, with a cry of relief and desperation mingled, and began to pour into his ears all her bewilderment and anxiety.
“Oh, Hugh, I think I must have done something terrible! Either that, or Philip Corviser has gone mad. He was here asking after Emma, and when I told him she was gone he rushed away like a madman, and there’s a merchant from Worcester in the stables accusing him of stealing his horse and making off with it, and what it all means I daren’t guess, but I’m afraid …”
Hugh held her tenderly, dismayed and solicitous. “Emma’s gone? But she was coming home with us. What happened to change it?”
“You know he’s been paying attentions to her … He came this morning asking for you - he said he has a sister who is entering the nunnery at Minchinbarrow, and since he must escort her there, and it’s barely five miles from Bristol, he could as well take Emma home in his sister’s company. He said they’d sleep overnight at his manor, and set off tomorrow. Emma said yes, and I thought no wrong, why should I? But the very name has sent Philip off like a man demented ...”
“Corbière?” demanded Hugh, holding her off by the shoulders to peer anxiously into her face.
“Yes! Yes, Ivo, of course - but what’s so wrong in that? He takes her to his sister at Stanton Cobbold - I thought it ideal, so did she, and you were not here to say yes or no. Besides, she is her own mistress …”
True, the girl had a will of her own, and liked the man who had made the offer, and was flattered at being singled out for his favours. Even for the sake of her own independence she would have chosen to go, and Hugh, had he been present, j would not then have known or suspected enough to prevent. He tightened his arms comfortingly round his trembling wife, his cheek pressed against her hair. “My love, my heart, you could not have done anything but what you did, and I should have done the same. But I must go after. No questions now, you shall know everything later. We’ll bring her back - there’ll be no harm done …”
“It’s true, then!” whispered Aline, her breath fluttering against his throat.
“There’s reason to fear harm? I’ve let her go into danger?”
“You could not stop her. She chose to go. Think no more of your part, you played none - how could you know? Where’s Constance? Love, I hate to leave you like this …”
He was thinking, of course, like all men, she thought, that any grievous upset to his wife in this condition was a potential upset to his son. That roused her.
She was not the girl to keep a man dancing anxious attention on her, even if she had a wife’s claim on him, when he was needed more urgently elsewhere. She drew herself resolutely out of his arms.
“Of course you must leave me. I’ve taken no harm, and shall take none. Go, quickly! They have a good three hours start of you, and besides, if you delay, Philip may run his head into trouble alone. Send quickly for what men you can muster, and I’ll go see what I can do to placate the merchant whose horse has been borrowed …” He was loath, all the same, to let go of her. She took his head between her hands, kissed him hard, and turned him about just as Cadfael came in at the hall door.
“She’s gone with Corbière,” said Hugh, conveying news in the fewest words possible. “Bound for his one Shropshire manor. The boy’s off after them, and so must I. I’ll send word to Prestcote to have a guard follow as fast as may be.
You’ll be here to take care of Aline …”
Aline doubted that, seeing the spark flare up in Brother Cadfael’s bright and militant eye. Hastily she said: “I need no one to nurse me. Only go - both of you!”
“I have licence,” said Cadfael, clutching at virtue to cover his ardour. “Abbot Radulfus gave me the charge of seeing that his guest came to no harm under his roof, and I’ll stretch that to extend beyond his roof, and make it good, too.
You have a horse to spare, Hugh, besides that raw-boned dapple of yours. Come on! It’s a year since you and I rode together.”
CHAPTER 3
The manor of Stanton Cobbold lay a good seventeen miles from Shrewsbury, in the south of the shire, and cheek by jowl with the large property of the bishops of Hereford in those parts, which covered some nine or ten manors. The road lay through the more open and sunlit stretches of the Long Forest, and at its southernmost fringe plunged in among the hump-backed hills at the western side of a long, bare ridge that ran for some miles. Here and there a wooded valley backed into its bare flank, and into one of these Corbière turned, along a firm cart-track. It was the height of the early afternoon then, the sun at its highest, but even so the crowding trees cast sudden chill and shadow. The bay horse had worked off his high spirits, and went placidly under his double burden. Once in the forest they had halted briefly, and Ivo had produced wine and oatcakes as refreshment on the journey, and paid Emma every possible delicate attention. The day was fair, the countryside strange to her and beautiful, and she was embarked on an agreeable adventure. She approached Stanton Cobbold with only the happiest anticipation, flattered by Ivo’s deference, and eager to meet his sister.
A rivulet ran alongside the track, coming down from the ridge. The path narrowed, and the trees closed in.
“We are all but home,” said Ivo over his shoulder; and in a few minutes more the rising ground opened before them into a narrow, level plot enclosed before with a wooden stockade. Within, the manor house backed solidly into the hillside, trees at the back, trees shutting it in darkly at either end. A boy came running to open the gate for them, and they rode into the enclosure. Barns and byres lined the stockade within. The manor itself showed a long undercroft of stone, buttressed, and pierced with two doors wide enough for carts, and a living floor above, also of stone for most of its length, where the great hall and the kitchens and pantries lay, but at the right, stone gave place to timber, and stone mullions to wooden window-frames and stout shutters; and this wooden living apartment was taller than the stone portion, and seemed to have an additional floor above the solar. A tall stone stair led up to the hall door.
“Modest enough,” said Ivo, turning his head to smile at her, “but it has room and a welcome for you.”
He was well served. Grooms came running before the horse had halted, a maid appeared in the hall doorway, and began to flutter down to meet them.
Ivo kicked his feet free of the stirrups, swung a leg nimbly over the horse’s bowing head, and leaped down, waving Turstan Fowler aside, to stretch up his arms to Emma and lift her down herself. Her slight weight gave him no trouble, he held her aloft for a long moment to prove it, laughing, before he set her down.
“Come, I’ll take you up to the solar.” He put off the maid with a flick of his hand, and she stood aside and followed them demurely up the steps, but let them go on without her when they reached the hall. The thick stone walls struck inward with a palpable chill. The hall was large and lofty, the high ceiling smoke-stained, but now, in the summer, the huge fireplace was empty and cold.
The mullioned windows let in air far more genial than that within, and a comforting light, but they were narrow, and could do little to temper the oppression of the room. “Not my most amiable home,” said Ivo with a grimace, “but in these Welsh borders we built for defence, not for comfort. Come up to the solar. The timber end was built on later, but even there this is a chill, dark house. Even on summer evenings we need some firing.”