'Sleep well?' he grunted.
'Like the dead,' I assured him, conscious by now that I was being watched by two pairs of bright, excited eyes.
'Who is he, Father?' the girl wanted to know.
'Stranger, lost in the forest.' The man became aware of the child's semi-naked state and added roughly, 'Get thy smock on.' This was a garment of coarse, homespun linen, and when she had donned it, her father nodded in approval. To me, he said, 'Draw near the fire and warm yourself, Master. There's a pump outside if ee wants to wash.' He spoke as one who was conversant with the odder habits of strangers.
The woman had begun throwing oatmeal into the heating water, together with a handful of dried herbs, which hung in bunches from hooks driven into the wattle frame of the cottage. She was as silent as the night before, but the children, overcoming their shyness, had drawn close to me and, with the natural curiosity of their age, wanted to talk. But they waited until their father had once more gone outside.
'Where you from, Master?' the boy asked, wiping his hand across his running nose, then down the sleeve of his shirt, made from the same coarse homespun as his sister's shift.
'When I was a lad I lived with my mother in Wells,' I told him. 'But now I'm a chapman, and I wander from village to village peddling my wares. So you could say I don't belong anywhere nowadays.' I thought of Lillis and Margaret Walker and felt as though I had betrayed them.
'Do you get many strangers here? People like myself, lost in the forest?'
'Sometimes,' the girl admitted. 'But most people hire a guide. My father and the rest of the miners here will show you the way if you pay them.'
Her brother added, plainly bursting with importance, and pleased to show off in front of the stranger, 'We have a horse now.' Ignoring his mother's warning cry of 'Hamo!' he continued, 'Leastaways, the head man o' the village keeps it tethered behind his cottage, but 'tis for everyone's use if they need it.'
My heart beat faster in excitement. 'What sort of horse?' I asked. 'What colour?'
'Who's talking o' horses?' The man had returned with an armful of twigs and branches, and he stood in the doorway, glaring balefully at his son.
The woman looked fearful, rising from her crouching position by the fare, ready, if necessary, to step between husband and child. 'Leave him be, man,' she said quietly. 'He's said naught amiss.'
'What goes on in this village is our business,' her husband retorted angrily, 'and not for the ears of strangers.' I rose slowly to my feet. Loath as I was to get young Hamo into further trouble, I could not let the subject drop.
'This horse,' I said, 'I'd like to see it.' I flung up a hand as if to blind myself to my host's fierce gaze. 'I promise I won't attempt to take it from you or bring trouble upon the community, but it is very important that I take a look at it. Is it a light bay with black points and a white snip between its nostrils?'
There was a deathly silence for a moment, then the woman gave a moan. 'I always knew we were doing wrong, keeping that animal.'
Chapter Eighteen
The man said fiercely, 'Hold thy wist!' and he included his son in his furious glare. 'Thee both need tongue-locking!' He dropped his bale of faggots and raised a hand as if to hit whichever one was nearest. I stepped forward quickly and seized his waist.
'Don't blame your woman and son, for I should have found out sooner or later. The reason I'm in the forest, the reason I'm travelling into Wales, is to seek information of a man named William Woodward, the grandfather of my affianced bride.' The words had slipped out before I was even conscious of them, and I realized suddenly that somewhere, somehow, I had made up my mind. For good or ill, I was committed to Lillis Walker and intended to make her my wife. 'From what I've heard, it seems I need go no further. I suspect he was found here, in the forest, last year, a day, maybe two, after the Annunciation of Our Lady. Am I right?'
The man, who had surprising strength for one so small and puny-looking, tore his wrist free of my grasp and backed away, his mouth set in a thin, hard line, prepared to maintain silence; but he had reckoned without the agitation of his wife. She was openly sobbing now, and her thin fingers clung to my arm.
'I do admit 'twas one of our number found him, but 'twasn't no one here who gave him the beating. It were Gwyn Gwynson stumbled across him and brought the poor gentleman to the village, and we women nursed him back to health. But we never knew his name nor where he came from, for his mind had gone from the blows he had got to his head. Kept repeating he'd been captured by Irish slavers, and that's all he would ever say. Master, you mun believe me, for 'tis God's truth.'
Accepting that the cat was out of the bag and that there was no getting it in again, my host said defensively, 'We didn't steal the horse. One of us found him wandering loose in the forest some days later, still saddled and bridle amp; but half-starved, poor beast. We meant to return him to the man you say's your woman's grandfather, but one day, he just up and left when nobody was about. Vanished into thin air. High summer it were by that time. He'd been with us three or four moons. There was a meeting o' the village elders, and the headman thought we mun keep the horse. God's Providence, he said it were, for sometimes 'tis needful to go quickly between one community and another. When one of our children is sick, and our Goody has no sovereign remedy, we can send to a neighbouring mine-head, and maybe their woman will have the answer. In such cases, 'tis a godsend to travel swift. If you take it from us, 'twill be an ill-service you do.'
'I have no intention of taking the horse from you,' I assured him. 'I just wish to see it, to be certain that it is the one that was lost.' Although I was already sure in my own mind that the animal was the one stolen from Master Herepath's stables. 'Can you take me now to the headman's cottage?'
But, as I spoke, a great clatter started up outside, two pieces of wood being loudly banged together. I guessed it to be the signal for the men to go to the mine-shaft and be lowered in their cage. It was time for the day's work to begin.
'And you with nothing in your belly!' the woman cried in alarm.
Her husband scornfully bade her hold her tongue. 'Give me a crust of bread to put in my pocket. That's all I need.' He eyed me up and down. 'If you'll be content to wait here, Master, until I return this evening, I'll take you to see the headman myself, and we'll hear what he's to say. If he thinks you trustworthy, and believes your story, he'll show you the animal. If not, he'll send you on your way no wiser. And don't think to be bringing the law down about our ears, for the sheriff's men, they won't meddle with the likes of us.'
That I could well understand.
I spent the day, from dawn to dusk, curled up by the fire, sometimes dozing, but more often just sitting quietly, piecing together the bits of knowledge which I'd gleaned over the past few weeks until they made a clear, whole picture in my mind. I thought now that I knew what had happened, the sequence of events and the motive behind them. Hamo and his sister, whose name was Gwynne, played in the dirt with the crude toys which, I guessed, they had fashioned themselves from odds and ends of rubbish which came to hand. And after a dinner of the stew which we had eaten yesterday, the woman, who had been busy all morning, sat with us near the fire and was prevailed upon by the children to tell stories of her grandfather, who had been recruited, along with many of his fellow miners, by the great Harry of Monmouth, to go to France and burrow beneath the walls of Harfleur. Weird and wonderful tales of foreign parts he had brought back to the forest when his job was done.