“Roger and the young mason are gone on together for Ramsey. And the master carpenter and the other lad turned back for Shrewsbury. They’ll be there by this, if they had no more trouble along the way.”
“And where was this ambush? South of Leicester, you said? Could you lead us there? But no,” said Hugh decisively, looking the man over. An elder, well past fifty, and battered and tired from a dogged and laborious journey on foot. “No, you need your rest. Name me some village close by, and we’ll find the traces. Here are we, and ready for the road. As well for Leicester as for Shrewsbury.”
“It was in the forest, not far from Ullesthorpe,” said Nicol. “But they’ll be long gone. I told you, they needed the cart and the horses, for they were running from old pastures gone sour on them, and in the devil’s own hurry.”
“If they needed the wagon and the team so sorely,” said Hugh, “one thing’s certain, they’d want no great load of timber to slow them down. As soon as they were well clear of you, they’d surely get rid of that dead weight, they’d upend the cart and tip the load. If your little treasury was well buried among the coppice-wood, Father Herluin, we may recover it yet.” And if something else really was slipped aboard at the last moment, he thought, who knows but we may recover that, too!
Herluin had brightened and gathered his dignity about him wonderfully, at the very thought of regaining what had gone astray. So had Nicol perceptibly brightened, though rather with the hope of getting his revenge on the devils who had tumbled him from the wagon, and threatened his companions with steel and arrows.
“You mean to go back there after them?” he questioned, glittering. “Then, my lord, gladly I’ll come back with you. I’ll know the place again, and take you there straight. Father Herluin came with three horses from Shrewsbury. Let his man make his way back there, and let me have the third horse and bring you the quickest way to Ullesthorpe. Give me a moment to wet my throat and take a bite, and I’m ready!”
“You’ll fall by the wayside,” said Hugh, laughing at a vehemence he could well understand.
“Not I, my lord! Let me but get my hands on one of that grisly crew, and you’ll put me in better fettle than all the rest in the world. I would not be left out! This was my charge, and I have a score to settle. I kept the key safe, Father Herluin, but never had time to toss the coffer into the bushes, before I was flung there myself, winded among the brambles, and scratches enough to show for it. You would not leave me behind now?”
“Not for the world!” said Hugh heartily. “I can do with a man of spirit about me. Go, quickly then, get bread and ale. We’ll leave the Ramsey lad and have you along for guide.”
The reeve of Ullesthorpe was a canny forty-five year old, wiry and spry, and adroit at defending not only himself and his position, but the interests of his village. Confronted with a party weighted in favour of the clerical, he nevertheless took a thoughtful look at Hugh Beringar, and addressed himself rather to the secular justice.
“True enough, my lord! We found the place some days past. We’d got word of these outlaws passing through the woods, though they never came near the villages, and then this master-carpenter and his fellow came back to us and told us what had befallen them, and we did what we could for them to set them on their way back to Shrewsbury. I reasoned like you, my lord, that they’d rid themselves of the load, it would only slow them down. I’ll take you to the place. It’s a couple of miles into the forest.”
He added nothing more until he had brought them deep into thick woodland, threaded by a single open ride, where deep wheel-ruts still showed here and there in the moist ground, even after so many days. The marauders had simply backed the wagon into a relatively open grove, and tipped the stack of wood headlong, raking out the last slim cordwood and dragging the cart away from under them. It did not surprise Hugh to see that the stack had been scattered abroad from the original untidy pile dumped thus, and most of the seasoned timber removed, leaving the flattened bushes plain to be seen. Thrifty villagers had sorted out the best for their own uses, present or future. Give them time, and the rest of the coppice-wood would also find a good home. The reeve, attendant at Hugh’s elbow, eyed him sidelong, and said insinuatingly: “You’ll not think it ill of good husbandmen to take what God sends and be grateful for it?”
Herluin remarked, but with controlled resignation: “This was the property of Ramsey Abbey, nevertheless.”
“Why, Father, there was but a few of us, those who talked with the lads from Shrewsbury, ever knew that. The first here were from an assart only cut from the woods a few years back, it was a godsend indeed to them. Why leave it to go to waste? They never saw the wagon or the men that brought it here. And the earl gives us the right to take fallen wood, and this was long felled.”
“As well mending a roof as lying here,” said Hugh, shrugging. “Small blame to them.” The heap of logs, probed and hauled apart days since, had spread over the woodland ride and into the tangle of grass and undergrowth among the trees. They walked the circuit of it, sifting among the remains, and Nicol, who had strayed a little further afield, suddenly uttered a shout, and plunging among the bushes, caught up and brandished before their eyes the small coffer which had held Herluin’s treasury. Broken apart by force, the lid splintered, the box shed a handful of stones and a drift of dead leaves as he turned it upside down and shook it ruefully.
“You see? You see? They never got the key from me, they never would have got it, but that was no hindrance. A dagger prizing under the lid, close by the lock... And all that good alms and good will gone to rogues and vagabonds!”
“I expected no better,” said Herluin bitterly, and took the broken box in his hands to stare at the damage. “Well, we have survived even worse, and shall survive this loss also. There were times when I feared our house was lost for ever. This is but a stumble on the way, we shall make good what we have vowed, in spite of all.”
Small chance, however, reflected Hugh, of recovering these particular gifts. All Shrewsbury’s giving, whether from the heart or the conscience, all Donata’s surrendered vanities, relinquished without regret, all gone with the fugitive ruffians, how far distant already there was no guessing.
“So this is all,” said Prior Robert sadly.
“My lord...” The reeve edged closer to Hugh’s shoulder and leaned confidingly to his ear. “My lord, there was something else found among the logs. Well hidden underneath it was, or either the rogues would have found it when they tipped the load, or else the first who came to carry off timber would have seen it. But it so chanced it was covered deep, and came to light only when I was here to see. I knew when we unwrapped it, it was not for us to meddle with.”
He had all their attention now, every eye was wide and bright upon him, Herluin and Robert irresistibly moved to hoping against hope, but very wary of disappointment, Nicol interested but bewildered, for nothing had been said to him of the loss of Saint Winifred’s reliquary, or the possibility that he might have had it aboard his wagon, and had been robbed of it with all the rest. Tutilo hovered in the background, keeping himself modestly apart while his betters conferred. He had even suppressed, as he could do at will, the brightness of his amber eyes.
“And what was this thing you found?” asked Hugh cautiously.
“A coffin, my lord, by its shape. Not very large, if coffin it really is; whoever lies in it was fine-boned and slender. Ornamented in silver, very chastely. I knew it was precious enough to be perilous. I took it in charge for safety.”
“And what,” pursued Prior Robert, beginning to glow with the promise of a triumph, “did you do with this coffin?”