Ermina was sitting by the hall fire, still stitching relentlessly at a sleeve of the gown. Working against time, thought Cadfael, when she looked up only briefly, and at once returned to labor unaccustomed and uncongenial. She gave him a smile, but it was a grave and shadowy one.
“All is well with Yves,” said Cadfael simply. “He was fretting over words Brother Elyas spoke in his sleep, that seemed to be confession of murder, but were no such thing.” He told her the whole of it. Why not? She was becoming a woman before his eyes, fettered by responsibilities suddenly realized and heroically accepted. “There is nothing weighing on his heart now, except the fear that the true murderer may go undiscovered.”
“He need not fear,” said Ermina, and looked up and smiled, a different smile, at once secretive and confiding. “God’s justice must be infallible, it would be sin to doubt it.”
“At least,” said Cadfael noncommittally, “he will be ready and willing to go with you now. Even eager. Your Olivier has a worshipper who would follow him to the world’s end.”
The bright, proud stare of her eyes came up to him sharply, the firelight waking sparks of deep red hi the depths. “He has two,” she said.
“When is it to be?”
“How did you know?” she asked, with a little curiosity but no surprise or consternation.
“Would such a man leave his work unfinished, and let another send home, however gallantly, the charges he was sent to find? Of course he means to complete the task himself. What else?”
“You will not stand in his way?” But she waved that aside with the hand that held the needle. “Pardon! I know you will not. You have seen him now, you know how to recognize a man! He sent me word by Yves. He will come tomorrow, about Compline, when the household makes ready for bed.”
Cadfael thought it over, and said judicially: “I would leave departure until the brothers rise for Matins and Lauds, there will then be no porter on the gate, he will be in church with the rest. And no further stir until Prime. You and the boy could sleep some hours before riding. And if he comes during Compline, I can bring him within until time to leave. If you will trust me with the charge?”
“And thank you for it,” she said without hesitation. “We will do as you advise.”
“And you,” said Brother Cadfael, watching her seam lengthen with fierce stitch after stitch, “will you be as ready as Yves to leave this place by tomorrow’s midnight?”
She looked up yet again, without haste or concealment, but without confiding, either, and the sinking firelight caught the red glow again in her eyes, while her face was a pure mask. “Yes, I shall be ready,” she said, and glanced down at the sewing in her lap before she added: “My work here will be done.”
Chapter Fifteen
The night was clear, starry and still, barely on the edge of frost. The sun emerged with dawn, and for the second night there had been no fresh snow. The drifts dwindled, even before the slow, quiet thaw set in, the kind of thaw that clears paths by gradual, almost stealthy erosion, and causes no floods.
Hugh Beringar had got back late in the evening, after overseeing the total destruction of what the fire had left, and the removal of a startling collection of plunder. The clutter of lean-to cells along the stockade had yielded up the remains of two murdered prisoners, tortured until they surrendered whatever they had of value, and three more still alive after the same treatment. They were being nursed in Ludlow, where Josce de Dinan had secured the survivors of the garrison in chains. Of the attacking force, there were some eighteen wounded, many more with minor grazes, but none dead. It might have been a deal more costly.
Prior Leonard strode radiantly about his court in the chill but brilliant sunlight, glittering with relief that his region was delivered from a pestilence, the missing pair safe within his walls, and Brother Elyas mute with wonder and grace in his bed, and bent upon life, whether blissful or baleful. He looked up with clear, patient eyes now, and took exhortation and reproof alike with humility and gladness. His mind was whole, his body would not be long in following.
Not long after High Mass the claimants began to come in to look for their horses, as doubtless they were flocking to Ludlow to pick out their own cows and sheep. Some, no doubt, would be claimed by more than one, and give rise to great quarrels and the calling in of neighbors to identify the disputed stock. But here there were only a handful of horses, and little ground for the opportunist greed of the cunning. Horses know their owners as well as the owners know their horses. Even the cows in Ludlow would have plenty to say about where they belonged.
John Druel was among the first to come, having walked all the way from Cleeton, and he had no need to urge his ownership, for the stout brown mountain cob strained and cried after him as soon as he showed his face in the stable-yard, and their meeting was an embrace. The cob blew sweetly in John’s ear, and John hugged him about the neck, looked him over from head to hocks, and wept on his cheek. The cob was his only horse, worth a fortune to him. Yves had seen him come, and ran to tell Ermina, and the pair of them came flying to greet him and force on him such favors as they still had about them to give.
A wife from Whitbache came to claim her dead husband’s mare. A thin, grave boy from the same manor came in shyly and humbly to call a solid work-horse of hill stock, and it went to him hesitantly, wanting his sire, but acknowledged the child of the same blood with a human sigh.
Not until dinner was over in the refectory, and Brother Cadfael emerged again into the midday sparkle of sun on snow, did Evrard Boterel ride in at the gatehouse, dismount, and look round him for someone to whom he might most properly address himself. He was still somewhat pale and lean from his fever, but much recovered in the vigor of his movement and the clarity of his eye, and he stood with reared head and imperious stare, even frowning a little that no groom ran at once to take his bridle. A fine figure of a young man, fair as his horse’s mane, and well aware of his handsome appearance and his dominant nobility. Such comeliness might well take any young woman’s fancy. What did a young fellow with these advantages have to do to lose his hold? Reality, Ermina had said, had rudely invaded her idyllic fantasy. Well! But was that enough?
Prior Leonard, all goodwill, came beaming down the court with his gangling stride, to greet the visitor civilly, and conduct him into the stable-yard. One of Hugh’s men, seeing the saddled horse untended, and being himself at leisure, came to take the bridle, and Boterel relinquished his mount as to a servant, without a further glance, and went with the prior.
He had come alone. If he had indeed a stolen horse to reclaim, he must take him home on a leading rein.
Brother Cadfael looked round at the guest-hall, very thoughtfully, and saw Ermina in her peasant gown come forth from the doorway and cross to the church, rapid and light, and bearing something rolled up beneath her arm. The dark arch of the porch swallowed her, as the walled enclosure of the stables had swallowed her sometime suitor. Yves would certainly be sitting now with Brother Elyas, his jealously guarded protégé and patient, on whom he waited with proprietorial zeal. Out of sight and out of peril. No arrows loosed here could strike at him.
Without haste, Cadfael stepped out into the cleared court and crossed towards the church, but tempered his going so judiciously that his path converged upon that by which Evrard Boterel and Hugh together emerged from the stables and made for the gatehouse. They, too, were taking their time, and Evrard was sunning into vivacity and smiles; the deputy sheriff was a study worth cultivating. Behind them a lay groom led a fine bay mare, chestnut-maned.