At so late an hour there was small chance of reaching immediate help at either abbey or castle, and none of deriving any knowledge from the darkening scene here in the forest. All Cadfael could do, thus alone, was to kneel beside the mute body and feel for a heartbeat or pulse, and listen for any faint sign of breathing. But though Drogo’s flesh was warm, and yielded pliably to handling, there was no breath in him, and the heart in his great chest, almost certainly pierced by the thrust from behind, was stonily still. He could not have been dead very long, but the gush of blood that had sprung out with the blade had ceased to flow, and was beginning to dry at its edges into a dark crust. More than an hour ago, Cadfael thought, judging by what signs he had, perhaps as much as two hours. And his saddle-roll cut loose and taken. Here, in our woods! When did any man ever hear of footpads so close? Or has some cutthroat from the town heard of Eilmund being laid up at home, and ventured to try his luck here for a chance traveller riding alone?
Delay could not harm Drogo now, and daylight might show at least some trace to lead to his murderer. Best leave him so, and take word to the castle, where there was always a guard waking, and leave a message for Hugh, to be delivered as soon as there was light. At midnight the brothers would rise for Matins, and the same grim news could and should be delivered then to Abbot Radulfus. The dead man was the abbey’s guest, and his son expected within a few days, and to the abbey he must be taken for proper and reverent care.
No, there was nothing more to be done for Drogo Bosiet, but at least he could get the horse back to his stable. Cadfael mounted, and gathered the loose bridle in his left hand, and the horse came with him docilely. There was no haste. He had until midnight. No need to save time, since even if he reached his bed before Matins, sleep would be impossible. Better take care of the horses and then wait for the bell.
*
Abbot Radulfus came early to the church for Matins, to find Cadfael waiting for him in the south porch as he crossed from his lodging. The bell in the dortoir was only just sounding. It takes but a few moments to say bluntly that a man is dead, and by an act of man, not of God.
Radulfus was never known to waste words in exclamation, and did not do so now at the news that a guest of his house had come to an unlawful end in the abbey’s own forest. The gross affront and grosser wrong he accepted in sombre silence, and the right and duty of retribution, as incumbent now upon the church as on the secular authority, he took up with a deep assenting nod of his head, and a grim tightening of his long, firm lips. In the hush while he thought, they heard the soft, sandalled steps of the brothers descending the night stairs.
“And you have left word for Hugh Beringar?” asked the abbot.
“At his house and at the castle.”
“No man can do more, then, until first light. He must be brought here, for here his son will come. But you—you will be needed, you can lead straight to where he lies. Go now, I excuse you from the office, go and take some rest, and at dawn ride to join the sheriff. Say to him that I will send a party after, to bring the body home.”
*
In the first hesitant light of a chill morning they stood over Drogo Bosiet’s body, Hugh Beringar and Cadfael, a sergeant of Hugh’s garrison and two men-at-arms, all silent, all with eyes fixed on the great patch of encrusted blood that soaked the back of the rich riding coat. The grass hung as heavy and flattened with dew as if after rain, and the moisture had gathered in great pearls in the woollen pile of the dead man’s clothing, and starred the bushes in a treasury of cobwebs.
“Since he plucked out the dagger from the wound,” said Hugh, “most likely he took it away with him. But we’ll look about for it, in case he discarded it. And you say the straps of the saddle-roll were sliced through? After the slaying—he needed the knife for that. Quicker and easier in the dark to cut it loose than unbuckle it, and whoever he was, he wouldn’t want to linger. Strange, though, that a mounted man should fall victim to such an attack. At the least sound he had only to spur and draw clear, surely.”
“But I think,” said Cadfael, studying how the body lay, “that he was on foot here, and leading the horse. He was a stranger, and the path here is very narrow and the trees crowd close, and it was dark or getting dark. See the leaves that have clung to his boot soles. He never had time to turn, the one stroke was enough. Where he had been I don’t know, but he was on his way back to his lodging in our guest hall when he was struck down. With no struggle and little noise. The horse had taken no great alarm, he strayed only a few yards.”
“Which argues an expert footpad and thief,” said Hugh. “But do you believe in that? In my writ and so close to the town?”
“No. But some secret rogue, perhaps even a sneak thief out of the town, might risk one exploit, knowing Eilmund is laid up at home. But this is guessing,” said Cadfael, shaking his head. “Now and then even a poacher might be tempted to try murder, if he came on a man of substance, alone and at night. But guessing is small use.”
The party sent by Abbot Radulfus to carry Drogo back to the abbey were already winding their way along the path with their litter. Cadfael knelt in the grass, soaking his habit at the knees in the plenteous dew, and carefully turned the stiffening body face upward. The heavy muscling of the cheeks had fallen slack, the eyes, so disproportionately small for the massive countenance, were half open. He looked older and less arrogantly brutal in death, a mortal man like other men, almost piteous. The hand that had lain hidden under his body wore a heavy silver ring.
“Something the thief missed,” said Hugh, looking down with something of startled regret in his face for so much power now powerless.
“Another sign of haste. Or he would have ransacked every garment. And proof enough that the body was not moved. He lies as he fell, facing towards Shrewsbury. It’s as I said, he was on his way home.”
“There’s a son expected, you said? Come,” said Hugh, “we can leave him to your men now, and my fellows will comb the woods all round in case there’s sign or trace to be found, though I doubt it. You and I will be off back to the abbey, and see what the abbot has brought to light at chapter. For someone must surely have put some notion into his mind, to send him out again so late.”
The sun was above the rim of the world, but veiled and pale, as they mounted and turned back along the narrow ride. The spider-draped bushes caught the first gleams that pierced the mist, and flashed in coruscations of diamonds. When they emerged into the open, low-lying fields the horses waded through a shallow lilac-tinted sea of vapour.
“What do you know of this man Bosiet,” asked Hugh, “more than he has told me, or I have gleaned without his telling?”
“Little enough, I expect. He’s lord of several manors in Northamptonshire, and some little while since a villein of his, as like as not for a very good reason, laid his steward flat and put him to bed for some days, and then very wisely took to his heels before they could lay hands on him. Bosiet and his men have been hunting for the fellow ever since. They must have wasted a good while searching the rest of the shire, I fancy, before they got word from someone that he’d made for Northampton and seemed to be heading north and west. And between them they’ve followed this far, making drives in both directions from every halt. He must have cost them far above his value, valuable though they say he is, but it’s his blood they’re after first and foremost, and seemingly they set a higher price on that than on his craft, whatever that may be. There was a very vigorous hate there,” said Cadfael feelingly. “He brought it to chapter with him. Father Abbot was not greatly taken with the notion of helping him to the sort of revenge he’d be likely to take.”
“And shrugged him off on to me,” said Hugh, briefly grinning. “Well, small blame to him. I took your word for it, and stayed out of his way as long as I could. In any case I could give him no help. What else do you know of him?”
“That he has a groom named Warin, the one that rode with him, though not, it seems, on his last ride. Maybe he’d sent his man on some other errand, and couldn’t wait once he got the word, but set off alone. He’s—he was—a man who liked to use his fists freely on his servants, for any offence or none. At least he’d laid Warin’s face open for him, and according to the groom that was no rarity. As for the son, according to Warin he’s much like his father, and just as surely to be avoided. And he’ll be coming from Stafford any day now—”
“To find he has to coffin his father’s body and take it home for burial,” said Hugh ruefully.
“To find he’s now lord of Bosiet,” said Cadfael. “That’s the reverse of the coin. Who knows which side up it will look to him?”
“You’re grown very cynical, old friend,” remarked Hugh, wryly smiling.
“I’m thinking,” Cadfael owned, “of reasons why men do murder. Greed is one, and might be spawned in a son, waiting impatiently for his inheritance. Hate is another, and a misused servant might entertain it willingly if chance offered. But there are other and stranger reasons, no doubt, like a simple taste for thieving, and a disposition to make sure the victim never blabs. A pity, Hugh, a great pity there should be so much hurrying on of death, when it’s bound to reach every man in its own good time.”
By the time they emerged on to the highroad at Wroxeter the sun was well up, and the mist clearing from its face, though the fields still swam in pearly vapour. They made good speed from there along the road to Shrewsbury, and rode in at the gatehouse after the end of High Mass, when the brothers were dispersing to their work until the hour of the midday meal.
“The lord abbot’s been asking after you,” said the porter, coming out from his lodge at sight of them. “He’s in his parlour, and the prior with him, and asks that you’ll join him there.”
They left their horses to the grooms, and went at once to the abbot’s lodging. In the panelled parlour Radulfus looked up from his desk, and Prior Robert, very erect and austere on a bench beside the window, looked down his nose with a marked suggestion of disapproval and withdrawal. The complexities of law and murder and manhunt had no business to intrude into the monastic domain, and he deplored the necessity to recognise their existence, and the very processes of dealing with them when they did force a breach in the wall. Close to his elbow, unobtrusive in his shadow, stood Brother Jerome, his narrow shoulders hunched, thin lips drawn tight, pale hands folded in his sleeves, the image of virtue assailed and bearing the cross with humility. There was always a strong element of complacency in Jerome’s humility, but this time there was also a faintly defensive quality, as though his rightness had somehow, if only by implication, been questioned.
“Ah, you are back!” said Radulfus. “You have not brought back the body of our guest so quickly?”
“No, Father, not yet, they will be following us, but on foot it will take some time. It is just as Brother Cadfael reported it to you in the night. The man was stabbed in the back, probably as he was leading his horse, the path there being narrow and overgrown. You will know already that his saddle-roll was cut loose and stolen. By what Brother Cadfael observed of the body when he found it, the thing must have been done about the time of Compline, perhaps a little before. There’s nothing to show by whom. By the hour, he must have been on his way back here to your guest hall. By the way he faced as he fell, also, for the body was not moved, or his ring would have been taken, and he still wears it. But as to where he had been in those parts, there’s no knowing.”
“I think,” said the abbot, “we have something to show on that head. Brother Jerome here will tell you what he has now told to Prior Robert and me.”
Jerome was usually only too ready to hear his own voice, whether in sermon, homily or reproof, but it was noticeable that this time he was assembling his words with more than normal care.
“The man was a guest and an upright citizen,” he said, “and had told us at chapter that he was pursuing an offender against the law, one who had committed assault against the person of his steward and done him grievous harm, and then absconded from his master. I took thought afterwards that there was indeed one newcomer in these parts who might well be the man he sought, and I considered it the duty of every one of us to help the cause of justice and law. So I spoke to the lord of Bosiet. I told him that the young man who serves the hermit Cuthred, and who came here with him only a few weeks ago, does answer to the description he gave of his runaway villein Brand, though he calls himself Hyacinth. He is of the right age, his colouring as his master described it. And no one here knows anything about him. I thought it only right to tell him the truth. If the young man proved not to be Brand, there was no harm to him.”
“And you told him, I believe,” said the abbot neutrally, “how to get to the hermit’s cell, where he could find this young man?”
“I did, Father, as was my duty.”
“And he at once set off to ride to that place.”
“Yes, Father. He had sent his groom on an errand into the town, he was obliged to saddle up for himself, but he did not wish to wait, since most of the day was gone.”
“I have spoken to the groom Warin, since we learned of his master’s death,” said the abbot, looking up at Hugh. “He was sent to enquire after any craftsman in fine leather-work in Shrewsbury, for it seems that was the young man’s craft also, and Bosiet thought he might have tried to get work within the borough among those who could use his skills. There is no blame can attach to the servant, by the time he returned his master was long gone. His errand could not wait, it seems, until morning.” His voice was measured and considered, with no inflection of approval or disapproval. “That solves, I think, the problem of where he had been.”
“And where I must follow him,” said Hugh, enlightened. “I’m obliged to you, Father, for pointing me the next step of the road. If he did indeed talk to Cuthred, at least we may learn what passed, and whether he got the answer he wanted—though plainly he was returning alone. Had he been bringing a captive villein with him, he would hardly have left him with free hands and a dagger about him. With your permission, Father, I’ll keep Brother Cadfael with me as witness, rather than take men-at-arms to a hermitage.”
“Do so,” said the abbot willingly. “This unfortunate man was a guest of our house, and we owe him every effort which may lead to the capture of his murderer. And every proper rite and service that can still be paid to his corpse. Robert, will you see to it that the body is reverently received when it comes? And Brother Jerome, you may assist. Your zeal to be of help to him should not be frustrated. You shall keep a night vigil with him in prayers for his soul.”
So there would be two lying side by side in the mortuary chapel tonight, Cadfael thought as they went out together from the parlour: the old man who had closed a long life as gently as a spent flower sheds it petals, and the lord of lands taken abruptly in his malice and hatred, with no warning, and no time to make his peace with man or God. Drogo Bosiet’s soul would be in need of all the prayers it could get.
“And has it yet entered your mind,” asked Hugh abruptly, as they rode out along the Foregate for the second time, “that Brother Jerome in his zeal for justice may have helped Bosiet to his death?”
If it had, Cadfael was not yet minded to entertain the thought. “He was on his way back,” he said cautiously, “and empty-handed. It argues that he was disappointed. The boy is not his lost villein.”
“It could as well argue that he is, and saw his doom bearing down on him in time to vanish. How then? He’s been in the woods there now long enough to know his way about. How if he was the hand that held the dagger?”
No denying that it was a possibility. Who could have better reason for slipping a knife into Drogo Bosiet’s back than the lad he meant to drag back to his own manor court, flay first, and exploit afterwards lifelong? “It’s what will be said,” agreed Cadfael sombrely. “Unless we find Cuthred and his boy sitting peacefully at home minding their own business and meddling with no one else’s. Small use guessing until we hear what happened there.”
They approached the projecting tongue of Eaton land by the same path Drogo had used, and saw the small clearing in thick woodland open before them almost suddenly, as he had seen it, but in full daylight, while he had come in early dusk. Muted sunlight filtering through the branches turned the sombre grey of the stone hut to dull gold. The low pales of the fence that marked out the garden were set far apart, a mere sketched boundary, no bar to beast or man, and the door of the hut stood wide open, so that they saw through into the inner room where the constant lamp on the stone altar showed tiny and dim as a single spark, almost quenched by the light falling from the tiny shutterless window above. Saint Cuthred’s cell, it seemed, stood wide open to all who came.
A part of the enclosed garden was still wild, though the grass and herbage had been cut, and there the hermit himself was at work with mattock and spade, heaving up the matted clods and turning the soil below as he cleared it. They watched him at it as they approached, inexpert but dogged and patient, plainly unused to handling such tools or stooping to such labours as should have fallen to Hyacinth. Who, by the same token, was nowhere to be seen.
A tall man, the hermit, long-legged, long-bodied, lean and straight, his coarse dark habit kilted to his knees, and the cowl flung back on his shoulders. He saw them coming and straightened up from his labours with the mattock still in his hands, and showed them a strong, fleshless face, olive-skinned and deep-eyed, framed in a thick bush of dark hair and beard. He looked from one to the other of them, and acknowledged Hugh’s reverence with a deep inclination of his head, without lowering his eyes.
“If your errand is to Cuthred the hermit,” he said in a deep and resonant voice, and with assured authority, “come in and welcome. I am he.” And to Cadfael, after studying his face for a moment: “I think I saw you at Eaton when the lord Richard was buried. You are a brother of Shrewsbury.”
“I am,” said Cadfael. “I was there in the boy’s escort. And this is Hugh Beringar, sheriff of this shire.”
“The lord sheriff does me honour,” said Cuthred. “Will you enter my cell?” And he loosed his frayed rope girdle and shook down the skirt of his habit to his feet, and led the way within. The thick tangle of his hair brushed the stone above the doorway as he entered. He stood a good head taller than either of his visitors.
In the dim living room there was one narrow window that let in the afternoon light, and a small stir of breeze that brought in the scent of mown herbage and moist autumn leaves. Through the doorless opening into the chapel within they saw all that Drogo had seen, the stone slab of the altar with its carved casket, the silver cross and candlesticks, and the open breviary lying before the small spark of the lamp. The hermit followed Hugh’s glance to the open book and, entering, closed it reverently, and laid it with loving care in accurate alignment with the forward edge of the reliquary. The fine gilt ornament and delicate tooling of the leather binding gleamed in the small light of the lamp.
“And how may I be of service to the lord sheriff?” asked Cuthred, his face still turned towards the altar.
“I need to ask you some few questions,” said Hugh with deliberation, “in the matter of a murdered man.”
That brought the lofty head round in haste, staring aghast and astonished.
“Murdered? Here and now? I know of none. Say plainly what you mean, my lord.”
“Last night a certain Drogo Bosiet, a guest at the abbey, set out to visit you, at the prompting of one of the brothers. He came here in search of a runaway villein, a young man of about twenty years, and his intent was to view your boy Hyacinth, being a stranger and of the right age and kind, and see whether he is or is not the bondman who ran away from Bosiet. Did he ever reach you? By the time he had ridden this far it would already be evening.”
“Why, yes, such a man did come,” said Cuthred at once, “though I did not ask his name. But what has this to do with murder? A murdered man, you said.”
“This same Drogo Bosiet, on his way back towards the town and the abbey, was stabbed in the back and left beside the track, a mile or more from here. Brother Cadfael found him dead and his horse wandering loose, last night in the full dark.”
The hermit’s deep-set eyes, flaring reddish in their gaunt sockets, flashed from one face to the other in incredulous questioning. “Hard to believe, that there could be cutthroats and masterless men here, in this well-farmed, well-managed country—within your writ, my lord, and so near the town. Can this be what it seems, or is there worse behind it? Was the man robbed?”
“He was, of his saddle-roll, whatever that may have held. But not of his ring, not of his gown. What was done was done in haste.”
“Masterless men would have stripped him naked,” said Cuthred with certainty. “I do not believe this forest is shelter for outlaws. This is some very different matter.”
“When he came to you,” said Hugh, “what did he have to say? And what followed?”
“He came when I was saying Vespers, here in the chapel. He entered and said that he had come to see the boy who runs my errands, and that I might find I had been deceived into taking a villain into my employ. For he was seeking a runaway serf, and had been told that there was one here of the right age, newly come and a stranger to all, who might well be his man. He told me whence he came, and in what direction he had reason to believe his fugitive had fled. These things, and the time, fitted all too well for my peace of mind with the time and place where first I met and pitied Hyacinth. But it was not put to the test,” said Cuthred simply. “The boy was not here. A good hour earlier I had sent him on an errand to Eaton. He did not come back. He has not come back even today. Now I doubt much if he ever will.”
“You do believe,” said Hugh, “that he is this Brand.”
“I cannot judge. But I saw that he well might be. And when he failed to come back to me last night, then I felt it must be so. It is no part of my duty to give up any man to retribution, that is God’s business. I was glad I could not say yes or no, and glad he was not here to be seen.”
“But if he had simply got wind of the search for him, and kept out of the way,” said Cadfael, “he would have come back to you by now. The man who hunted him had gone away empty-handed, and if another visit threatened, he could do as much again, provided you did not betray him. Where else would he be so safe as with a holy hermit? But still he has not come.”
“But now you tell me,” said Cuthred gravely, “that his master is dead—if this man was indeed his lord. Dead and murdered! Say that my servant Hyacinth had got wind of Bosiet’s coming, and did more than absent himself. Say that he thought it better to lie in ambush and end the search for him once for all! No, I do not think now that I shall ever see Hyacinth again. Wales is not far, and even an incomer without a kinship can find service there, though upon hard terms. No, he will not come back. He will never come back.”
It was a strange moment for Cadfael’s mind to wander, as though some corner of his consciousness had made even more of one remembered moment than he had realised, for he found himself thinking suddenly of Annet coming into her father’s house radiant and roused and mysterious, with an oak leaf in her disordered hair. A little flushed and breathing as though she had been running. And past the hour of Compline, at a time when surely Drogo of Bosiet already lay dead more than a mile away on the track to Shrewsbury. True, Annet had gone out dutifully to shut up the hens and the cow for the night, but she had been a very long time about it, and come back with the high colour and triumphant eyes of a girl returning from her lover. And had she not made occasion to say a good word for Hyacinth, and taken pleasure in hearing her father praise him?
“How did you come upon this young man in the first place?” Hugh was asking. “And why did you take him into your service?”
“I was on my way from St Edmundsbury, by way of the Augustinian canons at Cambridge, and I lodged two nights over at the Cluniac priory in Northampton. He was among the beggars at the gate. Though he was able-bodied and young he was also shabby and unkempt as if he had been living wild. He told me his father had been dispossessed and was dead, and he had no kin left and no work, and out of compassion I clothed him and took him as my servant. Otherwise he would surely have sunk into thieving and banditry in order to live. And he has been quick and obedient to me, and I thought him grateful, and so perhaps he truly was. But now it may all be in vain.”
“And when was this that you met him there?”
“In the last days of September. I cannot be sure of the exact day.”
Time and place fitted all too well. “I see I have a manhunt on my hands,” said Hugh wryly, “and I’d best be getting back to Shrewsbury, and setting on the hounds at once. For whether the lad’s a murderer or no, I’ve no choice now but to find and take him.”