It was about the same hour that Cadfael and Rafe of Coventry emerged from the church after Vespers, when Hyacinth stole out from Eilmund’s cottage, and made his way through the deepest cover towards the river. He had been all that day pinned close within doors, for there had again been men of the garrison sweeping through the forest, and though their passage was rapid and cursory, for the aim was to carry the search further afield, and though they knew Eilmund, and felt no compulsion to investigate his holding a second time, they were still liable to look in on him in neighbourly fashion as they passed, and ask him casually if anything of note had come to his attention. Hyacinth did not take kindly to being shut within doors, nor, indeed, to hiding. By the evening he was chafing at his confinement, but by then the hunters were on their way back, abandoning the chase until the morrow, and he was free to do a little hunting of his own.
For all the wariness and fear he felt on his own account, and admitted with his infallible and fiery honesty, he could not rest for thinking of Richard, who had come running to warn him, so gallantly and thoughtlessly. But for that the boy would never have placed himself in danger. But why should there be danger to him in his own woods, among his own people? In a troubled England there were lawless men living wild, no doubt of that, but this shire had gone almost untouched by the war for more than four years now, and seemed to enjoy a degree of peace and order unmatched further south, and the town was barely seven miles distant, and the sheriff active and young, and even, so far as a sheriff can be, popular with his people. And the more Hyacinth thought about it, the more clear did it seem to him that the only threat to Richard that he had ever heard of was Dame Dionisia’s threat to marry him off to the two manors she coveted. For that she had persisted in every device she could think of. Hyacinth had been her instrument once, and could not forget it. She must be the force behind the boy’s disappearance.
True, the sheriff had descended on Eaton, searched every corner, and found no trace, and no one, in a household devoted to the boy, able to cast the least suspicion on Dionisia’s indignant innocence. She had no other property where she could hide either boy or pony. And though Fulke Astley might be willing to connive, feeling that he had as good a chance of securing Eaton as she had of getting her hands on his daughter’s inheritance, yet Wroxeter also had been searched thoroughly, and without success.
Today the hunt had moved on, and according to all that Annet had gathered from the returning sergeants it would continue as doggedly on the morrow, but it had not yet reached Leighton, two miles down-river. And though Astley and his household preferred to live at Wroxeter, the more remote manor of Leighton was also in his hold.
It was the only starting point Hyacinth could find, and it was worth a venture. If Richard had been caught in the woods by some of Astley’s men, or those from Eaton who were willing to serve Dionisia’s turn, it might well have been thought wisest to remove him as far as Leighton, rather than try to hide him nearer home. Moreover, if she still intended to force this marriage on the boy—there were ways of getting the right answers out of even the most stubborn children, more by guile than by terror—she needed a priest, and Hyacinth had been about the village of Eaton long enough to know that Father Andrew was an honest man, by no means a good tool for such a purpose. The priest at Leighton, less well acquainted with the ins and outs of the affair, might be more amenable.
At least it was one thing which could be tested. It was no use Eilmund counselling him sensibly and good-naturedly to stay where he was and not risk capture; even Eilmund understood and approved what he called folly. Annet had not tried to dissuade Hyacinth, only sensibly provided him a black, much worn coat of Eilmund’s too wide for him but excellent for moving invisibly by night, and a dark capuchon to shadow his face.
Between the forest and the meanderings of the river, downstream from the mill and the fisheries and the few cottages that served them, the open water meadows extended, and there the light still hung, and a faint ground mist lay veiling the green, and twined like a silver serpent along the river. But along the northern rim the forest continued, halfway to Leighton, and beyond that point the ground rose towards the last low foothills of the Wrekin, and he would have to make use of what scattered cover remained. But here where trees and grassland met he could move fast, keeping within the edge of the woods but benefiting by the light of the open fields, and the stillness and silence and the careful stealth of his own movements would ensure that he should get due warning of any other creature stirring in the night.
He had covered more than a mile when the first small sounds reached him, and he froze, and stood with pricked ears, listening intently. A single metallic note, somewhere behind him, harness briefly shaken. Then a soft brushing of bushes as something passed, and then, unmistakable though quiet, and still some distance away, a subdued voice ventured briefly what sounded like a question, and as meekly subsided. Not one person abroad in the dusk, but two, or why speak at all? And mounted, and keeping to the rim of the woodland like himself, when it would have been simpler by far to take to the meadows. Riders by night, no more anxious to be observed than he was, and going in the same direction. Hyacinth strained his ears to pick up the muted, leaf-cushioned tread of hooves, and try to determine the line they were taking through the trees. Close to the rim, for the sake of what light remained, but more concerned with secrecy than with haste.
Cautiously Hyacinth withdrew further into the forest, and stood motionless in cover to let them pass by. There was still enough light left to make them a little more than shadowy outlines as they came and passed in single file, first a tall horse that showed as a moving pallor, probably a light grey, with a big, gross man on his back, bearded, bare-headed, the folds of his capuchon draped on his shoulders. Hyacinth knew the shape and the bearing, had seen this very man mount and ride, thus sack-like but solid in the saddle, from Richard Ludel’s funeral. What was Fulke Astley doing here in the night, making his way thus furtively, not by the roads but through the forest, from one to the other of his own manors? For where else could he be bound?
And the figure that followed him, on a thickset cob, was certainly a woman, and could be nobody else but his daughter, surely, that unknown Hiltrude who seemed so old and unpleasing to young Richard.
So their errand, after all, was not so mysterious. Of course they would want the marriage achieved as soon as possible, if they had Richard in their hands. They had waited these few days until both Eaton and Wroxeter had been searched, but with the hunt being spread more widely they would wait no longer. Whatever risk they might be taking, once the match was a reality they could weather whatever storms followed. They could even afford to set Richard free to return to the abbey, for nothing and no one but the authority of the church could set him free from a wife.
And that being so, what could be done to prevent? There was no time to run back either to Eilmund’s house, and have Annet carry words to castle or abbey, or direct to the town, and Hyacinth still found himself humanly reluctant to throw his own chance of liberty to the winds. But it did not arise, there was no time left at all. If he went back, by the time rescue could arrive for Richard he would be married. Perhaps there might yet be time to find where they had hidden him, and whisk him away from under their noses. These two were in no hurry, and Dame Dionisia had still to make the short journey from Eaton without detection. And the priest—where would they have found a willing priest? Nothing could be done until a priest was there.
Hyacinth forsook the thick cover, and made his way deeper into the belt of forest, no longer intent on secrecy, only on speed. At the pace the riders were making he could outrun them on a path, and in this extremity he would venture even the highroad, if need be, and risk meeting others still out on their own lawful occasions. But there was a path, too near the open road for the Astleys to favour it, and merging into the road itself once it had crossed the upland ridge. Hyacinth reached it and ran, fleet and silent on the thick carpet of leaves too moist and limp to rustle under his feet.
Once out on to the open track and plunging downhill towards the village, still almost a mile distant, he drew off again into the fields dipping to the river, and ran from one scattered covert to another, assured now that he was ahead of Astley. He waded the little stream that came down from the foot of the Wrekin to reach the Severn here, and went on along the river bank. One isolated tongue of woodland came down almost to the water, and from its shelter he could see for the first time the low stockade of the manor, and the long level of the roof within, sharp and clear against the glimmer of the water and the pallor of the sky.
It was good fortune that the trees approached so closely to the stockade on the side nearest to the river bank. From tree to tree Hyacinth darted, and reaching an oak that spread branches across the barrier, climbed nimbly up into the crotch to peer cautiously within the enclosure. He was looking at the long rear face of the house, across the roofs of barn and byre and stable lining the containing fence. The same pattern of a low undercroft, with hall and chamber and kitchen above on the living floor, and the steps to the only door must be on the opposite side. Here there was no entrance except to the undercroft, and only one small window, and that was shuttered. Under it a small wing had been built out, extending the undercroft. The shingled roof was steep, the eaves dipped fairly low. Hyacinth eyed it speculatively, and debated how securely fastened those shutters might be. To reach them would be easily possible, to find a way in by that road might be more of a problem. But this rear face of the house was the only one sheltered from observation. All this nefarious activity of Astleys and Ludels would be centred round the single great doorway into the hall, on the other side.
He swung himself down to hang by his hands within the pale, and dropped into a shadowy corner between barn and stable. At least stumbling on this nocturnal journey eased him of one fear. Richard was surely here, was alive and well and presentable as they wanted him, well fed, well cared for, probably even indulged beyond normal in the hope of cajoling him into willing consent. Indulged, in fact, with everything he could desire and they furnish, except his freedom. And that was the first profound relief. Now to get him out!
Here in the darkening yard there was no one stirring. Hyacinth slid softly out of his shelter and moved round the pale from shadow to shadow, until he slipped round the corner to the eastern end of the house. There were unshuttered windows above him here, subdued light shining through. He refuged in the deep doorway to the undercroft, and stretched his ears for voices from above, and thought that he caught wordless murmurings, as though the aim was to keep everything of this night’s activities secret. Round the next corner, where the steep stairway to the hall door ascended, there was a torch fixed, he knew it by the flickering light spilled on the beaten earth before him by fitful glimpses. There were servants moving there, too, soft-stepping and low-voiced. And the dull sound of hooves, coming at a walk into the court. The bride and her father arriving, thought Hyacinth, and wondered for a fleeting moment how the girl felt about the match, and whether she was not as wronged and slighted as Richard, and even more helpless.
He drew back in some haste, for the grooms would be leading the horses to the stables, which were in the near corner of the yard, for he had heard the beasts stirring in their stalls as he hung listening in the tree. The jutting wing of the undercroft provided cover from that corner. He rounded it and flattened himself into the dark angle of the walls behind the obstruction, and heard a single groom come leading both mounts.
He could not move until the man had gone, and time was snapping at his heels like a herdsman’s dog. But the groom was brisk, and wasted no time on his charges, perhaps wanting his bed, for it must be getting late. Hyacinth heard the stable door slammed to, and the rapid footsteps scurrying away round the corner of the house. Only then, when he was able to draw off and take another look at this almost blind face of the manor, did Hyacinth observe what he had missed before. Through the join in the massive shutters on this, the only shuttered window in the house in these mild nights, a hair-line of light showed. More noticeable still, in one of the boards, close to the join, there was a small round eye of light, where a slanting knot in the wood had fallen out and left a hole. Why should this rear room be shuttered and lighted, unless it had a guest, and one who must be kept safe and secret? Hyacinth doubted if the space between the stone mullions would be large enough to let a man through, but it might be wide enough for a ten-year-old boy, and one rather small for his years. With that low roof beneath the window, they would not want him to make his escape, nor would they want any inquisitive person to see him there within.
It could at least be tried. Hyacinth leaped to get a hold of the overhanging eaves, and hauled himself up on to the shingles, to lie flat there against the stone wall, listening, though he had made little noise about it, and no one stirred to take note or investigate. He drew himself cautiously up the slope of the roof to the shuttered window. The timbers were heavy and solid, and secured somehow within the room, for when he laid a hand under the centre, where they joined, and essayed to pull them apart, they held fast as iron, and he had no tools to try and force them apart, and doubted if he could have done it even if he had had a whole armoury of implements. The hinges were strong and immovable. Neither top nor bottom of the shutters yielded to force even by a hair. There must be iron bolts that could be shot from within, and securely locked. And time was running out. Richard was strong-willed, obstinate and ingenious. If it had been possible for him to break out from his prison, he would have done it long ago.
Hyacinth laid his ear to the hair-line crack, but could hear nothing moving within. He must now make sure whether he was wasting the time which was so precious and running out so fast. At the risk of being detected, he rapped with his knuckles against the shutter, and setting his lips to the tiny eye of light, sent a shrill whistle through the hole.
This time there was an audible gasp somewhere in the room, then a rapid scrambling, as if someone had uncurled from being coiled defensively into a corner, set foot to floor, and taken a couple of startled steps across the room, only to halt again in doubt and alarm. Hyacinth rapped again, and called softly through the hole: “Richard, is that you?”
Light footsteps came in a rush, a small body crowded against the inner side of the shutters. “Who is it?” whispered Richard’s voice urgently, close to the crack of light. “Who’s there?”
“Hyacinth! Richard, are you alone? I can’t get in to you. Is all well with you?”
“No!” breathed the voice in indignant complaint, and proving by its spirit and anger that in fact he was in very good heart and excellent condition. “They won’t let me out, they keep hammering and hammering at me to do what they want, and agree to be married. They’re bringing her tonight, they’re going to make me...”
“I know,” groaned Hyacinth, “but I can’t get you out. And there’s no time to get word to the sheriff. Tomorrow I could, but I saw them coming here tonight.”
“They won’t let me out until I do what they want,” Richard hissed grievously into the crack. “I almost said I would. They go on and on at me, and I don’t know what to do, and I’m frightened they’ll only take me and hide me somewhere else if I refuse, because they know every house is being searched.” His voice was losing its bold, belligerent tone and faltering into distress. It’s hard for a boy of ten to stand off for long the implacable adults who hold the upper hand. “My grandmother promised I should have whatever I liked, whatever I wanted, if I’d say the words she wants me to say. But I don’t want a wife...”
“Richard... Richard...” Hyacinth was repeating persistently into this lament, and for a while unheard. “Listen, Richard! They’ll have to bring a priest to marry you—not Father Andrew, surely, he’d have scruples—but someone. Speak to him, tell him it’s against your will, tell him—Richard, have you heard who it’s to be?” A new and arresting thought had entered his mind. “Who is to marry you?”
“I heard them,” whispered Richard, grown calm again, “saying they couldn’t trust Father Andrew. My grandmother is bringing the hermit with her to do it.”
“Cuthred? You’re sure?” Hyacinth had almost forgotten to keep his voice down in his astonishment.
“Yes, Cuthred. Yes, I’m sure, I heard her say so.”
“Richard, listen, then!” Hyacinth leaned close, his lips to the crack. “If you refuse, they’ll only visit it on you, and take you away somewhere else. Better for you to do what they want. No, trust me, do what I say, it’s the only way we can foil them. Believe me, you won’t have anything to fear, you won’t be burdened with a wife, you’re safe as in sanctuary. Just do as I say, be meek and obedient, and let them think you tamed, and they may even let you take your pony and ride back to the abbey, for they’ll have what they wanted, and think it can’t be undone. But it can! Oh, never fret, they won’t want anything more of you, not for years yet! Trust me, and do it! Will you? Quickly, before they come! Will you do it?”
Bemused and doubtful, Richard faltered: “Yes!” but could not help protesting the next moment: “But how can that be? Why do you say it’s safe?”
Hyacinth pressed close and whispered the answer. He knew by the sudden shaken spurt of laughter, exuberant and brief, that Richard had caught it and understood. And just in time, for he heard from across the room the sharp clash of a door being unbolted and flung open, and the voice of Dame Dionisia, honey and gall, half cajoling and half menacing, saying firmly and loudly: “Your bride is come, Richard. Here is Hiltrude. And you will be gracious and courteous to her, will you not, and please us all?”
Richard must have darted away from the window at the first touch of a hand on the bolt, for his small, cautious voice said just audibly, and from some yards distant: “Yes, grandmother!” Unwillingly dutiful, reluctantly obedient, a will only half-broken, but half would do!
Her gratified but still wary: “That’s my good child!” was the last thing Hyacinth heard as he edged his way carefully down the slope of the roof and dropped to the ground.
He went on his homeward way without haste, content with his night’s work. There was now no urgency, he could afford to go slowly, mindful that he himself was still hunted. For the boy was alive, well fed, well cared for, and in good spirits. No actual harm had come to him, none would come, however he chafed at being a prisoner. And in the end he would have the laugh of his captors. Hyacinth made his way blithely through the soft, chilly night scented with the rising mist of the water meadows, and the deep, dank leaf mould of the woods. The moon rose, but so veiled that it gave only a dim grey light. By midnight he would be safely back in his sanctuary in Eyton forest. And in the morning, by some means Annet would contrive for the purpose, Hugh Beringar should learn exactly where to look for Brother Paul’s lost schoolboy.
*
When it was all over, and he had done what they wanted, however grudgingly, Richard had expected to be made much of by way of gratitude, perhaps even let out from this small room which was his prison, however comfortable it might be. He was not so foolish as to suppose that they would set him free to do as he pleased. He would have to keep up this meek front for a while, and suppress the inward glee he felt at having the laugh of them in secret, before they would dare to produce him before the world, with what manner of story to account for his loss and recovery he could not guess, but they would have it all off by heart. Certainly they would say he had consented of his own will to the ceremony just completed, and to the best of their knowledge it would then be far too late for him to say anything to the contrary, since what was done could not be undone. Only Richard knew that in fact nothing had been done to need undoing. He had absolute faith in Hyacinth. Whatever Hyacinth said was sooth.
But he had considered that they would owe him thanks and indulgence for his compliance. He had preserved his sullen but subdued face, because it would have been too betraying to let even a gleam of laughter show through, but he had repeated all the words they dictated to him, had even brought himself to take Hiltrude’s hand when he was told to do so, though he had never once looked at her until the sound of her soft, dull voice, repeating the vows as resignedly as his own, had jolted him into wondering for a moment if she was being forced as he was. That possibility had never occurred to him until then, and he did lift a furtive glance to her face. She was not so very old, after all, and not very tall, and did not look like a threat so much as a victim. She might not even be really plain if only she did not look so subdued and glum. His startled impulse of sympathy for her was complicated by a grain of equally surprised resentment that she should seem as depressed at marrying him as he had good cause to be at marrying her.
But after all his compliance, not a word of thanks, rather his grandmother studied him ominously and at length, and he was afraid with some lingering suspicion in her eye, and then admonished him grimly: “You have done well to come to your duty at last, and behave yourself fittingly towards those who know best for you. See that you keep to that mind, sir! Now say your goodnight to your wife. Tomorrow you shall get to know her better.”
And he had done as he was told, and they had all left him there, still bolted in alone, though they had sent a servant with food from the supper they were no doubt enjoying in the hall. He sat brooding on his bed, thinking over all that had happened in one late evening, and all that might follow next day. Hiltrude he forgot as soon as she was out of sight. He knew about these affairs. If you were only ten years old they didn’t, for some reason, make you live with your wife, not until you were grown up. While she remained under the same roof with you, you would be expected to be civil to her, perhaps even attentive, but then she would go back with her father to her own home until you were thought to be old enough to share your bed and household with her. Now that he began to think seriously about it, it seemed to Richard that there were no privileges at all attached to being married, his grandmother would go on treating him just as before, as a child of no account, ordering him about, scolding him, cuffing him if he annoyed her, even beating him if he defied her. In short, it behoved the lord of Eaton to regain his liberty by whatever means offered, and escape out of her hold. He could not be very important to her now, he had served his purpose, what mattered was the land settlement. If she felt she had secured that, she might soon be willing to let go of the instrument.
Richard rolled himself warmly in his brychans and went to sleep. If they were discussing him in hall, and debating what to do about him, that did not trouble his dreams. He was too young and too innocently hopeful to take his problems to bed with him.
His door was still bolted next morning, and the servant who brought his breakfast gave him no chance to slip past, though indeed he had no intention of trying it, since he knew he would not get far, and his role now was to continue to be docile and disarm suspicion. When his grandmother drew the bolt and came in to him it was old familiar habit, rather than guile, that caused him to rise at her entrance, as he had been taught, and lift up his face for her kiss. And the kiss was no chillier than it had always been, and for a moment he felt the inescapable kindness of the blood warm them both, something he had never questioned, though she had very seldom expressed it. The contact caused him to shake, and brought the sudden astonished sting of tears into his eyes just as inevitably as the surge of obstinate recoil into his mind. It did him no harm with her. She looked down at him from her erect and formidable height with a somewhat softened gaze.
“Well, sir, and how do you find yourself this morning? Are you minded to be a good, obedient boy, and do all you can to please me? If so, you shall find you and I will get on very well together. You have made a beginning, now go on as you began. And think shame that you defied and denied me so long.”
Richard drooped his long lashes and looked down at his feet. “Yes, grandmother.” And then, in meek assay: “May I go out today? I don’t like being shut in here, as if it was night all the time.”
“We’ll see,” she said, but to Richard the tone clearly meant: “No!” She would not reason nor bargain, only lay down the law to him. “But not yet, you have not deserved it. First prove that you’ve learned where your duty lies, and then you shall have your freedom again. You are not ill done to, you have everything you need here, be content until you have earned more and better.”
“But I have!” he flashed. “I did what you wanted, you ought to do what I want. It’s unfair to shut me up here, unfair and unkind. I don’t even know what you’ve done with my pony.”
“Your pony is safe in the stable,” said Dionisia sharply, “and well cared for, as you are. And you had best mind your manners with me, sir, or you’ll have cause to regret it. They’ve taught you at that abbey school to be saucy to your elders, but it’s a lesson you had better unlearn as quickly as you can, for your own sake.”
“I’m not being saucy,” he pleaded, relapsing into sullenness. “I only want to be in daylight, I want to go out, not sit here without even being able to see the trees and the grass. It’s wretched in here, without any company...”
“You shall have company,” she promised, seizing on one complaint to which she could provide a complaisant answer. “I’ll send your bride to keep you company. I want you to get to know her better now, for after today she’ll return to Wroxeter with her father, and you, Richard,” she said warningly and with a sharpening eye on him, “will return with me to your own manor, to take your proper place. And I shall expect you to conduct yourself properly there, and not go hankering after that school, now that you’re married and a man of substance. Eaton is yours, and that is where you should be, and I expect you to maintain that, if anyone—anyone—should call it in question. Do you understand me, sir?”
He understood her very well. He was to be cajoled, intimidated, bullied into declaring, even to Brother Paul and Father Abbot if need be, that he had run home to his grandmother of his own will, and of his own will submitted to the marriage they had planned for him. He hugged his secret knowledge gleefully to his heart as he said submissively: “Yes, madam!”
“Good! And now I’ll send in Hiltrude to you, and see that you behave well to her. You will have to get used to her, and she to you, so you may as well begin now.” And she relented so far as to kiss him again on leaving him, though it resembled a slap as much as a kiss. She went out in a dusty swirl of long green skirts, and he heard the bolt shot again after her.
And what had he got out of all that, except the fact that his pony was in the stable here, and if only he could get to it he might make his escape even now. But presently in came Hiltrude, as his grandmother had threatened, and all his resentment and dislike of the girl, undeserved though it was, boiled up within him into childish anger.
She still seemed to him to belong at least to the generation of the mother he could hardly remember, but she was not really utterly plain, she had a clear, pale skin and large, guarded brown eyes, and if her hair was straight and of a mousey brown colour, she had a great mass of it, plaited in a thick braid that hung to her waist. She did not look ill-natured, but she did look bitterly resigned and wretched. She stood for a moment with her back to the door, staring thoughtfully at the boy curled up glumly on his bed.
“So they’ve sent you to be my guard dog,” said Richard unpleasantly.
Hiltrude crossed the room and sat down on the sill of the shuttered window, and looked at him without favour. “I know you don’t like me,” she said, not sadly but with quite unexpected vigour. “Small reason why you should, and for that matter, I don’t like you. But it seems we’re both bound, no help for it now. Why, why did you ever give way? I only said I would, at last, because I was so sure you were safe enough there at the abbey, and they’d never let it come to this. And then you have to fall into their hands like a fool, and let them break you down. And here we both are, and may God help us!” She relented of the note of exasperation in her own voice, and ended with weary kindness: “It’s not your fault, you’re only a child, what could you do? And it isn’t that I dislike you, I don’t even know you, it’s just that I didn’t want you, I don’t want you, any more than you want me.”
Richard was staring at her, by this time, with mouth and eyes wide open, struck dumb with astonishment at finding her, as it were, not a token embarrassment, a millstone round his neck, but a real person with a great deal to say for herself, and by no means a fool. Slowly he uncoiled his slim legs and set his feet to the floor, to feel solid substance under him. Slowly he repeated, in a small, shocked voice: “You never wanted to marry me?”
“A baby like you?” she said, careless of offence. “No, I never did.”
“Then why did you ever agree to do it?” He was too indignant over her capitulation to resent the reflection on his years. “If you’d said no, and kept saying it, we should both have been saved.”
“Because my father is a man very hard to say no to, and had begun to tell me that I was getting too old to have another suitor, and if I didn’t take you I should be forced to enter a sisterhood and stay a maid until I died. And that I wanted even less. And I thought the abbot would keep fast hold of you, and nothing would ever be allowed to come of it. And now here we are, and what are we to do about it?”
Himself surprised at feeling an almost sympathetic curiosity about this woman who had sloughed a skin before his eyes, and emerged as vivid and real as himself, Richard asked almost shyly: “What do you want? If you could have your way, what would you like to have?”
“I would like,” said Hiltrude, her brown eyes suddenly burning with anger and loss, “a young man named Evrard, who keeps my father’s manor roll and is his steward at Wroxeter, and who likes me, too, whether you think that likely or not. But he’s a younger son and has no land, and where there’s no land to marry to his own my father has no interest. There’s an uncle who may well leave his manor to Evrard, being fond of him and childless, but land now is what my father wants, not someday and maybe land.” The fire burned down. She turned her head aside. “Why do I tell you this? You can’t understand, and it’s not your fault. There’s nothing you can do to better it.”
Richard was beginning to think that there might be something very pertinent he could do for her, if she in her turn would do something for him. Cautiously he asked: “What are they doing now, your father and my grandmother? She said you’d be going back to Wroxeter after today. What are they planning? And has Father Abbot been looking for me all this time since I left?”
“You didn’t know? Not only the abbot, but the sheriff and all his men are looking for you. They’ve searched Eaton and Wroxeter, and are beating every bush in the forest. My father was afraid they might reach here by today, but she thought not. They were wondering whether to move you back to Eaton in the night, since it’s been searched already, but Dame Dionisia felt sure the officers had several days” work left before they’d reach Leighton, and in any case, she said, if a proper watch was set there’d be ample time to put you over the river with an escort and send you down to shelter at Buildwas. Better, she said, than moving you back towards Shrewsbury yet.”
“Where are they now?” asked Richard intently. “My grandmother?”
“She’s ridden back to Eaton to have everything there looking just as it should. Her hermit went back to his cell in the night. It wouldn’t do if anyone knew he’d been away.”
“And your father?”
“He’s out and about among his tenants here, but he’ll not be far away. He took his clerk with him. There’ll be dues unpaid that he wants collected, I daresay.” She was indifferent to her father’s movements, but she did feel some curiosity as to what was going on in this child’s head, to sharpen his voice into such hopeful purpose, and brighten his disconsolate eye. “Why? What is there in that for you? Or for me!” she added bitterly.
“There might,” said Richard, beginning to glitter, “be something I can do for you, something good, if you’ll do something for me in return. If they’re both out of the house, help me to get away while they’re gone. My pony’s there in the stable, she told me as much. If I could get to him and slip away, you could bolt the door again, and no one would know I was gone until evening.”
She shook her head decisively. “And who would get the blame? I wouldn’t put it off on to one of the servants, and I’ve no great appetite for it myself. The troubles I already have are enough for me, I thank you!” But she added warily, seeing that his hopeful fire was by no means quenched: “But I would be willing to think out the best means, if I thought it would solve anything for me. But how can it? For a fair deliverance I’d venture anything Father could say or do. But what’s the use, when we’re tied together as we are, and no way out?”
Richard bounded up from his bed and darted across the room to settle confidingly beside her on the broad sill. Close to her ear he said breathlessly: “If I tell you a secret, will you swear to keep it until I’m safely away, and help me to get out of here? I promise you, I promise you it will be worth your while.”
“You are dreaming,” she said tolerantly, turning to look at him thus closely, and seeing his secret brightness undimmed by her disbelief. “There’s no way out of marriage unless you’re a prince and have the Pope’s ear, and who cares about lesser folk like us? True, we’re not bedded, nor will be for years yet, but if you think your old dame and my father would ever let it come to an annulment, you waste your hopes. They’ve got their way, they’ll never let go of their gains.”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” he persisted, “we need nothing from Pope or law. You must believe me. At least promise not to tell, and when you hear what it is, you’ll be willing to help me, too.”
“Very well,” she said, humouring him, even half convinced now that he knew something she did not know, but still doubting if it would or could deliver them. “Very well, I promise. What is this precious secret?”
Gleefully he advanced his lips to her ear, his cheek teased by the touch of a lock of her hair that curled loose there, and breathed his secret as though the very boards at their backs had ears. And after one incredulous instant of stillness and silence she began to laugh very softly, to shake with her laughter, and throwing her arms about Richard, hugged him briefly to her heart.
“For that you shall go free, whatever it cost me! You deserve it!”