Ellis Peters - Brother Cadfael's Penance

“Cadfael, think well what you are doing. I know what you stake, as well as you know it. This is not simple going and returning. Where you will be meddling a man can vanish, and no return ever. Come back with me, and I will ask Robert Bossu to follow this quest to its ending.”

“There’s no time,” said Cadfael. “I have it in my mind, Hugh, that there are more souls than one, and more lives than my son’s, to be salvaged here, and the time is very short, and the danger very close. And if I turn back now there will be no one to be the pivot at the centre, on whom the wheel of all those fortunes turns, the demon or the angel. But yes, I’ll think well before you leave me. We shall see what the morning will bring.”

What the morning brought, just as the household emerged from Mass, was a dust-stained rider on a lathered horse, cantering wearily in from the street and sliding stiffly and untidily to a clattering stop on the cobbles of the court. The horse stood with drooping head and heaving sides, steaming into the air sharpened with frost, and dripping foam between rolled-back lips into the stones. The rider doubled cramped fists on the pommel, and half clambered, half fell out of the saddle to stiffen collapsing knees and hold himself upright by his mount.

“My lord bishop, pardon…” He could not release his hold to make due reverence, but clung to his prop, bending his head as deep and respectfully as he might. “My mistress sends me to bring you word, the empress, she is safe in Gloucester with all her company, all but one. My lord, there was foul work along the road…”

“Take breath, even evil news can wait,” said Roger de Clinton, and waved an order at whoever chose to obey it. “Bring drink, have wine mulled for him, but bring a draught now. And some of you, help him within, and see to his poor beast, before he founders.”

There was a hand at the dangling bridle in an instant. Someone ran for wine. The bishop himself lent a solid shoulder under the messenger’s right arm, and braced him erect. “Come, let’s have you within, and at rest.”

In the nearest carrel of the cloister the courier leaned back against the wall and drew in breath long and gratefully. Hugh, lissome and young, and mindful of some long, hard rides of his own after Lincoln, dropped to his knees and braced experienced hands to ease off the heavy riding boots.

“My lord, we had remounts at Evesham, and made good time until fairly close to Gloucester, riding well into the dusk to be there by nightfall. Near Deerhurst, in woodland, with the length of our company past, for I was with the rearguard, an armed band rode out at our tail, and cut out one man from among us before ever we were aware, and off with him at speed into the dark.”

“What man was that?” demanded Cadfael, stiffening. “Name him!”

“One of her squires, Yves Hugonin. He that had hard words with de Soulis, who is dead. My lord, there’s nothing surer than some of FitzRobert’s men have seized him, for suspicion of killing de Soulis. They hold him guilty, for all the empress would have him away untouched.”

“And you did not pursue?” asked the bishop, frowning.

“Some little way we did, but they were fresh, and in forest they knew well. We saw no more of them. And when we sent ahead to let our lady know, she would have one of us ride back to bring you word. We were under safe conduct, this was foul work, after such a meeting.”

“We’ll send to the king,” said the bishop firmly. “He will order this man’s release as he did before when FitzRobert seized the Earl of Cornwall. He obeyed then, he will obey again, whatever his own grudge.”

But would he, Cadfael wondered? Would Stephen lift a finger in this case, for a man as to whose guilt he had said neither yea nor nay, but only allowed him to leave under safe conduct at the empress’s insistence. No valuable ally, but an untried boy of the opposing side. No, Yves would be left for the empress to retrieve. He had left here under her wing, it was for her to protect him. And how far would she go on Yves’ behalf? Not so far as to inconvenience herself by the loss of time or advantage. His supposed infamous service to her had been acknowledged and rewarded, she owed him nothing. And he had withdrawn deliberately to the tail end of her cortege, to be out of sight and out of mind.

“I think they had a rider alongside us for some way, in cover,” said the courier, “making sure of their man, before they struck. It was all over in a moment, at a bend in the path where the trees grow close.”

“And close to Deerhurst?” said Cadfael. “Is that already in FitzRobert’s own country? How close are his castles? He left here early, in time to have his ambush ready. He had this in mind from the first, if he was thwarted here.”

“It might be twenty miles or so to Cricklade, more to Faringdon. But closer still there’s his new castle at Greenhamsted, the one he took from Robert Musard a few weeks back. Not ten miles from Gloucester.”

“You are sure,” said Hugh, a little hesitantly and with an anxious eye on Cadfael, “that they did carry him off prisoner?”

“No question,” said the messenger with weary bluntness, “they wanted him whole, it was done very briskly. No, they’re more wary what blood they spill, these days. Men on one side have kin on the other who could still take offence and make trouble. No, be easy for that, there was no killing.”

The courier was gone into the prior’s lodging to eat and rest, the bishop to his own palace to prepare letters to carry the news, notably to Oxford and Malmesbury, in the region where this raid had taken place. Whether Stephen would bestir himself to intervene in this case was doubtful, but someone would surely pass the news on to the boy’s uncle in Devizes, who carried some weight with the empress. At least everything must be tried.

“Now,” said Cadfael, left contemplating Hugh’s bleak and frustrated face through a long silence, “I have two hostages to buy back. If I asked for a sign, I have it. And now there is no doubt in my mind what I must do.”

“And I cannot come with you,” said Hugh.

“You have a shire to keep. Enough for one of us to break faith. But may I keep your good horse, Hugh?”

“If you’ll pledge me to bring him safely back, and yourself in the saddle,” said Hugh.

They said their farewells just within the priory gate, Hugh to return northwest along the same roads by which they had come, with his three men-at-arms at his back, Cadfael bearing south. They embraced briefly before mounting, but when they issued from the gate into the street, and separated, they went briskly, and did not look back. With every yard the fine thread that held them together stretched and thinned, attenuated to breaking point, became a fibre, a hair, a cobweb filament, but did not break.

For the first stages of that journey Cadfael rode steadily, hardly aware of his surroundings, fully absorbed in the effort to come to terms with the breaking of another cord, which had parted as soon as he turned south instead of towards home. It was like the breaking of a tight constriction which had bound his life safely within him, though at the cost of pain; and the abrupt removal of the restriction was mingled relief and terror, both intense. The ease of being loose in the world came first, and only gradually did the horror of the release enter and overwhelm him. For he was recreant, he had exiled himself, knowing well what he was doing. And now his only justification must be the redemption of both Yves and Olivier. If he failed in that he had squandered even his apostasy. Your own man, Radulfus had said, no longer any man of mine. Vows abandoned, brothers forsaken, heaven discarded.

The first need was to recognize that it had happened, the second to accept it. After that he could ride on composedly, and be his own man, as for the former half of his life he had been, and only rarely felt a need beyond, until he found community and completion in surrendering himself. Life could and must be lived on those same terms for this while, perhaps for all the while remaining.