Ellis Peters - The Hermit of Eyton Forest

“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.”

IT HAD ALWAYS BEEN BROTHER JEROME’S CONTENTION, frequently and vociferously expressed, that Brother Paul exercised far too slack an authority over his young charges, both the novices and the children. It was Paul’s way to make his supervision of their days as unobtrusive as possible except when actually teaching, though he was prompt to appear if any of them needed or wanted him. But such routine matters as their ablutions, their orderly behaviour at meals, and their retiring at night and rising in the morning were left to their good consciences and to the sound habits of cleanliness and punctuality they had been taught. Brother Jerome was convinced that no boy under sixteen could be trusted to keep any rule, and that even those who had reached that mature age still had more of the devil in them than of the angels. He would have watched and hounded and corrected their every movement, had he been master of the boys, and made a great deal more use of punishments than ever Paul could be brought to contemplate. It was pleasure to him to be able to say, with truth, that he had always prophesied disaster from such lax stewardship. Three schoolboys and nine novices, in a range of ages from nine years up to seventeen, are quite enough active youngsters to satisfy the casual eye at breakfast, unless someone has reason to count them, and discover that they fall one short of the right tally. Probably Jerome would have counted them on every occasion, certain that sooner or later there would be defaulters. Brother Paul did not count. And as he was needed at chapter and afterwards that day on specific business concerning his office, he had confided the morning’s schooling to the most responsible of the novices, another policy which Jerome deplored as ruinous to discipline. In church the small fry occupied such insignificant places that one more or less would never be noticed. So it was only late in the afternoon, when Paul mustered his flock again into the schoolroom, and separated the class of novices from the younger boys, that the absence of Richard was at last manifest.