Ellis Peters - The Hermit of Eyton Forest

“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!”

ONCE CONVINCED, it was she who made the plans. She knew the house and the servants, and as long as there was no suspicion of her subservience she had the entry everywhere, and could give orders to grooms and maids as she pleased. “Best wait until after they’ve brought your dinner and taken away the dish again. It will be a longer time then before anyone comes in to you again. There’s a back gate through the pale, from the stable out into the paddock. I could tell Jehan to turn your pony out to grass, he’s been shut in too long to be liking it. There are some bushes in the field there, round behind the stable, close to the wicket. I’ll make shift to hide your saddle and harness there before noon. I can get you out of here through the undercroft, while they’re all busy in hall and kitchens.”

“But your father will be home then,” protested Richard doubtfully.

“After his dinner my father will be snoring. If he does look in on you at all, it will be before he sits down to table, to make sure you’re safe in your cage. Better for me, too, I shall have sat out my morning with you gallantly, who’s to think I’ll change my tune after that? It might even be good sport,” said Hiltrude, growing animated in contemplating her benevolent mischief, “when they go to take you your supper, and find the window still shuttered and barred, and the bird flown.”

“But then everyone will be harried and cursed and blamed,” said Richard, “because somebody must have drawn the bolt.”

“So then we all deny it, and whoever looks likeliest to be suspected I’ll bring off safely, saying he’s never been out of my sight and never touched the door since your dinner went in. If it comes to the worst,” said Hiltrude, with uncustomary resolution, “I’ll say I must have forgotten to shoot the bolt after leaving you the last time. What can he do? He’ll still be thinking he has you trapped in marriage with me, wherever you run to. Better still,” she cried, clapping her hands, “I’ll be the one who brings you your dinner, and waits with you, and brings out the dish again—then no one else can be blamed for leaving the door unbolted. A wife should begin at once to wait on her husband, it will look well.”

“You’re not afraid of your father?” ventured Richard, open-eyed with startled respect, even admiration, but reluctant to leave her to sustain so perilous a part.

“I am—I was! Now, whatever happens, it will be worth the pains. I must go, Richard, while there’s no one in the stable. You wait and trust me, and keep up your heart. You’ve lifted mine!”

She was at the door when Richard, still thoughtfully following her light and buoyant passage, so changed from the subdued, embittered creature whose cold hand he had held in the night, said impulsively after her: “Hiltrude—I think I might do worse than marry you, after all.” And added, with barely decent haste: “But not yet!”

Everything that she had promised she performed. She brought his dinner, and sat with him and made desultory, awkward talk while he ate it, such talk as might be expected to a stranger, and a child at that, and one forced upon her and reluctantly accepted, so that however much he might be resented, there was no longer any point in being at odds with him. Less from guile than because he was hungry and busy eating, Richard responded with grunts rather than words. Had anyone been listening, they would certainly have found the exchanges depressingly appropriate.

Hiltrude carried the dish back to the kitchen, and returned to him as soon as she had made certain that everyone else about the house was occupied. The narrow wooden stair down into the undercroft was conveniently screened from the passage that led to the kitchen, they had no trouble in skipping hastily down it, and emerging from below ground by the deep doorway where Hyacinth had sheltered, and from there it was just one dangerous dart across open ground to the wicket in the fence, half hidden by the bulk of the stable. Saddle and bridle and all, she had left his harness concealed behind the bushes, and the sable pony came to him gladly. Close under the rear wall of the stable he saddled up in trembling haste, and led the pony out of the paddock and down towards the river, where the belt of trees offered cover, before he dared to tighten the girth and mount. Now, if all went well, he had until early evening before he would be missed. Hiltrude went back up the stairs from the undercroft, and took care to spend her afternoon blamelessly among the women of the household, within sight every moment, and occupied with the proper affairs of the lady of the manor. She had bolted Richard’s door, since clearly if it had been inadvertently left unfastened, and the prisoner taken advantage of the fact, even a ten-year-old boy would have the sense to shoot the bolt again and preserve the appearances. When the flight was discovered she could very well protest that she had no recollection of forgetting to fasten it, though admitting at last that she must have done so. But by then, if all went well, Richard would be back in the abbey enclave, and taking belated thought how to present himself as the blameless victim, and bury all recollection of the guilty truant who had run off without permission and caused all this turmoil and anxiety. Well, that was Richard’s affair. She had done her part.

It was a pity that the groom who had turned Richard’s pony into the paddock should have occasion to fetch in one of the other beasts out to graze, about the middle of the afternoon, since he had noticed that it was slightly lame. He could hardly fail to observe that the pony was gone. Seizing on the first and obvious, if none too likely, possibility, he was halfway across the court crying that there had been thieves in the paddock before it occurred to him to go back and look in the stable for the saddle and harness. That put a somewhat different complexion on the loss. And besides, why take the least valuable beast in sight? And why risk theft in daylight? Good dark nights were more favourable. So he arrived in hall announcing loudly and breathlessly that the young bridegroom’s pony was gone, saddle and all, and my lord had better look to see if he still had the boy safe under lock and key. Fulke went himself, in haste, hardly believing the news, and found the door securely bolted as before, but the room within empty. He let out a bellow of rage that made Hiltrude flinch over her embroidery frame, but she kept her eyes lowered to her work, and went on demurely stitching until the storm erupted in the doorway and swelled to fill the hall.