Ellis Peters - The Hermit of Eyton Forest

“Ah, well, he may have stabled it somewhere else,” said Cadfael, abandoning the puzzle as trivial.

But it was not trivial, it was the key to open a very strange door in the mind. There before so many eyes lay the slayer and the slain, side by side, justice already done. But who, then, had slain the slayer? They were gone, all of them, Aymer on his father’s handsome light roan horse, Warin with the horse Aymer had ridden on the outward journey now on a leading rein, the young groom with the carter and the cart. After the first day-stages Aymer would probably be off at speed, leaving the grooms to bring the coffin after at their slower pace, and most likely sending other retainers back along the way to relieve them, once he reached home.

In the mortuary chapel Cadfael had seen Cuthred’s body laid out in seemly fashion, hair and beard trimmed, not, perhaps, so closely as the knight at Thame had worn them, but enough to display, in the fixed and austere tranquillity of death, a face appropriate enough to a dignified religious. Unfair that a murderer should look as noble in death as any of the empress’s paladins.

Hugh was closeted with the abbot, and as yet had said no word to Cadfael of what he made of Aymer’s witness, but by the very questions he had asked it was clear he had made the same connections Cadfael had made, and could not have failed to arrive at the same conclusion. He would speak of it first with Radulfus. My part now, thought Cadfael, is to bring Hyacinth out of hiding, and let him shake himself loose from all suspicion of wrongdoing. Barring, of course, the occasional theft to fill his belly while he lived wild, and a lie or two by way of preserving himself alive at all. And Hugh won’t grudge him those. And that should settle the matter of Cuthred’s ordination once for all, if there’s still any lingering question about it. A sudden conversion can turn a soldier into a hermit, yes, but it takes much longer than that to make a priest. He waited for Hugh in his workshop in the herb garden, where Hugh would certainly come looking for him as soon as he left the abbot. It was quiet and aromatic and homely within there, and Cadfael had been too much away from it of late. He would have to be thinking of replenishing his stocks of the regular winter needs very soon, before the coughs and colds began, and the elder joints started to creak and groan. Brother Winfrid could be trusted to take excellent care of all the work in the garden, the digging and weeding and planting, but here within he had much to learn. One more ride, thought Cadfael, to see how Eilmund does, and let Hyacinth know he can and should come forward and speak up for himself, and then I shall be glad to settle down to work here at home.

Hugh came in through the gardens and sat down beside his friend with a brief, preoccupied smile, and was silent for some moments. “What I do not understand,” he said then, “is why? Whatever he was, whatever he has done, aforetime, here he seems to have lived blameless. What can there have been, perilous enough to make him want to stop Bosiet’s mouth? It may be a suspect thing to change one’s dress and appearance and way of life, but it is not a crime. What was there, more than that, to justify murder? What is there of that enormity, except murder itself?”

“Ah!” said Cadfael with a relieved sigh. “Yes, I thought you had seen it all as I saw it. But no, I do not think it was murder he had to hide in the obscurity of a hermit’s gown and a forest cell. That was my first thought. But it is not so simple.”

“As so often,” said Hugh with his sudden, crooked smile, “I think you know something that I do not. And what was that about his horse, down there in Thame? What has his horse to do with it?”

“Not his horse, but the fact that he had none. What’s a soldier or a knight doing travelling on foot? But a pilgrim may, and never be noticed. But as to knowing something I would have told you long ago if I had been let—yes, Hugh, I do. I know where Hyacinth is. Against my will I promised to say nothing until Aymer Bosiet had given up the pursuit and taken himself off home. As now he has, and now the boy can come forward and speak for himself, as, trust me, he’s well able to do.”

“So that’s it,” said Hugh, eyeing his friend without any great surprise. “Well, who can blame him for being wary, what does he know of me? And for all that I knew, he could well have been Bosiet’s murderer, we knew of no other with as good a cause. Now he need say no word on that score, the debt is known and paid. And as for his freedom, he need fear nothing from me on that head. I have enough to do without playing the errand boy for Northamptonshire. Bring him forth whenever you like, he may yet shed light on some things we do not know.”

So Cadfael thought, too, reflecting how little Hyacinth had had to say about his relations with his sometime master. Candid enough, among friends, about his own vagabondage and the mischief done in Eilmund’s coppice, he had scrupulously refrained from casting any aspersions against Cuthred. But now that Cuthred was dead and known for a murderer Hyacinth might be willing to extend his candour, though surely he had known no great harm of his fellow traveller, and certainly nothing of murder.

“Where is he?” asked Hugh. “Not far, I fancy, if it was he who got word to young Richard that he could safely go through that marriage service. Who would be more likely to know Cuthred for an impostor?”

“No further,” said Cadfael, “than Eilmund’s cottage, and welcome there to father and daughter alike. And I’m bound there now to see how Eilmund’s faring. Shall I bring the boy back with me?”

“Better than that,” said Hugh heartily, “I’ll ride with you. Better not hale him out of cover until I’ve called off the hunt by official order, and made it known he has nothing to answer, and is free to walk the town and look for work like any other man.”

In the stable yard, when he went to saddle up, Cadfael found the bright chestnut horse with the white brow standing like a glossy statue under his master’s affectionate hands, content and trusting after easy exercise, and being polished to a rippling copper sheen. Rafe of Coventry turned to see who came, and smiled the guarded, calm smile with which Cadfael was becoming familiar. “Bound out again, Brother? This must be a wearing day you’ve had.”

“For all of us,” said Cadfael, hoisting down his saddle, “but we may hope the worst is over. And you? Have you prospered in your errand?”

“Well, I thank you! Very well! Tomorrow morning, after Prime,” he said, turning to face Cadfael fully, and his voice as always measured and composed, “I shall be leaving. I have already told Brother Denis so.” Cadfael went on with his preparations for a minute or two in silence. Converse with Rafe of Coventry found silences acceptable.

“If you’ll be riding far the first day,” he said then simply, “I think you may need my services before you set out. He drew blood,” he said briefly, by way of adequate explanation. And when Rafe was slow to answer: “A part of my function is to tend illness and injury. There is no seal of confession in my art, but there is a decent reticence.”

“I have bled before,” said Rafe, but he smiled, a degree beyond his common smile.

“As you choose. But I am here. If you need me, come to me. It is not wise to neglect a wound, nor to try it too far in the saddle.” He tested the girth, and gathered the reins to mount. The horse sidled and shifted playfully, eager for action.

“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Rafe, “and I thank you. You will not stop me leaving,” he said in amiable but solemn warning.

“Have I tried?” said Cadfael, and swung himself up into the saddle and rode out into the court.