EILMUND, THE FORESTER OF EYTON, came now and then to chapter at the abbey to report on work done, or on any difficulties he might have encountered, and extra help he might need. It was not often he had anything but placid progress to report, but in the second week of November he came one morning with a puzzled frown fixed on his brow, and a glum face. It seemed that a curious blight of misfortune had settled upon his woodland.
Eilmund was a thickset, dark, shaggy man past forty, very powerful of body, and sharp enough of mind. He stood squarely in the midst at chapter, solidly braced on his sturdy legs like a wrestler confronting his opponent, and made few words of what he had to tell.
“My lord abbot, there are things happening in my charge that I cannot fathom. A week ago, in that great rainstorm we had, the brook that runs between our coppice and the open forest washed down some loose bushes, and built up such a dam that it overflowed and changed its course, and flooded my newest planting. And no sooner had I cleared the block than I found the flood-water had undercut part of the bank of my ditch, a small way upstream, and the fall of soil had bridged the ditch. By the time I found it the deer had got into the coppice. They’ve eaten off all the young growth from the plot we cropped two years ago. I doubt some of the trees may die, and all will be held back a couple more years at least before they get their growth. It spoils my planning,” complained Eilmund, outraged for the ruin of his cycle of culling, “besides the present loss.”
Cadfael knew the place, Eilmund’s pride, the farmed part of Eyton forest, as neat and well-ditched a coppice as any in the shire, where the regular cutting of six- or seven-year-old wood let in the light at every cropping, so that the wealth of ground cover and wild flowers was always rich and varied. Some trees, like ash, spring anew from the stool of the original trunk, just below the cut. Some, like elm or aspen, from below the ground all round the stump. Some of the stools in Eilmund’s care, several times cropped afresh, had grown into groves of their own, their open centres two good paces across. No grave natural disaster had ever before upset his pride in his skills. No wonder he was so deeply aggrieved. And the loss to the abbey was itself serious, for coppice wood for fuel, charcoal, hafts of tools, carpentry and all manner of uses brought in good income.
“Nor is that the end of it,” went on Eilmund grimly, “for yesterday when I made my rounds on the other side of the copse, where the ditch is dry but deep enough and the bank steep, what should have happened but the sheep from Eaton had broke out of their field by a loose pale, just where Eaton ground touches ours, and sheep, as you know, my lord, make nothing of a bank that will keep out deer, and there’s nothing they like better for grazing than the first tender seedlings of ash. They’ve made short work of much of the new growth before I could get them out. And neither I nor John of Longwood can tell how they got through so narrow a gap, but you know if the matron ewe takes a notion into her head there’s no stopping her, and the others will follow. It seems to me my forest is bewitched.”
“Far more like,” suggested Prior Robert, looking severely down his long nose, “that there has been plain human negligence, either on your part or your neighbour’s.”
“Father Prior,” said Eilmund, with the bluntness of one who knows his value, and knows that it is equally well known to the only superior he needs to satisfy here, “in all my years in the abbey’s service there has never yet been complaint of my work. I have made my rounds daily, yes, and often nightly, too, but I cannot command the rain not to fall, nor can I be everywhere at once. Such a spate of misfortunes in so short a time I’ve never before known. Nor can I blame John of Longwood, who has always been as good a neighbour as any man needs.”
“That is the truth,” said Abbot Radulfus with authority. “We have had cause to be thankful for his good will, and do not doubt it now. Nor do I question your skill and devotion. There has never been need before, and I see none now. Reverses are sent to us so that we may overcome them, and no man can presume to escape such testings for ever. The loss can be borne. Do what you can, Master Eilmund, and if you should feel in need of another helper, you shall have one.” Eilmund, who had always been equal to his tasks and was proud of his self-sufficiency, said thanks for that somewhat grudgingly, but declined the offer for the time being, and promised to send word if anything further should happen to change his mind. And off he went as briskly as he had come, back to his cottage in the forest, his daughter, and his grievance against fate, since he could not honestly find a human agency to blame. By some mysterious means young Richard got to know of the unusual purport of Eilmund’s visit, and anything to do with his grandmother, and all those people who had their labour and living about the manor of Eaton, was of absorbing interest to him. However wise and watchful his guardian the abbot might be, however competent his steward, it behoved him to keep an eye on his estate for himself. If there was mischief afoot near Eaton, he itched to know the reason, and he was far more likely than was the Abbot Radulfus to attribute mischief, however incomprehensibly procured, to the perversity or malice of humanity, having so often found himself arraigned as the half-innocent agent of misrule. If the sheep of Eaton had made their way into the ash coppice of Eyton not by some obscure act of God, but because someone had opened the way for them and started them towards their welcome feast, then Richard wanted to know who, and why. They were, after all, his sheep.
Accordingly, he kept a sharp eye open for any new comings and goings about the hour of chapter each morning, and was curious when he observed, two days after Eilmund’s visit, the arrival at the gatehouse of a young man he had seen but once before, who asked very civilly for permission to appear at chapter with an embassage from his master, Cuthred. He was early, and had to wait, which he did serenely. That suited Richard very well, for he could not play truant from school, but by the time the chapter ended he would be at liberty, and could ambush the visitor and satisfy his curiosity.
Every hermit worth his salt, having taken vows of stability which enjoin him to remain thenceforth within his own cell and closed garden, and having gifts of foresight and a sacred duty to use them for his neighbours good, must have a resident boy to run his errands and deliver his admonitions and reproofs. Cuthred’s boy, it seemed, had arrived already in his service, accompanying him in his recent wanderings in search of the place of retirement appointed for him by God. He came into the chapterhouse of the abbey with demure assurance, and stood to be examined by all the curious brothers, not at all discomposed by such an assault of bright, inquisitive eyes.
From the retired stall which he preferred, Cadfael studied the messenger with interest. A more unlikely servitor for an anchorite and popular saint, in the old Celtic sense that took no account of canonisation, he could not well have imagined, though he could not have said on the instant where the incongruity lay. A young fellow of about twenty years, in a rough tunic and hose of brown cloth, patched and faded—nothing exceptional there. He was built on the same light, wiry lines as Hugh Beringar, but stood a hand’s breadth taller, and he was lean and brown and graceful as a fawn, managing his long limbs with the same angular, animal beauty. Even his composed stillness held implications of sudden, fierce movement, like a wild creature motionless in ambush. His running would be swift and silent, his leaping long and lofty as that of a hare. And his face had a similar slightly ominous composure and awareness, under a thick, close-fitted cap of waving hair the colour of copper beeches. A long oval of a face, tall-browed, with a long, straight nose flared at the nostrils, again like a wild thing sensitive to every scent the breeze brought him, a supple, crooked mouth that almost smiled even in repose, as if in secret and slightly disturbing amusement, and long amber eyes that tilted upwards at the outer corners, under oblique copper brows. The burning glow of those eyes he shaded, but did not dim or conceal, beneath round-arched lids and copper lashes long and rich as a woman’s.
What was an antique saint doing with an unnerving fairy thing in his employ? But the boy, having waited a long moment to be inspected thoroughly, lifted his eyelids and showed to Abott Radulfus a face of candid and childlike innocence, and made him a very charming and respectful reverence. He would not speak until he was spoken to, but waited to be questioned. “You come from the hermit of Eyton?” asked the abbot mildly, studying the young, calm, almost smiling face attentively.
“Yes, my lord. The holy Cuthred sends a message by me.” His voice was quiet and clear, pitched a little high, so that it rang bell-like under the vault.
“What is your name?” Radulfus questioned.
“Hyacinth, my lord.”
“I have known a bishop of that name,” said the abbot, and briefly smiled, for the sleek brown creature before him had certainly nothing of the bishop about him. “Were you named for him?”
“No, my lord. I have never heard of him. I was told, once, that there was a youth of that name in an old story, and two gods fell out over him, and the loser killed him. They say flowers grew from his blood. It was a priest who told me,” said the boy innocently, and slanted a sudden brief smile round the chapterhouse, well aware of the slight stir of disquiet he had aroused in these cloistered breasts, though the abbot continued unruffled. Into that old story, thought Cadfael, studying him with pleasure and interest, you, my lad, fit far better than into the ambit of bishops, and well you know it. Or hermits either, for that matter. Now where in the world did he discover you, and how did he tame you?
“May I speak my message?” asked the boy ingenuously, golden eyes wide and clear and fixed upon the abbot.
“You have learned it by heart?” enquired Radulfus, smiling.
“I must, my lord. There must be no word out of place.”
“A very faithful messenger! Yes, you may speak.”
“I must be my master’s voice, not my own,” said the boy by way of introduction, and forthwith sank his voice several tones below its normal ringing lightness, in a startling piece of mimicry that made Cadfael, at least, look at him more warily and searchingly than ever. “I have heard with much distress,” said the proxy hermit gravely, “both from the steward of Eaton and the forester of Eyton, of the misfortunes suddenly troubling the woodland. I have prayed and meditated, and greatly dread that these are but the warnings of worse to come, unless some false balance or jarring discord between right and wrong can be amended. I know of no such offence hanging over us, unless it be the denial of right to Dame Dionisia Ludel, in witholding her grandchild from her. The father’s wish must indeed be regarded, but the grief of the widow for her young cannot be put away out of mind, and she bereaved and alone. I pray you, my lord abbot, for the love of God, consider whether what you do is well done, for I feel the shadow of evil heavy over us all.”
All this the surprising young man delivered in the sombre and weighty voice which was not his own, and undeniably the trick was impressive, and caused some of the more superstitious young brothers to shift and gape and mutter in awed concern. And having ended his recital, the messenger again raised his amber eyes and smiled, as if the purport of his embassage concerned him not at all. Abbot Radulfus sat in silence for a long moment, closely eyeing the young man, who gazed back at him unwinking and serene, satisfied at having completed his errand.
“Your master’s own words?”
“Every one, my lord, just as he taught them to me.”
“And he did not commission you to argue further in the matter on his behalf? You do not want to add anything?”
The eyes opened still wider in astonishment. “I, my lord? How could I? I only run his errands.”
Prior Robert said superciliously into the abbot’s ear: “It is not unknown for an anchorite to give shelter and employment to a simpleton. It is an act of charity. This is clearly one such.” His voice was low, but not low enough to escape ears as sharp, and almost as pointed, as those of a fox, for the boy Hyacinth gleamed, and flashed a crooked smile. Cadfael, who had also caught the drift of this comment, doubted very much whether the abbot would agree with it. There seemed to him to be a very sharp intelligence behind the brown faun’s face, even if it suited him to play the fool with it. “Well,” said Radulfus, “you may go back to your master, Hyacinth, and carry him my thanks for his concern and care, and for his prayers, which I hope he will continue on behalf of us all. Say that I have considered and do consider every side of Dame Dionisia’s complaint against me, and have done and will continue to do what I see to be right. And for the natural misfortunes that give him so much anxiety, mere men cannot control or command them, though faith may overcome them. What we cannot change we must abide. That is all.” Without another word the boy made him a deep and graceful obeisance, turned, and walked without haste from the chapterhouse, lean and light-footed, and moving with a cat’s almost insolent elegance.
In the great court, almost empty at this hour when all the brothers were at chapter, the visitor was in no hurry to set out back to his master, but lingered to look about him curiously, from the abbot’s lodging in its small rose garden to the guest halls and the infirmary, and so round the circle of buildings to the gatehouse and the long expanse of the south range of the cloister. Richard, who had been lying in wait for him for some minutes, emerged confidently from the arched southern doorway, and advanced into the stranger’s path. Since the intent was clearly to halt him, Hyacinth obligingly halted, looking down with interest at the solemn, freckled face that studied him just as ardently. “Good morrow, young sir!” he said civilly. “And what might you want with me?”
“I know who you are,” said Richard. “You are the serving-man the hermit brought with him. I heard you say you came with a message from him. Was it about me?”
“That I might better answer,” said Hyacinth reasonably, “if I knew who your lordship might be, and why my master should be concerning himself with such small fry.”
“I am not small fry,” said Richard with dignity. “I am Richard Ludel, the lord of Eaton, and your master’s hermitage is on my land. And you know very well who I am, for you were there among the servants at my father’s funeral. And if you did bring some message that concerns me, I think I have a right to know about it. That’s only fair.” And Richard jutted his small, square chin and stood his ground with bare feet spread apart, challenging justice with unblinking blue-green eyes.
For a long moment Hyacinth returned his gaze with a bright, speculative stare. Then he said in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone, as man to man and quite without mockery: “That’s a true word, and I’m with you, Richard. Now, where can we two talk at ease?”
The middle of the great court was, perhaps, a little too conspicuous for lengthy confidences, and Richard was sufficiently taken with the unmistakably secular stranger to find him a pleasing novelty among these monastic surroundings, and meant to get to know all about him now that he had the opportunity. Moreover, very shortly chapter would be ending, and it would not do to invite Prior Robert’s too close attention in such circumstances, or court Brother Jerome’s busybody interference. With hasty confidence he caught Hyacinth by the hand, and towed him away up the court to the retired wicket that led through the enclave to the mill. There on the grass above the pool they were private, with the wall at their backs and the thick, springy turf under them, and the midday sun still faintly warm on them through the diaphanous veil of haze. “Now!” said Richard, getting down sternly to the matter in hand. “I need to have a friend who’ll tell me truth, there are so many people ordering my life for me, and can’t agree about it, and how can I take care of myself and be ready for them if there’s no one to warn me what’s in their minds? If you’ll be on my side I shall know how to deal. Will you?”
Hyacinth leaned his back comfortably against the abbey wall, stretched out before him shapely, sinewy legs, and half-closed his sunlit eyes. “I tell you what, Richard, as you can best deal if you know all that’s afoot, so can I be most helpful to you if I know the why and wherefore of it. Now I know the end of this story thus far, and you know the beginning. How if we put the two together, and see what’s to be made of them?”
Richard clapped his hands. “Agreed! So first tell me what was the message you brought from Cuthred today!”
Word for word as he had delivered it in chapter, but without the mimicry, Hyacinth told him.
“I knew it!” said the child, thumping a small fist into the thick grass. “I knew it must be some way about me. So my grandmother has cozened or persuaded even her holy man into arguing her cause for her. I heard about these things that have been happening in the coppice, but such things do happen now and then, who can prevent? You’ll need to warn your master not to be over-persuaded, even if she has made herself his patroness. Tell him the whole tale, for she won’t.”
“So I will,” agreed Hyacinth heartily, “when I know it myself.”
“No one has told you why she wants me home? Not a word from your master?”
“Lad, I just run his errands, he doesn’t confide in me.” And it seemed that the unquestioning servitor was in no hurry about returning from this errand, for he settled his back more easily against the mosses of the wall, and crossed his slim ankles. Richard wriggled a little nearer, and Hyacinth shifted good-naturedly to accommodate the sharp young bones that leaned into his side. “She wants to marry me off,” said Richard, “to get hold of the manors either side of mine. And not even to a proper bride. Hikrude is old . At least twenty-two.”
“A venerable age,” agreed Hyacinth gravely.
“But even if she was young and pretty I don’t want her. I don’t want any woman. I don’t like women. I don’t see any need for them.”
“You’re in the right place to escape them, then,” suggested Hyacinth helpfully, and under his long copper lashes his amber eyes flashed a gleam of laughter. “Become a novice, and be done with the world, you’ll be safe enough here.”
“No, that’s no sport, neither. Listen, I’ll tell you all about it.” And the tale of his threatened marriage, and his grandmother’s plans to enlarge her little palatine came tripping volubly from his tongue. “So will you keep an eye open for me, and let me know what I must be ware of? I need someone who’ll be honest with me, and not keep everything from me, as if I were still a child.”
“I will!” promised Hyacinth contentedly, smiling. “I’ll be your lordship’s liege man in the camp at Eaton, and be eyes and ears for you.”
“And make plain my side of it to Cuthred? I shouldn’t like him to think evil of Father Abbot; he’s only doing what my father wanted for me. And you haven’t told me your name. I must have a name for you.”
“My name is Hyacinth. I’m told there was a bishop so named, but I’m none. Your secrets are safer with a sinner than with a saint, and I’m closer than the confessional, never fear me.”
They had somehow become so content and familiar with each other that only the timely reminder of Richard’s stomach, nudging him that it was time for his dinner, finally roused them to separate. Richard trotted beside his new friend along the path that skirted the enclave wall as far as the Foregate, and there parted from him, and watched the light, erect figure as it swung away along the highroad, before he turned and went dancing gleefully back to the wicket in the enclave wall.
Hyacinth covered the first miles of his return journey at a springy, long-stepping lope, less out of any sense of haste or duty than for pure pleasure in the ease of his own gait, and the power and precision of his body. He crossed the river by the bridge at Attingham, waded the watery meadows of its tributary the Tern, and turned south from Wroxeter towards Eyton. When he came into the fringes of the forest land he slowed to a loitering walk, reluctant to arrive when the way was so pleasant. He had to cross abbey land to reach the hermitage which lay in the narrow, thrusting finger of Ludel land probing into its neighbour woods. He went merrily whistling along the track that skirted the brook, close round the northern rim of Eilmund’s coppice. The bank that rose beyond, protecting the farmed woodland, was high and steep, but well kept and well turfed, never before had it subsided at any point, nor was the brook so large or rapid that it should have undercut the seasoned slope. But so it had, the raw soil showed in a steep dark scar well before he reached the place. He eyed it as he approached, gnawing a thoughtful lip, and then as suddenly shrugged and laughed. “The more mischief the more sport!” he said half-aloud, and passed on to where the bank had been deeply undercut. He was still some yards back from the worst, when he heard a muted cry that seemed to come from within the earth, and then an indrawn howl of struggle and pain, and a volley of muffled curses. Startled but quick in reaction, he broke into a leaping run, and pulled up as abruptly on the edge of the ditch, no more than placidly filled now with the still muddied stream, but visibly rising. On the other side of the water there had been a fresh fall, and a solitary old willow, its roots partially stripped by the first slip, had heeled over and fallen athwart the brook. Its branches heaved and rustled with the struggles of someone pinned beneath, half in, half out of the water. An arm groped for a hold through the leaves, heaving to shift the incubus, and the effort fetched a great groan. Through the threshing leaves Hyacinth caught a glimpse of Eilmund’s soiled and contorted face.
“Hold still! he shouted. “I’m coming down!”
And down he went, thigh-deep, weaving under the first boughs to get his back beneath their weight and try to lift them enough for the imprisoned forester to drag himself clear. Eilmund, groaning and gasping, doubled both fists grimly into the soil at his back and hauled himself partially free of the bough that held him by the legs. The effort cost him a half-swallowed scream of pain. “You’re hurt!” Hyacinth took him under the armpits with both hands, arching his supple back strongly beneath the thickest bough, and the tree rocked ponderously. “Now! Heave!”
Eilmund braced himself yet again, Hyacinth hauled with him, fresh slithers of soil rolled down on them both, but the willow shifted and rolled over with a splash, and the forester lay in the raw earth, gasping, his feet just washed by the rim of the brook. Hyacinth, muddy and streaked with green, went on his knees beside him.
“I’ll need to go for help, I can’t get you from here alone. And you’ll not be going on your own two feet for a while. Can you rest so, till I fetch John of Longwood’s men up from the fields? We’ll need more than one, and a hurdle or a shutter to carry you. Is there worse than I can see?” But what he could see was enough, and his brown face was shaken and appalled under the mud stains. “My leg’s broke.” Eilmund let his great shoulders sink cautiously back into the soft earth, and drew long, deep breaths. “Main lucky for me you came this way, I was pinned fast, and the brook’s building again. I was trying to shore up the bank. Lad,” he said, and grinned ruefully round a groan, “there’s more strength in those shoulders of yours than anyone would think to look at you.”
“Can you bide like that for a little while?” Hyacinth looked up anxiously at the bank above, but only small clods shifted and slid harmlessly, and the rim of impacted turf, herbage and roots at the top looked secure enough. I’ll run. I’ll not be long.”
And run he did, fast and straight for the Eaton fields, and hailed the first Eaton men he sighted. They came in haste, with a hurdle borrowed from the sheep fold, and between them with care and with some suppressed and understandable cursing from the victim, lifted Eilmund on to it, and bore him the half-mile to his forest cottage. Mindful that the man had a daughter at home, Hyacinth took it upon himself to run on before to give her warning and reassurance, and time to prepare the injured man’s couch.
The cottage lay in a cleared assart in the forest, with a neat garden about it, and when Hyacinth reached it the door was standing open, and within the house a girl was singing softly to herself as she worked. Strangely, having run his fastest to get to her, Hyacinth seemed almost reluctant to knock at the door, or enter without knocking, and while he was hesitating on the doorstone her singing ceased, and she came out to see whose fleet footsteps had stirred the small stones of the pathway.
She was small but sturdy, and very trimly made, with a straight blue gaze, the fresh colouring of a wild rose, and smoothly-braided hair of a light brown sheen like the grain of polished oak, and she looked him over with a candid curiosity and friendliness that for once silenced his ready silver tongue. It was she who had to speak first, for all the urgency of his errand. “You’re looking for my father? He’s away to the coppice, you’ll find him where the bank slid.” And the blue eyes quickened with interest and approval, liking what they saw. “You’re the boy who came with the old dame’s hermit, aren’t you? I saw you working in his garden.”
Hyacinth owned to it, and recalled with a lurch of the heart what he had to tell. “I am, mistress, and my name’s Hyacinth. Your father’s on his way back to you now, sorry I am to say it, after a mishap that will keep him to the house for a while, I fear. I came to let you know before they bring him. Oh, never fret, he’s live and sound, he’ll be his own man again, give him time. But his leg’s broken. There was another slip, it brought down a tree on him in the ditch. He’ll mend, though, no question.”
The quick alarm and blanching of her face had brought no outcry. She took in what he said, shook herself abruptly, and went to work at once setting wide the inner and the outer doors to open the way for the hurdle and its burden, and making ready the couch on which to lay him, and from that to setting on a pot of water at the fire. And as she went she talked to Hyacinth over her shoulder, very practically and calmly.
“Not the first time he’s come by injuries, but never a broken leg before. A tree came down, you say? That old willow. I knew it leaned, but I never thought it could fall. It was you found him? And fetched help for him?” The blue eyes looked round and smiled on him.
“Some of the Eaton men were close, clearing a drainage ditch. They’re carrying him in.” They were approaching the door by then, coming as fast as they could. She went out to meet them, with Hyacinth at her elbow. It seemed that he had something more, something different to say to her, and for the moment had lost his opportunity, for he hovered silently but purposefully on the edge of the scurry of activity, as Eilmund was carried into the house and laid on the couch, and stripped of his wet boots and hose, very carefully but to a muffled accompaniment of groans and curses. His left leg was misshapen below the knee, but not so grossly that the bone had torn through the flesh. “Above an hour lying there in the brook,” he got out, between gritting his teeth on the pain as they handled him, “and if it hadn’t been for this young fellow I should have been there yet, for I couldn’t shift the weight, and there was no one within call. God’s truth, there’s more muscle in the lad than you’d believe. You should have seen him heft that tree off me.” Very strangely, Hyacinth’s spare, smooth cheeks flushed red beneath their dark gold sheen. It was a face certainly not given to blushing, but it had not lost the ability. He said with some constraint: “Is there anything more I could be doing for you? I would, gladly! You’ll be needing a skilled hand to set that bone. I’m no use there, but make use of me if you need an errand run. That’s my calling, that I can do.”
The girl turned for an instant from the bed, her blue eyes wide and shining on his face. “Why, so you can, if you’ll be so good and add to our debt. Will you send to the abbey, and ask for Brother Cadfael to come?”
“I will well!” said Hyacinth, as heartily as if she had made him a most acceptable gift. But as she turned back from him he hesitated, and caught her by the sleeve for an instant, and breathed into her ear urgently: “I must talk to you—alone, later, when he’s cared for and resting easy.” And before she could say yes or no, though her eyes certainly were not refusing him, he was off and away through the trees, on the long run back to Shrewsbury.