Chapter Fifteen

THE NIGHT WAS CLEAR, STARRY AND still, barely on the edge of frost. The sun emerged with dawn, and for the second night there had been no fresh snow. The drifts dwindled, even before the slow, quiet thaw set in, the kind of thaw that clears paths by gradual, almost stealthy erosion, and causes no floods.

Hugh Beringar had got back late in the evening, after overseeing the total destruction of what the fire had left, and the removal of a startling collection of plunder. The clutter of lean-to cells along the stockade had yielded up the remains of two murdered prisoners, tortured until they surrendered whatever they had of value, and three more still alive after the same treatment. They were being nursed in Ludlow, where Josce de Dinan had secured the survivors of the garrison in chains. Of the attacking force, there were some eighteen wounded, many more with minor grazes, but none dead. It might have been a deal more costly.

Prior Leonard strode radiantly about his court in the chill but brilliant sunlight, glittering with relief that his region was delivered from a pestilence, the missing pair safe within his walls, and Brother Elyas mute with wonder and grace in his bed, and bent upon life, whether blissful or baleful. He looked up with clear, patient eyes now, and took exhortation and reproof alike with humility and gladness. His mind was whole, his body would not be long in following.

Not long after High Mass the claimants began to come in to look for their horses, as doubtless they were flocking to Ludlow to pick out their own cows and sheep. Some, no doubt, would be claimed by more than one, and give rise to great quarrels and the calling in of neighbours to identify the disputed stock. But here there were only a handful of horses, and little ground for the opportunist greed of the cunning. Horses know their owners as well as the owners know their horses. Even the cows in Ludlow would have plenty to say about where they belonged.

John Druel was among the first to come, having walked all the way from Cleeton, and he had no need to urge his ownership, for the stout brown mountain cob strained and cried after him as soon as he showed his face in the stable-yard, and their meeting was an embrace. The cob blew sweetly in John’s ear, and John hugged him about the neck, looked him over from head to hocks, and wept on his cheek. The cob was his only horse, worth a fortune to him. Yves had seen him come, and ran to tell Ermina, and the pair of them came flying to greet him and force on him such favours as they still had about them to give.

A wife from Whitbache came to claim her dead husband’s mare. A thin, grave boy from the same manor came in shyly and humbly to call a solid work-horse of hill stock, and it went to him hesitantly, wanting his sire, but acknowledged the child of the same blood with a human sigh.

Not until dinner was over in the refectory, and Brother Cadfael emerged again into the midday sparkle of sun on snow, did Evrard Boterei ride in at the gatehouse, dismount, and look round him for someone to whom he might most properly address himself. He was still somewhat pale and lean from his fever, but much recovered in the vigour of his movement and the clarity of his eye, and he stood with reared head and imperious stare, even frowning a little that no groom ran at once to take his bridle. A fine figure of a young man, fair as his horse’s mane, and well aware of his handsome appearance and his dominant nobility. Such comeliness might well take any young woman’s fancy. What did a young fellow with these advantages have to do to lose his hold? Reality, Ermina had said, had rudely invaded her idyllic fantasy. Well! But was that enough?

Prior Leonard, all goodwill, came beaming down the court with his gangling stride, to greet the visitor civilly, and conduct him into the stable-yard. One of Hugh’s men, seeing the saddled horse untended, and being himself at leisure, came to take the bridle, and Boterei relinquished his mount as to a servant, without a further glance, and went with the prior.

He had come alone. If he had indeed a stolen horse to reclaim, he must take him home on a leading rein.

Brother Cadfael looked round at the guest-hall, very thoughtfully, and saw Ermina in her peasant gown come forth from the doorway and cross to the church, rapid and light, and bearing something rolled up beneath her arm. The dark arch of the porch swallowed her, as the walled enclosure of the stables had swallowed her sometime suitor. Yves would certainly be sitting now with Brother Elyas, his jealously guarded protege and patient, on whom he waited with proprietorial zeal. Out of sight and out of peril. No arrows loosed here could strike at him.

Without haste, Cadfael stepped out into the cleared court and crossed towards the church, but tempered his going so judiciously that his path converged upon that by which Evrard Boterei and Hugh together emerged from the stables and made for the gatehouse. They, too, were taking their time, and Evrard was sunning into vivacity and smiles; the deputy sheriff was a study worth cultivating. Behind them a lay groom led a fine bay mare, chestnut-maned.

Cadfael reached the spot where their paths would cross, and there halted before the open, dim doorway of the church, so that they, too, came naturally to a halt. Boterei recognized the brother who had dressed his wound once in the manor of Ledwyche, and made gracious acknowledgment.

“I trust I see you fully restored to health,” said Cadfael civilly. His eyes was on Hugh, curious to see if he had taken note of the waiting horse, which the man-at-arms was walking to and from about the court with an admiring eye on his gait and a gentling hand on his neck. There was not much escaped Beringar’s eye, but his face gave away nothing of his thoughts. Cadfael’s thumbs pricked. He had no part to play here, on the face of it, yet his instinct drew him into a complex affair as yet only partly understood.

“I thank you, brother, I am indeed mending, if not mended,” said Evrard buoyantly.

“Little enough to thank me for,” said Cadfael. “But have you yet thanked God? It would be a fair return for mercies, from one preserved in life and limb, and in recovery of so fine a property as this mare of yours. After coils and cruelties in which so many have died, honest men and innocent virgins.” He was facing the open door to the church, he caught the dark quiver of movement within, that froze again into stillness. “For grace, come within now, and say a prayer for those less fortunate – even the one we have coffined here, ready for burial.”

He feared he had said too much, and was relieved to see Boterei confident and unshaken, turning towards the doorway with the light smile of one humouring a well-meaning churchman by consenting to a harmless gesture without significance.

“Very willingly, brother!” Why not? There had been dead left behind to the care of these or others in every rogue raid from Clee, small wonder if one of the last of them lay here newly coffined. He stepped jauntily up the stone stair and into the dim, cold nave, Cadfael close at his shoulder. Hugh Beringar, dark brows drawn down, followed as far as the threshold, and there stood astride, closing the way back.

The radiance of the sunlit snow fell behind them, turning them momentarily half-blind. The great, cold, twilit bulk enclosed them, the lamp on the high altar made an eye of fire ahead, very small and distant, and the only other light within was from the narrow windows, which laid pale bars across the tiles of the floor.

The red eye of the lamp went out suddenly. She must have come quite rapidly the few yards from the mortuary chapel to stand between, but in the brief darkness her movements had been silent and invisible. She came forward in a sweeping, hushed glide, advancing upon Evrard Boterei with hand extended, as in vain entreaty that turned abruptly into a stabbing accusation. He hardly knew what caused the dim air to vibrate until she surged into the first pallid bar of light, veil and cowl drawn close about her face, a slender Benedictine nun in a habit crumpled and soiled from the straw of the hut, the right breast and shoulder clotted and stiffened into a rusty blot of congealed blood. Then pale grey light took her and showed every seamed fold, even the smears that marred her sleeve, as she had fought him and ripped his young wound open again while he lay upon her. She never made a sound, only flew towards him silently along the tiles of the floor.

He gave a great lurch backwards into Brother Cadfael’s shoulder, and uttered a muffled moan of terror, whipping up a hand to cross his body against the unbelievable assault. Under the close-drawn hood great eyes blazed at him, and still she came on.

“No – no! Keep from me! You are dead...”

It was only a strangled whisper in his throat, as her voice might have been quenched under his hands; but Cadfael heard it. And it was enough, even though Evrard had gathered himself the next moment, and braced himself to stand his ground, stiffening almost breast to breast with her as she stepped into the light and became flesh, tangible and vulnerable.

“What fool’s play is this? Do you shelter madwomen here? Who is this creature?”

She flung back the cowl from her head and dragged off the wimple, shaking out her great burden of black hair over the befouled breast of Sister Hilaria’s gown, and showed him the fierce, marble face and burning eyes of Ermina Hugonin.

He was as little prepared for that apparition as for the other. Perhaps he had been thinking her safely dead somewhere under the forest drifts, since he had received no news of her. Perhaps he had concluded that he had nothing now to fear from anything she might have to urge against him, at least not in this world, and he had little consideration for any other. He gave back one hasty step before her, but could give no more, because Cadfael and Hugh stood one on either side between him and the open door. But he gathered himself together gallantly, and faced her with a hurt, bewildered countenance, appealing against inexplicable ill-usage.

“Ermina! What can this mean? If you live, why have you not sent me word? What is this you are trying to do to me? Have I deserved it? Surely you know I have been wearing out myself and all my household, searching for you?”

“I know it,” she said, in a voice small and hard, cold as the ice that had prisoned and preserved Sister Hilaria. “And if you had found me, and no other by, I should have gone the same way my dearest friend went, since you knew by then you would never get me to wed you. Married or buried, there was no third way for me, else I could tell all too much for your comfort and honour. And I have never said one word here to bring you to account, never a word for myself, since I brought it on myself, and was as much to blame as you. But knowing what I know now, and for her – Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times, I accuse you, murderer, ravisher, I name you, Evrard Boterei, as the killer of my sweet Hilaria...”

“You are out of your wits!” he cried, riding indignantly over her accusation. “Who is this woman you speak of? What do I know of any such person? Since the day you left me I’ve lain in fever and sickness. All my household will say so...”

“Oh, no! On, no! Not that night! You rode out after me, to recover me for your honour’s sake, to silence me, either by marriage or murder. Never deny it! I saw you ride! You think I was fool enough to believe I could outrun you on foot? Or terrified enough to lose my wits and run like a fool hare, zigzag, leaving tracks plain for you? I laid my traces no further than the trees, towards the Ludlow road where you would expect me to run, and made my way back roundabout to hide half the night among the timber you had stacked for your coward defences. I saw you go, Evrard, and I saw you return, with your wound fresh-broken and bloodied on you. I did not run until you were helped within to your bed and the worst of the blizzard over, and I knew I could run at my own pace, with the dawn barely an hour away. And while I was hiding from you, you killed her!” she wrung out, burning up like a bitter fire of thorns. “On your way back from a fruitless hunt, you found a lone woman, and took your revenge for what I did to you, and all that you could not do to me. We killed her!” cried Ermina. “You and I between us! I am as guilty as you!”

“What are you saying?” He had called up a little courage, a little confidence. If she raved, he would have become soothing, solicitous, sure of himself, and even in her cold assurance he could find a foothold for his own. “Certainly I rode out to look for you, how could I leave you to die in the frost? I had a fall, weak from my wound as I was, and broke it open again and bled-yes, that is truth. But the rest? I hunted you all that night, as long as I could endure, and never did I halt in my search for you. If I came back empty-handed and bleeding, do you accuse me of that? I know nothing of this woman you speak of...”

“Nothing?” said Cadfael at his shoulder. “Nothing of a shepherd’s hut close to the track you would be riding, back from the Ludlow road towards Ledwyche? I know, for I’ve ridden in the opposite way. Nothing of a young nun asleep in the hay there, wrapped in a good man’s cloak? Nothing of a freezing brook handy on your way home, afterwards? It was not a fall that ripped your wound open again, it was the doughty fight she made for her honour in the cold night, where you had out your fury and lust upon her for want of another prey, more profitable to your ambitions. Nothing of the cloaks and habit hidden under the straw, to cast the crime on those guilty of everything else that cried to heaven here? Everything but this!”

The cold, pale light cast all shapes into marble, the shadows withdrew and left them stark. It was not long past noon of a sunlit day without. It was moon-chill and white here within. Ermina stood like a carving in stone, staring now in silence upon the three men before her. She had done what she had to do.

“This is folly,” said Evrard Boterei arduously, as against great odds. “I rode out swathed, after the wounds I got in the storming of Callowleas, I rode back home bleeding through my bindings, what of that? A freezing night of blizzard and snow, and I had taken a fall. But this woman, this nun – the shepherd’s hut – these mean nothing to me, I never was there, I do not even know where it is...”

“I have been there,” said Brother Cadfael, “and found in the snow the droppings of a horse. A tall horse, that left a fistful of his mane roven in the rough boards under the eaves. Here it is!” He had the wavy cream-coloured strands in his hand. “Shall I match them with your gelding, there without? Shall we stretch you over the habit you see before you, and match your wound with the blood that soils it? Sister Hilaria did not bleed. Your wound I have seen, and know.”

Evrard hung for one long moment motionless, drawn up tall like a strung doll between the woman before him and the men behind. Then he shrank and sank, with a long, despairing moan, and collapsed on his knees on the tiles of the nave, fists clutched hard to his heart, and fair hair fallen forward over his face, the palest point in the bar of light where he kneeled.

“Oh, God forgive, God forgive... I only meant to hush her, not to kill... not to kill...”

“And it may even be true,” said Ermina sitting hunched and stiff by the fire in the hall, the storm of her tears past, and nothing left but a great weariness. “He may not have meant to kill. What he says may be sooth.”

What he had said, bestirring himself out of despair to make the best case he could for his life, was that he had turned for home again from his search by reason of the blizzard, and been driven to take shelter through the worst of it when he came to the hut, never thinking to find anyone there before him. But presented with a sleeping woman at his mercy, he had taken her out of spite and rage against all women for Ermina’s sake. And when she awoke and fought him, he owned he had not been gentle. But he never meant to kill! Only to silence her, with the skirts of her habit pressed over her face. And then she lay limp and lifeless, and he could not revive her, and he stripped the gown from her, and hid all the garments under the straw, and took her with him as far as the brook, to make of her merely one more victim of the outlaws who had sacked Callowleas.

“Where he first came by that eloquent wound,” said Brother Cadfael, watching her pale face, and marking the convulsion of a bitter smile, that came and went like a grimace of pain on her mouth.

“I know – so he told you! And I let it stand! In gallant defence of his manor and his men! I tell you, he never drew sword, he left his people to be slaughtered, and ran like a rat. And forced me with him! No man of my blood ever before turned his back and abandoned his own people to die! This he did to me, and I cannot forgive it. And I had thought I loved him! I will tell you,” she said, “how he got that wound of his that betrayed him in the end. All that first day at Ledwyche he drove his men at cutting fence-pales and building barricades, and he with never a scratch on him. And all that day I brooded and was shamed, and in the evening, when he came, I told him I would not marry him, that I would not match with a coward. He had not touched me until then, he had been all duty and service, but when he saw he would lose both me and my lands, then it was another story.”

Cadfael understood. Marriage by rape, once the thing was done, and privately, would be accepted by most families as preferable to causing an ugly scandal and starting a feud. No uncommon practise to take first and marry after.

“I had a dagger,” she said grimly. “I have it still. It was I who wounded him, and I struck for his heart, but it went astray and ripped down from shoulder to arm. Well, you have seen...” She looked down at the folded habit that lay beside her on the bench. “And while he was raving and cursing and dripping blood, and they were running to staunch his wound and bandage him, I slipped out into the night and ran. He would follow me, that I knew. He could not afford to let me escape him, after that, marry or bury were the only ways. He would expect me to run towards the road and the town. Where else? So I did, but only until the woods covered my traces, and then I circled back and hid. I told you, I saw him ride out, weakened as he was, in a great rage, the way I knew he would go.”

“Alone?”

“Of course alone. He would not want witnesses for either rape or murder. Those within had their orders. And I saw him ride back, freshly bloodied through his bandages, though I thought nothing of it then but that he had exerted himself too rashly.” She shuddered at the thought of that exertion. “When he was cheated of me, he took out his venom on the first woman who fell in his way, and so avenged himself. For myself I would not have accused him. I had the better of him, and I had brought it on myself. But what had she done?”

It was the eternal question, and the one to which there exists no answer. Why do the innocent suffer?

“And yet,” she said doubtfully, “it may be true what he says. He was not used to being thwarted, it made him mad... He had a devil’s temper. God forgive me, I used almost to admire him for it once...”

Yes, it might be true that he had killed without meaning to, and in panic sought to cover up his deed. Or it might be that he had reasoned coldly that a dead woman could never accuse him, and made sure of her eternal silence. Let those judge who were appointed to do the judging, here in this world.

“Don’t tell Yves!” said Ermina. “I will do that, when the time comes. But not here. Not now!”

No, there was no need to say any word to the boy of the battle that was over. Evrard Boterei was gone to Ludlow under armed escort, and there was no sign in the great court that ever a crime had been uncovered. Peace came back to Bromfield very softly, almost stealthily. In less than half an hour it would be time for Vespers.

“After supper,” said Cadfael, “you should go to your bed, and get some hours of sleep, and the boy also. I will keep watch and let your squire in.”

He had chosen his words well. It was like the coming of the thaw outside. She lifted her face to him like a flower opening, and all the bitter sadness of guilt and folly regretted melted away and fell from her before such a radiance that Cadfael’s eyes dazzled. From death and the past she leaned eagerly to life and the future. He did not think she was making any mistake this time, nor that any power would now turn her from her allegiance.

There was a small congregation in the parish part of the church even at Compline that night, a dozen or so goodmen of the district, come to offer devout thanks for deliverance from terror. Even the weather partook of the general grace, for there was barely a touch of frost in the air, and the sky was clear and starry. Not a bad night for setting out on a journey.

Cadfael knew what to look for by now, but for all that it took him a little time to single out the bowed black head for which he was searching. Marvellous that a creature so remarkable could become at will so unremarked. When Compline ended, it was no surprise to count the villagers leaving, and make them one less than had entered. Olivier could not only look like a local lad when he pleased, he could also vanish into shadow without a sound, and remain as still as the stones about him.

They were all gone, the villagers to their homes, the brothers to the warming-room for half an hour of relaxation before bed. The chill dark bulk of the church was silent.

“Olivier,” said Brother Cadfael, “come forth and be easy. Your wards are getting their rest until midnight, and have trusted you to me.”

The shadows stirred, and gave forth the shape of a lean, lissome, youthful body, instantly advancing to be seen. He had not thought wise or fit to bring his sword with him into a sacred place. He trod without sound, light as a cat. “You know me?”

“From her I know you. If the boy promised silence, be content, he has kept his word. She chose to trust me.”

“Then so can I,” said the young man, and drew nearer. “You have privilege here? For I see you come and go as you please.”

“I am not a brother of the house, but of Shrewsbury. I have a patient here mending, my justification for an irregular life. At the battle up there you saw him – the same distraught soul who marched into peril of his life and gave Yves the chance to break free.”

“I am much in his debt.” The voice was low, earnest and assured. “And in yours, too, I think, for you must be the brother to whom the boy ran, the same of whom he spoke, the one who first brought him safe to this house. The name he gave you I do not remember.”

“My name is Cadfael. Wait but a moment, till I look out and see if all are within...” In the sinking glow of torchlight, the last of the evening, the court showed its pattern of black and white as the paths crossed, empty, quiet and still. “Come!” said Cadfael. “We can offer you a warmer place to wait, if not a holier. I advised leaving while the brethren are at Matins and Lauds, for the porter will also attend, and I can let you out at the wicket in peace. But your horses?”

“They are handy, and in shelter,” said Olivier serenely. “There is a boy goes with me, orphaned at Whitbache, he has them in charge. He will wait until we come. I will go with you, Brother Cadfael.” He tasted the name delicately if inaccurately, finding it strange on his tongue. He laughed, very softly, surrendering his hand to be led half-blind wherever his guide wished. Thus hand in hand they went out by the cloister, and threaded the maze to the infirmary door.

In the inner room Brother Elyas lay monumentally asleep, long, splendid and calm, stretched on his back, with lean hands easy on his breast, and face serene and handsome. A tomb-figure carved to flatter and ennoble the dead man beneath, but this man lived and breathed evenly, and the large, rounded lids over his sleeping eyes were placid as a child’s. Brother Elyas gathered within him the grace that healed body and mind, and made no overweening claim on a guilt beyond his due.

No need to agonize any more over Brother Elyas. Cadfael closed the door on him, and sat down in the dim anteroom with his guest. They had, perhaps, as much as two hours before midnight and Matins.

The small room, bare and stony and lit by only one candle, had a secret intimacy about it at this late hour. They were quiet together, the young man and the elder, eyeing each other with open and amiable curiosity. Long silences did not disturb them, and when they spoke their voices were low, reflective and at peace. They might have known each other life long. Life long? The one of them could surely be no more than five or six and twenty, and a stranger from a strange land.

“You may have a hazardous journey yet,” said Cadfael. “In your shoes I would leave the highways after Leominster, and avoid Hereford.” He grew enthusiastic, and went into some detail about the route to be preferred, even drawing a plan of the ways as he remembered them, with a charcoal stick on the stones of the floor. The boy leaned and peered, all willing attention, and looked up into Cadfael’s face at close quarters with a mettlesome lift of the head and a swift, brilliant smile. Everything about him was stirring and strange, and yet from time to time Cadfael caught his breath as at a fleeting glimpse of something familiar, but so long past that the illusion was gone before he could grasp it, and search back in his memory for the place and the time where it belonged.

“All this you are doing in pure goodwill,” said Olivier, his smile at once challenging and amused, “and you know nothing of me! How can you be sure I am fit to be trusted with this errand, and take no advantage for my lord and my empress?”

“Ah, but I do know something of you, more than you may think. I know that you are called Olivier de Bretagne, and that you came with Laurence d’Angers from Tripoli. I know that you have been in his service six years, and are his most trusted squire. I know that you were born in Syria, of a Syrian mother and a Frankish knight, and that you made your way to Jerusalem to join your father’s people and your father’s faith.” And I know more, he thought, recalling the girl’s rapt face and devout voice as she praised her paladin. I know that Ermina Hugonin, who is well worth winning, has set her heart on you, and will not easily give up, and by that amber stare of yours, and the blood mounting to your brow, I know that you have set your heart on her, and that you will not undervalue your own worth by comparison with her, or let any other make it a barrier between you, no matter in what obscure way you came into this world. Between the two of you, it would be a bold uncle who would stand in your way.

“She does indeed trust you!” said Olivier, intent and solemn.

“So she may, and so may you. You are here on an honourable quest, and have done well in it. I am for you, and for them, sister and brother both. I have seen their mettle and yours.”

“But for all that,” owned Olivier, relaxing into a rueful smile, “she has somewhat deceived you and herself. For her every Frankish soldier of the Crusade could be nothing less than a noble knight. And the most of them were none, but runaway younger sons, romantic boys from the byre and the field, rogues one leap ahead of the officers for theft or highway robbery or breaking open some church almsbox. No worse than most other men, but no better. Not even every lord with a horse and a lance was another Godfrey of Bouillon or Guimar de Massard. And my father was no knight, but a simple man-at-arms of Robert of Normandy’s forces. And my mother was a poor widow who had a booth in the market of Antioch. And I am their bastard, got between faiths between peoples, a mongrel afterthought before they parted. But for all that, she was beautiful and loving, and he was brave and kind, and I think myself well mothered and fathered, and the equal of any man living. And I shall make that good before Ermina’s kin, and they will acknowledge it and give her to me!” His deep, soft voice had grown urgent, and his hawk-face passionately earnest, and at the end of it he drew breath deep, and smiled. “I do not know why I tell you all this, except that I have seen you care for her, and wish her the future she deserves. I should like you to think well of me.”

“I am a common man myself,” said Cadfael comfortably, “and have found as good in the kennel as in the court. She is dead, your mother?”

“Else I would not have left her. I was fourteen years old when she died.”

“And your father?”

“I never knew him, nor he me. He sailed for England from St Symeon after their last meeting, and never knew he had left her a son. They had been lovers long before, when he came fresh to Syria. She never would tell me his name, though often she praised him. There cannot be much amiss,” said Olivier thoughtfully, “with a mating that left her such fondness and pride.”

“Half mankind matches without ritual blessing,” said Cadfael, surprised at the stirring of his own thoughts. “Not necessarily the worse half. At least no money passes then, and no lands are prized before the woman.”

Olivier looked up, suddenly aware of the oddity of these exchanges, and laughed, but softly, not to disturb the sleeper next door. “Brother, these walls are hearing curious confidences, and I am learning how wide is the Benedictine scope. I might well imagine you speak of your own knowledge.”

“I was in the world forty years,” said Cadfael simply, “before I chose this discipline for my cure. I have been soldier, sailor and sinner. Even crusader! At least that was pure, however the cause fell short of my hopes. I was very young then. I knew both Tripoli and Antioch, once. I knew Jerusalem. They will all have changed now, that was long ago.”

Long ago, yes – twenty-seven years since he had left those shores!

The young man grew talkative at finding so knowledgeable a companion. For all his knightly ambitions and his dedication to a new faith, a part of him leaned back with longing to his native land. He began to talk of the royal city, and of old campaigns, to question eagerly of events before ever he was born, and to extol the charm of remembered places.

“I wonder, though,” admitted Cadfael wryly, recalling how far his own cause had often fallen short, and how often the paynim against whom he had fought had seemed to him the nobler and the braver, “I wonder, born into such a faith, that you should find it easy to leave it, even for a father.” He rose as he spoke, recollecting how time must be passing. “I should be waking them. It cannot be long to the Matins bell.”

“It was not easy at all,” said Olivier, pondering in some surprise that the same doubt had so seldom troubled him. “I was torn, a long time. It was from my mother I had, as it were, the sign that turned the scale. Given the difference in our tongues, my mother bore the same name as your Lady Mary...”

Behind Cadfael’s back the door of the little room had opened very softly. He turned his head to see Ermina, flushed and young from sleep, standing in the doorway.

“... she was called Mariam,” said Olivier.

“I have roused Yves,” said Ermina, just above a whisper. “I am ready.”

Her eyes, huge and clear, all the agonizing of the day washed away by sleep, clung to Olivier’s face, and at the sound of her voice he flung up his head and answered the look as nakedly as if they had embraced heart to heart. Brother Cadfael stood amazed and enlightened. It was not the name the boy had spoken, it was the wild rise of his head, the softened light over his cheek and brow, the unveiled, unguarded blaze of love, turning the proud male face momentarily into a woman’s face, one known and remembered through twenty-seven years of absence.

Cadfael turned like a man in a dream, and left them together, and went to help a sleepy Yves to dress and make ready for his journey.

He let them out by the wicket door while the brothers were at Matins. The girl took a grave and dignified leave, and asked his prayers. The boy, still half asleep, lifted his face for the kiss proper between respected elder and departing child, and the young man, in generous innocence and in acknowledgement of a parting probably lifelong, copied the tribute and offered an olive cheek. He did not wonder at Cadfael’s silence, for after all, the night demanded silence and discretion.

Cadfael did not stand to watch them go, but closed the wicket again, and went back to sit beside Brother Elyas, and let the wonder and the triumph wash over him in wave on wave of exultation. Nunc dimittis! No need to speak, no need to make any claim, or trouble in any way the course Olivier had set himself. What need had he now of that father of his? But I have seen him, rejoiced Cadfael, I have had him by the hand in the darkness, I have sat with him and talked of time past, I have kissed him, I have had cause to be glad of him, and shall have cause to be glad lifelong. There is a marvellous creature in the world with my blood in his veins, and Mariam’s blood, and what does it matter whether these eyes ever see him again? And yet they may, even in this world! Who knows?

The night passed sweetly over him. He fell asleep where he sat, and dreamed of unimaginable and undeserved mercies until the bell rang for Prime.

He thought it politic, on reflection, to be the first to discover the defection and raise the mild alarm. There was a search, but the guests were gone, and it was not the business of the brothers to confine or pursue them, and the only anxiety Prior Leonard expressed was for the fugitives themselves, that they might go in safety, and come safely to their proper guardian. Indeed, Prior Leonard received the whole affair with a degree of complacency that Cadfael found faintly suspicious, though it might have been only a reflection of the distracted elation he himself could not quite dissemble. The discovery that Ermina had stripped the rings from her fingers and left them, with the carefully folded habit, on Sister Hilaria’s sealed coffin as an offering, absolved the runaways from the charge of ingratitude.

“But what the deputy sheriff will say is another matter,” sighed Prior Leonard, snaking an apprehensive head.

Hugh did not present himself until it was time for High Mass, and heard the news with a very appropriate and official show of displeasure, only to shrug it off as of secondary importance, considering the weightier matters he had dealt with successfully.

“Well, they have saved us an escort, then, and so they get safe to d’Angers, so much the better if it’s at his expense. We have rooted out that lair of wolves, and sent a murderer off this morning towards Shrewsbury, and that was the chief of my business here. And I’m off after my men within the hour, and you may as well ride with me, Cadfael, for I fancy your business here is just as well concluded as mine.”

Brother Cadfael thought so, too. Elyas had no more need of him, and to linger where those three had been had no more meaning now. At noon he saddled up and took his leave of Leonard and rode with Hugh Beringar for Shrewsbury.

The sky was veiled but benign, the air cold but still and clear, a good day for going home well content. They had not ridden thus knee to knee in peace and without haste for some time, and the companionship was good, whether in speech or silence.

“So you got your children away without a hitch,” said Hugh innocently. “I thought it could safely be left to you.”

Cadfael gave him a measuring and mildly resentful look, and could feel no great surprise. “I should have known! I thought you made and kept yourself very scarce overnight. I suppose it wouldn’t have done for a deputy sheriff with your reputation for sharpness to sleep the night through while his hostages slipped away quietly for Gloucester.” Not to speak of their escort, he thought, but did not say. Hugh had noted the quality of the supposed forester’s son, and even guessed at his purpose, but Hugh did not know his name and lineage. Some day, when wars ended and England became one again, some day Hugh might be told what now Cadfael hugged his heart in secret. But not yet! It was too new a visitation, he could spare none of the miraculous, the astonishing grace. “From Ludlow,” he said, “I grant you could hardly be expected to hear the wicket at Bromfield open and close at midnight. You did not leave Boterei in Dinan’s care, then?”

“I was none too sure there would not be another departure in the night,” said Hugh. “He is Dinan’s tenant. We have taken confession from him, but I would rather have him safe under lock and key in Shrewsbury castle.”

“Will he hang, do you think?”

“I doubt it. Let those judge whose work is judging. My work is to hold the ways safe for travellers, as far as man can, and apprehend murderers. And let honest men, women and children go their ways freely, with my goodwill.”

They were more than halfway to Shrewsbury and the light still good, and Hugh’s pace began to quicken, and his gaze to prick eagerly ahead, hungry for the first sight of the hill-top towers within the wall. Aline would be waiting for him, proud and fond, and deep in happy preparations for the Christmas feast.

“My son will be grown out of knowledge during these days I’ve been away. All must be very well with them both, or Constance would have been sending after me. And you have not even seen my son yet, Cadfael!”

But you have seen mine, thought Cadfael, rapt and silent beside him, though you do not know it.

“Long-boned and strong – he’ll be taller than his father by a head...”

He is taller by a head, Cadfael exulted. Taller by a head and something to spare. And what paragons of beauty and gallantry may not spring from his union with that imperial girl!

“Wait until you see him! A son to be proud of!”

Cadfael road mute and content, still full of the wonder and astonishment, all elation and all humility. Eleven more days to the Christmas feast, and no shadow hanging over it now, only a great light. A time of births, of triumphant begettings, and this year how richly celebrated – the son of the young woman from Worcester, the son of Aline and Hugh, the son of Mariam, the Son of Man...

A son to be proud of! Yes, amen!