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would never be a
threat to his cousin’s life, however bitter their rivalry had been, but if once
she was made captive he would be forced to hold her in close ward for his
crown’s sake. Nor was she likely ever to relinquish her claim, even in prison,
and agree to terms that would lightly release her. Friends and allies thus
parted might, in very truth, never see each other again. “And a single brave man
did attempt it,” reflected Cadfael soberly. “And his horse found straying, his
harness awry, his saddlebags emptied, and blood on saddle and saddlecloth. So
where is Renaud Bourchier? Murdered for what he carried, and buried somewhere
in the woods or slung into the river?”
    “What
else can a man think? They have not found his body yet. Round Oxford men have
other things to do this autumn besides scour the woods for a dead man. There
are dead men enough to bury after the looting and burning of Oxford town,” said
Hugh with dry bitterness, almost resigned to the random slaughters of this
capricious civil war.
    “I
wonder how many within the castle knew of his errand? She would hardly blazon
abroad her intent, but someone surely got wind of it.”
    “So
it seems, and made very ill use of what he knew.” Hugh shook himself, heaving
off from his shoulders the distant evils that were out of his writ. “Thanks be
to God, I am not sheriff of Oxfordshire! Our troubles here are mild enough, a
little family bickering that leads to blows now and then, a bit of thieving,
the customary poaching in season. Oh, and of course the bewitchment that seems
to have fallen on your woodland of Eyton.” Cadfael had told him what the abbot,
perhaps, had not thought important enough to tell, that Dionisia had somehow
coaxed her hermit into her quarrel, and that good man had surely taken very
seriously her impersonation of a grieving grandam cruelly deprived of the
society of her only grandhild. “And he fears worse to come, does he? I wonder
what the next news from Eyton will be?”
    As
it so happened the next news from Eyton was just hurrying towards them round
the corner of the tall box hedge, borne by a novice despatched in haste by
Prior Robert from the gatehouse. He came at a run, the skirts of his habit
billowing, and pulled up with just enough breath to get out his message without
waiting to be asked.
    “Brother
Cadfael, you’re wanted urgently. The hermit’s boy’s come back to say you’re
needed at Eilmund’s assart, and Father Abbot says take a horse and go quickly,
and bring him back word how the forester does. There’s been another landslip,
and a tree came down on him. His leg’s broken.” They offered Hyacinth rest and
a good meal for his trouble, but he would not stay. As long as he could hold
the pace he clung by Cadfael’s stirrup leather and ran with him, and even when
he was forced to slacken and let Cadfael ride on before at his best speed, the
youth trotted doggedly and steadily behind, bent on getting back to the
woodland cottage, it seemed, rather than to his master’s cell. He had been a
good friend to Eilmund, Cadfael reflected, but he might come in for a lashing
with tongue or rod when he at last returned to his sworn duty. Though Cadfael
could not, on consideration, picture that wild, unchancy creature submitting
tamely to reproof, much less to punishment. It was about the hour for Vespers
when Cadfael dismounted within the low pale of Eilmund’s garden, and the girl
flung open the door and came out eagerly to meet him.
    “Brother,
I hardly expected you for a while yet. Cuthred’s boy must have run like the
wind, and all that way! And after he’d soaked himself in the brook getting my
father clear! We’ve had good cause to be glad of him and his master this day,
there might have been no one else by for hours.”
    “How
is he?” asked Cadfael, unslinging his scrip and making for the house. “His
leg’s broken below the knee. I’ve made