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him lie still, and packed it round as
well as I could, but it needs your hand to set it. And he lay half in the brook
a long time before the young man found him, I fear he’s taken a chill.” Eilmund
lay well covered, and by now grimly reconciled to his helplessness. He
submitted stoically to Cadfael’s handling, and gritted his teeth and made no
other sound as his leg was straightened and the fractured ends of bone brought
into line.
    “You
might have come off worse,” said Cadfael, relieved. “A good clean break, and
small damage to the flesh, though it’s a pity they had to move you.”
    “I
might have drowned else,” growled Eilmund, “the brook was building. And you’d
best tell the lord abbot to get men out here and shift the tree, before we have
a lake there again.”
    “I
will, I will! Now, hold fast! I don’t want to leave you with one leg shorter
than the other.” By heel and instep he drew out the broken leg steadily to
match its fellow. “Now, Annet, your hands where mine are, and hold it so.” She
had not wasted her time while waiting, but had hunted out straight spars of
wood from Eilmund’s store, and had ready sheep’s wool for padding, and rolled
linen for bindings. Between them they completed the work neatly, and Eilmund
lay back on his brychan and heaved a great breath. His face, weatherbeaten
always, nonetheless had a fierce flush over the cheekbones. Cadfael was not
quite easy about it.
    “Now
if you can rest and sleep, so much the better. Leave the lord abbot, and the
tree, and everything else that needs to be dealt with here, to me, I’ll see it
cared for. I’ll make you a draught that will ease the pain and help you to
sleep.” He mixed it and administered it to Eilmund’s scornful denial of the
need, but it went down without protest nonetheless. “And sleep he will,” said
Cadfael to the girl, as they withdrew into the outer room. “But make sure he
keeps warm and covered through the night, for there may be a slight fever if
he’s taken cold. I’ll make certain I get leave to go back and forth for a day
or two, till I see all’s well. If he gives you a hard time, bear with him, it
will mean he’s taken no great harm.” She laughed softly, undisturbed. “Oh, he’s
mild as milk for me. He growls, but never bites. I know how to manage him.”
    It
was already beginning to be twilight when she opened the house door. The sky
above was still faintly golden with the moist, mysterious afterglow, dripping
light between the dark branches of the trees that surrounded the garden. And
there in the turf by the gate Hyacinth was sitting motionless, waiting with the
timeless patience of the tree against which his straight, supple back was
braced. Even so his stillness had the suggestion of a wild thing in ambush. Or
perhaps, thought Cadfael, changing his mind, of a hunted wild thing trusting to
silence and stillness to be invisible to the hunter. As soon as he saw the door
open he was on his feet in a single lissome movement, though he did not come
within the pale.
    Twilight
or no, Cadfael saw the glance that locked and held fast between the youth and
the girl. Hyacinth’s face was still and mute as bronze, but a gleam of the
fading light caught the amber brilliance of his eyes, fierce and secret as a
cat’s, and a sudden quickening and darkening in their depths that was reflected
in the flush and brightness in Annet’s startled countenance. It was no great
surprise. The girl was pretty, and the boy undoubtedly attractive, all the more
because he had been of invaluable service to her father. And it was natural and
human, that that circumstance should endear father and daughter to him, no less
than him to them. Nothing is more pleasing and engaging than the sense of
having conferred benefits. Not even the gratification of receiving them. I’ll
be on my way, then,” said Cadfael to the unregarding air, and mounted softly,
not to