The Pilgrim Of Hate Part 8

"And go with you, master!" the boy called after him, and watched until a curve of the road took horse and rider out of sight beyond a stand of trees. The goats gathered closer; evening was near, and they were ready to turn homeward, knowing the hour by the sun as well as did their herder. The boy drew in their tethers, whistled to them cheerily, and moved on along the road to his homeward path through the fields.

Olivier came for the second time to the bridge over the Severn, one bank a steep, tree-clad escarpment, the other open, level meadow. Beyond the first plane of fields a winding track turned off to the right, between scattered stands of trees, bearing at this point rather south than west, but after a mile or more it brought him on to a better road that crossed his track left and right. He bore right into the sun, as he had been instructed, and at the next place where two dwindling paths divided he turned left, and keeping his course by the sinking sun on his right hand, now just resting upon the rim of the world and glimmering through the trees in sudden blinding glimpses, began to work his way gradually round the town of Shrewsbury. The tracks wound in and out of copses, the fringe woods of the northern tip of the Long Forest, sometimes in twilight among dense trees, sometimes in open heath and scrub, sometimes past islets of cultivated fields and glimpses of hamlets. He rode with ears p.r.i.c.ked for any promising sound, pausing wherever his labyrinthine path crossed a track bearing westward out of Shrewsbury, and wherever he met with cottage or a.s.sart he asked after his two travellers. No one had seen such a pair pa.s.s by. Olivier took heart. They had had some hours start of him, but if they had not pa.s.sed westward by any of the roads he had yet crossed, they might still be within the circle he was drawing about the town. The barefoot one would not find these ways easy going, and might have been forced to take frequent rests. At the worst, even if he missed them in the end, this meandering route must bring him round at last to the highroad by which he had first approached Shrewsbury from the south-east, and he could ride back into the town to Hugh Beringar's welcome, none the worse for a little exercise in a fine evening.

Brother Cadfael had wasted no time in clambering into his boots, kilting his habit, and taking and saddling the best horse he could find in the stables. It was not often he had the chance to indulge himself with such half-forgotten delights, but he was not thinking of that now. He had left considered word with the messenger who was already hurrying across the bridge and into the town, to alert Hugh; and Hugh would ask no questions, as the abbot had asked none, recognising the grim urgency there was no leisure now to explain.

"Say to Hugh Beringar," the order ran, "that Ciaran will make for the Welsh border the nearest way, but avoiding the too open roads. I think he'll bear south a small way to the old road the Romans made, that we've been fools enough to let run wild, for it keeps a steady level and makes straight for the border north of Caus."

That was drawing a bow at a venture, and he knew it, none better. Ciaran was not of these parts, though he might well have some knowledge of the borderland if he had kin on the Welsh side. But more than that, he had been here these three days past, and if he had been planning some such escape all that time, he could have picked the brains of brothers and guests, on easily plausible ground. Time pressed, and sound guessing was needed. Cadfael chose his way, and set about pursuing it.

He did not waste time in going decorously out at the gatehouse and round by the road to take up the chase westward, but led his horse at a trot through the gardens, to the blank astonishment of Brother Jerome, who happened to be crossing to the cloisters a good ten minutes early for Compline. No doubt he would report, with a sense of outrage, to Prior Robert. Cadfael as promptly forgot him, leading the horse round the unharvested pease field and down to the quiet green stretches of the brook, and across to the narrow meadow, where he mounted. The sun was dipping its rim beyond the crowns of the trees to westward. Into that half-s.h.i.+ne, half-shadow Cadfael spurred, and made good speed while the tracks were familiar to him as his own palm. Due west until he hit the road, a half-mile on the road at a canter, until it turned too far to the south, and then westward again for the setting sun. Ciaran had a long start, even of Matthew, let alone of all those who followed now. But Ciaran was lame, burdened and afraid. Almost he was to be pitied.

Half a mile further on, at an inconspicuous track which he knew, Cadfael again turned to bear south-west, and burrowed into deepest shade, and into the northernmost woodlands of the Long Forest. No more than a narrow forest ride, this, between sweeping branches, a fragment of ancient wood not worth clearing for an a.s.sart, being bedded on rock that broke surface here and there. This was not yet border country, but close kin to it, heaving into fretful outcrops that broke the thin soil, bearing heather and coa.r.s.e upland gra.s.ses, scrub bushes and sparsity trees, then bringing forth prodigal life roofed by very old trees in every wet hollow. A little further on this course, and the close, dark woods began, tall top cover, heavy interweaving of middle growth, and a tangle of bush and bramble and ground-cover below. Undisturbed forest, though there were rare islands of tillage bright and open within it, every one an astonishment.

Then he came to the old, old road, that sliced like a knife across his path, heading due east, due west. He wondered about the men who had made it. It was shrunken now from a soldiers' road to a narrow ride, mostly under thin turf, but it ran as it had always run since it was made, true and straight as a lance, perfectly levelled where a level was possible, relentlessly climbing and descending where some hummock barred the way. Cadfael turned west into it, and rode straight for the golden upper arc of sun that still glowed between the branches.

In the parcel of old forest north and west of the hamlet of Hanwood there were groves where stray outlaws could find ample cover, provided they stayed clear of the few settlements within reach. Local people tended to fence their holdings and band together to protect their own small ground. The forest was for plundering, poaching, pasturing of swine, all with secure precautions. Travellers, though they might call on hospitality and aid where needed, must fend for themselves in the thicker coverts, if they cared to venture through them. By and large, safety here in Shrops.h.i.+re under Hugh Beringar was as good as anywhere in England, and encroachment by vagabonds could not survive long, but for brief occupation the cover was there, and unwanted tenants might take up occupation if pressed.

Several of the lesser manors in these border regions had declined by reason of their perilous location, and some were half-deserted, leaving their fields untilled. Until April of this year the border castle of Caus had been in Welsh hands, an added threat to peaceful occupation, and there had not yet been time since Hugh's reclamation of the castle for the depleted hamlets to re-establish themselves. Moreover, in this high summer it was no hards.h.i.+p to live wild, and skilful poaching and a little profitable thievery could keep two or three good fellows in meat while they allowed time for their exploits in the south to be forgotten, and made up their minds where best to pa.s.s the time until a return home seemed possible.

Master Simeon Poer, self-styled merchant of Guildford, was not at all ill-content with the pickings made in Shrewsbury. In three nights, which was the longest they dared reckon on operating unsuspected, they had taken a fair amount of money from the hopeful gamblers of the town and Foregate, besides the price Daniel Aurifaber had paid for the stolen ring, the various odds and ends William Hales had abstracted from market stalls, and the coins John Shure had used his long, smooth, waxed finger-nails to extract from pocket and purse in the crowds. It was a pity they had had to leave William Hales to his fate during the raid, but all in all they had done well to get out of it with no more than a bruise or two, and one man short. Bad luck for William, but it was the way the lot had fallen. Every man knew it could happen to him.

They had avoided the used tracks, refraining from meddling with any of the local people going about their business, and done their plundering by night and stealthily, after first making sure where there were dogs to be reckoned with. They even had a roof of sorts, for in the deepest thickets below the old road, overgrown and well-concealed, they had found the remains of a hut, relic of a failed a.s.sart abandoned long ago. After a few days more of this easy living, or if the weather should change, they would set off to make their way somewhat south, to be well clear of Shrewsbury before moving across to the east, to s.h.i.+res where they were not yet known.

When the rare traveller came past on the road, it was almost always a local man, and they let him alone, for he would be missed all too soon, and the hunt would be up in a day. But they would not have been averse to waylaying any solitary who was clearly a stranger and on his way to more distant places, since he was unlikely to be missed at once, and further, he was likely to be better worth robbing, having on him the means to finance his journey, however modestly. In these woods and thickets, a man could vanish very neatly, and for ever.

They had made themselves comfortable that night outside their hut, with the embers of their fire safe in the clay-lined hollow they had made for it, and the grease of the stolen chicken still on their fingers. The sunset of the outer world was already twilight here, but they had their night eyes, and were wide awake and full of restless energy after an idle day. Walter Bagot was charged with keeping such watch as they thought needful, and had made his way in cover some distance along the narrow track towards the town. He came sliding back in haste, but s.h.i.+ning with antic.i.p.ation instead of alarm.

"Here's one coming we may safely pick off. The barefoot fellow from the abbey... well back as yet, and lame as ever, he's been among the stones, surely. Not a soul will know where he went to."

"He?" said Simeon Poer, surprised. "Fool, he has always his shadow breathing down his neck. It would mean both, if one got away he'd raise the hunt on us."

"He has not his shadow now," said Bagot gleefully. "Alone, I tell you, he's shaken him off, or else they've parted by consent. Who else cares a groat what becomes of him?"

"And a groat's his worth," said Shure scornfully. "Let him go. It's never worth it for his hose and s.h.i.+rt, and what else can he have on him?"

"Ah, but he has! Money, my friend!" said Bagot, glittering. "Make no mistake, that one goes very well provided, if he takes good care not to let it be known. I know! I've felt my way about him every time I could get crowded against him in church, he has a solid, heavy purse belted about him inside coat, hose, s.h.i.+rt and all, but I never could get my fingers into it without using the knife, and that was too risky. He can pay his way wherever he goes. Come, rouse, he'll be an easy mark now."

He was certain, and they were heartily willing to pick up an extra purse. They rose merrily, hands on daggers, worming their way quietly through the underbrush towards the thin thread of the track, above which the ribbon of clear sky showed pale and bright still. Shure and Bagot lurking invisible on the near side of the path, Simeon Poer across it, behind the lush screen of bushes that took advantage of the open light to grow leafy and tall. There were very old trees in their tract of forest, enormous beeches with trunks so gnarled and thick three men with arms outspread could hardly clip them. Old woodland was being cleared, a.s.sarted and turned into hunting-grounds in many places, but the Long Forest still preserved large tracts of virgin growth untouched. In the green dimness the three masterless men stood still as the trees, and waited.

Then they heard him. Dogged, steady, laborious steps that stirred the coa.r.s.e gra.s.ses. In the turfed verge of a highroad he could have gone with less pain and covered twice the miles he had accomplished on these rough ways. They heard his heavy breathing while he was still twenty yards away from them, and saw his tall, dark figure stir the dimness, leaning forward on a long, knotty staff he had picked up somewhere from among the debris of the trees. It seemed that he favoured the right foot, though both trod with wincing tenderness, as though he had trodden askew on a sharp-edged stone, and either cut his sole or twisted his ankle-joint. He was piteous, if there had been anyone to pity him.

He went with ears p.r.i.c.ked, and the very hairs of his skin erected, in as intense wariness as any of the small nocturnal creatures that crept and quaked in the underbrush around him. He had walked in fear every step of the miles he had gone in company, but now, cast loose to his own dreadful company, he was even more afraid. Escape was no escape at all.

It was the extremity of his fear that saved him. They had let him pa.s.s slowly by the first covert, so that Bagot might be behind him, and Poer and Shure one on either side before him. It was not so much his straining ears as the p.r.i.c.kly sensitivity of his skin that sensed the sudden rus.h.i.+ng presence at his back, the s.h.i.+fting of the cool evening air, and the weight of body and arm launched at him almost silently. He gave a muted shriek and whirled about, sweeping the staff around him, and the knife that should have impaled him struck the branch and sliced a ribbon of bark and wood from it. Bagot reached with his left hand for a grip on sleeve or coat, and struck again as nimbly as a snake, but missed his hold as Ciaran leaped wildly back out of reach, and driven beyond himself by terror, turned and plunged away on his lacerated feet, aside from the path and into the deepest and thickest shadows among the tangled trees. He hissed and moaned with pain as he went, but he ran like a startled hare.

Who would have thought he could still move so fast, once pushed to extremes? But he could not keep it up long, the spur would not carry him far. The three of them went after, spreading out a little to hem him from three sides when he fell exhausted. They were giggling as they went, and in no special haste. The mingled sounds of his cras.h.i.+ng pa.s.sage through the bushes and his uncontrollable whining with the pain of it, rang unbelievably strangely in the twilit woods.

Branches and brambles lashed Ciaran's face. He ran blindly, sweeping the long staff before him, cutting a noisy swathe through the bushes and stumbling painfully in the thick ground-debris of dead branches and soft, treacherous pits of the leaves of many years. They followed at leisure, aware that he was slowing. The lean, agile tailor had drawn level with him, somewhat aside, and was bearing round to cut him off, still with breath enough to whistle to his fellows as they closed unhurriedly, like dogs herding a stray sheep. Ciaran fell out into a more open glade, where a huge old beech had preserved its own clearing, and with what was left of his failing breath he made a last dash to cross the open and vanish again into the thickets beyond. The dry silt of leaves among the roots betrayed him. His footing slid from under him, and fetched him down heavily against the bole of the tree. He had just time to drag himself up and set his back to the broad trunk before they were on him.

He flailed about him with the staff, screaming for aid, and never even knew on what name he was calling in his extremity.

"Help! Murder! Matthew, Matthew, help me!"

There was no answering shout, but there was an abrupt thras.h.i.+ng of branches, and something hurtled out of cover and across the gra.s.s, so suddenly that Bagot was shouldered aside and stumbled to his knees. A long arm swept Ciaran back hard against the solid bole of the tree, and Matthew stood braced beside him, his dagger naked in his hand. What remained of the western light showed his face roused and formidable, and gleamed along the blade.

"Oh, no!" he challenged loud and clear, lips drawn back from bared teeth. "Keep your hands off! This man is mine!"

Chapter Fourteen.

THE THREE ATTACKERS had drawn off instinctively, before they realised that this was but one man erupting in their midst, but they were quick to grasp it, and had not gone far. They stood, wary as beasts of prey but undeterred, weaving a little in a slow circle out of reach, but with no thought of withdrawing. They watched and considered, weighing up coldly these altered odds. Two men and a knife to reckon with now, and this second one they knew as well as the first. They had been some days frequenting the same enclave, using the same dortoir and refectory. They reasoned without dismay that they must be known as well as they knew their prey. The twilight made faces shadowy, but a man is recognised by more things than his face.

"I said it, did I not?" said Simeon Poer, exchanging glances with his henchmen, glances which were understood even in the dim light. "I said he would not be far. No matter, two can lie as snug as one."

Once having declared his claim and his rights, Matthew said nothing. The tree against which they braced themselves was so grown that they could not be attacked from close behind. He circled it steadily when Bagot edged round to the far side, keeping his face to the enemy. There were three to watch, and Ciaran was shaken and lame, and in no case to match any of the three if it came to action, though he kept his side of the trunk with his staff gripped and ready, and would fight if he must, tooth and claw, for his forfeit life. Matthew curled his lips in a bitter smile at the thought that he might be grateful yet for that strong appet.i.te for living.

Round the bole of the tree, with his cheek against the bark, Ciaran said, low-voiced: "You'd have done better not to follow me."

"Did I not swear to go with you to the very end?" said Matthew as softly. "I keep my vows. This one above all."

"Yet you could still have crept away safely. Now we are two dead men."

"Not yet! If you did not want me, why did you call me?"

There was a bewildered silence. Ciaran did not know he had uttered a name.

"We are grown used to each other," said Matthew grimly. "You claimed me, as I claim you. Do you think I'll let any other man have you?"

The three watchers had gathered in a shadowy group, conferring with heads together, and faces still turned towards their prey.

"Now they'll come," said Ciaran in the dead voice of despair.

"No, they'll wait for darkness."

They were in no hurry. They made no loose, threatening moves, wasted no breath on words. They bided their time as patiently as hunting animals. Silently they separated, s.p.a.cing themselves round the clearing, and backing just far enough into cover to be barely visible, yet visible all the same, for their presence and stillness were meant to unnerve. Just so, motionless, relentless and alert, would a cat sit for hours outside a mousehole.

"This I cannot bear," said Ciaran in a faint whisper, and drew sobbing breath.

"It is easily cured," said Matthew through his teeth. "You have only to lift off that cross from your neck, and you can be loosed from all your troubles."

The light faded still. Their eyes, raking the smoky darkness of the bushes, were beginning to see movement where there was none, and strain in vain after it where it lurked and s.h.i.+fted to baffle them more. This waiting would not be long. The attackers circled in cover, watching for the unguarded moment when one or other of their victims would be caught unawares, staring in the wrong direction. Past all question they would expect that failure first from Ciaran, half-foundering as he already was. Soon now, very soon.

Brother Cadfael was some half-mile back along the ride when he heard the cry, ahead and to the right of the path, loud, wild and desperate. The words were indistinguishable, but the panic in the sound there was no mistaking. In this woodland silence, without even a wind to stir the branches or flutter the leaves, every sound carried clearly. Cadfael spurred ahead in haste, with all too dire a conviction of what he might find when he reached the source of that lamentable cry. All those miles of pursuit, patient and remorseless, half the length of England, might well be ending now, barely a quarter of an hour too soon for him to do anything to prevent. Matthew had overtaken, surely, a Ciaran grown weary of his penitential austerities, now there was no one by to see. He had said truly enough that he did not hate himself so much as to bear his hards.h.i.+ps to no purpose. Now that he was alone, had he felt safe in discarding his heavy cross, and would he next have been in search of shoes for his feet? If Matthew had not come upon him thus recreant and disarmed.

The second sound to break the stillness almost pa.s.sed unnoticed because of the sound of his own progress, but he caught some quiver of the forest's unease, and reined in to listen intently. The rush and crash of something or someone hurtling through thick bushes, fast and arrow-straight, and then, very briefly, a confusion of cries, not loud but sharp and wary, and a man's voice loud and commanding over all. Matthew's voice, not in triumph or terror, rather in short and resolute defiance. There were more than the two of them, there ahead, and not so far ahead now.

He dismounted, and led his horse at an anxious trot as far as he dared along the path; towards the spot from which the sounds had come. Hugh could move very fast when he saw reason, and in Cadfael's bare message he would have found reason enough. He would have left the town by the most direct way, over the western bridge and so by a good road south-west, to strike this old path barely two miles back. At this moment he might be little more than a mile behind. Cadfael tethered his horse at the side of the track, for a plain sign that he had found cause to halt here and was somewhere close by.

All was quiet about him now. He quested along the fringe of bushes for a place where he might penetrate without any betraying noise, and began to work his way by instinct and touch towards the place whence the cries had come, and where now all was almost unnaturally silent. In a little while he was aware of the last faint pallor of the afterglow glimmering between the branches. There was a more open glade ahead of him.

He froze and stood motionless, as a shadow pa.s.sed silently between him and this lingering glimpse of light. Someone tall and lean, slithering snake-like through the bushes. Cadfael waited until the faint pattern of light was restored, and then edged carefully forward until he could see into the clearing.

The great bole of a beech-tree showed in the centre, a solid ma.s.s beneath its spread of branches. There was movement there in the dimness. Not one man, but two, stood pressed against the bole. A brief flash of steel caught just light enough to show what it was, a dagger naked and ready. Two at bay here, and surely more than one pinning them thus helpless until they could be safely pulled down. Cadfael stood still to survey the whole of the darkening clearing, and found, as he had expected, another quiver of leaves that hid a man, and then, on the opposite side, yet another. Three, probably all armed, certainly up to no good, thus furtively prowling the woods by night, going nowhere, waiting to make the kill. Three had vanished from the dice school under the bridge at Shrewsbury, and fled in this direction. Three reappeared here in the forest, still doing after their disreputable kind.

Cadfael stood hesitant, pondering how best to deal, whether to steal back to the path and wait and hope for Hugh's coming, or attempt something alone, at least to distract and dismay, to bring about a delay that might afford time for help to come. He had made up his mind to return to his horse, mount, and ride in here with as much noise and turmoil as he could muster, trying to sound like six mounted men instead of one, when with shattering suddenness the decision was taken out of his hands.

One of the three besiegers sprang out of cover with a startling shout, and rushed at the tree on the side where the momentary flash of steel had shown one of the victims, at least, to be armed. A dark figure leaned out from the darkness under the branches to meet the onslaught, and Cadfael knew him then for Matthew. The attacker swerved aside, still out of reach, in a calculated feint, and at the same moment both the other lurking shadows burst out of cover and bore down upon the other side of the tree, falling as one upon the weaker opponent. There was a confusion of violence, and a wild, tormented scream, and Matthew whirled about, slas.h.i.+ng round him and stretching a long arm across his companion, pinning him back against the tree. Ciaran hung half-fainting, slipping down between the great, smooth bastions of the bole, and Matthew bestrode him, his dagger sweeping great swathes before them both.

Cadfael saw it, and was held mute and motionless, beholding this devoted enemy. He got his breath only as all three of the predators closed upon their prey together, slas.h.i.+ng, mauling, by sheer weight bearing them down under them.

Cadfael filled his lungs full, and bellowed to the shaken night: "Hold, there! On them, hold them all three. These are our felons!" He was making so much noise that he did not notice or marvel that the echoes, which in his fury he heard but did not heed, came from two directions at once, from the path he had left, and from the opposite point, from the north. Some corner of his mind knew he had roused echoes, but for his part he felt himself quite alone as he kept up his roaring, spread his sleeves like the wings of a bat, and surged headlong into the melee about the tree.

Long, long ago he had forsworn arms, but what of it? Barring his two stout fists, still active but somewhat rheumatic now, he was unarmed. He flung himself into the tangle of men and weapons under the beech, laid hands on the back of a dangling capuchon, hauled its wearer bodily backwards, and twisted the cloth to choke the throat that howled rage and venom at him. But his voice had done more than his martial progress. The black huddle of humanity burst into its separate beings. Two sprang clear and looked wildly about them for the source of the alarm, and Cadfael's opponent reached round, gasping, with a long arm and a vicious dagger, and sliced a dangling streamer out of a rusty black sleeve. Cadfael lay on him with all his weight, held him by the hair, and ground his face into the earth, shamelessly exulting. He would do penance for it some day soon, but now he rejoiced, all his crusader blood singing in his veins.

Distantly he was aware that something else was happening, more than he had reckoned on. He heard and felt the unmistakable quiver and thud of the earth reacting to hooves, and heard a peremptory voice shouting orders, the purport of which he did not release his grip to decypher or attend to. The glade was filled with motion as it filled with darkness. The creature under him gathered itself and heaved mightily, rolling him aside. His hold on the folds of the hood relaxed, and Simeon Poer tore himself free and scrambled clear. There was running every way, but none of the fugitives got far.

Last of the three to roll breathless out of hold, Simeon groped about him vengefully in the roots of the tree, touched a cowering body, found the cord of some dangling relic, possibly precious, in his hand, and hauled with all his strength before he gathered himself up and ran for cover.

There was a wild scream of pain, and the cord broke, and the thing, whatever it was, came loose in his hand. He got his feet under him, and charged head-down for the nearest bushes, hurtled into them and ran, barely a yard clear of hands that stooped from horseback to claw at him.

Cadfael opened his eyes and hauled in breath. The whole clearing was boiling with movement, the darkness heaved and trembled, and the violence had ordered itself into purpose and meaning. He sat up, and took his time to look about him. He was sprawled under the great beech, and somewhere before him, towards the path where he had left his horse, someone with flint and dagger and tinder, was striking sparks for a torch, very calmly. The sparks caught, glowed, and were gently blown into flame. The torch, well primed with oil and resin, sucked in the flame and gave birth to a small, shapely flame of its own, that grew and reared, and was used to kindle a second and a third. The clearing took on a small, confined, rounded shape, walled with close growth, roofed with the tree.

Hugh came out of the dark, smiling, and reached a hand to haul him to his feet. Someone else came running light-footed from the other side, and stooped to him a wonderful, torch-lit face, high-boned, lean-cheeked, with eager golden eyes, and blue-black raven wings of hair curving to cup his cheeks.

"Olivier?" said Cadfael, marvelling. "I thought you were astray on the road to Oswestry. How did you ever find us here?"

"By grace of G.o.d and a goat-herd," said the warm, gay, remembered voice, "and your bull's bellowing. Come, look round! You have won your field. They were gone, Simeon Poer, merchant of Guildford, Walter Bagot, glover, John Shure, tailor, all fled, but with half a dozen of Hugh's men hard on their heels, all to be brought in captive, to answer for more, this time, than a little cheating in the marketplace. Night stooped to enfold a closed arena of torchlight, very quiet now and almost still. Cadfael rose, his torn sleeve dangling awkwardly.

The three of them stood in a half-circle about the beech-tree.

The torchlight was stark, plucking light and shadow into sharp relief. Matthew stirred out of his colloquy between life and death very slowly as they watched him, heaved his wide shoulders clear of the tree, and stood forth like a sleeper roused before his time, looking about him as if for something by which he might hold, and take his bearings. Between his feet, as he emerged, the coiled, crumpled form of Ciaran came into view, faintly stirring, his head huddled into his close-folded arms.

"Get up!" said Matthew. He drew back a little from the tree, his naked dagger in his hand, a slow drop gathering at its tip, more drops falling steadily from the hand that held it. His knuckles were sliced raw. "Get up!" he said. "You are not harmed."

Ciaran gathered himself very slowly, and clambered to his knees, lifting to the light a face soiled and leaden, gone beyond exhaustion, beyond fear. He looked neither at Cadfael nor at Hugh, but stared up into Matthew's face with the helpless intensity of despair. Hugh felt the clash of eyes, and stirred to make some decisive movement and break the tension, but Cadfael laid a hand on his arm and held him still. Hugh gave him a sharp sidelong glance, and accepted the caution. Cadfael had his reasons.

There was blood on the torn collar of Ciaran's s.h.i.+rt, a stain that grew sluggishly before their eyes. He put up hands that seemed heavy as lead, and fumbled aside the linen from throat and breast. All round the left side of his neck ran a raw, bleeding slash, thin as a knife-cut. Simeon Poer's last blind clutch for plunder had torn loose the cross to which Ciaran had clung so desperately. He kneeled in the last wretched extreme of submission, baring a throat already symbolically slit.

"Here am I," he said in a toneless whisper. "I can run no further, I am forfeit. Now take me!"

Matthew stood motionless, staring at that savage cut the cord had left before it broke. The silence grew too heavy to be bearable, and still he had no word to say, and his face was a blank mask in the flickering light of the torches.

"He says right," said Cadfael, very softly and reasonably. "He is yours fairly. The terms of his penance are broken, and his life is forfeit. Take him!"

There was no sign that Matthew so much as heard him, but for the spasmodic tightening of his lips, as if in pain. He never took his eyes from the wretch kneeling humbly before him.

"You have followed him faithfully, and kept the terms laid down," Cadfael urged gently. "You are under vow. Now finish the work!"

He was on safe enough ground, and sure of it now. The act of submission had already finished the work, there was no more to be done. With his enemy at his mercy, and every justification for the act of vengeance, the avenger was helpless, the prisoner of his own nature. There was nothing left in him but a drear sadness, a sick revulsion of disgust and self-disgust. How could he kill a wretched, broken man, kneeling here unresisting, waiting for his death? Death was no longer relevant.

"It is over, Luc," said Cadfael softly. "Do what you must."

Matthew stood mute a moment longer, and if he had heard his true name spoken, he gave no sign, it was of no importance. After the abandonment of all purpose came the awful sense of loss and emptiness. He opened his bloodstained hand and let the dagger slip from his fingers into the gra.s.s. He turned away like a blind man, feeling with a stretched foot for every step, groped his way through the curtain of bushes, and vanished into the darkness.

Olivier drew in breath sharply, and started out of his tranced stillness to catch eagerly at Cadfael's arm. "Is it true? You have found him out? He is Luc Meverel?" He accepted the truth of it without another word said, and sprang ardently towards the place where the bushes still stirred after Luc's pa.s.sing, and he would have been off in pursuit at a run if Hugh had not caught at his arm to detain him.

"Wait but one moment! You also have a cause here, if Cadfael is right. This is surely the man who murdered your friend. He owes you a death. He is yours if you want him."

"That is truth," said Cadfaei. "Ask him! He will tell you."

Ciaran crouched in the gra.s.s, drooping now, bewildered and lost, no longer looking any man in the face, only waiting without hope or understanding for someone to determine whether he was to live or die, and on what abject terms. Olivier cast one wondering glance at him, shook his head in emphatic rejection, and reached for his horse's bridle. "Who am I," he said, "to exact what Luc Meverel has remitted? Let this one go on his way with his own burden. My business is with the other."

He was away at a run, leading the horse briskly through the screen of bushes, and the rustling of their pa.s.sage gradually stilled again into silence. Cadfael and Hugh were left regarding each other mutely across the lamentable figure crouched upon the ground.

Gradually the rest of the world flowed back into Cadfael's ken. Three of Hugh's officers stood aloof with the horses and the torches, looking on in silence; and somewhere not far distant sounded a brief scuffle and outcry, as one of the fugitives was overpowered and made prisoner. Simeon Poer had been pulled down barely fifty yards in cover, and stood sullenly under guard now, with his wrists secured to a sergeant's stirrup-leather. The third would not be a free man long. This night's ventures were over. This piece of woodland would be safe even for barefoot and unarmed pilgrims to traverse.

"What is to be done with him?" demanded Hugh openly, looking down upon the wreckage of a man with some distaste.

"Since Luc has waived his claim," said Cadfael, "I would not dare meddle. And there is something at least to be said for him, he did not cheat or break his terms voluntarily, even when there was no one by to accuse him. It is a small virtue to have to advance for the defence of a life, but it is something. Who else has the right to foreclose on what Luc has spared?"

Ciaran raised his head, peering doubtfully from one face to the other, still confounded at being so spared, but beginning to believe that he still lived. He was weeping, whether with pain, or relief, or something more durable than either, there was no telling. The blood was blackening into a dark line about his throat.

"Speak up and tell truth," said Hugh with chill gentleness. "Was it you who stabbed Bossard?"

Out of the pallid disintegration of Ciaran's face a wavering voice said: "Yes."

"Why did you so? Why attack the queen's clerk, who did nothing but deliver his errand faithfully?"

Ciaran's eyes burned for an instant, and a fleeting spark of past pride, intolerance and rage showed like the last glow of a dying fire. "He came high-handed, shouting down the lord bishop, defying the council. My master was angry and affronted..."

"Your master," said Cadfael, "was the prior of Hyde Mead. Or so you claimed."

"How could I any longer claim service with one who had discarded me? I lied! The lord bishop himself, I served Bishop Henry, had his favour. Lost, lost now! I could not brook the man Christian's insolence to him... he stood against everything my lord planned and willed. I hated him! I thought then that I hated him," said Ciaran, drearily wondering at the recollection. "And I thought to please my lord!"

"A calculation that went awry," said Cadfael, "for whatever he may be, Henry of Blois is no murderer. And Rainard Bossard prevented your mischief, a man of your own party, held in esteem. Did that make him a traitor in your eyes-that he should respect an honest opponent? Or did you strike out at random, and kill without intent?"

"No," said the level, lame voice, bereft of its brief spark.

"He thwarted me, I was enraged. I knew what I did. I was glad... then!" he said, and drew bitter breath.

"And who laid upon you this penitential journey?" asked Cadfael, "and to what end? Your life was granted you, upon terms. What terms? Someone in the highest authority laid that load upon you."

"My lord the bishop-legate," said Ciaran, and wrung wordlessly for a moment at the pain of an old devotion, rejected and banished now for ever. "There was no other soul knew of it, only to him I told it. He would not give me up to law, he wanted this thing put by, for fear it should threaten his plans for the empress's peace. But he would not condone. I am from the Danish kingdom of Dublin, my other half Welsh. He offered me pa.s.sage under his protection to Bangor, to the bishop there, who would see me to Caergybi in Anglesey, and have me put aboard a s.h.i.+p for Dublin. But I must go barefoot all that way, and wear the cross round my neck, and if ever I broke those terms, even for a moment, my life was his who cared to take it, without blame or penalty. And I could never return." Another fire, of banished love, ruined ambition, rejected service, flamed through the broken accents for a moment, and died of despair.