Free The Leper of Saint Giles by Ellis Peters Page A

but he refrained from showing himself again until he was ashore and into the trees. Cadfael, selecting carefully what seemed the most favorable cover, thought he caught, not so much a glimpse of the man, as a momentary convulsion of the leaning branches, and a brief sparkle in the water, as Joscelin hauled himself up the bank and vanished into the woods.
    There was no more to see or to do here. Cadfael recalled himself to his neglected duty, and made off back to the abbey gatehouse, turning his back upon the gratified urchins and cursing guards. Small profit now in wondering how the boy would fare, weaponless, horseless, without money or dry clothing, and with a certain hue and cry out after him from this moment. Better make himself as scarce as ever he could, on foot or however offered, and put all the space possible between himself and Shrewsbury before night. All the same, Cadfael found himself doubting very much whether he would do anything so sensible.
    It came as no great surprise to find that the news had gone before him. Just as he was approaching the gatehouse, Gilbert Prestcote came cantering out with a face of thunder, his remaining men-at-arms hard on his heels. He had nothing against Joscelin Lucy, and by his bearing throughout, no particular reverence for Huon de Domville, but the incompetence of his sergeant would stick in his craw like a nutshell, and unless the prisoner was recovered in short order, there was likely to be a stormy time ahead for all the luckless guards.
    The porter emerged cautiously as the dust was settling, to gaze after them, and shook a rueful head as Cadfael came up. “So the thief got away from them, after all! There’ll be the devil to pay now, he’ll turn out the whole garrison after the lad. And him on foot to outrun their horses! His own’s away back to the bishop’s house with the other young squire.”
    They were gone, Huon de Domville, Simon Aguilon, Guy FitzJohn, grooms and all, and if the news of the escape had only so far reached the abbey gatehouse, they were gone in the firm belief that the thief was safe in hold.
    “Who brought the word?” asked Cadfael. “He was quick off the mark. He can’t have stayed to see the play out.”
    “Two lay brothers were just coming up from the Gaye with the last of the late apples. They saw him jump, and came in a hurry to tell. But you’re not far behind them.”
    So as yet it was cried no further than here. There were plenty of people, brothers, servants and guests, stirring about the great court in excitement and speculation, and some sallying forth to see what was toward along the riverbank. Huon de Domville’s displeasure, when the word overtook him, would be vented elsewhere. Here Cadfael observed Godfrid and Agnes Picard in the doorway of the guest-hall, absorbed in some low-voiced and intent colloquy of their own, and their faces were taut and wary, and the way they eyed each other was all calculation and alarm. This development would not suit them at all; they wanted the troublesome boy safe behind locked doors in the castle, with a neck-charge hanging over him if Domville chose to press it to extremes.
    There was no sign of Iveta. No doubt she was shut away within, with Agnes’s dragon to guard her. Nor did she appear for some hours, though her uncle and aunt were seen purposefully crossing and recrossing between the abbot’s lodging, the guest-hall and the gatehouse on several occasions, and once Picard rode out for the greater part of an hour, surely to the bishop’s house to confer with Domville. Cadfael fretted through the early afternoon over his own responsibility, neglectful of his customary watch on Oswin’s activities, and somewhat chastened to discover that, for once unregarded, his assistant had spilled nothing, burned nothing, weeded out no precious plants by mistake, and broken nothing. It might, of course, be a special dispensation of providence, a courtesy to Cadfael’s obvious preoccupation, but it