Free Hermit of Eyton Forest by Ellis Peters Page A

manner eased a little, finding Cadfael amiable and
harmless. But he did not on that account grow less morose, nor more voluble.
“He’s hunting,” he said with a grim and private smile.
    “But
not for deer,” hazarded Cadfael, returning the inspection and caught by the
wryness of the smile. “Nor, I dare say, for the beasts of the warren.”
    “You
dare say well. It’s a man he’s after.”
    “A
runaway?” Cadfael found it hard to believe. “So far from home? Was a runaway
villein worth so much time and expense to him?”
    “This
one is. He’s valuable and skilled, but that’s not the whole of it,” confided
the groom, discarding his suspicion and reticence. “He has a score to settle
with this one. One report we got of him, setting out westwards and north, and
he’s combed every village and town along all this way, dragging me one road
while his son with another groom goes another, and he won’t stop short of the
Welsh border. Me? If I did clap eyes on the lad he’s after, I’d be blind. I
wouldn’t give him back a dog that ran from him, let alone a man.” His dry voice
had gathered sap and passion as he talked, and he turned fully for the first
time, so that the torchlight fell on his face. One cheek was marked with a
blackening bruise, the corner of his mouth torn and swollen, with the look of a
festering infection about it.
    “His
mark?” asked Cadfael, eyeing the wound.
    “His
seal, sure enough, and done with a seal ring. I was not quick enough at his
stirrup when he mounted, yesterday morning.”
    “I
can dress that for you,” said Cadfael, “if you’ll wait while I go and make
report to my abbot about another matter. You’d best let me, it could take bad
ways. By the same token,” he said quietly, “you’re far enough out of his
country, and near enough to the border, to do some running of your own, if
you’re so minded.”
    “Brother,”
said the groom with the briefest and harshest of laughs, “I have a wife and
children in Bosiet, I’m manacled. But Brand was young and unwed, his heels are
lighter than mine. And I’d best get this beast stalled, and be off to wait on
my lord, or he’ll be laying the other cheek open for me.”
    “Then
come out to the guest hall steps,” said Cadfael, recalled as sharply to his own
duty, “when he’s in bed and snoring, and I’ll clean that sore for you.”
     
    Abbot
Radulfus listened with concern, but also with relief, to Cadfael’s report,
promised to send at first light enough helpers to clear away the willow tree,
clean out the brook and shore up the bank above, and nodded gravely at the
suggestion that Eilmund’s long wait in the water might complicate his recovery,
even though the fracture itself was simple and clean. “I should like,” said
Cadfael, “to visit him again tomorrow and make sure he stays in his bed, for
there may be a degree of fever, and you know him, Father, it will take more
than his daughter’s scolding to keep him tamed. If he has your orders he may
take heed. I’ll take his measure for crutches, but not let them near him till
I’m sure he’s fit to rise.”
    “You
have my leave to go and come as you see fit,” said Radulfus, “for as long as he
needs your care. Best keep that horse for your use until then. The journey
would be too slow on foot, and we shall need you here some part of the day,
Brother Winfrid being new to the discipline.”
    Cadfael
smiled, remembering. “It was no slow journey the young man Hyacinth made of it.
Four times today he’s run those miles, back and forth on his master’s errand,
and back and forth again for Eilmund. I only hope the hermit did not take it
ill that his boy was gone so long.”
    It
was in Cadfael’s mind that the groom from Bosiet might be too much in fear of
his master to venture out by night, even when his lord was sleeping. But come
he did, slipping out furtively just as the brothers came out from