There was only one way to go, and Edwin went that way, pikel in hand, backing into the stall nearest him. Only then did he take note, with what attention he had to spare from his adversaries, of the horse beside him, the one which had been so restive, according to the young groom, spoiling for want of work and shamefully wasted. A tall, high-spirited chestnut beast with a paler mane and tail, and a white blaze, stamping in excitement of the confusion, but reaching a nuzzling lip to Edwin’s hair, and whinnying in his ear. He had turned from his manger to face the fray, and the way was open before him. Edwin cast an arm over his neck with a shout of recognition and joy.
“Rufus… oh, Rufus!”
He dropped his pikel, knotted a fist in the flowing mane, and leaped and scrambled astride the lofty back. What did it matter that he had neither saddle nor bridle, when he had ridden this mount bareback more times than he could remember, in the days before he fell utterly out of favour with the owner? He dug in his heels and pressed with his knees, and urged an all too willing accomplice into headlong flight.
If the grooms had been ready to tackle Edwin, once they realised his vocation was counterfeit, they were less eager to stand in the way of Rufus. He shot out of his stall like a crossbow bolt, and they leaped apart before him in such haste that the older one fell backwards over a truss of hay, and measured his length on the floor a second time. Edwin lay low on the rippling shoulders, his fists in the light mane, whispering incoherent gratitude and encouragement into the laidback ears. They clattered out on to the triangle of the horse-fair, and by instinct Edwin used knee and heel to turn the horse away from the town and out along the Foregate.
The two who had mounted by the rear staircase, and had difficulty in getting the door open, not to mention finding it inexplicably unlocked in the first place, heard the stampede and rushed to stare out along the road.
“God save us!” gasped Wat, round-eyed. “It’s one of the brothers! What can he be at in such a hurry?”
At that moment the light wind filled Edwin’s cowl and blew it back on to his shoulders, uncovering the bright tangle of hair and the boyish face. Will let out a wild yell, and began to scurry down the stairs. “You see that? That’s no tonsure, and no brother, either! That’s the lad the sheriff’s hunting. Who else would be hiding in our barn?”
But Edwin was already away, nor was there a horse left in the stable of equal quality, to pursue him. The young groom had spoken the truth, Rufus was baulked and frustrated for want of exercise, and now, let loose, he was ready to gallop to his heart’s content. There was now only one obstacle to freedom. Too late Edwin remembered Cadfael’s warning not, in any circumstances, to take the London road, for there was certainly a patrol out at St. Giles, where the town suburbs ended, to check on all passing traffic in search of him. He recalled it only when he saw in the distance before him a party of four riders spread well across the road and approaching at a relaxed amble. The guard had just been relieved, and here was the off-duty party making its way back to the castle.
He could not possibly burst a way through that serried line, and the black gown would not deceive them for a moment, on a rider proceeding at this desperate speed. Edwin did the only thing possible. With pleading voice and urgent knees he checked and wheeled his displeased mount, and set off back the way he had come, at the same headlong gallop. And well behind him he heard a gleeful shout that told him he was now pursued by a posse of determined men-at-arms, fully persuaded they were on the heels of a miscreant, even if they were not yet certain of his identity.
Brother Mark, hurrying along the horse-fair after High Mass, primed with his part to enter the loft unobserved, so that no one should be able afterwards to swear that only one went in where two came out, arrived close to the barn just in time to hear the commotion of a hue and cry, and see Edwin on his elated war-horse come hurtling back along the Foregate, cowl and skirts streaming, head stooped low to the flying mane. He had never before set eyes on Edwin Gurney, but there was no doubt as to who this careering desperado must be; nor, alas, any doubt that Mark’s own errand came much too late. The quarry was flushed from cover, though not yet taken. But there was nothing, nothing at all, Brother Mark could do to help him.
The head groom Will, a stout-hearted man, had hastily hauled out the best of the remaining horses in his care, and prepared to pursue the fugitive, but he had no more than heaved himself into the saddle when he beheld the chestnut thundering back again in the opposite direction. He spurred forward to try and intercept it, though the prospect was daunting; but his mount’s courage failed of matching his, and it baulked and swerved aside before Rufus’s stretched neck, laidback ears and rolling eye. One of the undergrooms hurled a pikel towards the pounding hooves, but if truth be told rather half-heartedly, and Rufus merely made a startled sidewise bound, without checking speed, and was past and away towards the town.
Will might well have followed, though with small hope of keeping that yellow, billowing tail in sight; but by then the clamour of the pursuers was approaching along the Foregate, and he was only too glad to surrender the task to them. It was, after all, their business to apprehend malefactors, and whatever else this pseudo-monk had done, he had certainly stolen a horse belonging to the Widow Bonel, and in the abbey’s care. Obviously the theft should be reported at once. He rode into the path of the galloping guards, waving a delaying hand, and all three of his colleagues closed in to give their versions of what had happened.
There was a substantial audience by then. Passersby had happily declined to pass by such a promising mêlée, and people had darted out from nearby houses to discover what all the hard riding meant. During the pause to exchange information, several of the children had drawn close to listen and stare, and that in itself somewhat slowed the resumption of the chase. Mothers retrieved children, and managed to keep the way blocked a full minute more. But there seemed no reasonable explanation for the fact that at the last moment, when they were virtually launched, the horse under the captain of the guard suddenly shrieked indignantly, reared, and almost spilled his rider, who was not expecting any such disturbance, and had to spend some minutes mastering the affronted horse, before he could muster his men and gallop away after the fugitive.
Brother Mark, craning and peering with the rest of the curious, watched the guards stream away towards the town, secure that the chestnut horse had had time to get clean out of sight. The rest was up to Edwin Gurney. Mark folded his hands in his wide sleeves, drew his cowl well forward to shadow a modest face, and turned back towards the gatehouse of the abbey, with very mixed news. On the way he discarded the second pebble he had picked up by the barn. On his uncle’s manor he had been set to work for his meagre keep at four years old, following the plough with a small sack full of stones, to scare off the birds that took the seed. It had taken him two years to discover that he sympathised with the hungry birds, and did not really want to harm them; but by then he was already a dead shot, and he had not lost his skills.
“And you followed as far as the bridge?” Cadfael questioned anxiously. “And the bridge-keepers had not so much as seen him? And the sheriff’s men had lost him?”
“Clean vanished,” Brother Mark reported with pleasure. “He never crossed into the town, at least, not that way. If you ask me, he can’t have turned from the road by any of the alleys short of the bridge, he wouldn’t be sure he was out of sight. I think he must have dived down along the Gaye, the shoreward side where the orchard trees give some cover. But what he would do after that I can’t guess. But they haven’t taken him, that’s certain. They’ll be hounding his kin within the town, but they’ll find nothing there.” He beamed earnestly into Cadfael’s troubled face, and urged: “You know you’ll prove he has nothing to answer for. Why do you worry?”