Radulfus checked and gazed, and turning, made for the place where she was sitting. She heard, perhaps, the rustle of his habit; his walk was all but silent. She looked up, and her face was almost glacially calm and still. So white was her skin that it was hard to say whether she showed paler than normal, but when she saw the abbot bearing down on her she smiled, at least with her lips, and rose to make him a delicate reverence. Cadfael had drawn close at his back, hardly believing, not at all understanding, what he saw.
“Daughter,” said Radulfus gently. “I am glad to see you thus at peace. I feared this morning’s upsets must have disturbed you sadly, when you are contemplating so solemn a change in your estate, and have need of consideration and calm. You had, I think, a better opinion of that young man than he deserved, and cannot have been prepared for such a discovery. I am sure it distressed you.”
She looked up at him with clear, still face, and unblinking eyes steady but empty, and said: “Yes, Father. I never thought any evil of him. But I have put my doubts by me now. I know my duty.” Her voice was very low, but quite firm and deliberate.
“And your mind is at rest about tomorrow’s sacrament? I, too, have a duty, my child, towards all who come within my cure here. I am accessible to all. If there is anything you wish to say to me, do so freely, and there shall no one prevent or persuade but I will hear you faithfully. Your peace, your happiness, is my concern while you are within my walls, and shall have my prayers after you leave them.”
“I do believe it,” said Iveta, “and I thank you. But my mind is settled and content, Father. I see my way clear, I am not to be swayed any more.”
The abbot looked at her long and earnestly, and she met his eyes without a quiver, and maintained her pale, resolute smile. Radulfus chose to have everything plainly stated, for this might be the only opportunity. “I understand well that this marriage you will be making tomorrow is very much to the mind of your uncle and aunt, and suitable in rank and fortune. But is it also to your mind, daughter? You undertake it of your own will?”
She opened already wide eyes even wider, purple as irises, and parted innocently wondering lips, and said simply: “Yes, of course, Father. Certainly of my own will. I am doing what I know it is right and good that I should do, and I do it with all my heart.”
4
Simon Aguilon took advantage of the hour while his lord was sleeping off his dinner and his rage together, and slipped away alone and in haste through the bishop’s rear garden, down past the barns and orchards, and let himself out through the wicket in the wall, into the belt of scattered woodland that ran parallel with the Foregate. Somewhere well downstream, so the witnesses had said, Joscelin had vanished from view, and somewhere quite close to the spot where he was last seen he must have come ashore. Surely on the right bank, away from the castle. Why heave oneself ashore in the very nest of the enemy, even if there was cover to be had? There was better on the abbey shore, well below the Gate.
They were hunting him, of course, but methodically, without haste. The first step had been to plant guards on all the roads that radiated from the town, and space roaming patrols between, to make a ring through which he could scarcely hope to break. Once that was done, they could afford to be slow and thorough in sifting all the cover within the ring. He had neither horse nor weapon, nor any means of getting either. Domville, once apprised of his flight, had had the gray horse removed from the common stable where Simon had taken him, and locked away privately, for fear his owner should venture in during the night to get possession of him and make a bid for escape. It was only a matter of time before he was re-taken.
Simon made his way deep into the woods downstream, until he considered he must have penetrated somewhere near the place where Joscelin had come ashore. Here, well inland, the growth was thick, with plenteous underbrush, and he found two separate small streams making their way towards the river. Wet as he would already be, Joscelin could well afford to use the bed of one of these as his path, in case they brought out dogs to hunt him. Simon followed the second stream inland into deep woodland. When he halted to listen, there was no sound anywhere about him but the occasional note of a bird. He stood with pricked ears, and began to whistle a dance tune they had picked up together from Domville’s chaplain, who had a gift for music, and relished secular songs as well as the liturgy.
Simon had made his way gradually a further quarter of a mile away from the river, still whistling his estampie at intervals, before he got a response. The thick bushes on his right rustled, a hand was put out to part them, and he caught the gleam of a wary eye peering out.
“Joss?” he said in a whisper. Even if the hunt had not yet come this way, an inquisitive peasant gathering wood could give the alarm and spoil all. But the woodland silence hung undisturbed.
“Simon?” He was slow to trust. “Are they making you their decoy? I never touched his damned gold.”
“I never thought you did. Hush, keep in cover!” Simon drew nearer, to hear and be heard in whispers. “I’m here alone, I came to look for you. You can’t lie out tonight, soaked from the river. I can’t get your horse out to you yet, he’s locked away. And all the roads are barred. You’ll have to sit it out in hiding a day or so, until they lose interest and grow slack. He’ll give over wanting your blood, once tomorrow’s over.”
The bushes shook with Joscelin’s tremor of protest and detestation, for after tomorrow all would be lost, and all won. “God witness,” he said through his teeth, “I’ll not give over thirsting for his. If they do marry her, I can still widow her.”
“Hush, you fool, never say such things! Supposing others heard you! You’re safe enough with me, I’ll help you as best I can, but… Be still and let me think!”
“I can shift for myself,” said Joscelin, rising cautiously erect in his covert, soiled and draggled, his fair hair plastered to his head still, but drying in wilful drifts of yellow at his temples. “You’re a good fellow, Simon, but I advise you take no foolish risks for me.”
“What do you want me to do?” Simon sounded exasperated. “Stand back and let you be taken? See here, the safest place for you now, the one place they’ll never think to look, is inside the bishop’s grounds. Oh, not in house or stables or court, naturally. But that’s the one household and garden this hunt is going to pass by. Everyone else’s barns and byres will be ransacked. There’s a hut in the corner of the grounds, by the door I came out at, where they store the hay from the back field. You could lie dry enough there, and I could bring you food—and the wicket in the wall we can bar inside, no one can come through from without. Then, if I can get Briar out to you somehow … What do you say?”
It was good sense enough, and Joscelin said yes to it with fervor and gratitude. What he did not say was that the want of a horse was nothing to him as yet, for he had no intention of going anywhere until either he had found some way of rescuing Iveta, or lost hope and heart and probably life in the attempt.
“You’re a good friend, and I won’t forget it. But take care for yourself, one of us in this coil is enough. Listen!” He caught Simon by the wrist, and shook him earnestly. “If things fall out badly, and I’m ferreted out and taken, you knew nothing of it, I made my own way. Deny me, with all my goodwill. If there’s meat or other matter to account for, I’ll say I stole, and you’ll let it rest at that. Promise! I should be ashamed if I brought you into question.”
“You’ll not be taken,” said Simon firmly.
“No, but promise!”
“Oh, very well, since you’re so set, I’ll let you stew—or at least go roundabout to hook you out of it. I like my skin whole, like most men, I’ll take good care of it, one way or another. Come on, then! While things are quiet and I’m not missed.”