The strangest thing, though unremarked by most in the general turmoil, was the disappearance of the unknown champion only minutes after he had felled the castellan. Every eye had followed that prodigious fall, and by the time they had stirred out of their daze and looked about, the chaos of flight and capture had broken out all around, and no one had seen the young countryman make off silently into the night.
“Gone like a shadow,” said Hugh, “when I should have liked to know him better. And never a word as to where he may be found, when the king’s Grace owes him a debt any sane man would be eager to collect. You are the only one who has spoken with him, Yves. Who is this paladin?”
Half-drunk with the lassitude of relief after stress, and the exhaustion of safety after terror, Yves said what he had been taught to say, and fronted Hugh with a clear stare and guileless face as he did so. “That was the forester’s son who sheltered Ermina, and brought her to Bromfield. It was he told me she’s there. I knew nothing of that until then. She is really there?”
“She is, safe enough. And what is the name of this forester’s son? And more to the purpose,” said Hugh thoughtfully, “where did he learn his swordcraft?”
“His name is Robert. He told me he was searching for me, as he promised Ermina he would, and he saw the raiders coming back here, and followed their tracks. I know no more about him,” said Yves stoutly, and if he blushed as he said it, the night covered the blush.
“Certainly we seem to breed redoutable foresters in these parts,” said Hugh drily. But he did not press it further.
“And now,” said Cadfael, intent on his own business, “if you’ll lend me four good men, and let us have the use of all these fresh horses, they’ll be better on the move to the Bromfield stables, now they’ve no roof over their heads here, and I can get these two home to their beds. I can leave you my scrip. We’ll rig a litter for Brother Elyas, and purloin whatever blankets and brychans are still unburned to wrap him up on the way.”
“Take what you need,” said Hugh. There were seven horses fresh from the stable, besides the common hill-ponies Yves had seen used to bring home plunder. “Stolen, all or most of them,” said Hugh, looking them over. “I’ll have Dinan give it out wherever they’ve had losses, they can come to Bromfield and claim their own. The cattle and sheep we’ll bring into Ludlow later, after the fellow at Cleeton has picked out his. But best get Brother Elyas away as fast as you can, if he’s to live. The marvel is he’s survived even this far.”
Cadfael marshalled his helpers to good effect, and took his pick of the furnishings dragged out of the burning hall, to swaddle Brother Elyas in a cocoon of blankets, and fashion a secure cradle for him between two horses. He took thought to load, also, two sacks of fodder from the ransacked stores, in case the sudden arrival of seven horses should tax the resources of Bromfield. The spurt of energy and authority that had animated Elyas when there was most need of him had deserted him as soon as his work was done, and his boy delivered. He yielded himself into their hands docilely, and let them do what they would with him, astray between apathy and exhaustion, and half dead with cold. Cadfael eyed him with much concern. Unless some new fire could be kindled in him, to make life an imperative as it had been when he saw Yves threatened, Elyas would die.
Cadfael took Yves on his own saddle-bow, as once before, for the child was now so weary that he could not walk without stumbling, and if allowed to ride would probably fall asleep in the saddle. A good Welsh brychan wrapped him for warmth, and before they had wound their way down the spiral path and into easier country, as briskly as was safe in the dark, his chin was on his chest, and his breathing had eased and lengthened into deep sleep. Cadfael shifted him gently to rest in the hollow of his shoulder, and Yves stretched a little, turned his face warmly into the breast of Cadfael’s habit, and slept all the way back to Bromfield.
Once well away into the fields, Cadfael looked back. The sheer bulk of the hill rose blackly, crested with a coronal of fire. It would take Beringar and Dinan the rest of the night to round up all their prisoners, and shift the beasts down to Cleeton, where John Druel might know bis own, and thence on to Ludlow. The terror was over, and more economically than might have been expected. Over for this time, thought Cadfael. Over, perhaps, for this shire, if Prestcote and Hugh can keep their grip as firm in the future. But where royal kinsfolk are tearing each other for a crown, lesser men will ride the time for their own gain, without scruple or mercy.
And where they did so, he reflected, every villainy for miles around would be laid at their door, and some of the crimes might well be laid there unjustly. Even villains should bear only the guilt that belongs to them. And never, now, could Alain le Gaucher speak up in his own defense, and say: “This, and this, and this I have done—but this, this despoiling and murder of a young nun, this deed is none of mine.”
They came to Bromfield about Prime, and rode in at the gatehouse into a court swept clear. No new snow had fallen in the night. The change was coming, by noon there might even be the brief promise of a thaw. Yves awoke, yawned, stretched and remembered. He was wide awake in a moment, unwinding himself from his wrappings and scrambling down to help carry Brother Elyas back to his forsaken bed. Hugh’s men-at-arms took the horses to stable. And Brother Cadfael, glancing up towards the guest-hall, saw the door flung open, and Ermina peering out across the twilit court.
The torch above the door lit up a face utterly vulnerable in its wild mingling of hope and dread. She had heard the horses, and rushed out just as she was, barefoot, her hair loose about her shoulders. Her eyes lit upon Yves, busy unloosing the bindings of Brother Elyas’ litter, and suddenly her face softened and glowed into so dazzling a radiance of joy and gratitude that Cadfael stood and stared from pure pleasure. The worst shadow soared from her like a bird rising, and was gone. She still had a brother.
Yves, perhaps fortunately, was so busy with his sick protégé and protector that he never glanced in her direction. And Cadfael was not in any way surprised when she did not rush to welcome and embrace, but withdrew softly and stealthily into the guest-hall, and closed the door.
Accordingly, he did not hurry the boy away too hastily from the small infirmary room where they had brought Brother Elyas, and Yves did not run to be embraced, either. He knew, he had been assured over and over, that she was here waiting for him. Both of them required a little time to prepare for the reunion. Only when he had dressed Brother Elyas’ wounded and frost-pinched feet, packed them round with soft wool and warmed tiles, bathed his face and hands and fed him spiced and honeyed wine, and heaped him with the lightest covering he had to hand, did Cadfael take Yves firmly by the shoulder, and steer him towards the guest-hall.
She was sitting by the fire, sewing at a gown brought for her from Ludlow, to alter it to her own measure, and none too willingly to judge by her scowl, when Yves entered with Brother Cadfael ‘s hand on his shoulder. She put her work aside, and rose. Perhaps she saw attack in her brother’s jutting lip and levelled eye, for she stepped forward briskly, and kissed him in a chill, admonishing, female manner.
“And a fine dance you have led everyone,” she said severely, “running off into the night like that, without a word to a soul.”
“That you should be the one to say so, who have caused all this pother!” Yves retorted loftily. “I have brought my affair to success, madam. You ran off into the night without a word to a soul, and come back profitless and as arrogant as ever, but you had better sing a lower tune if you want to be listened to here. We have had more urgent matters to think about.”
“You’ll have plenty to say to each other,” said Brother Cadfael, benignly blind and deaf to bickering, “and plenty of time hereafter to say it. But now Yves should be in his bed, for he’s had a couple of nights that could wear out any man. He needs a long day’s sleep, and if I have a physician’s authority, I order it.”