by Ellis Peters
“I think as you do,” said the abbot with decision, and turned courteously to Agnes Picard, who stood attentive and alert at her husband’s side, one hand closed possessively on Iveta’s golden sleeve. “Madam, I trust this distress may not be long, and that we shall find my lord Domville safe and none the worse, only delayed by some trivial circumstance. But it would be well if you would take your niece within, and have her rest in privacy with you, while these gentlemen—and the brothers of our house, too, if they so choose— go and search for the bridegroom.”
Agnes made brief, anxious acknowledgment, and swept the girl away with her, out of sight. The doors of their apartments closed on them. Iveta had not spoken one word.
*
They saddled up, mounted and rode, all the men among the wedding guests, all the grooms and pages from the bishop’s house, a squad of men-at-arms from the castle, many of the younger brothers and novices on foot, and one of the boy pupils whose long ears had overheard the news, and who had slipped into hiding before he could be herded away into school. He might pay for his truancy later, but he thought it well worth the risk.
Those mounted chose to ride along the Foregate to where Domville had parted from his squire, and been seen continuing towards Saint Giles. Thence they split into two parties, since the roads forked there, and spread out into the verges on either side of either highway. Those afoot took at once to the byways, some threading their way through the woods down-river, some going round by the mill-pond into the valley of the Meole brook, and so upstream through meadows and copses.
Cadfael joined these last. They spread out in a long line, to cover as wide a swathe as possible, and made their way upstream on both sides of the brook from the limit of the abbey grounds. A mounted man would use only good open country or the well-trodden paths and rides in this richly wooded countryside, and to look for him in the first reaches was pointless, if he had begun from his own gateway. They proceeded briskly, therefore, until they had left the abbey precincts well behind, and were strung out across the valley just below the hospital. They could see the little turret of the church just above the bushes at the crest, where the road ran.
From this point they went more slowly and thoroughly, stretching their line to take in more ground. They knew every path here, and threaded each for some distance as they came to it. No doubt others on the opposite side of the Foregate had reached much the same point, and were proceeding in the same way, but as yet there had been no shout anywhere to direct or call off the hunt.
By this time they were probably half a mile beyond Saint Giles, and the sloping fields and light, scattered copses had thickened into woodland. The climb to the road here was steep, and for some distance, until the gradient grew gentler, no paths descended to cross their line. Then they came, as they had known they would, to a broad green ride, a good, smooth plane of turf that came down from the road and narrowed slightly as it entered the denser woods. South-west from the road it ran, twice fording the ends of the brook, which here was narrow and stony, and wandered away, Cadfael recalled, towards the fringe of the Long Forest, a few miles distant.
They had just emerged on to this green track when the truant schoolboy, who had been running in circles ahead of them in his zeal, came rushing back along the path in great excitement, waving an arm towards the groves behind him.
“There’s a horse grazing back there in a clearing! Saddle and harness and all, but no rider!”
And he whirled and darted back, with all of them hard on his heels. The path continued clear and well-used, closely hemmed by trees, and then expanded into a small, lush meadow; and there, placidly cropping the grass under the bordering trees, Huon de Domville’s tall black horse strolled unalarmed, and raised a mildly wondering stare as so many men suddenly bore down on him. All his harness was in order, nowhere any disarray, but of his rider there was no sign.
“If he’d been near his own home stable,” said the excited boy, proudly possessing himself of the bridle, “he’d have gone back to it, and they’d have been warned. But he was on strange ground, so when he got over his fright, he wandered.”
It was good sense, and he was all eagerness to press on. But there might well be that ahead that was not good for a child to see. Cadfael looked at Brother Edmund the infirmarer, who was next to him, and saw the same thought reflected back to him. If horse and rider had parted by reason on some shock or alarm, and they met the horse first, then Huon de Domville had probably been on his way back when mischance befell him; and if he had lain out all night, it meant he was in no good case. A tough, determined man, he would not let minor injury hold him helpless.
“A startled horse bolts forward, not back,” pursued the voluble imp, glowing, “isn’t that right? Shall we go on?”
“You,” said Cadfael, “may have the credit for taking this beast back to the bishop’s house, and telling them there where you found him. Then go back to your lessons. If you make a good story of it you may escape punishment for running away.”
The boy looked first dismayed, and then mutinous, and began to argue.
“Hop!” ordered Cadfael briskly, cutting off his objections. “You may ride him. Here, up with your foot… so!” He cupped a hand, and hoisted the boy into the saddle before he had time to decide whether to be aggrieved or flattered. But the feel of the fine beast under him did the trick. His face became one complacent beam, he gathered the reins importantly, ignored the stirrups that were far too long for him, dug his heels into the satin sides, and chirruped at his mount as casually as if he rode such beasts every day.
When they had watched him far enough along the ride to be sure that he was competent, and would do as he had been bidden, they turned and went on. The glade ended, trees closed in again on the track. Here and there, in places where the grass was thin and the ground soft, they saw the mark of a hoof. They had gone perhaps another quarter of a mile before Brother Edmund, who was leading, suddenly halted.
“He is here.”
The thick, powerful body lay sprawled on its back, head against the roots of a great oak, arms spread. The trees grew close here, and the deep shadows swallowed the rich colors of his clothing, so that the upturned face stared out of a green darkness, suffused with blood, open eyes bulging and reddened. The brutal, muscular quality of the face seemed to have melted and run like wax from a candle. As well the child had been sent back before he could run ahead of them and stumble over this in valiant innocence, and sicken in too early knowledge of good and evil.
Cadfael put Edmund aside and went forward, dropping to his knees beside the motionless body, and in a moment Edmund followed him, and crouched on the other side. He was accustomed to easing old men into their deaths, but deaths as gentle as affectionate care and the company of friends could make it, and this abrupt severing of a vigorous life appalled and daunted him. The two novices and the lay brother who had followed them drew near and stood silent.
“Is he dead?” asked Brother Edmund fearfully, and understood at once that it was a foolish question.
“Dead some hours. Around dawn, it might be. He’s cooling but not cold.” Cadfael lifted the heavy head on his hand, and felt the sticky foulness of congealed blood on his fingers. High at the back of the head, behind and above the left ear, the bald crown bore a ripped bruise, which had oozed blood from a dozen scratches, now drying. Where his head had lain, and for a hand’s-length above, the bole of the oak bore smeared traces of the impact. Cadfael felt delicately over and round the bruise, and the skull seemed to him intact, there was no depression under his touch.
“He was thrown from his horse, and heavily,” ventured Edmund, watching, “and fell on to this oak-bole. Could such a fall kill him?”
“It could,” said Cadfael distractedly, but did not see fit as yet to make plain that it had not.
“Or if he lay out, not regaining his senses—the chill of the night…”
“He has not been here all night long,” said Cadfael. “The dew of the mist is
under him. And if he was thrown, you see he was thrown backwards, not forwards, out of the saddle. The horse did not stumble.” For the body lay diagonally half across the path, head against the tree on the right, his feet towards them as they approached from the brook. “It was in the early morning, and he was hurled backwards. He was certainly riding back then to his own household. The path is good, at least for a man who knows, but I should guess there was also some light already, for I think he was riding briskly, to come down so heavily.”
“His horse reared,” suggested Edmund. “Some small night creature started under his feet, and shocked him…”
“That could be.” Cadfael laid Domville’s head carefully back, and the broken crown rested at the foot of the grazed and bloodied streak on the bole. “He has not moved since the fall,” he said with certainty. “Only the heels of his boots, see, have scored deep through the grass, as though in some convulsion.”
He rose to his feet, leaving the body just as it lay, and began to move about the ride, eyeing it from many angles. One of the novices, sensibly enough, had turned back to meet the sheriff’s men, who would certainly be despatched from the bishop’s house as soon as the boy brought his news. They would need a litter, or a door lifted from its hinges, to carry the dead man back. Cadfael also retraced his steps some dozen yards along the path, and began to work his way back to where the body lay, viewing all the trees on both sides with great care, at a level above his own modest height, as Edmund noted without understanding.
“What is it you’re looking for, Cadfael?”
Whatever it was, he had found it. Some four paces from the dead man’s feet he had halted, fixing his eyes first on the trunk on his right, well above his own head, and then transferring the same intent stare to the tree opposite.
“Come and see. Come, all, and bear me witness when I tell it.”
On either trunk at the same level there was a thin, scored line, scarring the fine ridges of the bark.
“A rope has been stretched between these trees, throat-height to a man of middle stature and well-mounted, though even at breast-height it would have fetched him down. It was light enough for a canter on so good a pathway, I fancy, for surely he was going briskly. You see how far it toppled him. We shall find the mark of it on his throat.”
They stared, appalled, and had no word to say, as they followed him in awed silence back to where the body lay, and he turned back the collar of the coat, and bared Domville’s neck. For the dark-red slash of the cord was not all they found under the beard, on the thick, sinewy flesh. There, plain to be seen, were the wreathing, blackened bruises of two human hands, and the two thumbs, overlapping, had left a great, mangled stain on the Adam’s apple, and possibly crushed the gristle within.
They were still gaping in horrified silence when they heard urgent voices approaching along the ride, the sheriff’s loudest among them. The intimation of disaster had gone before, but as yet its magnitude was a secret among these few.
Cadfael drew the collar close over the evidence of strangulation, and turned with his companions to meet Gilbert Prestcote and his officers.
*
When the sheriff had viewed everything Cadfael had to show him, they brought a litter, and lifted Huon de Domville on to it, drawing the folds of his cloak over his face. At the spot from which they raised him they fixed a cross bound from two sticks, to enable them to find and search the place again at need. Then they carried him back, not to the bishop’s house but to the abbey, to be laid in the mortuary chapel there and made decent for burial by the monks of Saint Peter’s, who should have witnessed his marriage.
The child Bran, who could pass for any urchin of the Foregate, briefly, at least, and with discretion, simply by shedding his leper cloak, came back from a wary foray along the road, to report to the two tall, veiled men who sat together with their clapper-dishes under the cemetery wall: “They have found him. I saw them carrying him back. They’ve taken him past the house. I dared not go further.”
“Alive or dead?” asked the slow, calm voice of Lazarus from behind the faded blue face-cloth. The boy knew death already, no need to shield him.
“His face was covered,” said Bran, and sat down beside them. He felt the silence and tension of the other, the new man, the one who was known to be young and whole, and wondered why he trembled.
“No words,” said Lazarus tranquilly. “You have your breathing-space. So has she.”
*
Within the great court of the abbey the men-at-arms laid down the litter they carried, and from all sides, in haste and anxious clamor that died abruptly into silence and stillness, all those bound up in this matter came flooding, to form a mute, wide-eyed audience all about the bier. They halted at an awed distance, all but the sheriff and his men, and Abbot Radulfus, who advanced with authority. From the guest-hall Picard burst forth, obstinately hopeful, to freeze at sight of the shrouded figure and covered face. The women followed fearfully. The little golden image moved as though she could barely sustain the weight of her finery, yet she came, and did not turn her eyes away. No doubt of it now. Shocking though it might be, this death was life to her. Why, why had she so belied herself yesterday?
“My lord abbot,” said Prestcote, “this is very ill news we bring, for my lord Domville is found indeed, but as you see him. These brothers of your house found him, thrown from his horse on the woodland path that leads out towards Beistan. His horse was grazing unharmed, and is back in his stable. Huon de Domville was thrown against an oak tree, and is dead. It seems that he was on his way home when this thing happened. Father, will you receive him and have body and soul cared for, until due arrangements can be made? His nephew is of his party here, and the canon is also his kinsman…”
Simon hovered, wordless. He inclined his head and swallowed hard, eyeing the body on the litter.
“This is a very ill turn for such a day to take,” said Radulfus heavily, “and we extend our sorrow and fellow-feeling to all those thus bereaved. And naturally, our hospitality for as long as may be needed, the services of our order, and the privacy of our guest-halls. It is a time for quietness and prayer. Death is present with us every day of our lives, it behooves us to take note of its nearness, not as a threat, but as our common experience on the way to grace. There is no more to be said. It is better to accept the will of God, and be silent.”
“With respect, Father,” Picard spoke up in a voice thin as steel, yet very civil and respectful. Cadfael had been trying to read the man’s face, and made little headway; there was dismay there, certainly, and rage, and frustration, but instant calculation, too. “With respect, I say, should we so tamely accept that this is the will of God? Huon de Domville knows this region, he has a hunting-lodge no great way off, near the Long Forest. He has ridden lifelong without mishap, by day or by night, are we to believe he uses less skill and less awareness suddenly on his wedding-eve, when you and I both know he rode from here sober and unwearied? He told his squire he would take the air a little before sleeping. Surely that was all he intended. Now in a moment we have him brought back dead, a man in his prime and in his full powers! No, I do not believe it! There is some evil-dealing here, and I must know more before I can be satisfied.”
It seemed that Prestcote had deliberately delayed the full assault of his news, in order to see if any among his hearers showed signs of gratification at the likelihood that the death would pass as an accident. If so, and if he discovered anything, for all the narrowed glances with which he was sweeping the ring of shocked faces, he was more successful than Cadfael, who was pursuing the same quest. Nowhere could he discover any shadow of guilt or fear in any face, only the expected and obligatory grief and shame.
“I have not said his death was accidental,” said the sheriff, bluntly now. “Not even his fall was chance. He was fetched down out of the saddle by a rope stretched across the path between two trees, at a level that took him in the throat. But it was not the fall that killed him. Whoever laid the
ambush for him was present to complete his work, while Domville lay senseless. A man’s two hands round his throat killed him.”
The whole circle shifted as though a rough wind had shaken them, and drew hard, audible breath. The abbot raised his head to stare.
“You are saying this was murder?”
“As cold and thorough as ever was committed.”
“And we know by whom!” Picard leaned forward, blazing up in malevolent triumph like a thorn fire. “Did I not say it? This is the work of that thieving youth who was dismissed my lord Domville’s service. He has taken his devil’s revenge by killing his lord. Who else? Who else had any grudge? Joscelin Lucy did this!”
Light flashed suddenly on darting gold at his back, and there stood Iveta confronting him, yesterday’s sacrificial lamb become a spitting yellow wildcat. Dilated iris eyes glittered like amethyst. Her voice rose high and challenging, even triumphant, even derisive, as she cried:
“It’s false! You know, you all know, that cannot be true! Have you forgotten? He of all men must be innocent of this—he’s behind locked doors in Shrewsbury castle these two days—and that charge as false as this!—but thank God for it, the sheriff’s own gaoler is witness he cannot have done murder.”
Understanding fell upon Brother Cadfael somewhat after the fashion of a great blow on the head, and left him dazed, unable to catch at first the full implications of what she had said. Not so hard now to guess the meaning of her resolute composure when questioned by the abbot. They had cased her up securely within, and kept her from knowing anything of Joscelin’s escape, when it would have been comfort and joy to her. Now, when it destroyed all her comfort, they would turn on her and hurl it in her face. They were at it already, both the Picards, Agnes the shriller and more savage of the two.