Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many

luminosity of the clearing, and thence into the shadowy spaces between the trees. They had but a little way to go to the wider path, and the ford of the brook, where the saddle-bags waited. Cadfael stood listening to the soft thudding of hooves in the turf, and the occasional rustling of leafy branches, until all sounds melted into the night's silence. When he stirred out of his attentive stillness, it was to find that every other soul there had been listening just as intently. They looked at one another, and for a moment had nothing to say.
    'If she comes to her father a virgin,' said Beringar then, 'I'll never stake on man or woman again.'
    'It's my belief,' said Cadfael, dryly, 'she'll come to her father a wife, and very proper, too. There are plenty of priests between here and Normandy. She'll have more trouble persuading Torold he has the right to take her, unapproved, but she'll have her own ways of convincing him.'
    'You know her better than I,' said Beringar. 'I hardly knew the girl at all! A pity!' he added thoughtfully.
    'Yet I think you recognised her the first time you ever saw her with me in the great court.'
    'Oh, by sight, yes - I was not sure then, but within a couple of days I was. She's not so changed in looks, only fined into such a springy young fellow.' He caught Cadfael's eye, and smiled. 'Yes, I did come looking for her, but not to hand her over to any man's use. Nor that I wanted her for myself, but she was, as you said, a sacred charge upon me. I owed it to the alliance others made for us to see her into safety.'
    'I trust,' said Cadfael, 'that you have done so.'
    'I, too. And no hard feelings upon either side?'
    'None. And no revenges. The game is over.' He sounded, he realised suddenly, appropriately subdued and resigned, but it was only the pleasant weariness of relief.
    'Then you'll ride back with me to the abbey, and keep me company on the way? I have two horses here. And these lads of mine have earned their sleep, and if your good brothers will give them house-room overnight, and feed them, they may make their way back at leisure tomorrow. To sweeten their welcome, there's two flasks of wine in my saddle-bags, and a pasty. I feared we might have a longer wait, though I was sure you'd come.'
    'I had a feeling,' said Brother Louis, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, 'for all the sudden alarm, that there was no real mischief in the wind tonight. And for two flasks of wine and a pasty we'll offer you beds with pleasure, and a game of tables if you've a mind for it. We get very little company here.'
    One of the archers led in from the night Beringar's two remaining horses, the tail, rangy dapple-grey and the sturdy brown cob, and placidly lay brothers and men-at-arms together unloaded the food and drink, and at Beringar's orders made the unwieldy, sacking-wrapped bundle secure on the dapple's croup, well balanced and fastened with Brother Anselm's leather straps, provided with quite another end in view. 'Not that I wouldn't trust it with you on the cob,' Beringar assured Cadfael, 'but this great brute will never even notice the weight. And his rider needs a hard hand, for he has a hard mouth and a contrary will, and I'm used to him. To tell truth, I love him. I parted with two better worth keeping, but this hellion is my match, and I wouldn't change him.'
    He could not better have expressed what Cadfael was thinking about him. This hellion is my match, and I wouldn't change him! He did his own spying, he gave away generously two valuable horses to discharge his debt to a bride he never really wanted, and he went to all manner of patient, devious shifts to get the girl safe and well out of his path, and lay hand upon the treasury, which was fair game, as she was not. Well, well, we live and learn in the book of our fellowmen!
    They rode together, they two alone, by the same road as once before, and even more companionably than then. They went without haste, unwinding the longer way back, the way fitter for horses, the way they had first approached the grange. The night was warm, still and gentle, defying the stormy and ungentle times with its calm assertion of permanent stability.
    'I am afraid,' said Hugh Beringar with compunction, 'you have missed Matins and Lauds, and the fault is mine. If I had not delayed everything, you might have been back for midnight. You and I should share whatever penance is due.'
    'You and I,' said Cadfael cryptically, 'share a penance already. Well, I could not