Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

and flush into her set lips, softening them into rose-leaves.
    Canon Eudo came floating elegantly from the church, but all his graces could not conceal his agitation. He spoke in low tones with Picard, whose brow was growing black and knotted with anxiety. Cadfael, coming late and in haste from the garden to take his place among the brothers, looked only at the bride, and could not take his eyes from the tiny golden doll they had made of her, not a thread of it real but the small, chill face melting among the gilt, and the quickening spark deep in her iris-purple eyes, making its live way up out of drowning fathoms to the light of day.
    She was among the first to catch the hurried clatter of hooves along the Foregate. She turned her eyes without daring to turn her head, as Simon Aguilon, in all his wedding finery, rode into the gateway, dropped his bridle into the porter's hand, and swung hastily down to stride across the great court to the door of the guest-hall, in evident agitation.
    "My lord, I pray your pardon! Things have somehow gone amiss, we don't know how ..." He drew in Canon Eudo, the three heads leaned close, and Agnes hovered with pricked ears and drawn brows. The voices spilled abroad, none the less. Both abbot and prior had emerged from the church, and stood at a dignified distance, in contained displeasure. They could not long be ignored.
    "Last night, when we left here to return home - I do his bidding, I do not question, how could I? He said to me that he had a fancy to ride a while, and I should go in, and bid the household go to bed, for he wanted no service that night, nor until he should say the word this morning. And so I did! What else? I thought he would be there asleep this morn, when his chamberlain looked in on him. I slept late myself. They shook me awake a good half-hour past Prime, and said he was not in his bed-nor had been, all night long, for the bed was not pressed." The young man's voice had risen, all those crowding in could hear. They were silent enough, all intent on that knot of consternation in the midst.
    "Father Abbot," Simon turned to him with a hasty reverence, "we are greatly afraid that something must have happened to my lord. He has not been home all night, since he sent me in and dismissed all attendance. And very surely he would not be absent or late here, had he his freedom and health to keep the tryst. I fear he may have come by an injury, somehow - a fall, perhaps ... Night riding is risky, but he had a fancy for it. It wants only a crippling stone in a hoof, or a fox's earth ..."
    "He left you at the gate of the house?" asked Radulfus. "And rode on?"
    "Yes, towards Saint Giles. But I do not know which way he took, after that, or where he was bound, if indeed he had some purpose in mind. He told me nothing."
    "It would be a first step," said Radulfus dryly, "to send out along that road for sign or word of him."
    "So we have done, Father, but vainly. The superior at the hospital has seen nothing of him, and we have ridden further along the road without result. Before taking it further I had, of courtesy, to bring word here. But I have spoken to one of the sheriff's sergeants, who was out with a patrol beating the woodlands for the prisoner they lost, and his men will be keeping watch also for any sign of my lord Domville. He has sent a man to tell the sheriff what has happened. Father, you will understand that I dared not be too quick to raise an alarm or question anything my lord does, but I think now it is time there should be a full search for him. He may be lying somewhere hurt and unable to rise."
    "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