Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles

would take him out of the loop, and away through woods and fields towards Sutton and Beistan, sparsely peopled country approaching the great stretch of the Long Forest. He did not think that Domville could have had many miles to go, nor that he had spent the night in the open. A man tough enough for that and worse when there was need, but fond of his comforts when things were going easily.
    At Sutton Strange the woods fell back before fields. Cadfael exchanged the time of day with a cottar whose children he had once treated for a skin rash, and enquired if the news of Domville's death had reached the village. It had, and was the chief gossip for miles around, and already the inhabitants were expecting that the hunt for the murderer might reach as far as their homes and byres the next day.
    "I heard he had a hunting-lodge somewhere in these parts," said Cadfael. "On the edge of the forest is what I heard, but that could mean anywhere along ten miles of country. Would you know of the place?"
    "Ah, that'll be the house over beyond Beistan," said the cottar, leaning comfortably on his garden wall. "He has rights of warren in the forest, but he came there only rarely, and keeps only a local lad there as steward, and the old woman his mother to take care for the house when it's unvisited. As it mostly is. He has better hunts elsewhere. Had! Seems someone set a snare for him, this time."
    "And made a thorough job of it," said Cadfael soberly. "How do I best go for this place? Through the village at Beistan?"
    "That's it, and cross the old road and bear on between the hills. You'll find this path makes a straight run of it. You'll be in the edge of the forest there, sure enough, before ever you see the house."
    Cadfael went on briskly, emerging on to a highroad at the village of Beistan, where the path he was following crossed and moved on, dead straight, past a few scattered holdings beyond, and then into fitful stretches of rising heathland and copses between two gentle slopes. After another mile or so it became a forest path once again, closely hemmed in. Where ground-rock broke into view, it was white and chalky, and in the more open glades heathers brushed crisp and prickly against his ankles. It was a long time since he had been so far afoot, and if he had not been on so grave a quest his walk would have been pure enjoyment.
    He came upon the hunting-lodge quite abruptly, the trees falling away on either side to show him a low boundary wall of stones, and a squat timber building within, raised on an undercroft, with outhouses lining the rear wall of the enclosure. Among the rough white stones of the wall there were all manner of wild herbs growing, toadflax and ivy, stonecrop and selfheal, known by their leaves even now that hardly any flowers remained. There were orchard trees within the wall, but few and old and gnarled, as though someone had once made a garden here, but now it was neglected and forgotten. Some former lord, perhaps, of Domville's line, with a family of children, to turn this quite pleasant fastness into a favourite home, whereas in recent years a childless elderly man had had no use for it but in the hunting season, and even then preferred fatter forests elsewhere in his widespread honour.
    Cadfael crossed to the open gate in the wall, and stepped within. Instantly his eye was caught by a broom-bush on the inner side, in a corner near the gate. For it was an unmistakable broom-bush, and yet in this autumn season it was in flower, and its flowers, scattered and starry, were of a bright and limpid blue instead of gold. He went closer, and saw that the three lowest courses of the wall and the ground beside were matted with proliferating stems, thin, straight, branching into long, narrow leaves. The mat on the ground reached the roots of the broom, and sent up long, frail stalks to clamber through its branches, thrusting up to the light these late, radiant clusters of heavenly blue.
    He had found his creeping gromwell, and he had found the place where Huon de Domville had spent the last night of his life.
    "You are seeking someone, brother?"
    The voice behind him was respectful to the point of being obsequious, and yet had a cutting edge like a well-honed knife. He turned alertly to view the speaker, and found the very same ambiguous qualities. He must have come from the outhouses under the rear wall, a fine, well-set-up fellow about thirty-five years old, in country homespun but with a dignity to him