Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

circumspectly, probably by cool and unhurried paces from the moment Canon Eluard first noticed the bright enamels on Roswitha's shoulder. And so had Isouda's riding-horse, the better of the two hitched outside the gatehouse for Meriet's use. The porter had paid no attention to a young man sauntering innocently out and mounting without haste. It was a youngster of the Foregate, bright-eyed and knowing, who informed the sergeants that a young gentleman had left by the gate, as long as a quarter of an hour earlier, unhitched his horse, and ridden off along the Foregate, not towards the town. Modestly enough to start with, said the shrewd urchin, but he was into a good gallop by the time he reached the corner at the horse-fair and vanished.
    From the chaos within the great court, which must be left to sort itself out without his aid, Hugh flew to the stables, to mount himself and the officers he had with him, send for more men, and pursue the fugitive; if such a word might properly be applied to so gay and competent a malefactor as Janyn.
    'But why, in God's name, why?' groaned Hugh, tightening girths in the stable-yard, and appealing to Brother Cadfael, busy at the same task beside him. 'Why should he kill? What can he have had against the man? He had never so much as seen him, he was not at Aspley that night. How in the devil's name did he even know the looks of the man he was waiting for?'
    'Someone had pictured him for him - and he knew the time of his departure and the road he would take, that's plain.' But all the rest was still obscure, to Cadfael as to Hugh.
    Janyn was gone, he had plucked himself gently out of the law's reach in excellent time, foreseeing that all must come out. By fleeing he had owned to his act, but the act itself remained inexplicable.
    'Not the man,' fretted Cadfael to himself, puffing after Hugh as he led his saddled horse at a trot up to the court and the gatehouse. 'Not the man, then it must have been his errand, after all. What else is there? But why should anyone wish to prevent him from completing his well-intentioned ride to Chester, on the bishop's business? What harm could there be to any man in that?'
    The wedding party had scattered indecisively about the court, the involved families taking refuge in the guest-hall, their closest friends loyally following them out of sight, where wounds could be dressed and quarrels reconciled without witnesses from the common herd. More distant guests took counsel, and some withdrew discreetly, preferring to be at home. The inhabitants of the Foregate, pleased and entertained and passing dubiously reliable information hither and yon and adding to it as it passed, continued attentive about the gatehouse.
    Hugh had his men mustered and his foot in the stirrup when the furious pounding of galloping hooves, rarely heard in the Foregate, came echoing madly along the enclave wall, and clashed in over the cobbles of the gateway. An exhausted rider, sweating on a lathered horse, reined to a slithering, screaming stop on the frosty stones, and fell rather than dismounted into Hugh's arms, his knees giving under him. All those left in the court, Abbot Radulfus and Prior Robert among them, came closing in haste about the newcomer, foreseeing desperate news.
    'Sheriff Prestcote,' panted the reeling messenger, 'or who stands here for him - from the lord bishop of Lincoln, in haste, and pleads for haste ... "
    'I stand here for the sheriff,' said Hugh. 'Speak out! What's the lord bishop's urgent word for us?'
    'That you should call up all the king's knight-service in the shire," said the messenger, bracing himself strongly, 'for in the north-east there's black treason, in despite of his Grace's head. Two days after the lord king left Lincoln, Ranulf of Chester and William of Roumare made their way into the king's castle by a subterfuge and have taken it by force. The citizens of Lincoln cry out to his Grace to rescue them from an abominable tyranny, and the lord bishop has contrived to send out a warning, through tight defences, to tell his Grace of what is done. There are many of us now, riding every way with the word. It will be in London by nightfall.'
    'King Stephen was there but a week or more ago,' cried Canon Eluard, 'and they pledged their faith to him. How is this possible? They promised a strong chain of fortresses across the north.'
    'And that they have,' said the envoy, heaving at breath, 'but not for King Stephen's service, nor the empress's