Brother Cadfael 14: The Hermit of Eyton Forest

besides scour the woods for a dead man. There are dead men enough to bury after the looting and burning of Oxford town,' said Hugh with dry bitterness, almost resigned to the random slaughters of this capricious civil war.
    'I wonder how many within the castle knew of his errand? She would hardly blazon abroad her intent, but someone surely got wind of it.'
    'So it seems, and made very ill use of what he knew.' Hugh shook himself, heaving off from his shoulders the distant evils that were out of his writ. 'Thanks be to God, I am not sheriff of Oxfordshire! Our troubles here are mild enough, a little family bickering that leads to blows now and then, a bit of thieving, the customary poaching in season. Oh, and of course the bewitchment that seems to have fallen on your woodland of Eyton.' Cadfael had told him what the abbot, perhaps, had not thought important enough to tell, that Dionisia had somehow coaxed her hermit into her quarrel, and that good man had surely taken very seriously her impersonation of a grieving grandam cruelly deprived of the society of her only grandchild. 'And he fears worse to come, does he? I wonder what the next news from Eyton will be?'
    As it so happened the next news from Eyton was just hurrying towards them round the corner of the tall box hedge, borne by a novice despatched in haste by Prior Robert from the gatehouse. He came at a run, the skirts of his habit billowing, and pulled up with just enough breath to get out his message without waiting to be asked.
    'Brother Cadfael, you're wanted urgently. The hermit's boy's come back to say you're needed at Eilmund's assart, and Father Abbot says take a horse and go quickly, and bring him back word how the forester does. There's been another landslip, and a tree came down on him. His leg's broken.'
    They offered Hyacinth rest and a good meal for his trouble, but he would not stay. As long as he could hold the pace he clung by Cadfael's stirrup leather and ran with him, and even when he was forced to slacken and let Cadfael ride on before at his best speed, the youth trotted doggedly and steadily behind, bent on getting back to the woodland cottage, it seemed, rather than to his master's cell. He had been a good friend to Eilmund, Cadfael reflected, but he might come in for a lashing with tongue or rod when he at last returned to his sworn duty. Though Cadfael could not, on consideration, picture that wild, unchancy creature submitting tamely to reproof, much less to punishment.
    It was about the hour for Vespers when Cadfael dismounted within the low pale of Eilmund's garden, and the girl flung open the door and came out eagerly to meet him.
    'Brother, I hardly expected you for a while yet. Cuthred's boy must have run like the wind, and all that way! And after he'd soaked himself in the brook getting my father clear! We've had good cause to be glad of him and his master this day, there might have been no one else by for hours.'
    'How is he?' asked Cadfael, unslinging his scrip and making for the house.
    'His leg's broken below the knee. I've made him lie still, and packed it round as well as I could, but it needs your hand to set it. And he lay half in the brook a long time before the young man found him, I fear he's taken a chill.'
    Eilmund lay well covered, and by now grimly reconciled to his helplessness. He submitted stoically to Cadfael's handling, and gritted his teeth and made no other sound as his leg was straightened and the fractured ends of bone brought into line.
    'You might have come off worse,' said Cadfael, relieved. 'A good clean break, and small damage to the flesh, though it's a pity they had to move you.'
    'I might have drowned else,' growled Eilmund, 'the brook was building. And you'd best tell the lord abbot to get men out here and shift the tree, before we have a lake there again.'
    'I will, I will! Now, hold fast! I don't want to leave you with one leg shorter than the other.' By heel and instep he drew out the broken leg steadily to match its fellow. 'Now, Annet, your hands where mine are, and hold it so.'
    She had not wasted her time while waiting, but had hunted out straight spars of wood from Eilmund's store, and had ready sheep's wool for padding, and rolled linen for bindings. Between them they completed the work neatly, and Eilmund lay back on his brychan and heaved a great breath. His face, weatherbeaten always, nonetheless had a fierce flush over the cheekbones. Cadfael was not quite easy about it.
    'Now if