Brother Cadfael 14: The Hermit of Eyton Forest

death?'
    If it had, Cadfael was not yet minded to entertain the thought. 'He was on his way back,' he said cautiously, 'and empty-handed. It argues that he was disappointed. The boy is not his lost villein.'
    'It could as well argue that he is, and saw his doom bearing down on him in time to vanish. How then? He's been in the woods there now long enough to know his way about. How if he was the hand that held the dagger?'
    No denying that it was a possibility. Who could have better reason for slipping a knife into Drogo Bosiet's back than the lad he meant to drag back to his own manor court, flay first, and exploit afterwards lifelong? 'It's what will be said,' agreed Cadfael sombrely. 'Unless we find Cuthred and his boy sitting peacefully at home minding their own business and meddling with no one else's. Small use guessing until we hear what happened there.'
    They approached the projecting tongue of Eaton land by the same path Drogo had used, and saw the small clearing in thick woodland open before them almost suddenly, as he had seen it, but in full daylight, while he had come in early dusk. Muted sunlight filtering through the branches turned the sombre grey of the stone hut to dull gold. The low pales of the fence that marked out the garden were set far apart, a mere sketched boundary, no bar to beast or man, and the door of the hut stood wide open, so that they saw through into the inner room where the constant lamp on the stone altar showed tiny and dim as a single spark, almost quenched by the light falling from the tiny shutterless window above. Saint Cuthred's cell, it seemed, stood wide open to all who came.
    A part of the enclosed garden was still wild, though the grass and herbage had been cut, and there the hermit himself was at work with mattock and spade, heaving up the matted clods and turning the soil below as he cleared it. They watched him at it as they approached, inexpert but dogged and patient, plainly unused to handling such tools or stooping to such labours as should have fallen to Hyacinth. Who, by the same token, was nowhere to be seen.
    A tall man, the hermit, long-legged, long-bodied, lean and straight, his coarse dark habit kilted to his knees, and the cowl flung back on his shoulders. He saw them coming and straightened up from his labours with the mattock still in his hands, and showed them a strong, fleshless face, olive-skinned and deep-eyed, framed in a thick bush of dark hair and beard. He looked from one to the other of them, and acknowledged Hugh's reverence with a deep inclination of his head, without lowering his eyes.
    'If your errand is to Cuthred the hermit,' he said in a deep and resonant voice, and with assured authority, 'come in and welcome. I am he.' And to Cadfael, after studying his face for a moment: 'I think I saw you at Eaton when the lord Richard was buried. You are a brother of Shrewsbury.'
    'I am,' said Cadfael. 'I was there in the boy's escort. And this is Hugh Beringar, sheriff of this shire.'
    'The lord sheriff does me honour,' said Cuthred. 'Will you enter my cell?' And he loosed his frayed rope girdle and shook down the skirt of his habit to his feet, and led the way within. The thick tangle of his hair brushed the stone above the doorway as he entered. He stood a good head taller than either of his visitors.
    In the dim living room there was one narrow window that let in the afternoon light, and a small stir of breeze that brought in the scent of mown herbage and moist autumn leaves. Through the doorless opening into the chapel within they saw all that Drogo had seen, the stone slab of the altar with its carved casket, the silver cross and candlesticks, and the open breviary lying before the small spark of the lamp. The hermit followed Hugh's glance to the open book and, entering, closed it reverently, and laid it with loving care in accurate alignment with the forward edge of the reliquary. The fine gilt ornament and delicate tooling of the leather binding gleamed in the small light of the lamp.
    'And how may I be of service to the lord sheriff?' asked Cuthred, his face still turned towards the altar.
    'I need to ask you some few questions,' said Hugh with deliberation, 'in the matter of a murdered man.'
    That brought the lofty head round in haste, staring aghast and astonished. 'Murdered? Here and now? I know of none. Say plainly what you mean, my lord.'
    'Last night a certain Drogo Bosiet, a guest at the abbey, set out to visit you, at the prompting of