Brother Cadfael 14: The Hermit of Eyton Forest

this head he had questions enough to ask, startled out of his detachment and indifference.
    'We found him dead in the forest, a few miles from here, with a knife wound in his back. And robbed.' Cadfael was never quite sure why he himself had become so reticent at this point, and why, for instance, he did not simply name the dead man. And had his companion persisted, as would surely have been natural enough, he would have answered freely. But there the questioning stopped. Rafe shrugged off the implied perils of riding alone in the forests of the border shires, and closed the low door of the stall on his contented horse.
    'I'll bear it in mind. Go well armed, I say, or keep to the highroads.'
    He dusted his hands and turned towards the gateway of the yard. 'Well, I'll go and make ready for supper.' And he was off at a purposeful walk, but not immediately towards the guest hall. Instead, he crossed to the archway of the cloister, and entered there. Cadfael found something so significant in that arrow-straight progress towards the church that he followed, candidly curious and officiously helpful, and finding Rafe of Coventry standing hesitant by the parish altar, looking round him at the multiplicity of chapels contained in transepts and chevet, directed him with blunt simplicity to the one he was looking for.
    'Through here. The arch is low, but you're my build, no need to stoop your head.'
    Rafe made no effort to disguise or disclaim his purpose, or to reject Cadfael's company. He gave him one calm, considering look, nodded his acknowledgements, and followed. And in the stony chill and dimming light of the chapel he crossed at once to the bier where Drogo Bosiet's body lay reverently covered, with candles burning at head and feet, and lifted the cloth from the dead face.
    Very briefly he studied the fixed and pallid features, and again covered them, and the movements of his hands as they replaced the cloth had lost their urgency and tension. He had time even for simple human awe at the presence of death.
    'You don't, by any chance, know him?' asked Cadfael.
    'No, I never saw him before. God rest his soul!' And Rafe straightened up from stooping over the bier, and drew a liberating breath. Whatever his interest in the body had been, it was over.
    'A man of property, by the name of Drogo Bosiet, from Northamptonshire. His son is expected here any day now.'
    'Do you tell me so? A bleak coming that will be for him.' But the words he used now were coming from the surface of his mind only, and answers concerned him scarcely at all. 'Have you many guests at this season? Of my own years and condition, perhaps? I should enjoy a game of chess in the evening, if I can find a partner.'
    If he had lost interest in Drogo Bosiet, it seemed he was still concerned to know of any others who might have come here as travellers. Any of his own years and condition!
    'Brother Denis could give you a match,' said Cadfael, deliberately obtuse. 'No, it's a quiet time with us. You'll find the hall half-empty.' They were approaching the steps of the guest hall, side by side and easy together, and the late afternoon light, overcast and still, was beginning to dim into the dove grey of evening.
    'This man who was struck down in the forest,' said Rafe of Coventry. 'Your sheriff will surely have the hounds out after an outlaw so near the town. Is there suspicion of any man for the deed?'

'There is,' said Cadfael, 'though there's no certainty. A newcomer in these parts, who's missing from his master's service since the attack.' And he added, innocently probing without seeming to probe: 'A young fellow he is, maybe twenty years old... '
    Not of Rafe's years or condition, no! And of no interest to him, for he merely nodded his acceptance of the information, and by the indifference of his face as promptly discarded it. 'Well, God speed their hunting!' he said, dismissing Hyacinth's guilt or innocence as irrelevant to whatever he had on that closed and armoured mind of his.
    At the foot of the guest hall steps he turned in, surely to examine, thought Cadfael, every man of middle years who would come to supper in hall. Looking for one in particular? Whose name, since he did not ask for names, would be unhelpful, because false? One, at any rate, who was not Drogo Bosiet of Northamptonshire!
    Chapter Eight
    Hugh came to the manor of Eaton early in the morning, with six mounted men at his back, and a dozen more deployed behind him between the river and the