Brother Cadfael 14: The Hermit of Eyton Forest

you mean. Brother Cadfael, is it?'
    'It is.' He looked from one roused and wary face to the other, and saw that they were breathing a little more easily and every moment less tensed for flight or attack. 'Lucky for you they brought no hounds with them this morning. Hugh never likes to hunt a man with hounds. I'm sorry, lad, if my visit tonight kept you fretting longer than you need have done in your nest up there. I hope you spend your nights in better comfort.'
    At that they both smiled, still somewhat cautiously and with eyes alert and wild, but they said nothing.
    'And where did you hide through the sergeant's search, that they never got wind of you at all?'
    Annet made up her mind, with the same thorough practical resolution with which she did everything. She stirred and shook herself, the glossy cloak of her hair billowing into a pale cloud about her head. She drew breath deeply, and laughed.
    'If you must know, he was under the brychans of Father's bed, while Will Warden sat on the bench opposite drinking ale with us, and his men peered in among my hens and forked through the hay in the loft, outside. You thought, I believe,' she said, coming close to Cadfael and drawing Hyacinth after her by the hand, 'that Father was in ignorance of what I was doing. Did you hold that against me, even a little? No need, he knows all, has known it from the beginning, or at least from the moment this manhunt began. And now that you've found us out, had we not better all go into the house, and see what our four heads can come up with for the future, to get us all out of this tangle?'
    'They'll not come here again,' said Eilmund comfortably, presiding over this meeting in his house from the throne of his bed, the same bed under which Hyacinth had couched secure in the presence of the hunters. 'But if they do, we'll know of it in time. Never twice the same hiding place.'
    'And never once any qualms that you might be hiding a murderer?' asked Cadfael, hopeful of being convinced.
    'No need for any! From the start of it I knew I was not. And you shall know it, too. I'm talking of proof positive, Cadfael, not a mere matter of faith, though faith's no mere matter, come to that. You were here last night, it was on your way back you found the man dead, and dead no more than an hour when you found him. Do you say aye to that?'
    'More than willingly, if it helps your proof along.'
    'And you left me when Annet here came back from doing the work that keeps her busy in the evening. You'll call to mind I said she'd been long enough about it, and so she had, well above an hour. For good reason, she'd been meeting with this youngster here, and whatever they were about, they were in no hurry about it, which won't surprise you greatly, I daresay. In short, these two were together in the woods a mile or so from here from the time she left you and me together, until she came back nigh on two hours later. And there young Richard found them, and this lad she brought back with her here, and ten minutes after you were gone she brought him in to me. No murderer, for all that while he was with her, or me, or the both of us, and in this house he slept that night. He never was near the man who was killed, and we can swear to it.'
    'Then why have you not... ' Cadfael began, and as hastily caught himself back from the needless question, and held up a hand to ward off the obvious answer. 'No, say no word! I see very well why. My wits are grown dull tonight. If you came forward to tell Hugh Beringar he's after a man proven innocent, true enough you could put that danger away from him. But if one Bosiet is dead, there's another expected at the abbey any day now he may be there this minute, for all I know. As bad as his sire, so says the groom, and he has good reason to know, he bears the marks of it. No, I see how you're bound.'
    Hyacinth sat in the rushes on the floor at Annet's feet, hugging his drawn up knees. He said without passion or emphasis, but with the calm finality of absolute resolution: 'I am not going back there.'
    'No, no more you shall!' said Eilmund heartily. 'You'll understand, Cadfael, that when I took the lad in, there was no question of murder at all. It was a runaway villein I chose to shelter, one with good reason to run, and one that had done me the best of turns any man could do for another. I liked him well, I would not for any cause have sent him back to be misused. And then, when the cry of murder did arise, I had no call to feel any