Brother Cadfael 14: The Hermit of Eyton Forest

nuisance, but valuable. For no price would I be willing to let him go free.' He bit off the words with a vicious snap of large, strong teeth. He was as tall and long-boned as his father, but carried less flesh, and was leaner in the face; but he had the same shallowly-set eyes of an indeterminate, opaque colour, that seemed all surface and no depth. Thirty years old, perhaps, and pleasurably aware of his new status. Proprietorial satisfaction had begun to vibrate beneath the hard level of his voice. Already he spoke of 'my property'. That was one aspect of his bereavement which certainly had not escaped him.
    'I shall want to see the sheriff concerning this fellow who calls himself Hyacinth. If he has run, does not that make it more likely he is indeed Brand? And that he had a hand in my father's death? There's a heavy score against him already. I don't intend to let such a debt go unpaid.'
    'That is a matter for the secular law, not for me,' said Radulfus with chill civility. 'There is no proof of who killed the lord Drogo, the thing is quite open. But the man is being sought. If you will come with me, I'll take you to the chapel where your father lies.'
    Aymer stood beside the open coffin on its draped bier, and the light of the tall candles burning at Drogo's head and feet showed no great change in his son's face. He gazed down with drawn brows, but it was the frown of busy thought rather than grief or anger at such a death.
    'I feel it bitterly,' said the abbot, 'that a guest in our house should come to so evil an end. We have said Masses for his soul, but other amends are out of my scope. I trust we may yet see justice done.'
    'Indeed!' agreed Aymer, but so absently that it was plain his mind was on other things. 'I have no choice but to take him home for burial. But I cannot go yet. This search cannot be so soon abandoned. I must ride into the town this afternoon and see this master carpenter of yours, and have him make an outer coffin and line it with lead, and seal it. A pity, he could have lain just as properly here, but the men of our house are all buried at Bosiet. My mother would not be content else.'
    He said it with a note of vexation in his musings. But for the necessity of taking home a corpse he could have lingered here for days to pursue his hunt for the escaped villein. Even as things stood he meant to make the fullest use of his time, and Radulfus could not help feeling that it was the villein he wanted most vindictively, not his father's murderer.
    By chance Cadfael happened to be crossing the court when the newcomer took horse again, early in the afternoon. It was his first glimpse of Drogo's son, and he stopped and drew aside to study him with interest. His identity was never in doubt, for the likeness was there, though somewhat tempered in this younger man. The curiously shallow eyes, so meanly diminished by their lack of the shadow and form deep sockets provide, had the same flat malevolence, and his handling of horseflesh as he mounted was more considerate by far than his manner towards his groom. The hand that held his stirrup was clouted aside by the butt of his whip as soon as he was in the saddle, and when Warin started back from the blow so sharply that the horse took fright and clattered backwards on the cobbles, tossing up his head and snorting, the rider swung the whip at the groom's shoulders so readily and with so little apparent anger or exasperation that it was plain this was the common currency of his dealings with his underlings. He took only the younger groom with him into the town, himself riding his father's horse, which was fresh and spoiling for exercise. No doubt Warin was only too glad to be left behind here in peace for a few hours.
    Cadfael overtook the groom and fell into step beside him as he turned back towards the stables. Warin looked round to show him a bruise rapidly fading, but still yellow as old parchment, and a mouth still elongated by the healing scar at one corner.
    'I've not seen you these two days,' said Cadfael, eyeing the traces of old violence and alert for new. 'Come round with me into the herb garden, and let me dress that gash again for you. He's safely away for an hour or two, I take it, you can breathe easily. And it would do with another treatment, though I see it's clean now.'
    Warin hesitated only for a moment. 'They've taken the two fresh horses, and left me the others to groom. But they can wait a 'while.' And he went willingly at Cadfael's