Brother Cadfael 14: The Hermit of Eyton Forest

pony, crusted with the drying lather of their hasty ride, and held now by a groom, who stood gaping at the group framed in the archway of the cloister. Hugh followed the man's fascinated stare, and took in at a glance the same arresting spectacle, the abbot and Fulke Astley face to face in obvious confrontation, and Brother Paul with an arm protectively about the shoulders of a small, wiry, grubby and dishevelled boy, who lifted to the evening light the wide-eyed face, half-frightened, half-defiant, of Richard Ludel.
    Radulfus, standing disdainfully silent under abuse, was the first to notice the new arrival on the scene. Looking clean over his adversary's head, as with his height he could very well do, he said distinctly: 'No doubt the lord sheriff will pay the attention due to your charges. As he may also be interested in how Richard came to be in your care at Leighton as late as last night. You should address your complaints to him.' Fulke span upon one heel so precipitately that he all but lost his balance; and there was Hugh coming briskly down the court to join them, one quirky eyebrow tilted into his black hair, and the eye beneath it bright and sharply knowing, and levelled upon Fulke.
    'Well, well, my lord!' said Hugh amiably. 'I see you have made shift to discover and restore the truant I have just failed to find in your manor of Leighton. Here am I newly come from there to report failure to the lord abbot as Richard's guardian, and here I find you have been doing my work for me while I was wild-goose chasing. I take that very kindly of you. I'll bear it in mind when it comes to considering the little matter of abduction and forcible imprisonment. It seems the woodland bird that whispered in my ear Richard was at Leighton told simple truth, for all I found no trace of him when I put it to the proof, and no one to admit he'd ever been there. You can have been out of the house barely half an hour by some other path when I reached it by the road.' His observant eye roved over Richard's taut figure and wary face, and came to rest on the abbot. 'Do you find him in good heart, and none the worse for being caged, my lord? He's come to no harm?'
    'None to his body, certainly,' said Radulfus. 'But there is another matter unresolved. It seems a form of marriage took place last night at Leighton between Richard and Sir Fulke's daughter. To that Richard agrees, but he says that it was no real marriage, since the hermit Cuthred, who conducted it, is not a priest.'
    'Do you tell me so?' Hugh pursed his lips in a soundless whistle, and swung round upon Fulke, who stood mute but watchful, all too aware of the need to step warily, and think now before he spoke. 'And what do you say to that, my lord?'
    'I say it is an absurd charge that will never stand. He came to us with the good will of the brothers of Buildwas. I never heard word against him, and do not believe it now. We have dealt with him in good faith.'
    'That, I am sure, is true,' said the abbot fairly. 'If there is anything in this charge, those who desired this marriage did not know of it.'
    'But Richard, I think, did not desire it,' said Hugh, with a somewhat grim smile. 'This cannot rest so, we must have out the truth.'
    'So we are all agreed,' said Radulfus, 'and Sir Fulke has contracted to meet with me tomorrow after Prime at the hermitage, and hear what the man himself has to say. I was about to send to you, my lord sheriff, and tell you how this thing stands, and ask you to ride with me tomorrow. This scene,' he said, casting an authoritative glance round at his all too attentive flock, 'need not be prolonged, I think. If you will sup with me, Hugh, you shall hear all that has happened. Robert, have the brothers proceed. I am sorry our evening should have been so rudely disrupted. And, Paul... ' He looked down at Richard, who had one fist tightly clenched on a fold of Paul's habit, ready to hold fast had his tenure been threatened. 'Take him away, Paul, clean him up, feed him, and bring him to me after supper. He has a great deal to tell us that has not been told yet. There, you may disperse, all, there is no more here to see.'
    The brothers edged aside obediently, and moved away somewhat raggedly to resume the interrupted order of the evening, though there would be furtive whispering even in the frater, and a great deal of excited talk afterwards in the leisured hour before Collations. Brother Paul marched his restored lamb away to be washed and made