Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

pastures there must be homesteads she may have tried."
    "Many will have taken advice," the priest suggested, shaking his head dubiously. "In a few weeks they would have been moving their herds and flocks into the uplands, even without this threat. Some may have moved early, rather than risk being plundered."
    "We can but make the assay," said Mark stoutly. "If need be, we'll take to the hills ourselves in search of her."
    And forthwith he made a brisk reverence to their informant, and wheeled his horse and set off due west, straight as an arrow. The priest of Saint Deiniol looked after him with raised brows and an expression half amused and half solicitous, and shook his head doubtfully.
    "Would that young man be seeking the girl out of the goodness of his heart? Or for himself?"
    "Even for that young man," Cadfael said cautiously, "I would not presume to say anything is impossible. But it comes as near as makes no matter. Any creature in peril of death or harm, be it man, woman, plough horse, or Saint Melangell's hare, could draw him through moss or quicksand. I knew I should never get him back to Shrewsbury while Heledd was astray."
    "You are turning back here yourself?" the priest demanded dryly.
    "Small chance! If he is bound to her, fellow-voyager to his fellow, so am I to him. I'll get him home!"
    "Well, even if his concern for her is purer than dew," said the priest with conviction, "he had best take heed to his vows when he does find her. For she's a bonny black maid as ever I saw. I was glad of my evening years when I dared bid her shelter the night over in my house. And thankful when she would not. And that lad is at the best of the morning, tonsure or no tonsure."
    "The more reason I should go after him," agreed Cadfael. "And my thanks to you for the good word. For all the good words! I'll see them strictly delivered when I overtake him."
    "Saint Nonna," said Cadfael didactically, threading the woodland belt that spread more than a mile inland from the strait, "was the mother of Saint David. She has many sacred wells about the country, that give healing, especially to the eyes, even to curing blindness. This holy woman must have chosen to name herself after the saint."
    Brother Mark pursued his determined way along the narrow ride, and said nothing. On either hand the trees glittered in moist sunlight after the early morning showers, mixed woodland sufficiently open to let in the radiance of early afternoon, sufficiently close to be ridden in single file, and all just coming into the first full leaf, young and fresh and full of birds. Every Spring is the only Spring, a perpetual astonishment. It bursts upon a man every year, thought Cadfael, contemplating it with delight in spite of all anxieties, as though it had never happened before, but had just been shown by God how to do it, and tried, and found the impossible possible.
    Ahead of him in the worn grass of the ride Mark had halted, staring ahead. Between the trees, here thinning, open light shone before them, at a little distance still, but now not very far, and shimmering with reflected gleams from water. They were nearing the strait. And on Mark's left hand a narrow footway twined in among the trees to a low-roofed hut some yards aside from the path.
    "This is the place."
    "And she was here," said Cadfael. The wet grass, unshaken on either side by any wind, had retained the soft dew of rain that dimmed its new green to a silver grey, but through it a horse had certainly passed, leaving his darker trail, and brushing before him the tips of new growth, for the passage to the cell was very narrow. The ride in which they had halted was in regular use, they had not thought to examine it as they rode. But here between the encroaching bushes a horse had certainly passed since the rain. And not inward, but outward. A few young shoots had been broken at the tip, leaning towards the open ride, and the longer grasses darkened by hooves clearly showed the direction in which they had been brushed in passing. "And is gone," said Cadfael, "since the morning."
    They dismounted, and approached the cell on foot. Built little and low, and one room only, for a woman who had almost no needs at all, beyond her small stone-built altar against one wall, and her plain straw pallet against another, and her small cleared space of garden behind for vegetables and herbs. Her door was drawn to, but had no lock to be seen without, and no bar within, only a latch that any wayfarer