Brother Cadfael 20: Brother Cadfael's Penance

perceptibly relaxed his braced shoulders, slackened his grip on the spade, and called a greeting across the dozen yards or so between.
    "Good day to you, brother!"
    "God bless the work!" said Cadfael, and checked his horse, turning in between the trees to draw nearer. The man put down his spade and dusted his hands, willing to interrupt his labours for a gossip with a harmless passerby. A square, compact fellow with a creased brown face like a walnut, and sharp blue eyes, well established in his woodland holding, and apparently solitary, for there was no sound or sign of any other creature about the garden or within the hut. "A right hermitage you have here," said Cadfael. "Do you not want for company sometimes?"
    "Oh, I've a mind for quietness. And if I tire of it, I have a son married and settled in Hardwicke, barely a mile off, that way, and the children come round on holy days. I get my times for company, but I like the forest life. Whither bound, brother? You'll be in the dusk soon."
    "I'll bide the night over at Deerhurst," said Cadfael placidly. "So you never have troubles yourself, friend, with wild men also liking the forest life, but for no good reasons like yours?"
    "I'm a man of my hands," said the cottar confidently. "And it's not modest prey like me the outlaws are after. Richer pickings ride along here often enough. Not that we see much trouble of that kind. Cover here is good, but narrow. There are better hunting-grounds."
    "That depends on the quarry," said Cadfael, and studied him consideringly. "Two nights back, I think you had a great company through here, on their way to Gloucester. About this time of day, perhaps an hour further into the dark. Did you hear them pass?"
    The man had stiffened, and stood regarding Cadfael with narrowed thoughtful eyes, already wary but not, Cadfael thought, of either this enquiry or the enquirer.
    "I saw them pass," he said evenly. "Such a stir a wise man does not miss. I did not know then who came. I know now. The empress, she that was all but queen, she came with her men from the bishops' court at Coventry, back into Gloucester. Nothing good ever comes to men like me from her skirts brushing by, nor from the edge of King Stephen's mantle, either. We watch them go by, and thank God when they're gone."
    "And did they go by in peace?" asked Cadfael. "Or were there others abroad, lying in ambush for them? Was there fighting? Or any manner of alarm that night?"
    "Brother," said the man slowly, "what's your interest in these matters? I stay within doors when armed men pass by, and let alone all who let me alone. Yes, there was some sort of outcry, not here, a piece back along the way, heard, not seen. Shouting, and sudden crashing about among the trees, but all was over in minutes. And then one man came riding at a gallop after the company, crying news, and later another set off back along the route in haste. Brother, if you know more of all this than I do who heard it, why question me?"
    "And next morning, by daylight," said Cadfael, "did you go to view that place where the attack was made? And what signs did you find there? How many men, would you judge? And which way did they go, afterwards?"
    "They had been waiting in hiding," said the man, "very patiently, most on the southern side of the track, but a few to the north. Their horses had trampled the sward among the trees. I would say at least a dozen in all. And when it was done, whatever was done, they massed and rode at speed, southward. There is a path there. Bushes broken and torn as they crashed through."
    "Due south?" said Cadfael.
    "And in a hurry. Men who knew their way well enough to hurry, even in the dark. And now that I've told you what I heard and saw, and but for your cloth I would have kept my mouth shut, do you tell me what business you have with such night surprises."
    "To the best of my understanding," said Cadfael, consenting to a curiosity as practical and urgent as his own, "those who struck at the empress's rearguard and rode away in haste southward have seized and taken with them into captivity a young man of my close acquaintance, who has done nothing wrong but for incurring the hatred of Philip FitzRobert. And my business is to find where they have taken him, and win him free."
    "Gloucester's son, is it? In these parts it's he calls the tune, true enough, and has boltholes everywhere. But, brother," urged the cottar, appalled, "you'd as well beard the devil himself as walk into La