Hermit of Eyton Forest (5 page)

Chapter Three

EILMUND,
THE FORESTER OF EYTON, came now and then to chapter at the abbey to report on
work done, or on any difficulties he might have encountered, and extra help he
might need. It was not often he had anything but placid progress to report, but
in the second week of November he came one morning with a puzzled frown fixed
on his brow, and a glum face. It seemed that a curious blight of misfortune had
settled upon his woodland.

Eilmund
was a thickset, dark, shaggy man past forty, very powerful of body, and sharp
enough of mind. He stood squarely in the midst at chapter, solidly braced on
his sturdy legs like a wrestler confronting his opponent, and made few words of
what he had to tell.

“My
lord abbot, there are things happening in my charge that I cannot fathom. A
week ago, in that great rainstorm we had, the brook that runs between our
coppice and the open forest washed down some loose bushes, and built up such a
dam that it overflowed and changed its course, and flooded my newest planting.
And no sooner had I cleared the block than I found the flood-water had undercut
part of the bank of my ditch, a small way upstream, and the fall of soil had
bridged the ditch. By the time I found it the deer had got into the coppice.
They’ve eaten off all the young growth from the plot we cropped two years ago.
I doubt some of the trees may die, and all will be held back a couple more
years at least before they get their growth. It spoils my planning,” complained
Eilmund, outraged for the ruin of his cycle of culling, “besides the present
loss.”

Cadfael
knew the place, Eilmund’s pride, the farmed part of Eyton forest, as neat and
well-ditched a coppice as any in the shire, where the regular cutting of six-
or seven-year-old wood let in the light at every cropping, so that the wealth
of ground cover and wild flowers was always rich and varied. Some trees, like
ash, spring anew from the stool of the original trunk, just below the cut.
Some, like elm or aspen, from below the ground all round the stump. Some of the
stools in Eilmund’s care, several times cropped afresh, had grown into groves
of their own, their open centres two good paces across. No grave natural
disaster had ever before upset his pride in his skills. No wonder he was so
deeply aggrieved. And the loss to the abbey was itself serious, for coppice
wood for fuel, charcoal, hafts of tools, carpentry and all manner of uses
brought in good income.

“Nor
is that the end of it,” went on Eilmund grimly, “for yesterday when I made my
rounds on the other side of the copse, where the ditch is dry but deep enough
and the bank steep, what should have happened but the sheep from Eaton had
broke out of their field by a loose pale, just where Eaton ground touches ours,
and sheep, as you know, my lord, make nothing of a bank that will keep out
deer, and there’s nothing they like better for grazing than the first tender
seedlings of ash. They’ve made short work of much of the new growth before I
could get them out. And neither I nor John of Longwood can tell how they got
through so narrow a gap, but you know if the matron ewe takes a notion into her
head there’s no stopping her, and the others will follow. It seems to me my
forest is bewitched.”

“Far
more like,” suggested Prior Robert, looking severely down his long nose, “that
there has been plain human negligence, either on your part or your
neighbour’s.”

“Father
Prior,” said Eilmund, with the bluntness of one who knows his value, and knows
that it is equally well known to the only superior he needs to satisfy here,
“in all my years in the abbey’s service there has never yet been complaint of
my work. I have made my rounds daily, yes, and often nightly, too, but I cannot
command the rain not to fall, nor can I be everywhere at once. Such a spate of
misfortunes in so short a time I’ve never before known. Nor can I blame John of
Longwood, who has always been as good a neighbour as any man needs.”

“That
is the truth,” said Abbot Radulfus with authority. “We have had cause to be
thankful for his good will, and do not doubt it now. Nor do I question your
skill and devotion. There has never been need before, and I see none now.
Reverses are sent to us so that we may overcome them, and no man can presume to
escape such testings for ever. The loss can be borne. Do what you can, Master
Eilmund, and if you should feel in need of another helper, you shall have one.”
Eilmund, who had always been equal to his tasks and was proud of his
self-sufficiency, said thanks for that somewhat grudgingly, but declined the
offer for the time being, and promised to send word if anything further should
happen to change his mind. And off he went as briskly as he had come, back to
his cottage in the forest, his daughter, and his grievance against fate, since
he could not honestly find a human agency to blame. By some mysterious means
young Richard got to know of the unusual purport of Eilmund’s visit, and
anything to do with his grandmother, and all those people who had their labour
and living about the manor of Eaton, was of absorbing interest to him. However
wise and watchful his guardian the abbot might be, however competent his
steward, it behoved him to keep an eye on his estate for himself. If there was
mischief afoot near Eaton, he itched to know the reason, and he was far more
likely than was the Abbot Radulfus to attribute mischief, however
incomprehensibly procured, to the perversity or malice of humanity, having so
often found himself arraigned as the half-innocent agent of misrule. If the
sheep of Eaton had made their way into the ash coppice of Eyton not by some
obscure act of God, but because someone had opened the way for them and started
them towards their welcome feast, then Richard wanted to know who, and why.
They were, after all, his sheep.

Accordingly,
he kept a sharp eye open for any new comings and goings about the hour of
chapter each morning, and was curious when he observed, two days after
Eilmund’s visit, the arrival at the gatehouse of a young man he had seen but
once before, who asked very civilly for permission to appear at chapter with an
embassage from his master, Cuthred. He was early, and had to wait, which he did
serenely. That suited Richard very well, for he could not play truant from
school, but by the time the chapter ended he would be at liberty, and could
ambush the visitor and satisfy his curiosity.

Every
hermit worth his salt, having taken vows of stability which enjoin him to
remain thenceforth within his own cell and closed garden, and having gifts of
foresight and a sacred duty to use them for his neighbours good, must have a
resident boy to run his errands and deliver his admonitions and reproofs.
Cuthred’s boy, it seemed, had arrived already in his service, accompanying him
in his recent wanderings in search of the place of retirement appointed for him
by God. He came into the chapterhouse of the abbey with demure assurance, and
stood to be examined by all the curious brothers, not at all discomposed by
such an assault of bright, inquisitive eyes.

From
the retired stall which he preferred, Cadfael studied the messenger with
interest. A more unlikely servitor for an anchorite and popular saint, in the
old Celtic sense that took no account of canonisation, he could not well have
imagined, though he could not have said on the instant where the incongruity
lay. A young fellow of about twenty years, in a rough tunic and hose of brown
cloth, patched and faded—nothing exceptional there. He was built on the same
light, wiry lines as Hugh Beringar, but stood a hand’s breadth taller, and he
was lean and brown and graceful as a fawn, managing his long limbs with the
same angular, animal beauty. Even his composed stillness held implications of
sudden, fierce movement, like a wild creature motionless in ambush. His running
would be swift and silent, his leaping long and lofty as that of a hare. And
his face had a similar slightly ominous composure and awareness, under a thick,
close-fitted cap of waving hair the colour of copper beeches. A long oval of a
face, tall-browed, with a long, straight nose flared at the nostrils, again
like a wild thing sensitive to every scent the breeze brought him, a supple,
crooked mouth that almost smiled even in repose, as if in secret and slightly
disturbing amusement, and long amber eyes that tilted upwards at the outer
corners, under oblique copper brows. The burning glow of those eyes he shaded,
but did not dim or conceal, beneath round-arched lids and copper lashes long
and rich as a woman’s.

What
was an antique saint doing with an unnerving fairy thing in his employ? But the
boy, having waited a long moment to be inspected thoroughly, lifted his eyelids
and showed to Abott Radulfus a face of candid and childlike innocence, and made
him a very charming and respectful reverence. He would not speak until he was
spoken to, but waited to be questioned. “You come from the hermit of Eyton?”
asked the abbot mildly, studying the young, calm, almost smiling face
attentively.

“Yes,
my lord. The holy Cuthred sends a message by me.” His voice was quiet and clear,
pitched a little high, so that it rang bell-like under the vault.

“What
is your name?” Radulfus questioned.

“Hyacinth,
my lord.”

“I
have known a bishop of that name,” said the abbot, and briefly smiled, for the
sleek brown creature before him had certainly nothing of the bishop about him.
“Were you named for him?”

“No,
my lord. I have never heard of him. I was told, once, that there was a youth of
that name in an old story, and two gods fell out over him, and the loser killed
him. They say flowers grew from his blood. It was a priest who told me,” said
the boy innocently, and slanted a sudden brief smile round the chapterhouse,
well aware of the slight stir of disquiet he had aroused in these cloistered
breasts, though the abbot continued unruffled. Into that old story, thought
Cadfael, studying him with pleasure and interest, you, my lad, fit far better
than into the ambit of bishops, and well you know it. Or hermits either, for
that matter. Now where in the world did he discover you, and how did he tame you?

“May
I speak my message?” asked the boy ingenuously, golden eyes wide and clear and
fixed upon the abbot.

“You
have learned it by heart?” enquired Radulfus, smiling.

“I
must, my lord. There must be no word out of place.”

“A
very faithful messenger! Yes, you may speak.”

“I
must be my master’s voice, not my own,” said the boy by way of introduction,
and forthwith sank his voice several tones below its normal ringing lightness,
in a startling piece of mimicry that made Cadfael, at least, look at him more warily
and searchingly than ever. “I have heard with much distress,” said the proxy
hermit gravely, “both from the steward of Eaton and the forester of Eyton, of
the misfortunes suddenly troubling the woodland. I have prayed and meditated,
and greatly dread that these are but the warnings of worse to come, unless some
false balance or jarring discord between right and wrong can be amended. I know
of no such offence hanging over us, unless it be the denial of right to Dame
Dionisia Ludel, in witholding her grandchild from her. The father’s wish must
indeed be regarded, but the grief of the widow for her young cannot be put away
out of mind, and she bereaved and alone. I pray you, my lord abbot, for the
love of God, consider whether what you do is well done, for I feel the shadow
of evil heavy over us all.”

All
this the surprising young man delivered in the sombre and weighty voice which
was not his own, and undeniably the trick was impressive, and caused some of
the more superstitious young brothers to shift and gape and mutter in awed
concern. And having ended his recital, the messenger again raised his amber
eyes and smiled, as if the purport of his embassage concerned him not at all.
Abbot Radulfus sat in silence for a long moment, closely eyeing the young man,
who gazed back at him unwinking and serene, satisfied at having completed his
errand.

“Your
master’s own words?”

“Every
one, my lord, just as he taught them to me.”

“And
he did not commission you to argue further in the matter on his behalf? You do
not want to add anything?”

The
eyes opened still wider in astonishment. “I, my lord? How could I? I only run
his errands.”

Prior
Robert said superciliously into the abbot’s ear: “It is not unknown for an
anchorite to give shelter and employment to a simpleton. It is an act of
charity. This is clearly one such.” His voice was low, but not low enough to
escape ears as sharp, and almost as pointed, as those of a fox, for the boy
Hyacinth gleamed, and flashed a crooked smile. Cadfael, who had also caught the
drift of this comment, doubted very much whether the abbot would agree with it.
There seemed to him to be a very sharp intelligence behind the brown faun’s
face, even if it suited him to play the fool with it. “Well,” said Radulfus,
“you may go back to your master, Hyacinth, and carry him my thanks for his
concern and care, and for his prayers, which I hope he will continue on behalf
of us all. Say that I have considered and do consider every side of Dame
Dionisia’s complaint against me, and have done and will continue to do what I
see to be right. And for the natural misfortunes that give him so much anxiety,
mere men cannot control or command them, though faith may overcome them. What
we cannot change we must abide. That is all.” Without another word the boy made
him a deep and graceful obeisance, turned, and walked without haste from the
chapterhouse, lean and light-footed, and moving with a cat’s almost insolent
elegance.