Hermit of Eyton Forest (6 page)

In
the great court, almost empty at this hour when all the brothers were at
chapter, the visitor was in no hurry to set out back to his master, but
lingered to look about him curiously, from the abbot’s lodging in its small
rose garden to the guest halls and the infirmary, and so round the circle of
buildings to the gatehouse and the long expanse of the south range of the
cloister. Richard, who had been lying in wait for him for some minutes, emerged
confidently from the arched southern doorway, and advanced into the stranger’s
path. Since the intent was clearly to halt him, Hyacinth obligingly halted,
looking down with interest at the solemn, freckled face that studied him just
as ardently. “Good morrow, young sir!” he said civilly. “And what might you
want with me?”

“I
know who you are,” said Richard. “You are the serving-man the hermit brought
with him. I heard you say you came with a message from him. Was it about me?”

“That
I might better answer,” said Hyacinth reasonably, “if I knew who your lordship
might be, and why my master should be concerning himself with such small fry.”

“I
am not small fry,” said Richard with dignity. “I am Richard Ludel, the lord of
Eaton, and your master’s hermitage is on my land. And you know very well who I
am, for you were there among the servants at my father’s funeral. And if you
did bring some message that concerns me, I think I have a right to know about
it. That’s only fair.” And Richard jutted his small, square chin and stood his
ground with bare feet spread apart, challenging justice with unblinking
blue-green eyes.

For
a long moment Hyacinth returned his gaze with a bright, speculative stare. Then
he said in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone, as man to man and quite without
mockery: “That’s a true word, and I’m with you, Richard. Now, where can we two
talk at ease?”

The
middle of the great court was, perhaps, a little too conspicuous for lengthy
confidences, and Richard was sufficiently taken with the unmistakably secular
stranger to find him a pleasing novelty among these monastic surroundings, and
meant to get to know all about him now that he had the opportunity. Moreover,
very shortly chapter would be ending, and it would not do to invite Prior
Robert’s too close attention in such circumstances, or court Brother Jerome’s
busybody interference. With hasty confidence he caught Hyacinth by the hand,
and towed him away up the court to the retired wicket that led through the
enclave to the mill. There on the grass above the pool they were private, with
the wall at their backs and the thick, springy turf under them, and the midday
sun still faintly warm on them through the diaphanous veil of haze. “Now!” said
Richard, getting down sternly to the matter in hand. “I need to have a friend
who’ll tell me truth, there are so many people ordering my life for me, and
can’t agree about it, and how can I take care of myself and be ready for them
if there’s no one to warn me what’s in their minds? If you’ll be on my side I
shall know how to deal. Will you?”

Hyacinth
leaned his back comfortably against the abbey wall, stretched out before him
shapely, sinewy legs, and half-closed his sunlit eyes. “I tell you what,
Richard, as you can best deal if you know all that’s afoot, so can I be most
helpful to you if I know the why and wherefore of it. Now I know the end of
this story thus far, and you know the beginning. How if we put the two
together, and see what’s to be made of them?”

Richard
clapped his hands. “Agreed! So first tell me what was the message you brought
from Cuthred today!”

Word
for word as he had delivered it in chapter, but without the mimicry, Hyacinth
told him.

“I
knew it!” said the child, thumping a small fist into the thick grass. “I knew
it must be some way about me. So my grandmother has cozened or persuaded even
her holy man into arguing her cause for her. I heard about these things that
have been happening in the coppice, but such things do happen now and then, who
can prevent? You’ll need to warn your master not to be over-persuaded, even if
she has made herself his patroness. Tell him the whole tale, for she won’t.”

“So
I will,” agreed Hyacinth heartily, “when I know it myself.”

“No
one has told you why she wants me home? Not a word from your master?”

“Lad,
I just run his errands, he doesn’t confide in me.” And it seemed that the
unquestioning servitor was in no hurry about returning from this errand, for he
settled his back more easily against the mosses of the wall, and crossed his
slim ankles. Richard wriggled a little nearer, and Hyacinth shifted
good-naturedly to accommodate the sharp young bones that leaned into his side.
“She wants to marry me off,” said Richard, “to get hold of the manors either
side of mine. And not even to a proper bride. Hikrude is old . At least
twenty-two.”

“A
venerable age,” agreed Hyacinth gravely.

“But
even if she was young and pretty I don’t want her. I don’t want any woman. I
don’t like women. I don’t see any need for them.”

“You’re
in the right place to escape them, then,” suggested Hyacinth helpfully, and
under his long copper lashes his amber eyes flashed a gleam of laughter.
“Become a novice, and be done with the world, you’ll be safe enough here.”

“No,
that’s no sport, neither. Listen, I’ll tell you all about it.” And the tale of
his threatened marriage, and his grandmother’s plans to enlarge her little
palatine came tripping volubly from his tongue. “So will you keep an eye open
for me, and let me know what I must be ware of? I need someone who’ll be honest
with me, and not keep everything from me, as if I were still a child.”

“I
will!” promised Hyacinth contentedly, smiling. “I’ll be your lordship’s liege
man in the camp at Eaton, and be eyes and ears for you.”

“And
make plain my side of it to Cuthred? I shouldn’t like him to think evil of
Father Abbot; he’s only doing what my father wanted for me. And you haven’t
told me your name. I must have a name for you.”

“My
name is Hyacinth. I’m told there was a bishop so named, but I’m none. Your
secrets are safer with a sinner than with a saint, and I’m closer than the
confessional, never fear me.”

They
had somehow become so content and familiar with each other that only the timely
reminder of Richard’s stomach, nudging him that it was time for his dinner,
finally roused them to separate. Richard trotted beside his new friend along
the path that skirted the enclave wall as far as the Foregate, and there parted
from him, and watched the light, erect figure as it swung away along the
highroad, before he turned and went dancing gleefully back to the wicket in the
enclave wall.

Hyacinth
covered the first miles of his return journey at a springy, long-stepping lope,
less out of any sense of haste or duty than for pure pleasure in the ease of
his own gait, and the power and precision of his body. He crossed the river by
the bridge at Attingham, waded the watery meadows of its tributary the Tern,
and turned south from Wroxeter towards Eyton. When he came into the fringes of
the forest land he slowed to a loitering walk, reluctant to arrive when the way
was so pleasant. He had to cross abbey land to reach the hermitage which lay in
the narrow, thrusting finger of Ludel land probing into its neighbour woods. He
went merrily whistling along the track that skirted the brook, close round the
northern rim of Eilmund’s coppice. The bank that rose beyond, protecting the
farmed woodland, was high and steep, but well kept and well turfed, never
before had it subsided at any point, nor was the brook so large or rapid that
it should have undercut the seasoned slope. But so it had, the raw soil showed
in a steep dark scar well before he reached the place. He eyed it as he
approached, gnawing a thoughtful lip, and then as suddenly shrugged and
laughed. “The more mischief the more sport!” he said half-aloud, and passed on
to where the bank had been deeply undercut. He was still some yards back from
the worst, when he heard a muted cry that seemed to come from within the earth,
and then an indrawn howl of struggle and pain, and a volley of muffled curses.
Startled but quick in reaction, he broke into a leaping run, and pulled up as
abruptly on the edge of the ditch, no more than placidly filled now with the
still muddied stream, but visibly rising. On the other side of the water there
had been a fresh fall, and a solitary old willow, its roots partially stripped
by the first slip, had heeled over and fallen athwart the brook. Its branches
heaved and rustled with the struggles of someone pinned beneath, half in, half
out of the water. An arm groped for a hold through the leaves, heaving to shift
the incubus, and the effort fetched a great groan. Through the threshing leaves
Hyacinth caught a glimpse of Eilmund’s soiled and contorted face.

“Hold
still! he shouted. “I’m coming down!”

And
down he went, thigh-deep, weaving under the first boughs to get his back
beneath their weight and try to lift them enough for the imprisoned forester to
drag himself clear. Eilmund, groaning and gasping, doubled both fists grimly
into the soil at his back and hauled himself partially free of the bough that
held him by the legs. The effort cost him a half-swallowed scream of pain.
“You’re hurt!” Hyacinth took him under the armpits with both hands, arching his
supple back strongly beneath the thickest bough, and the tree rocked
ponderously. “Now! Heave!”

Eilmund
braced himself yet again, Hyacinth hauled with him, fresh slithers of soil
rolled down on them both, but the willow shifted and rolled over with a splash,
and the forester lay in the raw earth, gasping, his feet just washed by the rim
of the brook. Hyacinth, muddy and streaked with green, went on his knees beside
him.

“I’ll
need to go for help, I can’t get you from here alone. And you’ll not be going
on your own two feet for a while. Can you rest so, till I fetch John of
Longwood’s men up from the fields? We’ll need more than one, and a hurdle or a
shutter to carry you. Is there worse than I can see?” But what he could see was
enough, and his brown face was shaken and appalled under the mud stains. “My
leg’s broke.” Eilmund let his great shoulders sink cautiously back into the
soft earth, and drew long, deep breaths. “Main lucky for me you came this way,
I was pinned fast, and the brook’s building again. I was trying to shore up the
bank. Lad,” he said, and grinned ruefully round a groan, “there’s more strength
in those shoulders of yours than anyone would think to look at you.”

“Can
you bide like that for a little while?” Hyacinth looked up anxiously at the
bank above, but only small clods shifted and slid harmlessly, and the rim of
impacted turf, herbage and roots at the top looked secure enough. I’ll run.
I’ll not be long.”

And
run he did, fast and straight for the Eaton fields, and hailed the first Eaton
men he sighted. They came in haste, with a hurdle borrowed from the sheep fold,
and between them with care and with some suppressed and understandable cursing
from the victim, lifted Eilmund on to it, and bore him the half-mile to his
forest cottage. Mindful that the man had a daughter at home, Hyacinth took it
upon himself to run on before to give her warning and reassurance, and time to
prepare the injured man’s couch.

The
cottage lay in a cleared assart in the forest, with a neat garden about it, and
when Hyacinth reached it the door was standing open, and within the house a
girl was singing softly to herself as she worked. Strangely, having run his
fastest to get to her, Hyacinth seemed almost reluctant to knock at the door,
or enter without knocking, and while he was hesitating on the doorstone her
singing ceased, and she came out to see whose fleet footsteps had stirred the
small stones of the pathway.

She
was small but sturdy, and very trimly made, with a straight blue gaze, the
fresh colouring of a wild rose, and smoothly-braided hair of a light brown
sheen like the grain of polished oak, and she looked him over with a candid
curiosity and friendliness that for once silenced his ready silver tongue. It
was she who had to speak first, for all the urgency of his errand. “You’re
looking for my father? He’s away to the coppice, you’ll find him where the bank
slid.” And the blue eyes quickened with interest and approval, liking what they
saw. “You’re the boy who came with the old dame’s hermit, aren’t you? I saw you
working in his garden.”

Hyacinth
owned to it, and recalled with a lurch of the heart what he had to tell. “I am,
mistress, and my name’s Hyacinth. Your father’s on his way back to you now,
sorry I am to say it, after a mishap that will keep him to the house for a
while, I fear. I came to let you know before they bring him. Oh, never fret,
he’s live and sound, he’ll be his own man again, give him time. But his leg’s
broken. There was another slip, it brought down a tree on him in the ditch.
He’ll mend, though, no question.”

The
quick alarm and blanching of her face had brought no outcry. She took in what
he said, shook herself abruptly, and went to work at once setting wide the
inner and the outer doors to open the way for the hurdle and its burden, and
making ready the couch on which to lay him, and from that to setting on a pot
of water at the fire. And as she went she talked to Hyacinth over her shoulder,
very practically and calmly.

“Not
the first time he’s come by injuries, but never a broken leg before. A tree
came down, you say? That old willow. I knew it leaned, but I never thought it
could fall. It was you found him? And fetched help for him?” The blue eyes
looked round and smiled on him.