The Pilgram of Hate (22 page)

“God
be with you!” said Olivier. “How long have you been pasturing your beasts along
here? And have you in all that time seen a lame man and a well man go by, the
pair of them much of my age, but afoot?”

“God
be with you, master,” said the boy cheerfully. “Here along this verge ever
since noon, for I brought my bit of dinner with me. But I’ve seen none such
pass. And I’ve had a word by the road with every soul that did go by, unless he
were galloping.”

“Then
I waste my hurrying,” said Olivier, and idled a while, his horse stooping to
the tips of the grasses. “They cannot be ahead of me, not by this road. See,
now, supposing they wished to go earlier into Wales, how may I bear round to
pick them up on the way? They went from Shrewsbury town ahead of me, and I have
word to bring to them. Where can I turn west and fetch a circle about the
town?”

The
young herdsman accepted with open arms every exchange that refreshed his day’s
labour. He gave his mind to the best road offering, and delivered judgement:
“Turn back but a mile or more, back across the bridge at Montford, and then
you’ll find a well-used cart-track that bears off west, to your right hand it
will be. Bear a piece west again where the paths first branch, it’s no direct
way, but it does go on. It skirts Shrewsbury a matter of above four miles
outside the town, and threads the edges of the forest, but it cuts across every
path out of Shrewsbury. You may catch your men yet. And I wish you may!”

“My
thanks for that,” said Olivier “and for your advice also.” He stooped to the
hand the boy had raised, not for alms but to caress the horse’s chestnut
shoulder with admiration and pleasure, and slipped a coin into the smooth palm.
“God be with you!” he said, and wheeled his mount and set off back along the
road he had travelled.

“And
go with you, master!” the boy called after him, and watched until a curve of
the road took horse and rider out of sight beyond a stand of trees. The goats
gathered closer; evening was near, and they were ready to turn homeward,
knowing the hour by the sun as well as did their herder. The boy drew in their
tethers, whistled to them cheerily, and moved on along the road to his homeward
path through the fields.

Olivier
came for the second time to the bridge over the Severn, one bank a steep,
tree-clad escarpment, the other open, level meadow. Beyond the first plane of
fields a winding track turned off to the right, between scattered stands of
trees, bearing at this point rather south than west, but after a mile or more
it brought him on to a better road that crossed his track left and right. He
bore right into the sun, as he had been instructed, and at the next place where
two dwindling paths divided he turned left, and keeping his course by the
sinking sun on his right hand, now just resting upon the rim of the world and
glimmering through the trees in sudden blinding glimpses, began to work his way
gradually round the town of Shrewsbury. The tracks wound in and out of copses,
the fringe woods of the northern tip of the Long Forest, sometimes in twilight
among dense trees, sometimes in open heath and scrub, sometimes past islets of
cultivated fields and glimpses of hamlets. He rode with ears pricked for any
promising sound, pausing wherever his labyrinthine path crossed a track bearing
westward out of Shrewsbury, and wherever he met with cottage or assart he asked
after his two travellers. No one had seen such a pair pass by. Olivier took
heart. They had had some hours start of him, but if they had not passed
westward by any of the roads he had yet crossed, they might still be within the
circle he was drawing about the town. The barefoot one would not find these
ways easy going, and might have been forced to take frequent rests. At the
worst, even if he missed them in the end, this meandering route must bring him
round at last to the highroad by which he had first approached Shrewsbury from
the south-east, and he could ride back into the town to Hugh Beringar’s
welcome, none the worse for a little exercise in a fine evening.

Brother
Cadfael had wasted no time in clambering into his boots, kilting his habit, and
taking and saddling the best horse he could find in the stables. It was not
often he had the chance to indulge himself with such half-forgotten delights,
but he was not thinking of that now. He had left considered word with the
messenger who was already hurrying across the bridge and into the town, to
alert Hugh; and Hugh would ask no questions, as the abbot had asked none,
recognising the grim urgency there was no leisure now to explain.

“Say
to Hugh Beringar,” the order ran, “that Ciaran will make for the Welsh border
the nearest way, but avoiding the too open roads. I think he’ll bear south a
small way to the old road the Romans made, that we’ve been fools enough to let
run wild, for it keeps a steady level and makes straight for the border north
of Caus.”

That
was drawing a bow at a venture, and he knew it, none better. Ciaran was not of
these parts, though he might well have some knowledge of the borderland if he
had kin on the Welsh side. But more than that, he had been here these three
days past, and if he had been planning some such escape all that time, he could
have picked the brains of brothers and guests, on easily plausible ground. Time
pressed, and sound guessing was needed. Cadfael chose his way, and set about
pursuing it.

He
did not waste time in going decorously out at the gatehouse and round by the
road to take up the chase westward, but led his horse at a trot through the
gardens, to the blank astonishment of Brother Jerome, who happened to be
crossing to the cloisters a good ten minutes early for Compline. No doubt he
would report, with a sense of outrage, to Prior Robert. Cadfael as promptly
forgot him, leading the horse round the unharvested pease field and down to the
quiet green stretches of the brook, and across to the narrow meadow, where he mounted.
The sun was dipping its rim beyond the crowns of the trees to westward. Into
that half-shine, half-shadow Cadfael spurred, and made good speed while the
tracks were familiar to him as his own palm. Due west until he hit the road, a
half-mile on the road at a canter, until it turned too far to the south, and
then westward again for the setting sun. Ciaran had a long start, even of
Matthew, let alone of all those who followed now. But Ciaran was lame, burdened
and afraid. Almost he was to be pitied.

Half
a mile further on, at an inconspicuous track which he knew, Cadfael again
turned to bear south-west, and burrowed into deepest shade, and into the
northernmost woodlands of the Long Forest. No more than a narrow forest ride,
this, between sweeping branches, a fragment of ancient wood not worth clearing
for an assart, being bedded on rock that broke surface here and there. This was
not yet border country, but close kin to it, heaving into fretful outcrops that
broke the thin soil, bearing heather and coarse upland grasses, scrub bushes
and sparsity trees, then bringing forth prodigal life roofed by very old trees
in every wet hollow. A little further on this course, and the close, dark woods
began, tall top cover, heavy interweaving of middle growth, and a tangle of
bush and bramble and ground-cover below. Undisturbed forest, though there were
rare islands of tillage bright and open within it, every one an astonishment.

Then
he came to the old, old road, that sliced like a knife across his path, heading
due east, due west. He wondered about the men who had made it. It was shrunken
now from a soldiers’ road to a narrow ride, mostly under thin turf, but it ran
as it had always run since it was made, true and straight as a lance, perfectly
levelled where a level was possible, relentlessly climbing and descending where
some hummock barred the way. Cadfael turned west into it, and rode straight for
the golden upper arc of sun that still glowed between the branches.

In
the parcel of old forest north and west of the hamlet of Hanwood there were
groves where stray outlaws could find ample cover, provided they stayed clear
of the few settlements within reach. Local people tended to fence their
holdings and band together to protect their own small ground. The forest was
for plundering, poaching, pasturing of swine, all with secure precautions.
Travellers, though they might call on hospitality and aid where needed, must
fend for themselves in the thicker coverts, if they cared to venture through
them. By and large, safety here in Shropshire under Hugh Beringar was as good
as anywhere in England, and encroachment by vagabonds could not survive long,
but for brief occupation the cover was there, and unwanted tenants might take
up occupation if pressed.

Several
of the lesser manors in these border regions had declined by reason of their
perilous location, and some were half-deserted, leaving their fields untilled.
Until April of this year the border castle of Caus had been in Welsh hands, an
added threat to peaceful occupation, and there had not yet been time since
Hugh’s reclamation of the castle for the depleted hamlets to re-establish
themselves. Moreover, in this high summer it was no hardship to live wild, and
skilful poaching and a little profitable thievery could keep two or three good
fellows in meat while they allowed time for their exploits in the south to be
forgotten, and made up their minds where best to pass the time until a return
home seemed possible.

Master
Simeon Poer, self-styled merchant of Guildford, was not at all ill-content with
the pickings made in Shrewsbury. In three nights, which was the longest they
dared reckon on operating unsuspected, they had taken a fair amount of money
from the hopeful gamblers of the town and Foregate, besides the price Daniel
Aurifaber had paid for the stolen ring, the various odds and ends William Hales
had abstracted from market stalls, and the coins John Shure had used his long,
smooth, waxed finger-nails to extract from pocket and purse in the crowds. It
was a pity they had had to leave William Hales to his fate during the raid, but
all in all they had done well to get out of it with no more than a bruise or
two, and one man short. Bad luck for William, but it was the way the lot had
fallen. Every man knew it could happen to him.

They
had avoided the used tracks, refraining from meddling with any of the local
people going about their business, and done their plundering by night and
stealthily, after first making sure where there were dogs to be reckoned with.
They even had a roof of sorts, for in the deepest thickets below the old road,
overgrown and well-concealed, they had found the remains of a hut, relic of a
failed assart abandoned long ago. After a few days more of this easy living, or
if the weather should change, they would set off to make their way somewhat
south, to be well clear of Shrewsbury before moving across to the east, to
shires where they were not yet known.

When
the rare traveller came past on the road, it was almost always a local man, and
they let him alone, for he would be missed all too soon, and the hunt would be
up in a day. But they would not have been averse to waylaying any solitary who
was clearly a stranger and on his way to more distant places, since he was
unlikely to be missed at once, and further, he was likely to be better worth
robbing, having on him the means to finance his journey, however modestly. In
these woods and thickets, a man could vanish very neatly, and for ever.

They
had made themselves comfortable that night outside their hut, with the embers
of their fire safe in the clay-lined hollow they had made for it, and the
grease of the stolen chicken still on their fingers. The sunset of the outer
world was already twilight here, but they had their night eyes, and were wide
awake and full of restless energy after an idle day. Walter Bagot was charged
with keeping such watch as they thought needful, and had made his way in cover
some distance along the narrow track towards the town. He came sliding back in
haste, but shining with anticipation instead of alarm.

“Here’s
one coming we may safely pick off. The barefoot fellow from the abbey… well
back as yet, and lame as ever, he’s been among the stones, surely. Not a soul
will know where he went to.”

“He?”
said Simeon Poer, surprised. “Fool, he has always his shadow breathing down his
neck. It would mean both, if one got away he’d raise the hunt on us.”

“He
has not his shadow now,” said Bagot gleefully. “Alone, I tell you, he’s shaken
him off, or else they’ve parted by consent. Who else cares a groat what becomes
of him?”

“And
a groat’s his worth,” said Shure scornfully. “Let him go. It’s never worth it
for his hose and shirt, and what else can he have on him?”

“Ah,
but he has! Money, my friend!” said Bagot, glittering. “Make no mistake, that
one goes very well provided, if he takes good care not to let it be known. I
know! I’ve felt my way about him every time I could get crowded against him in
church, he has a solid, heavy purse belted about him inside coat, hose, shirt and
all, but I never could get my fingers into it without using the knife, and that
was too risky. He can pay his way wherever he goes. Come, rouse, he’ll be an
easy mark now.”

He
was certain, and they were heartily willing to pick up an extra purse. They rose
merrily, hands on daggers, worming their way quietly through the underbrush
towards the thin thread of the track, above which the ribbon of clear sky
showed pale and bright still. Shure and Bagot lurking invisible on the near
side of the path, Simeon Poer across it, behind the lush screen of bushes that
took advantage of the open light to grow leafy and tall. There were very old
trees in their tract of forest, enormous beeches with trunks so gnarled and
thick three men with arms outspread could hardly clip them. Old woodland was
being cleared, assarted and turned into hunting-grounds in many places, but the
Long Forest still preserved large tracts of virgin growth untouched. In the
green dimness the three masterless men stood still as the trees, and waited.