The Pilgram of Hate (24 page)

Cadfael
filled his lungs full, and bellowed to the shaken night: “Hold, there! On them,
hold them all three. These are our felons!” He was making so much noise that he
did not notice or marvel that the echoes, which in his fury he heard but did
not heed, came from two directions at once, from the path he had left, and from
the opposite point, from the north. Some corner of his mind knew he had roused
echoes, but for his part he felt himself quite alone as he kept up his roaring,
spread his sleeves like the wings of a bat, and surged headlong into the melee
about the tree.

Long,
long ago he had forsworn arms, but what of it? Barring his two stout fists,
still active but somewhat rheumatic now, he was unarmed. He flung himself into
the tangle of men and weapons under the beech, laid hands on the back of a dangling
capuchon, hauled its wearer bodily backwards, and twisted the cloth to choke
the throat that howled rage and venom at him. But his voice had done more than
his martial progress. The black huddle of humanity burst into its separate
beings. Two sprang clear and looked wildly about them for the source of the
alarm, and Cadfael’s opponent reached round, gasping, with a long arm and a
vicious dagger, and sliced a dangling streamer out of a rusty black sleeve.
Cadfael lay on him with all his weight, held him by the hair, and ground his
face into the earth, shamelessly exulting. He would do penance for it some day
soon, but now he rejoiced, all his crusader blood singing in his veins.

Distantly
he was aware that something else was happening, more than he had reckoned on.
He heard and felt the unmistakable quiver and thud of the earth reacting to
hooves, and heard a peremptory voice shouting orders, the purport of which he
did not release his grip to decypher or attend to. The glade was filled with
motion as it filled with darkness. The creature under him gathered itself and
heaved mightily, rolling him aside. His hold on the folds of the hood relaxed,
and Simeon Poer tore himself free and scrambled clear. There was running every
way, but none of the fugitives got far.

Last
of the three to roll breathless out of hold, Simeon groped about him vengefully
in the roots of the tree, touched a cowering body, found the cord of some
dangling relic, possibly precious, in his hand, and hauled with all his
strength before he gathered himself up and ran for cover.

There
was a wild scream of pain, and the cord broke, and the thing, whatever it was,
came loose in his hand. He got his feet under him, and charged head-down for
the nearest bushes, hurtled into them and ran, barely a yard clear of hands
that stooped from horseback to claw at him.

Cadfael
opened his eyes and hauled in breath. The whole clearing was boiling with
movement, the darkness heaved and trembled, and the violence had ordered itself
into purpose and meaning. He sat up, and took his time to look about him. He
was sprawled under the great beech, and somewhere before him, towards the path
where he had left his horse, someone with flint and dagger and tinder, was
striking sparks for a torch, very calmly. The sparks caught, glowed, and were
gently blown into flame. The torch, well primed with oil and resin, sucked in
the flame and gave birth to a small, shapely flame of its own, that grew and reared,
and was used to kindle a second and a third. The clearing took on a small,
confined, rounded shape, walled with close growth, roofed with the tree.

Hugh
came out of the dark, smiling, and reached a hand to haul him to his feet.
Someone else came running light-footed from the other side, and stooped to him
a wonderful, torch-lit face, high-boned, lean-cheeked, with eager golden eyes,
and blue-black raven wings of hair curving to cup his cheeks.

“Olivier?”
said Cadfael, marvelling. “I thought you were astray on the road to Oswestry.
How did you ever find us here?”

“By
grace of God and a goat-herd,” said the warm, gay, remembered voice, “and your
bull’s bellowing. Come, look round! You have won your field. They were gone,
Simeon Poer, merchant of Guildford, Walter Bagot, glover, John Shure, tailor,
all fled, but with half a dozen of Hugh’s men hard on their heels, all to be
brought in captive, to answer for more, this time, than a little cheating in
the marketplace. Night stooped to enfold a closed arena of torchlight, very
quiet now and almost still. Cadfael rose, his torn sleeve dangling awkwardly.

The
three of them stood in a half-circle about the beech-tree.

The
torchlight was stark, plucking light and shadow into sharp relief. Matthew
stirred out of his colloquy between life and death very slowly as they watched
him, heaved his wide shoulders clear of the tree, and stood forth like a
sleeper roused before his time, looking about him as if for something by which
he might hold, and take his bearings. Between his feet, as he emerged, the
coiled, crumpled form of Ciaran came into view, faintly stirring, his head
huddled into his close-folded arms.

“Get
up!” said Matthew. He drew back a little from the tree, his naked dagger in his
hand, a slow drop gathering at its tip, more drops falling steadily from the
hand that held it. His knuckles were sliced raw. “Get up!” he said. “You are
not harmed.”

Ciaran
gathered himself very slowly, and clambered to his knees, lifting to the light
a face soiled and leaden, gone beyond exhaustion, beyond fear. He looked
neither at Cadfael nor at Hugh, but stared up into Matthew’s face with the
helpless intensity of despair. Hugh felt the clash of eyes, and stirred to make
some decisive movement and break the tension, but Cadfael laid a hand on his
arm and held him still. Hugh gave him a sharp sidelong glance, and accepted the
caution. Cadfael had his reasons.

There
was blood on the torn collar of Ciaran’s shirt, a stain that grew sluggishly
before their eyes. He put up hands that seemed heavy as lead, and fumbled aside
the linen from throat and breast. All round the left side of his neck ran a
raw, bleeding slash, thin as a knife-cut. Simeon Poer’s last blind clutch for
plunder had torn loose the cross to which Ciaran had clung so desperately. He
kneeled in the last wretched extreme of submission, baring a throat already
symbolically slit.

“Here
am I,” he said in a toneless whisper. “I can run no further, I am forfeit. Now
take me!”

Matthew
stood motionless, staring at that savage cut the cord had left before it broke.
The silence grew too heavy to be bearable, and still he had no word to say, and
his face was a blank mask in the flickering light of the torches.

“He
says right,” said Cadfael, very softly and reasonably. “He is yours fairly. The
terms of his penance are broken, and his life is forfeit. Take him!”

There
was no sign that Matthew so much as heard him, but for the spasmodic tightening
of his lips, as if in pain. He never took his eyes from the wretch kneeling
humbly before him.

“You
have followed him faithfully, and kept the terms laid down,” Cadfael urged
gently. “You are under vow. Now finish the work!”

He
was on safe enough ground, and sure of it now. The act of submission had
already finished the work, there was no more to be done. With his enemy at his
mercy, and every justification for the act of vengeance, the avenger was
helpless, the prisoner of his own nature. There was nothing left in him but a
drear sadness, a sick revulsion of disgust and self-disgust. How could he kill
a wretched, broken man, kneeling here unresisting, waiting for his death? Death
was no longer relevant.

“It
is over, Luc,” said Cadfael softly. “Do what you must.”

Matthew
stood mute a moment longer, and if he had heard his true name spoken, he gave
no sign, it was of no importance. After the abandonment of all purpose came the
awful sense of loss and emptiness. He opened his bloodstained hand and let the
dagger slip from his fingers into the grass. He turned away like a blind man,
feeling with a stretched foot for every step, groped his way through the
curtain of bushes, and vanished into the darkness.

Olivier
drew in breath sharply, and started out of his tranced stillness to catch
eagerly at Cadfael’s arm. “Is it true? You have found him out? He is Luc
Meverel?” He accepted the truth of it without another word said, and sprang
ardently towards the place where the bushes still stirred after Luc’s passing,
and he would have been off in pursuit at a run if Hugh had not caught at his
arm to detain him.

“Wait
but one moment! You also have a cause here, if Cadfael is right. This is surely
the man who murdered your friend. He owes you a death. He is yours if you want
him.”

“That
is truth,” said Cadfaei. “Ask him! He will tell you.”

Ciaran
crouched in the grass, drooping now, bewildered and lost, no longer looking any
man in the face, only waiting without hope or understanding for someone to
determine whether he was to live or die, and on what abject terms. Olivier cast
one wondering glance at him, shook his head in emphatic rejection, and reached
for his horse’s bridle. “Who am I,” he said, “to exact what Luc Meverel has
remitted? Let this one go on his way with his own burden. My business is with
the other.”

He
was away at a run, leading the horse briskly through the screen of bushes, and
the rustling of their passage gradually stilled again into silence. Cadfael and
Hugh were left regarding each other mutely across the lamentable figure
crouched upon the ground.

Gradually
the rest of the world flowed back into Cadfael’s ken. Three of Hugh’s officers
stood aloof with the horses and the torches, looking on in silence; and
somewhere not far distant sounded a brief scuffle and outcry, as one of the
fugitives was overpowered and made prisoner. Simeon Poer had been pulled down
barely fifty yards in cover, and stood sullenly under guard now, with his
wrists secured to a sergeant’s stirrup-leather. The third would not be a free
man long. This night’s ventures were over. This piece of woodland would be safe
even for barefoot and unarmed pilgrims to traverse.

“What
is to be done with him?” demanded Hugh openly, looking down upon the wreckage
of a man with some distaste.

“Since
Luc has waived his claim,” said Cadfael, “I would not dare meddle. And there is
something at least to be said for him, he did not cheat or break his terms
voluntarily, even when there was no one by to accuse him. It is a small virtue
to have to advance for the defence of a life, but it is something. Who else has
the right to foreclose on what Luc has spared?”

Ciaran
raised his head, peering doubtfully from one face to the other, still
confounded at being so spared, but beginning to believe that he still lived. He
was weeping, whether with pain, or relief, or something more durable than
either, there was no telling. The blood was blackening into a dark line about
his throat.

“Speak
up and tell truth,” said Hugh with chill gentleness. “Was it you who stabbed
Bossard?”

Out
of the pallid disintegration of Ciaran’s face a wavering voice said: “Yes.”

“Why
did you so? Why attack the queen’s clerk, who did nothing but deliver his
errand faithfully?”

Ciaran’s
eyes burned for an instant, and a fleeting spark of past pride, intolerance and
rage showed like the last glow of a dying fire. “He came high-handed, shouting
down the lord bishop, defying the council. My master was angry and affronted…”

“Your
master,” said Cadfael, “was the prior of Hyde Mead. Or so you claimed.”

“How
could I any longer claim service with one who had discarded me? I lied! The
lord bishop himself, I served Bishop Henry, had his favour. Lost, lost now! I
could not brook the man Christian’s insolence to him… he stood against
everything my lord planned and willed. I hated him! I thought then that I hated
him,” said Ciaran, drearily wondering at the recollection. “And I thought to
please my lord!”

“A
calculation that went awry,” said Cadfael, “for whatever he may be, Henry of
Blois is no murderer. And Rainard Bossard prevented your mischief, a man of
your own party, held in esteem. Did that make him a traitor in your eyes—that
he should respect an honest opponent? Or did you strike out at random, and kill
without intent?”

“No,”
said the level, lame voice, bereft of its brief spark.

“He
thwarted me, I was enraged. I knew what I did. I was glad… then!” he said, and
drew bitter breath.

“And
who laid upon you this penitential journey?” asked Cadfael, “and to what end?
Your life was granted you, upon terms. What terms? Someone in the highest
authority laid that load upon you.”

“My
lord the bishop-legate,” said Ciaran, and wrung wordlessly for a moment at the
pain of an old devotion, rejected and banished now for ever. “There was no
other soul knew of it, only to him I told it. He would not give me up to law,
he wanted this thing put by, for fear it should threaten his plans for the
empress’s peace. But he would not condone. I am from the Danish kingdom of
Dublin, my other half Welsh. He offered me passage under his protection to
Bangor, to the bishop there, who would see me to Caergybi in Anglesey, and have
me put aboard a ship for Dublin. But I must go barefoot all that way, and wear
the cross round my neck, and if ever I broke those terms, even for a moment, my
life was his who cared to take it, without blame or penalty. And I could never
return.” Another fire, of banished love, ruined ambition, rejected service,
flamed through the broken accents for a moment, and died of despair.