Hermit of Eyton Forest (22 page)

“But
then everyone will be harried and cursed and blamed,” said Richard, “because
somebody must have drawn the bolt.”

“So
then we all deny it, and whoever looks likeliest to be suspected I’ll bring off
safely, saying he’s never been out of my sight and never touched the door since
your dinner went in. If it comes to the worst,” said Hiltrude, with uncustomary
resolution, “I’ll say I must have forgotten to shoot the bolt after leaving you
the last time. What can he do? He’ll still be thinking he has you trapped in
marriage with me, wherever you run to. Better still,” she cried, clapping her
hands, “I’ll be the one who brings you your dinner, and waits with you, and
brings out the dish again—then no one else can be blamed for leaving the door
unbolted. A wife should begin at once to wait on her husband, it will look
well.”

“You’re
not afraid of your father?” ventured Richard, open-eyed with startled respect,
even admiration, but reluctant to leave her to sustain so perilous a part.

“I
am—I was! Now, whatever happens, it will be worth the pains. I must go,
Richard, while there’s no one in the stable. You wait and trust me, and keep up
your heart. You’ve lifted mine!”

She
was at the door when Richard, still thoughtfully following her light and
buoyant passage, so changed from the subdued, embittered creature whose cold
hand he had held in the night, said impulsively after her: “Hiltrude—I think I
might do worse than marry you, after all.” And added, with barely decent
haste:  “But not yet!”

Everything
that she had promised she performed. She brought his dinner, and sat with him
and made desultory, awkward talk while he ate it, such talk as might be
expected to a stranger, and a child at that, and one forced upon her and
reluctantly accepted, so that however much he might be resented, there was no
longer any point in being at odds with him. Less from guile than because he was
hungry and busy eating, Richard responded with grunts rather than words. Had
anyone been listening, they would certainly have found the exchanges
depressingly appropriate.

Hiltrude
carried the dish back to the kitchen, and returned to him as soon as she had
made certain that everyone else about the house was occupied. The narrow wooden
stair down into the undercroft was conveniently screened from the passage that
led to the kitchen, they had no trouble in skipping hastily down it, and
emerging from below ground by the deep doorway where Hyacinth had sheltered,
and from there it was just one dangerous dart across open ground to the wicket
in the fence, half hidden by the bulk of the stable. Saddle and bridle and all,
she had left his harness concealed behind the bushes, and the sable pony came
to him gladly. Close under the rear wall of the stable he saddled up in
trembling haste, and led the pony out of the paddock and down towards the
river, where the belt of trees offered cover, before he dared to tighten the
girth and mount. Now, if all went well, he had until early evening before he
would be missed. Hiltrude went back up the stairs from the undercroft, and took
care to spend her afternoon blamelessly among the women of the household,
within sight every moment, and occupied with the proper affairs of the lady of
the manor. She had bolted Richard’s door, since clearly if it had been
inadvertently left unfastened, and the prisoner taken advantage of the fact,
even a ten-year-old boy would have the sense to shoot the bolt again and
preserve the appearances. When the flight was discovered she could very well
protest that she had no recollection of forgetting to fasten it, though
admitting at last that she must have done so. But by then, if all went well,
Richard would be back in the abbey enclave, and taking belated thought how to
present himself as the blameless victim, and bury all recollection of the
guilty truant who had run off without permission and caused all this turmoil
and anxiety. Well, that was Richard’s affair. She had done her part.

It
was a pity that the groom who had turned Richard’s pony into the paddock should
have occasion to fetch in one of the other beasts out to graze, about the
middle of the afternoon, since he had noticed that it was slightly lame. He could
hardly fail to observe that the pony was gone. Seizing on the first and
obvious, if none too likely, possibility, he was halfway across the court
crying that there had been thieves in the paddock before it occurred to him to
go back and look in the stable for the saddle and harness. That put a somewhat
different complexion on the loss. And besides, why take the least valuable
beast in sight? And why risk theft in daylight? Good dark nights were more
favourable. So he arrived in hall announcing loudly and breathlessly that the
young bridegroom’s pony was gone, saddle and all, and my lord had better look
to see if he still had the boy safe under lock and key. Fulke went himself, in
haste, hardly believing the news, and found the door securely bolted as before,
but the room within empty. He let out a bellow of rage that made Hiltrude
flinch over her embroidery frame, but she kept her eyes lowered to her work,
and went on demurely stitching until the storm erupted in the doorway and
swelled to fill the hall.

“Which
of you was it? Who waited on him last? Which fool among you, fools every one as
you are, left the door unbarred? Or has one of you loosed him deliberately, in
my despite? I’ll have the hide of the traitorous wretch, whoever he may be.
Speak up! Who took the slippery imp his dinner?” The menservants held off out
of his immediate reach, every one babbling out his own innocence. The maids
fluttered and looked sidelong at one another, but hesitated to say a word
against their mistress. But Hiltrude, her courage fast in both hands and
bulking encouragingly solid now that it came to the test, laid her work aside
and said boldly, not yet sounding defensive: “But, Father, you know I did that
myself. You saw me bring out the dish afterwards. Certainly I bolted the door
again I feel sure I did. No one else has been in to him since, unless you have
visited him yourself, sir. Who else would, unless he was sent? And I’ve sent
nobody.”

“Are
you so certain, madam?” roared Fulke. “You’ll tell me next the lad’s not gone
at all, but sitting there where he should be. If you were the last to go in
there, then you’re to blame for letting him slip out and take to his heels. You
must have left the door unbolted, how else could he get out? How could you be
such a fool?”

“I
did not leave it unbolted,” she repeated, but with less certainty this time.
“Or even if I may have forgotten,” she conceded defensively, “though I don’t
believe I did—but if I did, does it matter so much now? He can’t alter what’s
done, nor can anyone else. I don’t see why it should cause such a flurry.”

“You
don’t see, you don’t see—you don’t see beyond the end of your nose, madam!

And
he to go running back to his abbot, with the tales he can tell?”

“But
he has to come back into the light sooner or later,” she said meekly. “You
couldn’t keep him shut up for ever.”

“So
he has, we all know it, but not yet, not until we’ve got his mark—no, for he
can sign his name, which is better!—on the marriage settlements, and made him
see he may as well fit his story to ours, and accept what’s done. A few days
and it could all have been done our way, the proper way. But I’ll not let him
get away without a race for it,” swore Fulke vengefully, and turned to roar at
his petrified grooms: “Saddle my horse, and make haste about it! I’m going
after him. He’ll make straight for the abbey, and keep well clear of Eaton,
surely. I’ll have him back by the ear yet!”

In
the full light of afternoon Richard did not dare take to the road, even by
skirting the village widely. There he could have made better speed, but might
all too easily attract the attention of tenants or retainers who would serve
Astley’s ends for their own sakes, and drag him back to his captivity.
Moreover, the road would take him far too close to Eaton. He kept to the belt
of woodland that stretched westward for half a mile or so above the river,
thinning as it went until it was no more than a belt of single oaks spaced out
beside the water. Beyond that, emerald water meadows filled a great bend in the
Severn, open and treeless. There he kept inland far enough to have some cover
from the few bushes that grew along the headlands of the Leighton fields.
Upstream, where he must go, the valley widened into a great green level of
flood meadows, with only a few isolated trees on the higher spots, but the
northern bank where he rode rose within another mile into the low ridge of
Eyton forest, where he could go in thick cover for more than half the distance
to Wroxeter. It would mean going more slowly, but it was not pursuit he feared
then, it was being recognised and intercepted on the way. Wroxeter he must
avoid at all costs, and the only way he knew was by fording the Severn there,
short of the village and out of sight of the manor, to reach the road on the
southern side, and then ride full tilt for the town.

He
made a little too much haste in the forest, where his familiarity with the land
had led him to take a short cut between paths, and paid for it with a fall when
his pony stepped in the soft edge of a badger’s sett. But he dropped lightly
enough into the thick cushioning of leaves, and escaped with a few bruises, and
the pony, startled and skittish but docile, came back to him readily once the
first fright was over. After that he bore in mind that haste was not necessarily
another word for speed, and took more care until he came to the more open ways.
He had not reasoned about his flight, but set off bent on getting back to the
abbey and making his peace there, whatever scoldings and punishments might be
waiting for him, once all anxiety on his behalf was banished. He knew enough
about grown-up people, however various they might seem in all other ways, to
understand that they all shared the same instinct when a child in their charge
was recovered out of danger, to hug him first, and clout him immediately
afterwards. If, indeed, the clout did not come first! He would not mind that.
Now that he had been dragged forcibly away from the schoolroom, and Brother
Paul, and his fellow pupils, and even the awesome face of Father Abbot, all he
wanted was to get back to them, to have the safe walls and the even safer
horarium of the monastic day wrapped round him like a warm cloak. He could, had
he even thought of it, have ridden to the mill by the river at Eyton, or the
forester’s cottage, any dwelling on this soil held by the abbey, and been
received into safe shelter, but that possibility never entered his head. He
made for the abbey like a bird to its nest. At this moment he had no other
home, lord of Eaton though he might be.

Once
out of the forest there was a good and open track almost to the ford, which lay
on the southern side of Wroxeter village. Over these two miles he went briskly,
but not so fast as to call attention to himself, for here there were other
people to be met with occasionally, about their daily business in the fields or
travelling the path between villages. He saw none that he knew, and answered
such casual greetings as they gave him as briefly as they were given, and did
not loiter.

The
belt of trees on the near side of the ford came into view, the few willows
dipping to the water, and the top of the tower of the collegiate church just
showed among the branches, with one corner of a roof. The rest of the village
and the demesne lay beyond. Richard approached the shelter of the trees
cautiously, and dismounted in cover to peer through at the shallow spread of
the water round a small island, and the path that came down from the village to
the ford. He heard the voices before he reached a clear view, and halted to
listen acutely, hoping the speakers would pass towards the village and leave
his path clear. Two women, chattering and laughing, and an accompanying light
splashing in the edge of the water, and then a man’s voice, equally idle and
easy, teasing and chaffing the girls. Richard ventured closer, until he could
see the speakers clearly, and halted with an indrawn breath of exasperation and
dismay. The women had been washing linen, and had it spread on the low bushes
to dry, and since the day was not cold, and since they had been joined by a
young and not unattractive companion, they were in no hurry to leave the shore.
Richard did not know the women, but the man he knew only too well, though not
his name. This big, red-haired, strutting young gamecock was Astley’s foreman
on the demesne farm, and one of the two who had encountered and recognised
Richard in the woods, trotting home to the abbey in haste, and taken advantage
of the hour and the solitude to do their lord a favour. Those same muscular
arms which were now making free with one of the giggling laundresses had
hoisted Richard ignominiously out of the saddle, and held him kicking and
raging over a thick shoulder that might have been made of oak for all the
effect his belabouring fists had on it, until the other miscreant had stopped
the boy’s mouth with his own capuchon, and pinioned his arms with his own
reins. That same night, when it was fully dark, past midnight and all honest
folk in their beds, the same trusted pair had bundled him away to the more
distant manor for safekeeping. Richard remembered these indignities bitterly.
And now here was this very fellow getting in his way once again, for he could
not ride out of cover and make for the ford without passing close and being
recognised, and almost certainly recaptured.

There
was nothing to be done but draw back into deeper cover and wait for them all to
go away, back to the village and the manor. No hope of circling Wroxeter by a
wider way and continuing on this north bank of the river, he was already too
close to the edge of the village and all the approaches were open to view. And
he was losing time, and without reasoning why, he felt that time was vital. He
lost an hour there, gnawing his knuckles in desperate frustration and watching
for the first move. Even when the women did decide to take up their washing and
make for home they were in no hurry about it, but dawdled away up the path
still bantering and laughing with the young man who strode between them. Only
when their voices had faded into silence, and no other soul stirred about the
ford, did Richard venture out from cover and spur his pony splashing down into
the shallows.