Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief by Ellis Peters Page B

old men, a number of confused and troubled young ones, and his plain duty of keeping the Rule he had chosen.
    There were not many people abroad in the Foregate. The weather was still cold and the gloom of the day had sent people hurrying home, wasting no time once the day's work was done. Some yards ahead of him two figures walked together, one of them limping heavily. Cadfael had a vague notion that he had seen those broad shoulders and that shaggy head before, and not so long ago, but the lame gait did not fit. The other was built more lightly, and younger. They went with heads thrust forward and shoulders down, like men tired after a long trudge and in dogged haste to reach their destination and be done with it. It was no great surprise when they turned in purposefully at the abbey gatehouse, tramping through thankfully into the great court with a recovered spring to their steps. Two more for the common guesthall, thought Cadfael, himself approaching the gate, and a place near the fire and a meal and a drink will come very welcome to them.
    They were at the door of the porter's lodge when Cadfael entered the court, and the porter had just come out to them. The light was not yet so far gone that Cadfael failed to see, and marvel, how the porter's face, ready with its customary placid welcome and courteous enquiry, suddenly fell into a gaping stare of wonder and concern, and the words ready on his lips turned into a muted cry.
    "Master James! How's this, you here? I thought, Man," he said, dismayed, "what's come to you on the road?"
    Cadfael was brought up with a jolt, no more than ten paces towards Vespers. He turned back in haste to join this unexpected confrontation, and look more closely at the lame man.
    "Master James of Betton? Herluin's master-carpenter?" No doubt of it, the same who had set out with the wagon-load of wood for Ramsey, more than a week ago, but limping and afoot now, and back where he had begun, and soiled and bruised not only from the road. And his companion, the elder of the two masons who had set off hopefully to find steady work at Ramsey, here beside him, with torn cotte and a clout bound about his head, and a cheekbone blackened from a blow.
    "What's come to us on the road!" the master-carpenter repeated ruefully. "Everything foul, short of murder. Robbery by cutthroats and outlaws. Wagon gone, timber gone, horses gone, stolen, every stick and every beast, and only by the grace of God not a man of us killed. For God's sake, let us in and sit down. Martin here has a broken head, but he would come back with me..."
    "Come!" said Cadfael, with an arm about the man's shoulders. "Come within to the warmth, and Brother Porter will get some wine into you, while I go and tell Father Abbot what's happened. I'll be with you again in no time, and see to the lad's head. Trouble for nothing now. Praise God you're safely back! All Herluin's alms couldn't buy your lives."
    Chapter Four.
    "We did well enough," said Master James of Betton, in the abbot's panelled parlour an hour later, "until we came into the forest there, beyond Eaton. It's thick woodland there south of Leicester, but well managed, as the roads go these days. And we had five good lads aboard, we never thought to run into any trouble we couldn't handle. A couple of wretches on the run, skulking in the bushes on the lookout for prey, would never have dared break cover and try their luck with us. No, these were very different gentry. Eleven or twelve of them, with daggers and bludgeons, and two wore swords. They must have been moving alongside us in cover, taking our measure, and they had two archers ahead, one either side the track. Someone whistled them out when we came to the narrowest place, bows strung and shafts fitted, shouting to us to halt. Roger from Ramsey was driving, and a good enough hand with horses and wagons, but what chance did he have with the pair of them drawing on him? He says he did think of whipping up and running them down,