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.
“Some
of the Eaton men were close, clearing a drainage ditch. They’re carrying him
in.” They were approaching the door by then, coming as fast as they could. She
went out to meet them, with Hyacinth at her elbow. It seemed that he had
something more, something different to say to her, and for the moment had lost
his opportunity, for he hovered silently but purposefully on the edge of the
scurry of activity, as Eilmund was carried into the house and laid on the
couch, and stripped of his wet boots and hose, very carefully but to a muffled
accompaniment of groans and curses. His left leg was misshapen below the knee,
but not so grossly that the bone had torn through the flesh. “Above an hour lying
there in the brook,” he got out, between gritting his teeth on the pain as they
handled him, “and if it hadn’t been for this young fellow I should have been
there yet, for I couldn’t shift the weight, and there was no one within call.
God’s truth, there’s more muscle in the lad than you’d believe. You should have
seen him heft that tree off me.” Very strangely, Hyacinth’s spare, smooth
cheeks flushed red beneath their dark gold sheen. It was a face certainly not
given to blushing, but it had not lost the ability. He said with some
constraint: “Is there anything more I could be doing for you? I would, gladly!
You’ll be needing a skilled hand to set that bone. I’m no use there, but make
use of me if you need an errand run. That’s my calling, that I can do.”
The
girl turned for an instant from the bed, her blue eyes wide and shining on his
face. “Why, so you can, if you’ll be so good and add to our debt. Will you send
to the abbey, and ask for Brother Cadfael to come?”
“I
will well!” said Hyacinth, as heartily as if she had made him a most acceptable
gift. But as she turned back from him he hesitated, and caught her by the
sleeve for an instant, and breathed into her ear urgently: “I must talk to
you—alone, later, when he’s cared for and resting easy.” And before she could
say yes or no, though her eyes certainly were not refusing him, he was off and
away through the trees, on the long run back to Shrewsbury.
Chapter Four
HUGH
CAME LOOKING for Brother Cadfael in mid-afternoon, with the first glimmers of
news that had found their way out of Oxford since the siege began. “Robert of
Gloucester is back in England,” he said. “I have it from an armourer who took
thought in time to get out of the city. A few were lucky and took warning. He
says Robert has landed at Wareham in spite of the king’s garrison, brought in
all his ships safely and taken the town. Not the castle, though, not yet, but
he’s settled
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.
“Some
of the Eaton men were close, clearing a drainage ditch. They’re carrying him
in.” They were approaching the door by then, coming as fast as they could. She
went out to meet them, with Hyacinth at her elbow. It seemed that he had
something more, something different to say to her, and for the moment had lost
his opportunity, for he hovered silently but purposefully on the edge of the
scurry of activity, as Eilmund was carried into the house and laid on the
couch, and stripped of his wet boots and hose, very carefully but to a muffled
accompaniment of groans and curses. His left leg was misshapen below the knee,
but not so grossly that the bone had torn through the flesh. “Above an hour lying
there in the brook,” he got out, between gritting his teeth on the pain as they
handled him, “and if it hadn’t been for this young fellow I should have been
there yet, for I couldn’t shift the weight, and there was no one within call.
God’s truth, there’s more muscle in the lad than you’d believe. You should have
seen him heft that tree off me.” Very strangely, Hyacinth’s spare, smooth
cheeks flushed red beneath their dark gold sheen. It was a face certainly not
given to blushing, but it had not lost the ability. He said with some
constraint: “Is there anything more I could be doing for you? I would, gladly!
You’ll be needing a skilled hand to set that bone. I’m no use there, but make
use of me if you need an errand run. That’s my calling, that I can do.”
The
girl turned for an instant from the bed, her blue eyes wide and shining on his
face. “Why, so you can, if you’ll be so good and add to our debt. Will you send
to the abbey, and ask for Brother Cadfael to come?”
“I
will well!” said Hyacinth, as heartily as if she had made him a most acceptable
gift. But as she turned back from him he hesitated, and caught her by the
sleeve for an instant, and breathed into her ear urgently: “I must talk to
you—alone, later, when he’s cared for and resting easy.” And before she could
say yes or no, though her eyes certainly were not refusing him, he was off and
away through the trees, on the long run back to Shrewsbury.
Chapter Four
HUGH
CAME LOOKING for Brother Cadfael in mid-afternoon, with the first glimmers of
news that had found their way out of Oxford since the siege began. “Robert of
Gloucester is back in England,” he said. “I have it from an armourer who took
thought in time to get out of the city. A few were lucky and took warning. He
says Robert has landed at Wareham in spite of the king’s garrison, brought in
all his ships safely and taken the town. Not the castle, though, not yet, but
he’s settled
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