Brother Cadfael's Penance Read Online Free PDF Page B

first encountered in the forest between Stoke and Bromfield in a bitter December, and helped away with his sister to safety in Gloucester. Thirteen years old then, now almost nineteen, and as trim and assured and bold as he had promised from that first meeting.
    "Yves? Yves Hugonin! Ah, now I do see... And you are not so changed after all. But what are you doing here? I thought you were away in the west somewhere, in Gloucester or Bristol."
    "I've been on the empress's errand to Norfolk, to the earl. He'll be on his way to Coventry by now. She needs all her allies round her, and Hugh Bigod carries more weight than most with the baronage."
    "And you're joining her party there?" Cadfael drew delighted breath. "We can ride together. You are here alone? Then alone no longer, for it's a joy to see you again, and in such good fettle. I am here with Hugh, he'll be as glad to see you as I am."
    "But how," demanded Yves, glowing," did you come to be here at all?" He had Cadfael by both hands, wringing them ardently. "I know you were sent out by right, that last time, to salve a damaged man, but what art did you use to be loosed out to a state conference like this one? Though if there were more of you, and all delegates," he added ruefully, "there might be more hope of accord. God knows I'm happy to see you, but how did you contrive it?"
    "I have leave until the conference ends," said Cadfael.
    "On what grounds? Abbots are not too easily persuaded."
    "Mine," said Cadfael, "allows me limited time, but sets a period to it that I may not infringe. I am given leave to attend at Coventry for one reason, to seek for news of one of the prisoners from Faringdon. Where princes are gathered together I may surely get word of him."
    He had not spoken a name, but the boy had stiffened into an intensity that tightened all the lines of his young, fresh face into a formidable maturity. He was not yet quite at the end of his growing, not fully formed, but the man was already there within, burning through like a stirred fire when some partisan passion probed deep into his heart.
    "I think we are on the same quest," he said. "If you are looking for Olivier de Bretagne, so am I. I know he was in Faringdon, I know as all who know him must know that he would never change his allegiance, and I know he has been hidden away out of reach. He was my champion and saviour once, he is my brother now, my sister carries his child. Closer to me than my skin, and dear as my blood, how can I ever rest," said Yves, "until I know what they have done with him, and have haled him out of captivity?"
    "I was with him," said Yves, "until they garrisoned Faringdon. I was with him from the time I first bore arms, I would not willingly be parted from him, and he of his kindness kept me close. Father and brother both he has been to me, since he and my sister married. Now Ermina is solitary in Gloucester, and with child."
    They sat together on a bench beneath one of the torches in the guesthall, Hugh and Cadfael and the boy, in the last hush of the evening after Compline, with memories all about them in the dimness where the torchlight could not reach. Yves had pursued his quest alone since the fall of Faringdon had cast his friend into limbo, unransomed, unlisted, God knew where. It was relief now to open his heart and pour out everything he knew or guessed, to these two who valued Olivier de Bretagne as he did. Three together might surely do more than one alone.
    "When Faringdon was finished, Robert of Gloucester took his own forces away and left the field to his son, and Philip made Brien de Soulis castellan of Faringdon, and gave him a strong garrison drawn from several bases. Olivier was among them. I was in Gloucester then, or I might have gone with him, but for that while I was on an errand for the empress, and she kept me about her. Most of her household were in Devizes still, she had only a few of us with her. Then we heard that King Stephen had brought a great host to lay