“Any herb-wife knows such lore. So does Brother Infirmarian. That does not make a witch.”
“She had great power, alas. That is why she died.”
“Ah. The cataclysm you spoke of when first you came to us.”
“I know none of you believe me,” said Alain wearily, “and I do not see how I can stop what has been set in motion. If I knew, I would act, but I have nowhere to go, no one who will listen—”
Rage yipped like a startled puppy, plunging into the underbrush, and Sorrow barked once and followed. Branches thrashed and rattled, marking their trail.
“A rabbit,” suggested Ratbold.
Alain halted and leaned on his staff. “It’s more like they’re frightened.”
“Those hounds, frightened!” Ratbold snorted, then cocked his head to one side. “Listen!”
From down the road came the noise of a troop of riders in procession, the jingle of harness, the rumble of cartwheels, and a faint snatch of a hymn. The two men waited as a cavalcade rolled into view, a dozen caparisoned horses fit for a noble lady accompanied by three carts and twenty soldiers outfitted with halberds and bearing a distinctive banner: a gold Circle of Unity on a black field.
“These come from the skopos!” whispered Ratbold. His staff, forgotten, tipped and fell into a swath of violets.
The fine and noble clerics leading the procession took no notice of two rumpled brothers standing humbly at the side of the road. The passing carts sprayed mud all over them as Ratbold stared, too astonished to speak, and Alain watched. There was something familiar about the lean, elderly cleric riding at the fore. Why had the hounds run off like that?
The procession moved quickly along the road and out of sight.
“Clerics from the skopos herself! How exalted they appeared! Such fine mounts they rode! Did you see the embroidery on the saddle blankets!” Ratbold was so beside himself with excitement that he was flushed. “Do you think they mean to take guest privileges at Hersford?”
“They can scarcely be going anywhere else on this road.”
The underbrush rustled as Rage and Sorrow reemerged, hindquarters waggling madly as they begged forgiveness. Alain rubbed their heads and patted their shoulders as Ratbold got hold of himself and picked up his staff.
“Well, now, Brother Alain. We’ve an errand to run!”
The hounds proved eager to journey on in the opposite direction of the procession, and although Alain glanced back, he could not divine what had spooked them.
Farmer Hosed was desperately pleasant when he greeted them beside the log fence that ringed the clearing he and his family had hacked out of the woodland. The fire was out of sight behind a row of healthy apple trees backed by a thick hedge. Its smell burned in Alain’s nostrils.
“Come in, Brothers! There’s a bit of cider left over from the autumn. It’s a little sharp, but it will still wet your throat. No need to have come so far. We’ve everything well in hand. There’s nothing here to see. Nothing. Nothing.”
A group of children of varying ages stared mournfully at them, keeping their distance from the hounds. The eldest was a girl; after she offered each man a wooden cup filled with sharp cider, she stared at them with a hopeless gaze, hands wrapped tight in her apron. She had warts all across the fingers of her left hand and her left cheek had a blistery rash. All of the younger siblings bore a similar rash.
“My good wife died two year ago, leaving me with all these young ones. There’s no wife to be had in these parts, all of them married and none old enough to wed for a good number of years. There was a widow last year, but she died of that flux that took off my youngest. I kept a man in to help me, an easterner, but he was no good. He took all of his things and six eggs yesterday morning and abandoned us. I suppose it’s him who spread tales.” He was skittish, but it wasn’t the hounds that scared him; he glanced once in their direction and then not again.
“Can we see the herd, friend?” asked Ratbold. “The good abbot has asked us to do what we can.”
The farmer looked ready to cry as he led them past his cottage, which was split into living quarters and a wintering stable for his livestock. The penned-in area beside the stable lay calf-deep in mud from the winter rains, but no sheep sheltered there now. They continued past the garden and the henhouse to a meadow where a bright-eyed dog and an older boy kept watch over the flock: three ewes and four lambs. The hounds ventured forward cautiously to view the other dog, who eyed them from a distance, growling softly but not leaving his station at guard over the sheep.
“It’s just the mud,” the farmer insisted. “That’s what made them go lame. That’s why I brought them out here, to get their hooves out of the mud. It’s only two I had to slaughter. I burned them, just to make sure, because I knew folk would talk. These others, they were right as rain this morning.”