The Summer of the Danes

by Ellis Peters

  “So he is,” she agreed, warming, “and the bishop wants to keep him. His case would have been much worse, but my mother was in her last illness when Bishop Gilbert arrived, and it seemed she could not last long, so they waited! Can you conceive of it? Waiting for a wife to die, so that he need not part with her husband, who was useful to him! And die she did, last Christmas, and ever since then I have kept his house, cooked and cleaned for him, and thought we could go on so. But no, I am a reminder of a marriage the bishop says was unlawful and sacrilegious. In his eyes I never should have been born! Even if my father remains celibate the rest of his life, I am still here, to call to mind what he wants forgotten. Yes, he, not only the bishop! I stand in the way of his advancement.”

  “Surely,” said Mark, shocked, “you do him injustice. I am certain he feels a father’s affection for you, as I do believe you feel a daughter’s for him.”

  “It never was tested before,” she said simply. “No one grudged us a proper love. Oh, he wishes me no ill, neither does the bishop. But very heartily they both wish that I may go somewhere else to thrive, so far away I shall trouble them no more.”

  “So that is why they’ve planned to match you with a man of Anglesey. As far away,” said Cadfael ruefully, “as a man could get and still be in North Wales. Yes, that would certainly settle the bishop’s mind. But what of yours? Do you know the man they intend for you?”

  “No, that was the prince’s doing, and he meant it kindly, and indeed I take it kindly. No, the bishop wanted to send me away to a convent in England, and make a nun of me. Owain Gwynedd said that would be a wicked waste unless it was my wish, and asked me there in front of everyone in the hall if I had any mind to it, and very loudly and clearly I said no. So he proposed this match for me. His man is looking for a wife, and they tell me he’s a fine fellow, not so young but barely past thirty, which is not so old, and good to look at, and well regarded. Better at least,” she said without great enthusiasm, “than being shut up behind a grid in an English nunnery.”

  “So it is,” agreed Cadfael heartily, “unless your own heart drives you there, and I doubt that will ever happen to you. Better, too, surely, than living on here and being made to feel an outcast and a burden. You are not wholly set against marriage?”

  “No!” she said vehemently.

  “And you know of nothing against this man the prince has in mind?”

  “Only that I have not chosen him,” she said, and set her red lips in a stubborn line.

  “When you see him you may approve him. It would not be the first time,” said Cadfael sagely, “that an intelligent matchmaker got the balance right.”

  “Well or ill,” she said, rising with a sigh, “I have no choice but to go. My father goes with me to see that I behave, and Canon Morgant, who is as rigid as the bishop himself, goes with us to see that we both behave. Any further scandal now, and goodbye to any advancement under Gilbert. I could destroy him if I so wished,” she said, dwelling vengefully on something she knew could never be a possibility, for all her anger and disdain. And from the evening light in the doorway she looked back to add: “I can well live without him. Soon or late, I should have gone to a husband. But do you know what most galls me? That he should give me up so lightly, and be so thankful to get rid of me.”

  *

  Canon Meirion came for them as he had promised, just as the bustle in the courtyard was settling into competent quietness, building work abandoned for the day, all the domestic preparations for the evening’s feast completed, the small army of servitors mustered into their places, and the household, from princes to grooms, assembled in hall. The light was still bright, but softening into the gilded silence before the sinking of the sun.

  Dressed for ceremony, the canon was brushed and immaculate but plain, maintaining the austerity of his office, perhaps, all the more meticulously to smooth away from memory all the years when he had been married to a wife. Time had been, once, long ago in the age of the saints, when celibacy had been demanded of all Celtic priests, just as insistently as it was being demanded now by Bishop Gilbert, by reason of the simple fact that the entire structure of the Celtic Church was built on the monastic ideal, and anything less was a departure from precedent and a decline in sanctity. But long since even the memory of that time had grown faint to vanishing, and there would be just as indignant a reaction to the reimposition of that ideal as there must once have been to its gradual abandonment. For centuries now priests had lived as decent married men and raised families like their parishioners. Even in England, in the more remote country places, there were plenty of humble married priests, and certainly no one thought the worse of them. In Wales it was not unknown for son to follow sire in the cure of a parish, and worse, for the sons of bishops to take it for granted they should succeed their mitred fathers, as though the supreme offices of the Church had been turned into heritable fiefs. Now here came this alien bishop, imposed from without, to denounce all such practices as abominable sin, and clear his diocese of all but the celibate clergy.

  And this able and impressive man who came to summon them to the support of his master had no intention of suffering diminution simply because, though he had buried his wife just in time, the survival of a daughter continued to accuse him. Nothing against the girl, and he would see her provided for, but somewhere else, out of sight and mind.

  To do him justice, he made no bones about going straight for what he wanted, what would work to his most advantage. He meant to exploit his two visiting monastics and their mission to his bishop’s pleasure and satisfaction.

  “They are just seated. There will be silence until princes and bishop are settled. I have seen to it there is a clear space below the high table, where you will be seen and heard by all.”

  Do him justice, too, he was no way disappointed or disparaging in contemplating Brother Mark’s smallness of stature and plain Benedictine habit, or the simplicity of his bearing; indeed he looked him over with a nod of satisfied approval, pleased with a plainness that would nevertheless carry its own distinction.

  Mark took the illuminated scroll of Roger de Clinton’s letter and the little carved casket that contained the cross in his hands, and they followed their guide across the courtyard to the door of the bishop’s hall. Within, the air was full of the rich scent of seasoned timber and the resiny smoke of torches, and the subdued murmur of voices among the lower tables fell silent as the three of them entered, Canon Meirion leading. Behind the high table at the far end of the hall an array of faces, bright in the torchlight, fixed attentively upon the small procession advancing into the cleared space below the dais. The bishop in the midst, merely a featureless presence at this distance, princes on either side of him, the rest clerics and Welsh noblemen of Owain’s court disposed alternately, and all eyes upon Brother Mark’s small, erect figure, solitary in the open space, for Canon Meirion had stepped aside to give him the floor alone, and Cadfael had remained some paces behind him.

  “My lord bishop, here is Deacon Mark, of the household of the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, asking audience.”

  “The messenger of my colleague of Lichfield is very welcome,” said the formal voice from the high table.

  Mark made his brief address in a clear voice, his eyes fixed on the long, narrow countenance that confronted him. Straight, wiry steel-grey hair about a domed tonsure, a long, thin blade of a nose flaring into wide nostrils, and a proud, tight-lipped mouth that wore its formal smile somewhat unnervingly for lack of practice.

  “My lord, Bishop Roger de Clinton bids me greet you reverently in his name, as his brother in Christ and his neighbour in the service of the Church, and wishes you long and fruitful endeavour in the diocese of Saint Asaph. And by my hand he sends you in all brotherly love this letter, and this casket, and begs you accept them in kindness.”

  All of which Cadfael took up, after the briefest of pauses for effect, and turned into ringing Welsh that brought an approving stir and murmur from his fellow-c
ountrymen among the assembly.

  The bishop had risen from his seat, and made his way round the high table to approach the edge of the dais. Mark went to meet him, and bent his knee to present letter and casket into the large, muscular hands that reached down to receive them.

  “We accept our brother’s kindness with joy,” said Bishop Gilbert with considered and gratified grace, for the secular power of Gwynedd was there within earshot, and missing nothing that passed. “And we welcome his messengers no less gladly. Rise, Brother, and make one more honoured guest at our table. And your comrade also. It was considerate indeed of Bishop de Clinton to send a Welsh speaker with you into a Welsh community.”

  Cadfael stood well back, and followed only at a distance on to the dais. Let Mark have all the notice and the attention, and be led to a place of honour next to Hywel ab Owain, who sat at the bishop’s left. Was that Canon Meirion’s doing, the bishop’s own decision to make the most of the visit, or had Hywel had a hand in it? He might well be interested in learning more about what other cathedral chapters thought of the resurrection of Saint Kentigern’s throne, and its bestowal on an alien prelate. And probing from him might be expected to find a more guileless response than if it came from his formidable father, and produce a more innocent and lavish crop. A first occasion, it might be, for Mark to say little and listen much.

  Cadfael’s own allotted place was much further from the princely centre, near the end of the table, but it gave him an excellent view of all the faces ranged along the seats of honour. On the bishop’s right sat Owain Gwynedd, a big man every way, in body, in breadth of mind, in ability, very tall, exceeding by a head the average of his own people, and flaxen-fair by contrast with their darkness, for his grandmother had been a princess of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, more Norse than Irish, Ragnhild, a granddaughter of King Sitric Silk-Beard, and his mother Angharad had been noted for her golden hair among the dark women of Deheubarth. On the bishop’s left Hywel ab Owain sat at ease, his face turned towards Brother Mark in amiable welcome. The likeness was clear to be seen, though the son was of a darker colouring, and had not the height of the sire. It struck Cadfael as ironic that one so plainly signed with his father’s image should be regarded by the cleric who sat beside him as illegitimate, for he had been born before Owain’s marriage, and his mother, too, was an Irishwoman. To the Welsh a son acknowledged was as much a son as those born in marriage, and Hywel on reaching manhood had been set up honourably in South Ceredigion, and now, after his uncle’s fall, possessed the whole of it. And very well capable, by his showing so far, of holding on to his own. There were three or four more Welshmen of Owain’s party, all arranged turn for turn with Gilbert’s canons and chaplains, secular and clerical perforce rubbing shoulders and exchanging possibly wary conversation, though now they had the open casket and its filigree silver cross as a safe topic, for Gilbert had opened it and set it on the board before him to be admired, and laid de Clinton’s scroll beside it, doubtless to await a ceremonial reading aloud when the meal was drawing to its close.

  Meantime, mead and wine were oiling the wheels of diplomacy, and by the rising babel of voices successfully. And Cadfael had better turn his attention to his own part in this social gathering, and begin to do his duty by his neighbours.

  On his right hand he had a middle-aged cleric, surely a canon of the cathedral, well-fleshed and portly, but with a countenance of such uncompromising rectitude that Cadfael judged he might well be that Morgant whose future errand it was to see that both father and daughter conducted themselves unexceptionably on the journey to dispose of Heledd to a husband. Just such a thin, fastidious nose seemed suitable to the task, and just such chill, sharp eyes. But his voice when he spoke, and his manner to the guest, were gracious enough. In every situation he would be equal to events, and strike the becoming note, but he did not look as if he would be easy on shortcomings in others.

  On Cadfael’s left sat a young man of the prince’s party, of the true Welsh build, sturdy and compact, very trim in his dress, and dark of hair and eye. A very black, intense eye, that focussed on distance, and looked through what lay before his gaze, men and objects alike, rather than at them. Only when he looked along the high table, to where Owain and Hywel sat, did the range of his vision shorten, fix and grow warm in recognition and acknowledgement, and the set of his long lips soften almost into smiling. One devoted follower at least the princes of Gwynedd possessed. Cadfael observed the young man sidewise, with discretion, for he was worth study, very comely in his black and brooding fashion, and tended to a contained and private silence. When he did speak, in courtesy to the new guest, his voice was quiet but resonant, and moved in cadences that seemed to Cadfael to belong elsewhere than in Gwynedd. But the most significant thing about his person did not reveal itself for some time, since he ate and drank little, and used only the right hand that lay easy on the board under Cadfael’s eyes. Only when he turned directly towards his neighbour, and rested his left elbow on the edge of the table, did it appear that the left forearm terminated only a few inches below the joint, and a fine linen cloth was drawn over the stump like a glove, and secured by a thin silver bracelet.

  It was impossible not to stare, the revelation came so unexpectedly; but Cadfael withdrew his gaze at once, and forbore from any comment, though he could not resist studying the mutilation covertly when he thought himself unobserved. But his neighbour had lived with his loss long enough to accustom himself to its effect on others.

  “You may ask, Brother,” he said, with a wry smile. “I am not ashamed to own where I left it. It was my better hand once, though I could use both, and can still make shift with the one I have left.”

  Since curiosity was understood and expected of him, Cadfael made no secret of it, though he was already hazarding a guess at the possible answers. For this young man was almost certainly from South Wales, far from his customary kin here in Gwynedd.

  “I am in no doubt,” he said cautiously, “that wherever you may have left it, the occasion did you nothing but honour. But if you are minded to tell me, you should know that I have carried arms in my time, and given and taken injury in the field. Where you admit me, I can follow you, and not as a stranger.”

  “I thought,” said the young man, turning black, brilliant eyes on him appraisingly, “you had not altogether the monastic look about you. Follow, then, and welcome. I left my arm lying over my lord’s body, the sword still in my hand.”

  “Last year,” said Cadfael slowly, pursuing his own prophetic imaginings, “in Deheubarth.”

  “As you have said.”

  “Anarawd?”

  “My prince and my foster-brother,” said the maimed man. “The stroke, the final stroke, that took his life from him took my arm from me.”

  Chapter 3

  “HOW MANY,” asked Cadfael carefully, after a moment of silence, “were with him then?”

  “Three of us. On a simple journey and a short, thinking no evil. There were eight of them. I am the only one left who rode with Anarawd that day.” His voice was low and even. He had forgotten nothing and forgiven nothing, but he was in complete command of voice and face.

  “I marvel,” said Cadfael, “that you lived to tell the story. It would not take long to bleed to death from such a wound.”

  “And even less time to strike again and finish the work,” the young man agreed with a twisted smile. “And so they would have done if some others of our people had not heard the affray and come in haste. Me they left lying when they rode away. I was taken up and tended after his murderers had run. And when Hywel came with his army to avenge the slaying, he brought me back here with him, and Owain has taken me into his own service. A one-armed man is still good for something. And he can still hate.”

  “You were close to your prince?”

  “I grew up with him. I loved him.” His black eyes rested steadily upon the lively profile of Hywel ab Owain, who surely had taken Anarawd’s place in his loyalty, in so far as one man
can ever replace another.

  “May I know your name?” asked Cadfael. “And mine is, or in the world it was, Cadfael ap Meilyr ap Dafydd, a man of Gwynedd myself, born at Trefriw. And Benedictine though I may be, I have not forgotten my ancestry.”

  “Nor should you, in the world or out of it. And my name is Cuhelyn ab Einion, a younger son of my father, and a man of my prince’s guard. In the old days,” he said, darkling, “it was disgrace for a man of the guard to return alive from the field on which his lord was slain. But I had and have good reason for living. Those of the murderers whom I knew I have named to Hywel, and they have paid. But some I did not know. I keep the faces in mind, for the day when I see them again and hear the names that go with the faces.”

  “There is also one other, the chief, who has paid only a blood-price in lands,” said Cadfael. “What of him? Is it certain he gave the orders for this ambush?”

  “Certain! They would never have dared, otherwise. And Owain Gwynedd has no doubts.”

  “And where, do you suppose, is this Cadwaladr now? And has he resigned himself to the loss of everything he possessed?”

  The young man shook his head. “Where he is no one seems to know. Nor what mischief he has next in mind. But resigned to his loss? That I doubt! Hywel took hostages from among the lesser chiefs who served under Cadwaladr, and brought them north to ensure there should be no further resistance in Ceredigion. Most of them have been released now, having sworn not to bear arms against Hywel’s rule or offer service again to Cadwaladr, unless at some time to come he should pledge reparation and be restored. There’s one still left captive in Aber, Gwion. He’s given his parole not to attempt escape, but he refuses to forswear his allegiance to Cadwaladr or promise peace to Hywel. A decent enough fellow,” said Cuhelyn tolerantly, “but still devoted to his lord. Can I hold that against a man? But such a lord! He deserves better for his worship.”