by Ellis Peters
Eliud rose to his feet to face them. He would need all his powers and all his dignity now if he was to speak for Elis. This Alan Herbard was surely no more than a year or two his senior, and being as harshly tested as he.
‘If you know the manner of your cousin’s flight,’ said Herbard bluntly, ‘you would be wise to speak. You shared this narrow space. If he rose in the night, surely you would know. For I tell you plainly, he is gone. He has run. In the night the wicket was opened for a man to enter. It’s no secret now that it let out a man, renegade, forsworn, self, branded murderer. Why else should he so seize this chance?’ ‘No!’ said Eliud. ‘You wrong him and in the end it will be shown you wrong him. He is no murderer. If he has run, that is not the reason.’ ‘There is no if. He is gone. You know nothing of it? You slept through his flight?’ ‘I missed him when I awoke,’ said Eliud. ‘I know nothing of how he went or when. But I know him. If he rose in the night because he heard your man arriving and if he heard then, is it so?, that the Welsh of Powys are coming too close and in dangerous numbers, then I swear to you he has fled only out of dread for Gilbert Prestcote’s daughter. She is there with the sisters at Godric’s Ford and Elis loves her. Whether she has discarded him or no, he has not ceased to love her, and if she is in danger he will venture life, yes and his honour with it, to bring her to safety. And when that is done,’ said Eliud passionately, ‘he will return here, to suffer whatever fate may await him. He is no renegade! He has broken his oath only for Melicent’s sake. He will come back and give himself up. I pledge my own honour for him! My own life!’ ‘I would remind you,’ said Herbard grimly, ‘you have already done so. Either one of you gave his word for both. At this moment you stand attainted as his surety for his treachery. I could hang you, and be fully justified.’ ‘Do so!’ said Eliud, blanched to the lips, his eyes dilated into a blaze of green. ‘Here am I, still his warranty. I tell you, this neck is yours to wring if Elis proves false. I give you leave freely. You are mustering to ride, I’ve seen it. You go against these Welsh of Powys. Take me with you! Give me a horse and a weapon, and I will fight for you, and you may have an archer at my back to strike me dead if I make a false step, and a halter about my neck ready for the nearest tree after the Powysmen are hammered, if Elis does not prove to you the truth of every word I say.’ He was shaking with fervour, strung taut like a bowstring. Herbard opened his eyes wide at such open passion, and studied him in wary surprise a long moment. ‘So be it!’ he said then abruptly, and turned to his men. ‘See to it! Give him a horse and a sword, and a rope about his neck, and have your best shot follow him close and be ready to spit him if he plays false. He says he is a man of his word, that even this defaulting fellow of his is such. Very well, we’ll take him at his word.’ He looked back from the doorway. Eliud had taken up Elis’s red cloak and was holding it in his arms. ‘If your cousin had been half the man you are,’ said Herbard, ‘your life would be safe enough.’ Eliud whirled, hugging the folded cloak to him as if applying balm to an unendurable ache. ‘Have you not understood even yet? He is better than I, a thousand times better!’
CHAPTER TWELVE.
IN TREGEIRIOG, TOO, THEY WERE UP WITH THE FIRST BLUSH of light, barely two hours after Elis’s flight through the wicket at Shrewsbury. For Hugh Beringar had ridden through half the night, and arrived with the dove, grey hush of pre, dawn. Sleepy grooms rose, blear, eyed, to take the horses of their English guests, a company of twenty men. The rest Hugh had left distributed across the north of the shire, well armed, well supplied, and so far proof against the few and tentative tests to which they had been subjected.
Brother Cadfael, as sensitive to nocturnal arrivals as Elis, had started out of sleep when he caught the quiver and murmur on the air. There was much to be said for the custom of sleeping in the full habit, apart from the scapular, a man could rise and go, barefoot or staying to reclaim his sandals, as complete and armed as in the middle of the day. No doubt the discipline had originated where monastic houses were located in permanently perilous places, and time had given it the blessing of tradition. Cadfael was out, and halfway to the stables, when he met Hugh coming thence in the pearly twilight, and Tudur equally wide awake and alert beside his guest.
‘What brings you so early?’ asked Cadfael. ‘Is there fresh news?’ ‘Fresh to me, but for all I know stale already in Shrewsbury.’ Hugh took him by the arm, and turned him back with them towards the hall. ‘I must make my report to the prince, and then we’re off down the border by the shortest way. Madog’s castellan from Caus is pouring more men into the Minsterley valley. There was a messenger waiting for me when we rode into Oswestry or I’d meant to stay the night there.’ ‘Herbard sent the word from Shrewsbury?’ asked Cadfael, ‘It was no more than a handful of raiders when I left, two days ago.’ ‘It’s a war, party of a hundred or more now. They hadn’t moved beyond Minsterley when Herbard got wind of the muster, but if they’ve brought out such a force as that, they mean worse mischief. And you know them better than I, they waste no time. They may be on the move this very dawn.’ ‘You’ll be needing fresh horses,’ said Tudur practically.
‘We got some remounts at Oswestry, they’ll be fit for the rest of the way. But I’ll gladly borrow from you for the rest, and thank you heartily. I’ve left all quiet and every garrison on the alert across the north, and Ranulf seems to have pulled back his advance parties towards Wrexham. He made a feint at Whitchurch and got a bloody nose, and it’s my belief he’s drawn in his horns for this while. Whether or no, I must break off to attend to Madog.’ ‘You may make your mind easy about Chirk,’ Tudur assured him. ‘We’ll see to that. Have your men in for a meal, at least, and give the horses a breather. I’ll get the womenfolk out of their beds to see to the feeding of you, and have Einon rouse Owain, if he’s not already up.’ ‘What do you intend?’ Cadfael asked. ‘Which way shall you head?’ ‘For Llansilin and down the border. We’ll pass to east of the Breiddens, and down by Westbury to Minsterley, and cut them off, if we can, from getting back to their base in Caus. I tire of having men of Powys in that castle,’ said Hugh, setting his jaw. ‘We must have it back and make it habitable, and keep a garrison there.’ ‘You’ll be few for such a muster as you report,’ said Cadfael. ‘Why not aim at getting to Shrewsbury first for more men, and westward to meet them from there?’ ‘The time’s too short. And besides, I credit Alan Herbard with sense and stomach enough to field a good force of his own to mind the town. If we move fast enough we may take them between the two prongs and crack them like a nut.’ They had reached the hall. Word had gone before, the sleepers within were rolling out of the rushes in haste, servants were setting tables, and the maids ran with new loaves from the bakery, and great pitchers of ale.
‘If I can finish my business here,’ said Cadfael tempted, ‘I’ll ride with you, if you’ll have me.’ ‘I will so and heartily welcome.’ ‘Then I’d best be seeing to what’s left undone here, when Owain Gwynedd is free. While you’re closeted with him, I’ll see my own horse readied for the journey.’ He was so preoccupied with thoughts of the coming clash, and of what might already be happening in Shrewsbury, that he turned back towards the stables without at first noticing the light footsteps that came flying after him from the direction of the kitchens, until a hand clutched at his sleeve, and he turned to find Cristina confronting him and peering intently up into his face with dilated dark eyes.
‘Brother Cadfael, is it true, what my father says? He says I need fret no longer, for Elis has found some girl in Shrewsbury, and wants nothing better now than to be rid of me. He says it can be ended with goodwill on both sides. That I’m free, and Eliud is free! Is it true?’ She was grave, and yet she glowed. Elis’s desertion was hope and help to her. The tangled knot could indeed be undone by consent, without grudges.
‘It is true,’ said Cadfael. ‘But beware of building too high on his prospects as yet, for it’s no way certain he’ll get the lady he wants. Did Tudur also tell you it is she who accuses Elis of being her
father’s murderer? No very hopeful way to set up a marriage.’ ‘But he’s in earnest? He loves the girl? Then he’ll not turn back to me, whether he wins his way with her or no. He never wanted me. Oh, I would have done well enough for him,’ she said, hoisting eloquent shoulders and curling a tolerant lip, ‘as any girl his match in age and rank would have done, but all I ever was to him was a child he grew up with, and was fond of after a fashion. Now,’ she said feelingly, ‘he knows what it is to want. God knows I wish him his happiness as I hope for mine.’ ‘Walk with me down to the stables,’ said Cadfael, ‘and keep me company, these few minutes we have. For I’m away with Hugh Beringar as soon as his men have broken their fast and rested their horses, and I’ve had a word again with Owain Gwynedd and Einon ab Ithel. Come, and tell me plainly how things stand between you and Eliud, for once before when I saw you together I misread you utterly.’ She went with him gladly, her face clear and pure in the pearly light just flushing into rose. Her voice was tranquil as she said: ‘I loved Eliud from before I knew what love was. All I knew was how much it hurt, that I could not endure to be away from him, that I followed and would be with him, and he would not see me, would not speak with me, put me roughly from his side as often as I clung. I was already promised to Elis, and Elis was more than half Eliud’s world, and not for anything would he have touched or coveted anything that belonged to his foster, brother. I was too young then to know that the measure of his rejection of me was the measure of how much he wanted me. But when I came to understand what it was that tortured me, then I knew that Eliud went daily in the selfsame pain.’ ‘You are quite sure of him,’ said Cadfael, stating, not doubting.
‘I am sure. From the time I understood, I have tried to make him acknowledge what I know and he knows to be truth. The more I pursue and plead, the more he turns away and will not speak or listen. But ever the more he wants me. I tell you truth, when Elis went away, and was made prisoner, I began to believe I had almost won Eliud, almost brought him to admit to love and join with me to break this threatened marriage, and speak for me himself. Then he was sent to be surety for this unhappy exchange and all went for nothing. And now it’s Elis who cuts the knot and frees us all.’ ‘Too early yet to speak of being free,’ warned Cadfael seriously. ‘Neither of those two is yet out of the wood, none of us is, until the matter of the sheriffs death is brought to a just end.’ ‘I can wait,’ said Cristina.
Pointless, thought Cadfael, to attempt to cast any doubt over this new radiance of hers. She had lived in shadow far too long to be intimidated. What was a murder unsolved to her? He doubted if guilt or innocence would make any difference. She had but one aim, nothing would deflect her from it. No question but from childhood she had read her playfellows rightly, known the one who owned the right to her but valued it lightly, and the one who contained the gnawing grief of loving her and knowing her to be pledged to the foster, brother he loved only a little less. Perhaps no less at all, until he grew into the pain of manhood. Girl children are always years older than their brothers at the same age in years, and see more accurately and jealously.
‘Since you are going back,’ said Cristina, viewing the activity in the stables with a kindling eye, ‘you will see him again. Tell him I am my own woman now, or soon shall be, and can give myself where I will. And I will give myself to no one but him.’ ‘I will tell him so,’ said Cadfael.
The yard was alive with men and horses, harness and gear slung on every staple and trestle down the line of stalls. The morning light rose clear and pale over the timber buildings, and the greens of the valley forest were stippled with the pallor of new leaf, buds like delicate green veils among the darkness of fir. There was a small wind, enough to refresh without troubling. A good day for riding.
‘Which of these horses is yours?’ she asked.
Cadfael led him forth to be seen, and surrendered him to the groom who came at once to serve.
‘And that great raw, boned grey beast? I never saw him before. He should go well, even under a man in armour.’ ‘That is Hugh Beringar’s favourite,’ said Cadfael, recognising the dapple with pleasure. ‘And a very ill, conditioned brute towards any other rider. Hugh must have left him resting in Oswestry, or he would not be riding him now.’ ‘I see they’re saddling up for Einon ab Ithel, too,’ she said. ‘I fancy he’ll be going back to Chirk, to keep an eye on your Beringar’s northern border while he’s busy elsewhere.’ A groom had come out across their path with a draping of harness on one arm and a saddle, cloth over the other, and tossed them over a rail while he went back to lead out the horse that would wear them. A very handsome beast, a tall, bright bay that Cadfael remembered seeing in the great court at Shrewsbury. He watched its lively gait with pleasure as the groom hoisted the saddle, cloth and flung it over the broad, glossy back, so taken with the horse that he barely noticed the quality of its gear. Fringes to the soft leather bridle, and a tooled brow, band with tiny studs of gold. There was gold on Einon’s land, he recalled. And the saddle, cloth itself…
He fixed and stared, motionless, for an instant holding his breath. A thick, soft fabric of dyed woollens, woven from heavy yarns in a pattern of twining, blossomy sprays, muted red roses, surely faded to that gentle shade, and deep blue irises. Through the centre of the flowers and round the border ran thick, crusted gold threads. It was not new, it had seen considerable wear, the wool had rubbed into tight balls here and there, some threads had frayed, leaving short, fine strands quivering.
No need even to bring out for comparison the little box in which he kept his captured threads. Now that he saw these tints at last he knew them past any doubt. He was looking at the very thing he had sought, too well known here, too often seen and too little regarded, to stir any man’s memory.
He knew, moreover, instantly and infallibly, the meaning of what he saw.
He said never a word to Cristina of what he knew, as they walked back together. What could he say? Better by far keep all to himself until he could see his way ahead, and knew what he must do. Not one word to any, except to Owain Gwynedd, when he took his leave.
‘My lord,’ he said then, ‘I have heard it reported of you that you have said, concerning the death of Gilbert Prestcote, that the only ransom for a murdered man is the life of the murderer. Is that truly reported? Must there be another death? Welsh law allows for the paying of a blood, price, to prevent the prolonged bloodshed of a feud. I do not believe you have forsaken Welsh for Norman law.’ ‘Gilbert Prestcote did not live by Welsh law,’ said Owain, eyeing him very keenly. ‘I cannot ask him to die by it. Of what value is a payment in goods or cattle to his widow and children?’ ‘Yet I think galanas can be paid in other mintage,’ said Cadfael. ‘In penitence, grief and shame, as high as the highest price judge ever set. What then?’ ‘I am not a priest,’ said Owain, ‘nor any man’s confessor. Penance and absolution are not within my writ. Justice is.’ ‘And mercy also,’ said Cadfael.
‘God forbid I should order any death wantonly. Deaths atoned for, whether by goods or grief, pilgrimage or prison, are better far than deaths prolonged and multiplied. I would keep alive all such as have value to this world and to those who rub shoulders with them here in this world. Beyond that it is God’s business.’ The prince leaned forward, and the morning light through the embrasure shone on his flaxen head. ‘Brother,’ he said gently, ‘had you not something we should have looked at again this morning by a better light? Last night we spoke of it.’ ‘That is of small importance now,’ said Brother Cadfael, ‘if you will consent to leave it in my hands some brief while. There shall be account rendered.’ ‘I will well!’ said Owain Gwynedd, and suddenly smiled, and the small chamber was filled with the charm of his presence. ‘Only, for my sake, and others, doubtless?, carry it carefully.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
ELIS HAD MORE SENSE THAN TO GO RUSHING STRAIGHT TO the enclosure of the Benedictine sisters, all blown and mired as he was from his run, and with the dawn only just breaking. So few miles from Shrewsbu
ry here, and yet so lonely and exposed! Why, he had wondered furiously as he ran, why had those women chosen to plant their little chapel and garden in so perilous a place? It was provocation! The abbess at Polesworth should be brought to realise her error and withdraw her threatened sisters. This present danger could be endlessly repeated, so near so turbulent a border.
He made rather for the mill on the brook, upstream, where he had been held prisoner, under guard by a muscular giant named John, during those few February days. He viewed the brook with dismay, it was so fallen and tamed, for all its gnarled and stony bed, no longer the flood he remembered. But if they came they would expect to wade across merrily where the bed opened out into a smooth passage, and would scarcely wet them above the knee. Those stretches, at least, could be pitted and sown with spikes or caltrops. And the wooded banks at least still offered good cover for archers.
John Miller, sharpening stakes in the mill, yard, dropped his hatchet and reached for his pitch, fork when the hasty, stumbling feet thudded on the boards. He whirled with astonishing speed and readiness for a big man, and gaped to see his sometime prisoner advancing upon him empty, handed and purposeful, and to be greeted in loud, demanding English by one who had professed total ignorance of that language only a few weeks previously.
