Dead Man's Ransom

by Ellis Peters

  “We have still a little time,” she whispered, taking heart as best she could. “They said he is not well, he had wounds barely healed. They’ll be a week or two yet.”

  “And you’ll still come? You will come? Every day? How should I bear it if I could no longer see you?”

  “I’ll come,” she said, “these moments are my life, too. Who knows, something may yet happen to save us.”

  “Oh, God, if we could but stop time! If we could hold back the days, make him take for ever on the journey, and never, never reach Shrewsbury!”

  *

  It was ten days before the next word came from Owain Gwynedd. A runner came in on foot, armed with due authorisation from Einon ab Ithel, who ranked second only to Owain’s own penteulu, the captain of his personal guard. The messenger was brought to Hugh in the castle guardroom early in the afternoon; a border man, with some business dealings into England, and well acquainted with the language.

  “My lord, I bring greetings from Owain Gwynedd through the mouth of his captain, Einon ab Ithel. I am to tell you that the party lies tonight at Montford, and tomorrow we shall bring you our charge, the lord Gilbert Prestcote. But there is more. The lord Gilbert is still very weak from his wounds and hardships, and for most of the way we have carried him in a litter. All went well enough until this morning, when we had hoped to reach the town and discharge our task in one day. Because of that, the lord Gilbert would ride the last miles, and not be carried like a sick man into his own town.”

  The Welsh would understand and approve that, and not presume to deter him. A man’s face is half his armour, and Prestcote would venture any discomfort or danger to enter Shrewsbury erect in the saddle, a man master of himself even in captivity.

  “It was like him and worthy of him,” said Hugh, but scenting what must follow. “And he tried himself too far. What has happened?”

  “Before we had gone a mile he swooned and fell. Not a heavy fall, but a healed wound in his side has started open again, and he lost some blood. It may be that there was some manner of fit or seizure, more than the mere exertion, for when we took him up and tended him he was very pale and cold. We wrapped him well—Einon ab Ithel swathed him further in his own cloak—and laid him again in the litter, and have carried him back to Montford.”

  “Has he his senses? Has he spoken?” asked Hugh anxiously.

  As sound in his wits as any man, once he opened his eyes, and speaks clearly, my lord. We would keep him at Montford longer, if need be, but he is set to reach Shrewsbury now, being so near. He may take more harm, being vexed, than if we carry him here as he wishes, tomorrow.”

  So Hugh thought, too, and gnawed his knuckles a while pondering what was best. “Do you think this setback may be dangerous to him? Even mortal?”

  The man shook his head decidedly. “My lord, though you’ll find him a sick man and much fallen and aged, I think he needs only rest and time and good care to be his own man again. But it will not be a quick or an easy return.”

  “Then it had better be here, where he desires to be,” Hugh decided, “but hardly in these cold, harsh chambers. I would take him to my own house, gladly, but the best nursing will surely be at the abbey, and there you can just as well bear him, and he may be spared being carried helpless through the town. I will bespeak a bed for him in the infirmary there, and see his wife and children into the guest hall to be near him. Go back now to Einon ab Ithel with my greetings and thanks, and ask him to bring his charge straight to the abbey. I will see Brother Edmund and Brother Cadfael prepared to receive him, and all ready for his rest. At what hour may we expect your arrival? Abbot Radulfus will wish to have your captains be his guests before they leave again.”

  “Before noon,” said the messenger, “we should reach the abbey.”

  “Good! Then there shall be places at table for all, for the midday meal, before you set forth with Elis ap Cynan in exchange for my sheriff.”

  *

  Hugh carried the news to the tower apartments, to Lady Prestcote, who received them with relief and joy, though tempered with some uneasiness when she heard of her husband’s collapse. She made haste to collect her son and her maid, and make ready to move to the greater comfort of the abbey guest hall, ready for her lord’s coming, and Hugh conducted them there and went to confer with the abbot about the morrow’s visit. And if he noted that one of the party went with them mute and pale, brilliant-eyed as much with tears as with eagerness, he thought little of it then. The daughter of the first wife, displaced by the son of the second, might well be the one who missed her father most, and had worn her courage so threadbare with the grief of waiting that she could not yet translate her exhaustion into joy.

  Meantime, there was hum and bustle about the great court. Abbot Radulfus issued orders, and took measures to furnish his own table for the entertainment of the representatives of the prince of Gwynedd. Prior Robert took counsel with the cooks concerning properly lavish provision for the remainder of the escort, and room enough in the stables to rest and tend their horses. Brother Edmund made ready the quietest enclosed chamber in the infirmary, and had warm, light covers brought, and a brazier to temper the air, while Brother Cadfael reviewed the contents of his workshop with the broken wound in mind, and the suggestion of something more than a swoon. The abbey had sometimes entertained much larger parties, even royalty, but this was the return of a man of their own, and the Welsh who had been courteous and punctilious in providing him his release and his safe-conduct must be honoured like princes, as they stood for a prince.

  In his cell in the castle Elis ap Cynan lay face, down on his pallet, the heart in his breast as oppressive as a hot and heavy stone. He had watched her go, but from hiding, unwilling to cause her the same suffering and despair he felt. Better she should go without a last reminder, able at least to try to turn all her thoughts towards her father, and leave her lover out of mind. He had strained his eyes after her to the last, until she vanished down the ramp from the gatehouse, the silver-gold of her coiled hair the only brightness in a dull day. She was gone, and the stone that had taken the place of his heart told him that the most he could hope for now was a fleeting glimpse of her on the morrow, when they released him from the castle wards and conducted him down to the abbey, to be handed over to Einon ab Ithel; for after the morrow, unless a miracle happened, he might never see her again.

  Chapter 5

  BROTHER CADFAEL WAS READY with Brother Edmund in the porch of the infirmary to see them ride in, as they did in the middle of the morning, just after High Mass was ended. Owain’s trusted captain in the lead with Eliud ap Griffith, very solemn of face, close behind him as body-squire and two older officers following, and then the litter, carefully slung between two strong hill ponies, with attendants on foot walking alongside to steady the ride. The long form in the litter was so cushioned and swathed that it looked bulky, but the ponies moved smoothly and easily, as if the weight was very light.

  Einon ab Ithel was a big, muscular man in his forties, bearded, with long moustaches and a mane of brown hair. His clothing and the harness of the fine horse under him spoke his wealth and importance. Eliud leaped down to take his lord’s bridle, and walked the horse aside as Hugh Beringar came to greet the arrivals and after him, with welcoming dignity, Abbot Radulfus himself. There would be a leisurely and ceremonious meal in the abbot’s lodging for Einon and the elder officers of his party, together with Lady Prestcote and her daughter and Hugh himself, as was due when two powers came together in civilised agreement. But the most urgent business fell to Brother Edmund and his helpers.

  The litter was unharnessed, and carried at once into the infirmary, to the room already prepared and warmed for the sick man’s reception. Edmund closed the door even against Lady Prestcote, who was blessedly delayed by the civilities, until they should have unwrapped, unclothed and installed the invalid, and had some idea of his state.

  They unfastened from the high, close-drawn collar of the clipped sheepskin cloak
that was his outer wrapping, a long pin with a large, chased gold head, secured by a thin gold chain. Everyone knew there was gold worked in Gwynedd, probably this came from Einon’s own land, for certainly this must be his cloak, added to pillow and protect his sacred charge. Edmund laid it aside, folded, on a low chest beside the bed, the great pin showing clearly, for fear someone should run his hand on to the point if it were hidden. Between them they unwound Gilbert Prestcote from the layers in which he was swathed, and as they handled him his eyes opened languidly, and his long, gaunt body made some feeble moves to help them. He was much fallen in flesh, and bore several scars, healed but angry, besides the moist wound in his flank which had gaped again with his fall. Carefully Cadfael dressed and covered the place. Even being handled exhausted the sick man. By the time they had lifted him into the warmed bed and covered him his eyes were again closed. As yet he had not tried to speak.

  A marvel how he had ever ridden even a mile before foundering, thought Cadfael, looking down at the figure stretched beneath the covers, and the lean, livid face, all sunken blue hollows and staring, blanched bones. The dark hair of his head and beard was thickly sown with grey, and lay lank and lifeless. Only his iron spirit, intolerant of any weakness, most of all his own, had held him up in the saddle, and when even that failed he was lost indeed.

  But he drew breath, he had moved to assert his rights in his own body, however weakly, and again he opened the dulled and sunken eyes and stared up into Cadfael’s face. His grey lips formed, just audibly: “My son?” Not: “My wife?” Nor yet: “My daughter?” Cadfael thought with rueful sympathy, and stooped to assure him: “Young Gilbert is here, safe and well.” He glanced at Edmund, who signalled back agreement. “I’ll bring him to you.”

  Small boys are very resilient, but for all that Cadfael said some words, both of caution and reassurance, as much for the mother as the child, before he brought them in and drew aside into a corner to leave them the freedom of the bedside. Hugh came in with them. Prestcote’s first thought was naturally for his son, the second, no less naturally, would be for his shire. And his shire, considering all things, was in very good case to encourage him to live, mend and mind it again.

  Sybilla wept, but quietly. The little boy stared in some wonder at a father hardly recognised, but let himself be drawn close by a gaunt, cold hand, and stared at hungrily by eyes like firelit caverns. His mother leaned and whispered to him, and obediently he stooped his rosy, round face and kissed a bony cheek. He was an accommodating child, puzzled but willing, and not at all afraid. Prestcote’s eyes ranged beyond, and found Hugh Beringar.

  “Rest content,” said Hugh, leaning close and answering what need not be asked, “your borders are whole and guarded. The only breach has provided you your ransom, and even there the victory was ours. And Owain Gwynedd is our ally. What is yours to keep is in good order.”

  The dulling glance faded beneath drooping lids, and never reached the girl standing stark and still in the shadows near the door. Cadfael had observed her, from his own retired place, and watched the light from brazier and lamp glitter in the tears flowing freely and mutely down her cheeks. She made no sound at all, she hardly drew breath. Her wide eyes were fixed on her father’s changed, aged face, in the most grievous and desperate stare.

  The sheriff had understood and accepted what Hugh said. Brow and chin moved slightly in a satisfied nod. His lips stirred to utter almost clearly: “Good!” And to the boy, awed but curious, hanging over him: “Good boy! Take care… of your mother…”

  He heaved a shallow sigh, and his eyes drooped closed. They held still for some time, watching and listening to the heave and fall of the covers over his sunken breast and the short, harsh in and out of his breath, before Brother Edmund stepped softly forward and said in a cautious whisper: “He’s sleeping. Leave him so, in quiet. There is nothing better or more needed any man can do for him.”

  Hugh touched Sybilla’s arm, and she rose obediently and drew her son up beside her. “You see him well cared for,” said Hugh gently. “Come to dinner, and let him sleep.”

  The girl’s eyes were quite dry, her cheeks pale but calm, when she followed them out to the great court, and down the length of it to the abbot’s lodging, to be properly gracious and grateful to the Welsh guests, before they left again for Montford and Oswestry.

  *

  Over their midday meal, which was served before the brothers ate in the refectory, the inhabitants of the infirmary laid their ageing but inquisitive heads together to make out what was causing the unwonted stir about their retired domain. The discipline of silence need not be rigorously observed among the old and sick, and just as well, since they tend to be incorrigibly garrulous, from want of other active occupation.

  Brother Rhys, who was bedridden and very old indeed, but sharp enough in mind and hearing even if his sight was filmed over, had a bed next to the corridor, and across from the retired room where some newcomer had been brought during the morning, with unusual to-do and ceremony. He took pleasure in being the member who knew what was going on. Among so few pleasures left to him, this was the chief, and not to be lightly spent. He lay and listened. Those who sat at the table, as once in the refectory, and could move around the infirmary and sometimes the great court if the weather was right, nevertheless were often obliged to come to him for knowledge.

  “Who should it be,” said Brother Rhys loftily, “but the sheriff himself, brought back from being a prisoner in Wales.”

  “Prestcote?” said Brother Maurice, rearing his head on its stringy neck like a gander giving notice of battle. “Here? In our infirmary? Why should they bring him here?”

  “Because he’s a sick man, what else? He was wounded in the battle, and in no shape to shift for himself yet, or trouble any other man. I heard their voices in there—Edmund, Cadfael and Hugh Beringar—and the lady, too, and the child. It’s Gilbert Prestcote, take my word.”

  “There is justice,” said Maurice with sage satisfaction, and the gleam of vengeance in his eye, “though it be too long delayed. So Prestcote is brought low, neighbour to the unfortunate. The wrong done to my line finds a balance at last, I repent that ever I doubted.”

  They humoured him, being long used to his obsessions. They murmured variously, most saying reasonably enough that the shire had not fared badly in Prestcote’s hands, though some had old grumbles to vent and reservations about sheriffs in general, even if this one of theirs was not by any means the worst of his kind. On the whole they wished him well. But Brother Maurice was not to be reconciled.

  “There was a wrong done,” he said implacably, “which even now is not fully set right. Let the false pleader pay for his offence, I say, to the bitter end.”

  The stockman Anion, at the end of the table, said never a word, but kept his eyes lowered to his trencher, his hip pressed against the crutch he was almost ready to discard, as though he needed a firm contact with the reality of his situation, and the reassurance of a weapon to hand in the sudden presence of his enemy. Young Griffri had killed, yes, but in drink, in hot blood, and in fair fight man against man. He had died a worse death, turned off more casually than wringing a chicken’s neck. And the man who had made away with him so lightly lay now barely twenty yards away, and at the very sound of his name every drop of blood in Anion ran Welsh, and cried out to him of the sacred duty of galanas, the blood-feud for his brother.

  *

  Eliud led Einon’s horse and his own down the great court into the stableyard, and the men of the escort followed with their own mounts, and the shaggy hill ponies that had carried the litter. An easy journey those two would have on the way back to Montford. Einon ab Ithel, when representing his prince on a ceremonial occasion, required a squire in attendance, and Eliud undertook the grooming of the tall bay himself. Very soon now he would be changing places with Elis, and left to chafe here while his cousin rode back to his freedom in Wales. In silence he hoisted off the heavy saddle, lifted aside the elaborate harness, an
d draped the saddle-cloth over his arm. The bay tossed his head with pleasure in his freedom, and blew great misty breaths. Eliud caressed him absently; his mind was not wholly on what he was doing, and his companions had found him unusually silent and withdrawn all that day. They eyed him cautiously and let him alone. It was no great surprise when he suddenly turned and tramped away out of the stableyard, back to the open court.

  “Gone to see whether there’s any sign of his cousin yet,” said his neighbour tolerantly, rubbing down one of the shaggy ponies. “He’s been like a man maimed and out of balance ever since the other one went off to Lincoln. He can hardly believe it yet that he’ll turn up here without a scratch on him.”

  “He should know his Elis better than that,” grunted the man beside him. “Never yet did that one fall anywhere but on his feet.”

  Eliud was away perhaps ten minutes, long enough to have been all the way to the gatehouse and peered anxiously along the Foregate towards the town, but he came back in dour silence, laid aside the saddle-cloth he was still carrying, and went to work without a word or a look aside.

  “Not come yet?” asked his neighbour with careful sympathy.

  “No,” said Eliud shortly, and continued working vigorously on the bright bay hide.

  “The castle’s the far side of the town, they’ll have kept him there until they were sure of our man. They’ll bring him. He’ll be at dinner with us.” Eliud said nothing. At this hour the monks themselves were at their meal in the refectory, and the abbot’s guests with him at his own table in his lodging. It was the quietest hour of the day; even the comings and goings about the guest hall were few at this time of year, though with the spring the countryside would soon be on the move again.

  “Never show him so glum a face,” said the Welshman, grinning, “even if you must be left here in his place. Ten days or so, and Owain and this young sheriff will be clasping hands on the border, and you on your way home to join him.” Ehud muttered a vague agreement, and turned a forbidding shoulder on further talk. He had Einon’s horse stalled and glossy and watered by the time Brother Denis the hospitaller came to bid them to the refectory, newly laid and decked for them after the brothers had ended their repast, and dispersed to enjoy their brief rest before the afternoon’s work began. The resources of the house were at their disposal, warmed water brought to the lavatorium for their hands, towels laid out and their table, when they entered the refectory, graced with more dishes than the brothers had enjoyed. And there waiting, somewhat in the manner of a nervous host, was Elis ap Cynan, freshly brushed and spruced for the occasion, and on his most formal behaviour.