Dead Man's Ransom

by Ellis Peters

  Yes, a useful ally.

  Well…

  *

  The next day passed in a kind of deliberate hush, as if every man and every woman walked delicately, with bated breath, and kept the ritual of the house with particular awe and reverence, warding off all mischance. Never had the horarium of the order been more scrupulously observed at Godric’s Ford. Mother Mariana, small, wizened and old, presided over a sisterhood of such model devotion as to disarm fate. And her enforced guests in their twin cots in one cell were quiet and private together, and even Melicent, now a lay guest of the house and no postulant, went about the business of the day with a pure, still face, and left the two young men to their own measures.

  Brother Cadfael observed the offices, made some fervent prayers of his own, and went out to help Sister Magdalen tend the few injuries still in need of supervision among the neighbours.

  “You’re worn out,” said Sister Magdalen solicitously, when they returned for a late bite of supper and Compline. “Tomorrow you should sleep until Prime, you’ve had no real rest for three nights now. Say your farewell to Elis tonight, for they’ll be here at first light in the morning. And now I think of it,” she said, “I could do with another flask of that syrup you brew from poppies, for I’ve emptied my bottle, and I have one patient to see tomorrow who gets little sleep from pain. Will you refill the flask if I bring it?”

  “Willingly,” said Cadfael, and went to fetch the jar he had had sent from Brother Oswin in Shrewsbury after the battle. She brought a large green glass flask, and he filled it to the brim without comment.

  Nor did he rise early in the morning, though he was awake in good time; he was as good at interpreting a nudge in the ribs as the next man. He heard the horsemen when they came, and the voice of the portress and other voices, Welsh and English both, and among them, surely, the voice of John Miller. But he did not rise and go out to speed them on their way.

  When he came forth for Prime, the travellers, he reckoned, must be two hours gone on their way into Wales, armed with Hugh’s safe-conduct to cover the near end of the journey, well mounted and provided. The portress had conducted them to the cell where their charge, Elis ap Cynan, would be found in the nearer bed, and John Miller had carried him out in his arms, warmly swathed, and bestowed him in the litter sent to bear him home. Mother Mariana herself had risen to witness and bless their going.

  After Prime Cadfael went to tend his remaining patient. As well to continue just as in the previous days. Two clear hours should be ample start, and someone had to be the first to go in—no, not the first, for certainly Melicent was there before him, but the first of the others, the potential enemy, the uninitiated.

  He opened the door of the cell, and halted just within the threshold. In the dim light two roused, pale faces confronted him, almost cheek to cheek. Melicent sat on the edge of the bed, supporting the occupant in her arm, for he had raised himself to sit upright, with a cloak draped round his naked shoulders, to meet this moment erect. The bandage swathing his cracked rib heaved to a quickened and apprehensive heartbeat, and the eyes that fixed steadily upon Cadfael were not greenish hazel, but almost as dark as the tangle of black curls.

  “Will you let the lord Beringar know,” said Elis ap Cynan, “that I have sent away my foster-brother out of his hands, and am here to answer for all that may be held against him. He put his neck in a noose for me, so do I now for him. Whatever the law wills can be done to me in his place.” It was said. He drew a deep breath, and winced at the stab it cost him, but the sharp expectancy of his face eased and warmed now the first step was taken, and there was no more need of any concealment.

  “I am sorry I had to deceive Mother Mariana,” he said. “Say I entreat her forgiveness, but there was no other way in fairness to all here. I would not have any other blamed for what I have done.” And he added with sudden impulsive simplicity: “I’m glad it was you who came. Send to the town quickly, I shall be glad to have this over. And Eliud will be safe now.”

  “I’ll do your errand,” said Cadfael gravely, “both your errands. And ask no questions.” Not even whether Eliud had been in the plot, for he already knew the answer. From all those who had found it necessary to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, Eliud stood apart in his despairing innocence and lamentable guilt. Someone among those bearers of his on the road to Wales might have a frantically distressed invalid on his hands when the long, deep sleep drew to a close. But at the end of the enforced flight, whatever measures Owam Gwynedd took in the matter, there was Cristina waiting.

  “I have provided as well as I could,” said Elis earnestly. “They’ll send word ahead, she’ll come to meet him. It will be a hard enough furrow, but it will be life.”

  A deal of growing up seemed to have been done since Elis ap Cynan first came raiding to Godric’s Ford. This was not the boy who had avenged his nervous fears in captivity by tossing Welsh insults at his captors with an innocent face, nor the girl who had cherished dreamy notions of taking the veil before ever she knew what marriage or vocation meant.

  “The affair seems to have been well managed,” said Cadfael judicially. “Very well, I’ll go and make it known—here and in Shrewsbury.”

  He had the door half, closed behind him when Elis called: “And then will you come and help me do on my clothes? I would like to meet Hugh Beringar decent and on my feet.”

  *

  And that was what he did, when Hugh came in the afternoon, grim, faced and black-browed, to probe the loss of his felon. In Mother Mariana’s tiny parlour, dark-timbered and bare, Elis and Melicent stood side by side to face him. Cadfael had got the boy into his hose and shirt and coat, and Melicent had combed out the tangles from his hair, since he could not do it himself without pain. Sister Magdalen, after one measuring glance as he took his first unsteady steps, had provided him a staff to reinforce his treacherous knee, which would not go fairly under him as yet, but threatened to double all ways to let him fall. When he was ready he looked very young, neat and solemn, and understandably afraid. He stood twisted a little sideways, favouring the knitting rib that shortened his breath. Melicent kept a hand ready, close to his arm, but held off from touching.

  “I have sent Eliud back to Wales in my place,” said Elis, stiff as much with apprehension as with resolve, “since I owe him a life. But here am I, at your will and disposal, to do with as you see fit. Whatever you hold due to him, visit upon me.”

  “For God’s sake sit down,” said Hugh shortly and disconcertingly. “I object to being made the target of your self, inflicted suffering. If you’re offering me your neck, that’s enough, I have no need of your present pains. Sit and take ease. I am not interested in heroes.”

  Elis flushed, winced and sat obediently, but he did not take his eyes from Hugh’s grim countenance.

  “Who helped you?” demanded Hugh with chilling quietness.

  “No one. I alone made this plan. Owain’s men did as they were ordered by me.” That could be said boldly, they were well away in their own country.

  “We made the plan,” said Melicent firmly.

  Hugh ignored her, or seemed to. “Who helped you?” he repeated forcibly.

  “No one. Melicent knew, but she took no part. The sole blame is mine. Deal with me!”

  “So alone you moved your cousin into the other bed. That was marvel enough, for a man crippled himself and unable to walk, let alone lift another man’s weight. And as I hear, a certain miller of these parts carried Eliud ap Griffith to the litter.”

  “It was dark within, and barely light without,” said Elis steadily, “and I…”

  “We,” said Melicent.

  “…I had already wrapped Eliud well, there was little of him to see. John did nothing but lend his strong arms in kindness to me.”

  “Was Eliud party to this exchange?”

  “No!” they said together, loudly and fiercely.

  “No!” repeated Elis, his voice shaking with the fervour of his denial. “He knew noth
ing. I gave him in his last drink a great draught of the poppy syrup that Brother Cadfael used on us to dull the pain, that first day. It brings on deep sleep. Eliud slept through all. He never knew! He never would have consented.”

  “And how did you, bed-held as you were, come by that syrup?”

  “I stole the flask from Sister Magdalen,” said Melicent. “Ask her! She will tell you what a great dose has been taken from it.” So she would, with all gravity and concern. Hugh never doubted it, nor did he mean to put her to the necessity of answering. Nor Cadfael either. Both had considerately absented themselves from this trial, judge and culprits held the whole matter in their hands.

  There was a brief, heavy silence that weighed distressfully on Elis, while Hugh eyed the pair of them from under knitted brows, and fastened at last with frowning attention upon Melicent.

  “You of all people,” he said, “had the greatest right to require payment from Eliud. Have you so soon forgiven him? Then who else dare gainsay?”

  “I am not even sure,” said Melicent slowly, “that I know what forgiveness is. Only it seems a sad waste that all a man’s good should not be able to outweigh one evil, however great. That is the world’s loss. And I wanted no more deaths. One was grief enough, the second would not heal it.”

  Another silence, longer than the first. Elis burned and shivered, wanting to hear his penalty, whatever it might be, and know the best and the worst. He quaked when Hugh rose abruptly from his seat.

  “Elis ap Cynan, I have no charge to make in law against you. I want no exaction from you. You had best rest here a while yet. Your horse is still in the abbey stables. When you are fit to ride, you may follow your foster-brother home.” And before they had breath to speak, he was out of the room, and the door closing after him.

  *

  Brother Cadfael walked a short way beside his friend when Hugh rode back to Shrewsbury in the early evening. The last days had been mild, and in the long green ride the branches of the trees wore the first green veil of the spring budding. The singing of the birds, likewise, had begun to throb with the yearly excitement and unrest before mating and nesting and rearing the young. A time for all manner of births and beginnings, and for putting death out of mind.

  “What else could I have done?” said Hugh. “This one has done no murder, never owed me that very comely neck he insists on offering me. And if I had hanged him I should have been hanging both, for God alone knows how even so resolute a girl as Melicent—or the one you spoke of in Tregeiriog for that matter—is ever going to part the two halves of that pair. Two lives for one is no fair bargain.” He looked down from the saddle of the raw-boned grey which was his favourite mount, and smiled at Cadfael, and it was the first time for some days that he had been seen to smile utterly without irony or reserve. “How much did you know?”

  “Nothing,” said Cadfael simply. “I guessed at much, but I can fairly say I knew nothing and never lifted finger.” In silence and deafness and blindness he had connived, but no need to say that, Hugh would know it, Hugh, who could not have connived. Nor was there any need for Hugh ever to say with what secret gratitude he relinquished the judgement he would never have laid down of his own will.

  “What will become of them all?” Hugh wondered. “Elis will go home as soon as he’s well enough, I suppose, and send formally to ask for his girl. There’s no man of her kin to ask but her own mother’s brother, and he’s far off with the queen in Kent and out of reach. I fancy Sister Magdalen will advise the girl to go back to her step-mother for the waiting time, and have all done in proper form, and she has sense enough to listen to advice, and the patience to wait for what she wants, now she’s assured of getting it in the end. But what of the other pair?”

  Eliud and his companions would be well into Wales by this time and need not hurry, to tire the invalid too much. The draught of forgetfulness they had given him might dull his senses for a while even when he awoke, and his fellows would do their best to ease his remorse and grief, and his fear for Elis. But that troubled and passionate spirit would never be quite at rest.

  “What will Owain do with him?”

  “Neither destroy nor waste him,” said Cadfael, “provided you cede your rights in him. He’ll live, he’ll marry his Cristina—there’ll be no peace for prince or priest or parent until she gets her way. As for his penance, he has it within him, he’ll carry it lifelong. There is nothing but death itself you or any man could lay upon him that he will not lay upon himself. But God willing, he will not have to carry it alone. There is no crime and no failure can drive Cristina from him.”

  They parted at the head of the ride. It was premature dusk under the trees, but still the birds sang with the extreme and violent joy that seemed loud enough to shake such fragile instruments into dust or burst the hearts in their breasts. There were windflowers quivering in the grass.

  “I go lighter than I came,” said Hugh, reining in for a moment before he took the homeward road.

  “As soon as I see that lad walking upright and breathing deep, I shall follow. And glad to be going home.” Cadfael looked back at the low timber roofs of Mother Mariana’s grange, where the silvery light through gossamer branches reflected the ceaseless quivering of the brook. “I hope we have made, between us all, the best of a great ill, and who could do more? Once, I remember, Father Abbot said that our purpose is justice, and with God lies the privilege of mercy. But even God, when he intends mercy, needs tools to his hand.”

  Glossary of Terms

  Alltud

  A foreigner living in Wales

  Arbalest

  A crossbow that enables the bow to be drawn with a winding handle

  Baldric

  A sword-belt crossing the chest from shoulder to hip.

  Bannerole

  A thin ribbon attached to a lance tip

  Bodice

  The supportive upper area of a woman’s dress, sometimes a separate item of clothing worn over a blouse

  Brychan

  A woollen blanket

  Caltrop

  A small iron weapon consisting four spikes. Set on the ground and used against horses and infantry

  Capuchon

  A cowl-like hood

  Cariad

  Welsh for ‘beloved’

  Cassock

  A long garment of the clergy

  Castellan

  The ruler of a castle

  Chatelaine

  The lady of a manor house

  Chausses

  Male hose

  Coif

  The cap worn under a nun’s veil

  Conversus

  A man who joins the monkhood after living in the outside world

  Cottar

  A Villein who is leased a cottage in exchange for their work

  Cotte

  A full- or knee-length coat. Length is determined by the class of the wearer

  Croft

  Land used as pasture that abuts a house

  Currier

  A horse comb used for grooming

  Demesne

  The land retained by a lord for his own use

  Diocese

  The district attached to a cathedral

  Dortoir

  Dormitory (monastic)

  Electuary

  Medicinal powder mixed with honey. Taken by mouth

  Eremite

  A religious hermit

  Espringale

  Armament akin to a large crossbow

  Frater

  Dining room (monastic)

  Garderobe

  A shaft cut into a building wall used as a lavatory

  Garth

  A grass quadrangle within the cloisters (monastic)

  Geneth

  Welsh for ‘girl’

  Gentle

  A person of honourable family

  Glebe

  An area of land attached to a clerical office

  Grange

  The lands and buildings of a monastery farm

 
Groat

  A small coin

  Gruel

  Thin porridge

  Guild

  A trade association

  Gyve

  An iron shackle

  Hauberk

  A chainmail coat to defend the neck and shoulders

  Helm

  A helmet

  Horarium

  The monastic timetable, divided into canonical hours, or offices, of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline

  Husbandman

  A tenant farmer

  Jess

  A short strap attached to a hawk’s leg when practising falconry

  Largesse

  Money or gifts, bestowed by a patron to mark an occasion

  Leat (Leet)

  A man-made waterway

  Litany

  Call and response prayer recited by clergyman and congregation

  Llys

  The timber-built royal court of Welsh princes

  Lodestar

  A star that acts as a fixed navigational point, i.e. the Pole Star

  Lodestone

  Magnetised ore

  Lye

  A solution used for washing and cleaning

  Mandora

  A stringed instrument, precursor to the mandolin