Brother Cadfael's Penance

by Ellis Peters

  ‘The army of your liege lady the empress,’ said Cadfael ruefully. ‘And stronger than commonly, since she was accompanied home into Gloucester by several of her earls and barons. Yves, when he was loosed, rode for Gloucester to rouse her to come and rescue you, and come she most surely has, but not for your sake. The lad told her Philip was here in person. She has vowed, too publicly to withdraw even if she wished, and I doubt she does, to take his castle and his body, and hang him from his own towers, and before his own men. No, she won’t withdraw. She is determined to take, humiliate and hang him. And I am equally resolute,’ said Cadfael roundly, ‘that she shall not, though how it’s to be prevented is more than I yet know.’

  ‘She cannot do it,’ said Olivier, aghast. ‘It would be wicked folly. Surely she knows it? Such an act would have every able man in the land, if he had laid down his weapons, rushing to pick them up again and get into the field. The worst of us, on either side, would hesitate to kill a man he had bested and captured. How do you know this is truth, that she has so sworn?’

  ‘I know it from Yves, who was there to hear it, and is in no doubt at all. She is in earnest. Of all men she hates Philip for what she holds to be his treason –’

  ‘It was treason,’ said Olivier, but more temperately than Cadfael had expected.

  ‘By all the rules, so it was. But also it was more than simply treason, however extreme the act. Before long,’ said Cadfael heavily, ‘some of the greatest among us, on both sides of the argument, and yes, the best, will be accused of treason on the same grounds. They may not turn to fight upon the other side, but to leave their swords in the sheath and decline to continue killing will just as surely be denounced as treachery. Whatever his crime may be called, she wants him in her grasp, and means to be his death. And I am determined she shall not have him.’

  Olivier thought for a moment, gnawing his knuckles and frowning. Then he said: ‘It would be well, for her more than any, that someone should prevent.’ He turned the intensity of his troubled stare upon Cadfael. ‘You have not told me all. There is something more. How far has this attack gone? They have not broken through?’ The use of ‘they’ might simply have been because he was enforcedly out of this battle, instead of fighting for his chosen cause with the rest, but it seemed to set him at an even greater distance from the besiegers. Cadfael had almost heard the partisan ‘we’ springing to mind to confront the ‘they’.

  ‘Not yet. They have breached one tower, but have not got in, or had not when I came down to you,’ he amended scrupulously. ‘Philip refused surrender, but he knows what she intends to do with him…’

  ‘How does he know?’ demanded Olivier alertly.

  ‘He knows because I told him. Yves brought the message at his own risk. At no risk to me I delivered it. But I think he knew. He said then that if God, by chance, should choose to forestall the empress, he must take thought for the men of his garrison. He has done so. He has handed over, the charge of La Musarderie to his deputy Camville, and given him leave – no, orders! – to get the best terms he can for the garrison, and surrender the castle. And tomorrow that will be done.’

  ‘But he would not…’ began Olivier, and cried out abruptly: ‘You said he is not dead!’

  ‘No, he is not dead, but he is badly hurt. I don’t say he will die of his wounds, though he may. I do say he will not die of his wounds in time to escape being dragged aloft, whatever his condition, in the empress’s noose, once she gets into La Musarderie. He has consented in his own shameful death to procure the release of his men. She cares nothing for any of them, if she has Philip. She’ll keep the castle and the arms, and let the men depart alive.’

  ‘He has consented to this?’ asked Olivier, low-voiced.

  ‘He has ordered it.’

  ‘And his condition? His injuries?’

  ‘He has badly broken ribs, and I fear some lacerations inside from the broken bones. And head injuries. They tossed in a crate of lumps of iron, broken lance-heads, cinder from the furnaces. He was close when it struck and burst. A bad head wound from a piece of a lance, and maybe foul at that. He came to his senses long enough to make his dispositions, and that he did clearly, and will be obeyed. When they enter, tomorrow, he will be her prisoner. Her only prisoner, for if FitzGilbert agrees to terms he’ll keep his word.’

  ‘And it is bad? He cannot ride? He cannot even stand and walk? But what use,’ said Olivier helplessly, ‘even if he could? Having bought their freedom he would not make off and leave the price unpaid. Never of his own will. I know him! But a man so sick, and at her mercy…. She would not!’ said Olivier strenuously, and looked along his shoulder at Cadfael’s face, and ended dubiously: ‘Would she?’

  ‘He struck her to the heart, where her pride is. Yes, I fear she would. But when I left him to come to you, Philip was again out of his senses, and I think may well remain so for many hours, even days. The head wound is his danger.’

  ‘You think we might move him, and he not know? But they are all round us, no easy way out. I do not know this castle well. Is there a postern that might serve? And then, it would need a cart. There are those in the village that I do know,’ said Olivier, ‘but they may be no friends to Philip. But at the mill by Winstone I’m known, and they have carts. Now, while the night is black, is there anywhere a man could get out? For if they get their truce, by morning they’ll cease their close watch. Something might yet be done.’

  ‘There’s a clear way out where they’ve breached the tower,’ said Cadfael, ‘I saw sky through it. But they’re still outside there with the ram, and only held outside by force of arms. If a man of the garrison tried to slip out there, it would be one way of dying quickly. Even if they draw off, he could hardly go along with them.’

  ‘But I can!’ Olivier was on his feet, glowing. ‘Why not? I’m one of them. I’m known to have kept my fealty. I have her badge on my sword-belt, and her colours on my surcoat and my cloak. There may be some there who know me.’ He crossed to the chest, and swept the covering cloak from sword and scabbard and light chainmail coat, the links ringing.

  ‘You see? All my harness, everything that came with me when I was dragged out of Faringdon, and the lions of Anjou, that the old king gave to Geoffrey when he married his daughter to him, clear to be seen, marking me for hers. He would not so much as displace the least of another man’s possessions, though he might kill the man. In chainmail and armed, and in the dark, who’s to pick me out from any of the other besiegers outside the walls? If I’m challenged I can openly answer that I’ve broken out in the turmoil. If not, I can keep my own counsel, and make for the mill. Reinold will help me to the loan of a cart. But it would be daylight before I could get it here.’ He checked, frowning. ‘How can we account for it then?’

  ‘If you are in earnest,’ said Cadfael, carried away in this gale, ‘something might be attempted. Once there’s truce, there can be movement in and out, and traffic with the village. For all I know, there may be local men within here, and some wounded or even among the dead, and their kin will be wanting to get news of them, once the way’s open.’

  Olivier paced, hugged his body in embracing arms, and considered. ‘Where is the empress now?’

  ‘She set up her court in the village, so they say. I doubt if she’ll make her appearance here for a day or so, she’ll need a degree of state, and a grand entrance. But even so,’ said Cadfael, ‘all the time we have is the rest of this night, and the first few hours of truce, while there’s still confusion, and no such close watch.’

  ‘Then we must make it enough,’ said Olivier. ‘And say we do begin well… Where would you have him taken? To have the care he needs?’

  Cadfael had given thought to that, though then without much hope of ever being able to pursue it. ‘There is a house of the Augustinians in Cirencester. I remember the prior at Haughmond has regular correspondence with one of the canons there, and they have a good name as physicians. And with them sanctuary would be inviolable. But it is a matter
of ten miles or more.’

  ‘But the best and fastest road,’ said Olivier, gleaming brightly in this fury of planning, ‘and would not take us near the village. Once through Winstone we should be on the straight run to Cirencester. Now, how are we to get him out of the castle and keep him man alive?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Cadfael slowly, ‘as a man already dead. The first task, when the gates are open, will be to carry out the dead and lay them ready for burial. We know how many there should be, but FitzGilbert does not. And should there be a man from Winstone shrouded among them, his kin might very well come with a cart, to fetch him home.’

  With his eyes burning steadily upon Cadfael’s face, Olivier voiced the final question and the final fear: ‘And if he is in his senses then, and forbids – as he might – what then?’

  ‘Then’ said Cadfael, ‘I will remove him at least into the chapel, and we’ll put her and any other under the ban of the Church if they dare break his sanctuary. But there is no more I can do. I have no medicines here that could put a man to sleep for hours. And even if I had – you said that I had cheated you by laying you in my debt without your knowledge. He might accuse me of forcing him to default on a debt, to his dishonour. I have not the hardihood to do that to Philip.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Olivier, and suddenly smiled. ‘So we had better make a success of it while he is still senseless. Even that may be straining our rights, but we’ll argue that afterwards. And if I am going, as well go quickly. This once, my father, will you be my squire and help me to arm?’

  He put on the mail hauberk, to make one more among the besiegers who were massed outside the walls, drawn off for a few minutes to regroup and attack yet again, and over it the surcoat of linen that bore the lions of Anjou plain to be seen. Cadfael buckled the sword-belt round his son’s loins, and for a moment had the world in his arms.

  The cloak was necessary cover here within the walls, to hide Geoffrey’s blazon, for no one but Cadfael yet knew that Philip had set his prisoner free, and some zealous man-at-arms might strike first and question afterwards. True, it bore on the shoulder the imperial eagle which the empress had never consented to relinquish after her first husband’s death, but the badge was dark and unobtrusive on the dark cloth, and would not be noticed. If Olivier could inveigle himself successfully in among the defenders in the obscurity and confusion within the tower, he must discard the cloak before attempting to break out and venture among the attackers, so that the lions might show clear on the pallor of the linen, even by night, and be recognized.

  ‘Though I would rather pass unrecognized,’ admitted Olivier, stretching his broad shoulders under the weight of the mail, and settling the belt about his hips. ‘Every moment of this night I need, without wasting any in questioning and accounting. Well, my father, shall we go and make the assay?’

  Cadfael locked the door after them, and they climbed the spiral stair. At the outer door Cadfael laid a hand on Olivier’s arm, and peered out cautiously into the ward, but in the shelter of the keep all was still, only the movements of the guards on the wall came down to them almost eerily.

  ‘Stay by me. We’ll make our way close along the wall until we’re among them. Then take your moment when you see it. Best when the next thrust comes, and they crowd into the tower to fend it off. And no goodbyes! Go, and God go with you!’

  ‘It will not be goodbye,’ said Olivier. Cadfael felt him tensed and quivering at his back, confident, almost joyous. After long confinement his frustrated energy ached for release. ‘You will see me tomorrow, whether in my own or another shape. I have kept his back many a time, and he mine. This one more time, with God’s help and yours, I’ll do him that same service, whether he will or no.’

  The door of the tower Cadfael also locked, leaving all here as it should be. They crossed the open ward to the keep, and circled in its shadow to reach the threatened tower on the other side. Even here the clamour of battle had subsided into the shifting murmur of recoil between onsets, and even that subdued, to keep the hearing sharp and ready for the next alarm. They stirred restlessly, like the sea in motion, spoke to one another briefly and in lowered voices, and kept their eyes fixed upon the foremost ranks, filling the jagged gap in the base of the tower. Fragments of masonry and rubble littered the ground, but the torn hole was not yet so big as to threaten the tower’s collapse. The fitful light of torches, such as still burned, and the dull glow in the sky outside the wall, where fire had burned out half the roof of the sow, left the ward almost in darkness.

  A sudden warning outcry from within the tower, taken up and echoed back over the ranks within the ward, foretold the next assault. The mass drove in, tightening in support, to seal the breach with their bodies. Cadfael, on the fringe of the throng, felt the instant when Olivier slipped away from him like the tearing of his own flesh. He was gone, in among the men of the garrison, lithe and rapid and silent, lost to view in a moment.

  Nevertheless, Cadfael drew back only far enough to be out of the way of the fighting men, and waited patiently for this assault, like the last, to be driven back. It never reached the ward. Certainly there was bitter fighting within the shell of the tower, but never a man of the attackers got beyond. It took more than half an hour to expel them completely, and drive them to a safe distance away from the walls, but after that the strange, tense quietness came back and with it a number of those who had fought the foremost came back to draw breath in safety until the next bout. But not Olivier. Either he was lurking somewhere in the broken shell, or else he was out into the turmoil of the night with the repelled invaders, and on his way, God grant, to cover in the woodland, and thence to some place where he could cross the river, and emerge on the road to the mill at Winstone.

  Cadfael went back to the chamber where Philip lay, the chaplain nodding gently beside him. Philip’s breathing scarcely lifted the sheet over his breast, and then in a short, rapid rhythm. His face was livid as clay, but impenetrably calm, no lines of pain tightening his forehead or lips. He was deep beyond awareness of any such trivial matters as peril, anger or fear. God keep him so a while yet, and prevent impending evil.

  There would be need of help in carrying this body towards its peace along with the rest, but it must be in innocence. For a moment Cadfael considered asking the priest, but discarded the idea almost as soon as it was conceived. There could be no embroiling this tired old man in an enterprise which could incur the empress’s deadly disfavour, and place him in reach of her immediate and implacable rage. What was to be done must be done in such a way that no one else could be blamed, or feel any betraying uneasiness.

  But now there was nothing to be done but be still and pray, and wait for the summons to action. Cadfael sat in a corner of the room, and watched the old man drowse, and the wounded man’s withdrawal into something far more profound than sleep. He was still sitting there motionless when he heard the sound of the blown trumpets, calling the attention of the investing forces to the white banners fluttering from the towers of La Musarderie in the first dim light of predawn.

  *

  FitzGilbert rode down from the village, ceremoniously attended, and talked with Guy Camville before the gate. Brother Cadfael had come out into the ward to hear the terms of the exchange, and was not surprised when the first words the marshall uttered were: ‘Where is Philip FitzRobert?’ Blunt and urgent: patently he had his orders.

  ‘My lord,’ said Camville from the walk above the gate, ‘is wounded, and has authorized me to make terms with you to surrender the castle. I ask that you will treat the garrison fairly and with honour. Upon reasonable conditions La Musarderie shall be yielded to the empress, but we are not so pressed as to accept shameful or ungenerous usage. We have wounded, we have dead. I ask that we may have truce from this hour, and will open the gates to you now, that you may see we are prepared to observe that truce and lay by all arms. If you are satisfied we are in good faith, give us the morning hours until noon to restore some order here within, and marshal our wo
unded, and carry out our dead for burial.’

  ‘Fair asking so far,’ said the marshall shortly. ‘What then?’

  ‘We were not the attackers here,’ said Camville equally briskly, ‘and have fought according to our sworn allegiance, as men owing fealty must. I ask that the garrison may be allowed to march out at noon and depart without hindrance, and that we take with us all our wounded who are fit to go. Those with worse injuries I ask that you will see tended as well as may be, and our dead we will bury.’

  ‘And if I do not like your terms?’ asked FitzGilbert. But it was plain from the complacency of his voice that he was well satisfied to be gaining, without further effort or waste of time, what all the empress’s host had come to win. The common soldiery here within would have been only so many more mouths to feed, and a continuing risk if things went wrong. To have them depart was a satisfaction.

  ‘Then you may go back empty-handed,’ said Camville boldly, ‘and we will fight you to the last man and the last arrow, and make you pay dear for a ruin you may have intact if you choose well.’

  ‘You abandon here all your arms,’ said the marshall, ‘even personal arms. And leave all engines undamaged.’

  Camville, encouraged by this indication of consent, made a token objection, hardly meant to be taken seriously, and withdrew it when it was rejected. ‘Very well, we go disarmed.’

  ‘So far, good! We allow your withdrawal. All but one! Philip FitzRobert stays here!’

  ‘I believe you have agreed, my lord,’ said Camville, ‘that the wounded who cannot go with us shall be properly tended. I trust you make no exceptions to that? I have told you my lord is wounded.’

  ‘In the case of FitzRobert I gave no assurances,’ said the marshall, goaded. ‘You surrender him into the empress’s hands unconditionally or there will be no agreement.’