by Ellis Peters
Cadfael sat back with a deep and grateful sigh, and leaned his head against the rough stones of the wall, and there was a long but tranquil silence between them. Hugh stirred at last, and asked: “How did you come to know what he was about? There must have been more than that first encounter, to draw you into his secrets. He said little, he hunted alone. What more happened, to bring you so close to him?”
“I was with him when he dropped some coins into our alms box. One of them fell to the flags, and I picked it up. A silver penny of the empress, minted recently in Oxford. He made no secret of it. Did I not wonder, he said, what the empress’s liegeman was doing so far from the battle? And I drew a bow at a very long venture, and said he might well be looking for the murderer who robbed and slew Renaud Bourchier on the road to Wallingford.”
“And he owned it?” said Hugh.
“No. He said no, it was not so. It was a good thought, he said, almost he wished it had been true, but it was not so. And he told truth. Every word he ever said to me was truth, and I knew it. No, Cuthred was not a murderer, not then, never until Drogo Bosiet walked into his cell to enquire after a runaway villein, and came face to face with a man he had seen, talked with, played chess with, at Thame some weeks before, in a very different guise. A man who bore arms and showed knightly, but went the roads on foot, for there was no horse belonging to him in the stable at Thame, none that came with him, none that departed with him. And this was early in October. All this Aymer told us, after his father had been silenced.”
“I begin,” said Hugh slowly, “to read your riddle.” He narrowed his eyes upon distance, through the half-naked branches of the trees that showed above the southern wall of the garden. “When did you ever question so far astray without a purpose? I should have known when you asked about the horse. A rider without a horse at Thame and a horse without a rider wandering the woods by the Wallingford road make sense when put together. No!” he said in shocked and outraged protest, staring aghast at the image he had raised. “Where have you brought me? Is this truth, or have I shot wild? Bourchier himself?” The first tremor of the evening chill shook the harvested and sleepy herbs with a colder wind, and Hugh shook with them in a convulsion of incredulous distaste. “What could be worth so monstrous a treason? This was fouler than murder.”
“So thought Rafe de Genville. And he has taken vengeance for it in measure accordingly. And he is gone, and I wished him godspeed in his going.”
“So would I have done. So I do!” said Hugh, and stared across the garden with lips curled in fastidious disdain, contemplating the enormity of the chosen and deliberate dishonour. “There is nothing, there can be nothing, worth purchasing at such a price.”
“Renaud Bourchier thought otherwise, having other values. He gained his life and liberty first,” said Cadfael, checking off the score on his fingers, and shaking his head over every item. “By sending him out of Oxford before the ring of steel shut fast, she released him to make off into safer pastures. Not that I believe he had even the excuse of being a simple coward. Quite coldly, I fancy, he preferred to remove himself from the risk of death or capture, which have come closer to her armies there in Oxford than ever they came before. Coldly and practically he severed all his ties of fealty, and retired into obscurity to look round for the next opportunity. Second, with the theft of the treasure she entrusted to him he had ample means to live, wherever he might go. And third, and worst of all, he had a powerful weapon, one which could be used to secure him new soldier service, and lands, and favour, a new and profitable career to replace the one he had discarded. The letter the empress had written to Brian FitzCount.”
“In the breviary that vanished,” said Hugh. “I knew no way of accounting for that, though the book had a value even for itself.”
“It had a greater value for what was in it. Rafe told me. A fine leaf of vellum can be folded into the binding. Only consider, Hugh, her situation when she wrote. The town lost, only the castle left, and the king’s armies closing round her. And Brian who had been her right hand, her shield and sword, second only to her brother, separated from her by those few miles that could as well have been an ocean. God knows if those gossips are right,” said Cadfael, “who declare that those two are lovers, but surely it is truth that they love! And now at this extreme, in peril of starvation, failure, imprisonment, loss, even death, perhaps never to meet again, may she not have cried out to him the last truth, without conceal, things that should not be set down, things no other on earth should ever see? Such a letter might be of immense value to a man without scruples, who had a new career to make, and needed the favour of princes. She has a husband years younger than herself, who has no great love for her, nor she for him, one who would not spare a man to come to her aid this summer. Suppose that some day it should be convenient to Geoffrey to repudiate his older wife, and make a second profitable marriage? In the hands of such as Bourchier her letter, her own hand, might provide him the pretext, and for princes the means can always be found. The informer might stand to gain place, command, even lands in Normandy. Geoffrey has castles newly conquered there to bestow on those who prove useful to him. I don’t say the count of Anjou is such a man, but I do say so calculating a traitor as Bourchier would reckon it a possibility, and keep the letter to be used as chance offered. What knowledge, what suspicion, brought Rafe de Genville to doubt that death by the Wallingford road I do not know, I never asked. Certain it is that once the spark was lit, nothing would have prevented him from pursuing and exacting the penalty due, not from some supposed murderer—he told me truth there—but from the thief and traitor, Renaud Bourchier himself.”
The wind was rising now, the sky clearing, the broken fragments of cloud that remained scudding away before the wind. For the first time the prolonged autumn hinted at winter.
“I would have done as Rafe did,” said Hugh with finality, and rose abruptly to shake off the residue of loathing.
“When I bore arms, so would I. It grows chilly,” said Cadfael, rising after him. “Shall we go in?”
Late November would soon be tearing away with frost and gales the rest of the quivering leaves. The deserted hermitage in the woods of Eyton would provide winter cover for the small beasts of the forest, and the garden, running wild again, would shelter the slumbering urchins in their nests through the winter sleep. Doubtful if Dame Dionisia would ever set up another hermit in that cell. The wild things would occupy it in innocence.
“Well,” said Cadfael, leading the way into his workshop, “that’s over. Late but at last, whatever she may have written to him, her letter is on the way to the man for whose heart’s comfort it was intended. And I am glad! Whatever the rights or wrongs of their affection, in the teeth of danger and despair love is entitled to speak its mind, and all others should be blind and deaf. Except God, who can read both the lines and between the lines, and who in the end, in matters of passion as in matters of justice, will have the last word.”
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
Ma
le 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
Mangonel
Armament used for hurling missiles
Marl
Soil of clay and lime, used as a fertiliser
Messuage
A house (rented) with land and out-buildings
Midden
Dung-heap
Missal
The prayer book detailing Mass services throughout the calendar
Moneyer
Coin minter
Mountebank
Trickster or entertainer
Mummer
An actor or player in a mime or masque
Murage
A tax levied to pay for civic repairs
Murrain
An infectious disease of livestock
Myrmidon
A faithful servant
Nacre
Mother-of-pearl
Oblatus
A monk placed in the monastery at a young age
Orts
Food scraps
Ostler
Horse handler
Palfrey
A horse saddled for a woman
Pallet
A narrow wooden bed or thin straw mattress
Palliative
A pain-killer
Pannikin
A metal cup or saucepan
Parfytours
Hounds used in hunting
Parole
The bond of a prisoner upon release from captivity
Patten
A wooden sandal
Pavage
A tax levied for street paving
Penteulu
A Welsh rank: captain of the royal guard
Pommel
The upward point on the front of a saddle
Poniard
A dagger
Prelate
A high-ranking member of the church (i.e. abbot or bishop)
Prie-Dieu
A kneeling desk used in prayer
Pyx
A small box or casket used to hold consecrated bread for Mass
Quintain
A target mounted on a post used for tilting practice
Rebec
A three string instrument, played using a bow
Rheum
Watery discharge of nose or eyes
Saeson
An Englishman
Scabbard
A sword or dagger sheath
Sconce
A bracket for candle or torch set on a wall
Sheepfold
A sheep pen
Shriven
Having received confession
Shut
An alley between streets
Skiff
A rowing boat for use in shallow waters
Sow
The structure protecting the men wielding a battering ram
Springe
A noose set as snare for small animals
Stoup
Drinking vessel
Sumpter
Pack-horse
Synod
A council or assembly of church officials presided over by the bishopry
Tallow
Fat used in candle or soap manufacture
Timbrel
A tambourine-like instrument
Tithe
A tax levied against labour and land and used to support the clergy
Torsin
Alarm bell
Toper
Drunkard
Touchstone
A heavy black stone used to test the quality of gold or silver
Trencher
A wooden platter
Troche
Medicinal lozenge
Uchelwr
A Welsh nobleman
Vassal
Tenant of a plot of land leased by and under the protection of a lord
Villein
Serf or tenant bound to a lord
Virelai
A French song form that usually has three stanzas and a refrain. It is one of the three formes fixes (the others being the ballade and the rondeau)
Vittles
Food and provisions
Votary
A person who vows to obey a certain code, usually religious
Wattle
Building material consisting of interwoven sticks, twigs and branches
Wicket
Small door or gate within or adjacent to a larger door
Wimple
Linen or silk cloth a woman would fold round her head and wrap under her chin
Yeoman
A freeman, usually a farmer, below the status of gentleman
A Guide to Welsh Pronunciation
ae
As in chwaer (sister), like the y in sky, never the ae in Caesar.
c
As in cael (have), like the c in cat, never the c in city.
ch
As in chwech (six), like the ch in Scottish loch.
dd
As in Caerdydd (Cardiff), like the th in then, never the th in throw.
f
As in fioled (violet), like the v in violin.
ff
As in coffi (coffee), like the f in friend.
g
As in glaw (rain), like the g in crag, never the g in gene.
ll
<
br /> As in llaeth (milk), like saying an h and l simultaneously. Made by putting your tongue in the position of l and then blowing out air gently.
r
As in carreg (stone), should be trilled and always pronounced, never dropped.
rh
As in rhain (these), should be trilled with aspiration. Like saying an h and r simultaneously.
s
As in sant (saint), like the s in sound, never the s in laser.
th
As in fyth (never), like the th in think, never the th in those.
