Dead Man's Ransom (15 page)

The town woke early. Tradesmen and travellers rose and made their way down to the gates before full daylight, to be out and about their proper business betimes. So did Elis ap Cynan, going with them discreetly down the Wyle, cloakless, weaponless, desperate, heroic and absurd, to the rescue of his Melicent.

Eliud put out his hand, before he was fully awake, to feel for his cousin, and sat up in abrupt shock to find Elis’s side of the bed empty and cold. But the dark red cloak was still draped over the foot of the bed, and Eliud’s sense of loss was utterly irrational. Why should not Elis rise early and go out into the wards before his bedfellow was awake? Without his cloak he could not be far away. But for all that, and however brief the separation, it troubled Eliud like a physical pain. Here in their imprisonment they had hardly been a moment out of each other’s company, as if for each of them faith in a final happy delivery depended upon the presence of the other.

Eliud rose and dressed, and went out to the trough by the well, to wash himself fully awake in the shock of the cold water. There was an unusual stir about the stables and the armoury, but he saw no sign of Elis anywhere in either place, nor was he brooding on the walls with his face towards Wales. The want of him began to ache like an amputation.

They took their meals in hall among their English peers, but on this clear morning Elis did not come to break his fast. And by this time others had remarked his absence.

One of the sergeants of the garrison stopped Eliud as he was leaving the hall. “Where is your cousin? Is he sick?”

“I know no more than you,” said Eliud. “I’ve been looking for him. He was out before I awoke, and I’ve seen nothing of him since.” And he added in jealous haste, seeing the man frown and give him the first hard stare of suspicion: “But he can’t be far. His cloak is still in the cell. There’s so much stirring here, I thought he might have risen early to find out what was all the to-do.”

“He’s pledged not to set foot out of the gates,” said the sergeant. “But do you tell me he’s given up eating? You must know more than you pretend.”

“No! But he’s here within, he must be. He would not break his word, I promise you.” The man eyed him hard, and turned abruptly on his heel to make for the gatehouse and question the guards. Eliud caught him entreatingly by the sleeve. “What is it brewing here? Is there news? Such activity in the armoury and the archers drawing arrows… What’s happened overnight?”

“What’s happened? Your countrymen are swarming in force along the Minsterley valley, if you want to know, burning farmsteads and moving in on Pontesbury. Three days ago it was a handful, it’s past a hundred tribesmen now.” He swung back suddenly to demand: “Did you hear aught in the night? Is that it? Has that cousin of yours run, broke out to join his ragamuffin kin and help in the killing? The sheriff was not enough for him?”

“No!” cried Eliud. “He would not! It’s impossible!”

“It’s how we got him in the first place, a murdering, looting raid the like of these. It suited him then, it comes very timely for him now. His neck out of a noose and his friends close by to bring him off safely.”

“You cannot say so! You don’t yet know but he’s here within, true to his word.”

“No, but soon we shall,” said the sergeant grimly, and took Eliud firmly by the arm. “Into your cell and wait. The lord Herbard must know of this.” He flung away at speed and Eliud, in desolate obedience, trudged back to his cell and sat there upon the bed with only Elis’s cloak for company. By then he was certain what the result of any search must be. Only an hour or two of daylight gone and there were endless places a man could be, if he felt no appetite either for food or for the company of his fellow, men, and yet the castle felt empty of Elis, as cold and alien as if he had never been there. And a courier had come in the night, it seemed, with news of stronger forces from Powys plundering closer to Shrewsbury, and closer still to the forest grange of the abbey of Polesworth at Godric’s Ford. Where all this heavy burden had begun and where, perhaps, it must end. If Elis had heard that nocturnal arrival and gone out to discover the cause, yes, then he might in desperation forget oath and honour and all. Eliud waited wretchedly until Alan Herbard came, with two sergeants at his heels. A long wait it had been. They would have scoured the castle by now. By their grim faces it was clear they had not found Elis.

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-yed, 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.”