Dead Man's Ransom (4 page)

“It’s your quickest way home. Give me your parole not to attempt escape, or to go outside the wards here, and you may have the run of the castle.”

“With all my heart!” said Elis eagerly. “I pledge you my word to attempt nothing, and set no foot outside your gates, until you have your man again, and give me leave to go.”

Cadfael paid a second visit next day, to make sure that his dressing had drawn the Welsh boy’s ragged scratch together with no festering; but that healthy young flesh sprang together like the matching of lovers, and the slash would vanish with barely a scar.

He was an engaging youth, this Elis ap Cynan, readable like a book, open like a daisy at noon. Cadfael lingered to draw him out, which was easy enough, and brought a lavish and guileless harvest. All the more with nothing now to lose, and no man listening but a tolerant elder of his own race, he unfolded his leaves in garrulous innocence.

“I fell out badly with Eliud over this caper,” he said ruefully. “He said it was poor policy for Wales, and whatever booty we might bring back with us, it would not be worth half the damage done. I should have known he’d be proved right, he always is. And yet no offence in it, that’s the marvel! A man can’t be angry with him—at least I can’t.”

“Kin by fostering can be as close as brothers by blood, I know,” said Cadfael.

“Closer far than most brothers. Like twins, as we almost could be. Eliud had half an hour’s start of me into the world, and has acted the elder ever since. He’ll be half out of his wits over me now, for all he’ll hear is that I was swept away in the brook. I wish we might make haste with this exchange, and let him know I’m still alive to plague him.”

“No doubt there’ll be others besides your friend and cousin,” said Cadfael, “fretting over your absence. No wife as yet?” Elis made an urchin’s grimace. “No more than threatened. My elders betrothed me long ago as a child, but I’m in no haste. The common lot, it’s what men do when they grow to maturity. There are lands and alliances to be considered.” He spoke of it as of the burden of the years, accepted but not welcomed. Quite certainly he was not in love with the lady. Probably he had known and played with her from infancy, and scarcely gave her a thought now, one way or the other.

“She may yet be a deal more troubled for you than you are for her,” said Cadfael.

“Ha!” said Elis on a sharp bark of laughter. “Not she! If I had drowned in the brook they’d have matched her with another of suitable birth, and he would have done just as well. She never chose me, nor I her. Mind, I don’t say she makes any objection, more than I do, we might both of us do very much worse.”

“Who is this fortunate lady?” Cadfael wondered drily.

“Now you grow prickly, because I am honest,” Elis reproved him airily. “Did I ever say I was any great bargain? The girl is very well, as a matter of fact, a small, sharp, dark creature, quite handsome in her way, and if I must, then she’ll do. Her father is Tudur ap Rhys, the lord of Tregeiriog in Cynllaith—a man of Powys, but close friend to Owain and thinks like him, and her mother was a woman of Gwynedd. Cristina, the girl is called. Her hand is regarded as a great prize,” said the proposed beneficiary without enthusiasm. “So it is, but one I could have done without for a while yet.” They were walking the outer ward to keep warm, for though the weather had turned fine it was also frosty, and the boy was loth to go indoors until he must. He went with his face turned up to the clear sky above the towers, and his step as light and springy as if he trod turf already.

“We could save you yet a while,” suggested Cadfael slyly, “by spinning out this quest for our sheriff, and keeping you here single and snug as long as you please.”

“Oh, no!” Elis loosed a shout of laughter. “Oh, no, not that! Better a wife in Wales than that fashion of freedom here. Though best of all Wales and no wife,” admitted the reluctant bridegroom, still laughing at himself. “Marry or avoid, I suppose it’s all one in the end. There’ll still be hunting and arms and friends.” A poor lookout, thought Cadfael, shaking his head, for that small, sharp, dark creature, Cristina daughter of Tudur, if she required more of her husband than a good, natured adolescent boy, willing to tolerate and accommodate her, but quite undisposed to love. Though many a decent marriage has started on no better ground, and burned into a glow later.

They had reached the archway into the inner ward in their circlings, and the slanting sunlight, chill and bright, shone through across their path. High in the corner tower within there, Gilbert Prestcote had made his family apartments, rather than maintain a house in the town. Between the merlons of the curtain wall the sun just reached the narrow doorway that led to the private rooms above, and the girl who emerged stepped full into the light. She was the very opposite of small, sharp and dark, being tall and slender like a silver birch, delicately oval of face, and dazzlingly fair. The sun in her uncovered, waving hair glittered as she hesitated an instant on the doorstone, and shivered lightly at the embrace of the frosty air.

Elis had seen her shimmering pallor take the light, and stood stock-still, gazing through the archway with eyes rounded and fixed, and mouth open. The girl hugged her cloak about her, closed the door at her back, and stepped out briskly across the ward towards the arch on her way out to the town. Cadfael had to pluck Elis by the sleeve to bring him out of his daze, and draw him onward out of her path, recalling him to the realisation that he was staring with embarrassing intensity, and might well give her offence if she noticed him. He moved obediently, but in a few more paces his chin went round on to his shoulder, and he checked again and stood, and could not be shifted further.

She came through the arch, half-smiling for pleasure in the fine morning, but still with something grave, anxious and sad in her countenance. Elis had not removed himself far enough to pass unobserved, she felt a presence close, and turned her head sharply. There was a brief moment when their eyes met, hers darkly blue as periwinkle flowers. The rhythm of her gait was broken, she checked at his gaze, and it almost seemed that she smiled at him hesitantly, as at someone recognised. Fine rose, colour mounted softly in her face, before she recollected herself, tore her gaze away, and went on more hurriedly towards the barbican.

Elis stood looking after her until she had passed through the gate and vanished from sight. His own face had flooded richly red.

“Who was that lady?” he asked, at once urgent and in awe.

“That lady,” said Cadfael, “is daughter to the sheriff, that very man we’re hoping to find somewhere alive in Welsh hold, and buy back with your captive person. Prestcote’s wife is come to Shrewsbury on that very matter, and brought her step, daughter and her little son with her, in hopes soon to greet her lord again. This is his second lady. The girl’s mother died, without bringing him a son.”

“Do you know her name? The girl?”

“Her name,” said Cadfael, “is Melicent.”

“Melicent!” the boy’s lips shaped silently. Aloud he said, to the sky and the sun rather than to Cadfael: “Did you ever see such hair, like spun silver, finer than gossamer! And her face all milk and rose… How old can she be?”

“Should I know? Eighteen or so by the look of her. Much the same age as your Cristina, I suppose,” said Brother Cadfael, dropping a none too gentle reminder of the reality of things. “You’ll be doing her a great service and grace if you send her father back to her. And as I know, you’re just as eager to get home yourself,” he said with emphasis.

Elis removed his gaze with an effort from the corner where Melicent Prestcote had disappeared and blinked uncomprehendingly, as though he had just been startled out of a deep sleep. “Yes,” he said uncertainly, and walked on still in a daze.

In the middle of the afternoon, while Cadfael was busy about replenishing his stock of winter cordials in his workshop in the herb-garden, Hugh came in bringing a chilly draught with him before he could close the door against the east wind. He warmed his hands over the brazier, helped himself uninvited to a beaker from Cadfael’s wine-flask, and sat down on the broad bench against the wall. He was at home in this dim, timber-scented, herb-rustling miniature world where Cadfael spent so much of his time, and did his best thinking.

“I’ve just come from the abbot,” said Hugh, “and borrowed you from him for a few days.”

“And he was willing to lend me?” asked Cadfael with interest, busy stoppering a still-warm jar.

“In a good cause and for a sound reason, yes. In the matter of finding and recovering Gilbert he’s as earnest as I am. And the sooner we know whether such an exchange is possible, the better for all.” Cadfael could not but agree with that. He was thinking, uneasily but not too anxiously as yet, about the morning’s visitation. A vision so far from everything Welsh and familiar might well dazzle young, impressionable eyes. There was a prior pledge involved, the niceties of Welsh honour, and the more bitter consideration that Gilbert Prestcote had an old and flourishing hatred against the Welsh, which certain of that race heartily reciprocated.

“I have a border to keep and a garrison to conserve,” said Hugh, nursing his beaker in both hands to warm it, “and neighbours across the border drunk on their own prowess, and all too likely to be running wild in search of more conquests. Getting word through to Owain Gwynedd is a risky business and we all know it. I would be dubious of letting a captain loose on that mission who lacks Welsh, for I might never see hide nor hair of him again. Even a well-armed party of five or six could vanish. You’re Welsh, and have your habit for a coat of mail, and once across the border you have kin everywhere. I reckon you a far better hazard than any battle party. With a small escort, in case of masterless men, and your Welsh tongue and net of kindred to tackle any regular company that crosses you. What do you say?”

“I should be ashamed, as a Welshman,” said Cadfael comfortably, “if I could not recite my pedigree back sixteen degrees, and some of my kin are here across the border of this shire, a fair enough start towards Gwynedd.”

“Ah, but there’s word that Owain may not be so far distant as the wilds of Gwynedd. With Ranulf of Chester so set up in his gains, and greedy for more, the prince has come east to keep an eye on his own. So the rumours say. There’s even a whisper he may be our side of the Berwyns, in Cynllaith or Glyn Ceiriog, keeping a close watch on Chester and Wrexham.”

“It would be like him,” agreed Cadfael. “He thinks large and forwardly. What is the commission? Let me hear it.”

“To ask of Owain Gwynedd whether he has, or can take from his brother, the person of my sheriff, taken at Lincoln. And if he has him, or can find and possess him, whether he will exchange him for this young kinsman of his, Elis ap Cynan. You know, and can report best of any, that the boy is whole and well. Owain may have whatever safeguards he requires, since all men know that he’s a man of his word, but regarding me he may not be certain of the same. He may not so much as know my name. Though he shall know me better, if he will have dealings over this. Will you go?”

“How soon?” asked Cadfael, putting his jar aside to cool, and sitting down beside his friend.

“Tomorrow, if you can delegate all here.”

“Mortal man should be able and willing to delegate at any moment,” said Cadfael soberly, “since mortal he is. Oswin is grown wonderfully deft and exact among the herbs, more than I ever hoped for when first he came to me. And Brother Edmund is master of his own realm, and well able to do without me. If Father Abbot frees me, I’m yours. What I can, I’ll do.”

“Then come up to the castle in the morning, after Prime, and you shall have a good horse under you.” He knew that would be a lure and a delight, and smiled at seeing it welcomed. “And a few picked men for your escort. The rest is in your Welsh tongue.”

“True enough,” said Cadfael complacently, “a fast word in Welsh is better than a shield. I’ll be there. But have your terms drawn up fair on a parchment. Owain has a legal mind, he likes a bill well drawn.”

After Prime in the morning—a greyer morning than the one that went before—Cadfael donned boots and cloak, and went up through the town to the castle wards, and there were the horses of his escort already saddled, and the men waiting for him. He knew them all, even to the youngster Hugh had chosen as a possible hostage for the desired prisoner, should all go well. He spared a few moments to say farewell to Elis, and found him sleepy and mildly morose at this hour in his cell.

“Wish me well, boy, for I’m away to see what can be done about this exchange for you. With a little goodwill and a morsel of luck, you may be on your way home within a couple of weeks. You’ll be mightily glad to be back in your own country and a free man.” Elis agreed that he would, since it was obviously expected of him, but it was a very lukewarm agreement. “But it’s not yet certain, is it, that your sheriff is there to be redeemed? And even if he is, it may take some time to find him and get him out of Cadwaladr’s hands.”

“In that case,” said Cadfael, “you will have to possess your soul in patience and in captivity a while longer.”

“If I must, I can,” agreed Elis, all too cheerfully and continently for one surely not hitherto accomplished at possessing his soul in patience. “But I do trust you may go and return safe,” he said dutifully.

“Behave yourself, while I’m about your affairs,” Cadfael advised resignedly and turned to leave him. “I’ll bear your greetings to your foster-brother Eliud, if I should encounter him, and leave him word you’ve come to no harm.” Elis embraced that offer gladly enough, but crassly failed to add another name that might fittingly have been linked with the same message. And Cadfael refrained from mentioning it in his turn. He was at the door when Elis suddenly called after him: “Brother Cadfael…”

“Yes?” said Cadfael, turning.

“That lady… the one we saw yesterday, the sheriff’s daughter…”

“What of her?”

“Is she spoken for?”

Ah well, thought Cadfael, mounting with his mission well rehearsed in his head, and his knot of light, armed men about him, soon on, soon off, no doubt, and she has never spoken word to him and most likely never will. Once home, he’ll soon forget her. If she had not been so silver, fair, so different from the trim, dark Welsh girls, he would never have noticed her.