Dead Man's Ransom (5 page)

Cadfael had answered the enquiry with careful indifference, saying he had no notion what plans the sheriff had for his daughter, and forbore from adding the blunt warning that was on the tip of his tongue. With such a springy lad as this one, to put him off would only put him on the more resolutely. With no great obstacles in the way, he might lose interest. But the girl certainly had an airy beauty, all the more appealing for being touched with innocent gravity and sadness on her father’s account. Only let this mission succeed, and the sooner the better!

They left Shrewsbury by the Welsh bridge, and made good speed over the near reaches of their way, north, west towards Oswestry.

Sybilla, Lady Prestcote, was twenty years younger than her husband, a pretty, ordinary woman of good intentions towards all, and notable chiefly for one thing, that she had done what the sheriff’s first wife could not do, and borne him a son. Young Gilbert was seven years old, the apple of his father’s eye and the core of his mother’s heart. Melicent found herself indulged but neglected, but in affection to a very pretty little brother she felt no resentment. An heir is an heir; an heiress is a much less achievement.

The apartments in the castle tower, when the best had been done to make them comfortable, remained stony, draughty and cold, no place to bring a young family, and it was exceptional indeed for Sybilla and her son to come to Shrewsbury, when they had six far more pleasant manors at their disposal. Hugh would have offered the hospitality of his own town house on this anxious occasion, but the lady had too many servants to find accommodation there, and preferred the austerity of her bleak but spacious dwelling in the tower. Her husband was accustomed to occupying it alone, when his duties compelled him to remain with the garrison. Wanting him and fretting over him, she was content to be in the place which was his by right, however Spartan its appointments.

Melicent loved her little brother, and found no fault with the system which would endow him with all their father’s possessions, and provide her with only a modest dowry. Indeed, she had had serious thoughts of taking the veil, and leaving the Prestcote inheritance as good as whole, having an inclination towards altars, relics and devotional candles, though she had just sense enough to know that what she felt fell far short of a vocation. It had not that quality of overwhelming revelation it should have had.

The shock of wonder, delight and curiosity, for instance, that stopped her, faltering, in her steps when she sailed through the archway into the outer ward and glanced by instinct towards the presence she felt close and intent beside her, and met the startled dark eyes of the stranger, the Welsh prisoner. It was not even his youth and comeliness, but the spellbound stare he fixed on her, that pierced her to the heart.

She had always thought of the Welsh with fear and distrust, as uncouth savages; and suddenly here was this trim and personable young man whose eyes dazzled and whose cheeks flamed at meeting her gaze. She thought of him much. She asked questions about him, careful to dissemble the intensity of her interest. And on the same day that Cadfael set out to hunt for Owain Gwynedd, she saw Elis from an upper window, half-accepted already among the young men of the garrison, stripped to the waist and trying a wrestling bout with one of the best pupils of the master-at-arms in the inner ward. He was no match for the English youth, who had the advantage in weight and reach, and he took a heavy fall that made her catch her breath in distressed sympathy, but he came to his feet laughing and blown, and thumped the victor amiably on the shoulder.

There was nothing in him, no movement, no glance, in which she did not find generosity and grace.

She took her cloak and slipped away down the stone stair, and out to the archway by which he must pass to his lodging in the outer ward. It was beginning to be dusk, they would all be putting away their work and amusement, and making ready for supper in hall. Elis came through the arch limping a little from his new bruises, and whistling, and the same quiver of awareness which had caused her to turn her head now worked the like enchantment upon him.

The tune died on his parted lips. He stood stock-still, holding his breath. Their eyes locked, and could not break free, nor did they try very hard.

“Sir,” she said, having marked the broken rhythm of his walk, “I fear you are hurt.” She saw the quiver that passed through him from head to foot as he breathed again. “No,” he said, hesitant as a man in a dream, “no, never till now. Now I am wounded to death.”

“I think,” she said, shaken and timorous, “you do not yet know me…”

“I do know you,” he said. “You are Melicent. It is your father I must buy back for you—at a price…” At a price, at a disastrous price, at the price of tearing asunder this marriage of eyes that drew them closer until they touched hands, and were lost.

Chapter Three

CADWALADR MIGHT HAVE HAD HIS FROLICS on his way back to his castle at Aberystwyth with his booty and his prisoners, but to the north of his passage Owain Gwynedd had kept a fist clamped down hard upon disorder. Cadfael and his escort had had one or two brushes with trouble, after leaving Oswestry on their right and plunging into Wales, but on the first occasion the three masterless men who had put an arrow across their path thought better of it when they saw what numbers they had challenged, and took themselves off at speed into the brush; and on the second, an unruly patrol of excitable Welsh warmed into affability at Cadfael’s unruffled Welsh greeting, and ended giving them news of the prince’s movements. Cadfael’s numerous kinsfolk, first and second cousins and shared forebears, were warranty enough over much of Clwyd and part of Gwynedd.

Owain, they said, had come east out of his eyrie to keep a weather eye upon Ranulf of Chester, who might be so blown up with his success as to mistake the mettle of the prince of Gwynedd. He was patrolling the fringes of Chester territory, and had reached Corwen on the Dee. So said the first informants. The second, encountered near Rhiwlas, were positive that he had crossed the Berwyns and come down into Glyn Ceiriog, and might at that moment be encamped near Llanarmon, or else with his ally and friend, Tudur ap Rhys, at his maenol at Tregeiriog. Seeing it was winter, however merciful at this moment, and seeing that Owain Gwynedd was considerably saner than most Welshmen, Cadfael chose to make for Tregeiriog. Why camp, when there was a close ally at hand, with a sound roof and a well-stocked larder, in a comparatively snug valley among these bleak central hills?

Tudur ap Rhys’s maenol lay in a cleft where a mountain brook came down into the river Ceiriog, and his boundaries were well but unobtrusively guarded in these shaken days, for a two-man patrol came out on the path, one on either side, before Cadfael’s party were out of the scrub forest above the valley. Shrewd eyes weighed up this sedate company, and the mind behind the eyes decided that they were harmless even before Cadfael got out his Welsh greeting. That and his habit were enough warranty. The young man bade his companion run ahead and acquaint Tudur that he had visitors, and himself conducted them at leisure the rest of the way. Beyond the river, with its fringes of forest and the few stony fields and huddle of wooden cots about the maenol, the hills rose again brown and bleak below, white and bleak above, to a round snow, summit against a leaden sky.

Tudur ap Rhys came out to welcome them and exchange the civilities; a short, square man, very powerfully built, with a thick thatch of brown hair barely touched with grey, and a loud, melodious voice that ranged happily up and down the cadences of song rather than speech. A Welsh Benedictine was a novelty to him; a Welsh Benedictine sent as negotiator from England to a Welsh prince even more so, but he suppressed his curiosity courteously, and had his guest conducted to a chamber in his own house, where presently a girl came to him bearing the customary water for his feet, by the acceptance or rejection of which he would signify whether or not he intended to spend the night there.

It had not occurred to Cadfael, until she entered, that this same lord of Tregeiriog was the man of whom Elis had talked, when he poured out the tale of his boyhood betrothal to a little, sharp, dark creature who was handsome enough in her way, and who, if he must marry at all, would do. Now there she stood, with the gently steaming bowl in her hands, demure before her father’s guest, by her dress and her bearing manifestly Tudur’s daughter. Little she certainly was, but trimly made and carried herself proudly. Sharp? Her manner was brisk and confident, and though her approach was deferent and proper, there was an assured spark in her eyes. Dark, assuredly. Both eyes and hair fell just short of raven black by the faint, warm tint of red in them. And handsome? Not remarkably so in repose, her face was irregular in feature, tapering from wide, set eyes to pointed chin, but as soon as she spoke or moved there was such flashing life in her that she needed no beauty.

“I take your service very kindly,” said Cadfael, “and thank you for it. And you, I think, must be Cristina, Tudur’s daughter. And if you are, then I have word for you and for Owain Gwynedd that should be heartily welcome to you both.”

“I am Cristina,” she said, burning into bright animation, “but how did a brother of Shrewsbury learn my name?”

“From a young man by the name of Elis ap Cynan, whom you may have been mourning for lost, but who is safe and well in Shrewsbury castle this moment. What may you have heard of him, since the prince’s brother brought his muster and his booty home again from Lincoln?”

Her alert composure did not quiver, but her eyes widened and glowed. They told my father he was left behind with some that drowned near the border,” she said, “but none of them knew how he had fared. Is it true? He is alive? And prisoner?”

“You may be easy,” said Cadfael, “for so he is, none the worse for the battle or the brook, and can be bought free very simply, to come back to you and make you, I hope, a good husband.” You may cast your bait, he told himself watching her face, which was at once eloquent and unreadable, as though she even thought in a strange language, but you’ll catch no fish here. This one has her own secrets, and her own way of taking events into her hands. What she wills to keep to herself you’re never like to get out of her. And she looked him full in the eyes and said: “Eliud will be glad. Did he speak of him, too?” But she knew the answer.

A certain Eliud was mentioned,” Cadfael admitted cautiously, feeling shaky ground under them. A cousin, I gathered, but brought up like brothers.”

“Closer than brothers,” said the girl. Am I permitted to tell him this news? Or should it wait until you have supped with my father and told him your errand?”

“Eliud is here?”

“Not here at this moment, but with the prince, somewhere north along the border. They’ll come with the evening. They are lodged here, and Owain’s companies are encamped close by.”

“Good, for my errand is to the prince, and it concerns the exchange of Elis ap Cynan for one of comparable value to us, taken, as we believe, by Prince Cadwaladr at Lincoln. If that is as good news to Eliud as it is to you, it would be a Christian act to set his mind at rest for his cousin as soon as may be.”

She kept her face bright, mute and still as she said: “I will tell him as soon as he alights. It would be great pity to see such a comradely love blighted a moment longer than it need be.” But there was acid in the sweet, and her eyes burned. She made her courteous obeisance, and left him to his ablutions before the evening meal. He watched her go, and her head was high and her step fierce but soundless, like a hunting cat.

So that was how it went, here in this corner of Wales! A girl betrothed, and with a girl’s sharp eye on her rights and privileges, while the boy went about whistling and obtuse, child to her woman, and had his arm about another youth’s neck, sworn pair from infancy, oftener than he even paid a compliment to his affianced wife. And she resented with all her considerable powers of mind and heart the love that made her only a third, and barely half-welcome.

Nothing here for her to mourn, if she could but know it. A maid is a woman far before a boy is a man, leaving aside the simple maturity of arms. All she need do was wait a little, and use her own arts, and she would no longer be the neglected third. But she was proud and fierce and not minded to wait.

Cadfael made himself presentable, and went to the lavish but simple table of Tudur ap Rhys. In the dusk torches flared at the hall door and up the valley from the north, from the direction of Llansantffraid, came a brisk bustle of horsemen back from their patrol. Within the hall the tables were spread and the central fire burned bright, sending up fragrant wood, smoke into the blackened roof, as Owain Gwynedd, lord of North Wales and much country beside, came content and hungry to his place at the high table.

Cadfael had seen him once before, a few years past, and he was not a man to be easily forgotten, for all he made very little ado about state and ceremony, barring the obvious royalty he bore about in his own person. He was barely thirty-seven years old, in his vigorous prime; very tall for a Welshman, and fair, after his grandmother Ragnhild of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, and his mother Angharad, known for her flaxen hair among the dark women of the south. His young men, reflecting his solid self, confidence, did it with a swagger of which their prince had no need. Cadfael wondered which of all these boisterous boys was Eliud ap Griffith, and whether Cristina had yet told him of his cousin’s survival, and in what terms, and with what jealous bitterness at being still a barely regarded hanger-on in this sworn union.

“And here is Brother Cadfael of the Shrewsbury Benedictines,” said Tudur heartily, placing Cadfael close at the high table, “with an embassage to you, my lord, from that town and shire.” Owain weighed and measured the stocky figure and weathered countenance with a shrewd blue gaze, and stroked his close, trimmed golden beard. “Brother Cadfael is welcome, and so is any motion of amity from that quarter, where I can do with an assured peace.”

“Some of your countrymen and mine,” said Cadfael bluntly, “paid a visit recently to Shropshire’s borders with very little amity in mind, and left our peace a good deal less assured, even, than it could be said to be after Lincoln. You may have heard of it. Your princely brother did not come raiding himself, it may even be that he never sanctioned the frolic. But he left a few drowned men in one of our brooks in flood whom we have buried decently. And one,” he said, “whom the good sisters took out of the water living, and whom your lordship may wish to redeem, for by his own tale he’s of your kinship.”

“Do you tell me!” The blue eyes had widened and brightened. “I have not been so busy about fencing out the earl of Chester that I have failed to go into matters with my brother. There was more than one such frolic on the way home from Lincoln, and every one a folly that will cost me some pains to repair. Give your prisoner a name.”

“His name,” said Cadfael, “is Elis ap Cynan.”

“Ah!” said Owain on a long, satisfied breath, and set down his cup ringing on the board. “So the fool boy’s alive yet to tell the tale, is he? I’m glad indeed to hear it, and thank God for the deliverance and you, brother, for the news. There was not a man of my brother’s company could swear to how he was lost or what befell him.”

“They were running too fast to look over their shoulders,” said Cadfael mildly.

“From a man of our own blood,” said Owain grinning, “I’ll take that as it’s meant. So Elis is live and prisoner! Has he come to much harm?”

“Barely a scratch. And he may have come by a measure of sense into the bargain. Sound as a well-cast bell, I promise you, and my mission is to offer an exchange with you, if by any chance your brother has taken among his prisoners one as valuable to us as Elis is to you. I am sent,” said Cadfael, “by Hugh Beringar of Maesbury, speaking for Shropshire, to ask of you the return of his chief and sheriff, Gilbert Prestcote. With all proper greetings and compliments to your lordship, and full assurance of our intent to maintain the peace with you as hitherto.”

“The time’s ripe for it,” acknowledged Owain drily, “and it’s to the vantage of both of us, things being as they are. Where is Elis now?”

“In Shrewsbury castle, and has the run of the wards on his parole.”

“And you want him off your hands?”

“No haste for that,” said Cadfael. “We think well enough of him to keep him yet a while. But we do want the sheriff, if he lives, and if you have him. For Hugh looked for him after the battle, and found no trace, and it was your brother’s Welsh who overran the place where he fought.”

“Bide here a night or two,” said the prince, “and I will send to Cadwaladr, and find out if he holds your man. And if so, you shall have him.”

There was harping after supper, and singing, and drinking of good wine long after the prince’s messenger had ridden out on the first stage of his long journey to Aberystwyth. There was also a certain amount of good, natured wrestling and horse, play between Owain’s young cockerels and the men of Cadfael’s escort, though Hugh had taken care to choose some who had Welsh kin to recommend them, no very hard task in Shrewsbury at any time.

“Which of all these,” asked Cadfael, surveying the hall, smoky now from the fire and the torches, and loud with voices, “is Eliud ap Griffith?”

“I see Elis has chattered to you as freely as ever,” said Owain smiling, “prisoner or no. His cousin and foster-brother is hovering this moment at the end of the near table, and eyeing you hard, waiting his chance to have speech with you as soon as I withdraw. The long lad in the blue coat.” No mistaking him, once noticed, though he could not have been more different from his cousin: such a pair of eyes fixed upon Cadfael’s face in implacable determination and eagerness and such a still, braced body waiting for the least encouragement to fly to respond. Owain, humouring him, lifted a beckoning finger, and he came like a lance launched, quivering. A long lad he was, and thin and intense, with bright hazel eyes in a grave oval face, featured finely enough for a woman, but with good lean bones in it, too. There was a quality of devotional anxiety about him that must be for Elis ap Cynan at this moment, but at another might be for Wales, for his prince, some day, no doubt, for a woman, but whatever its object it would always be there. This one would never be quite at rest.

He bent the knee eagerly to Owain, and Owain clouted him amiably on the shoulder and said: “Sit down here with Brother Cadfael, and have out of him everything you want to know. Though the best you know already, your other self is alive and can be bought back you at a price.” And with that he left them together and went to confer with Tudur.

Eliud sat down willingly and spread his elbows on the board to lean ardently close. “Brother, it is true, what Cristina told me? You have Elis safe in Shrewsbury? They came back without him… I sent to know, but there was no one could tell me where he went astray or how. I have been hunting and asking everywhere and so has the prince, for all he makes a light thing of it. He is my father’s fostering—you’re Welsh yourself, so you know. We grew up together from babes, and there are no more brothers, either side…”