Dead Man's Ransom Read online

  “Good as gold! Not a step even into the shadow of the gate.” It was said with casual certainty. Cadfael drew his own conclusions. Hugh had someone commissioned to watch every move the two prisoners made, and knew all that they did, if not all that they said, from dawn to dark, and if ever one of them did advance a foot over the threshold, his toes would be promptly and efficiently trampled on. Unless, of course, it was more important to follow, and find out with what intent he broke his parole. But when Hugh was in the north, who was to say his deputy would maintain the same unobtrusive watch?

  “Who is it you’re leaving in charge here?”

  “Young Alan Herbard. But Will Warden will have a hand on his shoulder. Why, do you expect a bolt for it as soon as my back’s turned?” By the tone of his voice Hugh was in no great anxiety on that score. “There’s no absolute certainty in any man, when it comes to it, but those two have been schooled under Owain, and measure themselves by him, and by and large I’d take their word.”

  So thought Cadfael, too. Yet it’s truth that to any man may come the one extreme moment when he turns his back on his own nature and goes the contrary way. Cadfael caught one more glimpse of the cousins as he turned for home and passed through the outer ward. They were up on the guard-walk of the curtain wall, leaning together in one of the wide embrasures between the merlons, and gazing clean across the busy wards of the castle into the hazy distance beyond the town, on the road to Wales. Eliud’s arm was about Elis’s shoulders, to settle them comfortably into the space, and the two faces were close together and equally intent and reticent. Cadfael went back through the town with that dual likeness before his mind’s eye, curiously memorable and deeply disturbing. More than ever they looked to him like mirror images, where left and right were interchangeable, the bright side and the dark side of the same being.

  *

  Sybilla Prestcote departed, her son on his stout brown pony at her elbow, her train of servants and packhorses stirring the March mire which the recent east winds were drying into fine dust. Hugh’s advance party had left at dawn, he and his main body of archers and men-at-arms followed at noon, and the commissariat wagons creaked along the northern road between the two groups, soon overhauled and left behind on the way to Oswestry. In the castle a somewhat nervous Alan Herbard, son of a knight and eager for office, mounted scrupulous guard and made every round of his responsibilities twice, for fear he had missed something the first time. He was athletic, fairly skilled in arms, but of small experience as yet, and well aware that any one of the sergeants Hugh had left behind was better equipped for the task in hand than he. They knew it, too, but spared him the too obvious demonstration of it.

  A curious quiet descended on town and abbey with the departure of half the garrison, as though nothing could now happen here. The Welsh prisoners were condemned to boredom in captivity, the quest for Gilbert’s murderer was at a standstill, there was nothing to be done but go on with the daily routine of work and leisure and worship, and wait.

  And think, since action was suspended. Cadfael found himself thinking all the more steadily and deeply about the two missing pieces that held the whole puzzle together, Einon ab Ithel’s gold pin, which he remembered very clearly, and that mysterious cloth which he had never seen, but which had stifled a man and urged him out of the world.

  But was it so certain that he had never seen it? Never consciously, yet it had been here, here within the enclave, within the infirmary, within that room. It had been here, and now was not. And the search for it had been begun the same day, and the gates had been closed to all men attempting departure from the moment the death was discovered. How long an interval did that leave? Between the withdrawal of the brothers into the refectory and the finding of Gilbert dead, any man might have walked out by the gatehouse unquestioned. A matter of nearly two hours. That was one possibility.

  The second possibility, thought Cadfael honestly, is that both cloth and pin are still here, somewhere within the enclave, but so well hidden that all our searching has not uncovered them.

  And the third—he had been mulling it over in his mind all day, and repeatedly discarding it as a pointless aberration, but still it came back insistently, the one loophole. Yes, Hugh had put a guard on the gate from the moment the crime was known, but three people had been let out, all the same, the three who could not possibly have killed, since they had been in the abbot’s company and Hugh’s throughout. Einon ab Ithel and his two captains had ridden back to Owain Gwynedd. They had not taken any particle of guilt with them, yet they might unwittingly have taken evidence.

  Three possibilities, and surely it might be worth examining even the third and most tenuous. He had lived with the other two for some days, and pursued them constantly, and all to no purpose. And for those countrymen of his penned in the castle, and for abbot and prior and brothers here, and for the dead man’s family, there would be no true peace of mind until the truth was known.

  Before Compline Cadfael took his trouble, as he had done many times before, to Abbot Radulfus.

  *

  “Either the cloth is still here among us, Father, but so well hidden that all our searching has failed to find it, or else it has been taken out of our walls by someone who left in the short time between the hour of dinner and the discovery of the sheriff’s death, or by someone who left, openly and with sanction, after that discovery. From that time Hugh Beringar has had a watch kept on all who left the enclave. For those who may have passed through the gates before the death was known, I think they must be few indeed, for the time was short, and the porter did name three, all good folk of the Foregate on parish business, and all have been visited and are clearly blameless. That there may be others I do concede, but he has called no more to mind.”

  “We know,” said the abbot thoughtfully, “of three who left that same afternoon, to return to Wales, being by absolute proof clear of all blame. Also of one, the man Anion, who fled after being questioned. It is known to you, as it is to me, that for most men Anion’s guilt is proven by his flight. It is not so to you?”

  “No, Father, or at least not that mortal guilt. Something he surely knows, and fears, and perhaps has cause to fear. But not that. He has been in our infirmary for some weeks, his every possession is known to all those within—he has little enough, the list is soon ended, and if ever he had had in his hands such a cloth as I seek, it would have been noticed and questioned.”

  Radulfus nodded agreement. “You have not mentioned, though that also is missing, the gold pin from the lord Einon’s cloak.”

  That,” said Cadfael, understanding the allusion, “is possible. It would account for his flight. And he has been sought, and still is. But if he took the one thing, he did not bring the other. Unless he had in his hands such a cloth as I have shadowed for you, Father, then he is no murderer. And that little he had, many men here have seen and known. Nor, so far as ever we can discover, had this house ever such a weave within its store, to be pilfered and so misused.”

  “Yet if this cloth came and went in that one day,” said Radulfus, “are you saying it went hence with the Welsh lords? We know they did no wrong. If they had cause to think anything in their baggage, on returning, had to do with this matter, would they not have sent word?”

  “They would have no such cause, Father, they would not know it had any importance to us. Only after they were gone did we recover those few frail threads I have shown you. How should they know we were seeking such a thing? Nor have we had any word from them, nothing but the message from Owain Gwynedd to Hugh Beringar. If Einon ab Ithel valued and has missed his jewel, he has not stopped to think he may have lost it here.”

  “And you think, asked the abbot, considering, “that it might be well to speak with Einon and his officers, and examine these things?”

  “At your will only,” said Cadfael. “There is no knowing if it will lead to more knowledge than we have. Only, it may! And there are so many souls who need for their comfort to have this matte
r resolved. Even the guilty.”

  “He most of all,” said Radulfus, and sat a while in silence. There in the parlour the light was only now beginning to fade. A cloudy day would have brought the dusk earlier. About this time, perhaps a little before, Hugh would have been waiting on the great dyke at Rhyd-y-Croesau by Oswestry for Owain Gwynedd. Unless, of course, Owain was like him in coming early to any meeting. Those two would understand each other without too many words. “Let us go to Compline,” said the abbot, stirring, “and pray for enlightenment. Tomorrow after Prime we will speak again.”

  *

  The Welsh of Powys had done very well out of their Lincoln venture, undertaken rather for plunder than out of any desire to support the earl of Chester, who was more often enemy than ally. Madog ap Meredith was quite willing to act in conjunction with Chester again, provided there was profit in it for Madog, and the news of Ranulf’s probes into the borders of Gwynedd and Shropshire alerted him to pleasurable possibilities. It was some years since the men of Powys had captured and partially burned the castle of Caus, after the death of William Corbett and in the absence of his brother and heir, and they had held on to this advanced outpost ever since, a convenient base for further incursions. With Hugh Beringar gone north, and half the Shrewsbury garrison with him, the time seemed ripe for action.

  The first thing that happened was a lightning raid from Caus along the valley towards Minsterley, the burning of an isolated farmstead and the driving off of a few cattle. The raiders drew off as rapidly as they had advanced, when the men of Minsterley mustered against them, and vanished into Caus and through the hills into Wales with their booty. But it was indication enough that they might be expected back and in greater strength, since this first assay had passed off so easily and without loss. Alan Herbard sweated, spared a few men to reinforce Minsterley, and waited for worse.

  News of this tentative probe reached the abbey and the town next morning. The deceptive calm that followed was too good to be true, but the men of the borders, accustomed to insecurity as the commonplace of life, stolidly picked up the pieces and kept their billhooks and pitchforks ready to hand.

  “It would seem, however,” said Abbot Radulfus, pondering the situation without surprise or alarm, but with concern for a shire threatened upon two fronts, “that this conference in the north would be the better informed, on both parts, if they knew of this raid. There is a mutual interest. However short-lived it may prove,” he added drily, and smiled. A stranger to the Welsh, he had learned a great deal since his appointment in Shrewsbury. “Gwynedd is close neighbour to Chester, as Powys is not, and their interests are very different. Moreover, it seems the one is to be trusted to be both honourable and sensible. The other—no, I would not say either wise or stable by our measure. I do not want these western people of ours harried and plundered, Cadfael. I have been thinking of what we said yesterday. If you return once again to Wales, to find these lords who visited us, you will also be close to where Hugh Beringar confers with the prince.”

  “Certainly,” said Cadfael, “for Einon ab Ithel is next in line to Owain Gwynedd’s penteulu, the captain of his own guard. They will be together.”

  “Then if I send you, as my envoy, to Einon, it would be well if you should also go to the castle, and make known to this young deputy there that you intend this journey, and can carry such messages as he may wish to Hugh Beringar. You know, I think,” said Radulfus with his dark smile, “how to make such a contact discreetly. The young man is new to office.”

  “I must, in any case, pass through the town,” said Cadfael mildly, “and clearly I ought to report my errand to the authorities at the castle, and have their leave to pass. It is a good opportunity, where men are few and needed.”

  “True,” said Radulfus, thinking how acutely men might shortly be needed down the border. “Very well! Choose a horse to your liking. You have leave to deal as you think best. I want this death reconciled and purged, I want God’s peace on my infirmary and within my walls, and the debt paid. Go, do what you can.”

  *

  There was no difficulty at the castle. Herbard needed only to be told that an envoy from the abbot was bound into Oswestry and beyond, and he added an embassage of his own to his sheriff. Raw and uneasy though he might be, he was braced and steeled to cope with whatever might come, but it was an additional shell of armour to have informed his chief. He was frightened but resolute; Cadfael thought he shaped well, and might be a useful man to Hugh, once blooded. And that might be no long way off.

  “Let the lord Beringar know,” said Herbard, “that I intend a close watch on the border by Caus. But I desire he should know the men of Powys are on the move. And if there are further raids, I will send word.”

  “He shall know,” said Cadfael, and forthwith rode back a short spell through the town, down from the High Cross to the Welsh bridge, and so north-west for Oswestry.

  *

  It was two days later that the next thrust came. Madog ap Meredith had been pleased with his first probe, and brought more men into the field before he launched his attack in force. Down the Rea valley to Minsterley they swarmed, burned and looted, wheeled both ways round Minsterley, and flowed on towards Pontesbury.

  In Shrewsbury castle Welsh ears, as well as English, stretched and quivered to the bustle and fever of rumours.

  “They are out!” said Elis, tense and sleepless beside his cousin in the night. “Oh God, and Madog with this grudge to pay off! And she is there! Melicent is there at Godric’s Ford. Oh, Eliud, if he should take it into his head to take revenge!”

  “You’re fretting for nothing,” Eliud insisted passionately. “They know what they’re doing here, they’re on the watch, they’ll not let any harm come to the nuns. Besides, Madog is not aiming there, but along the valley, where the pickings are best. And you saw yourself what the forest men can do. Why should he try that a second time? It wasn’t his own nose was put out of joint there, either, you told me who led that raid. What plunder is there at Godric’s Ford for such as Madog, compared with the fat farms in the Minsterley valley? No, surely she’s safe there.”

  “Safe! How can you say it? Where is there any safety? They should never have let her go.” Elis ground angry fists in the rustling straw of their palliasse, and heaved himself round in the bed. “Oh, Eliud, if only I were out of here and free…”

  “But you’re not,” said Eliud, with the exasperated sharpness of one racked by the same pain, “and neither am I. We’re bound, and nothing we can do about it. For God’s sake, do some justice to these English, they’re neither fools nor cravens, they’ll hold their city and their ground, and they’ll take care of their women, without having to call on you or me. What right have you to doubt them? And you to talk so, who went raiding there yourself!”

  Elis subsided with a defeated sigh and a drear smile. “And got my come-uppance for it! Why did I ever go with Cadwaladr? God knows how often and how bitterly I’ve repented it since.”

  “You would not be told,” said Eliud sadly, ashamed at having salted the wound. “But she will be safe, you’ll see, no harm will come to her, no harm will come to the nuns. Trust these English to look after their own. You must! There’s nothing else we can do.”

  “If I were free,” Elis agonised helplessly, “I’d fetch her away from there, take her somewhere out of all danger…”

  “She would not go with you,” Eliud reminded him bleakly. “You, of all people! Oh, God, how did we ever get into this quagmire, and how are we ever to get out of it?”

  “If I could reach her, I could persuade her. In the end she would listen. She’ll have remembered me better by now, she’ll know she wrongs me. She’d go with me. If only I could reach her…”

  “But you’re pledged, as I am,” said Eliud flatly. “We’ve given our word, and it was freely accepted. Neither you nor I can stir a foot out of the gates without being dishonoured.”

  “No,” agreed Elis miserably, and fell silent and still, staring i
nto the darkness of the shallow vault over them.

  Chapter 10

  BROTHER CADFAEL arrived in Oswestry by evening, to find town and castle alert and busy, but Hugh Beringar already departed. He had moved east after his meeting with Owain Gwynedd, they told him, to Whittington and Ellesmere, to see his whole northern border stiffened and call up fresh levies as far away as Whitchurch. While Owain had moved north on the border to meet the constable of Chirk and see that corner of the confederacy secure and well-manned. There had been some slight brushes with probing parties from Cheshire, but so tentative that it was plain Ranulf was feeling his way with caution, testing to see how well organised the opposition might prove to be. So far he had drawn off at the first encounter. He had made great gains at Lincoln and had no intention of endangering them now, but a very human desire to add to them if he found his opponents unprepared.

  “Which he will not,” said the cheerful sergeant who received Cadfael into the castle and saw his horse stabled and the rider well entertained. “The earl is no madman to shove his fist into a hornets’ nest. Leave him one weak place he can gnaw wider and he’d be in, but we’re leaving him none. He thought he might do well, knowing Prestcote was gone. He thought our lad would be green and easy. He’s learning different! And if these Welsh of Powys have an ear pricked this way, they should also take the omens. But who’s to reason what the Welsh will do? This Owain, now, he’s a man on his own. Straw-gold like a Saxon, and big! What’s such a one doing in Wales?”

  “He came here?” asked Cadfael, feeling his Cambrian blood stir in welcome.

  “Last night, to sup with Beringar, and rode for Chirk at dawn. Welsh and English will man that fortress instead of fighting over it. There’s a marvel!”

  Cadfael pondered his errands and considered time. “Where would Hugh Beringar be this night, do you suppose?”