Dead Man's Ransom Read online

  He was also a very well, looking young man, middling tall for a Welshman, with the bold cheekbones and chin and the ruddy colouring of his kind, and a thick tangle of black curls that fell very becomingly about his brow and ears, blown by the south-west wind, for he wore no cap. Tethered hands and feet did not hamper him from sitting his horse like a centaur, and the voice that teased his guards in insolent Welsh was light and clear. Sister Magdalen had said truly that his gear was princely, and his manner proclaimed him certainly proud and probably, thought Cadfael, spoiled to the point of ruin. Not a particularly rare condition in a well, made, personable and probably only son.

  They passed, and the prisoner’s loud, melodious whistle of defiance died gradually along the Foregate and over the bridge. Cadfael went back to his workshop in the herbarium, and blew up his brazier to boil a fresh elixir of horehound for the winter coughs and colds.

  *

  Hugh came down from the castle next morning with a request to borrow Brother Cadfael on his captive’s behalf, for it seemed the boy had a raw gash in his thigh, ripped against a stone in the flood, and had gone to some pains to conceal it from the nuns.

  “Ask me,” said Hugh, grinning, “he’d have died rather than bare his hams for the ladies to poultice. And give him his due, though the tear is none so grave, the few miles he rode yesterday must have cost him dear in pain, and he never gave a sign. And blushed like a girl when we did notice him favouring the raw cheek, and made him strip.”

  “And left his sore undressed overnight? Never tell me! So why do you need me?” asked Cadfael shrewdly.

  “Because you speak good Welsh, and Welsh of the north, and he’s certainly from Gwynedd, one of Cadwaladr’s boys—though you may as well make the lad comfortable while you’re about it. We speak English to him, and he shakes his head and answers with nothing but Welsh, but for all that, there’s a saucy look in his eye that tells me he understands very well, and is having a game with us. So come and speak English to him, and trip the bold young sprig headlong when he thinks his Welsh insults can pass for civilities.”

  “He’d have had short shrift from Sister Magdalen,” said Cadfael thoughtfully, “if she’d known of his hurt. All his blushes wouldn’t have saved him.” And he went off willingly enough to see Brother Oswin properly instructed as to what needed attention in the workshop, before setting out with Hugh to the castle. A fair share of curiosity, and a little over-measure, was one of the regular items in his confessions. And after all, he was a Welshman; somewhere in the tangled genealogies of his nation, this obdurate boy might be his distant kin.

  *

  They had a healthy respect for their prisoner’s strength, wit and ingenuity, and had him in a windowless cell, though decently provided. Cadfael went in to him alone, and heard the door locked upon them. There was a lamp, a floating wick in a saucer of oil, sufficient for seeing, since the pale stone of the walls reflected the light from all sides. The prisoner looked askance at the Benedictine habit, unsure what this visit predicted. In answer to what was clearly a civil greeting in English, he replied as courteously in Welsh, but in answer to everything else he shook his dark head apologetically, and professed not to understand a word of it. He responded readily enough, however, when Cadfael unpacked his scrip and laid out his salves and cleansing lotions and dressings. Perhaps he had found good reason in the night to be glad of having submitted his wound to tending, for this time he stripped willingly, and let Cadfael renew the dressing. He had aggravated his hurt with riding, but rest would soon heal it. He had pure, spare flesh, lissome and firm. Under the skin the ripple of muscles was smooth as cream.

  “You were foolish to bear this,” said Cadfael in casual English, “when you could have had it healed and forgotten by now. Are you a fool? In your situation you’ll have to learn discretion.”

  “From the English,” said the boy in Welsh, and still shaking his head to show he understood no word of this, “I have nothing to learn. And no, I am not a fool, or I should be as talkative as you, old shaven-head.”

  “They would have given you good nursing at Godric’s Ford,” went on Cadfael innocently. “You wasted your few days there.”

  “A parcel of silly women,” said the boy, brazen-faced, “and old and ugly into the bargain.”

  That was more than enough. “A parcel of women,” said Cadfael in loud and indignant Welsh, “who pulled you out of the flood and squeezed your lordship dry, and pummelled the breath back into you. And if you cannot find a civil word of thanks to them, in a language they’ll understand, you are the most ungrateful brat who ever disgraced Wales. And that you may know it, my fine paladin, there’s nothing older nor uglier than ingratitude. Nor sillier, either, seeing I’m minded to rip that dressing off you and let you burn for the graceless limb you are.”

  The young man was bolt upright on his stone bench by this time, his mouth fallen open, his half-formed, comely face stricken into childishness. He stared and swallowed, and slowly flushed from breast to brow.

  “Three times as Welsh as you, idiot child,” said Cadfael, cooling, “being three times your age, as I judge. Now get your breath and speak, and speak English, for I swear if you ever speak Welsh to me again, short of extremes, I’ll off and leave you to your own folly, and you’ll find that cold company. Now, have we understood each other?”

  The boy hovered for an instant on the brink of humiliation and rage, being unaccustomed to such falls, and then as abruptly redeemed himself by throwing back his head and bursting into a peal of laughter, both rueful for his own folly and appreciative of the trap into which he had stepped so blithely. Blessedly, he had the native good-nature that prevented his being quite spoiled.

  “That’s better,” said Cadfael disarmed. “Fair enough to whistle and swagger to keep up your courage, but why pretend you knew no English? So close to the border, how long before you were bound to be smoked out?”

  “Even a day or two more,” sighed the young man resignedly, “and I might have found out what’s in store for me.” His command of English was fluent enough, once he had consented to use it. “I’m new to this. I wanted to get my bearings.”

  “And the impudence was to stiffen your sinews, I suppose. Shame to miscall the holy women who saved your saucy life for you.”

  “No one was meant to hear and understand,” protested the prisoner, and in the next breath owned magnanimously: “But I’m not proud of it, either. A bird in a net, pecking every way, as much for spite as for escape. And then I didn’t want to give away any word of myself until I had my captor’s measure.”

  “Or to admit to your value,” Cadfael hazarded shrewdly, “for fear you should be held against a high ransom. No name, no rank, no way of putting a price on you?”

  The black head nodded. He eyed Cadfael, and visibly debated within himself how much to concede, even now he was found out, and then as impulsively flung open the floodgates and let the words come hurtling out. “To tell truth, long before ever we made that assault on the nunnery I’d grown very uneasy about the whole wild affair. Owain Gwynedd knew nothing of his brother’s muster, and he’ll be displeased with us all, and when Owain’s displeased I mind my walking very carefully. Which is what I did not do when I went with Cadwaladr. I wish heartily that I had, and kept out of it. I never wanted to do harm to your ladies, but how could I draw back once I was in? And then to let myself be taken! By a handful of old women and peasants! I shall be in black displeasure at home, if not a laughingstock.” He sounded disgusted rather than downcast, and shrugged and grinned good-naturedly at the thought of being laughed at, but for all that, the prospect was painful. “And if I’m to cost Owain high, there’s another black stroke against me. He’s not the man to take delight in paying out gold to buy back idiots.”

  Certainly this young man improved upon acquaintance. He turned honestly and manfully from wanting to kick everyone else to acknowledging that he ought to be kicking himself. Cadfael warmed to him.

  “Let me drop a w
ord in your ear. The higher your value, the more welcome will you be to Hugh Beringar, who holds you here. And not for gold, either. There’s a lord, the sheriff of this shire, who is most likely prisoner in Wales as you are here, and Hugh Beringar wants him back. If you can balance him, and he is found to be there alive, you may well be on your way home. At no cost to Owain Gwynedd, who never wanted to dip his fingers into that trough, and will be glad to show it by giving Gilbert Prestcote back to us.”

  “You mean it?” The boy had brightened and flushed, wide, eyed. “Then I should speak? I’m in a fair way to get my release and please both Welsh and English? That would be better deliverance than ever I expected.”

  “Or deserved!” said Cadfael roundly, and watched the smooth brown neck stiffen in offence, and then suddenly relax again, as the black curls tossed and the ready grin appeared. “Ah, well, you’ll do! Tell your tale now, while I’m here, for I’m mightily curious, but tell it once. Let me fetch in Hugh Beringar, and let’s all come to terms. Why lie here on stone and all but in the dark, when you could be stretching your legs about the castle wards?”

  “I’m won!” said the boy, hopefully shining. “Bring me to confession, and I’ll hold nothing back.”

  *

  Once his mind was made up he spoke up cheerfully and volubly, an outward soul by nature, and very poorly given to silence. His abstention must have cost him prodigies of self-control. Hugh listened to him with an unrevealing face, but Cadfael knew by now how to read every least twitch of those lean, live brows and every glint in the black eyes.

  “My name is Elis ap Cynan, my mother was cousin to Owain Gwynedd. He is my overlord, and he has over-watched me in the fosterage where he placed me when my father died. That is, with my uncle Griffith ap Meilyr, where I grew up with my cousin Eliud as brothers. Griffith’s wife is also distant kin to the prince, and Griffith ranks high among his officers. Owain values us. He will not willingly leave me in captivity,” said the young man sturdily.

  “Even though you hared off after his brother to a battle in which he wanted no part?” said Hugh, unsmiling but mild of voice.

  “Even so,” persisted Elis firmly. “Though if truth must out, I wish I never had, and am like to wish it even more earnestly when I must go back and face him. He’ll have my hide, as like as not.” But he did not sound particularly depressed at the thought, and his sudden grin, tentative here in Hugh’s untested presence, nevertheless would out for a moment. “I was a fool. Not for the first time, and I daresay not the last. Eliud had more sense. He’s grave and deep, he thinks like Owain. It was the first time we ever went different ways. I wish now I’d listened to him. I never knew him to be wrong when it came to it. But I was greedy to see action, and pig-headed, and I went.”

  “And did you like the action you saw?” asked Hugh drily.

  Elis gnawed a considering lip. “The battle, that was fair fight, all in arms on both parts. You were there? Then you know yourself it was a great thing we did, crossing the river in flood, and standing to it in that frozen marsh as we were, sodden and shivering…” That exhilarating memory had suddenly recalled to him the second such crossing attempted, and its less heroic ending, the reverse of the dream of glory. Fished out like a drowning kitten, and hauled back to life face-down in muddy turf, hiccuping up the water he had swallowed, and being squeezed between the hands of a brawny forester. He caught Hugh’s eye, and saw his own recollection reflected there, and had the grace to grin. “Well, flood-water is on no man’s side, it gulps down Welsh as readily as English. But I was not sorry then, not at Lincoln. It was a good fight. Afterwards—no—the town turned my stomach. If I’d known before, I should not have been there. But I was there, and I couldn’t undo it.”

  “You were sick at what was done to Lincoln,” Hugh pointed out reasonably, “yet you went with the raiders to sack Godric’s Ford.”

  “What was I to do? Draw out against the lot of them, my own friends and comrades, stick my nose in the air and tell them what they intended was vile? I’m no such hero!” said Elis openly and heartily. “Still, you’ll allow I did no harm there to anyone, as it fell out. I was taken, and if it please you to say, serve me right, I’ll take no offence. The end of it is, here I am and at your disposal. And I’m kin to Owain and when he knows I’m living he’ll want me back.”

  “Then you and I may very well come to a sensible agreement,” said Hugh, “for I think it very likely that my sheriff, whom I want back just as certainly, is prisoner in Wales as you are here, and if that proves true, an exchange should be no great problem. I’ve no wish to keep you under lock and key in a cell, if you’ll behave yourself seemly and wait the outcome.

  *

  “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.”

&nb
sp; 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.