Dead Man's Ransom Read online

  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 tha
t 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.

  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 3

  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.