A Morbid Taste For Bones bc-1 Read online

  “I go with the horses. Did you ever hear of an ambassador riding without a groom? I’ll keep well out of the way while you confer, and play the dutiful servant. And by the by, Bened will be doing his drinking up there at the hall tonight. They go the rounds, and it’s Cai’s turn.”

  “And how did you learn so much,” wondered Cadfael, “without a word of Welsh?”

  “Oh, they knock their meaning into me somehow, and I into them. Besides, I have several words of Welsh already, and if we’re held up here for a while I shall soon learn a great many more, if I can get my tongue round them. I could learn the smith’s art, too. I lent him a hand at the forge this morning.”

  “You’re honoured. In Wales not everyone can be a smith.”

  Huw indicated the fence that had begun to run alongside them on the right. “Cadwallon’s holding. We have a mile of forest to go yet to Rhisiart’s hall.”

  It was still no more than dusk when they emerged into a large clearing, with ploughed and planted strips surrounding a long stockade fence. The smell of wood-smoke drifted on the air, and glimmer of torches lit the open doorway of the hall. Stables and barns and folds clung to the inner side of the fence, and men and women moved briskly about the evening business of a considerable household.

  “Well, well!” said the voice of Cai the ploughman, from a bench under the eaves of one of the byres. “So you’ve found your way by nose to where the mead is tonight, Brother Cadfael.” And he moved up obligingly to make room, shoulder to shoulder with Bened. “Padrig’s making music within, and from all I hear it may well be war music, but he’ll be with us presently. Sit yourself down, and welcome. Nobody looks on you as the enemy.”

  There was a third with them already, a long man seated in deeper shadow, his legs stretched well out before him at ease, and his hair showing as a primrose pallor even in the dimness. The young outlander, Engelard, willingly gathered up his long limbs and also moved to share the bench. He had a quick, open smile vivid with white teeth.

  “We’ve come expressly to halt the war,” said Brother Cadfael as they dismounted, and a groom of the household came running to take their bridles. “Father Huw has the peace in hand, I’m only an assessor to see fair play. And, sadly, we’ll be expected back with an answer as soon as we’ve spoken with your lord. But if you’ll take charge of Brother John while we deal, he’ll be grateful. He can speak English with Engelard, a man should practise his own tongue when he can.”

  But Brother John, it appeared, had at that moment completely lost the use of his tongue in any language, for he stood at gaze, and let the reins be taken from his hands like a man in a dream. Nor was he looking at Engelard, but towards the open doorway of the hall, from which a girl’s figure had issued, and was crossing gaily towards the drinkers under the eaves, a large jug carried in both hands. The lively brown eyes flickered over the visitors, took in Cadfael and the priest with easy friendliness, and opened wide upon Brother John, standing like a very lifelike statue, all thorny russet hair, weather-burned cheeks and wild, admiring eyes. Cadfael looked where Annest’s eyes were looking, and approved a very upstanding, ruggedly-built, ingenuous, comely young fellow, maybe two or three years older than the girl. The Benedictine habit, kilted to the knee for riding and forgotten now, looked as much like a working Welsh tunic as made no matter, and the tonsure, however well a man (or a girl!) knew it was there, was invisible behind the burning bush of curls.

  “Thirsty people you are, then!” said Annest, still with one eye upon Brother John, and set down her pitcher on the bench beside Cai, and with a flick of her skirts and a wave of her light-brown mane, sat down beside it, and accepted the horn Bened offered her. Brother John stood mute and enchanted.

  “Come on, then, lad,” said Bened, and made a place for him between himself and Cai, only one remove from where the girl sat delicately sipping. And Brother John, like a man walking in his sleep, though perhaps with rather more zestful purpose, strode forward towards the seat reserved for him.

  “Well, well!” said Cadfael silently to himself, and left the insoluble to the solver of all problems, and with Father Huw moved on into the hall.

  “I will come,” said Rhisiart, shut into a small chamber apart with his visitors. “Of course I will come. No man should refuse another his say. No man can be sure he will not belie himself and do himself less than justice, and God forbid I should refuse anyone his second chance. I’ve often spoken in haste myself, and been sorry after, and said so, as your prior has said so now.” He had not, of course, nor had Huw claimed, in so many words, that he had. Rather he had expressed his own shame and regret, but if Rhisiart attributed these to Prior Robert, Huw was desperate enough to let him continue in the delusion. “But I tell you this, I expect little from this meeting. The gap between us is too wide. To you I can say what I have not said to any who were not there, because I am ashamed. The man offered me money. He says now he offered it to Gwytherin, but how is that possible? Am I Gwytherin? I am a man like other men, I fill my place as best I can, but remain one only. No, he offered the purse to me, to take back my voice against him. To persuade my own people to go along with his wishes. I accept his desire to talk to me again, to bring me to see this matter as he sees it. But I cannot forget that he saw it as something he could buy with money. If he wishes to change me, that must change, and be shown to be changed. As for his threats, for threats they are, and I approve you for reporting them faithfully, they move me not at all. My reverence for our little saint is the equal of his or any man’s. Do you think she does not know it?”

  “I am sure she does,” said Father Huw.

  “And if all they want is to honour and adore her rightly, why can they not do so here, where she lies? Even dress her grave, if that is what disturbs them, that we’ve let it run wild?”

  “A good question,” said Brother Cadfael. “I have asked it myself. The sleep of saints should be more sacred and immune even than the sleep of ordinary men.”

  Rhisiart looked him over with those fine, challenging eyes, a shade or two lighter than his daughter’s, and smiled. “Howbeit, I will come, and my thanks for all your trouble. At the hour of noon, or a little after, I will come to your dinner, and I will listen faithfully to whatever may be said to me.’

  There was a good laughter echoing from end to end of the bench under the eaves, and it was tempting to join the drinkers, at least for one quick cup, as Cai demanded. Bened had got up to replenish his horn from the pitcher, and Brother John, silent and flushed but glowingly happy, sat with no barrier between him and the girl, their sleeves all but touching when she leaned curiously closer, her hair dropping a stray lock against his shoulder.

  “Well, how have you sped?” asked Cai, pouring mead for them. “Will he come and talk terms with your prior?”

  “He’ll come,” said Cadfael. “Whether he’ll talk terms I doubt. He was greatly affronted. But he’ll come to dine, and that’s something.”

  “The whole parish will know it before ever you get back to the parsonage,” said Cai. “News runs faster than the wind in these parts, and after this morning they’re all building on Rhisiart. I tell you, if he changed his tune and said amen, so would they. Not for want of their own doubts and waverings, but because they trust him. He took a stand, and they know he won’t leave it but for good reason. Sweeten him, and you’ll get your way.”

  “Not my way,” said Cadfael. “I never could see why a man can’t reverence his favourite saint without wanting to fondle her bones, but there’s great rivalry for such relics among the abbeys these days. A good mead, this, Cai.”

  “Our Annest here brewed it,” said Bened, with tolerant pride in his niece, and clapped a hand fondly on her shoulder. “And only one of her skills! She’ll be a treasure for some man when she weds, but a sad loss to me.”

  “I might bring you a good smith to work with you,” said the girl, dimpling. “Where’s the loss then?”

  It was deep dusk, and with all the longing they felt to l
inger, they had to be away. Huw was fidgety, thinking of Prior Robert’s rising impatience, his tall figure pacing the garden and looking out for the first glimpse of his messengers returning. “We should be off. We shall be looked for. Come, brother, make your farewells.”

  Brother John rose reluctantly but dutifully. The groom was leading the horses forward, an arm under each arching neck. With composed face but glowing eyes Brother John said his general goodnight and blessing. In careful but resounding Welsh!

  The echo swept the riders away towards the gate on a wave of laughter and goodwill, in which the girl’s light voice soared gaily, and Engelard’s hearty English “God go with you!” balanced the tongues.

  “And who taught you that between evening and dark?” asked Brother Cadfael with interest, as they entered the deep green twilight under the trees. “Bened or Cai?”

  “Neither,” said Brother John, contentedly pondering a deep private satisfaction.

  Small use asking how she had managed it, she having no English and he no Welsh, to determine what the phrase was she was drumming into him. There was a kind of language at work here that made short shrift on interpreters.

  “Well, you can fairly claim the day hasn’t been wasted,” owned Cadfael generously, “if something’s been learned. And have you made any other discoveries to add to that?”

  “Yes,” said Brother John, placidly glowing. “The day after tomorrow is baking-day at Bened’s.”

  “You may rest and sleep, Father Prior,” said Huw, fronting the tall, pale forehead gallantly with his low, brown one. “Rhisiart has said he will come, and he will listen. He was gracious and reasonable. Tomorrow at noon or soon after he will be here.”

  Prior Robert certainly loosed a cautious, suppressed sigh of relief. But he required more before they could all go away and sleep. Richard loomed at his shoulder, large, benign and anxious.

  “And is he sensible of the wrong-mindedness of his resistance? Will he withdraw his opposition?”

  In the dimness where the candle-light barely reached, Brothers Jerome and Columbanus trembled and hoped, for while doubt remained they had not been permitted to remove to their rest at Cadwallon’s house. Anxious eyes appealed, reflecting the light.

  Father Huw hedged, wanting his own sleep. “He offers friendly interest and faithful consideration. I asked no more.”

  Brother Cadfael said bluntly: “You will need to be persuasive, and sincere. He is sincere. I am no way convinced that he can be lightly persuaded.” He was tired of nursing wounded vanities, he spoke out what was in his mind. “Father Prior, you made your mistake with him this morning. You will need a change of heart, his or yours, to undo that damage.”

  Prior Robert made his dispositions as soon as Mass was over next morning, and with some care.

  “Only Brother Sub-Prior and I, with Father Huw, and Brother Cadfael as interpreter, will sit at table together. You, Brother John, will make yourself useful to the cooks, and do whatever is needed, and you may also see to Father Huw’s cattle and chickens. And you two, Brother Jerome, Brother Columbanus, I have a special mission for you. Since we are about Saint Winifred’s business, I would have you go and spend the hours while we deliberate in vigil and prayer, imploring her aid to bring the obdurate to reason, and our errand to a successful conclusion. Not in the church here, but in her own chapel in the old graveyard where she is buried. Take your food and your measure of wine with you, and go there now. The boy Edwin will show you the way. If we prevail upon Rhisiart, as with her aid I trust we may, I will send to release you. But continue your intercessions until I do send word.”

  They scattered dutifully, John, cheerfully enough, to tend the fire for Marared, and fetch and carry as she directed. The old woman, long widowed and her own sons grown, preened herself at having a strapping young fellow to keep her company, and Cadfael reflected that John might well be favoured with the best bits before the meal ever came to table. As for Jerome and Columbanus, he saw them set out with the boy, bread and meat wrapped in napkins in the breasts of their habits, and Columbanus carrying the flask with their ration of wine, and a small bottle of spring water for himself.

  “It is very little to offer,” he said meekly, “but I will touch nothing but water until our cause has prevailed.”

  “More fool he,” said Brother John blithely, “for he may well be swearing off wine for life!”

  It was a fine spring morning, but capricious as May can be. Prior Robert and his attendants sat in the orchard until they were driven indoors by a sharp and sparkling shower that lasted almost half an hour. It was then approaching noon, the time when Rhisiart should join them. He would have a wet walk by the short path through the forest. Or perhaps he had waited for the sun’s return at Cadwallon’s house, which was on his way. Making allowances for that, they thought little of it when another half-hour passed, and he did not put in an appearance. But when he was an hour late for the meeting, and still no sign of him, Prior Robert’s face grew both grim and cautiously triumphant.

  “He has heard the warning I issued against his sin, and he fears to come and face me,” he said.

  “He had heard the warning, indeed,” said Father Huw heavily, “but I saw no signs of fear in him. He spoke very firmly and calmly. And he is a man of his word. I don’t understand this, it is not like him.”

  “We will eat, but frugally,” said the prior, “and give him every chance of keeping his promise, if something has happened to delay him. So it may, to any man. We will wait until it is time to prepare for Vespers.”

  “I’ll walk as far as Cadwallon’s house,” offered Brother Richard, “for the way is all one to that point, and see if I can meet with him, or get word if he’s on his way.”

  He was gone more than an hour and a half, and came back alone. “I went beyond, some way along the ride, but saw no sign of him. On my way back I asked at Cadwallon’s gate, but no one had seen him pass. I feared he might have walked by the short path while I was taking the other road.”

  “We’ll wait for him until Vespers, and no longer,” said the prior, and by then his voice was growing grimly confident, for now he did not expect the guest to come, and the enemy would have put himself in the wrong, to Prior Robert’s great gain. Until Vespers, therefore, they waited, five hours after the appointed time. The people of Gwytherin could hardly say Rhisiart had been written off too hastily.

  “So it ends,” said the prior, rising and shaking out his skirts like one shaking off a doubt or an incubus. “He has turned tail, and his opposition will carry no weight now with any man. Let us go!”

  The sunlight was still bright but slanting over the green bowl where the church stood, and a number of people were gathering for the service. And out of the deeper green shadow where the forest path began, came, not Rhisiart, but his daughter, sailing gallantly out into the sunlight in a green gown, with her wild hair tamed and braided, and a linen coif over it, Sioned in her church-going person, with Peredur on her heels, his hand possessively cupping her elbow, though she paid little heed to that attention. She saw them issuing in a silent procession from Huw’s gate, and her eyes went from person to person, lingering on Cadfael who came last, and again looking back with a small frown, as though one face was missing from the expected company.

  “Where is my father?” she asked, her wide eyes surprised but not yet troubled. “Is he not still here with you? Have I missed him? I rode as far as Cadwallon’s house, and he was on foot, so if he has left more than an hour ago he may well be home by now. I came to bear him company to church and go back with him afterwards.”

  Prior Robert looked down at her in some wonder, the first flickering uneasiness twitching his nostrils. “What is she saying? Do you tell me that the lord Rhisiart set out to come to our meeting?”

  “Of course!” said Sioned, amazed. “He had said he would.”

  “But he did not come,” said Robert. “We’ve waited for him since noon, and we’ve seen no sign of him. Brother Sub-Prior went a p
art of the way to see if he could meet with him, but in vain. He has not been here.”

  She caught the meaning of that without Cadfael’s services. Her eyes flashed from face to face, distrustful and ready for anger. “Are you telling me truth? Or have you hidden him away under lock and key until you can get Winifred out of her grave and away to Shrewsbury? He was all that stood in your way. And you have threatened him!”

  Peredur closed his fingers anxiously on her arm, and drew her against his side. “Hush, you must not say such things. These brothers would not lie to you.”

  “At what hour,” asked Cadfael, “did your father set out this morning?”

  She looked at him, and was a little reassured. The ring of silent onlookers drew nearer, listening attentively, ready to take her part if she needed an army.

  “A good hour before noon. He was going first to the fields in the clearing, so he would be coming here by the shortest way, cutting through a quarter of a mile of forest to the usual path. He had plenty of time to be here before noon. As far as the clearing Engelard would be with him, he was going beyond, to the byres over the hill. There are two cows there ready to drop their calves.”

  “We are telling you truly, child,” said Father Huw, his voice as grave and anxious as her own, “we waited for him, and he never came.”

  “What can have happened to him? Where can he be?”

  “He will have crossed with us and gone home,” urged Peredur, hovering unhappily at her shoulder. “We’ll ride back, we shall surely find him there before us.”

  “No! Why should he turn back, and never come to the dinner? And if he did, why so late? He would have been home long before I dressed my hair and set out to meet him, if he had changed his mind. And besides, he never would.”

  “I think,” said Father Huw, “that my whole parish has some interest in this matter, and we had better put off everything else, even the services of the church, until we have found Rhisiart and assured ourselves that all’s well with him. Truly this may be no more than a tangle of mistiming and misunderstanding, but let’s resolve it first, and wonder about it afterwards. There are enough of us here. Let’s send out in parties along all the roads he may have taken, and Sioned shall show us where she thinks his short cut from the upland fields would bring him to the path. He could not well meet with any dangerous beasts in these woods, but he may have had a fall, an injury that has halted or slowed him. Father Prior, will you join with us?”