Candace Robb - A Spy For The Redeemer

‘I do not want to curse in front of you.’ Iolo’s voice was hoarse.

Owen forced himself up, placed a stool so that he might sit and lean his head against the wall. He thought he might close his eye while the woman tended Iolo. He woke when she touched his sleeve.

‘You must slip your arm out of this.’ She helped Owen shrug out of his leather and linen. He winced as the cloth pulled away from the wounds on his forearm and his side, but lifting the right arm brought the greatest pain, even with the woman’s help. A broken arm would make him worthless with a bow — for the second time in his life. He searched for something to distract him. ‘Do you know Cynog’s folk?’ Owen asked.

‘I am Cynog’s mother,’ the woman said softly. ‘God bless you for caring how my son died.’

‘He was a good and gifted man.’

She traced a long scar on Owen’s shoulder. ‘By your scars I see this is not the worst wound you have suffered.’

After so long without a woman Owen found her touch disturbing. ‘What of my arm? Is it broken?’

She ran her hands down his upper arm, pressing here and there, moving it slightly. ‘It is swollen, but I feel no bones out of place.’ Her face was lit from below by the fire, shadowed from above by the white cloth wrapped round her hair. Owen saw no lines — a smooth, pleasant face. She did not look old enough to be Cynog’s mother. She put his soiled clothes aside, brought a lamp closer to examine his wounds. ‘Not deep.’ She felt along his arm once more. ‘To have your arm twisted in the wrong way can be as painful as a break, I know. I shall clean the wounds, wrap them in cloth, then tie the arm against you to keep it still. That will help the healing.’ She rocked back on her heels, rose, rummaged in a large chest by the bed.

‘Iolo sleeps?’ Owen asked when she returned with strips of cloth.

‘He does.’ She was quiet a moment, soaking one of the cloths in water. ‘Iolo,’ she said as she smeared an oily unguent on another cloth. ‘And how are you called?’

‘Owen.’

‘I am Enid. My husband is Math. I am sorry, but you must lift your arm so I might clean the wound in your side.’

Owen held his breath as he tried lifting his arm sideways. He could not hold it there. Enid dragged over the one chair with a back and helped him raise his arm to rest on it. Her touch was gentle.

‘How did you know my son?’

‘Cynog was making a tomb for my wife’s father. For St David’s.’

Enid smiled sadly. ‘My son had spoken of it. Very proud, he was, to carve the tomb of a man blessed with a vision from St Non. Did he complete it?’

‘No.’

Enid said nothing for a while, her breathing uneven, as if she wept.

Were it not for his wounds, Owen would have drawn her into his arms. God watched over him. He would not insult this gentle woman so, and in her husband’s house. And where was the husband? Owen could not tell the time of day in the dark, smoky farmhouse. ‘How long did I sleep?’

‘Not long. I wrapped Iolo’s ankle, gave him a drink to ease the pain. Hold this to the wound.’ Owen held the cloth with unguent to his wound while Enid secured it with a long strip round his waist. ‘It is fortunate you are slender.’ She tucked in the end. She helped him lower his arm; pushed the chair away. They said little to one another while she cleaned and bandaged the arm, then bound it to his side. When all was done, she helped him into a rough wool shirt. ‘I must wash yours.’

‘I pray you, I can do that when I return to St David’s.’

‘Do you have horses?’

‘We did. Our attackers led them off.’

‘Then your shirt will be ruined if not washed long before you return to St David’s. It will be a time before your friend can walk so far.’

‘I have friends in the city who know I should be back by midday tomorrow. They will come for us.’

‘Unless your attackers lie in wait for them, too.’

Owen had thought of that.

Enid had moved to the fire, where she stirred something in a large pot. Owen, smelling herbs and pottage, realised he was hungry.

‘Did you know the men who fell upon you in the forest?’ she asked.

‘No.’

A man entered the house, white-haired, deep lines round his mouth and eyes. ‘Math, my husband,’ Enid said.

Math brought the chair over to Owen, sat down with a weary sigh. ‘What had Cynog done, that someone should hang him and try to kill his friend?’ He looked much older than his wife, certainly old enough to be Cynog’s father, and his eyes were much the same as his son’s.

‘Do not weary him,’ Enid said.

‘I came here with the hope that you could name his enemies,’ said Owen.

Math shook his head. ‘We knew of none. We were so pleased when he apprenticed in St David’s. Our only son, so near to us. Now I wish he had gone away. Better alive and far away …’ He bowed his head over his folded hands, which were knotted and swollen. ‘To be hanged — it is a dishonourable way to die. As if he were a criminal. My son was an honest man, a man of peace.’

Owen let the silence linger a while. ‘Did he come here often?’

‘I do not know what is often,’ Math said in the voice of one who is weary of thinking.

‘For a time he had come monthly,’ Enid said. ‘I thought I had Glynis to thank, a woman’s counselling. But even after she tore his heart from him he came every month, the day after the full moon.’

‘She did not deserve him,’ Math said.

‘He was killed two nights before a visit,’ Enid said softly.

‘I am sorry to ask you to remember all this,’ Owen said.

Math bent down to scratch the dog, who had settled at his feet. ‘It is not as if we ever cease thinking of our son, Captain Archer.’

Owen felt chastised, though he understood it had been kindly meant. ‘Why did Cynog come after the full moon?’

Enid shook her head. ‘We never spoke of it.’

‘Did he ever bring Glynis with him? Or anyone?’

‘Glynis.’ Enid hissed the name. ‘We never met her. Nor any of his friends. Do you believe someone killed him to prevent his coming here?’

‘You speak nonsense.’ Math rubbed the swollen joints of his right hand. ‘Why would someone care about a mason seeing his parents?’

‘Do you believe it had to do with his visits?’ Owen asked Enid.

‘I believe it has to do with that man folk call the redeemer,’ she said.

‘Wife!’

‘Owain Lawgoch? Cynog spoke of him?’

‘There was a time when he did.’ Enid ignored her husband’s scowl. ‘But of late he had talked only of his work. And how Glynis had betrayed him. He loved her with all his soul.’ She looked away, choking on her words.

‘He felt too much, that lad,’ Math said. ‘When I drowned the billy goats he would not speak to me for days.’ He shook his head, remembering. ‘Passion. Reckless passion. That is what he felt for that woman.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It is how he spoke of her.’ Math faced Owen with his tired eyes. ‘“I cannot live without her,” he said. It is sinful to think such things.’

The journey might be the key. Something done, someone met along the way, in the bright moonlight? ‘When the weather turned to rain, no moon to be seen, did he still come?’

‘He did,’ said Enid.

‘And had no trouble in the wood? Never arrived injured?’ Owen asked.

‘Why should anyone wait for wayfarers near our farm?’ Math shook his head. ‘Few people come this way.’

‘Then what were three armed men doing in the wood today?’

‘They must have followed you and Iolo,’ said Enid. ‘Come now, you must eat something and then rest.’

The small sturdy dog who fancied herself a guard lay beside Owen with her short legs curled up, enjoying the warmth from the ash-covered fire. Enid and Math lay on pallets across from Owen. Iolo still slept in the boxed bed in the far corner. Rain tapped softly on the roof and dripped in jarring rhythms from two unseen spots overhead. The pale light from the chinks in the door suggested daybreak. Pain consumed Owen. His wounds were only the visible injuries. The bruises had gradually made themselves known. Deep aches that made every move an unpleasant reminder of the ambush. That he could still drowse was a tribute to how exhausted he had been even before this latest misadventure. Owen was drifting back to sleep when the dog lifted her head, ears pricked, eyes on the door, and began to growl.