Ellis Peters - Brother Cadfael's Penance

“Not in all cases, my lord. I think,” said Yves clearly, “that some are held not for gain but for hate, in personal revenge for some real or imagined offence. There are many private feuds bred out of faction.”

The king shifted in his chair impatiently, and repeated loudly: “With private feuds we are not concerned. This is irrelevant here. What is one man’s fate beside the fate of the realm?”

“Every man’s fate is the fate of the realm,” cried Yves boldly. “If injustice is done to one, it is one too many. The injury is to all, and the whole realm suffers.”

Over the growing hubbub of many voices busily crying one another down, the bishop raised authoritative hands. “Silence! Whether this is the time and place or no, this young man speaks truth. A fair law should apply to all.” And to Yves, standing his ground apprehensive but determined: “You have, I think, a particular case in mind. One of those made prisoner after Faringdon fell.”

“Yes, my lord. And held in secret. No ransom has been asked, nor do his friends, or my uncle, his lord, know where to enquire for his price. If his Grace would but tell me who holds him…”

“I did not parcel out my prisoners under my own seal,” blared the king, growing louder and more restive, but as much because he wanted his dinner, Cadfael judged, as because he had any real interest in what was delaying him. It was characteristic of him that, having gained a large number of valuable prizes, he should throw the lot of them to his acquisitive supporters and walk away from the bargaining, leaving them to bicker over the distribution of the booty. “I knew few of them, and remember no names. I left them to my castellan to hand out fairly.”

Yves took that up eagerly, before the point could be lost. “Your Grace, your castellan of Faringdon is here present. Be so generous as to let him give me an answer.” And he launched the question before it could be forbidden. “Where is Olivier de Bretagne, and in whose keeping?”

He had kept his voice deliberate and cool, but he hurled the name like a lance for all that, and not at the king, but clean across the open space that divided the factions, into the face of de Soulis. Stephen’s tolerance he needed if he was to get an answer. Stephen could command where no one else could do more than request.

And Stephen’s patience was wearing thin, not so much with the persistent squire as with the whole process of this overlong session.

“It is a reasonable request,” said the bishop, with the sharp edge still on his voice.

“In the name of God,” agreed the king explosively, “tell the fellow what he wants to know, and let us be done with the matter.”

The voice of de Soulis rose in smooth and prompt obedience, from among the king’s unseen minor ranks, well out of Cadfael’s sight, and so modestly retired from prominence that it sounded distant. “Your Grace, I would willingly, if I knew the answer. At Faringdon I made no claim for myself, but withdrew from the council and left it to the knights of the garrison. Those of them who returned to your Grace’s allegiance, of course,” he said with acid sweetness. “I never enquired as to their decisions, and apart from such as have already been offered for ransom and duly redeemed, I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of any. The clerks may have drawn up a list. If so, I have never asked to see it.”

Long before he ended, the deliberate sting against those of the Faringdon garrison who had remained true to their salt had already raised an ominous growl of rage among the empress’s followers, and a ripple of movement along the ranks, that suggested swords might have been half out of scabbards if they had not been forbidden within the hall. Yves’ raised voice striking back in controlled but passionate anger roused a counter roar from the king’s adherents. “He lies, your Grace! He was there every moment, he ordered all. He lies in his teeth!”

Another moment, and there would have been battle, even without weapons, barring the common man’s weapons of fists, feet and teeth. But the Bishop of Winchester had risen in indignant majesty to second Roger de Clinton’s thunderous demand for order and silence, king and empress were both on their feet and flashing menacing lightnings, and the mounting hubbub subsided gradually, though the acrid smell of anger and hatred lingered in the quivering air.

“Let us adjourn this session,” said Bishop de Clinton grimly, when the silence and stillness had held good for uneasy and shaming minutes, “without further hot words that have no place here. We will meet again after noon, and I charge you all that you come in better and more Christian condition, and further, that after that meeting, whatever it brings, you who truly mean in the heart what your mouths have uttered, that you seek peace here, shall attend at Vespers, unarmed, in goodwill to all, in enmity towards none, to pray for that peace.”

“HE IS LYING,” repeated Yves, still flushed and scowling over the priory’s frugal board, but eating like a hungry boy nevertheless. “He never left that council for a moment. Can you conceive of him forgoing any prize for himself, or being content with less than the best? He knows very well who has Olivier in hold. But if Stephen cannot force him to speak out, or will not!, how can any other man get at him?”

“Even a liar,” reflected Hugh judicially, “for I grant you he probably is that!, may tell truth now and again. For I tell you this, there seem to be very few, if any, who do know what happened to Olivier. I’ve been probing where I could, but with no success, and I daresay Cadfael has been keeping his ears open among the brothers. Better, I do believe the bishop will be making his own enquiries, having heard what he heard from you this morning.”

“If I were you,” said Cadfael, profoundly pondering, “I would keep the matter out of the chapter-house. It’s certain king and empress will have to declare themselves, and neither will relish being pestered to go straying after the fate of one squire, when their own fortunes are in the balance. Go round about, if there are any others here who were in Faringdon. And I will speak to the prior. Even monastic ears can pick up whatever rumours are passed around, as fast as any, and all the better for being silent themselves.”

But Yves remained blackly brooding, and would not be deflected. “De Soulis knows, and I will have it out with him, if I must carve it out of his treacherous heart. Oh, say no word!” he said, waving away whatever Cadfael might have had on the tip of his tongue. “I know I am hobbled within here, I cannot touch him.”

Now why, thought Cadfael, should he state the obvious with so much lingering emphasis, yet so quietly, as if to remind himself rather than reassure anyone else. And why should his normally wide-eyed, candid gaze turn dubiously inward, looking back, very wearily, on something imperfectly understood and infinitely disquieting?

“But both he and I will have to leave the pale of the Church soon,” said Yves, shaking himself abruptly out of his brooding, “and then nothing hinders but I should meet him in arms, and have the truth out of his flesh.”

Brother Cadfael went out through the crowds in the great court, and made his way into the priory church. The grandees would not yet have left their high table to resume discussions so little likely to produce profitable results; he had time to retire into some quiet corner and put the world away from him for a while. But quiet corners were few, even in the church. Numbers of the lesser partisans had also found it convenient to gather where they could confer without being overheard, and had their heads together in the shelter of altars and in the carrels of the cloister. Visiting clergy were parading nave and choir and studying the dressing of the altars, and a few of the brothers, returning to their duties after the half-hour of rest, threaded their way silently among the strangers.