Ellis Peters - Dead Man's Ransom

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.

“I take your service very kindly,” said Cadfael, “and thank you for it. And you, I think, must be Cristina, Tudur’s daughter. And if you are, then I have word for you and for Owain Gwynedd that should be heartily welcome to you both.”

“I am Cristina,” she said, burning into bright animation, “but how did a brother of Shrewsbury learn my name?”

“From a young man by the name of Elis ap Cynan, whom you may have been mourning for lost, but who is safe and well in Shrewsbury castle this moment. What may you have heard of him, since the prince’s brother brought his muster and his booty home again from Lincoln?”

Her alert composure did not quiver, but her eyes widened and glowed. They told my father he was left behind with some that drowned near the border,” she said, “but none of them knew how he had fared. Is it true? He is alive? And prisoner?”

“You may be easy,” said Cadfael, “for so he is, none the worse for the battle or the brook, and can be bought free very simply, to come back to you and make you, I hope, a good husband.” You may cast your bait, he told himself watching her face, which was at once eloquent and unreadable, as though she even thought in a strange language, but you’ll catch no fish here. This one has her own secrets, and her own way of taking events into her hands. What she wills to keep to herself you’re never like to get out of her. And she looked him full in the eyes and said: “Eliud will be glad. Did he speak of him, too?” But she knew the answer.

A certain Eliud was mentioned,” Cadfael admitted cautiously, feeling shaky ground under them. A cousin, I gathered, but brought up like brothers.”

“Closer than brothers,” said the girl. Am I permitted to tell him this news? Or should it wait until you have supped with my father and told him your errand?”

“Eliud is here?”

“Not here at this moment, but with the prince, somewhere north along the border. They’ll come with the evening. They are lodged here, and Owain’s companies are encamped close by.”

“Good, for my errand is to the prince, and it concerns the exchange of Elis ap Cynan for one of comparable value to us, taken, as we believe, by Prince Cadwaladr at Lincoln. If that is as good news to Eliud as it is to you, it would be a Christian act to set his mind at rest for his cousin as soon as may be.”

She kept her face bright, mute and still as she said: “I will tell him as soon as he alights. It would be great pity to see such a comradely love blighted a moment longer than it need be.” But there was acid in the sweet, and her eyes burned. She made her courteous obeisance, and left him to his ablutions before the evening meal. He watched her go, and her head was high and her step fierce but soundless, like a hunting cat.

So that was how it went, here in this corner of Wales! A girl betrothed, and with a girl’s sharp eye on her rights and privileges, while the boy went about whistling and obtuse, child to her woman, and had his arm about another youth’s neck, sworn pair from infancy, oftener than he even paid a compliment to his affianced wife. And she resented with all her considerable powers of mind and heart the love that made her only a third, and barely half-welcome.

Nothing here for her to mourn, if she could but know it. A maid is a woman far before a boy is a man, leaving aside the simple maturity of arms. All she need do was wait a little, and use her own arts, and she would no longer be the neglected third. But she was proud and fierce and not minded to wait.

Cadfael made himself presentable, and went to the lavish but simple table of Tudur ap Rhys. In the dusk torches flared at the hall door and up the valley from the north, from the direction of Llansantffraid, came a brisk bustle of horsemen back from their patrol. Within the hall the tables were spread and the central fire burned bright, sending up fragrant wood, smoke into the blackened roof, as Owain Gwynedd, lord of North Wales and much country beside, came content and hungry to his place at the high table.

Cadfael had seen him once before, a few years past, and he was not a man to be easily forgotten, for all he made very little ado about state and ceremony, barring the obvious royalty he bore about in his own person. He was barely thirty-seven years old, in his vigorous prime; very tall for a Welshman, and fair, after his grandmother Ragnhild of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, and his mother Angharad, known for her flaxen hair among the dark women of the south. His young men, reflecting his solid self, confidence, did it with a swagger of which their prince had no need. Cadfael wondered which of all these boisterous boys was Eliud ap Griffith, and whether Cristina had yet told him of his cousin’s survival, and in what terms, and with what jealous bitterness at being still a barely regarded hanger-on in this sworn union.

“And here is Brother Cadfael of the Shrewsbury Benedictines,” said Tudur heartily, placing Cadfael close at the high table, “with an embassage to you, my lord, from that town and shire.” Owain weighed and measured the stocky figure and weathered countenance with a shrewd blue gaze, and stroked his close, trimmed golden beard. “Brother Cadfael is welcome, and so is any motion of amity from that quarter, where I can do with an assured peace.”

“Some of your countrymen and mine,” said Cadfael bluntly, “paid a visit recently to Shropshire’s borders with very little amity in mind, and left our peace a good deal less assured, even, than it could be said to be after Lincoln. You may have heard of it. Your princely brother did not come raiding himself, it may even be that he never sanctioned the frolic. But he left a few drowned men in one of our brooks in flood whom we have buried decently. And one,” he said, “whom the good sisters took out of the water living, and whom your lordship may wish to redeem, for by his own tale he’s of your kinship.”

“Do you tell me!” The blue eyes had widened and brightened. “I have not been so busy about fencing out the earl of Chester that I have failed to go into matters with my brother. There was more than one such frolic on the way home from Lincoln, and every one a folly that will cost me some pains to repair. Give your prisoner a name.”

“His name,” said Cadfael, “is Elis ap Cynan.”

“Ah!” said Owain on a long, satisfied breath, and set down his cup ringing on the board. “So the fool boy’s alive yet to tell the tale, is he? I’m glad indeed to hear it, and thank God for the deliverance and you, brother, for the news. There was not a man of my brother’s company could swear to how he was lost or what befell him.”

“They were running too fast to look over their shoulders,” said Cadfael mildly.

“From a man of our own blood,” said Owain grinning, “I’ll take that as it’s meant. So Elis is live and prisoner! Has he come to much harm?”