Ellis Peters - Dead Man's Ransom

“I do remember now,” said Cadfael, enlightened. “There were two young fellows came to sell their fleeces that time, and drank too deep and got into a brawl, and one of the gate-keepers on the bridge was killed. Prestcote hanged them for it. I did hear tell at the time the one had a half-brother this side the border.”

“Griffri ap Griffri, that was the young man’s name. Anion had got to know him, the times he came into town, they were on good terms.

He was away among the sheep in the north when it happened or he might well have got his brother to bed without mischief. A good worker and honest, Anion, but a surly fellow and silent, and never forgets a benefit nor an injury.” Cadfael sighed, having seen in his time a long line of decent men wiped out in alternate savageries as the result of just such a death. The blood-feud could be a sacred duty in Wales.

“Ah, well, it’s to be hoped the English half of him can temper his memories. That must be two years ago now. No man can bear a grudge for ever.”

In the narrow, stone-cold chapel of the castle by the meagre light of the altar lamp, Elis waited in the gloom of the early evening, huddled into his cloak in the darkest corner, biting frost without and gnawing fire within. It was a safe place for two to meet who could otherwise never be alone together. The sheriff’s chaplain was devout, but within limits, and preferred the warmth of the hall and the comforts of the table, once Vespers was disposed of, to this cold and draughty place.

Melicent’s step on the threshold was barely audible, but Elis caught it, and turned eagerly to draw her in by both hands, and swing the heavy door closed to shut out the rest of the world.

“You’ve heard?” she said, hasty and low. “They’ve found him, they’re bringing him back. Owain Gwynedd has promised it…”

“I know!” said Elis, and drew her close, folding the cloak about them both, as much to assert their unity as to shield her from the chill and the trespassing wind. For all that, he felt her slipping away like a wraith of mist out of his hold. “I’m glad you’ll have your father back safely.” But he could not sound glad, no matter how manfully he lied. “We knew it must be so if he lived…” His voice baulked there, trying not to sound as if he wished her father dead, one obstacle out of the way from between them, and himself still a prisoner, unransomed. Her prisoner, for as long as might be, long enough to work the needful miracle, break one tie and make another possible, which looked all too far out of reach now.

“When he comes back,” she said, her cold brow against his cheek, “then you will have to go. How shall we bear it!”

“Don’t I know it! I think of nothing else. It will all be vain, and I shall never see you again. I won’t, I can’t accept that. There must be a way…”

“If you go,” she said, “I shall die.”

“But I must go, we both know it. How else can I even do this one thing for you, to buy your father back?” But neither could he bear the pain of it. If he let her go now he was for ever lost, there would be no other to take her place. The little dark creature in Wales, so faded from his mind he could hardly recall her face, she was nothing, she had no claim on him. Rather a hermit’s life, if he could not have Melicent. “Do you not want him back?”

“Yes!” she said vehemently, torn and shivering, and at once took it back again: “No! Not if I must lose you! Oh, God, do I know what I want? I want both you and him—but you most! I do love my father, but as a father. I must love him, love is due between us, but… Oh, Elis, I hardly know him, he never came near enough to be loved. Always duty and affairs taking him away, and my mother and I lonely, and then my mother dead… He was never unkind, always careful of me, but always a long way off. It is a kind of love, but not like this… not as I love you! It’s no fair exchange…” She did not say: “Now if he had died…” but it was there stark at the back of her mind, horrifying her. If they had failed to find him, or found him dead, she would have wept for him, yes, but her stepmother would not have cared too much where she chose to marry. What would have mattered most to Sybilla was that her son should inherit all, and her husband’s daughter be content with a modest dowry. And so she would have been content, yes, with none.

“But it must not be an end!” vowed Elis fiercely. “Why should we submit to it? I won’t give you up, I can’t, I won’t part from you.”

“Oh, foolish!” she said, her tears gushing against his cheek, “The escort that brings him home will take you away. There’s a bargain struck, and no choice but to keep it. You must go, and I must stay, and that will be the end. Oh, if he need never reach here…” Her own voice uttering such things terrified her, she buried her lips in the hollow of his shoulder to smother the unforgivable words.

“No, but listen to me, my heart, my dear! Why should I not go to him and offer for you? Why should he not give me fair hearing? I’m born princely, I have lands, I’m his equal, why should he refuse to let me have you? I can endow you well, and there’s no man could ever love you more.” He had never told her, as he had so light-heartedly told Brother Cadfael, of the girl in Wales, betrothed to him from childhood. But that agreement had been made over their heads, by consent of others, and with patience and goodwill it could be honourably dissolved by the consent of all. Such a reversal might be a rarity in Gwynedd, but it was not unheard of. He had done no wrong to Cristina, it was not too late to withdraw.

“Sweet fool innocent!” she said, between laughter and rage. “You do not know him! Every manor he holds is a border manor, he has had to sweat and fight for them many a time. Can you not see that after the empress, his enemy is Wales? And he as good a hater as ever was born! He would as soon marry his daughter to a blind leper in St Giles as to a Welshman, if he were the prince of Gwynedd himself. Never go near him, you will but harden him, and he’ll rend you. Oh, trust me, there’s no hope there.”

“Yet I will not let you go,” vowed Elis into the cloud of her pale hair, that stirred and stroked against his face with a life of its own, in nervous, feathery caresses. “Somehow, somehow, I swear I’ll keep you, no matter what I must do to hold you, no matter how many I must fight to clear the way to you. I’ll kill whoever comes between us, my love, my dear…”

“Oh, hush!” she said. “Don’t talk so. That’s not for you. There must, there must be some way for us…” But she could see none. They were caught in an inexorable process that would bring Gilbert Prestcote home, and sweep Elis ap Cynan away.

“We have still a little time,” she whispered, taking heart as best she could. “They said he is not well, he had wounds barely healed. They’ll be a week or two yet.”

“And you’ll still come? You will come? Every day? How should I bear it if I could no longer see you?”

“I’ll come,” she said, “these moments are my life, too. Who knows, something may yet happen to save us.”

“Oh, God, if we could but stop time! If we could hold back the days, make him take for ever on the journey, and never, never reach Shrewsbury!”

It was ten days before the next word came from Owain Gwynedd. A runner came in on foot, armed with due authorisation from Einon ab Ithel, who ranked second only to Owain’s own penteulu, the captain of his personal guard. The messenger was brought to Hugh in the castle guardroom early in the afternoon; a border man, with some business dealings into England, and well acquainted with the language.

“My lord, I bring greetings from Owain Gwynedd through the mouth of his captain, Einon ab Ithel. I am to tell you that the party lies tonight at Montford, and tomorrow we shall bring you our charge, the lord Gilbert Prestcote. But there is more. The lord Gilbert is still very weak from his wounds and hardships, and for most of the way we have carried him in a litter. All went well enough until this morning, when we had hoped to reach the town and discharge our task in one day. Because of that, the lord Gilbert would ride the last miles, and not be carried like a sick man into his own town.” The Welsh would understand and approve that, and not presume to deter him. A man’s face is half his armour, and Prestcote would venture any discomfort or danger to enter Shrewsbury erect in the saddle, a man master of himself even in captivity.