Ellis Peters - Dead Man's Ransom

In the pallid first light before dawn Eliud stirred and quivered, and his eyelids began to flutter stressfully as though he laboured hard to open them and confront the day, but had not yet the strength. Cadfael drew his stool close, leaning to wipe the seamed brow and working lips, and having an eye to the ewer he had ready to hand for when the tormented body needed it. But that was not the unease that quickened Eliud now, rousing out of his night’s respite. His eyes opened wide, staring into the wooden roof of the cell and beyond, and shortened their range only when Cadfael leaned down to him braced to speak, seeing desperate intelligence in the hazel stare, and having something ripe within him that must inevitably be said.

He never needed to say it. It was taken out of his mouth.

“I have got my death,” said the thread of a voice that issued from Eliud’s dry lips, “get me a priest. I have sinned—I must deliver all those others who suffer doubt…” Not his own deliverance, not that first, only the deliverance of all who laboured under the same suspicion.

Cadfael stooped closer. The gold, green eyes were straining too far, they had not recognised him. They did so now and lingered, wondering. “You are the brother who came to Tregeiriog. Welsh?” Something like a sorrowful smile mellowed the desperation of his face. “I do remember. It was you brought word of him… Brother, I have my death in my mouth, whether he take me now of this grief or leave me for worse… A debt… I pledged it…” He essayed, briefly, to raise his right hand, being strongly right, handed, and gave up the attempt with a whining intake of breath at the pain it cost him and shifted, pitiless, to the left, feeling at his neck where the coiled rope should have been. Cadfael laid a hand to the lifted wrist, and eased it back into the covers of the bed.

“Hush, lie still! I am here to command, there’s no haste. Rest, take thought, ask of me what you will, bid me whatever you will. I’m here, I shan’t leave you.” He was believed. The slight body under the brychans seemed to sink and slacken in one great sigh. There was a small silence. The hazel eyes hung upon him with a great weight of trust and sorrow, but without fear. Cadfael offered a drop of wine laced with honey, but the braced head turned aside. “I want confession,” said Eliud faintly but clearly, “of my mortal sin. Hear me!”

“I am no priest,” said Cadfael. “Wait, he shall be brought to you.”

“I cannot wait. Do I know my time? If I live,” he said simply, “I will tell it again and again—as long as there’s need—I am done with all conceal.” They had neither of them observed the door of the cell slowly opening, it was done so softly and shyly, by one troubled with dawn voices, but as hesitant to disturb those who might wish to be private as unwilling to neglect those who might be in need. In her own as yet unreasoned and unquestioned happiness Melicent moved as one led by angelic inspiration, exalted and humbled, requiring to serve. Her bloodied habit was shed, she had a plain woollen gown on her. She hung in the half-open doorway, afraid to advance or withdraw, frozen into stillness and silence because the voice from the bed was so urgent and uncomforted.

“I have killed,” said Eliud clearly. “God knows I am sorry! I had ridden with him, cared for him, watched him founder and urged his rest… And if ever he came home alive, then Elis was free… to go back to Cristina, to marry…” A great shudder went through him head to foot, and fetched a moan of pain out of him. “Cristina… I loved her always… from when we were children, but I did not, I did not speak of it, never, never… She was promised to him before ever I knew her, in her cradle. How could I touch, how could I covet what was his?”

“She also loved,” said Cadfael, nursing him along the way. “She let you know of it…”

“I would not hear, I dared not, I had no right… And all the while she was so dear, I could not bear it. And when they came back without Elis, and we thought him lost… Oh, God, can you conceive such trouble as was mine, half-praying for his safe return, half wishing him dead, for all I loved him, so that at last I might speak out without dishonour, and ask for my love… And then—you know it, it was you brought word… and I was sent here, my mouth stopped just when it was so full of words… And all that way I thought, I could not stop thinking, the old man is so sick, so frail, if he dies there’ll be none to exchange for Elis… If he dies I can return and Elis must stay… Even a little time and I could still speak… All I needed was a little time, now I was resolved. And that last day when he foundered… I did all I could, I kept him man alive, and all the time, all the time it was clamouring in me, let him die! I did not do it, we brought him still living…” He lay still for a minute to draw breath, and Cadfael wiped the corners of the lips that laboured against exhaustion to heave the worst burden from heart and conscience. “Rest a little. You try yourself too hard.”

“No, let me end it. Elis… I loved him, but I loved Cristina more. And he would have wed her, and been content, but she… He did not know the burning we knew. He knows it now. I never willed it… it was not planned, what I did. All I did was to remember the lord Einon’s cloak and I went, just as I was, to fetch it. I had his saddle, cloth on my arm, “ He closed his eyes against what he remembered all too clearly, and tears welled out from under the braised lids and ran down on either cheek. “He was so still, hardly breathing at all—so like death. And in an hour Elis would have been on his way home and I left behind in his place. So short a step to go! I did the thing I wish to God I had cut off my hands rather than do, I held the saddle, cloth over his face. There has not been a waking moment since when I have not wished it undone,” whispered Eliud, “but to undo is not so easy as to do. As soon as I understood my own evil I snatched my hands away, but he was gone. And I was cowardly afraid and left the cloak lying, for if I’d taken it, it would have been known I’d been there. And that was the quiet hour and no one saw me, going or coming.” Again he waited, gathering strength with a terrible, earnest patience to continue to the end. “And all for nothing—for nothing! I made myself a murderer for nothing. For Elis came and told me how he loved the lord Gilbert’s daughter and willed to be released from his bond with Cristina, as bitterly as she willed it, and I also. And he would go to make himself known to her father… I tried to stop him… I needed someone to go there and find my dead man, and cry it aloud, but not Elis, oh, not Elis! But he would go. And even then they still thought the lord Gilbert alive, only sleeping. So I had to fetch the cloak, if no one else would cry him dead—but not alone… a witness, to make the discovery. I still thought Elis would be held and I should go home. He longed to stay and I to go… This knot some devil tied,” sighed Eliud, “and only I have deserved it. All they three suffer because of me. And you, brother, I did foully by you…”

“In choosing me to be your witness?” said Cadfael gently. “And you had to knock over the stool to make me look closely enough, even then. Your devil still had you by the hand, for if you had chosen another there might never have been the cry of murder that kept you both prisoners.”

“It was my angel, then, no devil. For I am glad to be rid of all lies and known for what I am. I would never have let it fall on Elis—nor on any other man. But I am human and fearful,” he said inflexibly, “and I hoped to go free. Now that is solved. One way or another, I shall give a life for a life. I would not have let Elis bear it… Tell her so!” There was no need, she already knew. But the head of the cot was towards the door, and Eliud had seen nothing but the rough vault of the cell, and Cadfael’s stooping face. The lamp had not wavered, and did not waver now, as Melicent withdrew from the threshold very softly and carefully, drawing the door to by inches after her.