"You're out of luck, brother, for the present while. Hugh Beringar is not here, and likely won't be till the light fails, for he's off on some search down the river with Madog of the Dead-boat." That was news that heartened Cadfael as suddenly as the news of Hugh's absence had disheartened and dismayed him. He might have done better, after all, to leave the vial with Brother Mark, who could have paid a second visit after the first one had missed its mark. Of all but Beringar here, Cadfael had his doubts, but now he was caught in a situation he should have foreseen. Hugh had lost no time in setting the hunt in motion after Edwin's reliquary, and better still, was pursuing it himself instead of leaving it to underlings. But long delay here to wait for him was impossible; Brother Barnabas lay ill, and Cadfael had undertaken to go and care for him, and the sooner he reached him the better. He pondered whether to entrust his precious evidence to another, or keep it until he could deliver it to Beringar in person. Edwin, after all, was somewhere at liberty yet, no immediate ill could befall him.

"If it's the matter of the poisoning you're here about," said the guard helpfully, "speak a word to the sergeant who's left in charge here. I hear there's been strange goings-on down at the abbey. You'll be glad when you're left in quiet again, and the rascal taken. Step in, brother, and I'll tether your mule and send to let William Warden know you're here."

Well, no harm, at any rate, in taking a look at the law's surrogate and judging accordingly. Cadfael waited in a stony anteroom within the gatehouse, and let the object of his visit lie hidden in his scrip until he made up his mind. But the first glimpse of the sergeant as he entered rendered it virtually certain that the vial would remain in hiding. The same officer who had first answered the prior's summons to Bonel's house, bearded, brawny, hawk-beaked, self-a.s.sured and impatient of caution once his nose had found an obvious trail. He knew Cadfael again just as promptly; large white teeth flashed in a scornful grin in the bushy beard.

"You again, brother? And still finding a dozen reasons why young Gurney must be blameless, when all that's wanting is a witness who stood by and watched him do the deed? Come to throw some more dust in our eyes, I suppose, while the guilty make off into Wales?"

"I came," said Brother Cadfael, not strictly truthfully, "to enquire whether anything had yet come to light, concerning what I reported to Hugh Beringar yesterday."

"Nothing has and nothing will. So it was you who set him off on this fool's errand down the river! I might have guessed it! A glib young rogue tells you a tall tale like that, and you swallow it, and infect your betters into the bargain! Wasteful nonsense! To spare men to row up and down Severn in the cold, after a reliquary that never was! You have much to answer for, brother."

"No doubt I have," agreed Cadfael equably. "So have we all, even you. But to exert himself for truth and justice is Beringar's duty, and so it is yours and mine, and I do it as best I may, and forbear from s.n.a.t.c.hing at what offers first and easiest, and shutting my eyes to everything else in order to be rid of the labour, and at ease again. Well, it seems I've troubled you for nothing. But let Hugh Beringar know that I was here asking for him."

He eyed the sergeant closely at that, and doubted whether even that message would be delivered. No, grave evidence that pointed the wrong way could not be left with this man, who was so sure of his rightness he might bend even circ.u.mstances and facts to match his opinions. No help for it, the vial would have to go on to Rhydycroesau and wait its time, when Brother Barnabas was restored, and back among his sheep.

"You mean well, brother," said William generously, "but you are far out of your cloister in matters like these. Best leave them to those who have experience."

Cadfael took his leave without further protest, mounted his mule, and rode back through the town to the foot of the hill, where the street turning off to the right led him to the westward bridge. At least nothing was lost, and Beringar was following up the lead he had given. It was time now to keep his mind on the journey before him, and put aside the affairs of Richildis and her son until he had done his best for Brother Barnabas.

The road from Shrewsbury to Oswestry was one of the main highroads of the region, and fairly well maintained. The old people, the Romans, had laid it long ago when they ruled in Britain, and the same road ran south-eastward right to the city of London, where King Stephen was now preparing to keep Christmas among his lords, and Cardinal-bishop Alberic of Ostia was busy holding his legatine council for the reform of the church, to the probable discomfiture of Abbot Heribert. But here, riding in the opposite direction, the road ran straight and wide, only a little overgrown with gra.s.s here and there, and encroached upon by the wild verges, through fat farming country and woods to the town of Oswestry, a distance of no more than eighteen miles. Cadfael took it at a brisk but steady pace, to keep the mule content. Beyond the town it was but four miles to the sheepfolds. In the distance, as he rode due west in the dimming light, the hills of Wales rose blue and n.o.ble, the great rolling ridge of Berwyn melting into a faintly misted sky.

He came to the small, bare grange in a fold of the hills before dark. A low, solid wooden hut housed the brothers, and beyond lay the much larger byres and stables, where the sheep could be brought in from ice and snow, and beyond again, climbing the gentle slopes, the long, complex greystone walls of the field enclosures, where they grazed in this relatively mild beginning of winter, and were fed roots and grain if ever stubble and gra.s.s failed them. The hardiest were still out at liberty in the hills. Brother Simon's dog began to bark, p.r.i.c.king his ears to the neat hooves that hardly made a sound in the thin turf of the ride.

Cadfael lighted down at the door, and Simon came eagerly out to welcome him, a thin, wiry, dishevelled brother, some forty years old but still distrait as a child when anything went wrong with other than sheep. Sheep he knew as mothers know their babes, but Brother Barnabas's illness had utterly undone him. He clasped Cadfael's hands in his, and shook them and himself in his grat.i.tude at no longer being alone with his patient.

"He has it hard, Cadfael, you hear the leaves of his heart rustling as he breathes, like a man's feet in the woods in autumn. I cannot break it with a sweat, I've tried..."

"We'll try again," said Cadfael comfortably, and went into the dark, timber-scented hut before him. Within it was blessedly warm and dry; wood is the best of armours against weather, where there's small fear of fire, as in this solitude there was none. A bare minimum of furnishing, yet enough; and within, in the inner room, Brother Barnabas lay in his bed neither asleep nor awake, only uneasily in between, rustling at every breath as Simon had said, his forehead hot and dry, his eyes half-open and vacant. A big, ma.s.sive man, all muscle and bone, with reserves of fight in him that needed only a little guidance.

"You go look to whatever you should be doing," said Cadfael, unbuckling his scrip and opening it on the foot of the bed, "and leave him to me."

"Is there anything you will need?" asked Simon anxiously.

"A pan of water on the fire, out there, and a cloth, and a beaker ready, and that's all. If I want for more, I'll find it."

Blessedly, he was taken at his word; Brother Simon had a childlike faith in all who practised peculiar mysteries. Cadfael worked upon Brother Barnabas without haste all the evening, by a single candle that Simon brought as the light died. A hot stone wrapped in Welsh flannel for the sick man's feet, a long and vigorous rub for chest and throat and ribs, down to the waist, with an ointment of goose-grease impregnated with mustard and other heat-giving herbs, and chest and throat then swathed in a strip of the same flannel, cool cloths on the dry forehead, and a hot draught of wine mulled with spices and borage and other febrifuge herbs. The potion went down patiently and steadily, with eased breathing and relaxing sinews. The patient slept fitfully and uneasily; but in the middle of the night the sweat broke like a storm of rain, drenching the bed. The two attentive nurses lifted the patient, when the worst was past, drew the blanket from under him and laid a fresh one, rolled him close in another, and covered him warmly again.

"Go and sleep," said Cadfael, content, "for he does very well. By dawn he'll be wake and hungry."

In that he was out by some hours, for Brother Barnabas, once fallen into a deep and troubled sleep, slept until almost noon the following day, when he awoke clear-eyed and with quiet breathing, but weak as a new lamb.

"Never trouble for that," said Cadfael cheerfully. "Even if you were on your feet, we should hardly let you out of here for a couple of days, or longer. You have time in plenty, enjoy being idle. Two of us are enough to look after your flock for you."

Brother Barnabas, again at ease in his body, was content to take him at his word, and luxuriate in his convalescence. He ate, at first doubtfully, for savour had left him in his fever, then, rediscovering the pleasures of taste, his appet.i.te sharpened into fierce hunger.

"The best sign we could have," said Cadfael. "A man who eats heartily and with enjoyment is on his way back to health." And they left the patient to sleep again as thoroughly as he had eaten, and went out to the sheep, and the chickens and the cow, and all the rest of the denizens of the fold.

"An easy year so far," said Brother Simon, viewing his leggy, tough hill-sheep with satisfaction. Sheep as Welsh as Brother Cadfael gazed towards the southwest, where the long ridge of Berwyn rose in the distance; long, haughty, inscrutable faces, and sharp ears, and knowing yellow eyes that could outstare a saint. "Plenty of good grazing still, what with the gra.s.s growing so late, and the good pickings they had in the stubble after harvest. And we have beet-tops, they make good fodder, too. There'll be better fleeces than most years, when next they're shorn, unless the winter turns cruel later on."

From the crest of the hill above the walled folds Brother Cadfael gazed towards the south-west, where the long ridge dipped towards lower land, between the hills. "This manor of Mallilie will be somewhere in the sheltered land there, as I judge."

"It is. Three miles round by the easy track, the manor-house drawn back between the slopes, and the lands open to the south-east. Good land for these parts. And main glad I was to know we had a steward there, when I needed a messenger. Have you an errand there, brother?"

"There's something I must see to, when Brother Barnabas is safely on the way to health again, and I can be spared." He turned and looked back towards the east. "Even here we must be a good mile or more the Welsh side of the old boundary d.y.k.e. I never was here before, not being a sheep man. I'm from Gwynedd myself, from the far side of Conwy. But even these hills look like home to me."

Gervase Bonel's manor must lie somewhat further advanced into Welsh land even than these high pastures. The Benedictines had very little hold in Wales. Welshmen preferred their own ancient Celtic Christianity, the solitary hermitage of the self-exiled saint and the homely little college of Celtic monks rather than the shrewd and vigorous foundations that looked to Rome. In the south, secular Norman adventurers had penetrated more deeply, but here Mallilie must, indeed, as Brother Rhys had said, be lodged like a single thorn deep in the flesh of Wales.

"It does not take long to ride to Mallilie," said Brother Simon, anxiously helpful. "Our horse here is elderly, but strong, and gets little enough work as a rule. I could very well manage now, if you want to go tomorrow."

"First let's see," said Cadfael, "how Brother Barnabas progresses by tomorrow."

Brother Barnabas progressed very well once he had the fever out of him. Before nightfall he was sick of lying in his bed, and insisted on rising and trying his enfeebled legs about the room. His own natural strength and stout heart were all he needed now to set him up again, though he swallowed tolerantly whatever medicines Cadfael pressed upon him, and consented to have his chest and throat anointed once again with the salve.

"No need to trouble yourself for me now," he said. "I shall be hale as a hound pup in no time. And if I can't take to the hills again for a day or two-though I very well could, if you would but let me!-I can see to the house here, and the hens and the cow, for that matter."

The next morning he rose to join them for Prime, and would not return to his bed, though when they both harried him he agreed to sit snugly by the fire, and exert himself no further than in baking bread and preparing dinner.

"Then I will go," said Cadfael, "if you can manage alone for the day, Simon. If I leave now I shall have the best of the daylight, and be back with you in time for the evening work."

Brother Simon went out with him to where the track branched, and gave him directions. After the hamlet of Croesau Bach he would come to a cross roads, and turn right, and from that point he would see how the hills were cleft ahead of him, and making straight for that cleft he would come to Mallilie, beyond which the track continued westward to Llansilin, the central seat of the commote of Cynllaith.

The morning was faintly misty, but with the sun bright through the mist, and the turf wet and sparkling with the hint of rime already melting. He had chosen to ride the horse from the grange rather than his mule, since the mule had had lengthy exercise on the way north, and was ent.i.tled to a rest. The horse was an ungainly bay, of homely appearance but amiable disposition and stout heart, willing and ready for work. It was pleasant to be riding here alone in a fine winter morning on cushioned turf, between hills that took him back to his youth, with no routine duties and no need for talk, beyond the occasional greeting for a woman splitting kindling in her yard, or a man moving sheep to a new pasture, and even that was a special pleasure because he found himself instinctively calling his good-day in Welsh. The holdings here were scattered and few until he came through Croesau into lower and richer ground, where the patterns of ordered tillage told him he was already entering Mallilie land. A brook sprang into life on his right hand, and accompanied him towards the cleft where the hill-slopes on either side drew close together. Within a mile it was a little river, providing level meadows on either bank, and the dark selions of ploughed land beyond. Trees clothed the upper slopes, the valley faced south-east into the morning sun; a good place, its tenant holdings sheltered and well found. Well into the defile, drawn back into a fold of the slope on his right, and half-circled with arms of woodland, he came to the manor-house.

A timber stockade surrounded it, ma.s.sive and high, but the house stood on rising ground, and showed tall above it. Built of local stone, granite grey, with a great long roof of slates, gleaming like fish-scales in the sun as the frost on them turned to dew. When he had crossed the river by a plank-bridge and ridden in at the open gate of the stockade, the whole length of the house lay before him, a tall stone stair leading up to the main door of the living floor at the left-hand end. At ground level three separate doors, wide enough to take in country carts, led into what was evidently a vaulted under-croft, with storage room enough for a siege. Judging by the windows in the gable end, there was yet another small room above the kitchen. The windows of hall and solar were stone-mullioned and generous. Round the inner side of the stockade there were ample outhouses, stables, mews and stores. Norman lordlings, promised heirs, Benedictine abbeys might well covet such a property. Richildis had indeed married out of her kind.

The servants here would be Bonel's servants, continuing their functions under a new rule. A groom came to take Cadfael's bridle, feeling no need to question one who arrived in a Benedictine habit. There were few people moving about the court, but those few a.s.sured in their pa.s.sage; and impressive though the house was, it could never have needed a very numerous body to run it. All local people, surely, and that meant Welsh people, like the serving-maid who had warmed her lord's bed and borne him a disregarded son. It happened! Bonel might even have been an attractive man then, and given her pleasure, as well as a child; and at least he had kept her thereafter, and the child with her, though as mere indulged dependents, not members of his family, not his kin. A man who did not take more than he felt to be legally his, but would not forgo any item of what fell within that net. A man who let an unclaimed villein holding go to a hungry younger son from a free family, on terms of customary service, and then, with the law firmly behind him, claimed that questionable tenant as villein by reason of the dues rendered between them, and his progeny as unfree by the same code.

In this disputed borderland of soil and law, Cadfael found his heart and mind utterly Welsh, but could not deny that the Englishman had just as pa.s.sionately held by his own law, and been sure that he was justified. He had not been an evil man, only a child of his time and place, and his death had been murder.

Properly speaking, Cadfael had no business at this house but to observe, as now he had observed. But he went in, nevertheless, up the outdoor stair and into the pa.s.sage screened off from the hail. A boy emerging from the kitchen louted to him and pa.s.sed, accepting him as one of the breed, who would know his way here. The hall was lofty and strongly beamed. Cadfael pa.s.sed through it to the solar. This must be where Bonel had intended to install the panelling commissioned from Martin Bellecote, the transaction which had first caused him to set eyes and heart on Richildis Gurney, who had once been Richildis Vaughan, daughter of an honest, unpretentious tradesman.

Martin had done good work, and fitted it into place here with skill and love. The solar was narrower than the hall, there being a garderobe off it, and a tiny chapel. It glowed and was scented with the polished and sparely carved oak panelling, the suave silvery grain glinting in the light from the wide window. Edwin had a good brother and a good master. He need not repine if he missed the illusory heritage.

"Your pardon, brother!" said a respectful voice at Cadfael's back. "No one told me there was a messenger here from Shrewsbury."

Cadfael turned, startled, to take a look at the abbey's steward here; a layman, a lawman, young enough to be deferential to his employers, mature enough to be in command of his own province.

"It's I who should ask your pardon," said Cadfael, "for walking in upon you without ceremony. Truth to tell, I have no errand here, but being in the neighbourhood I was curious to see our new manor."

"If it is indeed ours," said the steward ruefully, and looked about him with a shrewd eye, a.s.sessing what the abbey might well be losing. "It seems to be in doubt at the moment, though that makes no difference to my commission here, to maintain it in good order, however the lot falls in the end. The place has been run well and profitably. But if you are not sent to join us here, brother, where is your domicile? As long as we hold the manor, we can well offer you lodging, if it please you to stay."

"That I can't," said Cadfael. "I was sent from Shrewsbury to take care of an ailing brother, a shepherd at the folds by Rhydycroesau, and until he's restored I must take on his duties there."

"Your patient is mending, I trust?"

"So well that I thought I might use a few hours to come and see what manner of property may be slipping through our fingers here. But have you any immediate reason for feeling that our tenure may be threatened? More than the obvious difficulty of the charter not being sealed in time?"

The steward frowned, chewing a dubious lip. "The situation is strange enough, for if both the secular heir and the abbey lose their claim, the future of Mallilie is a very open question. The earl of Chester is the overlord, and may bestow it as he pleases, and in troublous times like these I doubt if he'll want to leave it in monastic hands. We could appeal to him, true, but not until Shrewsbury has an abbot again, with full powers. All we can do in the meantime is manage this land until there's a legal decision. Will you take your dinner here with me, brother? Or at least a cup of wine?"

Cadfael declined the offer of a midday meal; it was yet early, and he had a use for the remaining hours of daylight. But he accepted the wine with pleasure. They sat down together in the panelled solar, and the dark Welsh kitchen-boy brought them a flagon and two horns.

"You've had no trouble with the Welsh to west of you?" asked Cadfael.

"None. They've been used to the Bonels as neighbours for fifty years now, and no bad blood on either side. Though I've had little contact except with our own Welsh tenants. You know yourself, brother, both sides of the border here there are both Welsh and English living cheek by jowl, and most of those one side have kin on the other."

"One of our oldest brothers," said Cadfael, "came from this very region, from a village between here and Llansilin. He was talking of his old kinship when he knew I was coming to Rhydycroesau. I'd be glad to carry his greetings, if I can find his people. Two cousins he mentioned, Cynfrith and Owain ap Rhys. You haven't encountered either? And a brother by marriage, one Ifor ap Morgan... though it must be many years since he had any contact with any of them, and for ought I know this Ifor ap Morgan may be dead long ago. He must be round about Rhys's own age, and few of us last so long."

The steward shook his head doubtfully. "Cynfrith ap Rhys I've heard spoken of, he has a holding half a mile or so west of here. Ifor ap Morgan... no, I know nothing of him. But I tell you what, if he's living the boy will know, he's from Llansilin himself. Question him when you leave, and do it in Welsh, for all he knows English well enough. You'll get more out of him in Welsh... and all the more readily," he added with a wry grin, "if I'm not with you. They're none of them ill-disposed, but they keep their own counsel, and it's wonderful how they fail to understand English when it suits them to shut the alien out."

"I'll try it," said Cadfael, "and my thanks for the good advice."

"Then you'll forgive me if I don't accompany you to the gate and give you G.o.d-speed. You'll do better alone."

Cadfael took the hint and his leave, there in the solar, and went out through the hail and by the screened way into the kitchen. They boy was there, backing red-faced from the oven with a tray of new loaves. He looked round warily as he set down his burden on the clay top to cool gradually. It was neither fear nor distrust, but the wariness of a wild creature alert and responsive to every living thing, curious and ready to be friendly, sceptical and ready to vanish.

"G.o.d save you, son!" said Cadfael in Welsh. "If your bread's all out now, do a Christian deed, come out to the gate with me, and show a stranger the way to the holding of Cynfrith ap Rhys or his brother Owain."

The boy gazed, eyes brightening into interest at being addressed placidly in his own tongue. "You are from Shrewsbury abbey, sir? A monk?"

"I am."

"But Welsh?"

"As Welsh as you, lad, but not from these parts. The vale of Conwy is my native place, near by Trefriw."

"What's your will with Cynfrith ap Rhys?" asked the boy directly.

Now I know I'm in Wales, thought Cadfael. An English servant, if he ventured to challenge your proceedings at all, would do it roundabout and obsequiously, for fear of getting his ears clipped, but your Welsh lad speaks his mind to princes.

"In our abbey," he said obligingly, "there's an old brother who used to be known in these parts as Rhys ap Griffith, and he's cousin to these other sons of Rhys. When I left Shrewsbury I said I'd take his greetings to his kin, and so I will if I can find them. And while we're about it there's one more name he gave me, and you may at least be able to tell me if the man's alive or dead, for he must be old. Rhys had a sister Marared, who married one Ifor ap Morgan, and they had a daughter Angharad, though I'm told she's dead years ago. But if Ifor is still living I'll speak the good word to him, also."

Under this rain of Welsh names the boy thawed into smiles. "Sir, Ifor ap Morgan is still alive. He lives a fair way beyond, nearly to Llansilin. I'll come out with you and show you the way."

He skipped down the stone staircase lightly, ahead of Cadfael, and trotted before him to the gate. Cadfael followed, leading his horse, and looked where the boy pointed, westward between the hills.

"To the house of Cynfrith ap Rhys it is but half a mile, and it lies close by the track, on your right hand, with the wattle fence round the yard. You'll see his white goats in the little paddock. For Ifor ap Morgan you must go further. Keep to the same track again until you're through the hills, and looking down into the valley, then take the path to the right, that fords our river before it joins the Cynllaith. Half a mile on, look to your right again, just within the trees, and you'll see a little wooden house, and that's where Ifor lives. He's very old now, but he lives alone still."

Cadfael thanked him and mounted.

"And for the other brother, Owain," said the boy cheerfully, willing enough now to tell all he knew that might be helpful, "if you're in these parts two more days you may catch him in Llansilin the day after tomorrow, when the commote court meets, for he has a dispute that was put oft from the last sitting, along with some others. The judges have been viewing the impleaded lands, and the day after tomorrow they're to give judgment. They never like to let bad blood continue at the Christmas feast. Owain's holding is well beyond the town, but you'll find him at Llansilin church, sure enough. One of his neighbours moved his boundary stone, or so he claims."

He had said more than he realised, but he was serenely innocent of the impression he had made on Brother Cadfael. One question, perhaps the most vital of all, had been answered without ever having to be asked.

Cynfrith ap Rhys-the kinship seemed to be so full of Rhyses that in some cases it was necessary to list three generations back in order to distinguish them-was easily found, and very willing to pa.s.s the time of day even with a Benedictine monk, seeing that the monk spoke Welsh. He invited Cadfael in heartily, and the invitation was accepted with pleasure. The house was one room and a cupboard of a kitchen, a solitary man's domain, and there was no sign of any other creature here but Cynfrith and his goats and hens. A solid, thickset, prominent-boned Welshman was Cynfrith, with wiry black hair now greying round the edges and balding on the crown, and quick, twinkling eyes set in the webs of good-humoured creases common to outdoor men. Twenty years at least younger than his cousin in the infirmary at Shrewsbury. He offered bread and goat's-milk cheese, and wrinkled, sweet apples.

"The good old soul, so he's still living! Many a time I've wondered. He's my mother's cousin in the first degree, not mine, but time was I knew him well. He'll be nearing four-score now, I suppose. And still comfortable in his cloister? I'll send him a small flask of the right liquor, brother, if you'll be so kind as to carry it. I distil it myself, it will stand him in good stead through the winter, a drop in season is good for the heart, and does the memory no harm, either. Well, well, and to think he still remembers us all! My brother? Oh, be sure I'll pa.s.s on the word to Owain when I see him. He has a good wife, and grown sons, tell the old man, the elder, Elis, is to marry in the spring. The day after tomorrow I shall be seeing my brother, he has a judgment coming up at the commote court at Llansilin."

"So they told me at Mallilie," said Cadfael. "I wish him good speed with it."

"Ah, well, he claims Hywel Fychan, who lives next him, shifted one of his boundary stones, and I daresay he did, but I wouldn't say but what Owain has done the like by Hywel in his time. It's an old sport with us... But I needn't tell you, you being of the people yourself. They'll make it up as the court rules, they always do until the next time, and no hard feelings. They'll drink together this Christmas."

"So should we all," said Cadfael, somewhat sententiously.

He took his leave as soon but as graciously as he well might, truthfully claiming another errand and the shortness of the daylight, and rode on his way by the little river, both heartened and chastened by contact with open and fearless goodwill. The little flask of powerful home-distilled spirit swung in his scrip; he was glad he had left the other, the poisoned one, behind at the sheepfold.

He came through the defile, and saw the valley of the Cynllaith open before him, and the track to the right weaving a neat line through rising gra.s.s to ford the little tributary. Half a mile beyond, woodland clothed the slope of the ridge, and in the full leaf of summer it might have been difficult to detect the low wooden house within the trees; but now, with all the leaves fallen, it stood clear behind the bare branches like a contented domestic hen in a coop. There was clear gra.s.s almost to its fence, and on one side continuing behind it, the veil of trees drawn halfway round like a curtain. Cadfael turned in towards it, and circled with the skirt of gra.s.s, seeing no door in the side that faced the track. A horse on a long tether came ambling round the gable end, placidly grazing; a horse as tall and rakish and unbeautiful as the one he rode, though probably some years older. At sight of it he pulled up short, and sat at gaze for a moment, before lighting down into the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s.

There must, of course, be many horses that would answer to the description given: a bony old piebald. This one was certainly that, very strikingly black and white in improbable patterns. But they could not all, surely, be called by the same name?

Cadfael dropped his bridle and went softly forward towards the serenely feeding beast, which paid him no attention whatever after a single, glance. He chirruped to it, and called quietly: "j.a.phet!"

The piebald p.r.i.c.ked long ears and lifted a gaunt, amiable head, stretching out a questing muzzle and dilated nostrils towards the familiar sound, and having made up his mind he was not mistaken, advanced confidently and briskly to the hand Cadfael extended. He ran caressing fingers up the tall forehead, and along the stretched, inquisitive neck. "j.a.phet, j.a.phet, my friend, what are you doing here?"

The rustle of feet in the dry gra.s.s, while all four feet of this mild creature were still, caused Cadfael to look up sharply towards the corner of the house. A venerable old man stood looking at him steadily and silently; a tall old man, white-haired and white-bearded, but still with brows black and thick as gorse-bushes, and eyes as starkly blue as a winter sky beneath them. His dress was the common homespun of the countryman, but his carriage and height turned it into purple.

"As I think," said Cadfael, turning towards him with one hand still on j.a.phet's leaning neck, "you must be Ifor ap Morgan. My name is Cadfael, sometime Cadfael ap Meilyr ap Dafydd of Trefriw. I have an errand to you from Rhys ap Griffith, your wife's brother, who is now Brother Rhys of the abbey of Shrewsbury."

The voice that emerged from the long, austere, dry lips was deep and sonorous, a surprising music. "Are you sure your errand is not to a guest of mine, brother?"

"It was not," said Cadfael, "it was to you. Now it is to both. And the first thing I would say is, keep this beast out of sight, for if I can know him again from a mere description, so can others."

The old man gave him a lengthy, piercing blue stare. "Come into the house," he said, and turned on his heel and led the way. But Cadfael took time to lead j.a.phet well behind the house and shorten his tether to keep him there, before he followed.

In the dimness within, smoky and wood-scented, the old man stood with a hand protectively on Edwin's shoulder; and Edwin, with the impressionable generosity of youth, had somehow gathered to himself a virgin semblance of the old man's dignity and grace, and stood like him, erect and quiet within his untried body as was Ifor ap Morgan in his old and experienced one, copied the carriage of his head and the high serenity of his regard.

"The boy tells me," said Ifor, "that you are a friend. His friends are welcome."

"Brother Cadfael has been good to me," said Edwin, "and to my nephew, Edwy, also, as Meurig told us. I have been well blessed in my friends. But how did you find me?"

"By not looking for you," said Cadfael. "Indeed, I've been at some pains not to know where you had taken yourself, and certainly I never rode this way to find you. I came with a harmless errand to Ifor ap Morgan here, from that same old brother you visited with Meurig in our infirmary. Your wife's brother, friend, Rhys ap Griffith, is still living, and for his age hale, too, in our convent, and when he heard that I was bound into these parts he charged me to bring his kinsmen his greetings and prayers. He has not forgotten his kin, though it's long since he came among you, and I doubt he'll come no more. I have been with Cynfrith ap Rhys, and sent the same word by him to his brother Owain, and if there are any others of his generation left, or who would remember him, be kind enough to give them word, when chance offers, that he remembers his blood and his own soil yet, and all those whose roots are in it."

"So he would," said Ifor, melting suddenly into a warm smile. "He was always a loyal kinsman, and fond of my child and all the other young in our clan, having none of his own. He lost his wife early, or he'd have been here among us yet. Sit down a while, brother, and tell me how he does, and if you'll take my blessings back to him, I'll be grateful."

"Meurig will have told you much of what I can tell," and Cadfael, settling beside him on a bench at the rough table, "when he brought you Edwin to shelter. Is he not here with you?"

"My grandson is away making the round of all his kin and neighbours," said the old man, "for he comes home rarely now. He'll be here again in a few days, I daresay. He did tell me he'd been to see the old man, along with the boy here, but he stayed only an hour or so before making off about his visiting. There'll be time to talk when he comes back."

It was in Cadfael's mind that he ought to cut short his own stay, for though it had never entered his mind that the officers of the law might find it worth while to keep a watch on him when he left Shrewsbury, the too easy discovery of Edwin in this house had shaken his a.s.surance. It was true that he had neither expected nor wished to trace the boy as yet, but even Hugh Beringar, let alone his underlings, might well have considered the contrary as a possibility, and set a discreet hound on his trail. But he could not flatly deliver his message and go, while the old man clearly took pleasure in polishing up old memories. He was rambling away happily about the time when his wife was with him, and his daughter a fair and lively child. Now all that remained to him was a single grandson, and his own dignity and integrity.

Exile and refuge in this remote place and this impressive company had had a strong effect on Edwin. He withdrew into the shadows to leave his elders undisturbed, making no plea, asking no question yet concerning his own troubled affairs. Quietly he went and brought beakers and a pitcher of mead, and served them un.o.btrusively and neatly, all dignity and humility, and again absented himself, until Ifor turned to reach a long arm and draw him to the table.

"Young man, you must have things to ask of Brother Cadfael, and things to tell him."

The boy had not lost his tongue, after all, once invited he could talk as volubly and vehemently as ever. First he asked after Edwy, with an anxiety he would never have revealed to the object of it, and was greatly eased to hear how that adventure had ended better than it had threatened. "And Hugh Beringar was so fair and generous? And he listened to you, and is looking for my box? Now if he could but find it...! I was not happy leaving Edwy to play that part for me, but he would have it so. And then I took j.a.phet a roundabout way to a place we used to play sometimes, a copse by the river, and Meurig met me there, and gave me a token to carry to his grandfather here, and told me how to find the place. And the next day he came, too, as he said he would."

"And what," asked Cadfael gently, "had you planned to do, if truth never did come out? If you could not go back? Though G.o.d forbid it should end so, and G.o.d granting, I'll see that it does not."

The boy's face was solemn but clear; he had thought much, here in his haven, and spent so much time contemplating the n.o.ble face of his patron that a kind of shining likeness had arisen between them. "I'm strong, I can work, I could earn my keep in Wales, if need be, even if it must be as an outlander. Other men have had to leave their homes because of unjust accusations, and have made their way in the world, and so could I. But I'd rather go back. I don't want to leave my mother, now that she's alone, and her affairs in such disorder. And I don't want to be remembered as the man who poisoned his stepfather and ran away, when I know I never did him harm or wished him any."