he still has a base in Ruiton, come the hard frosts and snow he’ll be making for it, and he’ll want to be within a reasonable few miles of it when the pinch comes.’
‘About this time of year,’ said Hugh, ‘he remembers he has a mother in Ruiton, and makes his way back there for the winter.’
‘And you have someone waiting there for his coming.’
‘If luck serves,’ said Hugh, ‘we may pick him up before then. I know Ruiton, it lies barely eight miles from Shrewsbury. He’ll time his journeys to bring bom round by all those Welsh villages and bear east through Knockin, straight for home. There are many hamlets close-set in that corner, he can go on with his selling until the weather changes, and still be near to home. Somewhere there we shall find him.’
Somewhere there, indeed, they found him, only three days later. One of Hugh’s sergeants had located the pedlar at work among the villages on the Welsh side of the border, and discreetly waited for him on the English side until he crossed and headed without haste for Meresbrook, on his way to Knockin and home. Hugh kept a sharp eye on his turbulent neighbours in Powys, and as he would tolerate no breach of English law his own side of the border, so he was punctilious in giving them no occasion to complain that he trespassed against Welsh law on their side, unless they had first broken the tacit compact. His relations with Owain Gwynedd, to the north-west, were friendly, and well understood on either part, but the Welsh of Powys were ill-disciplined and unstable, not to be provoked, but not to be indulged if they caused him trouble without provocation. So the sergeant waited until his unsuspecting quarry crossed over the ancient dyke that marked the boundary, somewhat broken and disregarded in these parts but still traceable. The weather was still reasonably mild, and walking the roads not unpleasant, but it seemed that Britric’s pack was as good as empty, so he was making for home ahead of the frosts, apparently content with his takings. If he had stocks at home in Ruiton, he could still sell to his neighbours and as far afield as the local hamlets.
So he came striding into the shire towards Meresbrook, whistling serenely and swinging a long staff among the roadside grasses. And short of the village he walked into a patrol of two light-armed men from the Shrewsbury garrison, who closed in on him from either side and took him by either arm, enquiring without excitement if he owned to the name of Britric. He was a big, powerful fellow half a head taller than either of his captors, and could have broken away from them had he been so minded, but he knew them for what they were and what they represented, and forbore from tempting providence unnecessarily. He behaved himself with cautious discretion, owned cheerfully to his name, and asked with disarming innocence what they wanted with him.
They were not prepared to tell him more than that the sheriff required his attendance in Shrewsbury, and their reticence, together with the stolid efficiency of their handling of him, might well have inclined him to think better of his co-operation and make a break for it, but by then it was too late, for two more of their company had appeared from nowhere to join them, ambling unhurriedly from the roadside, but both with bows slung conveniently to hand, and the look of men who knew how to use them. The thought of an arrow in the back did not appeal to Britric. He resigned himself to complying with necessity. A great pity, with Wales only a quarter of a mile behind. But if the worst came to the worst, there might be a better opportunity of flight later if he remained docile now.
They took him into Knockin, and for the sake of speed found a spare horse for him, brought him into Shrewsbury before nightfall, and delivered him safely to a cell in the castle. By that time he showed signs of acute uneasiness, but no real fear. Behind a closed and unrevealing face he might be weighing and measuring whatever irregularities he had to account for, and worrying about which of them could have come to light, but if so, the results seemed to bewilder rather than enlighten or alarm him. All his efforts to worm information out of his captors had failed. All he could do now was wait, for it seemed that the sheriff was not immediately on hand.
The sheriff, as it happened, was at supper in the abbot’s lodging, together with Prior Robert and the lord of the manor of Upton, who had just made a gift to the abbey of a fishery on the River Tern, which bordered his land. The charter had been drawn up and sealed before Vespers, with Hugh as one of the witnesses. Upton was a crown tenancy, and the consent and approval of the king’s officer was necessary to such transactions. The messenger from the castle was wise enough to wait patiently in the anteroom until the company rose from the table. Good news will keep at least as well as bad, and the suspect was safe enough within stone walls.
‘This is the man you spoke of?’ asked Radulfus, when he heard what the man had to say. The one who is known to have made free with Brother Ruald’s croft last year?’
‘The same,’ said Hugh. ‘And the only one I can hear of who is known to have borrowed free lodging there. And if you’ll hold me excused, Father, I must go and see what can be got out of him, before he has time to get his breath and his wits back.’
‘I am as concerned as you for justice,’ the abbot avowed. ‘Not so much that I want the life of this or any man, but I do want an accounting for the woman’s. Of course, go. I hope we may be nearer the truth this time. Without it there can be no absolution.’
‘May I borrow Brother Cadfael, Father? He first brought me word of this man, he knows best what the old fellow at Saint Giles said of him. He may be able to pick up details that would elude me.’
Prior Robert looked down his patrician nose at the suggestion, and thinned his long lips in disapproval. He considered that Cadfael was far too often allowed a degree of liberty outside the enclave that offended the prior’s strict interpretation of the Rule. But Abbot Radulfus nodded thoughtful agreement.
‘Certainly a shrewd witness may not come amiss. Yes, take him with you. I do know his memory is excellent, and his nose for discrepancies keen. And he has been in this business from the beginning, and has some right, I think, to continue with it to the end.’
So it came about that Cadfael, coming from supper in the refectory, instead of going dutifully to Collations in the chapterhouse, or less dutifully recalling something urgent to be attended to in his workshop, in order to avoid the dull, pedestrian reading of Brother Francis, whose turn it was, was haled out of his routine to go with Hugh up through the town to the castle, there to confront the prisoner.
He was as the old man had reported him, big, red-haired, capable of throwing out far more powerful intruders than a scabby old vagabond and, to an unprejudiced eye, a personable enough figure of a man to captivate a high- spirited and self-sufficient woman as streetwise as himself. At any rate for a time. If they had been together long enough to fall easily into fighting, he might well use those big, sinewy hands too freely and once too often, and find that he had killed without ever meaning to. And if ever he blazed into the real rage his bush of flaming hair suggested, he might kill with intent. Here in the cell where Hugh had chosen to encounter him, he sat with wide shoulders braced back against the wall, stiffly erect and alert, his face as stony as the wall itself, but for the wary eyes that fended off questions and questioners with an unwavering stare. A man, Cadfael judged, who had been in trouble before, and more than once, and coped with it successfully. Nothing mortal, probably, a deer poached here and there, a hen lifted, nothing that could not be plausibly talked out of court, in these somewhat disorganised days when in many places the king’s foresters had little time or inclination to impose the rigours of forest law.
As for his present situation, there was no telling what fears, what speculations were going through his mind,
