protege of a saint. All radiance and clarity, all openness and serenity in the face. No wonder his father, recognising a prodigy, loves him better than all others.
“I wonder,” said Cadfael half to himself, unwittingly casting a shadow athwart Mark’s contemplation of light, “how her two will look upon him, when they’re all grown.”
“It is impossible,” Mark said firmly, “that they should ever wish him harm, even if land-greed and power-greed have sometimes turned brothers into enemies. This youth no one could hate.”
Close at his shoulder a cool, dry voice observed ruefully: “Brother, I envy your certainty, but I would not for the world share it, the fall is too mortal. There is no one who cannot be hated, against whatever odds. Nor anyone who cannot be loved, against all reason.”
Cuhelyn had approached them unnoticed, threading a way through the stir of men and horses, hounds and servants and children. For all his black intensity, he was a very quiet man, unobtrusive in all his comings and goings. Cadfael turned in response to the unexpected observation, just in time to see the intent glance of the young man’s shrewd eyes, presently fastened with a wry, indulgent warmth upon the boy Rhun, sharpen and chill as another figure passed between, and follow the transit with a fixity that suggested to Cadfael, at first, nothing more than detached interest, and in a matter of seconds froze into composed but indubitable hostility. Perhaps even more than hostility, a measure of restrained but implacable suspicion.
A young man of about Cuhelyn’s years, and by no means unlike him in build and colouring, though thinner in feature and somewhat longer in the reach, had been standing a little apart, watching the bustle all round him, his arms folded and his shoulders leaned against the wall of the undercroft, as though this tumultuous arrival concerned him rather less than the rest of the household. From this detached stance he had moved suddenly, crossing between Cuhelyn and the linked pair, father and son, and cutting off the view of Rhun’s radiant face. Something to be seen here certainly mattered to this young man, after all, someone had been sighted who meant more to him than clerics from Saint Asaph or the young noblemen of Owain’s guard. Cadfael followed his vehement passage through the press, and saw him take one dismounting horseman by the sleeve. The very touch, the very encounter, that had drawn taut all the lines of Cuhelyn’s countenance. Bledri ap Rhys swung about, face to face with the youth who accosted him, visibly recognised an acquaintance, and guardedly acknowledged him. No very exuberant welcome, but on both parts there was one momentary flash of warmth and awareness, before Bledri made his visage formally blank, and the boy accepted the suggestion, and began what seemed to be the most current of court civilities. No need, apparently, to pretend they did not know each other well enough, but every need to keep the acquaintance on merely courteous terms.
Cadfael looked along his shoulder, and briefly, at Cuhelyn’s face, and asked simply: “Gwion?”
“Gwion!”
“They were close? These two?”
“No. No closer than two must be who hold by the same lord.”
“That might be close enough for mischief,” said Cadfael bluntly. “As you told me, your man has given his word not to attempt escape. He has not pledged himself to give up his allegiance beyond that.”
“Natural enough he should welcome the sight of another liegeman,” said Cuhelyn steadily. “His word he will keep. As for Bledri ap Rhys, the terms of his sojourn with us, I will see kept.” He shook himself briefly, and took each of them by an arm. The prince and his wife and sons were climbing the steps into the hall, the closest of their household following without haste. “Come, Brothers, and let me be your herald here. I’ll bring you to your lodging, and show you the chapel. Use it as you find occasion, and the prince’s chaplain will make himself known to you.”
In the privacy of the lodging allotted to them, backed into the shelter of the maenol wall, Brother Mark sat refreshed and thoughtful, looking back with wide grey eyes at all that had passed during this arrival in Aber. And at length he said: “What most caused me to watch and wonder, was how like they were, those two, the young liegemen of Anarawd and of Cadwaladr. It is no mere matter of the same years, the same manner of body, the same make of face, it is the same passion within them. In Wales, Cadfael, this is another fashion of loyalty even than the bond the Normans hold by, or so it seems to me. They are on opposing sides, your Cuhelyn and this Gwion, and they could be brothers.”
“And as brothers should, and by times do not, they respect and like each other. Which would not prevent them from killing each other,” Cadfael admitted, “if ever it came to a clash between their lords in the field.”
“That is what I feel to be so wrong,” said Mark earnestly. “How could either young man look at the other, and not see himself? All the more now that they have lived together in the same court, and admitted affection?”
“They are like twins, the one born lefthanded, the other right-handed, at once doubles and opposites. They could kill without malice, and die without malice. God forbid,” said Cadfael, “it should ever come to that. But one thing is certain. Cuhelyn will be watching every moment his mirror image brushes sleeves with Bledri ap Rhys, and marking every word that passes between them, and every glance. For I think he knows somewhat more of Cadwaladr’s chosen envoy than he has yet told us.”
At supper in Owain’s hall there was good food and plenteous mead and ale, and harp music of the best. Hywel ab Owain sang, improvising upon the beauty of Gwynedd and the splendour of her history, and Cadfael’s recalcitrant heart shed its habit for a halfhour, and followed the verses far into the mountains inland of Aber, and across the pale mirror of Lavan Sands to the royal burial-place of Llanfaes on Anglesey. In youth his adventurings had all looked eastward, now in his elder years eyes and heart turned westward. All heavens, all sanctuaries of the blessed lie to westward, in every legend and every imagination, at least for men of Celtic stock; a suitable meditation for old men. Yet here in the royal llys of Gwynedd Cadfael did not feel old.
Nor did it seem that his senses were in the least dulled or blunted, even as he rejoiced in his dreams, for he was sharp enough to detect the moment when Bledri ap Rhys slid an arm about Heledd’s waist as she served him with mead. Nor did he miss the icy rigidity of Canon Meirion’s face at the sight, or the deliberation with which Heledd, well aware of the same maledictory stare, forbore from freeing herself immediately, and said a smiling word in Bledri’s ear, which might as well have been a curse as a compliment, though there was no doubt how her father interpreted it. Well, if the girl was playing with fire, whose fault was that? She had lived with her sire many loyal, loving years, he should have known her better, well enough to trust her. For Bledri ap Rhys she had no use at all but to take out her grievance on the father who was in such haste to get rid of her.
Nor did it appear, on reflection, that Bledri ap Rhys was seriously interested in Heledd. He made the gesture of admiration and courtship almost absentmindedly, as though by custom it was expected of him, and though he accompanied it with a smiling compliment, he let her go the moment she drew away, and his gaze went back to a certain young man sitting among the noblemen of the guard at a lower table. Gwion, the last obstinate hostage, who would not forswear his absolute fealty to Cadwaladr, sat silent among his peers, and enemies, some of whom, like Cuhelyn, had become his friends. Throughout the feast he kept his own counsel, and guarded his thoughts, and even his eyes. But whenever he looked up at the high table, it was upon Bledri ap Rhys that his glance rested, and twice at least Cadfael saw them exchange a brief and brilliant stare, such as allies might venture to convey worlds
