He looked round, seeking the one who by rights should be spokesman, hesitating between Prior Robert, who arrogated to himself authority wherever he came, and Father Huw, who was known and trusted here. He repeated his demand in English, but neither of them answered him, and for a long moment neither did anyone else. Then Sioned said, with clear, deliberate warning: “There are some here are saying that you did.”
“I?” he cried, astonished and scornful rather than alarmed, and turned sharply to search her face, which was intent and urgent.
Her lips shaped silently: “Run! They’re blaming you!”
It was all she could do, and he understood, for they had such a link between them that meanings could be exchanged in silence, in a look. He measured with a quick glance the number of his possible enemies, and the spaces between them, but he did not move. “Who accuses me?” he said. “And on what ground? It seems to me I might rather question all of you, whom I find standing here about my lord’s dead body, while I have been all day out with the cows, beyond Bryn. When I got home Annest was anxious because Sioned had not returned, and the sheep boy told her there was no service at Vespers at the church. We came out to look for you, and found you by the noise you were making among you. And I ask again, and I will know before ever I give up: Who did this?”
“We are all asking that,” said Father Huw. “Son, there’s no man here has accused you. But there are things that give us the right to question you, and a man with nothing on his conscience won’t be ashamed or afraid to answer. Have you yet looked carefully at the arrow that struck Rhisiart down? Then look at it now!”
Frowning, Engelard drew a step nearer, and looked indeed, earnestly and bitterly at the dead man, only afterwards at the arrow. He saw the flutter of deep blue, and gasped.
“This is one of mine!” He looked up with wild suspicion at them all. “Either that, or someone has copied my mark. But no, this is mine, I know the trim, I fletched it new only a week or so ago.”
“He owns it his?” demanded Robert, following as best he could. “He admits it?”
“Admit?” flashed Engelard in English. “What is there to admit? I say it! How it was brought here, who loosed it, I know no more than you do, but I know the shaft for mine. God’s teeth!” he cried furiously, “do you think if I had any hand in this villainy I should leave my mark flaunting in the wound? Am I fool as well as outlander? And do you think I would do anything to harm Rhisiart? The man who stood my friend and gave me the means of living here when I’d poached myself out of Cheshire?”
“He refused to consider you as a suitor for his daughter,” Bened said almost reluctantly, “whatever good he did for you otherwise.”
“So he did, and according to his lights, rightly so. And I know it, knowing as much as I’ve learned of Wales, and even if I did smart under it, I knew he had reason and custom on his side. Never has he done anything I could complain of as unfair to me. He stood much arrogance and impatience from me, come to that. There isn’t a man in Gwynedd I like and respect more. I’d as soon have cut my own throat as injured Rhisiart.”
“He knew and knows it,” said Sioned, “and so do I.”
“Yet the arrow is yours,” said Huw unhappily. “And as for reclaiming or disguising it, it may well have been that speedy flight after such an act would be more important.”
“If I had planned such an act,” said Engelard, “though God forbid I should ever have to imagine a thing so vile, I could as easily have done what some devil has done now to me, and used another man’s shaft.”
“But, son, it would be more in keeping with your nature,” the priest pursued sadly, “to commit such a deed without planning, having with you only your own bow and arrows. Another approach, another quarrel, a sudden wild rage! No one supposes this was plotted beforehand.”
“I had no bow with me all this day. I was busy with the cattle, what should I want with a bow?”
“It will be for the royal bailiff to enquire into all possible matters concerning this case,” said Prior Robert, resolutely reclaiming the dominance among them. “What should be asked at once of this young man is where he has been all this day, what doing, and in whose company.”
“In no man’s company. The byres behind Bryn are in a lonely place, good pasture but apart from the used roads. Two cows dropped their calves today, one around noon, the second not before late afternoon, and that was a hard birth, and gave me trouble. But the young things are there alive and on their legs now, to testify to what I’ve been doing.”
“You left Rhisiart at his fields along the way?”
“I did, and went straight on to my own work. And have not seen him again until now.”
“And did you speak with any man, there at the byres? Can anyone testify as to where you were, at any time during the day?” No one was likely to try and wrest the initiative from Robert now. Engelard looked round him quickly, measuring chances. Annest came forward silently, and took her stand beside Sioned. Brother John’s roused, anxious eyes followed her progress, and approved the loyalty which had no other way of expressing itself.
“Engelard did not come home until half an hour ago,” she said stoutly.
“Child,” said Father Huw wretchedly, “where he was not does not in any way confirm where he says he was. Two calves may be delivered far more quickly than he claims, how can we know, who were not there? He had time to slip back here and do this thing, and be back with his cattle and never noticed. Unless we can find someone who testifies to having seen him elsewhere, at whatever time this deed may have been done, then I fear we should hold Engelard in safe-keeping until the prince’s bailiff can take over the charge for us.”
The men of Gwytherin hovered, murmuring, some convinced, many angry, for Rhisiart had been very well liked, some hesitant, but granting that the outlander ought to be held until his innocence was established or his guilt proved. They shifted and closed, and their murmur became one of consent.
“It is fair,” said Bened, and the growl of assent answered him.
“One lone Englishman with his back to the wall, whispered Brother John indignantly in Cadfael’s ear, “and what chance will he have, with nobody to bear out what he says? And plain truth, for certain! Does he act or speak like a murderer?”
Peredur had stood like a stock all this while, hardly taking his eyes from Engelard’s face but to gaze earnestly and unhappily at Sioned. As Prior Robert levelled an imperious arm at Engelard, and the whole assembly closed in slowly in obedience, braced to lay hands on him, Peredur drew a little further back at the edge of the trees, and Cadfael saw him catch Sioned’s eye, flash her a wild, wide-eyed look, and jerk his head as though beckoning. Out of
