“Your prior will be wise,” said Urien, taking his leave, “to take a lesson from yonder young fellow. Leading and coaxing pays better than driving in these parts. But I need not tell you — a man as Welsh as myself.”
Cadfael watched him ride away gently along the cleared track until he vanished among the trees. Then he turned back towards Gwytherin, but went steeply downhill towards the river, and at the edge of the forest stood in green shadow under an oak tree, gazing across the sunlit meadows and the silver thread of river to where the team heaved and strained along the last furrow. Here there was no great distance between them, and he could see clearly the gloss of sweat on the pelts of the oxen, and the heavy curl of the soil as it heeled back from the share. The ploughman was dark, squat and powerful, with a salting of grey in his shaggy locks, but the ox-caller was tall and slender, and the curling hair that tossed on his neck and clung to his moist brow was as fair as flax. He managed his backward walking without a glance behind, feeling his way light-footed and gracefully, as if he had eyes in the back of his heels. His voice was hoarse and tired with long use now, but still clear and merry, more effective than any goad, as he cajoled his weary beasts along the final furrow, calling and luring and praising, telling them they had done marvels, and should get their rest and their meed for it, that in moments now they would be going home, and he was proud of them and loved them, as if he had been talking to Christian souls. And the beasts heaved and leaned, throwing their weight into the yokes and keeping their eyes upon him, and plainly would do anything in their power to please him. When the plough curved to the end and halted, and the steaming oxen stood with lowered heads, the young man came and flung an arm over the neck of the near leader, and scrubbed with brisk knuckles in the curly hair on the other’s brow, and Cadfael said aloud: “Bravely! But, my friend, how did you stray into Wales?”
Something small, round and hard dropped rustling through the leaves above him, and hit him neatly in the middle of his weather-beaten tonsure. He clapped a hand to his crown, and said something unbecoming his habit. But it was only one of last year’s oak-balls, dried out by a winter’s weathering to the hardness of a pebble. He looked up into the foliage above his head, already thick and turning rich green from its early gold, and it seemed to him that the tremor of leaves where there was no wind required more explanation than the accidental fall of one small remnant of a dead year. It stilled very quickly, and even its stillness, by contrast, seemed too careful and aware. Cadfael removed himself a few yards, as if about to walk on, and doubled round again behind the next barrier of bushes to see if the bait had been taken.
A small bare foot, slightly strained with moss and bark, reached down out of the branches to a toe-hold on the trunk. Its fellow, stretched at the end of a long, slim leg, swung clear, as the boy prepared to drop. Brother Cadfael, fascinated, suddenly averted his eyes in haste, and turned his back, but he was smiling, and he did not, after all, withdraw, but circled his screen of bushes and reappeared innocently in view of the bird that had just flown down out of its nest. No boy, as he had first supposed, but a girl, and a most personable girl, too, now standing decorously in the grass with her skirts nobly disposed round her, and even the small bare feet concealed.
They stood looking at each other with candid curiosity, neither at all abashed. She might have been eighteen or nineteen years old, possibly younger, for there was a certain erect assurance about her that gave her the dignity of maturity even when newly dropped out of an oak tree. And for all her bare feet and mane of unbraided dark hair, she was no villein girl. Everything about her said clearly that she knew her worth. Her gown was of fine homespun wool, dyed a soft blue, and had embroidery at neck and sleeves. No question but she was a beauty. Her face was oval and firm of feature, the hair that fell in wild waves about her shoulders was almost black, but black with a tint of dark and brilliant red in it where the light caught, and the large, blacklashed eyes that considered Brother Cadfael with such frank interest were of almost the same colour, dark as damsons, bright as the sparkles of mica in the river pebbles.
“You are one of the monks from Shrewsbury,” she said with certainty. And to his astonishment she said it in fluent and easy English.
“I am,” said Cadfael. “But how did you come to know all about us so soon? I think you were not among those who made it their business to walk along Huw’s garden fence while we were talking. There was one very young girl, I remember, but not a black lass like you.”
She smiled. She had an enchanting smile, sudden and radiant. “Oh, that would be Annest. But everybody in Gwytherin knows by now all about you, and what you’ve come for. Father Huw is right, you know,” she warned seriously, “we shan’t like it at all. Why do you want to take Saint Winifred away? When she’s been here so long, and nobody ever paid any attention to her before? It doesn’t seem neighbourly or honest to me.”
It was an excellent choice of words, he thought, and marvelled how a Welsh girl came by it, for she was using English as if she had been born to it, or come to it for love.
“I question the propriety of it myself, to be truthful,” he agreed ruefully. “When Father Huw spoke up for his parish, I confess I found myself inclining to his side of the argument.” That made her look at him more sharply and carefully than before, frowning over some sudden doubt or suspicion in her own mind. Whoever had informed her had certainly witnessed all that went on in Father Huw’s garden. She hesitated a moment, pondering, and then launched at him unexpectedly in Welsh: “You must be the one who speaks our language, the one who translated what Father Huw said.” It seemed to trouble her more than was reasonable. “You do know Welsh! You understand me now.”
“Why, I’m as Welsh as you, child,” he admitted mildly, “and only a Benedictine in my middle years, and I haven’t forgotten my mother-tongue yet, I hope. But I marvel how you’ve come to speak English as well as I do myself, here in the heart of Rhos.”
“Oh, no,” she said defensively, “I’ve only learned a very little. I tried to use it for you, because I thought you were English. How was I to know you’d be just that one?” Now why should his being bilingual cause her uneasiness? he wondered. And why was she casting so many rapid, furtive glances aside towards the river, brightly glimpsed through the trees? Where, as he saw in a glance just as swift as hers, the tall, fair youngster who was no Welshman, and was certainly the finest ox-caller in Gwynedd, had broken away from his placidly-drinking team, and was wading the river thigh-deep towards this particular tall oak, in a flurry of sparkling spray. The girl had been ensconced in this very tree, whence, no doubt, she had a very good view of the ploughing. And came down as soon as it was finished! “I’m shy of my English,” she said, pleading and vulnerable. “Don’t tell anyone!”
She was wishing him away from here, and demanding his discretion at the same time. His presence, he gathered, was inconvenient.
“I’ve known the same trouble myself,” he said comfortably, “when first I tried getting my tongue round English. I’ll never call your efforts into question. And now I’d better be on my way back to our lodgings, or I shall be late for Vespers.”
“God go with you, then, Father,” she said, radiant and relieved.
“And with you, my child.”
He withdrew by a carefully chosen route that evaded any risk of bumping into the fair young man. And she watched him go for a long moment, before she turned eagerly to meet the ox-caller as he came splashing through the shallows and climbed the bank. Cadfael thought that she was perfectly aware how much he had observed and understood, and was pleased by his reticence. Pleased and reassured. A Welsh girl of status, with embroidery along the hems of her gown, had good need to go softly if she was meeting an outlander, a man landless and rootless
