a long pin with a large, chased gold head, secured by a thin gold chain. Everyone knew there was gold worked in Gwynedd, probably this came from Einon’s own land, for certainly this must be his cloak, added to pillow and protect his sacred charge. Edmund laid it aside, folded, on a low chest beside the bed, the great pin showing clearly, for fear someone should run his hand on to the point if it were hidden. Between them they unwound Gilbert Prestcote from the layers in which he was swathed, and as they handled him his eyes opened languidly, and his long, gaunt body made some feeble moves to help them. He was much fallen in flesh, and bore several scars, healed but angry, besides the moist wound in his flank which had gaped again with his fall. Carefully Cadfael dressed and covered the place. Even being handled exhausted the sick man. By the time they had lifted him into the warmed bed and covered him his eyes were again closed. As yet he had not tried to speak.
A marvel how he had ever ridden even a mile before foundering, thought Cadfael, looking down at the figure stretched beneath the covers, and the lean, livid face, all sunken blue hollows and staring, blanched bones. The dark hair of his head and beard was thickly sown with grey, and lay lank and lifeless. Only his iron spirit, intolerant of any weakness, most of all his own, had held him up in the saddle, and when even that failed he was lost indeed.
But he drew breath, he had moved to assert his rights in his own body, however weakly, and again he opened the dulled and sunken eyes and stared up into Cadfael’s face. His grey lips formed, just audibly: ‘My son?’ Not: ‘My wife?’ Nor yet: ‘My daughter?’ Cadfael thought with rueful sympathy, and stooped to assure him: ‘Young Gilbert is here, safe and well.’ He glanced at Edmund, who signalled back agreement. ‘I’ll bring him to you.’ Small boys are very resilient, but for all that Cadfael said some words, both of caution and reassurance, as much for the mother as the child, before he brought them in and drew aside into a corner to leave them the freedom of the bedside. Hugh came in with them. Prestcote’s first thought was naturally for his son, the second, no less naturally, would be for his shire. And his shire, considering all things, was in very good case to encourage him to live, mend and mind it again.
Sybilla wept, but quietly. The little boy stared in some wonder at a father hardly recognised, but let himself be drawn close by a gaunt, cold hand, and stared at hungrily by eyes like firelit caverns. His mother leaned and whispered to him, and obediently he stooped his rosy, round face and kissed a bony cheek. He was an accommodating child, puzzled but willing, and not at all afraid. Prestcote’s eyes ranged beyond, and found Hugh Beringar.
‘Rest content,’ said Hugh, leaning close and answering what need not be asked, ‘your borders are whole and guarded. The only breach has provided you your ransom, and even there the victory was ours. And Owain Gwynedd is our ally. What is yours to keep is in good order.’ The dulling glance faded beneath drooping lids, and never reached the girl standing stark and still in the shadows near the door. Cadfael had observed her, from his own retired place, and watched the light from brazier and lamp glitter in the tears flowing freely and mutely down her cheeks. She made no sound at all, she hardly drew breath. Her wide eyes were fixed on her father’s changed, aged face, in the most grievous and desperate stare.
The sheriff had understood and accepted what Hugh said. Brow and chin moved slightly in a satisfied nod. His lips stirred to utter almost clearly: ‘Good!’ And to the boy, awed but curious, hanging over him: ‘Good boy! Take care… of your mother…’ He heaved a shallow sigh, and his eyes drooped closed. They held still for some time, watching and listening to the heave and fall of the covers over his sunken breast and the short, harsh in and out of his breath, before Brother Edmund stepped softly forward and said in a cautious whisper: ‘He’s sleeping. Leave him so, in quiet. There is nothing better or more needed any man can do for him.’ Hugh touched Sybilla’s arm, and she rose obediently and drew her son up beside her. ‘You see him well cared for,’ said Hugh gently. ‘Come to dinner, and let him sleep.’ The girl’s eyes were quite dry, her cheeks pale but calm, when she followed them out to the great court, and down the length of it to the abbot’s lodging, to be properly gracious and grateful to the Welsh guests, before they left again for Montford and Oswestry.
Over their midday meal, which was served before the brothers ate in the refectory, the inhabitants of the infirmary laid their ageing but inquisitive heads together to make out what was causing the unwonted stir about their retired domain. The discipline of silence need not be rigorously observed among the old and sick, and just as well, since they tend to be incorrigibly garrulous, from want of other active occupation.
Brother Rhys, who was bedridden and very old indeed, but sharp enough in mind and hearing even if his sight was filmed over, had a bed next to the corridor, and across from the retired room where some newcomer had been brought during the morning, with unusual to, do and ceremony. He took pleasure in being the member who knew what was going on. Among so few pleasures left to him, this was the chief, and not to be lightly spent. He lay and listened. Those who sat at the table, as once in the refectory, and could move around the infirmary and sometimes the great court if the weather was right, nevertheless were often obliged to come to him for knowledge.
‘Who should it be,’ said Brother Rhys loftily, ‘but the sheriff himself, brought back from being a prisoner in Wales.’ ‘Prestcote?’ said Brother Maurice, rearing his head on its stringy neck like a gander giving notice of battle. ‘Here? In our infirmary? Why should they bring him here?’ ‘Because he’s a sick man, what else? He was wounded in the battle, and in no shape to shift for himself yet, or trouble any other man. I heard their voices in there, Edmund, Cadfael and Hugh Beringar, and the lady, too, and the child. It’s Gilbert Prestcote, take my word.’ ‘There is justice,’ said Maurice with sage satisfaction, and the gleam of vengeance in his eye, ‘though it be too long delayed. So Prestcote is brought low, neighbour to the unfortunate. The wrong done to my line finds a balance at last, I repent that ever I doubted.’ They humoured him, being long used to his obsessions. They murmured variously, most saying reasonably enough that the shire had not fared badly in Prestcote’s hands, though some had old grumbles to vent and reservations about sheriffs in general, even if this one of theirs was not by any means the worst of his kind. On the whole they wished him well. But Brother Maurice was not to be reconciled.
‘There was a wrong done,’ he said implacably, ‘which even now is not fully set right. Let the false pleader pay for his offence, I say, to the bitter end.’ The stockman Anion, at the end of the table, said never a word, but kept his eyes lowered to his trencher, his hip pressed against the crutch he was almost ready to discard, as though he needed a firm contact with the reality of his situation, and the reassurance of a weapon to hand in the sudden presence of his enemy. Young Griffri had killed, yes, but in drink, in hot blood, and in fair fight man against man. He had died a worse death, turned off more casually than wringing a chicken’s neck. And the man who had made away with him so lightly lay now barely twenty yards away, and at the very sound of his name every drop of blood in Anion ran Welsh, and cried out to him of the sacred duty of galanas, the blood, feud for his brother.
Eliud led Einon’s horse and his own down the great court into the stable, yard, and the men of the escort followed with their own mounts, and the shaggy hill ponies that had carried the litter. An easy journey those two would have on the way back to Montford. Einon ab Ithel, when representing his prince on a ceremonial occasion, required a squire in attendance, and Eliud undertook the grooming of the tall bay himself. Very soon now he would be changing places with Elis, and left to chafe here while his cousin rode back to his freedom in Wales. In silence he hoisted off the heavy saddle, lifted aside the elaborate harness, and draped the saddle, cloth over his arm. The bay tossed his head with pleasure in his freedom, and blew great misty breaths. Eliud caressed him absently; his mind was not wholly on what he was doing, and his companions had found him unusually silent and withdrawn all that day. They eyed him cautiously and let him alone. It was no great surprise when he suddenly turned and tramped away out of the stable, yard, back to the open court.
‘Gone to see whether there’s any sign of his cousin yet,’ said his neighbour tolerantly, rubbing down one of the shaggy ponies. ‘He’s been like a man maimed and out of balance ever since the other one went off to Lincoln. He can hardly believe it yet that he’ll turn up here without a scratch on him.’ ‘He should know his Elis better than that,’ grunted the man beside him. ‘Never yet did that one fall anywhere but on his feet.’ Eliud was away perhaps ten
