clear hours should be ample start, and someone had to be the first to go in, no, not the first, for certainly Melicent was there before him, but the first of the others, the potential enemy, the uninitiated.
He opened the door of the cell, and halted just within the threshold. In the dim light two roused, pale faces confronted him, almost cheek to cheek. Melicent sat on the edge of the bed, supporting the occupant in her arm, for he had raised himself to sit upright, with a cloak draped round his naked shoulders, to meet this moment erect. The bandage swathing his cracked rib heaved to a quickened and apprehensive heartbeat, and the eyes that fixed steadily upon Cadfael were not greenish hazel, but almost as dark as the tangle of black curls.
‘Will you let the lord Beringar know,’ said Elis ap Cynan,’that I have sent away my foster, brother out of his hands, and am here to answer for all that may be held against him. He put his neck in a noose for me, so do I now for him. Whatever the law wills can be done to me in his place.’ It was said. He drew a deep breath, and winced at the stab it cost him, but the sharp expectancy of his face eased and warmed now the first step was taken, and there was no more need of any concealment.
‘I am sorry I had to deceive Mother Mariana,’ he said. ‘Say I entreat her forgiveness, but there was no other way in fairness to all here. I would not have any other blamed for what I have done.’ And he added with sudden impulsive simplicity: ‘I’m glad it was you who came. Send to the town quickly, I shall be glad to have this over. And Eliud will be safe now.’ ‘I’ll do your errand,’ said Cadfael gravely, ‘both your errands. And ask no questions.’ Not even whether Eliud had been in the plot, for he already knew the answer. From all those who had found it necessary to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, Eliud stood apart in his despairing innocence and lamentable guilt. Someone among those bearers of his on the road to Wales might have a frantically distressed invalid on his hands when the long, deep sleep drew to a close. But at the end of the enforced flight, whatever measures Owam Gwynedd took in the matter, there was Cristina waiting.
‘I have provided as well as I could,’ said Elis earnestly. ‘They’ll send word ahead, she’ll come to meet him. It will be a hard enough furrow, but it will be life.’ A deal of growing up seemed to have been done since Elis ap Cynan first came raiding to Godric’s Ford. This was not the boy who had avenged his nervous fears in captivity by tossing Welsh insults at his captors with an innocent face, nor the girl who had cherished dreamy notions of taking the veil before ever she knew what marriage or vocation meant.
‘The affair seems to have been well managed,’ said Cadfael judicially. ‘Very well, I’ll go and make it known, here and in Shrewsbury.’ He had the door half, closed behind him when Elis called: ‘And then will you come and help me do on my clothes? I would like to meet Hugh Beringar decent and on my feet.’ And that was what he did, when Hugh came in the afternoon, grim, faced and black, browed, to probe the loss of his felon. In Mother Mariana’s tiny parlour, dark, timbered and bare, Elis and Melicent stood side by side to face him. Cadfael had got the boy into his hose and shirt and coat, and Melicent had combed out the tangles from his hair, since he could not do it himself without pain. Sister Magdalen, after one measuring glance as he took his first unsteady steps, had provided him a staff to reinforce his treacherous knee, which would not go fairly under him as yet, but threatened to double all ways to let him fall. When he was ready he looked very young, neat and solemn, and understandably afraid. He stood twisted a little sideways, favouring the knitting rib that shortened his breath. Melicent kept a hand ready, close to his arm, but held off from touching.
‘I have sent Eliud back to Wales in my place,’ said Elis, stiff as much with apprehension as with resolve,’since I owe him a life. But here am I, at your will and disposal, to do with as you see fit. Whatever you hold due to him, visit upon me.’ ‘For God’s sake sit down,’ said Hugh shortly and disconcertingly. ‘I object to being made the target of your self, inflicted suffering. If you’re offering me your neck, that’s enough, I have no need of your present pains. Sit and take ease. I am not interested in heroes.’ Elis flushed, winced and sat obediently, but he did not take his eyes from Hugh’s grim countenance.
‘Who helped you?’ demanded Hugh with chilling quietness.
‘No one. I alone made this plan. Owain’s men did as they were ordered by me.’ That could be said boldly, they were well away in their own country.
‘We made the plan,’ said Melicent firmly.
Hugh ignored her, or seemed to. ‘Who helped you?’ he repeated forcibly.
‘No one. Melicent knew, but she took no part. The sole blame is mine. Deal with me!’ ‘So alone you moved your cousin into the other bed. That was marvel enough, for a man crippled himself and unable to walk, let alone lift another man’s weight. And as I hear, a certain miller of these parts carried Eliud ap Griffith to the litter.’ ‘It was dark within, and barely light without,’ said Elis steadily, ‘and I…’ ‘We,’ said Melicent.
‘… I had already wrapped Eliud well, there was little of him to see. John did nothing but lend his strong arms in kindness to me.’ ‘Was Eliud party to this exchange?’ ‘No!’ they said together, loudly and fiercely.
‘No!’ repeated Elis, his voice shaking with the fervour of his denial. ‘He knew nothing. I gave him in his last drink a great draught of the poppy syrup that Brother Cadfael used on us to dull the pain, that first day. It brings on deep sleep. Eliud slept through all. He never knew! He never would have consented.’ ‘And how did you, bed, held as you were, come by that syrup?’ I stole the flask from Sister Magdalen,’ said Melicent. ‘Ask her! She will tell you what a great dose has been taken from it.’ So she would, with all gravity and concern. Hugh never doubted it, nor did he mean to put her to the necessity of answering. Nor Cadfael either. Both had considerately absented themselves from this trial, judge and culprits held the whole matter in their hands.
There was a brief, heavy silence that weighed distressfully on Elis, while Hugh eyed the pair of them from under knitted brows, and fastened at last with frowning attention upon Melicent.
‘You of all people,’ he said, ‘had the greatest right to require payment from Eliud. Have you so soon forgiven him? Then who else dare gainsay?’ ‘I am not even sure,’ said Melicent slowly,’that I know what forgiveness is. Only it seems a sad waste that all a man’s good should not be able to outweigh one evil, however great. That is the world’s loss. And I wanted no more deaths. One was grief enough, the second would not heal it.’ Another silence, longer than the first. Elis burned and shivered, wanting to hear his penalty, whatever it might be, and know the best and the worst. He quaked when Hugh rose abruptly from his seat.
‘Elis ap Cynan, I have no charge to make in law against you. I want no exaction from you. You had best rest here a while yet. Your horse is still in the abbey stables. When you are fit to ride, you may follow your foster, brother home.’ And before they had breath to speak, he was out of the room, and the door closing after him.
Brother Cadfael walked a short way beside his friend when Hugh rode back to Shrewsbury in the early evening. The last days had been mild, and in the long green ride the branches of the trees wore the first green veil of the spring budding. The singing of the birds, likewise, had begun to throb with the yearly excitement and unrest before mating and nesting and rearing the young. A time for all manner of births and beginnings, and for putting death out of mind.
‘What else could I have done?’ said Hugh. ‘This one has done no murder, never owed me that very comely neck he insists on offering me. And if I had hanged him I should have been hanging both, for God alone knows how even so resolute a girl as Melicent, or the one you spoke of in Tregeiriog for that matter, is ever going to part the two halves of that pair. Two lives for one is no fair bargain.’ He looked down from the saddle of the raw, boned grey
