The Summer of the Danes (6 page)

Meantime,
mead and wine were oiling the wheels of diplomacy, and by the rising babel of
voices successfully. And Cadfael had better turn his attention to his own part
in this social gathering, and begin to do his duty by his neighbours. On his
right hand he had a middle-aged cleric, surely a canon of the cathedral,
well-fleshed and portly, but with a countenance of such uncompromising
rectitude that Cadfael judged he might well be that Morgant whose future errand
it was to see that both father and daughter conducted themselves unexceptionably
on the journey to dispose of Heledd to a husband. Just such a thin, fastidious
nose seemed suitable to the task, and just such chill, sharp eyes. But his
voice when he spoke, and his manner to the guest, were gracious enough. In
every situation he would be equal to events, and strike the becoming note, but
he did not look as if he would be easy on shortcomings in others.

On
Cadfael’s left sat a young man of the prince’s party, of the true Welsh build,
sturdy and compact, very trim in his dress, and dark of hair and eye. A very
black, intense eye, that focussed on distance, and looked through what lay
before his gaze, men and objects alike, rather than at them. Only when he
looked along the high table, to where Owain and Hywel sat, did the range of his
vision shorten, fix and grow warm in recognition and acknowledgement, and the
set of his long lips soften almost into smiling. One devoted follower at least
the princes of Gwynedd possessed. Cadfael observed the young man sidewise, with
discretion, for he was worth study, very comely in his black and brooding
fashion, and tended to a contained and private silence. When he did speak, in
courtesy to the new guest, his voice was quiet but resonant, and moved in
cadences that seemed to Cadfael to belong elsewhere than in Gwynedd. But the
most significant thing about his person did not reveal itself for some time,
since he ate and drank little, and used only the right hand that lay easy on
the board under Cadfael’s eyes. Only when he turned directly towards his
neighbour, and rested his left elbow on the edge of the table, did it appear
that the left forearm terminated only a few inches below the joint, and a fine
linen cloth was drawn over the stump like a glove, and secured by a thin silver
bracelet. It was impossible not to stare, the revelation came so unexpectedly;
but Cadfael withdrew his gaze at once, and forbore from any comment, though he
could not resist studying the mutilation covertly when he thought himself
unobserved. But his neighbour had lived with his loss long enough to accustom
himself to its effect on others.

“You
may ask, Brother,” he said, with a wry smile. “I am not ashamed to own where I
left it. It was my better hand once, though I could use both, and can still
make shift with the one I have left.”

Since
curiosity was understood and expected of him, Cadfael made no secret of it,
though he was already hazarding a guess at the possible answers. For this young
man was almost certainly from South Wales, far from his customary kin here in
Gwynedd.

“I
am in no doubt,” he said cautiously, “that wherever you may have left it, the
occasion did you nothing but honour. But if you are minded to tell me, you
should know that I have carried arms in my time, and given and taken injury in
the field. Where you admit me, I can follow you, and not as a stranger.”

“I
thought,” said the young man, turning black, brilliant eyes on him
appraisingly, “you had not altogether the monastic look about you. Follow,
then, and welcome. I left my arm lying over my lord’s body, the sword still in
my hand.”

“Last
year,” said Cadfael slowly, pursuing his own prophetic imaginings,” in
Deheubarth.”

“As
you have said.”

“Anarawd?”

“My
prince and my foster-brother,” said the maimed man. “The stroke, the final
stroke, that took his life from him took my arm from me.”

Chapter Three

“HOW
MANY,” ASKED CADFAEL CAREFULLY, after a moment of silence, “were with him
then?”

“Three
of us. On a simple journey and a short, thinking no evil. There were eight of
them. I am the only one left who rode with Anarawd that day.” His voice was low
and even. He had forgotten nothing and forgiven nothing, but he was in complete
command of voice and face.

“I
marvel,” said Cadfael, “that you lived to tell the story. It would not take
long to bleed to death from such a wound.”

“And
even less time to strike again and finish the work,” the young man agreed with
a twisted smile. “And so they would have done if some others of our people had
not heard the affray and come in haste. Me they left lying when they rode away.
I was taken up and tended after his murderers had run. And when Hywel came with
his army to avenge the slaying, he brought me back here with him, and Owain has
taken me into his own service. A one-armed man is still good for something. And
he can still hate.”

“You
were close to your prince?”

“I
grew up with him. I loved him.” His black eyes rested steadily upon the lively
profile of Hywel ab Owain, who surely had taken Anarawd’s place in his loyalty,
in so far as one man can ever replace another.

“May
I know your name?” asked Cadfael. “And mine is, or in the world it was, Cadfael
ap Meilyr ap Dafydd, a man of Gwynedd myself, born at Trefriw. And Benedictine
though I may be, I have not forgotten my ancestry.”

“Nor
should you, in the world or out of it. And my name is Cuhelyn ab Einion, a
younger son of my father, and a man of my prince’s guard. In the old days,” he
said, darkling, “it was disgrace for a man of the guard to return alive from
the field on which his lord was slain. But I had and have good reason for
living. Those of the murderers whom I knew I have named to Hywel, and they have
paid. But some I did not know. I keep the faces in mind, for the day when I see
them again and hear the names that go with the faces.”

“There
is also one other, the chief, who has paid only a blood-price in lands,” said
Cadfael. “What of him? Is it certain he gave the orders for this ambush?”

“Certain!
They would never have dared, otherwise. And Owain Gwynedd has no doubts.”

“And
where, do you suppose, is this Cadwaladr now? And has he resigned himself to
the loss of everything he possessed?”

The
young man shook his head. “Where he is no one seems to know. Nor what mischief
he has next in mind. But resigned to his loss? That I doubt! Hywel took
hostages from among the lesser chiefs who served under Cadwaladr, and brought
them north to ensure there should be no further resistance in Ceredigion. Most
of them have been released now, having sworn not to bear arms against Hywel’s
rule or offer service again to Cadwaladr, unless at some time to come he should
pledge reparation and be restored. There’s one still left captive in Aber, Gwion.
He’s given his parole not to attempt escape, but he refuses to forswear his
allegiance to Cadwaladr or promise peace to Hywel. A decent enough fellow,”
said Cuhelyn tolerantly, “but still devoted to his lord. Can I hold that
against a man? But such a lord! He deserves better for his worship.”

“You
bear no hatred against him?”

“None,
there is no reason. He had no part in the ambush, he is too young and too clean
to be taken into such a villainy. After a fashion, I like him as he likes me.
We are two of a kind. Could I blame him for holding fast to his allegiance as I
hold fast to mine? If he would kill for Cadwaladr’s sake, so would I have done,
so I did, for Anarawd. But not by stealth, in double force against light-armed
men expecting no danger. Honestly, in open field, that’s another matter.”

The
long meal was almost at its end, only the wine and mead still circling, and the
hum of voices had mellowed into a low, contented buzzing like a hive of bees drunken
and happy among summer meadows. In the centre of the high table Bishop Gilbert
had taken up the fine scroll of his letter and broken the seal, and was on his
feet with the vellum leaf unrolled in his hands. Roger de Clinton’s salutation
was meant to be declaimed in public for its full effect, and had been carefully
worded to impress the laity no less than the Celtic clergy, who might be most
in need of a cautionary word. Gilbert’s sonorous voice made the most of it.
Cadfael, listening, thought that Archbishop Theobald would be highly content
with the result of his embassage.

“And
now, my lord Owain,” Gilbert pursued, seizing the mellowed moment for which he
must have been waiting throughout the feast, “I ask your leave to introduce a
petitioner, who comes asking your indulgence for a plea on behalf of another.
My appointment here gives me some right, by virtue of my office, to speak for
peace, between individual men as between peoples. It is not good that there
should be anger between brothers. Just cause there may have been at the outset,
but there should be a term to every outlawry, every quarrel. I ask an audience
for an ambassador who speaks on behalf of your brother Cadwaladr, that you may
be reconciled with him as is fitting, and restore him to his lost place in your
favour. May I admit Bledri ap Rhys?”

There
was a brief, sharp silence, in which every eye turned upon the prince’s face.
Cadfael felt the young man beside him stiffen and quiver in bitter resentment
of such a breach of hospitality, for clearly this had been planned deliberately
without a word of warning to the prince, without any prior consultation, taking
an unfair advantage of the courtesy such a man would undoubtedly show towards
the host at whose table he was seated. Even had this audience been sought in
private, Cuhelyn would have found it deeply offensive. To precipitate it thus
publicly, in hall before the entire household, was a breach of courtesy only
possible to an insensitive Norman set up in authority among a people of whom he
had no understanding. But if the liberty was as displeasing to Owain as it was
to Cuhelyn, he did not allow it to appear. He let the silence lie just long
enough to leave the issue in doubt, and perhaps shake Gilbert’s valiant
self-assurance, and then he said clearly:

“At
your wish, my lord bishop, I will certainly hear Bledri ap Rhys. Every man has
the right to ask and to be heard. Without prejudice to the outcome!” It was
plain, as soon as the bishop’s steward brought the petitioner into the hall,
that he had not come straight from travel to ask for this audience. Somewhere
about the bishop’s enclave he had been waiting at ease for his entry here, and
had prepared himself carefully, very fine and impressive in his dress and in
his person, every grain of dust from the roads polished away. A tall,
broad-shouldered, powerful man, black-haired and black-moustached, with an
arrogant beak of a nose, and a bearing truculent rather than conciliatory. He
swept with long strides into the centre of the open space fronting the dais,
and made an elaborate obeisance in the general direction of prince and bishop.
The gesture seemed to Cadfael to tend rather to the performer’s own
aggrandisement than to any particular reverence for those saluted. He had
everyone’s attention, and meant to retain it.

“My
lord prince—my lord bishop, your devout servant! I come as a petitioner here
before you.” He did not look the part, nor was his full, confident voice
expressive of any such role.

“So
I have heard,” said Owain. “You have something to ask of us. Ask it freely.”

“My
lord, I was and am in fealty to your brother Cadwaladr, and I dare venture to
speak for his right, in that he goes deprived of his lands, and made a stranger
and disinherited in his own country. Whatever you may hold him guilty of, I
dare to plead that such a penalty is more than he has deserved, and such as
brother should not visit upon brother. And I ask of you that measure of
generosity and forgiveness that should restore him his own again. He has
endured this despoiling a year already, let that be enough, and set him up
again in his lands of Ceredigion. The lord bishop will add his voice to mine
for reconciliation.”

“The
lord bishop has been before you,” said Owain drily, “and equally eloquent. I am
not, and never have been, adamant against my brother, whatever follies he has
committed, but murder is worse than folly, and requires a measure of penitence
before forgiveness is due. The two, separated, are of no value, and where the
one is not, I will not waste the other. Did Cadwaladr send you on this errand?”

“No,
my lord, and knows nothing of my coming. It is he who suffers deprivation, and
I who appeal for his right to be restored. If he has done ill in the past, is
that good reason for shutting him out from the possibility of doing well in the
future? And what has been done to him is extreme, for he has been made an exile
in his own country, without a toehold on his own soil. Is that fair dealing?”

“It
is less extreme,” said Owain coldly, “than what was done to Anarawd. Lands can
be restored, if restoration is deserved. Life once lost is past restoration.”

“True,
my lord, but even homicide may be compounded for a blood-price. To be stripped
of all, and for life, is another kind of death.”

“We
are not concerned with mere homicide, but with murder,” said Owain, “as well
you know.” At Cadfael’s left hand Cuhelyn sat stiff and motionless in his
place, his eyes fixed upon Bledri, their glance lengthened to pierce through
him and beyond. His face was white, and his single hand clenched tightly upon
the edge of the board, the knuckles sharp and pale as ice. He said no word and
made no sound, but his bleak stare never wavered.