Monk's Hood bc-3

by Ellis Peters

  A timber stockade surrounded it, massive and high, but the house stood on rising ground, and showed tall above it. Built of local stone, granite grey, with a great long roof of slates, gleaming like fish-scales in the sun as the frost on them turned to dew. When he had crossed the river by a plank-bridge and ridden in at the open gate of the stockade, the whole length of the house lay before him, a tall stone stair leading up to the main door of the living floor at the left-hand end. At ground level three separate doors, wide enough to take in country carts, led into what was evidently a vaulted under-croft, with storage room enough for a siege. Judging by the windows in the gable end, there was yet another small room above the kitchen. The windows of hall and solar were stone-mullioned and generous. Round the inner side of the stockade there were ample outhouses, stables, mews and stores. Norman lordlings, promised heirs, Benedictine abbeys might well covet such a property. Richildis had indeed married out of her kind.

  The servants here would be Bonel’s servants, continuing their functions under a new rule. A groom came to take Cadfael’s bridle, feeling no need to question one who arrived in a Benedictine habit. There were few people moving about the court, but those few assured in their passage; and impressive though the house was, it could never have needed a very numerous body to run it. All local people, surely, and that meant Welsh people, like the serving-maid who had warmed her lord’s bed and borne him a disregarded son. It happened! Bonel might even have been an attractive man then, and given her pleasure, as well as a child; and at least he had kept her thereafter, and the child with her, though as mere indulged dependents, not members of his family, not his kin. A man who did not take more than he felt to be legally his, but would not forgo any item of what fell within that net. A man who let an unclaimed villein holding go to a hungry younger son from a free family, on terms of customary service, and then, with the law firmly behind him, claimed that questionable tenant as villein by reason of the dues rendered between them, and his progeny as unfree by the same code.

  In this disputed borderland of soil and law, Cadfael found his heart and mind utterly Welsh, but could not deny that the Englishman had just as passionately held by his own law, and been sure that he was justified. He had not been an evil man, only a child of his time and place, and his death had been murder.

  Properly speaking, Cadfael had no business at this house but to observe, as now he had observed. But he went in, nevertheless, up the outdoor stair and into the passage screened off from the hail. A boy emerging from the kitchen louted to him and passed, accepting him as one of the breed, who would know his way here. The hall was lofty and strongly beamed. Cadfael passed through it to the solar. This must be where Bonel had intended to install the panelling commissioned from Martin Bellecote, the transaction which had first caused him to set eyes and heart on Richildis Gurney, who had once been Richildis Vaughan, daughter of an honest, unpretentious tradesman.

  Martin had done good work, and fitted it into place here with skill and love. The solar was narrower than the hall, there being a garderobe off it, and a tiny chapel. It glowed and was scented with the polished and sparely carved oak panelling, the suave silvery grain glinting in the light from the wide window. Edwin had a good brother and a good master. He need not repine if he missed the illusory heritage.

  “Your pardon, brother!” said a respectful voice at Cadfael’s back. “No one told me there was a messenger here from Shrewsbury.”

  Cadfael turned, startled, to take a look at the abbey’s steward here; a layman, a lawman, young enough to be deferential to his employers, mature enough to be in command of his own province.

  “It’s I who should ask your pardon,” said Cadfael, “for walking in upon you without ceremony. Truth to tell, I have no errand here, but being in the neighbourhood I was curious to see our new manor.”

  “If it is indeed ours,” said the steward ruefully, and looked about him with a shrewd eye, assessing what the abbey might well be losing. “It seems to be in doubt at the moment, though that makes no difference to my commission here, to maintain it in good order, however the lot falls in the end. The place has been run well and profitably. But if you are not sent to join us here, brother, where is your domicile? As long as we hold the manor, we can well offer you lodging, if it please you to stay.”

  “That I can’t,” said Cadfael. “I was sent from Shrewsbury to take care of an ailing brother, a shepherd at the folds by Rhydycroesau, and until he’s restored I must take on his duties there.”

  “Your patient is mending, I trust?”

  “So well that I thought I might use a few hours to come and see what manner of property may be slipping through our fingers here. But have you any immediate reason for feeling that our tenure may be threatened? More than the obvious difficulty of the charter not being sealed in time?”

  The steward frowned, chewing a dubious lip. “The situation is strange enough, for if both the secular heir and the abbey lose their claim, the future of Mallilie is a very open question. The earl of Chester is the overlord, and may bestow it as he pleases, and in troublous times like these I doubt if he’ll want to leave it in monastic hands. We could appeal to him, true, but not until Shrewsbury has an abbot again, with full powers. All we can do in the meantime is manage this land until there’s a legal decision. Will you take your dinner here with me, brother? Or at least a cup of wine?”

  Cadfael declined the offer of a midday meal; it was yet early, and he had a use for the remaining hours of daylight. But he accepted the wine with pleasure. They sat down together in the panelled solar, and the dark Welsh kitchen-boy brought them a flagon and two horns.

  “You’ve had no trouble with the Welsh to west of you?” asked Cadfael.

  “None. They’ve been used to the Bonels as neighbours for fifty years now, and no bad blood on either side. Though I’ve had little contact except with our own Welsh tenants. You know yourself, brother, both sides of the border here there are both Welsh and English living cheek by jowl, and most of those one side have kin on the other.”

  “One of our oldest brothers,” said Cadfael, “came from this very region, from a village between here and Llansilin. He was talking of his old kinship when he knew I was coming to Rhydycroesau. I’d be glad to carry his greetings, if I can find his people. Two cousins he mentioned, Cynfrith and Owain ap Rhys. You haven’t encountered either? And a brother by marriage, one Ifor ap Morgan … though it must be many years since he had any contact with any of them, and for ought I know this Ifor ap Morgan may be dead long ago. He must be round about Rhys’s own age, and few of us last so long.”

  The steward shook his head doubtfully. “Cynfrith ap Rhys I’ve heard spoken of, he has a holding half a mile or so west of here. Ifor ap Morgan … no, I know nothing of him. But I tell you what, if he’s living the boy will know, he’s from Llansilin himself. Question him when you leave, and do it in Welsh, for all he knows English well enough. You’ll get more out of him in Welsh … and all the more readily,” he added with a wry grin, “if I’m not with you. They’re none of them ill-disposed, but they keep their own counsel, and it’s wonderful how they fail to understand English when it suits them to shut the alien out.”

  “I’ll try it,” said Cadfael, “and my thanks for the good advice.”

  “Then you’ll forgive me if I don’t accompany you to the gate and give you God-speed. You’ll do better alone.”

  Cadfael took the hint and his leave, there in the solar, and went out through the hail and by the screened way into the kitchen. They boy was there, backing red-faced from the oven with a tray of new loaves. He looked round warily as he set down his burden on the clay top to cool gradually. It was neither fear nor distrust, but the wariness of a wild creature alert and responsive to every living thing, curious and ready to be friendly, sceptical and ready to vanish.

  “God save you, son!” said Cadfael in Welsh. “If your bread’s all out now, do a Christian deed, come out to the gate with me, and show a stranger the wa
y to the holding of Cynfrith ap Rhys or his brother Owain.”

  The boy gazed, eyes brightening into interest at being addressed placidly in his own tongue. “You are from Shrewsbury abbey, sir? A monk?”

  “I am.”

  “But Welsh?”

  “As Welsh as you, lad, but not from these parts. The vale of Conwy is my native place, near by Trefriw.”

  “What’s your will with Cynfrith ap Rhys?” asked the boy directly.

  Now I know I’m in Wales, thought Cadfael. An English servant, if he ventured to challenge your proceedings at all, would do it roundabout and obsequiously, for fear of getting his ears clipped, but your Welsh lad speaks his mind to princes.

  “In our abbey,” he said obligingly, “there’s an old brother who used to be known in these parts as Rhys ap Griffith, and he’s cousin to these other sons of Rhys. When I left Shrewsbury I said I’d take his greetings to his kin, and so I will if I can find them. And while we’re about it there’s one more name he gave me, and you may at least be able to tell me if the man’s alive or dead, for he must be old. Rhys had a sister Marared, who married one Ifor ap Morgan, and they had a daughter Angharad, though I’m told she’s dead years ago. But if Ifor is still living I’ll speak the good word to him, also.”

  Under this rain of Welsh names the boy thawed into smiles. “Sir, Ifor ap Morgan is still alive. He lives a fair way beyond, nearly to Llansilin. I’ll come out with you and show you the way.”

  He skipped down the stone staircase lightly, ahead of Cadfael, and trotted before him to the gate. Cadfael followed, leading his horse, and looked where the boy pointed, westward between the hills.

  “To the house of Cynfrith ap Rhys it is but half a mile, and it lies close by the track, on your right hand, with the wattle fence round the yard. You’ll see his white goats in the little paddock. For Ifor ap Morgan you must go further. Keep to the same track again until you’re through the hills, and looking down into the valley, then take the path to the right, that fords our river before it joins the Cynllaith. Half a mile on, look to your right again, just within the trees, and you’ll see a little wooden house, and that’s where Ifor lives. He’s very old now, but he lives alone still.”

  Cadfael thanked him and mounted.

  “And for the other brother, Owain,” said the boy cheerfully, willing enough now to tell all he knew that might be helpful, “if you’re in these parts two more days you may catch him in Llansilin the day after tomorrow, when the commote court meets, for he has a dispute that was put oft from the last sitting, along with some others. The judges have been viewing the impleaded lands, and the day after tomorrow they’re to give judgment. They never like to let bad blood continue at the Christmas feast. Owain’s holding is well beyond the town, but you’ll find him at Llansilin church, sure enough. One of his neighbours moved his boundary stone, or so he claims.”

  He had said more than he realised, but he was serenely innocent of the impression he had made on Brother Cadfael. One question, perhaps the most vital of all, had been answered without ever having to be asked.

  Cynfrith ap Rhys—the kinship seemed to be so full of Rhyses that in some cases it was necessary to list three generations back in order to distinguish them—was easily found, and very willing to pass the time of day even with a Benedictine monk, seeing that the monk spoke Welsh. He invited Cadfael in heartily, and the invitation was accepted with pleasure. The house was one room and a cupboard of a kitchen, a solitary man’s domain, and there was no sign of any other creature here but Cynfrith and his goats and hens. A solid, thickset, prominent-boned Welshman was Cynfrith, with wiry black hair now greying round the edges and balding on the crown, and quick, twinkling eyes set in the webs of good-humoured creases common to outdoor men. Twenty years at least younger than his cousin in the infirmary at Shrewsbury. He offered bread and goat’s-milk cheese, and wrinkled, sweet apples.

  “The good old soul, so he’s still living! Many a time I’ve wondered. He’s my mother’s cousin in the first degree, not mine, but time was I knew him well. He’ll be nearing four-score now, I suppose. And still comfortable in his cloister? I’ll send him a small flask of the right liquor, brother, if you’ll be so kind as to carry it. I distil it myself, it will stand him in good stead through the winter, a drop in season is good for the heart, and does the memory no harm, either. Well, well, and to think he still remembers us all! My brother? Oh, be sure I’ll pass on the word to Owain when I see him. He has a good wife, and grown sons, tell the old man, the elder, His, is to marry in the spring. The day after tomorrow I shall be seeing my brother, he has a judgment coming up at the commote court at Llansilin.”

  “So they told me at Mallilie,” said Cadfael. “I wish him good speed with it.”

  “Ah, well, he claims Hywel Fychan, who lives next him, shifted one of his boundary stones, and I daresay he did, but I wouldn’t say but what Owain has done the like by Hywel in his time. It’s an old sport with us … But I needn’t tell you, you being of the people yourself. They’ll make it up as the court rules, they always do until the next time, and no hard feelings. They’ll drink together this Christmas.”

  “So should we all,” said Cadfael, somewhat sententiously.

  He took his leave as soon but as graciously as he well might, truthfully claiming another errand and the shortness of the daylight, and rode on his way by the little river, both heartened and chastened by contact with open and fearless goodwill. The little flask of powerful home-distilled spirit swung in his scrip; he was glad he had left the other, the poisoned one, behind at the sheepfold.

  He came through the defile, and saw the valley of the Cynllaith open before him, and the track to the right weaving a neat line through rising grass to ford the little tributary. Half a mile beyond, woodland clothed the slope of the ridge, and in the full leaf of summer it might have been difficult to detect the low wooden house within the trees; but now, with all the leaves fallen, it stood clear behind the bare branches like a contented domestic hen in a coop. There was clear grass almost to its fence, and on one side continuing behind it, the veil of trees drawn halfway round like a curtain. Cadfael turned in towards it, and circled with the skirt of grass, seeing no door in the side that faced the track. A horse on a long tether came ambling round the gable end, placidly grazing; a horse as tall and rakish and unbeautiful as the one he rode, though probably some years older. At sight of it he pulled up short, and sat at gaze for a moment, before lighting down into the coarse grass.

  There must, of course, be many horses that would answer to the description given: a bony old piebald. This one was certainly that, very strikingly black and white in improbable patterns. But they could not all, surely, be called by the same name?

  Cadfael dropped his bridle and went softly forward towards the serenely feeding beast, which paid him no attention whatever after a single, glance. He chirruped to it, and called quietly: “Japhet!”

  The piebald pricked long ears and lifted a gaunt, amiable head, stretching out a questing muzzle and dilated nostrils towards the familiar sound, and having made up his mind he was not mistaken, advanced confidently and briskly to the hand Cadfael extended. He ran caressing fingers up the tall forehead, and along the stretched, inquisitive neck. “Japhet, Japhet, my friend, what are you doing here?”

  The rustle of feet in the dry grass, while all four feet of this mild creature were still, caused Cadfael to look up sharply towards the corner of the house. A venerable old man stood looking at him steadily and silently; a tall old man, white-haired and white-bearded, but still with brows black and thick as gorse-bushes, and eyes as. starkly blue as a winter sky beneath them. His dress was the common homespun of the countryman, but his carriage and height turned it into purple.

  “As I think,” said Cadfael, turning towards him with one hand still on Japhet’s leaning neck, “you must be Ifor ap Morgan. My name is Cadfael, sometime Cadfael ap Meilyr ap Dafydd of Trefriw. I have an errand to you from Rhys ap Griffith, your wife’s b
rother, who is now Brother Rhys of the abbey of Shrewsbury.”

  The voice that emerged from the long, austere, dry lips was deep and sonorous, a surprising music. “Are you sure your errand is not to a guest of mine, brother?”

  “It was not,” said Cadfael, “it was to you. Now it is to both. And the first thing I would say is, keep this beast out of sight, for if I can know him again from a mere description, so can others.”

  The old man gave him a lengthy, piercing blue stare. “Come into the house,” he said, and turned on his heel and led the way. But Cadfael took time to lead Japhet well behind the house and shorten his tether to keep him there, before he followed.

  In the dimness within, smoky and wood-scented, the old man stood with a hand protectively on Edwin’s shoulder; and Edwin, with the impressionable generosity of youth, had somehow gathered to himself a virgin semblance of the old man’s dignity and grace, and stood like him, erect and quiet within his untried body as was Ifor ap Morgan in his old and experienced one, copied the carriage of his head and the high serenity of his regard.