by Ellis Peters
There was a sharp command without and then silence. Rannilt drew herself back as far as she dared into the remaining store of hay, towards the faint pattern of stars. Between here and the head of the ladder by which she had climbed there was a silent, motionless presence which she knew for Susanna, on guard over her lover’s only weapon.
“What did I ever do to you?” said Rannilt, without rancour or hope.
“You fell foul,” said Susanna, with unblaming bitterness. “Your misfortune and ours.”
“And will you truly kill me?” She asked it in pure wonder, even her terror momentarily forgotten.
“If we must.”
“But dead,” said Rannilt, in a moment of desperately clear vision putting her finger on the one disastrous weakness in the holding of hostages, “I am of no more use to you. It’s only living that I can get you what you want. If you kill me you’ve lost everything. And you don’t want to kill me, what pleasure would that be to you? Why, I’m no use to you at all!”
“If I must pull the roof down upon myself,” said Susanna with cold ferocity, “I’ll pull it down also upon as many of the innocent as I can contrive to crush with me and not go alone into the dark.”
Chapter 13
Friday night to Saturday morning
HUGH HAD HALTED his men instantly at Iestyn’s challenge, drawn back those who had reached the stable doors, and enjoined silence, which is more unnerving than violent assault or loud outcry. Moving men could be detected, stillness made them only dubiously visible. The rising ground to the headland bore several small clumps of trees and a hedge of bushes, cover enough for men to make their way halfway round the stable, and the rest of the circle they closed at a greater distance, completing a ring all round the building. The sergeant came back from his survey, shadowy from tree to tree down the slope to the meadow, to report the stable surrounded.
“There’s no other way out, unless he has the means to hew a way through a wall, and small good that would do him. And if he boasts of a knife, I take it he has no other weapon. What would a common workman carry but his knife for all purposes?”
“And we have archers,” mused Hugh, “if they have no light to show them a target as yet. Wait—nothing in haste! If we have them securely, it’s we who can afford to wait, not they. No need to drive them to madness.”
“But they have Rannilt in there—they’re threatening her life,” whispered Liliwin, quivering at Brother Cadfael’s shoulder.
“They’re offering to spend her for their own ends,” said Hugh, “therefore all the more they’ll keep her safe to bargain with, short of the last despair, and I’ll take good care not to drive them over the edge. Keep still a while, and let’s see if we can tire them out or talk them out. But you, Alcher, find yourself the best place in cover to command that hatch above the doors, and keep it in your eye and a shaft always ready, in case of the worst. I’ll try to hold the fellow there in the frame for you.” The loading door where Iestyn kneeled to watch them was no more than a faint shape darker still in the dark timber wall and the deep-blue light, but like the doors it faced due east, and the first predawn light, however many hours away yet, would find it early. “No shooting unless I bid. Let’s see what patience can do.”
He went forward alone, fixing the square of darkness with intent eyes, and stood some twenty paces distant from the stable. Behind him in the bushes Liliwin held his breath, and Brother Cadfael felt the boy’s slight body quivering and taut, like a leashed hound, and laid a cautioning hand on his arm in case he slipped his leash and went baying after his quarry. But he need not have feared. Liliwin turned a white face and nodded him stiff reassurance. “I know. I trust him, I must. He knows his business.”
At their backs, unable to be still, Walter Aurifaber sidled and writhed about the tree that sheltered him, biting his nails and agonising over his losses, and saying never a word to any but himself, and that in a soft, whining undertone that was half malediction and half prayer. At least all was not yet lost. The malefactors had not escaped, and could not and must not break loose now and run for it westward.
“Iestyn!” called Hugh, gazing steadily upward. “Here am I, Hugh Beringar, the sheriff’s deputy. You know me, you know why I am here, you best know I am about what it is my duty to do. My men are all round you, you have no way of escape. Be wise, come down from there and give yourself—yourselves—into my hands, without more damage and worse offence, and look for what mercy such good sense can buy you. It’s your best course. You must know it and take heed.”
“No!” said Iestyn’s voice harshly. “We have not come so far to go tamely to judgement now. I tell you, we have the girl, Rannilt, here within. If any man of yours comes too near these doors, I swear I will kill her. Bid them keep back. That’s my first word.”
“Do you see any man but myself moving within fifty paces of your doors?” Hugh’s voice was calm, equable and clear. “You have, then, a girl at your mercy. What then? With her you have no quarrel. What can you gain by harming her but a hotter place in hell? If you could reach my throat, I grant you it might possibly avail you, but it can neither help you nor give you satisfaction to slit hers. Nor does it suit with what has been known of you heretofore. You have no blood-guilt on your hands thus far, why soil them now?”
“You may talk sweet reason from where you stand,” cried Iestyn bitterly, “but we have all to lose, and see no let to making use of what weapons we have. And I tell you, if you press me, I will kill her, and if then you break in here after me by force, I will kill and kill as many as I can before the end. But if you mean such soft, wise talk, yes, you may have the girl, safe and sound—at a price!”
“Name your price,” said Hugh.
“A life for a life is fair. Rannilt’s life for my woman’s. Let my woman go free from here, with her horse and goods and gear and all that is hers, unpursued, and I will send out the girl to you unharmed.”
“And you would take my word there should be no pursuit?” Hugh pressed, angling after at least a small advantage.
“You’re known for a man of your word.”
Two voices had let out sharp gasps at the mention of such terms, and two voices cried out: “No!” in the same breath. Walter, frantic for his gold and silver, darted out a few steps towards where Hugh stood, until Cadfael caught him by the arm and plucked him back. He wriggled and babbled indignantly: “No, no such infamous bargain! Her goods and gear? Mine, not hers, stolen from me. You cannot strike such a bargain. Is the slut to make off into Wales with her ill-gotten gains? Never! I won’t have it!”
There was a shadowy flurry of movement in the hatch above, and Susanna’s voice pealed sharply: “What, have you my loving father there? He wants his money, and my neck wrung, like that of any other who dared lay hands on his money. Poor judgement in you, if you expected him to be willing to pay out a penny to save a servant-girl’s life, or a daughter’s either. Never fear, my fond father, I say no just as loudly as you. I will not accept such a bargain. Even in peril of death I would not go one step away from my man here. You hear that? My man, my lover, the father of my child! But on terms I’ll part from him, yes! Let Iestyn take the horse, and go back unmolested into his own country, and I’ll go freely, to my death or my wretched life, whichever falls on me. I am the one you want. Not he. I have killed, I tell you so open…”
“She’s lying,” cried Iestyn hoarsely. “I am the guilty man. Whatever she did she did only for me…”
“Hush, love, they know better! They know which of us two planned and acted. Me they may do as they like with—you they shall not have!”
“Oh, fool girl, my dearest, do you think I would leave you? Not for all the world’s treasures…”
Those below were forgotten in this wild contention above. Nothing was to be seen but the agitated tremor of certain pallors within the dark frame, that might have been faces and hands, faces pressed despairingly cheek to cheek, hands embracing and caressing. Next moment Iestyn’s voice lifted sharpl
y: “Stop her! Quickly, stir! Mind your fawn!” And the shadowy embrace broke apart, and a faint, frustrated cry from deep within made Liliwin shiver and start against Cadfael’s arm.
“That was Rannilt. Oh, God, if I could but reach her…” But he spoke only in a whisper, aware of a tension that ought not to be broken, that was spun out here like the threatened thread of Rannilt’s young life, and his own hope of happiness. His desperation and pain was something he must bear, and keep silent.
“Since she cries out,” whispered Cadfael firmly into his ear, “she is alive. Since she made a bid to slip away out of reach while they were beset, she is unharmed and unbound. Keep that in mind.”
“Yes, true! And they don’t, they can’t hate her or want to harm her…” But still he heard the extreme anger and pain of those two voices crying defiance, and knew, as Cadfael knew, that two so driven might do terrible things even against their own natures. More, he understood their suffering, and was wrung with it as though it matched his own.
“No comfort for you,” shouted Iestyn from his lair. “We have her still. Now I offer you another choice. Take back the girl and the gold and silver, give us the two horses and this night free of pursuit, together.”
Walter Aurifaber broke free with a whimper of half-eager, half-doubtful hope and approval, and darted some yards into the open. “My lord! My lord, that might be acceptable. If they restore my treasury…” Even his lawful revenge did not count for much by comparison.
“There is a life they cannot restore,” said Hugh curtly, and motioned him back so sternly that the goldsmith recoiled, chastened.
“Are you listening, Iestyn?” called Hugh, raising his eyes once again to the dark hatch. “You mistake my office. I stand here for the king’s law. I am willing to stand here all night long. Take thought again, and better, and come down with unbloodied hands. There is no better thing you can do.”
“I am here. I am listening. I have not changed,” Iestyn responded grimly from above. “If you want my woman and me, come and fetch us forth, and fetch away first this little carcase—your prey, not ours.”
“Have I raised a hand?” said Hugh reasonably. “Or loosened my sword in the scabbard? You see me, clearer than I can see you. We have the night before us. Whenever you have ought to say, speak up, I shall be here.”
*
The night dragged with fearful slowness over besiegers and besieged, for the most part in mourn silence, though if silence continued too long Hugh would deliberately break it, to test whether Iestyn remained awake and watchful, though with care not to alarm him, for fear he should be driven to panic action in expectation of an attack. There was no remedy but to outwait and out endure the enemy. In all likelihood they had very little food or water with them. They could as easily be deprived of rest. Even in such tactics there was the danger of sudden and utter despair, which might bring on a massacre, but if all was done very gradually and softly that might yet be avoided. Weariness has sometimes broken down spirits braced implacably to defy torture, and inaction sucked away all the resolution armed for action.
“Try if you can do better,” said Hugh softly to Cadfael, some time well past midnight. “They cannot know you’re here, not yet, you may find a chink in their mail that’s proof against me.”
In those small hours when the heart is low, the least surprise may prick home as it could not do by day, in the noon of the body’s vigour. Cadfael’s very voice, deeper and rougher than Hugh’s, startled Iestyn into leaning out from his watch-tower for one incautious stare at this new visitant.
“Who’s that? What trick are you playing now?”
“No trick, Iestyn. I am Brother Cadfael of the abbey, who came sometimes to the house with medicines. You know me, I dare not say well enough to trust me. Let me speak with Susanna, who knows me better.”
He had thought that she might refuse either to speak or to hear him. When she had set her mind upon one course, she might well be stone to any who sought to divert her or stand in her way. But she did come to the hatch, and she did listen. At least that was a further respite. Those two lovers changed places in the loft. Cadfael felt them pass, and now they passed without touching or caressing, for there was no need. They were two halves of one whole, living or dead. One of them, it was clear from the earlier outcry, must keep an eye on their prisoner. They could not bind her, then, or else they had not thought it needful. Perhaps they had not the means. They were trapped in the instant of flight. Was it unpardonable to wish they had ridden away half an hour earlier?
“Susanna, it is not too late to make restitution. I know your wrongs, my voice shall speak for you. But murder is murder. Never think there is any escape. Though you elude the judgement here, there is another you cannot avoid. Better far to make what amends can be made and be at peace.”
“What peace?” she said, bitter and chill. “There is none for me. I am a stunted tree, denied the ground to grow, and now, when I am in fruit, in despite of this world, do you think I will abate one particle of my hate or love? Leave me be, Brother Cadfael,” she said more gently. “Your concern is with my soul, mine is all with my body, the only heaven I’ve ever known or ever hope to know.”
“Come down and bring Iestyn with you,” said Cadfael simply, “and I take it upon myself to promise you, as I must answer to God, that your child and his shall be born and cared for as befits every human soul brought innocent into the world. I will invoke the lord abbot to ensure it.”
She laughed. It was a fresh, wild and yet desolate sound. “This is not Holy Church’s child, Brother Cadfael. It belongs to me, and to Iestyn my man, and there is none other shall ever cradle or care for it. Yet I do thank you for your goodwill to my son. And after all,” she said, with bitter derision in her voice, “how do we know the creature would ever be brought forth living and whole? I am old, Brother Cadfael, old for childbirth. The thing may be dead before me.”
“Make the assay,” said Cadfael stoutly. “He is not wholly yours, he is his own, your maybe child. Do him justice! Why should he pay for your sins? It was not he trampled Baldwin Peche into the gravel of Severn.”
She made a dreadful, muted sound, as if she had choked upon her own rage and grief, and then she was calm and resolved again, and immovable. “Three are here together and made one,” she said, “the only trinity I acknowledge now. No fourth has any part in us. What do we owe to any man living?”
“You forget there is a fourth,” said Cadfael strongly, “and you are making shameful use of her. One who is none of yours and has never done you wrong. She also loves—I think you know it. Why destroy another pair as little blessed as you?”
“Why not?” said Susanna. “I am all destruction. What else is left to me now?”
Cadfael persisted, but after a while, talking away doggedly there past the mid of the night, he knew that she had risen and left him, unconvinced, unreconciled, and that it was Iestyn who now leaned in the hatch. He waited a considering while, and then took up his pleading for this perhaps more vulnerable ear. A Welshman, less aggrieved than the woman, for all his hardships; and all Welsh are kin, even if they slit one another’s throats now and then, and manure their sparse and stony fields with fratricidal dead in tribal wars. But he knew he had little hope. He had already spoken with the domina of that pair. There was no appeal to this one now that she could not wipe out with a gesture of her hand.
He was eased, if not verily glad, when Hugh came back to relieve him of his watch.
*
He sat slack and discouraged in the spring grass under the hedge of bushes, and Liliwin came plucking softly but urgently at his sleeve. “Brother Cadfael, come with me!”
Come!” The whisper was excited and hopeful, where hope was in no very lavish supply.
“What is it? Come with you where?”
“He said there’s no other way out,” whispered Liliwin, tugging at the sleeve he held, “and by that token none in, but there is… there could be. Come and see!”
Ca
dfael went where he was led, up through the bushes on the headland, and along the slope in cover, just below the level of the stable roof and at no great distance from it, to the western end of the building. The timbers of the roof projected above the low gable, the fellow to the eastern one in which Iestyn crouched on watch. “See there—the starlight shows dappling. They let in a lattice there for air.”
Peering narrowly, Cadfael could just discern a square shape that might well be what Liliwin described, but measured barely the span of hand and forearm either way, as close as he could estimate. The interstices between the slats, which the straining eye could either discern or imagine for a moment, only to lose them again, were surely too small even to admit a fist. Nor was there any way of reaching them, short of a ladder or the light weight and claws of a cat, even though the timbers of the wall below were rough and uneven.
“That?” breathed Cadfael, aghast. “Child, a spider might get up there and get in, but scarcely a man.”
“Ah, but I’ve been down there, I know. There are toe-holds enough. And I think one of the slats is hanging loose already, and there’ll be others ready to give way. If a man could get in there, while you hold them busy at the other end… She is up there, I know it! You heard, when they ran to hold her, how far it was to run.”
It was true. Moreover, if she had any choice she would be huddled as far away from her captors as she could get.
“But, boy, even if you stripped away two or three of the boards—could you do more, unheard? I doubt it! There’s not a man among us could get through that keyhole to her. No, not if you had time to strip the whole square.”
“Yes, I can! You forget,” whispered Liliwin eagerly, I’m small and light and I’m an acrobat, bred to it from three or four years old. It’s my craft. I can reach her. Where a cat can go I can go. And she’s even smaller than I, though she may not be trained as a tumbler. If I had a rope, I could make it fast there, and take my time opening up the way for her. Oh, surely, surely it’s worth the attempt! We’ve no other way. And I can do it, and I will!”