Dead Man's Ransom

by Ellis Peters

  “And what of him now?” Hugh was studying his friend’s face intently, foreseeing what was to come. “Are you telling me this fellow was within the pale now, when the sheriff was brought there helpless?”

  “He was, and only a door ajar between him and his enemy—if so he held him, as rumour says he did. Not the only one with a grudge, either, so that’s no proof of anything more than this, that the opportunity was there. But tonight there’s another mark against him. The man’s gone. He did not come for his supper, he’s not in his bed, and no man has seen him since dinner. Edmund missed him at the meal and has been looking for him ever since, but never a sign. And the crutch he was still using, though more from habit than need, was lying in the stableyard. Anion has taken to his heels. And the blame, if blame there is,” said Cadfael honestly, “is mine. Edmund and I have been asking every man in the infirmary if he saw or heard anything of note about the sheriff’s chamber, any traffic in or out. It was but the same asking with Anion, indeed I was more cautious with him than with any when I spoke with him this morning in the stables. But for all that, no question, I’ve frightened him away.”

  “Not necessarily a proof of guilt, to take fright and run,” said Hugh reasonably. “Men without privilege are apt to suppose they’ll be blamed for whatever’s done amiss. Is it certain he’s gone? A man just healed of a broken leg? Has he taken horse or mule? Nothing stolen?”

  “Nothing. But there’s more to tell. Brother Rhys, whose bed is by the door, across the passage from where the sheriff lay, heard the door creak twice and the first time he says someone entered, or at least pushed the door open, who walked with a stick. The second time came later, and may have been the time the Welsh boy went in there. Rhys is hazy about time, and slept before and after, but both visitors came while the court was quiet—he says, while we of the house were in the refectory. With that, and now he’s run—even Edmund is taking it for granted Anion is your murderer. They’ll be crying his guilt in the town by morning.”

  “But you are not so sure,” said Hugh, eyeing him steadily.

  “Something he had on his mind, surely, something he saw as guilt, or knew others would call guilt, or he would not have run. But murderer…? Hugh, I have in that pill, box of mine certain proof of dyed wools and gold thread in whatever cloth was used to kill. Certain—whereas flight is uncertain proof of anything worse than fear. You know as I know that there was no such woven cloth anywhere in that room, or in the infirmary, or in the entire pale so far as we can discover. Whoever used it brought it with him. Where would Anion get hold of any such rich material? He can never have handled anything better than drab homespun and unbleached flax in his life. It casts great doubt on his guilt, though it does not utterly rule it out. It’s why I did not press him too far—or thought I had not!” he added ruefully.

  Hugh nodded guarded agreement, and put the point away in his mind. “But for all that, tomorrow at dawn I must send out search parties between here and Wales, for surely that’s the way he’ll go. A border between him and his fear will be his first thought. If I can take him, I must and will. Then we may get out of him whatever it is he does know. A lame man cannot yet have got very far.”

  “But remember the cloth. For those threads do not lie, though a mortal man may, guilty or innocent. The instrument of death is what we have to find.”

  The hunt went forth at dawn, in small parties filtering through the woods by all the paths that led most directly to Wales; but they came back with the dark, empty-handed. Lame or no, Anion had contrived to vanish within half a day.

  The tale had gone forth through the town and the Foregate by then, every shop had it and every customer, the ale-houses discussed it avidly, and the general agreement was that neither Hugh Beringar nor any other man need look further for the sheriff’s murderer. The dour cattle-man with a grudge had been heard going into and leaving the death-chamber, and on being questioned had fled. Nothing could be simpler.

  And that was the day when they buried Gilbert Prestcote, in the tomb he had had made for himself in a transept of the abbey church. Half the nobility of the shire was there to do him honour, and Hugh Beringar with an escort of his officers, and the provost of Shrewsbury, Geoffrey Corviser, with his son Philip and his son’s wife Emma, and all the solid merchants of the town guild. The sheriff’s widow came in deep mourning, with her small son round-eyed and awed at the end of her arm. Music and ceremony, and the immensity of the vault, and the candles and the torches, all charmed and fascinated him; he was good as gold throughout the service.

  And whatever personal enemies Gilbert Prestcote might have had, he had been a fair and trusted sheriff to this county in general, and the merchant princes were well aware of the relative security and justice they had enjoyed under him, where much of England suffered a far worse fate.

  So in his passing Gilbert had his due, and his people’s weighty and deserved intercession for him with his God.

  *

  “No,” said Hugh, waiting for Cadfael as the brothers came out from Vespers that evening, “nothing as yet. Crippled or not, it seems young Anion has got clean away. I’ve set a watch along the border, in case he’s lying in covert this side till the hunt is called off, but I doubt he’s already over the dyke. And whether to be glad or sorry for it, that’s more than I know. I have Welsh in my own manor, Cadfael, I know what drives them, and the law that vindicates them where ours condemns. I’ve been a frontiersman all my life, tugged two ways.”

  “You must pursue it,” said Cadfael with sympathy. “You have no choice.”

  “No, none. Gilbert was my chief,” said Hugh, “and had my loyalty. Very little we two had in common, I don’t know that I even liked him overmuch. But respect—yes, that we had. His wife is taking her son back to the castle tonight, with what little she brought here. I’m waiting now to conduct her.” Her step-daughter was already departed with Sister Magdalen and the cloth-merchant’s daughter, to the solitude of Godric’s Ford. “He’ll miss his sister,” said Hugh, diverted into sympathy for the little boy.

  “So will another,” said Cadfael, “when he hears of her going. And the news of Anion’s flight could not change her mind?”

  “No, she’s marble, she’s damned him. Scold if you will,” said Hugh, wryly smiling, “but I’ve let fall the word in his ear already that she’s off to study the nun’s life. Let him stew for a while—he owes us that, at least. And I’ve accepted his parole, his and the other lad’s, Eliud. Either one of them has gone bail for himself and his cousin, not to stir a foot beyond the barbican, not to attempt escape, if I let them have the run of the wards. They’ve pledged their necks, each for the other. Not that I want to wring either neck, they suit very well as they are, untwisted, but no harm in accepting their pledges.”

  “And I make no doubt,” said Cadfael, eyeing him closely, “that you have a very sharp watch posted on your gates, and a very alert watchman on your walls, to see whether either of the two, or which of the two, breaks and runs for it.”

  “I should be ashamed of my stewardship,” said Hugh candidly, “if I had not.”

  “And do they know, by this time, that a bastard Welsh cowman in the abbey’s service has cast his crutch and run for his life?”

  “They know it. And what do they say? They say with one voice, Cadfael, that such a humble soul and Welsh into the bargain, without kin or privilege here in England, would run as soon as eyes were cast on him, sure of being blamed unless he could show he was a mile from the matter at the fatal time. And can you find fault with that? It’s what I said myself when you brought me the same news.”

  “No fault,” said Cadfael thoughtfully. “Yet matter for consideration, would you not say? From the threatened to the threatened, that’s large grace.”

  Chapter 9

  OWAIN GWYNEDD sent back his response to the events at Shrewsbury on the day after Anion’s flight, by the mouth of young John Marchmain, who had remained in Wales to stand surety for Gilbert Prestcote in the exc
hange of prisoners. The half-dozen Welsh who had escorted him home came only as far as the gates of the town, and there saluted and withdrew again to their own country.

  John, son to Hugh’s mother’s younger sister, a gangling youth of nineteen, rode into the castle stiff with the dignity of the embassage with which he was entrusted, and reported himself ceremoniously to Hugh.

  “Owain Gwynedd bids me say that in the matter of a death so brought about, his own honour is at stake, and he orders his men here to bear themselves in patience and give all possible aid until the truth is known, the murderer uncovered, and they vindicated and free to return. He sends me back as freed by fate. He says he has no other prisoner to exchange for Elis ap Cynan, nor will he lift a finger to deliver him until both guilty and innocent are known.”

  Hugh, who had known him from infancy, hoisted impressed eyebrows into his dark hair, whistled and laughed. “You may stoop now, you’re flying too high for me.”

  “I speak for a high, flying hawk,” said John, blowing out a great breath and relaxing into a grin as he leaned back against the guard-room wall. “Well, you’ve understood him. That’s the elevated tenor of it. He says hold them and find your man. But there’s more. How recent is the news you have from the south? I fancy Owain has his eyes and ears alert up and down the borders, where your writ can hardly go. He says that the empress is likely to win her way and be crowned queen, for Bishop Henry has let her into Winchester cathedral, where the crown and the treasure are guarded, and the archbishop of Canterbury is dilly, dallying, putting her off with—he can’t well acknowledge her until he’s spoken with the king. And by God, so he has, for he’s been to Bristol and taken a covey of bishops with him, and been let in to speak with Stephen in his prison.”

  “And what says King Stephen?” wondered Hugh.

  “He told them, in that large way of his, that they kept their own consciences, that they must do, of course, what seemed to them best. And so they will, says Owain, what seems to them best for their own skins! They’ll bend their necks and go with the victor. But here’s what counts and what Owain has in mind. Ranulf of Chester is well aware of all this, and knows by now that Gilbert Prestcote is dead and this shire, he thinks, is in confusion, and the upshot is he’s probing south, towards Shropshire and over into Wales, pouring men into his forward garrisons and feeling his way ahead by easy stages.”

  And what does Owain ask of us?” questioned Hugh, with kindling brightness.

  “He says, if you will come north with a fair force, show your hand all along the Cheshire border, and reinforce Oswestry and Whitchurch and every other fortress up there, you will be helping both yourself and him, and he will do as much for you against the common enemy. And he says he’ll come to the border at Rhyd-y-Croesau by Oswestry two days from now, about sunset, if you’re minded to come and speak with him there.”

  “Very firmly so minded!” said Hugh heartily, and rose to embrace his glowing cousin round the shoulders, and haul him out about the business of meeting Owain’s challenge and invitation, with the strongest force possible from a beleaguered shire.

  *

  That Owain had given them only two and a half days in which to muster, provide cover for the town and castle with a depleted garrison, and get their host into the north of the shire in time for the meeting on the border, was rather an earnest of the ease and speed with which Owain could move about his own mountainous land than a measure of the urgency of their mutual watch. Hugh spent the rest of that day making his dispositions in Shrewsbury and sending out his call for men to those who owed service. At dawn the next day his advance party would leave, and he himself with the main body by noon. There was much to be done in a matter of hours.

  Lady Prestcote was also marshalling her servants and possessions in her high, bleak apartments, ready to leave next morning for the most easterly and peaceful of her manors. She had already sent off one string of pack-ponies with three of her men-servants. But while she was in town it was sensible to purchase such items as she knew to be in short supply where she was bound, and among other commodities she had requested a number of dried herbs from Cadfael’s store. Her lord might be dead and in his tomb, but she had still an honour to administer, and for her son’s sake had every intention of proving herself good at it. Men might die, but the meats necessary to the living would still require preservatives, salts and spices to keep them good and palatable. The boy was given, also, to a childish cough in spring, and she wanted a jar of Cadfael’s herbal rub for his chest. Between them, Gilbert Prestcote the younger and domestic cares would soon fill up the gap, already closing, where Gilbert Prestcote the elder had been.

  There was no real need for Cadfael to deliver the herbs and medicines in person, but he took advantage of the opportunity as much to satisfy his curiosity as to enjoy the walk and the fresh air on a fine, if blustery, March day. Along the Foregate, over the bridge spanning a Severn muddied land turgid from the thaw in the mountains, in through the town gate, up the long, steep curve of the Wyle, and gently downhill from the High Cross to the castle gatehouse, he went with eyes and ears alert, stopping many times to exchange greetings and pass the time of day. And everywhere men were talking of Anion’s flight, and debating whether he would get clean away or be hauled back before night in a halter.

  Hugh’s muster was not yet common gossip in the town, though by nightfall it surely would be. But as soon as Cadfael entered the castle wards it was plain, by the purposeful bustle everywhere, that something of importance was in hand. The smith and the fletchers were hard at work, so were the grooms, and store-wagons were being loaded to follow stolidly after the faster horse- and foot-men. Cadfael delivered his herbs to the maid who came down to receive them, and went looking for Hugh. He found him directing the stalling of commandeered horses in the stables.

  “You’re moving, then? Northward?” said Cadfael, watching without surprise. “And making quite a show, I see.”

  “With luck, it need be only a show,” said Hugh, breaking his concentration to give his friend a warm sidelong smile.

  “Is it Chester feeling his oats?”

  Hugh laughed and told him. “With Owain one side of the border and me the other, he should think twice. He’s no more than trying his arm. He knows Gilbert is gone, but me he does not know. Not yet!”

  “High time he should know Owain,” observed Cadfael. “Men of sense have measured and valued him some while since, I fancy. And Ranulf is no fool, though I wouldn’t say he’s not capable of folly, blown up by success as he is. The wisest man in his cups may step too large and fall on his face.” And he asked, alert to all the sounds about him, and all the shadows that patterned the cobbles: “Do your Welsh pair know where you’re bound, and why, and who sent you word?”

  He had lowered his voice to ask it, and Hugh, without need of a reason, did the same. “Not from me. I’ve had no time to spare for civilities. But they’re at large. Why?” He did not turn his head; he had noted where Cadfael was looking.

  “Because they’re bearing down on us, the pair in harness. And in anxiety.”

  Hugh made their approach easier, waving into the groom’s hands the thickset grey he had been watching about the cobbles, and turning naturally to withdraw from the stables as from a job finished for the present. And there they were, Elis and Eliud, shoulders together as though they had been born in one linked birth, moving in on him with drawn brows and troubled eyes.

  “My lord Beringar…” It was Eliud who spoke for them, the quiet, the solemn, the earnest one. “You’re moving to the border? There’s threat of war? Is it with Wales?”

  To the border, yes,” said Hugh easily, “there to meet with the prince of Gwynedd. The same that bade you and all your company here bear your souls in patience and work with me for justice concerning the matter you know of. No, never fret! Owain Gwynedd lets me know that both he and I have a common interest in the north of this shire, and a common enemy trying his luck there. Wales is in no danger from me a
nd my shire, I believe, in no danger from Wales. At least,” he added, reconsidering briskly, “not from Gwynedd.”

  The cousins looked along wide, straight shoulders at each other, measuring thoughts. Elis said abruptly: “My lord, but keep an eye to Powys. They… we,” he corrected in a gasp of disgust, “we went to Lincoln under the banner of Chester. If it’s Chester now, they’ll know in Caus as soon as you move north. They may think it time… think it safe… The ladies there at Godric’s Ford…”

  “A parcel of silly women,” said Cadfael musingly into his cowl, but audibly, “and old and ugly into the bargain.”

  The round, ingenuous face under the tangle of black curls flamed from neck to brow, but did not lower its eyes or lose its fixed intensity. “I’m confessed and shriven of all manner of follies,” said Elis sturdily, “that among them. Only do keep a watch on them! I mean it! That failure will rankle, they may still venture.”

  “I had thought of it,” said Hugh patiently. “I have no mind to strip this border utterly of men.”

  The boy’s blush faded and flamed anew. “Pardon!” he said. “It is your field. Only I do know… It will have gone deep, that rebuff.”

  Eliud plucked at his cousin’s arm, drawing him back. They withdrew some paces without withdrawing their twin, troubled gaze. At the gate of the stables they turned, still with one last glance over their shoulders, and went away still linked, as one disconsolate creature.

  “Christ!” said Hugh on a blown breath, looking after them. And I with less men than I should like, if truth be told, and that green child to warn me! As if I do not know I take chances now with every breath I draw and every archer I move. Should I ask him how a man spreads half a company across three times a company’s span?”

  “Ah, but he would have your whole force drawn up between Godric’s Ford and his own countrymen,” said Cadfael tolerantly. “The girl he fancies is there. I doubt if he cares so much what happens to Oswestry or Whitchurch, provided the Long Forest is left undisturbed. They’ve neither of them given you any trouble?”