“Why, so I will, since you’re so kind,” said Padrig, and weaved his way gently into the house with his host. And Cai and Brother Cadfael, taking their leave, set off companionably shoulder to shoulder, to make their way back to Father Huw’s house, and thence in courtesy a measure of the way through the woods towards Rhisiart’s hall before they parted.
“I would not say more nor plainer,” said Cai confidingly, “while Bened was present, nor in front of Padrig, for that matter, though he’s a good fellow—so are they both!—but a traveller, not a native. This Sioned, Rhisiart’s girl…. The truth is, Bened would like to be a suitor for her himself, and a good, solid man he is, and a girl might well do worse. But a widower, poor soul, and years older than the lass, and a poor chance he has. But you haven’t seen the girl!”
Brother Cadfael was beginning to suspect that he had indeed seen the girl, and seen more than any here had ever been allowed to see. But he said nothing.
“A girl like a squirrel! As swift, as sudden, as black and as red! If she had nothing, they’d still be coming from miles around, and she will have lands any man might covet even if she squinted! And there’s poor Bened, keeping his own counsel and feeding on his own silence, and still hoping. After all, a smith is respected in any company. And give him his due, it isn’t her heritage he covets. It’s the girl herself. If you’d seen her, you’d know. In any case,” said Cai, sighing gustily for his friend, “her father has a favourite for son-in-law already, and has all along. Cadwallon’s lad has been in and out of Rhisiart’s hall, and made free with Rhisiart’s servants and hawks and horses, ever since he could run, and grown up with the girl. And he’s sole heir to the neighbouring holding, and what could suit either father better? They’ve had it made up between them for years. And the children seem ideally matched, they know each other through and through, like brother and sister.”
“I doubt if I’d say that made for an ideal match,” said Brother Cadfael honestly.
“So Sioned seems to think, too,” said Cai drily. “So far she’s resisted all pressures to accept this lad Peredur. And mind you, he’s a very gay, lively well-looking young fellow, spoiled as you please, being the only one, but show me a girl round here who wouldn’t run if he lifted his finger—all but this girl! Oh, she likes him well enough, but that’s all. She won’t hear of marriage yet, she’s still playing the heartfree child.”
“And Rhisiart bears with her?” asked Cadfael delicately.
“You don’t know him, either. He dotes on her, and well he may, and she reveres him, and well she may, and where does that get any of us? He won’t force her choice. He never misses a chance to urge how suitable Peredur is, and she never denies it. He hopes, if he bides his time, she’ll come round.”
“And will she?” asked Brother Cadfael, responding to something in the ploughman’s voice. His own was milder than milk.
“No accounting,” said Cai slowly, “for what goes on in a girl’s head. She may have other plans of her own. A bold, brave one she is, clever and patient at getting her own way. But what that may be, do I know? Do you? Does any man?”
“There may be one man who does,” said Brother Cadfael with guileful disinterest.
If Cai had not risen to that bait, Cadfael would have let well alone then, for it was no business of his to give away the girl’s secrets, when he had stumbled upon them himself only by chance. But he was no way surprised when the ploughman drew meaningfully close against his arm, and jabbed a significant elbow into his ribs. A man who had worked closely with the young ox-caller as he had must surely have noted a few obvious things by now. This afternoon’s purposeful bee-line across the meadows and through the water to a certain well-grown oak would be enough in itself for a sharp man. And as for keeping his mouth shut about it, it was pretty plain that his sympathies were with his work-mate.
“Brother Cadfael, you wouldn’t be a talking man, not out of turn, and you’re not tied to one side or the other in any of our little disputes here. No reason you shouldn’t know. Between you and me, she has got a man in her eye, and one that wants her worse than Bened does, and has even less chance of ever getting her. You remember we were talking of my fellow on the team, Engelard? A good man with cattle, worth plenty to his lord, and Rhisiart knows it and values him fairly on it. But the lad’s an alltud—an outlander!”
“Saxon?” asked Cadfael.
“The fair hair. Yes, you saw him today. The length and slenderness of him too. Yes, he’s a Cheshire man from the borders of Maelor, on the run from the bailiffs of Earl Ranulf of Chester. Oh, not for murder or banditry or any such! But the lad was simply the most outrageous deer-poacher in the earldom. He’s a master with the short bow, and always stalked them afoot and alone. And the bailiff was after his blood. Nothing for him to do, when he was cornered on the borders, but run for it into Gwynedd. And he daren’t go back, not yet, and you know what it means for a foreigner to want to make a living in Wales.”
Cadfael knew indeed. In a country where every native-born man had and knew his assured place in a clan kinship, and the basis of all relationships was establishment on the land, whether as free lord or villein partner in a village community, the man from outside, owning no land here, fitting into no place, was deprived of the very basis of living. His only means of establishing himself was by getting some overlord to make compact with him, give him house-room and a stake in the land, and employ him for whatever skills he could offer. For three generations this bargain between them was revocable at any time, and the outlander might leave at the fair price of dividing his chattels equally with the lord who had given him the means of acquiring them.
“I do know. So Rhisiart took this young man into his service and set him up in a croft?”
“He did. Two years ago now, a little more. And neither of them has had any call to regret it. Rhisiart’s a fair-minded master, and gives credit where it’s due. But however much he respects and values him, can you see a Welsh lord ever letting his only daughter go to an alltud?”
“Never!” agreed Cadfael positively. “No chance of it! It would be against all his laws and customs and conscience. His own kinship would never forgive it.”
“True as I’m breathing!” sighed Cai ruefully. “But you try telling that to a proud, stubborn young fellow like Engelard, who has his own laws and rights from another place, where his father’s lord of a good manor, and carries every bit as much weight in his feudal fashion as Rhisiart does here.”
“Do you tell me he’s actually spoken for her to her father?” demanded Cadfael, astonished and admiring.
“He has, and got the answer you might expect. No malice at all, but no hope either. Yes, and stood his ground and argued his case just the same. And comes back to the subject every chance that offers, to remind Rhisiart he hasn’t given up, and never will. I tell you what, those two are two of a kind, both hot-tempered, both obstinate, but both as open and honest as you’ll find anywhere, and they’ve a great respect for each other that somehow keeps them from bearing malice or letting this thing break them apart. But every time this comes up, the sparks fly. Rhisiart clouted Engelard once, when he pushed too hard, and the lad came within an ace of clouting back. What would the answer to that have been? I never knew it happen with an alltud, but if a slave strikes a free man he stands to lose the hand that did it. But he stopped himself in time, though I don’t think it was fear that stopped him—he knew he was in the wrong. And what did Rhisiart do, not half an hour later, but fling back and ask his pardon! Said he was an insolent, unreasonable, unWelsh rascal, but he should not have struck him. There’s a battle going on all the time between those two, and neither of them can get any peace, but let any man say a word against Rhisiart in Engelard’s hearing, and he’ll get it back down his throat with a fist behind it. And if one of the servants ever called down Engelard, thinking to curry favour with Rhisiart, he’d soon get told that the alltud’s an honest man and a good worker, worth ten of the likes of his backbiters. So it goes! And I can see no good end to it.”