“He refused to consider you as a suitor for his daughter,” Bened said almost reluctantly, “whatever good he did for you otherwise.”
“So he did, and according to his lights, rightly so. And I know it, knowing as much as I’ve learned of Wales, and even if I did smart under it, I knew he had reason and custom on his side. Never has he done anything I could complain of as unfair to me. He stood much arrogance and impatience from me, come to that. There isn’t a man in Gwynedd I like and respect more. I’d as soon have cut my own throat as injured Rhisiart.”
“He knew and knows it,” said Sioned, “and so do I.”
“Yet the arrow is yours,” said Huw unhappily. “And as for reclaiming or disguising it, it may well have been that speedy flight after such an act would be more important.”
“If I had planned such an act,” said Engelard, “though God forbid I should ever have to imagine a thing so vile, I could as easily have done what some devil has done now to me, and used another man’s shaft.”
“But, son, it would be more in keeping with your nature,” the priest pursued sadly, “to commit such a deed without planning, having with you only your own bow and arrows. Another approach, another quarrel, a sudden wild rage! No one supposes this was plotted beforehand.”
“I had no bow with me all this day. I was busy with the cattle, what should I want with a bow?”
“It will be for the royal bailiff to enquire into all possible matters concerning this case,” said Prior Robert, resolutely reclaiming the dominance among them. “What should be asked at once of this young man is where he has been all this day, what doing, and in whose company.”
“In no man’s company. The byres behind Bryn are in a lonely place, good pasture but apart from the used roads. Two cows dropped their calves today, one around noon, the second not before late afternoon, and that was a hard birth, and gave me trouble. But the young things are there alive and on their legs now, to testify to what I’ve been doing.”
“You left Rhisiart at his fields along the way?”
“I did, and went straight on to my own work. And have not seen him again until now.”
“And did you speak with any man, there at the byres? Can anyone testify as to where you were, at any time during the day?” No one was likely to try and wrest the initiative from Robert now. Engelard looked round him quickly, measuring chances. Annest came forward silently, and took her stand beside Sioned. Brother John’s roused, anxious eyes followed her progress, and approved the loyalty which had no other way of expressing itself.
“Engelard did not come home until half an hour ago,” she said stoutly.
“Child,” said Father Huw wretchedly, “where he was not does not in any way confirm where he says he was. Two calves may be delivered far more quickly than he claims, how can we know, who were not there? He had time to slip back here and do this thing, and be back with his cattle and never noticed. Unless we can find someone who testifies to having seen him elsewhere, at whatever time this deed may have been done, then I fear we should hold Engelard in safe-keeping until the prince’s bailiff can take over the charge for us.”
The men of Gwytherin hovered, murmuring, some convinced, many angry, for Rhisiart had been very well liked, some hesitant, but granting that the outlander ought to be held until his innocence was established or his guilt proved. They shifted and closed, and their murmur became one of consent.
“It is fair,” said Bened, and the growl of assent answered him.
“One lone Englishman with his back to the wall, whispered Brother John indignantly in Cadfael’s ear, “and what chance will he have, with nobody to bear out what he says? And plain truth, for certain! Does he act or speak like a murderer?”
Peredur had stood like a stock all this while, hardly taking his eyes from Engelard’s face but to gaze earnestly and unhappily at Sioned. As Prior Robert levelled an imperious arm at Engelard, and the whole assembly closed in slowly in obedience, braced to lay hands on him, Peredur drew a little further back at the edge of the trees, and Cadfael saw him catch Sioned’s eye, flash her a wild, wide-eyed look, and jerk his head as though beckoning. Out of her exhaustion and misery she roused a brief, answering blaze, and leaned to whisper rapidly in Engelard’s ear.
“Do your duty, all of you,” commanded Robert, “to your laws and your prince and your church, and lay hold of this man!”
There was one instant of stillness, and then they closed in all together, the only gap in their ranks where Peredur still hung back. Engelard made a long leap from Sioned’s side, as though he would break for the thickest screen of bushes, and then, instead, caught up a dead, fallen bough that lay in the grass, and whirled it about him in a flailing circle, laying two unwary elders flat, and sending others reeling back out of range. Before they could reassemble, he had changed direction, leaped over one of the fallen, and was clean through the midst of them, arming off the only one who almost got a grip on him, and made straight for the gap Peredur had left in their ranks. Father Huw’s voice, uplifted in vexed agitation, called on Peredur to halt him, and Peredur sprang to intercept his flight. How it happened was never quite clear, though Brother Cadfael had a rough idea, but at the very moment when his outstretched hand almost brushed Engelard’s sleeve, Peredur stepped upon a rotten branch in the turf, that snapped under his foot and rolled, tossing him flat on his face, half-blinded among the bushes. And winded, possibly, for certainly he made no move to pick himself up until Engelard was past him and away.
Even then it was not quite over, for the nearest pursuers on either side, seeing how the hunt had turned, had also begun to run like hares, on courses converging with the fugitive’s at the very edge of the clearing. From the left came a long-legged villein of Cadwallon’s, with a stride like a greyhound, and from the right Brother John, his habit flying, his sandalled feet pounding the earth mightily. It was perhaps the first time Brother John had ever enjoyed Prior Robert’s whole-hearted approval. It was certainly the last.
There was no one left in the race but these three, and fleet though Engelard was, it seemed that the long-legged fellow would collide with him before he could finally vanish. All three were hurtling together for a shattering collision, or so it seemed. The villein stretched out arms as formidably long as his legs. So, on the other side, did Brother John. A great hand closed on a thin fold of Engelard’s tunic from one side. Brother John bounded exuberantly in from the other. The prior sighed relief, expecting the prisoner to be enfolded in a double embrace. And Brother John, diving, caught Cadwallon’s villein round the knees and brought him crashing to the ground, and Engelard, plucking his tunic out of the enemy’s grasp, leaped into the bushes and vanished in a receding susurration of branches, until silence and stillness closed over the path of his withdrawal.
Half the hunt, out of excitement rather than any real enmity, streamed away into the forest after the quarry, but half-heartedly now. They had little chance of capturing him. Probably they had no great desire to do anything of the kind, though once put to it, hounds must follow a scent. The real drama remained behind in the clearing. There, at least, justice had one clear culprit to enjoy.
Brother John unwound his arms from his victim’s knees, sat up in the grass, fended off placidly a feeble blow the villein aimed at him, and said in robust but incomprehensible English: “Ah, let well alone, lad! What did he ever do to you? But faith, I’m sorry I had to fetch you down so heavily. If you think you’re hard-done-to, take comfort! I’m likely to pay dearer than you.”
He looked round him complacently enough as he clambered to his feet and dusted off the debris of leaves and twigs that clung to his habit. There stood Prior Robert, not yet unfrozen from the shock of incredulous disillusionment, tall and stiff and grey, a Norman lordling debating terrible penalties for treason. But there, also, stood Sioned, tired, distraught, worn out with passion, but with a small, reviving glow in her eyes, and there was Annest at her elbow, an arm protectively round her waist, but her flower-face turned towards John. Not much use Robert thundering and lightning, while she so smiled and blossomed, beaming her gratitude and admiration.