“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 brother, 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.
“The boy tells me,” said Ifor, “that you are a friend. His friends are welcome.”
“Brother Cadfael has been good to me,” said Edwin, “and to my nephew, Edwy, also, as Meurig told us. I have been well blessed in my friends. But how did you find me?”
“By not looking for you,” said Cadfael. “Indeed, I’ve been at some pains not to know where you had taken yourself, and certainly I never rode this way to find you. I came with a harmless errand to Ifor ap Morgan here, from that same old brother you visited with Meurig in our infirmary. Your wife’s brother, friend, Rhys ap Griffith, is still living, and for his age hale, too, in our convent, and when he heard that I was bound into these parts he charged me to bring his kinsmen his greetings and prayers. He has not forgotten his kin, though it’s long since he came among you, and I doubt he’ll come no more. I have been with Cynfrith ap Rhys, and sent the same word by him to his brother Owain, and if there are any others of his generation left, or who would remember him, be kind enough to give them word, when chance offers, that he remembers his blood and his own soil yet, and all those whose roots are in it.”
“So he would,” said Ifor, melting suddenly into a warm smile. “He was always a loyal kinsman, and fond of my child and all the other young in our clan, having none of his own. He lost his wife early, or he’d have been here among us yet. Sit down a while, brother, and tell me how he does, and if you’ll take my blessings back to him, I’ll be grateful.”
“Meurig will have told you much of what I can tell,” and Cadfael, settling beside him on a bench at the rough table, “when he brought you Edwin to shelter. Is he not here with you?”
“My grandson is away making the round of all his kin and neighbours,” said the old man, “for he comes home rarely now. He’ll be here again in a few days, I daresay. He did tell me he’d been to see the old man, along with the boy here, but he stayed only an hour or so before making off about his visiting. There’ll be time to talk when he comes back.”
It was in Cadfael’s mind that he ought to cut short his own stay, for though it had never entered his mind that the officers of the law might find it worth while to keep a watch on him when he left Shrewsbury, the too easy discovery of Edwin in this house had shaken his assurance. It was true that he had neither expected nor wished to trace the boy as yet, but even Hugh Beringar, let alone his underlings, might well have considered the contrary as a possibility, and set a discreet hound on his trail. But he could not flatly deliver his message and go, while the old man clearly took pleasure in polishing up old memories. He was rambling away happily about the time when his wife was with him, and his daughter a fair and lively child. Now all that remained to him was a single grandson, and his own dignity and integrity.
Exile and refuge in this remote place and this impressive company had had a strong effect on Edwin. He withdrew into the shadows to leave his elders undisturbed, making no plea, asking no question yet concerning his own troubled affairs. Quietly he went and brought beakers and a pitcher of mead, and served them unobtrusively and neatly, all dignity and humility, and again absented himself, until Ifor turned to reach a long arm and draw him to the table.
“Young man, you must have things to ask of Brother Cadfael, and things to tell him.”
The boy had not lost his tongue, after all, once invited he could talk as volubly and vehemently as ever. First he asked after Edwy, with an anxiety he would never have revealed to the object of it, and was greatly eased to hear how that adventure had ended better than it had threatened. “And Hugh Beringar was so fair and generous? And he listened to you, and is looking for my box? Now if he could but find it…! I was not happy leaving Edwy to play that part for me, but he would have it so. And then I took Japhet a roundabout way to a place we used to play sometimes, a copse by the river, and Meurig met me there, and gave me a token to carry to his grandfather here, and told me how to find the place. And the next day he came, too, as he said he would.”