“Do you think so?” said Brother Mark hopefully, forgetting his own anxieties.
“I do, and I have a thought—no more than the gleam of an idea, that they loosed in me at chapter… Now make yourself useful! Go and bespeak me a good mule at the stables, and see all these things into the saddlebags for me. I have an errand to the infirmary before I leave.”
Brother Rhys was in his privileged place by the fire, hunched in his chair in a contented half-doze, but awake enough to open one eye pretty sharply at every movement and word around him. He was in the mood to welcome a visitor, and brightened into something approaching animation when Cadfael told him that he was bound for the north-west of the county, to the sheepfolds of Rhydycroesau.
“Your own countryside, brother! Shall I carry your greetings to the borderland? You’ll still have kinsfolk there, surely, three generations of them.”
“I have so!” Brother Rhys bared toothless gums in a dreamy smile. “If you should happen to meet with my cousin Cynfrith ap Rhys, or his brother Owain, give them my blessings. Ay, there’s a mort of my people in those parts. Ask after my niece Angharad, my Sister Marared’s girl—my youngest sister, that is, the one who married Ifor ap Morgan. I doubt Ifor’s dead before this, but if you should hear of him living, say I remember, and give him my good word. The girl ought to come and visit me, now her lad’s working here in the town. I remember her as a little lass no higher than a daisy, and that pretty…”
“Angharad was the girl who went as maidservant in the house of Bonel of Mallilie?” said Cadfael, gently prompting.
“She did, a pity it was! But they’ve been there many years now, the Saxons. You get used to foreigner families, in time. They never got further, though. Mallilie’s nothing but a thorn stuck in the side of Cynllaith. Stuck far in—nigh broken off, as some day it may be yet! It touches Saxon land barely at all, only by a claw…”
“Is that truth!” said Cadfael. “Then properly speaking Mallilie, for all it was held by an Englishman, and has been three generations now, is rightly within Wales?”
“As Welsh as Snowdon,” said Brother Rhys, harking back to catch once again a spark of his old patriotic fire. “And all the neighbours Welsh, and most of the tenants. I was born just to the west of it, nearby the church of Llansilin, which is the centre of the commote of Cynllaith. Welsh land from the beginning of the world!”
Welsh land! That could not be changed, merely because a Bonel in William Rufus’s reign had pushed his way in and got a hold on some acres of it, and maintained his grasp under the patronage of the earl of Chester ever since. Why did I never think, wondered Cadfael, to enquire earlier where this troublous manor lay? “And Cynllaith has properly appointed Welsh judges? Competent to deal according to the code of Hywel Dda, not of Norman England?”
“Surely it has! A sound commote court as there is in Wales! The Bonels in their time have pleaded boundary cases, and suchlike, by whichever law best suited their own purposes, Welsh or English, what matter, provided it brought them gain? But the people like their Welsh code best, and the witness of neighbours, the proper way to settle a dispute. The just way!” said Brother Rhys righteously, and wagged his old head at Cadfael. “What’s all this of law, brother? Are you thinking of bringing suit yourself?” And he fell into a moist, pink-gummed giggling at the thought.
“Not I,” said Cadfael, rising, “but I fancy one that I know of may be thinking of it.”
He went out very thoughtfully, and in the great court the low winter sun came out suddenly and flashed in his eyes, dazzling him for the second time. Paradoxically, in this momentary blindness he could see his way clearly at last.
Chapter Eight
He would have liked to turn aside from the Wyle to have a word with Martin Bellecote and see for himself that the family were not being hounded, but he did not do it, partly because he had a more urgent errand on his mind, partly because he did not want to call attention to the house or the household. Hugh Beringar was one man, of independent mind and a strong attachment to justice, but the officers of the sheriffry of Shropshire were a very different matter, looking for their lead rather to Gilbert Prestcote, understandably enough, since Prestcote was King Stephen’s official representative in these parts; and Prestcote’s justice would be sharper, shorter-sighted, content with a brisk and tidy ending. Prestcote might be away in Westminster, Beringar might be nominally in charge, but the sergeants and their men would still be proceeding on their usual summary course, making for the most obvious quarry. If there was a watch set on Bellecote’s shop, Cadfael had no intention of giving it any provocation. If there was not, so much the better, Hugh’s orders had prevailed.
So Cadfael paced demurely up the Wyle and past the Bellecote yard without a glance, and on through the town. His way to the north-west lay over the bridge that led towards Wales, but he passed that, too, and climbed the hill to the High Cross; from that point the road descended slightly, to mount again into the castle gatehouse.
King Stephen’s garrison was in full possession since the summer siege, and the watch, though vigilant, was assured and easy. Cadfael lighted down at the approach, and led his mule up the causeway and into the shadow of the gate. The guard waited for him placidly.
“Goodmorrow, brother! What’s your will?”
“A word with Hugh Beringar of Maesbury,” said Cadfael. “Tell him Brother Cadfael, and I think he’ll spare me a short while of his time.”
“You’re out of luck, brother, for the present while. Hugh Beringar is not here, and likely won’t be till the light fails, for he’s off on some search down the river with Madog of the Dead-boat.” That was news that heartened Cadfael as suddenly as the news of Hugh’s absence had disheartened and dismayed him. He might have done better, after all, to leave the vial with Brother Mark, who could have paid a second visit after the first one had missed its mark. Of all but Beringar here, Cadfael had his doubts, but now he was caught in a situation he should have foreseen. Hugh had lost no time in setting the hunt in motion after Edwin’s reliquary, and better still, was pursuing it himself instead of leaving it to underlings. But long delay here to wait for him was impossible; Brother Barnabas lay ill, and Cadfael had undertaken to go and care for him, and the sooner he reached him the better. He pondered whether to entrust his precious evidence to another, or keep it until he could deliver it to Beringar in person. Edwin, after all, was somewhere at liberty yet, no immediate ill could befall him.
“If it’s the matter of the poisoning you’re here about,” said the guard helpfully, “speak a word to the sergeant who’s left in charge here. I hear there’s been strange goings-on down at the abbey. You’ll be glad when you’re left in quiet again, and the rascal taken. Step in, brother, and I’ll tether your mule and send to let William Warden know you’re here.”
Well, no harm, at any rate, in taking a look at the law’s surrogate and judging accordingly. Cadfael waited in a stony anteroom within the gatehouse, and let the object of his visit lie hidden in his scrip until he made up his mind. But the first glimpse of the sergeant as he entered rendered it virtually certain that the vial would remain in hiding. The same officer who had first answered the prior’s summons to Bonel’s house, bearded, brawny, hawk-beaked, self-assured and impatient of caution once his nose had found an obvious trail. He knew Cadfael again just as promptly; large white teeth flashed in a scornful grin in the bushy beard.
“You again, brother? And still finding a dozen reasons why young Gurney must be blameless, when all that’s wanting is a witness who stood by and watched him do the deed? Come to throw some more dust in our eyes, I suppose, while the guilty make off into Wales?”
“I came,” said Brother Cadfael, not strictly truthfully, “to enquire whether anything had yet come to light, concerning what I reported to Hugh Beringar yesterday.”
“Nothing has and nothing will. So it was you who set him off on this fool’s errand down the river! I might have guessed it! A glib young rogue tells you a tall tale like that, and you swallow it, and infect your betters into the bargain! Wasteful nonsense! To spare men to row up and down Severn in the cold, after a reliquary that never was! You have much to answer for, brother.”