“My name,” said the lame man, “is Forthred. I come from Todenham, which is an outlier of this manor of Deerhurst. I took service for the empress under Brien de Soulis, and I was in Faringdon with his force, the few weeks the castle stood for the cause. It’s there I’ve seen the seal you have there in the drawings. Twice I’ve seen it set to documents he witnessed. No mistaking it. The third time I saw it was on the agreement they drew up and sealed when they handed over Faringdon to the king.”
“It was done so solemnly?” said Cadfael, surprised. “I thought they simply let in the besiegers by night.”
“So they did, but they had their agreement ready to show to us, the men of the garrison, proving that all six captains with followings among us had accepted the change, and committed us with them. I doubt they would have carried the day but for that. A nay word from one or two of the best, and their men would have fought, and King Stephen would have paid a stiff price for Faringdon. No, it was planned and connived at beforehand.”
“Six captains with their own companies,” said Cadfael, brooding, “and all under de Soulis’s command?”
“So it was. And some thirty or so new knights or squires without personal following, only their own arms.”
“Of those we know. Most refused to turn their coats, and are prisoners now among the king’s men. But all these six who had companies of their own men were agreed, and set their seals to the surrender?”
“Every one. It would not have been done so easily else. Fealty among the common soldiery is to their own leaders. They go where their captains go. One seal missing from that vellum, and there would have been trouble. One in particular, and there would have been a battle. One who carried the most weight with us, and was the best liked and trusted.”
There was something in his voice as he spoke of this man, elect and valued, that conveyed much more than had been said. Cadfael touched the rolled leaf of vellum.
“This one?”
“The same,” said Forthred, and for a moment volunteered nothing more, but sat mute, gazing along the grass of the garth with eyes that looked inward rather than outward.
“And he, like the rest, set his seal to the surrender?”
“His seal, this seal, was certainly there to be seen. With my own eyes I saw it. I would not have believed it else.”
“And his name?”
“His name is Geoffrey FitzClare, and the Clare whose son he is is Richard de Clare, who was earl of Hertford, and the present earl, Gilbert, is his half-brother. A by-blow of the house of Clare. Sometimes these sons come by astray are better than the true coin. Though Gilbert, for all I know, is a good man, too. At least he and his half-brother have always respected and liked each other, seemingly, although all the Clares are absolute for Stephen, and this chance brother chose the empress. They were raised together, for Earl Richard brought his bastard home almost newborn, and the grandam took him in care, and they did well by him, and set him up in life when he was grown. That is the man whose seal you’re carrying with you, or the picture of it, at least.” He had not asked how Cadfael had come by it, to make the copy.
“And where,” wondered Cadfael, “is this Geoffrey to be found now? If he pledged himself and his men to Stephen along with the rest, is he still with the garrison at Faringdon?”
“At Faringdon he surely is,” said the lame man, his low voice edged like steel, “but not with the garrison. The day after the surrender they brought him into the castle in a litter, after a fall from his horse. He died before night. He is buried in the churchyard at Faringdon. He has no more need now of his seal.”
The silence that fell between them hung suspended, like a held breath, upon Cadfael’s senses, before the echoes began, echoes not of the words which had been spoken, but of those which had not been spoken, and never need be. There was an understanding between them that needed no ritual form. A man certainly had need to keep a lock on his tongue, a man who had perilous things to tell, was already crippled, and had to live all too close, still, to men of power who had things to hide. Forthred had gone far in trusting even the Benedictine habit, and must not be made to utter openly what he had already conveyed clearly enough by implication.
And as yet he did not even know how Cadfael had come by the salamander seal.
“Tell me,” said Cadfael carefully, “about those few days, how events fell out. The timing is all.”
“Why, we were pressed, that was true, and hot summer, and none too well provided with water, seeing we had a strong garrison. And Philip from Cricklade had been sending to his father for relief, time and time again, and no reply. And come that one morning, there were the king’s officers let in by night, and Brien de Soulis calls on us not to resist, and brings before us this sealed agreement, to be seen by all of us, his own seal and all five of the others, the command of the entire garrison but for the young men who brought only their own proficiency in arms to the defence. And those who would not countenance the change of allegiance were made prisoner, as all men know. And the men-at-arms, small choice, seeing our masters had committed us.”
“And Geoffrey’s seal was there with the rest?”
“It was there,” said Forthred simply. “He was not.”
No, that had begun to be apparent. But no doubt it had been adequately accounted for.
“They told us he had ridden to Cricklade in the night, to report to Philip FitzRobert what had been done. But before leaving he had set his seal to the agreement. First among equals he had set it there, with his own hand.”
And without it there would have been no such easy passage from empress to king. Lacking his consent, his own men and others would have taken station at his back, and there would have been a battle.
“And the next day?” said Cadfael.
“The next day he did not come back. And they began to seem anxious, as were we all,” said Forthred with level and expressionless voice, “and de Soulis and two who were nearest to him rode out to follow the way he would have ridden. And in the dusk they brought him back in a litter, wrapped in a cloak. Found in the woodland, they said, thrown from his horse and badly hurt, and the beast led back riderless. And in the night he died.”
In the night he died. But which night, thought Cadfael, and felt the same conviction burning and bitter in the man who sat beside him. A dead man can easily be removed to some private place in one night, the night of the betrayal in which he refused to take part, and brought back publicly the next night, lost by tragic accident.
“And he is buried,” said Forthred, “there in Faringdon. They did not show us the body.”
“Had he wife or child?” asked Cadfael.
“No, none. De Soulis sent a courier to tell the Clares of his death, Faringdon being now of their party. They have had masses said for him in all good faith.” With the house of Clare he had no quarrel.
“I have an uneasy thought,” said Cadfael tentatively, “that there is more to tell. So soon thereafter, how did you come by your injuries?”
A dark smile crossed the composed face of the lame man. “A fall. I had a perilous fall. From the keep into the ditch. I did not like my new service as well as the old, but it was not wisdom to show it. How did they know? How do they always know? There was always someone between me and the gate. I was letting myself down from the wall when someone cut the rope.”
And left you there broken and unaided?”
“Why not? Another accident, they come in twos and threes. But I could crawl as far as cover, and there decent poor men found me. It has knit awry, but I am alive.”
There were monstrous debts here to be repaid some day, the worth of a life, the price of a body deliberately and coldly maimed. Cadfael suddenly felt burdened by a debt of his own, since this man had so resolutely trusted and confided in him for no return. One piece of knowledge he had, that after its perverse and inadequate fashion might at least provide proof that justice, however indirect or delayed, is certain in the end.