For he had even the means of relighting it to hand beside his pallet, flint and steel and tinder in a wooden box. Fire is a dangerous gift, but why not? It cannot set light to stone, and no sane man cased in stone is going to set light to his own bed, or what else within will burn, and himself with it. And Olivier was almost excessively sane, so much so that he could see only by his own narrow, stainless standards, and never so far as the hopes and despairs and lame and sorry contrivances by which more vulnerable people cope with a harsh world.
Confinement, resentment and enforced patience had only burnished and perfected his beauty, the eager bones accentuated, the suave flesh polished into ivory. The black, glossy hair clasped his temples and hollow cheeks like hands loving but alien, blue-black, live with tension. Daily he had plunged into the water brought to him, like a swimmer into the sea, urgent to be immaculate whenever his enemy viewed him, never to decline, never to submit, never to plead. That above all.
There in the east, Philip thought, studying him, from that Syrian mother, he must have brought this quality in him that will not rust or rot or anyway submit to desecration. Or was it, after all, from that Welsh monk I have left outside this meeting? What a mating that must have been, to bring forth such a son.
“Am I so changed?” Olivier challenged the fixed stare. When he moved, his chains chimed lightly. His hands were untrammelled, but thin steel bands encircled his ankles, and tethered him by a generous length of chain to a ring in the stone wall beside his pallet. Knowing his ingenuity and his mettle, Philip was taking no chances. Even if helpers could penetrate here, they would have much ado to hammer him loose from his prison. There was no will to mar or defile him, but an absolute will to keep him immured from the world, a solitary possession on which no price could ever be set.
“Not changed,” said Philip, and moved nearer, within arm’s length of his captive. Fine hands Olivier had, elegant and large and sinewy; once they had established a first well-judged grip on a throat it would not be easy to break free. Perhaps the temptation and the provocation would have been even more irresistible if those hands had been chained. A fine chain round a throat would have choked out life even more efficiently.
But Olivier did not move. Philip had tempted him thus more than once since the irredeemable breakage of Faringdon; and failed to rouse him. His own death, of course, would probably have followed. But whether that in itself was what restrained him there was no guessing.
“Not changed, no.” And yet Philip watched him with a new, intense interest, searching for the subtle elements of those two disparate creatures who had brought this arrogant excellence into being. “I have a guest in my hall, Olivier, who has come on your behalf. I am learning things about you that I think you do not know. It may be high time that you did.”
Olivier looked back at him with a fixed and hostile face, and said never a word. It was no surprise that he should be sought, he knew he had his value, and there would be those anxious to retrieve him. That any of those well disposed to him should by reason or luck have tracked him down to this place was more surprising. If Laurence d’Angers had indeed sent here to ask after his lost squire, it was a bow drawn at a venture. And the arrow would not hit the mark.
“In truth,” said Philip, “I had here two equally concerned for your fate. One of them I have sent away empty-handed, but he says he will be back for you in arms. I have no cause to doubt he’ll keep his word. A young kinsman of yours, Yves Hugonin.”
“Yves?” Olivier stiffened, bristling. “Yves has been here? How could that be? What brought him here?”
“He was invited. Somewhat roughly, I fear. But never fret, he’s away again as whole as he came, and in Gloucester by this time, raising an army to come and drag you out of hold. I thought for a time,” said Philip consideringly,”that I had a quarrel with him, but I find I was in error. And even if I had not been, it turned out the cause was valueless.”
“You swear it? He’s unharmed, and back to his own people? No, I take that back,” said Olivier fiercely. “I know you do not lie.”
“Never, at any rate, to you. He is safe and well, and heartily hating me for your sake. And the other, I told you there were two, the other is a monk of the Benedictines of Shrewsbury, and he is still here in La Musarderie, of his own will. His name is Cadfael.”
Olivier stood utterly confounded. His lips moved, repeating the familiar but most unexpected name. When he found a voice at last, he was less than coherent.
“How can he be here? A cloistered brother, no, they go nowhere, unless ordered, his vows would not allow, And why here? For me …? No, impossible!”
“So you do know of him? His vows, yes, he declares himself recusant, he is absent and unblessed. For cause. For you. Do me justice, it was you said I do not lie. I saw this brother at Coventry. He was there seeking news of you, like the young one. By what arts he traced you here I am not wholly sure, but so he did, and came to redeem you. I thought that you should know.”
“He is a man I revere,” said Olivier. “Twice I have met with him and been thankful. But he owes me nothing, nothing at all.”
“So I thought and said, “agreed Philip. “But he knows better. He came to me openly, asking for what he wanted. You. He said there were those who would be glad to buy you free; and when I asked, at whatever price?… he said, name it, and he would see it paid.”
“This is out of my grasp,” said Olivier, lost. “I do not understand.”
“And I said to him: “A life, perhaps.” And he said: “Take mine!”
Olivier sat down slowly on the rugs of the bed, astray between the present wintry reality and memories that crowded back upon him fresh as Spring. A brother of the Benedictines, habited and cowled, who had used him like a son. They were together waiting for midnight and Matins in the priory of Bromfield, drawing plans upon the floor to show the way by which Olivier could best be sure of getting his charges safely away out of Stephen’s territory and back to Gloucester. They were under the rustling, fragrant bunches of herbs hanging from the rafters of Cadfael’s workshop, that last time, when, without even giving it a thought, Olivier before departing had stooped his cheek for the kiss proper between close kin, and blithely returned it.
“And then I asked him: “Why should you offer me your old bones to moulder in his place? What is Olivier de Bretagne to you?” And he said: “He is my son.””
After long silence, the dying candle suddenly sputtered and flowed into molten wax, and the wick lolled sidewise into the pool and subsided into a last spreading, bluish flame. Philip tilted the new one to pick up the fading spark out of the enclosing darkness, and blew out the last remnant, anchoring the renewed light upon the congealing remains of the old. Olivier’s face, briefly withdrawn into twilight, burned slowly bright again as the flame drew constant and tall. He was quite still, the focus of his wide, astonished eyes lengthened into infinite distance.
“Is it true?” he asked almost soundlessly, but not of Philip, who did not lie. “He never told me. Why did he never tell me?”
“He found you already mounted and launched and riding high. A sudden father clutching at your arm might have thrust you off your course. He let well alone. As long as you remained in ignorance, you owed him nothing.” Philip had drawn back a pace or two towards the door, the key ready in his hand, but he checked a moment to correct his last utterance. “Nothing, he says, but what is fairly earned between man and man. For until you knew, that was all you were. It will not be so easy between father and son, that I know. Debts proliferate, and the prices set come all too high.”
“Yet he comes offering all for me,” said Olivier, wrestling with this paradox almost in anger. “Without sanction, exiled, leaving his vocation, his quietude, his peace of mind, offering his life. He has cheated me!” he said in a grievous cry.