“I do believe I’m fit to go, and go I will. I would not for the world shrug off my danger upon you.”
“You’ll go when you’re let,” said Godith, and for revenge snatched off the last fold of bandage, but very circumspectly, and holding the anointed pad in place. “And it won’t be today.”
“Hush, let him talk, time’s short,” said Cadfael. “Go to it, lad. We’re not in the business of selling Maud’s men to Stephen, or Stephen’s men to Maud. How did you come here in this pass?”
Torold took a deep breath, and talked to some purpose. “I came to the castle here with Nicholas Faintree, who was also FitzAlan’s man, from the next manor to my father’s, we joined the garrison only a week before it fell. The evening before the assault there was a council — we were not there, we were small fry — and they resolved to get the FitzAlan treasury away the very next day for the use of the empress, not knowing then it would be the last day. Nicholas and I were told off to be the messengers because we were new to Shrewsbury, and not known, and might get through well enough where others senior to us might be known and cut down at sight. The goods — they were not too bulky, thank God, not much plate, more coin, and most of all in jewellery — were hidden somewhere no one knew but our lord and his agent who had them in guard. We had to ride to him when the word was given, take them from where he would show us, and get clear by night for Wales. FitzAlan had an accord with Owain Gwynedd — not that he’s for either party here, he’s for Wales, but civil war here suits him well, and he and FitzAlan are friends. Before it was well dawn they attacked, and it was plain we could not hold. So we were sent off on our errand — it was to a shop in the town . . .” He wavered, uneasy at giving any clue.
“I know,” said Cadfael, wiping away the exudation of the night from the shoulder wound, and anointing a new pad. “It was Edric Flesher, who himself has told me his part in it. You were taken out to his barn in Frankwell, and the treasury laid up with you to wait for the cover of night. Go on!”
The young man, watching the dressing of his own hurts without emotion, went on obediently: “We rode as soon as it was dark. From there clear of the suburb and into trees is only a short way. There’s a herdsman’s hut there in the piece where the track is in woodland, though only along the edge, the fields still close. We were on this stretch when Nick’s horse fell lame. I lit down to see, for he went very badly, and he had picked up a caltrop, and was cut to the bone.”
“Caltrops?” said Brother Cadfael, startled. “On such a forest path, away from any field of battle?” For those unobtrusive martial cruelties, made in such a shape as to be scattered under the hooves of cavalry, and leaving always one crippling spike upturned, surely had no part to play on a narrow forest ride.
“Caltrops,” said Torold positively. “I don’t speak simply from the wound, the thing was there embedded, I know, I wrenched it out. But the poor beast was foundered, he could go, but not far, and not loaded. There’s a farm I know of very close there, I thought I could get a fresh horse in exchange for Nick’s, a poor exchange but what could we do? We did not even unload, but Nick lighted down, to ease the poor creature of his weight, and said he would wait there in the hut for me. And I went, and I got a mount from the farm — it’s off to the right, heading west as we were, the man’s name is Ulf, he’s distant kin to me on my mother’s side — and rode back, with Nick’s half the load on this new nag.
“I came up towards the hut,” he said, stiffening at the recollection, “and I thought he would be looking out for me, ready to mount, and he was not. I don’t know why that made me so uneasy. Not a breath stirring, and for all I was cautious, I knew I could be heard by any man truly listening. And he never showed face or called out word. So I never went too near. I drew off, and reined forward a little way, and made a single tether of the horses, to be off as fast as might be. One knot to undo, and with a single pluck. And then I went to the hut.”
“It was full dark then?” asked Cadfael, rolling bandage.
“Full dark, but I could see, having been out in it. Inside it was black as pitch. The door stood half open to the wall. I went inside stretching my ears, and not a murmur. But in the middle of the hut I fell over him. Over Nick! If I hadn’t I might not be here to tell as much,” said Torold grimly, and cast a sudden uneasy glance at his Ganymede, so plainly some years his junior, and attending him with such sedulous devotion. “This is not good hearing.” His eyes appealed eloquently to Cadfael over Godith’s shoulder.
“You’d best go on freely,” said Cadfael with sympathy. “He’s deeper in this than you think, and will have your blood and mine if we dare try to banish him. No part of this matter of Shrewsbury has been good hearing, but something may be saved. Tell your part, we’ll tell ours.”
Godith, all eyes, ears and serviceable hands, wisely said nothing at all.
“He was dead,” said Torold starkly. “I fell on him, mouth to mouth, there was no breath in him. I held him, reaching forward to save myself as I fell, I had him in my arms and he was like an armful of rags. And then I heard the dry fodder rustle behind me, and started round, because there was no wind to stir it, and I was frightened . . .”
“Small blame!” said Cadfael, smoothing a fresh pad soaked in his herbal salve against the moist wound. “You had good reason. Trouble no more for your friend, he is with God surely. We buried him yesterday within the abbey. He has a prince’s tomb. You, I think, escaped the like very narrowly, when his murderer lunged from behind the door.”
“So I think, too,” said the boy, and drew in hissing breath at the bite of Cadfael’s dressing. “There he must have been. The grass warned me when he made his assay. I don’t know how it is, every man throws up his right arm to ward off blows from his head, and so did I. His cord went round my wrist as well as my throat. I was not clever or a hero, I lashed out in fright and jerked it out of his hands. It brought him down on top of me in the dark. I know only too well,” he said, defensively, “that you may not believe me.”
“There are things that go to confirm you. Spare to be so wary of your friends. So you were man to man, at least, better odds than before. How did you escape him?”
“More by luck than valour,” said Torold ruefully. “We were rolling about in the hay, wrestling and trying for each other’s throat, everything by feel and nothing by sight, and neither of us could get space or time to draw, for I don’t know how long, but I suppose it was no more than minutes. What ended it was that there must have been an old manger there against the wall, half fallen to pieces, and I banged my head against one of the boards lying loose in the hay. I hit him with it, two-handed, and he dropped. I doubt I did him any lasting damage, but it knocked him witless long enough for me to run, and run I did, and loosed both the horses, and made off westward like a hunted hare. I still had work to do, and there was no one but me left to do it, or I might have stayed to try and even the account for Nick. Or I might not,” owned Torold with scowling honesty. “I doubt I was even thinking about FitzAlan’s errand then, though I’m thinking of it now, and have been ever since. I ran for my life. I was afraid he might have had others lying in ambush to come to his aid. All I wanted was out of there as fast as my legs would go.”
“No need to make a penance of it,” said Cadfael mildly, securing his bandage. “Sound sense is something to be glad of, not ashamed. But, my friend, it’s taken you two full days, by your own account, to get to much the same spot you started from. I take it, by that, the king has allies pretty thick between here and Wales, at least by the roads.”