Within Owain’s writ the invasion of disorder might bring about momentary consternation, but could not hope to create disorder in its turn. His mind was too quick and resolute ever to entertain chaos. Before the muted roar of anger and resentment had circled the ward the captain of the prince’s guard was at his elbow, awaiting his orders. They understood each other too well to need many words.
“This report is certain?” Owain asked.
“Certain, my lord. The messenger I had it from saw them himself from the dunes. Too distant then to be sure how many ships, but no question whence they come, and small doubt why. It was known he had fled to them. Why come back in such force but for a reckoning?”
“He shall have one,” said Owain composedly. “How long before they come to land?”
“My lord, before morning surely. They were under sail, and the wind is steady from the west.”
For the length of a deep breath Owain considered. Perhaps a quarter of the horses in his stables had been ridden far, though not hard, the previous day, and as many of his armed men had made that journey, and sat merry in hall late into the night. And the ride that faced them now would be urgent and fast.
“Short time,” he said, musing, “to raise even the half of Gwynedd, but we’ll make sure of reserves, and collect every man available between here and Carnarvon as we go. Six couriers I want, one to go before us now, the others to carry my summons through the rest of Arlechwedd and Arfon. Call them to Carnarvon. We may not need them, but no harm in making certain.” His clerks accepted the expected word, and vanished with commendable calm to prepare the sealed writs the couriers would bear to the chieftains of two cantrefs before the night was over. “Now, every man who bears arms,” said Owain, raising his voice to carry to the containing walls and echo back from them, “get to your beds and take what rest you can. We muster at first light.”
Cadfael, listening on the edge of the crowd, approved. Let the couriers, by all means, ride out by night, but to move the disciplined host across country in the dark was waste of time that could better be used in conserving their energy. The fighting men of the household dispersed, if reluctantly; only the captain of Owain’s bodyguard, having assured himself of his men’s strict obedience, returned to his lord’s side.
“Get the women out of our way,” said Owain over his shoulder. His wife and her ladies had remained above in the open doorway of the hall, silent but for an agitated whispering among the younger maids. They departed uneasily and with many a glance behind, rather curious and excited than alarmed, but they departed. The princess had as firm a hold over her own household as Owain over his fighting men. There remained the stewards and elder counsellors, and such menservants as might be needed for any service, from armoury, stables, stores, brewhouse and bakehouse. Armed men also had needs, beyond their brands and bows, and the addition of some hundreds to a garrison meant a supply train following.
Among the smaller group now gathered about the prince Cadfael noted Cuhelyn, by the look of him fresh from his bed, if not from sleep, for he had thrown on his clothes in haste, he who was wont to appear rather elegantly presented. And there was Hywel, alert and quiet at his father’s side. And Gwion, attentive and still, standing a little apart, as Cadfael had first seen him, as though he held himself always aloof from the concerns of Owain and Gwynedd, however honourably he acknowledged them. And Canon Meirion and Canon Morgant, for once drawn together in contemplating a crisis which had nothing to do with Heledd, and held no direct threat against either of them. They were onlookers, too, not participators. Their business was to get the reluctant bride safely to Bangor and her bridegroom’s arms, and there were no Danish ships as near as Bangor, nor likely to be. Heledd had been safely disposed of for the night with the princess’s women, and no doubt was gossiping excitedly with them now over what might well seem to her an almost welcome diversion.
“So this,” said Owain into the comparative silence that waited on his decree, “is the dire consequence Bledri ap Rhys had in mind. He knew, none so well, what my brother had planned. He gave me fair warning. Well, let him wait his turn, we have other work to do before morning. If he’s secure in his bed, he’ll keep.”
The chosen couriers to his vassal princes were reappearing cloaked for the night ride, and up from the stables the grooms came leading the horses saddled and ready for them. The leader came almost at a trot, led by the head groom, and the man was in some measured excitement, poured out in a breath before ever he came to a halt.
“My lord, there’s a horse gone from the stables, and harness and gear with him! We checked again, wanting to provide you the best for the morning. A good, young roan, no white on him, and saddle-cloth, saddle, bridle and all belonging to him.”
“And the horse he rode here—Bledri ap Rhys? His own horse that he brought to Saint Asaph with him?” Hywel demanded sharply. “A deep grey, dappled lighter down his flanks? Is he still there?”
“I know the one, my lord. No match for this roan. Still jaded from yesterday. He’s still there. Whoever the thief was, he knew how to choose.”
“And meant good speed!” said Hywel, burning. “He’s gone, surely. He’s gone to join Cadwaladr and his Irish Danes at Abermenai. How the devil did he ever get out of the gates? And with a horse!”
“Go, some of you, and question the watch,” Owain ordered, but without any great concern, and without turning to see who ran to do his bidding. The guards on all the gates of his maenol were men he could trust, as witness the fact that not one of them had come running here from his post, however acute the curiosity he might be feeling about the audible turmoil continuing out of his sight. Only here at the main gate, where the messenger from Bangor had entered, had any man stirred from his duty, and then only the officer of the guard. “There’s no way of locking a man in,” reflected Owain philosophically, “if he has his vigour and is determined to get out. Any wall ever built can be climbed, for a high enough cause. And he is to the last degree my brother’s man.” He turned again to the tired messenger. “In the dark a wise traveller would keep to the roads. Did you meet with any man riding west as you rode east here to us?”
“No, my lord, never a one. Not since I crossed the Cegin, and those were men of our own, known to me, and in no hurry.”
“He’ll be far out of reach now, but let’s at least start Einion off on his tracks with my writ. Who knows? A horse can fall lame, ridden hard in the dark, a man can lose his way in lands not his own. We may halt him yet,” said Owain, and turned to meet the steward who had run to see how watch was kept on the postern gates of the llys. “Well?”
“No man challenged, no man passed. They know him now by sight, stranger though he may be. However he broke loose, it was not by the gates.”
“I never thought it,” the prince agreed sombrely. “They never yet kept any but a thorough watch. Well, send out the couriers, Hywel, and then come to me within, to my private chamber. Cuhelyn, come with us.” He looked round briefly as his messengers mounted. “Gwion, this is no fault nor concern of yours. Go to your bed. And keep your parole in mind still. Or take it back,” he added drily, “and bide under lock and key while we’re absent.”
“I have given it,” said Gwion haughtily, “I shall keep it.”
“And I accepted it,” said the prince, relenting, “and trust to it. There, go, what is there for you to do here?”
What, indeed, Cadfael thought wryly, except grudge us all the freedom he has denied himself? And the instant thought came, that Bledri ap Rhys, that fiery advocate so forward to excuse his lord and threaten in his name, had given no parole, and had, almost certainly, had very private and urgent conference with Gwion in the chapel of the llys only a matter of hours ago, and was now away to rejoin Cadwaladr at Abermenai, with much knowledge of Owain’s movements and forces and defences. Gwion had never promised anything except not to escape. Within the walls he might move at will, perhaps his freedom extended even to the tref that lay outside the gate. For that he had pledged his own consent to detention. No one had promised as much for Bledri ap Rhys. And Gwion had made no pretence of his steely loyalty to Cadwaladr. Could he be blamed as recreant if he had helped his unexpected ally to break out and return to his prince? A nice point! Knowing, if only at second hand from Cuhelyn, Gwion’s stubborn and ferocious loyalty, he might well have warned his captors over and over of the limits he set on his parole, and the fervour with which he would seize any opportunity of serving the master he so obstinately loved, even at this remove.
Gwion had turned, slowly and hesitantly, to accept his dismissal, but then halted, stood with bent head and irresolute step, and in a moment gathered himself abruptly, and strode away instead towards the chapel; from the open door the faint red spark drew him like a lodestone. And what had Gwion to pray for now? A successful landing for Cadwaladr’s Danish mercenaries, and a rapid and bloodless accommodation between brothers rather than a disastrous war? Or some repair to his own peace of mind? Fiercely upright, he might consider even his loyalty a sin where some unavoidable infringement of his oath was concerned. A complicated mind, sensitive to any self-reproach, however venial the sin.
Cuhelyn, who perhaps understood him best, and most resembled him, had watched him go with a thoughtful frown, and even taken a couple of impulsive steps to follow him before thinking better of the notion, and turning back to Owain’s side. Prince and captains and counsellors mounted the steps to the great hall and the private apartments, and vanished purposefully within. Cuhelyn followed without another glance behind, and Cadfael and Mark, and a few hovering servants and retainers, were left in an almost empty ward, and the silence came down after clamour, and the dark stillness after a turmoil of movement. Everything was known and understood, everything was in hand, and would be dealt with competently.
“And there is no part in it for us,” Brother Mark said quietly at Cadfael’s shoulder.
“None, except to saddle up tomorrow and ride on to Bangor.”
“Yes, that I must,” Mark agreed. There was a curious note of unease and regret in his voice, as if he found it almost a dereliction of his humanity to remove himself at this crisis in pursuit of his own errand, and leave all things here confounded and incomplete. “I wonder, Cadfael... The watch on the gates, all the gates, were they thought enough? Do you suppose a watch was set on the man himself, even here within, or was it enough that the walls held him? No man stood guard over the door of his lodging, or followed him from hall to his bed?”
“From the chapel to his bed,” Cadfael amended, “if any man had that charge. No, Mark, we watched him go. There was no one treading on his heels.” He looked across the ward, to the alley into which Bledri had vanished when he came from the chapel. “Are we not taking too much for granted, all of us? The prince has more urgent matters on his hands, true, but should not someone confirm what we have all leaped to believe?”
Gwion emerged slowly and silently from the open doorway of the chapel, drawing the door to after him, so that the tiny gleam of red vanished. He came somewhat wearily across the ward, seemingly unaware of the two who stood motionless and mute in the shadows, until Cadfael stepped forward to intercept him, mildly seeking information from one who might be expected to be able to supply it: “A moment! Do you know in which of the many lodgings here this Bledri ap Rhys slept overnight?” And as the young man halted abruptly, turning on him a startled and wary face: “I saw you greet him yesterday when we rode in, I thought you might know. You must have been glad to have some talk with an old acquaintance while he was here.”
For some reason the protracted interval of silence was more eloquent than what was finally said in reply. It would have been natural enough to answer at once: “Why do you want to know? What does it matter now?” seeing that lodging must be empty, if the man who had slept there had fled in the night. The pause made it plain that Gwion knew well enough who had walked in upon him in the chapel, and was well aware that they must have seen Bledri departing. He had time to think before he spoke, and what he said was: “I was glad, to set eyes on a man of my own tribe. I have been here hostage more than half a year. They will have told you as much. The steward had given him one of the lodgings against the north wall. I can show you. But what difference does it make now? He’s gone. Others may blame him,” he said haughtily, “but not I. If I had been free, I would have done as he did. I never made secret of where my fealty lay. And lies still!”
“God forbid anyone should condemn a man for keeping faith,” agreed Cadfael equably. “Did Bledri have his chamber to himself?”
“He did.” Gwion hoisted his shoulders, shrugging off an interest it seemed he did not understand, but accepted as meaning something to these wandering Benedictines if it meant nothing to him. “There was none sharing it with him, to prevent his going, if that is what you mean.”
“I was wondering, rather,” said Cadfael deprecatingly, “whether we are not assuming too much, just because a horse is missing. If his lodging was in a remote corner of the wards, with many a wall between, may he not have slept through this whole uproar, and be still snoring in all innocence? Since he lay alone, there was no one to wake him, if he proved so sound a sleeper.”
Gwion stood staring, eye to eye with him, his thick dark brows raised. “Well, true enough, but for the horn call a man with enough drink in him might have slept through it all. I doubt it, but if you feel the need to see for yourself... It’s not on my way, but I’ll show you.” And without more words he set off into the passage between the rear of the great hall and the long timber range of the storehouse and armoury. They followed his brisk figure, shadowy in the dimness, through towards the long line of buildings in the shelter of the outer wall.
“The third door was his.” It stood just ajar, no gleam of light showing in the crack. “Go in, Brothers, and see for yourselves. But by the look of it you’ll find him gone, and all his gear with him.”
The range of small rooms was built in beneath the watch-platform along the outer wall, and shadowed deeply by its overhang. Cadfael had seen only one stairway to the platform, broad and easy of access but in full view of the main gate. Moreover, it would not be easy to descend on the outer side, unless with a long rope, for the fighting gallery projected outward from the wall, and there was a ditch below. Cadfael set a hand to the door and pushed it open upon darkness. His eyes, by this time accustomed to the night and such light as the clear but moonless sky provided, were at once blind again. There was no movement, and no sound within. He set the door wide, and advanced a step or two into the small chamber.
“We should have brought a torch,” said Mark, at his shoulder.
No need for that, it seemed, to show that the room was empty of life. But Gwion, tolerant of these exigent visitors, offered from the threshold: “The brazier will be burning in the guardhouse. I’ll bring a light.”
Cadfael had made another step within, and all but stumbled as his foot tangled soundlessly with some shifting fold of soft material, as though a rumpled brychan had been swept from bed to floor. He stooped and felt forward into the rough weave of cloth, and found something of firmer texture within it. A fistful of sleeve rose to his grip, the warmth and odour of wool stirred on the air, and an articulated weight dangled and swung as he lifted it, solid within the cloth. He let it rest back again gently, and felt down the length of it to a thick hem, and beyond that, the smooth, lax touch of human flesh, cooling but not yet cold. A sleeve indeed, and an arm within it, and a large, sinewy hand at the end of the arm.
“Do that,” he said over his shoulder. “Bring a light. We are going to need all the light we can get.”
“What is it?” asked Mark, intent and still behind him.
“A dead man, by all the signs. A few hours dead. And unless he has grappled with someone who stood in the way of his flight, and left him here to tell the tale, who can this be but Bledri ap Rhys?”
*
Gwion came running with a torch, and set it in the sconce on the wall, meant only to hold a small lantern. In such confined rooms a torch would never normally be permitted, but this was crisis. The sparse contents of the chamber sprang sharply outlined from the dark, a rumpled bench bed against the rear wall, the brychans spilled over and dangling to the floor, the impression of a long body still discernible indenting the cover of the straw mattress. On a shelf beside the bed-head, convenient to the guest’s hand, a small saucer-lamp stood. Not quenched, for it had burned out and left only a smear of oil and the charred wick. Beneath the shelf, half-unfolded, lay a leather saddle-roll, and dropped carelessly upon it a man’s cotte and chausses and shirt, and the rolled cloak he had not needed on the journey. And in the corner his riding-boots, one overturned and displaced, as if a foot had kicked it aside.
And between the bed and the doorway, sprawled on his back at Cadfael’s feet, arms and legs flung wide, head propped against the timber wall, as though a great blow had lifted and hurled him backwards, Bledri ap Rhys lay with eyes half-open, and lips drawn back from his large, even teeth in a contorted grin. The skirts of his gown billowed about him in disorder, the breast had fallen open wide as he fell, and beneath it he was naked. In the flickering of the torch it was hard to tell whether the darkened blotch on his left jaw and cheek was shadow or bruise, but there was no mistaking the gash over his heart, and the blood that had flowed from it down into the folds of cloth under his side. The dagger that had inflicted the wound had been as quickly withdrawn, and drawn out the life after it.
Cadfael went down on his knees beside the body, and gently turned back the breast of the woollen gown to reveal the wound more clearly to the quivering light. Gwion, behind him in the doorway and hesitant to enter, drew deep breath, and let it out in a gusty sob that caused the flame to flicker wildly, and what seemed a living shudder passed over the dead face.
“Be easy,” said Cadfael tolerantly, and leaned to close the half-open eyes. “For he is easy enough now. Well I know, he was of your allegiance. And I am sorry!”
Mark stood quiet and still, staring down in undismayed compassion. “I wonder had he wife and children,” he said at last. Cadfael marked the first focus of one fledgling priest’s concern, and approved it. Christ’s first instinct might have been much the same. Not: “Unshriven, and in peril!” not even: “When did he last confess and find absolution?” but: “Who will care for his little ones?”
“Both!” said Gwion, very low. “Wife and children he has. I know. I will deal.”
“The prince will give you leave freely,” said Cadfael. He rose from his knees, a little stiffly. “We must go, all, and tell him what has befallen. We are within his writ and guests in his house, all, not least this man, and this is murder. Take the torch, Gwion, and go before, and I will close the door.”
Gwion obeyed this alien voice without question, though it had no authority over him but what he gave of his own free will. On the threshold he stumbled, for all he was holding the light. Mark took his arm until he had his balance again, and as courteously released him as soon as his step was secure. Gwion said no word, made no acknowledgement, as Mark needed none. He went before like a herald, torch in hand, straight to the steps of the great hall, and lit them steadily within.
*
“We were all in error, my lord,” said Cadfael, “in supposing that Bledri ap Rhys had fled your hospitality. He did not go far, nor did he need a horse for the journey, though it is the longest a man can undertake. He is lying dead in the lodging where your steward housed him. From all we see there, he never intended flight. I will not say he had slept. But he had certainly lain in his bed, and certainly put on his gown over his nakedness when he rose from it, to encounter whoever it may have been who walked in upon his rest. These two with me here have seen what I have seen, and will bear it out.”
“It is so,” said Brother Mark.
“It is so,” said Gwion.
Round Owain’s council table in his private apartment, austerely furnished, the silence lasted long, every man among his captains frozen into stillness, waiting for the prince’s reaction. Hywel, standing at his father’s shoulder, in the act of laying a parchment before him, had halted with the leaf half-unrolled in his hands, his eyes wide and intent upon Cadfael’s face.
Owain said consideringly, rather digesting than questioning the news thus suddenly laid before him: “Dead. Well!” And in a moment more: “And how did this man die?”
“By a dagger in the heart,” said Cadfael with certainty.
“From before? Face to face?”
“We have left him as we found him, my lord. Your own physician may see him just as we saw him. As I think,” said Cadfael, “he was struck a great blow that hurled him back against the wall, so that he fell stunned. Certainly whoever struck him down faced him, this was confrontation, no assault from behind. And no weapon, not then. Someone lashed out with a fist, in great anger. But then he was stabbed as he lay. His blood has run down and gathered in the folds of his gown under his left side. There was no movement. He was out of his senses when he was stabbed. By someone!”
“The same someone?” wondered Owain.
“Who can tell? It is probable. It is not certain. But I doubt he would have lain helpless more than a matter of moments.”
Owain spread his hands upon the table before him, pushing aside the parchments scattered there. “You are saying that Bledri ap Rhys has been murdered. Under my roof. In my charge, however he may have come there, friend or enemy, to all intent he was a guest in my house. This I will not abide.” He looked beyond Cadfael, at Gwion’s sombre face. “You need not fear that I will value my honest enemy’s life at less than any man of my own,” he said in generous reassurance.
“My lord,” said Gwion, very low, “that I never doubted.”
“If I must go after other matters now,” said Owain, “yet he shall have justice, if by any means I can ensure it. Who last saw the man, living?”
“I saw him leave the chapel, late,” said Cadfael, “and cross towards his own lodging. So did Brother Mark, who was with me. Beyond that I cannot say.”
“At that time,” said Gwion, his voice a little hoarse with constraint, “I was in the chapel. I talked with him. I was glad to see a face I knew. But when he left I did not follow.”
“Enquiry shall be made,” said Owain, “of all the servants of the house, who would be the last wakeful about the maenol. See to it, Hywel. If any had occasion to pass there, and saw either Bledri ap Rhys, or any man going or coming late about his door, bring the witness here. We muster at first light, but we have yet a few hours before dawn. If this thing can be resolved before I go to deal with my brother and his Danes, so much the better.”
Hywel departed on the word, laying his leaf of vellum down on the table, and plucking a couple of men out of the council to speed the search. There was to be no rest that night for the menservants, stewards and maids of Owain’s court, none for the members of his bodyguard, or the young men who followed him in arms. Bledri ap Rhys had come to Saint Asaph intending mischief, threatening mischief, and the cost had fallen on his own head, but the echoes would spread outward like ripples from a stone flung into a pool, and scarify the lives of all here until murder was paid for.
“The dagger that was used,” said Owain, returning to his quest like a hawk stooping. “It was not left in the wound?”
“It was not. Nor have I examined the wound so closely that I dare guess what manner of blade it had. Your own men, my lord, will be able to hazard that as well as I. Better,” said Cadfael, “since even daggers change with years, and I am long out of the practice of arms.”
“And the bed, you say, had been slept in. At least lain in. And the man had made no preparation for riding, and left no sign he ever intended flight. It was not so vital a matter that I should set a man to watch him through the night. But there is yet another mystery here,” said the prince. “For if he did not make away with one of our horses, who did? There is no question but the beast is gone.”
It was a point that Cadfael, in his preoccupation with Bledri’s death, had not even considered. Somewhere at the back of his mind he had felt the nagging and elusive misgiving that something else would have to be investigated before the night was over, but in the brief instants when he ventured to turn and attempt to see it clearly, it had vanished from the corner of his eye. Suddenly confronted with the puzzle that had eluded him, he foresaw a lengthy and careful numbering of every soul in the maenol to find the one, the only one, lost without trace. Someone else would have to undertake that, for there could be no delay in the prince’s dawn departure.
“It is in your hands, my lord,” he said, “as are we all.”
Owain flattened a large and shapely hand upon the table before him. “My course is set, and cannot be changed until Cadwaladr’s Dublin Danes are sent back to their own land with clipped ears, if it comes to that. And you, Brothers, have your own way to go, in less haste than my way, but not to be delayed, either. Your bishop is entitled to as strict service as princes expect. Let us by all means consider, in what time we have left, which among us may have done murder. Then, if it must be left behind for another time, yet it shall not be forgotten. Come, I’ll see for myself how this ill matter looks, and then we’ll have the dead cared for, and see due reparation made to his kin. He was no man of mine, but he did me no wrong, and such right as I may I’ll do to him.”
*
They rejoined the gathering in the council chamber the better part of an hour later. By then the body of Bledri ap Rhys was decently bestowed in the chapel, in the charge of the prince’s chaplain, and there was no more to be learned from the sparse furnishings of the room where he had died. No weapon remained to speak, even the flow of his blood was meagre, and left small trace behind, the stab wound being neat, narrow and precise. It is not difficult to make a clean and exact job of stabbing to the heart a man already laid senseless to your hand. Bledri could scarcely have felt death remove him from the world.
“He was not a man to be greatly loved, I fancy,” Owain said as they crossed once more to the hall. “Many here must have resented him, for he came arrogantly enough. It might take no more than a quarrelsome encounter, after that, to make a man lash out on impulse. But to kill? Would any man of mine take it so far, when I had made him my guest?”
“It would need a very angry man,” Cadfael owned, “to go so far in your despite. But it takes only an instant to strike, and less than an instant to forget all caution. He had made himself a number of enemies, even in the short time we all rode together.” Names were to be suppressed at all cost, but he was thinking of the blackly murderous glare of Canon Meirion, beholding Bledri’s familiarity with his daughter, and the consequent threat to a career the good canon had no intention of risking.
“An open quarrel would be no mystery,” said Owain. “That I could have resolved. Even if it came to a death, a blood price would have paid it, the blame would not have been all one way. He did provoke hatred. But to follow him to his bedchamber and hale him out of his bed? It is a very different matter.”
They passed through the hall and entered the council chamber. Every eye turned upon them as they came in. Mark and Gwion had waited with the rest. They stood close together, silent, as though the very fact of discovering a death together had linked them in a continuing fellowship that set them apart from the captains round the council table. Hywel was back before his father, and had brought with him one of the kitchen servants, a shaggy dark boy a little puffy with sleep, but bright-eyed again with reviving wakefulness now that he knew of a sudden death, and had something, however small, to impart concerning it.
“My lord,” said Hywel, “Meurig here is the latest I could find to pass by the lodgings where Bledri ap Rhys was housed. He will tell you what he saw. He has not yet told it, we waited for you.”
The boy spoke up boldly enough. It seemed to Cadfael that he was not altogether convinced of the importance of what he had to say, though it pleased him well enough to be here declaring it. Its significance he was content to leave to the Princes.
“My lord, it was past midnight before I finished my work, and went through the passage there to my bed. There was no one about then, I was among the last. I did not see a soul until I came by the third door in that range, where they tell me now this Bledri ap Rhys was lodged. There was a man standing in the doorway, looking into the room, with the latch in his hand. When he heard me coming he closed the door, and went away along the alley.”
“In haste?” asked Owain sharply. “Furtively? In the dark he could well slip away unrecognised.”
“No, my lord, no such matter. Simply, he drew the door to, and walked away. I thought nothing of it. And he took no care not to be seen. He said a goodnight to me as he went. As though he had been seeing a guest safe to his bed—one none too steady on his feet, or too sure of his way, it might be.”
“And you answered him?”
“Surely, my lord.”
“Now name him,” said Owain, “for I think you knew him well enough to call him by name then.”
“My lord, I did. Every man in your court of Aber has got to know him and value him by now, though he came as a stranger when first the lord Hywel brought him from Deheubarth. It was Cuhelyn.”
*
A sharp, indrawn breath hissed round the table. All heads turned, and all eyes fixed upon Cuhelyn, who sat apparently unmoved at finding himself suddenly the centre of marked and loaded attention. His thick dark brows had risen in mild surprise, even a trace of amusement.
“That is true,” he said simply. “That I could have told you, but for all I knew or know now there could have been others there after me. As certainly there was one. The last to see him, living, no question. But that was not I.”
“Yet you offered us no word of this,” the prince pointed out quietly. “Why not?”
“True, I did none too well there. It came a little too close home for comfort,” said Cuhelyn. “I opened my mouth once to say it, and shut it again with nothing said. For sober truth is that I did have the man’s death in mind, and for all I never touched him nor went in to him, when Brother Cadfael told us he lay dead, I felt the finger of guilt cold on my neck. But for solitude, and chance, and this lad coming along when most he was needed, yes, I might have been Bledri’s murderer. But I am not, thanks be to God!”
“Why did you go there, and at that hour?” asked Owain, giving no sign whether he believed or disbelieved.
“I went there to confront him. To kill him in single combat. Why at that hour? Because the hatred had taken hours to come to the boil within me, and only then had I reached the length of killing. Also, I think, because I wished to make it clear past doubt that no other man was drawn into my quarrel, and no other could be accused even of knowing what I did.” Cuhelyn’s level voice remained quiet and composed still, but his face had tightened until pale lines stood clear over the cheekbones and round the lean, strong angle of his jaw.
Hywel said softly, filling and easing the pause: “A one-armed man against a seasoned warrior with two?”
Cuhelyn looked down indifferently at the silver circlet that secured the linen cover over the stump of his left arm. “One arm or two, the end would have been the same. But when I opened his door, there he lay fast asleep. I heard his breathing, long and placid. Is it fair dealing to startle a man out of his sleep and challenge him to the death? And while I stood there in the doorway, Meurig here came along. And I drew the door closed again, and went away, and left Bledri sleeping.
“Not that I gave up my purpose,” he said, rearing his head fiercely. “Had he been living when the morning came, my lord, I meant to challenge him openly of his mortal offence, and call him to battle for his life. And if you gave me countenance, to kill him.”
Owain was staring upon him steadily, and visibly probing the mind that fashioned this bitter speech and gave it such passionate force. With unshaken calm he said: “So far as is known to me, the man had done me no grave offence.”
“Not to you, my lord, beyond his arrogance. But to me, the worst possible. He made one among the eight that set upon us from ambush, and killed my prince at my side. When Anarawd was murdered, and this hand was lopped, Bledri ap Rhys was there in arms. Until he came into the bishop’s hall I did not know his name. His face I have never forgotten. Nor never could have forgotten, until I had got Anarawd’s price out of him in blood. But someone else has done that for me. And I am free of him.”
“Say to me again,” Owain commanded, when Cuhelyn had made an end of this declaration, “that you left the man living, and have no guilt in his death.”
“I did so leave him. I never touched him, his death is no guilt of mine. If you bid me, I will swear it on the altar.”
“For this while,” said the prince gravely, “I am forced to leave this matter unresolved until I come back from Abermenai with a more urgent matter settled and done. But I still need to know who did the thing you did not do, for not all here have your true quarrel against Bledri ap Rhys. And as I for my part take your word, there may be many who still doubt you. If you give your word to return with me, and abide what further may be found out, till all are satisfied, then come with me. I need you as I may need every good man.”
“As God sees me,” said Cuhelyn. “I will not leave you, for any reason, until you bid me go. And the happier, if you never do so bid me.”
*
The last and most unexpected word of a night of the unexpected lay with Owain’s steward, who entered the council chamber just as the prince was rising to dismiss his officers, sufficiently briefed for the dawn departure. Provision was already made for the rites due to the dead. Gwion would remain at Aber, according to his oath, and had pledged his services to send word to Bledri’s wife in Ceredigion, and conduct such necessary duties for the dead man as she demanded. A melancholy duty, but better from a man of the same allegiance. The morning muster was planned with precision, and order given for the proper provision due to the bishop of Lichfield’s envoy on his way to Bangor, while the prince’s force pursued the more direct road to Carnarvon, the old road that had linked the great forts by which an alien people had kept their footing in Wales, long ago. Latin names still clung to the places they had inhabited, though only priests and scholars used them now; the Welsh knew them by other names. It was all prepared, to the last detail. Except that somehow the missing horse had been lost yet again, slipping through the cracks between greater concerns into limbo. Until Goronwy ab Einion came in with the result of a long and devious enquiry into the total household within the llys.
“My lord, the lord Hywel set me a puzzle, to find the one person who should be here, and is not. Our own household of retainers and servants I thought well to leave aside, why should any among them take to his heels? My lord, the princess’s waiting woman knows the roll of her maids perfectly, and any guests who are women are her charge. There is one girl who came in your train yesterday, my lord, who is gone from the place allotted to her. She came here with her father, a canon of Saint Asaph, and a second canon of that diocese travelled with them. We have not disturbed the father as yet. I waited for your word. But there is no question, the young woman is gone. No one has seen her since the gates were closed.”
“God’s wounds!” swore Owain, between laughter and exasperation. “It was true what they told me! The dark lass that would not be a nun in England—God keep her, why should she, a black Welshwoman as ever was!—and said yes to Ieuan ab Ifor as a blessed relief by comparison—do you tell me she has stolen a horse and made off into the night before the guard shut us in? The devil!” he said, snapping his fingers. “What is the child’s name?”
“Her name is Heledd,” said Brother Cadfael.