A Morbid Taste for Bones (6 page)

Bened was a thickset, muscular man of middle years, bearded and brown. Of his two companions the younger was recognisable as the ploughman who had followed the ox-team that day, and no wonder he was dry after such labour. And the third was a grey-headed elder with a long, smoothly-trimmed beard and fine, sinewy hands, in an ample homespun gown that had seen better days, perhaps on another wearer. He bore himself as one entitled to respect, and got it.

"Padrig, here, is a good poet and a fine harpist," said Bened, "and Gwytherin is lucky to have him staying a while among us, in Rhisiart's hall. That's away beyond Cadwallon's place, in a forest clearing, but Rhisiart has land over this way, too, both sides the river. He's the biggest landowner in these parts. There are not many here entitled to keep a harp, or maybe we'd be honoured with more visits from travelling bards like Padrig. I have a little harp myself - I have that privilege - but Rhisiart's is a fine one, and kept in use, too. I've heard his girl play on it sometimes."

"Women cannot be bards," said Padrig with tolerant scorn. "But she knows how to keep it tuned, and well looked after, that I will say. And her father's a patron of the arts, and a generous, open-handed one. No bard goes away disappointed from his hall, and none ever leaves without being pressed to stay. A good household!"

"And this is Cai, Rhisiart's ploughman. No doubt you saw the team cutting new land, when you came over the ridge today."

"I did and admired the work," said Cadfael heartily. "I never saw better. A good team you had there, and a good caller, too."

"The best," said Cai without hesitation. "I've worked with a good many in my time, but never known one with the way Engelard has with the beasts. They'd die for him. And as good a hand with all cattle, calving or sick or what you will. Rhisiart would be a sorry man if ever he lost him. Ay, we did a good day's work today."

"You'll have heard from Father Huw," said Cadfael, "that all the free men are called to the church tomorrow after Mass, to hear what our prior is proposing. No doubt we shall see Rhisiart there."

"See and hear him," said Cai, and grinned. "He speaks his mind. An open-hearted, open-natured man, with a temper soon up and soon down, and never a grudge in him, but try and move him when his mind's made up, and you're leaning on Snowdon."

"Well, a man can but hold fast to what he believes right, and even the opponent he baulks should value him for that. And have his sons no interest in the harp, that they leave it to their sister?"

"He has no sons," said Bened. "His wife is dead, and he never would take another, and there's only this one girl to follow him."

"And no male heir anywhere in his kinship? It's rare for a daughter to inherit."

"Not a man on his side the family at all," said Cai, "and a pity it is. The only near kin is her mother's brother, and he has no claim, and is old into the bargain. The greatest match anywhere in this valley, is Sioned, and young men after her like bees. But God willing, she'll be a contented wife with a son on her knee long before Rhisiart goes to his fathers."

"A grandson by a good man, and what could any lord want more." said Padrig, and emptied the jug of mead and passed the horn along. "Understand me, I'm not a Gwytherin man myself, and have no right to give a voice one way or the other. But if I may say a word my friends won't say for themselves - you having your duty to your prior as Cai has to his lord, or I to my art and my patrons - don't look for an easy passage, and don't take offence if your way is blocked. Nothing personal to you! But where the free men of Wales see no fair dealing, they won't call it by fair names, and they won't stand aside."

"I should be sorry if they did," said Cadfael. "For my part, the ending I want is the fair ending, leaving no man with a just grievance. And what of the other lords we can expect to see there? Of Cadwallon we've heard, two of our brothers are enjoying his hospitality. And his lands are neighbour to Rhisiart's?"

"It's a fair piece beyond to Rhisiart's hall, on through the forest. But they're neighbours, boundary to boundary, yes, and friends from youth. A peaceable man, Cadwallon, he likes his comfort and his hunting. His way would be to say yes to whatever bishop and prince commend, but then, his way normally is also to say yes to Rhisiart. For that matter," owned Bened, tilting the last drop from the horn, "I know no more than you what either of them will have to say in this matter. For all I know they'll accept your omens and bless your errand. If the free voice goes with your prior, then Saint Winifred goes home with you, and that's the end of it."

It was the end of the mead, too, for that night.

"Bide the night here," said Bened to Padrig, when the guests rose to walk home, "and we'll have a little music before you leave tomorrow. My small harp needs to be played, I've kept it in fettle for you."

"Why, so I will, since you're so kind," said Padrig, and weaved his way gently into the house with his host. And Cai and Brother Cadfael, taking their leave, set off companionably shoulder to shoulder, to make their way back to Father Huw's house, and thence in courtesy a measure of the way through the woods towards Rhisiart's hall before they parted.

"I would not say more nor plainer," said Cai confidingly, "while Bened was present, nor in front of Padrig, for that matter, though he's a good fellow - so are they both! - but a traveller, not a native. This Sioned, Rhisiart's girl... The truth is, Bened would like to be a suitor for her himself, and a good, solid man he is, and a girl might well do worse. But a widower, poor soul, and years older than the lass, and a poor chance he has. But you haven't seen the girl!"

Brother Cadfael was beginning to suspect that he had indeed seen the girl, and seen more than any here had ever been allowed to see. But he said nothing.

"A girl like a squirrel! As swift, as sudden, as black and as red! If she had nothing, they'd still be coming from miles around, and she will have lands any man might covet even if she squinted! And there's poor Bened, keeping his own counsel and feeding on his own silence, and still hoping. After all, a smith is respected in any company. And give him his due, it isn't her heritage he covets. It's the girl herself. If you'd seen her, you'd know. In any case," said Cai, sighing gustily for his friend, "her father has a favourite for son-in-law already, and has all along. Cadwallon's lad has been in and out of Rhisiart's hall, and made free with Rhisiart's servants and hawks and horses, ever since he could run, and grown up with the girl. And he's sole heir to the neighbouring holding, and what could suit either father better? They've had it made up between them for years. And the children seem ideally matched, they know each other through and through, like brother and sister."

"I doubt if I'd say that made for an ideal match," said Brother Cadfael honestly.

"So Sioned seems to think, too," said Cai dryly. "So far she's resisted all pressures to accept this lad Peredur. And mind you, he's a very gay, lively well-looking young fellow, spoiled as you please, being the only one, but show me a girl round here who wouldn't run if he lifted his finger - all but this girl! Oh, she likes him well enough, but that's all. She won't hear of marriage yet, she's still playing the heartfree child."

"And Rhisiart bears with her?" asked Cadfael delicately.

"You don't know him, either. He dotes on her, and well he may, and she reveres him, and well she may, and where does that get any of us? He won't force her choice. He never misses a chance to urge how suitable Peredur is, and she never denies it. He hopes, if he bides his time, she'll come round."

"And will she?" asked Brother Cadfael, responding to something in the ploughman's voice. His own was milder than milk.

"No accounting," said Cai slowly, "for what goes on in a girl's head. She may have other plans of her own. A bold, brave one she is, clever and patient at getting her own way. But what that may be, do I know? Do you? Does any man?"

"There may be one man who does," said Brother Cadfael with guileful disinterest.

If Cai had not risen to that bait, Cadfael would have let well alone then, for it was no business of his to give away the girl's secrets, when he had stumbled upon them himself only by chance. But he was no way surprised when the ploughman drew meaningfully close against his arm, and jabbed a significant elbow into his ribs. A man who had worked closely with the young ox-caller as he had must surely have noted a few obvious things by now. This afternoon's purposeful bee-line across the meadows and through the water to a certain well-grown oak would be enough in itself for a sharp man. And as for keeping his mouth shut about it, it was pretty plain that his sympathies were with his work-mate.

"Brother Cadfael, you wouldn't be a talking man, not out of turn, and you're not tied to one side or the other in any of our little disputes here. No reason you shouldn't know. Between you and me, she has got a man in her eye, and one that wants her worse than Bened does, and has even less chance of ever getting her. You remember we were talking of my fellow on the team, Engelard? A good man with cattle, worth plenty to his lord, and Rhisiart knows it and values him fairly on it. But the lad's an alltud - an outlander!"

"Saxon?" asked Cadfael.

"The fair hair. Yes, you saw him today. The length and slenderness of him too. Yes, he's a Cheshire man from the borders of Maelor, on the run from the bailiffs of Earl Ranulf of Chester. Oh, not for murder or banditry or any such! But the lad was simply the most outrageous deer-poacher in the earldom. He's a master with the short bow, and always stalked them afoot and alone. And the bailiff was after his blood. Nothing for him to do, when he was cornered on the borders, but run for it into Gwynedd. And he daren't go back, not yet, and you know what it means for a foreigner to want to make a living in Wales."

Cadfael knew indeed. In a country where every native-born man had and knew his assured place in a clan kinship, and the basis of all relationships was establishment on the land, whether as free lord or villein partner in a village community, the man from outside, owning no land here, fitting into no place, was deprived of the very basis of living. His only means of establishing himself was by getting some overlord to make compact with him, give him house-room and a stake in the land, and employ him for whatever skills he could offer. For three generations this bargain between them was revocable at any time, and the outlander might leave at the fair price of dividing his chattels equally with the lord who had given him the means of acquiring them.

"I do know. So Rhisiart took this young man into his service and set him up in a croft?"

"He did. Two years ago now, a little more. And neither of them has had any call to regret it. Rhisiart's a fair-minded master, and gives credit where it's due. But however much he respects and values him, can you see a Welsh lord ever letting his only daughter go to an alltud?"

"Never!" agreed Cadfael positively. "No chance of it! It would be against all his laws and customs and conscience. His own kinship would never forgive it."

"True as I'm breathing!" sighed Cai ruefully. "But you try telling that to a proud, stubborn young fellow like Engelard, who has his own laws and rights from another place, where his father's lord of a good manor, and carries every bit as much weight in his feudal fashion as Rhisiart does here."

"Do you tell me he's actually spoken for her to her father?" demanded Cadfael, astonished and admiring.

"He has, and got the answer you might expect. No malice at all, but no hope either. Yes, and stood his ground and argued his case just the same. And comes back to the subject every chance that offers, to remind Rhisiart he hasn't given up, and never will. I tell you what, those two are two of a kind, both hot-tempered, both obstinate, but both as open and honest as you'll find anywhere, and they've a great respect for each other that somehow keeps them from bearing malice or letting this thing break them apart. But every time this comes up, the sparks fly. Rhisiart clouted Engelard once, when he pushed too hard, and the lad came within an ace of clouting back. What would the answer to that have been? I never knew it happen with an alltud, but if a slave strikes a free man he stands to lose the hand that did it. But he stopped himself in tune, though I don't think it was fear that stopped him - he knew he was in the wrong. And what did Rhisiart do, not half an hour later, but fling back and ask his pardon! Said he was an insolent, unreasonable, unWelsh rascal, but he should not have struck him. There's a battle going on all the time between those two, and neither of them can get any peace, but let any man say a word against Rhisiart in Engelard's hearing, and he'll get it back down his throat with a fist behind it. And if one of the servants ever called down Engelard, thinking to curry favour with Rhisiart, he'd soon get told that the alltud's an honest man and a good worker, worth ten of the likes of his backbiters. So it goes! And I can see no good end to it."

"And the girl?" said Cadfael. "What does she say to all this?"

"Very little, and very softly. Maybe at first she did argue and plead, but if so it was privately with her father alone. Now she's biding her time, and keeping them from each other's throat as best she can."

And meeting her lover at the oak tree, thought Cadfael, or any one of a dozen other private places, wherever his work takes him. So that's how she learned her English, all through those two years while the Saxon boy was busy learning Welsh from her, and that's why, though she was willing to pass the time of day in his own language with a visiting monk, she was concerned about having betrayed her accomplishment to a Welsh-speaking stranger, who might innocently blurt it abroad locally. She'd hardly want to let slip how often she's been meeting Engelard in secret, if she's biding her time, and keeping father and lover from each other's throat till she can get her own way with them. And who's to say which of the three will give way first, where all look immovable?