“And you’re joining her party there?” Cadfael drew delighted breath. “We can ride together. You are here alone? Then alone no longer, for it’s a joy to see you again, and in such good fettle. I am here with Hugh, he’ll be as glad to see you as I am.”
“But how,” demanded Yves, glowing,” did you come to be here at all?” He had Cadfael by both hands, wringing them ardently. “I know you were sent out by right, that last time, to salve a damaged man, but what art did you use to be loosed out to a state conference like this one? Though if there were more of you, and all delegates,” he added ruefully, “there might be more hope of accord. God knows I’m happy to see you, but how did you contrive it?”
“I have leave until the conference ends,” said Cadfael.
“On what grounds? Abbots are not too easily persuaded.”
“Mine,” said Cadfael, “allows me limited time, but sets a period to it that I may not infringe. I am given leave to attend at Coventry for one reason, to seek for news of one of the prisoners from Faringdon. Where princes are gathered together I may surely get word of him.”
He had not spoken a name, but the boy had stiffened into an intensity that tightened all the lines of his young, fresh face into a formidable maturity. He was not yet quite at the end of his growing, not fully formed, but the man was already there within, burning through like a stirred fire when some partisan passion probed deep into his heart.
“I think we are on the same quest,” he said. “If you are looking for Olivier de Bretagne, so am I. I know he was in Faringdon, I know as all who know him must know that he would never change his allegiance, and I know he has been hidden away out of reach. He was my champion and saviour once, he is my brother now, my sister carries his child. Closer to me than my skin, and dear as my blood, how can I ever rest,” said Yves, “until I know what they have done with him, and have haled him out of captivity?”
“I was with him,” said Yves, “until they garrisoned Faringdon. I was with him from the time I first bore arms, I would not willingly be parted from him, and he of his kindness kept me close. Father and brother both he has been to me, since he and my sister married. Now Ermina is solitary in Gloucester, and with child.”
They sat together on a bench beneath one of the torches in the guesthall, Hugh and Cadfael and the boy, in the last hush of the evening after Compline, with memories all about them in the dimness where the torchlight could not reach. Yves had pursued his quest alone since the fall of Faringdon had cast his friend into limbo, unransomed, unlisted, God knew where. It was relief now to open his heart and pour out everything he knew or guessed, to these two who valued Olivier de Bretagne as he did. Three together might surely do more than one alone.
“When Faringdon was finished, Robert of Gloucester took his own forces away and left the field to his son, and Philip made Brien de Soulis castellan of Faringdon, and gave him a strong garrison drawn from several bases. Olivier was among them. I was in Gloucester then, or I might have gone with him, but for that while I was on an errand for the empress, and she kept me about her. Most of her household were in Devizes still, she had only a few of us with her. Then we heard that King Stephen had brought a great host to lay siege to the new castle, and ease the pressure on Oxford and Malmesbury. And the next we knew was of Philip sending courier after courier to his father to come with reinforcements and save Faringdon. But he never came. Why?” demanded Yves helplessly. “Why did he not? God knows! Was he ill? Is he still a sick man? Very weary I well understand he may be, but to be inactive then, when most he was needed!”
“From all I heard,” said Hugh, “Faringdon was strongly held. Newly armed, newly provisioned. Even without Robert, surely it could have held out. My king, with all the liking I have for him, is not known for constancy in sieges. He would have sickened of it and moved on elsewhere. It takes a long time to starve out a newly supplied fortress.”
“It could have held,” Yves said bleakly. “There was no need for that surrender, it was done of intent, of malice. Whether Philip was in it then or not, is something no man knows but Philip. For what happened certainly happened without his presence, but whether without his will is another matter. De Soulis is close in his counsels. However it was, there was some connivance between the leaders who had personal forces within, and the besiegers without, and suddenly the garrison was called to witness that all their six captains had come to an agreement to surrender the castle, and their men were shown the agreement inscribed and sealed by all six, and perforce they accepted what their lords decreed. And that left the knights and squires without following, to be disarmed and made prisoner unless they also accepted the fiat. The king’s forces were already within the gates, Thirty young men were doled out like pay to Stephen’s allies, and vanished. Some have reappeared, bought free by their kin and friends. Not Olivier.”
“This we do know,” said Hugh. “The Earl of Leicester has the full list. No one has offered Olivier for ransom. No one has said, though someone must know, who holds him.”
“My Uncle Laurence has been enquiring everywhere,” agreed Yves, “but can learn nothing. And he grows older, and is needed in Devizes, where she mainly keeps her court these days. But in Coventry I intend to bring this matter into the open, and have an answer. They cannot deny me.”
Cadfael, listening in silence, shook his head a little, almost fondly, at such innocent confiding. King and empress, with absolute if imagined victory almost within sight, were less likely to give priority to a matter of simple individual justice than this boy supposed. He was young, candid, born noble, and serenely aware of his rights to fair dealing and courteous consideration. He had some rough awakenings coming to him before he would be fully armoured against the world and the devil.
“And then,” said Yves bitterly, “Philip handed over Cricklade whole and entire to King Stephen, himself, his garrison, arms, armour and all. I can’t for my life imagine why, what drove him to it. I’ve worn my wits out trying to fathom it. Was it a simple calculation that he was labouring more and more on the losing side, and could better his fortunes by the change? In cold blood? Or in very hot blood, bitter against his father for leaving Faringdon to its fate? Or was it he who betrayed Faringdon in the first place? Was it by his orders it was sold? I cannot see into his mind.”
“But you at least have seen him,” said Hugh, “and served with him. I have never set eyes on him. If you cannot account for what he has done now, yet you have worked alongside him, you must have some view of him, as one man of another in the same alliance. How old can he be? Surely barely ten years your elder.”
Yves shook the baffled bewilderment impatiently from him, and took time to think, Around thirty. Robert’s heir, William, must be a few years past that. A quiet man, Philip, he had dark moods, but a good officer. I would have said I liked him, if ever I had considered to answer that at all. I never would have believed he would change his coat, certainly never for gain or for fear…”
“Let it be,” said Cadfael placatingly, seeing how the boy laboured at the thing he could not understand. “Here are three of us not prepared to let Olivier lie unransomed. Wait for Coventry, and we shall see what we can uncover there.”
They rode into Coventry in mid-afternoon of the following day, a fine, brisk day with gleams of chilly sunshine. The pleasure of the ride had diverted Yves for a while from his obsession, brightened his eyes and stung high colour into his cheeks. Approaching the city from the north, they found Earl Leofric’s old defences still in timber, but sturdy enough, and the tangle of streets within well paved and maintained since the bishops had made this city their main base within the see. Roger de Clinton had continued the practice, though Lichfield was dearer to his own heart, for in these disturbed times Coventry was nearer the seat of dissension, and in more danger from the sporadic raids of rival armies, and he was not a man to steer clear of perils himself while his flock endured them.