“Yet if this cloth came and went in that one day,” said Radulfus, “are you saying it went hence with the Welsh lords? We know they did no wrong. If they had cause to think anything in their baggage, on returning, had to do with this matter, would they not have sent word?”
“They would have no such cause, Father, they would not know it had any importance to us. Only after they were gone did we recover those few frail threads I have shown you. How should they know we were seeking such a thing? Nor have we had any word from them, nothing but the message from Owain Gwynedd to Hugh Beringar. If Einon ab Ithel valued and has missed his jewel, he has not stopped to think he may have lost it here.”
“And you think, asked the abbot, considering, “that it might be well to speak with Einon and his officers, and examine these things?”
“At your will only,” said Cadfael. “There is no knowing if it will lead to more knowledge than we have. Only, it may! And there are so many souls who need for their comfort to have this matter resolved. Even the guilty.”
“He most of all,” said Radulfus, and sat a while in silence. There in the parlour the light was only now beginning to fade. A cloudy day would have brought the dusk earlier. About this time, perhaps a little before, Hugh would have been waiting on the great dyke at Rhyd-y-Croesau by Oswestry for Owain Gwynedd. Unless, of course, Owain was like him in coming early to any meeting. Those two would understand each other without too many words. “Let us go to Compline,” said the abbot, stirring, “and pray for enlightenment. Tomorrow after Prime we will speak again.”
The Welsh of Powys had done very well out of their Lincoln venture, undertaken rather for plunder than out of any desire to support the earl of Chester, who was more often enemy than ally. Madog ap Meredith was quite willing to act in conjunction with Chester again, provided there was profit in it for Madog, and the news of Ranulf’s probes into the borders of Gwynedd and Shropshire alerted him to pleasurable possibilities. It was some years since the men of Powys had captured and partially burned the castle of Caus, after the death of William Corbett and in the absence of his brother and heir, and they had held on to this advanced outpost ever since, a convenient base for further incursions. With Hugh Beringar gone north, and half the Shrewsbury garrison with him, the time seemed ripe for action.
The first thing that happened was a lightning raid from Caus along the valley towards Minsterley, the burning of an isolated farmstead and the driving off of a few cattle. The raiders drew off as rapidly as they had advanced, when the men of Minsterley mustered against them, and vanished into Caus and through the hills into Wales with their booty. But it was indication enough that they might be expected back and in greater strength, since this first assay had passed off so easily and without loss. Alan Herbard sweated, spared a few men to reinforce Minsterley, and waited for worse.
News of this tentative probe reached the abbey and the town next morning. The deceptive calm that followed was too good to be true, but the men of the borders, accustomed to insecurity as the commonplace of life, stolidly picked up the pieces and kept their billhooks and pitchforks ready to hand.
“It would seem, however,” said Abbot Radulfus, pondering the situation without surprise or alarm, but with concern for a shire threatened upon two fronts, “that this conference in the north would be the better informed, on both parts, if they knew of this raid. There is a mutual interest. However short, lived it may prove,” he added drily, and smiled. A stranger to the Welsh, he had learned a great deal since his appointment in Shrewsbury. “Gwynedd is close neighbour to Chester, as Powys is not, and their interests are very different. Moreover, it seems the one is to be trusted to be both honourable and sensible. The other—no, I would not say either wise or stable by our measure. I do not want these western people of ours harried and plundered, Cadfael. I have been thinking of what we said yesterday. If you return once again to Wales, to find these lords who visited us, you will also be close to where Hugh Beringar confers with the prince.”
“Certainly,” said Cadfael, “for Einon ab Ithel is next in line to Owain Gwynedd’s penteulu, the captain of his own guard. They will be together.”
“Then if I send you, as my envoy, to Einon, it would be well if you should also go to the castle, and make known to this young deputy there that you intend this journey, and can carry such messages as he may wish to Hugh Beringar. You know, I think,” said Radulfus with his dark smile, “how to make such a contact discreetly. The young man is new to office.”
“I must, in any case, pass through the town,” said Cadfael mildly, “and clearly I ought to report my errand to the authorities at the castle, and have their leave to pass. It is a good opportunity, where men are few and needed.”
“True,” said Radulfus, thinking how acutely men might shortly be needed down the border. “Very well! Choose a horse to your liking. You have leave to deal as you think best. I want this death reconciled and purged, I want God’s peace on my infirmary and within my walls, and the debt paid. Go, do what you can.”
There was no difficulty at the castle. Herbard needed only to be told that an envoy from the abbot was bound into Oswestry and beyond, and he added an embassage of his own to his sheriff. Raw and uneasy though he might be, he was braced and steeled to cope with whatever might come, but it was an additional shell of armour to have informed his chief. He was frightened but resolute; Cadfael thought he shaped well, and might be a useful man to Hugh, once blooded. And that might be no long way off.
“Let the lord Beringar know,” said Herbard, “that I intend a close watch on the border by Caus. But I desire he should know the men of Powys are on the move. And if there are further raids, I will send word.”
“He shall know,” said Cadfael, and forthwith rode back a short spell through the town, down from the High Cross to the Welsh bridge, and so north, west for Oswestry.
It was two days later that the next thrust came. Madog ap Meredith had been pleased with his first probe, and brought more men into the field before he launched his attack in force. Down the Rea valley to Minsterley they swarmed, burned and looted, wheeled both ways round Minsterley, and flowed on towards Pontesbury.
In Shrewsbury castle Welsh ears, as well as English, stretched and quivered to the bustle and fever of rumours.
“They are out!” said Elis, tense and sleepless beside his cousin in the night. “Oh God, and Madog with this grudge to pay off! And she is there! Melicent is there at Godric’s Ford. Oh, Eliud, if he should take it into his head to take revenge!”
“You’re fretting for nothing,” Eliud insisted passionately. “They know what they’re doing here, they’re on the watch, they’ll not let any harm come to the nuns. Besides, Madog is not aiming there, but along the valley, where the pickings are best. And you saw yourself what the forest men can do. Why should he try that a second time? It wasn’t his own nose was put out of joint there, either, you told me who led that raid. What plunder is there at Godric’s Ford for such as Madog, compared with the fat farms in the Minsterley valley? No, surely she’s safe there.”
“Safe! How can you say it? Where is there any safety? They should never have let her go.” Elis ground angry fists in the rustling straw of their palliasse, and heaved himself round in the bed. “Oh, Eliud, if only I were out of here and free…”