“After you had killed him,” said Einon harshly.
“No! I swear it! I never touched the man.” He turned in desperate appeal to Owain, who sat listening dispassionately at the table, his fingers easy round the stem of his wine, cup, but his eyes very bright and aware. “My lord, only hear me! And hold my father clear of all, for all he knows is what I have told him, and the same I shall tell you, and as God sees me, I do not lie.”
“Hand up to me,” said Owain, “that pin you wear.” And as Griffri hurried with trembling fingers to detach it, and reached up to lay it in the prince’s hand: “So! I have known this too long and seen it worn too often to be in any doubt whose it is. From you, brother, as from Einon here, I know how it came to be flung open to hand by the sheriffs bed. Now you may tell, Anion, how you came by it. English I can follow, you need not fear being misunderstood. And Brother Cadfael will put what you say into Welsh, so that all here may understand you.”
Anion gulped air and found a creaky voice that gathered body and passion as he used it. Shock and terror had contracted his throat, but the flow of words washed constraint away. “My lord, until these last days I never saw my father, nor he me, but I had a brother, as he has said, and by chance I got to know him when he came into Shrewsbury with wool to sell. There was a year between us, and I am the elder. He was my kin, and I valued him. And once when he visited the town and I was not by, there was a fight, a man was killed and my brother was blamed for it. Gilbert Prestcote hanged him!” Owain glanced aside at Cadfael, and waited until this speech had been translated for the Welshmen. Then he asked: “You know of this case? Was it fairly done?”
“Who knows which hand did the killing?” said Cadfael. “It was a street brawl, the young men were drunk. Gilbert Prestcote was hasty by nature, but just. But this is certain, here in Wales the young man would not have hanged. A blood-price would have paid it.”
“Go on,” said Owain.
“I carried that grudge on my heart from that day,” said Anion, gathering passion from old bitterness. “But when did I ever come within reach of the sheriff? Never until your men brought him into Shrewsbury wounded and housed him in the infirmary. And I was there with this broken leg of mine all but healed, and that man only twenty paces from me, only a wall between us, my enemy at my mercy. While it was all still and the brothers at dinner, I went into the room where he was. He owed my house a life—even if I was mongrel, I felt Welsh then, and I meant to take my due revenge—I meant to kill! The only brother ever I had, and he was merry and good to look upon, and then to hang for an unlucky blow when he was full of ale! I went in there to kill. But I could not do it! When I saw my enemy brought down so low, so old and weary, hardly blood or breath in him… I stood by him and watched, and all I could feel was sadness. It seemed to me that there was no call there for vengeance, for all was already avenged. So I thought on another way. There was no court to set a blood-price or enforce payment, but there was the gold pin in the cloak beside him. I thought it was his. How could I know? So I took it as galanas, to clear the debt and the grudge. But by the end of that day I knew, we all knew, that Prestcote was dead and dead by murder, and when they began to question even me, I knew that if ever it came out what I had done it would be said I had also killed him. So I ran. I meant, in any case, to come and seek my father some day, and tell him my brother’s death was paid for, but because I was afraid I had to run in haste.”
“And come to me he did,” said Griffri earnestly, his hand upon his son’s shoulder, “and showed me by way of warranty the yellow mountain stone I gave his mother long ago. But by his face I knew him, for he’s like the brother he lost. And he gave me that thing you hold, my lord, and told me that young Griffri’s death was requited, and this was the token price exacted, and the grudge buried, for our enemy was dead. I did not well understand him then, for I told him if he had slain Griffri’s slayer, then he had no right to take a price as well. But he swore to me by most solemn oath that it was not he who had killed and I believe him. And judge if I am glad to have a son restored me in my middle years, to be the prop of my old age. For God’s sake, my lord, do not take him from me now!” In the dour, considering hush that followed Cadfael completed his translation of what Anion had said, and took his time about it to allow him to study the prince’s impassive face. At the end of it the silence continued still for a long minute, since no one would speak until Owain made it possible. He, too, was in no hurry. He looked at father and son, pressed together there below the dais in apprehensive solidarity, he looked at Einon, whose face was as unrevealing as his own, and last at Cadfael.
“Brother, you know more of what has gone forward in Shrewsbury abbey than any of us here. You know this man. How do you say? Do you believe his story?”
“Yes,” said Cadfael, with grave and heartfelt gratitude, “I do believe it. It fits with all I know. But I would ask Anion one question.”
“Ask it.”
“You stood beside the bed, Anion, and watched the sleeper. Are you sure that he was then alive?”
“Yes, surely,” said Anion wondering. “He breathed, he moaned in his sleep. I saw and heard. I know.”
“My lord,” said Cadfael, watching Owain’s enquiring eye, “there was another heard to enter and leave that room, some little while later, someone who went not haltingly, as Anion did, but lightly. That one did not take anything, unless it was a life. Moreover, I believe what Anion has told us because there is yet another thing I have to find before I shall have found Gilbert Prestcote’s murderer.” Owain nodded comprehension, and mused for a while in silence. Then he picked up the gold pin with a brisk movement, and held it out to Einon. “How say you? Was this theft?”
“I am content,” said Einon and laughed, releasing the tension in the hall. In the general stir and murmur of returning ease, the prince turned to his host.
“Make a place below there, Tudur, for Griffri ap Llywarch, and his son Anion.”
Chapter Eleven
SO THERE WENT SHREWSBURY’S PRIME SUSPECT, the man gossip had already hanged and buried, down the hall on his father’s heels, stumbling a little and dazed like a man in a dream, but beginning to shine as though a torch had been kindled within him; down to a place with his father at one of the tables, equal among equals. From a serving-maid’s by-blow, without property or privilege, he was suddenly become a free man, with a rightful place of his own in a kindred, heir to a respected sire, accepted by his prince. The threat that had forced him to take to his heels had turned into the greatest blessing of his life and brought him to the one place that was his by right in Welsh law, true son to a father who acknowledged him proudly. Here Anion was no bastard.
Cadfael watched the pair of them to their places, and was glad that something good, at least, should have come out of the evil. Where would that young man have found the courage to seek out his father, distant, unknown, speaking another language, if fear had not forced his hand, and made it easy to leap across a frontier? The ending was well worth the terror that had gone before. He could forget Anion now. Anion’s hands were clean.
“At least you’ve sent me one man,” observed Owain, watching thoughtfully as the pair reached their places, “in return for my eight still in bond. Not a bad figure of a man, either. But no training in arms, I doubt.”
“An excellent cattle-man,” said Cadfael. “He has an understanding with all animals. You may safely put your horses in his care.”