It was another hour and more before Eliud opened his eyes, unfocussed and feverish, glittering greenly in the light of the lamp beside his bed, for the cell was very dim. Even then he roused to such distress that Cadfael eased him out of it again with a draught of poppy syrup, and watched the drawn lines of pain gradually smooth out from the thin, intense face, and the large eyelids close again over the distracted gleam. No point in adding further trouble to one so troubled in body and soul. When he revived so far as to draw the garment of his own dignity about him, then his time would come.
Others came in to look down at him for a moment, and as quietly depart. Sister Magdalen came to bring Cadfael food and ale, and stood a while in silence watching the shallow, painful heave and fall of Eliud’s breast, and the pinched flutter of his nostrils on whistling breath. All her volunteer army of defenders had dispersed about its own family business, every hurt tended, the stakes uprooted from the ford, the pitted bed raked smooth again, a day’s work very well done. If she was tired, she gave no sign of it. Tomorrow there would be a number of the injured to visit again, but there had been few serious hurts, and no deaths. Not yet! Not unless this boy slipped through their fingers.
Hugh came back towards evening, and sought out Cadfael in the silent cell. “I’m off back to the town now,” he said in Cadfael’s ear. “We’ve shepherded them more than halfway home, you’ll see no more of them here. You’ll be staying?”
Cadfael nodded towards the bed.
“Yes—a great pity! I’ll leave you a couple of men, send by them for whatever you need. And after this,” said Hugh grimly, “we’ll have them out of Caus. They shall know whether there’s still a sheriff in the shire.” He turned to the bedside and stood looking down sombrely at the sleeper. “I saw what he did. Yes, a pity…” Eliud’s soiled and dismembered clothing had been removed; he retained nothing but the body in which he had been born into the world, and the means by which he had demanded to be ushered out of it, if Elis proved false to his word. The rope was coiled and hung over the bracket that held the lamp. “What is this?” asked Hugh, as his eye lit upon it, and as quickly understood. “Ah! Alan told me. This I’ll take away, let him read it for a sign. This will never be needed. When he wakes, tell him so.”
“I pray God!” said Cadfael, so low that not even Hugh heard.
And Melicent came, from the cell where Elis lay sore with trampling, but filled and overfilled with unexpected bliss. She came at his wish, but most willingly, saw Cadfael to all appearances drowsing on his stool against the wall, signed Eliud’s oblivious body solemnly with the cross, and stooped suddenly to kiss his furrowed forehead and hollow cheek, before stealing silently away to her own chosen vigil.
Brother Cadfael opened one considerate eye to watch her draw the door to softly after her, and could not take great comfort. But with all his heart he hoped and prayed that God was watching with him.
In the pallid first light before dawn Eliud stirred and quivered, and his eyelids began to flutter stressfully as though he laboured hard to open them and confront the day, but had not yet the strength. Cadfael drew his stool close, leaning to wipe the seamed brow and working lips, and having an eye to the ewer he had ready to hand for when the tormented body needed it. But that was not the unease that quickened Eliud now, rousing out of his night’s respite. His eyes opened wide, staring into the wooden roof of the cell and beyond, and shortened their range only when Cadfael leaned down to him braced to speak, seeing desperate intelligence in the hazel stare, and having something ripe within him that must inevitably be said.
He never needed to say it. It was taken out of his mouth.
“I have got my death,” said the thread of a voice that issued from Eliud’s dry lips, “get me a priest. I have sinned—I must deliver all those others who suffer doubt…” Not his own deliverance, not that first, only the deliverance of all who laboured under the same suspicion.
Cadfael stooped closer. The gold, green eyes were straining too far, they had not recognised him. They did so now and lingered, wondering. “You are the brother who came to Tregeiriog. Welsh?” Something like a sorrowful smile mellowed the desperation of his face. “I do remember. It was you brought word of him… Brother, I have my death in my mouth, whether he take me now of this grief or leave me for worse… A debt… I pledged it…” He essayed, briefly, to raise his right hand, being strongly right, handed, and gave up the attempt with a whining intake of breath at the pain it cost him and shifted, pitiless, to the left, feeling at his neck where the coiled rope should have been. Cadfael laid a hand to the lifted wrist, and eased it back into the covers of the bed.
“Hush, lie still! I am here to command, there’s no haste. Rest, take thought, ask of me what you will, bid me whatever you will. I’m here, I shan’t leave you.” He was believed. The slight body under the brychans seemed to sink and slacken in one great sigh. There was a small silence. The hazel eyes hung upon him with a great weight of trust and sorrow, but without fear. Cadfael offered a drop of wine laced with honey, but the braced head turned aside. “I want confession,” said Eliud faintly but clearly, “of my mortal sin. Hear me!”
“I am no priest,” said Cadfael. “Wait, he shall be brought to you.”
“I cannot wait. Do I know my time? If I live,” he said simply, “I will tell it again and again—as long as there’s need—I am done with all conceal.” They had neither of them observed the door of the cell slowly opening, it was done so softly and shyly, by one troubled with dawn voices, but as hesitant to disturb those who might wish to be private as unwilling to neglect those who might be in need. In her own as yet unreasoned and unquestioned happiness Melicent moved as one led by angelic inspiration, exalted and humbled, requiring to serve. Her bloodied habit was shed, she had a plain woollen gown on her. She hung in the half-open doorway, afraid to advance or withdraw, frozen into stillness and silence because the voice from the bed was so urgent and uncomforted.
“I have killed,” said Eliud clearly. “God knows I am sorry! I had ridden with him, cared for him, watched him founder and urged his rest… And if ever he came home alive, then Elis was free… to go back to Cristina, to marry…” A great shudder went through him head to foot, and fetched a moan of pain out of him. “Cristina… I loved her always… from when we were children, but I did not, I did not speak of it, never, never… She was promised to him before ever I knew her, in her cradle. How could I touch, how could I covet what was his?”
“She also loved,” said Cadfael, nursing him along the way. “She let you know of it…”
“I would not hear, I dared not, I had no right… And all the while she was so dear, I could not bear it. And when they came back without Elis, and we thought him lost… Oh, God, can you conceive such trouble as was mine, half-praying for his safe return, half wishing him dead, for all I loved him, so that at last I might speak out without dishonour, and ask for my love… And then—you know it, it was you brought word… and I was sent here, my mouth stopped just when it was so full of words… And all that way I thought, I could not stop thinking, the old man is so sick, so frail, if he dies there’ll be none to exchange for Elis… If he dies I can return and Elis must stay… Even a little time and I could still speak… All I needed was a little time, now I was resolved. And that last day when he foundered… I did all I could, I kept him man alive, and all the time, all the time it was clamouring in me, let him die! I did not do it, we brought him still living…” He lay still for a minute to draw breath, and Cadfael wiped the corners of the lips that laboured against exhaustion to heave the worst burden from heart and conscience. “Rest a little. You try yourself too hard.”