Free The Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters Page B

fascinations,
even the perils of the journey he had undertaken. To ride with princes was no
more than half the tale, somewhere there was a lurking threat, a hostile
brother, a prelate bent on reforming a way of life which in the minds of its
population needed no reform. And who could guess what might happen between here
and Bangor, between bishop and bishop, the stranger and the native?
    “I
spoke a word in the ear of Saint Winifred,” said Mark, flushing almost
guiltily, as though he had appropriated a patroness who by rights belonged to
Cadfael. “I thought we must be very close to her here, it seemed only gracious
to let her know of our presence and our hopes, and ask her blessing.”
    “If
we deserve!” said Cadfael, though he had small doubt that so gentle and
sensible a saint must look indulgently upon this wise innocent.
    “Indeed!
How far is it, Cadfael, from here to her holy well?”
    “A
matter of fourteen miles or so, due east of us.”
    “Is
it true it never freezes? However hard the winter?”
    “It
is true. No one has ever known it stilled, it bubbles always in the centre.”
    “And
Gwytherin, where you took her from the grave?”
    “That
lies as far south and west of us,” said Cadfael, and refrained from mentioning
that he had also restored her to her grave in that same place. “Never try to
limit her,” he advised cautiously. “She will be wherever you may call upon her,
and present and listening as soon as you cry out your need.”
    “That
I never doubted,” said Mark simply, and went with a springy and hopeful step to
put together his small belongings and saddle his glossy nutbrown gelding.
Cadfael lingered a few moments to enjoy the bright bustle before him, and then
followed more sedately to the stables. Outside the walls of the enclave Owain’s
guards and noblemen were already marshalling, their encampment vanished from
the greensward, leaving behind only the paler, flattened patches which would
soon spring back into lively green, and erase even the memory of their
visitation. Within the wall grooms whistled and called, hooves stamped lively, muffled
rhythms in the hard-packed earth, harness jingled, maidservants shrilled to one
another above the general babel of male voices, and the faint dust of all this
vigorous movement rose into the sunlight and shimmered in gilded mist overhead.
    The
company gathered as blithely as if they were going maying, and certainly so
bright a morning invited to so pleasant a pastime. But there were certain
graver reminders to be remarked as they mounted. Heledd made her appearance
cloaked and ready, serene and demure of countenance, but with Canon Meirion
keeping close on one side of her, with tight lips and downdrawn brows, and
Canon Morgant on the other, equally tightlipped but with brows arched into
uncompromising severity, and sharp eyes dwelling alternately on father and
daughter, and with no very assured approval of either. And for all their
precautions, at the last moment Bledri ap Rhys stepped between them and lifted
the girl into the saddle with his own large and potentially predatory hands,
with a courtesy so elaborate that it glittered into insolence: and, worse,
Heledd accepted the service with as gracious an inclination of her head, and a
cool, reserved smile, ambiguous between chaste reproof and discreet mischief.
To take exception to the behaviour of either party would have been folly, so
well had both preserved the appearance of propriety, but both canons
perceptibly beheld the incident with raised hackles and darkening frowns if
they kept their mouths shut.
    Nor
was that the only sudden cloud in this clear sky, for Cuhelyn, appearing
already mounted in the gateway, too late to have observed any present cause for
offence, sat his horse with drawn brows, while his intent eyes ranged the
entire company within until he found Bledri, and there settled and brooded, a
long-memoried man of