Free Dead Man's Ransom by Ellis Peters Page B

killed. Prestcote hanged them for it. I did hear tell at the time the one had a half, brother this side the border.”
    “Griffri ap Griffri, that was the young man’s name. Anion had got to know him, the times he came into town, they were on good terms.
    He was away among the sheep in the north when it happened or he might well have got his brother to bed without mischief. A good worker and honest, Anion, but a surly fellow and silent, and never forgets a benefit nor an injury.” Cadfael sighed, having seen in his time a long line of decent men wiped out in alternate savageries as the result of just such a death. The blood-feud could be a sacred duty in Wales.
    “Ah, well, it’s to be hoped the English half of him can temper his memories. That must be two years ago now. No man can bear a grudge for ever.”
     
    In the narrow, stone-cold chapel of the castle by the meagre light of the altar lamp, Elis waited in the gloom of the early evening, huddled into his cloak in the darkest corner, biting frost without and gnawing fire within. It was a safe place for two to meet who could otherwise never be alone together. The sheriff’s chaplain was devout, but within limits, and preferred the warmth of the hall and the comforts of the table, once Vespers was disposed of, to this cold and draughty place.
    Melicent’s step on the threshold was barely audible, but Elis caught it, and turned eagerly to draw her in by both hands, and swing the heavy door closed to shut out the rest of the world.
    “You’ve heard?” she said, hasty and low. “They’ve found him, they’re bringing him back. Owain Gwynedd has promised it…”
    “I know!” said Elis, and drew her close, folding the cloak about them both, as much to assert their unity as to shield her from the chill and the trespassing wind. For all that, he felt her slipping away like a wraith of mist out of his hold. “I’m glad you’ll have your father back safely.” But he could not sound glad, no matter how manfully he lied. “We knew it must be so if he lived…” His voice baulked there, trying not to sound as if he wished her father dead, one obstacle out of the way from between them, and himself still a prisoner, unransomed. Her prisoner, for as long as might be, long enough to work the needful miracle, break one tie and make another possible, which looked all too far out of reach now.
    “When he comes back,” she said, her cold brow against his cheek, “then you will have to go. How shall we bear it!”
    “Don’t I know it! I think of nothing else. It will all be vain, and I shall never see you again. I won’t, I can’t accept that. There must be a way…”
    “If you go,” she said, “I shall die.”
    “But I must go, we both know it. How else can I even do this one thing for you, to buy your father back?” But neither could he bear the pain of it. If he let her go now he was for ever lost, there would be no other to take her place. The little dark creature in Wales, so faded from his mind he could hardly recall her face, she was nothing, she had no claim on him. Rather a hermit’s life, if he could not have Melicent. “Do you not want him back?”
    “Yes!” she said vehemently, torn and shivering, and at once took it back again: “No! Not if I must lose you! Oh, God, do I know what I want? I want both you and him—but you most! I do love my father, but as a father. I must love him, love is due between us, but… Oh, Elis, I hardly know him, he never came near enough to be loved. Always duty and affairs taking him away, and my mother and I lonely, and then my mother dead… He was never unkind, always careful of me, but always a long way off. It is a kind of love, but not like this… not as I love you! It’s no fair exchange…” She did not say: “Now if he had died…” but it was there stark at the back of her mind, horrifying her. If they had failed to find him, or found him dead, she would have wept for him, yes, but her stepmother