Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

the earl of Chester that I have failed to go into matters with my brother. There was more than one such frolic on the way home from Lincoln, and every one a folly that will cost me some pains to repair. Give your prisoner a name.'
    'His name,' said Cadfael, 'is Elis ap Cynan.'
    'Ah!' said Owain on a long, satisfied breath, and set down his cup ringing on the board. 'So the fool boy's alive yet to tell the tale, is he? I'm glad indeed to hear it, and thank God for the deliverance and you, brother, for the news. There was not a man of my brother's company could swear to how he was lost or what befell him.'
    'They were running too fast to look over their shoulders,' said Cadfael mildly.
    'From a man of our own blood,' said Owain grinning, 'I'll take that as it's meant. So Elis is live and prisoner! Has he come to much harm?'
    'Barely a scratch. And he may have come by a measure of sense into the bargain. Sound as a well cast bell, I promise you, and my mission is to offer an exchange with you, if by any chance your brother has taken among his prisoners one as valuable to us as Elis is to you. I am sent,' said Cadfael, 'by Hugh Beringar of Maesbury, speaking for Shropshire, to ask of you the return of his chief and sheriff, Gilbert Prestcote. With all proper greetings and compliments to your lordship, and full assurance of our intent to maintain the peace with you as hitherto.'
    'The time's ripe for it,' acknowledged Owain dryly, 'and it's to the vantage of both of us, things being as they are. Where is Elis now?'
    'In Shrewsbury castle, and has the run of the wards on his parole.'
    'And you want him off your hands?'
    'No haste for that,' said Cadfael. 'We think well enough of him to keep him yet a while. But we do want the sheriff, if he lives, and if you have him. For Hugh looked for him after the battle, and found no trace, and it was your brother's Welsh who overran the place where he fought.'
    'Bide here a night or two,' said the prince, 'and I will send to Cadwaladr, and find out if he holds your man. And if so, you shall have him.'
    There was harping after supper, and singing, and drinking of good wine long after the prince's messenger had ridden out on the first stage of his long journey to Aberystwyth. There was also a certain amount of good, natured wrestling and horse, play between Owain's young cockerels and the men of Cadfael's escort, though Hugh had taken care to choose some who had Welsh kin to recommend them, no very hard task in Shrewsbury at any time.
    'Which of all these,' asked Cadfael, surveying the hall, smoky now from the fire and the torches, and loud with voices, 'is Eliud ap Griffith?'
    'I see Elis has chattered to you as freely as ever,' said Owain smiling, 'prisoner or no. His cousin and foster brother is hovering this moment at the end of the near table, and eyeing you hard, waiting his chance to have speech with you as soon as I withdraw. The long lad in the blue coat.'
    No mistaking him, once noticed, though he could not have been more different from his cousin: such a pair of eyes fixed upon Cadfael's face in implacable determination and eagerness and such a still, braced body waiting for the least encouragement to fly to respond. Owain, humouring him, lifted a beckoning finger, and he came like a lance launched, quivering. A long lad he was, and thin and intense, with bright hazel eyes in a grave oval face, featured finely enough for a woman, but with good lean bones in it, too. There was a quality of devotional anxiety about him that must be for Elis ap Cynan at this moment, but at another might be for Wales, for his prince, some day, no doubt, for a woman, but whatever its object it would always be there. This one would never be quite at rest.
    He bent the knee eagerly to Owain, and Owain clouted him amiably on the shoulder and said: 'Sit down here with Brother Cadfael, and have out of him everything you want to know. Though the best you know already, your other self is alive and can be bought back you at a price.' And with that he left them together and went to confer with Tudur.
    Eliud sat down willingly and spread his elbows on the board to lean ardently close. 'Brother, it is true, what Cristina told me? You have Elis safe in Shrewsbury? They came back without him... I sent to know, but there was no one could tell me where he went astray or how. I have been hunting and asking everywhere and so has the prince, for all he makes a light thing of it. He is my father's fostering, you're