Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

bed. From the girl not a sound. She had walked into the room stiffly, with blanched, icy face and eyes fallen empty with shock.
    In the great court the little knot of Welshmen hung uneasily together, with Hugh's guards unobtrusive but watchful on all sides, and in particular between them and the closed wicket in the gate. Elis and Eliud, struck silent and helpless in this disaster, stood a little apart, not touching, not looking at each other. Now for the first time Cadfael could see a family resemblance in them, so tenuous that in normal times it would never be noticed, while the one went solemn and thoughtful, and the other as blithe and untroubled as a bird. Now they both wore the same shocked visage, the one as lost as the other, and they could almost have been twin brothers.
    They were still standing there waiting to be disposed of, and shifting miserably from foot to foot in silence, when Hugh came back across the court with the two women. Sybilla had regained a bleak but practical control over her tears, and showed more stiffening in her backbone than Cadfael, for one, had expected. Most likely she had already turned a part of her mind and energy to the consideration of her new situation, and what it meant for her son, who was now the lord of six valuable manors, but all of them in this vulnerable border region. He would need either a very able steward or a strong and well disposed step, father. Her lord was dead, his overlord the king a prisoner; there was no one to force her into an unwelcome match. She was many years younger than her lost husband, and had a dower of her own, and good enough looks to make her a fair bargain. She would live and do well enough.
    The girl was another matter. Within her frosty calm a faint fire had begun to burn again, deep sparks lurked in the quenched eyes. She turned one unreadable glance upon Elis, and then looked straight before her.
    Hugh checked for a moment to commit the Welshmen of the escort to his sergeants, and have them led away to the security of the castle, with due civility, since all of them might be entirely innocent of wrong, but into close and vigilant guard. He would have passed on, to see the women into their apartments before attempting any further probing, but Melicent suddenly laid a hand upon his arm.
    'My lord, since Brother Edmund is here, may I ask him a question, before we leave this in your hands?' She was very still, but the fire in her was beginning to burn through, and her pallor to show sharp edges of steel. 'Brother Edmund, you best know your own domain, and I know you watch over it well. There is no blame falls upon you. But tell us, who, if anyone, entered my father's chamber after he was left there asleep?'
    'I was not constantly by,' said Edmund unhappily. 'God forgive me, I never dreamed there could be any need. Anyone could have gone in to him.'
    'But you know of one who certainly did go in?' Sybilla had plucked her step, daughter by the sleeve, distressed and reproving, but Melicent shook her off without a glance. 'And only one?' she said sharply.
    'To my knowledge, yes,' agreed Edmund uncomprehendingly, 'but surely no harm. It was shortly before you all returned from the abbot's lodging. I had time then to make a round, and I saw the sheriff's door opened, and found a young man beside the bed, as though he meant to disturb his sleep. I could not have that, so I took him by the shoulder and turned him about, and pointed him out of the room. And he went obediently and made no protest. There was no word spoken,' said Edmund simply, 'and no harm done. The patient had not awakened.'
    'No,' said Melicent, her voice shaken at last out of its wintry calm, 'nor never did again, nor never will. Name him, this one!'
    And Edmund did not even know the boy's name, so little had he had to do with him. He indicated Elis with a hesitant hand. 'It was our Welsh prisoner.'
    Melicent let out a strange, grievous sound of anger, guilt and pain, and whirled upon Elis. Her marble whiteness had become incandescent, and the blue of her eyes was like the blinding fire sunlight strikes from ice. 'Yes, you! None but you! None but you went in there. Oh, God, what have you and I done between us! And I, fool, fool, I never believed you could mean it, when you told me, many times over, you'd kill for me, kill whoever stood between us. Oh, God, and I loved you! I may even have invited you, urged you to the deed. I never understood. Anything, you said, to keep us