Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

children?'
    'Yet I think galanas can be paid in other mintage,' said Cadfael. 'In penitence, grief and shame, as high as the highest price judge ever set. What then?'
    'I am not a priest,' said Owain, 'nor any man's confessor. Penance and absolution are not within my writ. Justice is.'
    'And mercy also,' said Cadfael.
    'God forbid I should order any death wantonly. Deaths atoned for, whether by goods or grief, pilgrimage or prison, are better far than deaths prolonged and multiplied. I would keep alive all such as have value to this world and to those who rub shoulders with them here in this world. Beyond that it is God's business.'
    The prince leaned forward, and the morning light through the embrasure shone on his flaxen head. 'Brother,' he said gently, 'had you not something we should have looked at again this morning by a better light? Last night we spoke of it.'
    'That is of small importance now,' said Brother Cadfael, 'if you will consent to leave it in my hands some brief while. There shall be account rendered.'
    'I will well!' said Owain Gwynedd, and suddenly smiled, and the small chamber was filled with the charm of his presence. 'Only, for my sake, and others, doubtless, carry it carefully.'
    Chapter Thirteen.
    Elis had more sense than to go rushing straight to the enclosure of the Benedictine sisters, all blown and mired as he was from his run, and with the dawn only just breaking. So few miles from Shrewsbury here, and yet so lonely and exposed! Why, he had wondered furiously as he ran, why had those women chosen to plant their little chapel and garden in so perilous a place? It was provocation! The abbess at Polesworth should be brought to realise her error and withdraw her threatened sisters. This present danger could be endlessly repeated, so near so turbulent a border.
    He made rather for the mill on the brook upstream, where he had been held prisoner, under guard by a muscular giant named John, during those few February days. He viewed the brook with dismay, it was so fallen and tamed, for all its gnarled and stony bed, no longer the flood he remembered. But if they came they would expect to wade across merrily where the bed opened out into a smooth passage, and would scarcely wet them above the knee. Those stretches, at least, could be pitted and sown with spikes or caltrops. And the wooded banks at least still offered good cover for archers.
    John Miller, sharpening stakes in the mill, yard, dropped his hatchet and reached for his pitch, fork when the hasty, stumbling feet thudded on the boards. He whirled with astonishing speed and readiness for a big man, and gaped to see his sometime prisoner advancing upon him empty-handed and purposeful, and to be greeted in loud, demanding English by one who had professed total ignorance of that language only a few weeks previously.
    'The Welsh of Powys, a war party not two hours away! Do the women know of it? We could still get them away towards the town, they're surely mustering there, but late...'
    'Easy, easy!' said the miller, letting his weapon fall, and scooping up his pile of murderous, pointed poles. 'You've found your tongue in a hurry, seemingly! And whose side may you be on this time, and who let you loose? Here, carry these, if you're come to make yourself useful.'
    'The women must be got away,' persisted Elis feverishly. 'It's not too late, if they go at once... Get me leave to speak to them, surely they'll listen. If they were safe, we could stand off even a war band, I came to warn them...'
    'Ah, but they know. We've kept good watch since the last time. And the women won't budge, so you may spare your breath to make one man more, and welcome,' said the miller, 'if you're so minded. Mother Mariana holds it would be want of faith to shift an ell, and Sister Magdalen reckons she can be more use where she is, and most of the folks hereabouts would say that's no more than truth. Come on, let's get these planted, the ford's pitted already.'
    Elis found himself running beside the big man, his arms full. The smoothest stretch of the brook flanked the chapel wall of the grange, and he realised as he fed out stakes at the miller's command that there was a certain amount of activity among the bushes and coppice woods on both sides of the water. The men of the forest were well aware of the threat, and had made their own preparations, and by her previous showing, Sister Magdalen must also be making ready for battle. To have Mother Mariana's faith in divine