Brother Cadfael 20: Brother Cadfael's Penance

freely, temperately, without regret or penitence.
    "If you have believed me," said Cadfael, "that she means your shameful death, that is my mission done. If you know the whole truth, you can dispose yourself to meet it. She has an eye to gain, as well as to revenge. If you choose, you could bargain."
    "There are things I will not trade," said Philip, and turned his head, and smiled.
    "Then hear me yet a moment," said Cadfael. "You have spoken of the empress. Now speak to me of Olivier."
    The dark head turned sharply away again. Philip stood mute, staring eastward, where there was nothing to see, unless his own mind peopled the darkness.
    "Then I will speak of him," said Cadfael. "I know my son. He is of a simpler mode than you, you asked too much of him. I think you had shared many dangerous moments with him, that you had come to rely on each other and value each other. And when you changed course, and he could not go with you, the severance was doubly bitter, for each of you felt that the other had failed him. All he saw was treason, and what you saw was a failure of understanding that was equally a betrayal."
    "It is your story, brother," said Philip with recovered serenity, "not mine."
    "There is as sharp a point to it as to a dagger," said Cadfael. "You do not grudge the empress her resentment. Why can you not extend the same justice to my son?"
    He got no answer from Philip, but he needed none; he already knew. Olivier had been dearly loved. The empress never had.
    Chapter Twelve
    The expected embassage came with the dawn, and it was the marshall who brought it. The party appeared out of the woods, taking to the open causeway to be seen as soon as they left cover: a knight with a white pennant before, then FitzGilbert with three attendant officers at his back, not in mail or showing weapons, to indicate clearly that at this moment they intended no threat and expected none. Philip, roused from his brief sleep as soon as they were sighted, came out to the guardwalk over the gate, between the two towers, to receive them.
    Cadfael, below in the ward, listened to the exchange from the doorway of the hall. The stillness within the walls was like the hush before storm, as every man halted and froze to hear the more clearly; not from fear, rather with a piercing tremor of excitement, many times experienced and by now customary and almost welcome.
    "FitzRobert," called the marshall, halted some yards from the closed gates, the better to look up at the man he challenged, "open your gates to her Grace the empress, and receive her envoy."
    "Do your errand from there," said Philip. "I hear you very well."
    "Then I give you to know," said FitzGilbert forcefully, "that this castle of yours is surrounded, and strongly. No relief can get in to your aid, and no man of you can get out unless by agreement with her Grace. Make no mistake, you are in no case to withstand the assault we can make upon you, can and will, if you are obdurate."
    "Make your offer," said Philip, unmoved. "I have work to do, if you have none."
    FitzGilbert was too old a hand at the manoeuvrings of civil war to be shaken or diverted by whatever tone was used to him. "Very well," he said. "Your liege lady the empress summons you to surrender this castle forthwith, or she will take it by storm. Give it up intact, or fall with it."
    "And on what conditions?" said Philip shortly. "Name the terms."
    "Unconditional surrender! You must submit yourself and all you hold here to her Grace's will."
    "I would not hand over a dog that had once barked at her to her Grace's will," said Philip. "On reasonable terms I might consider. But even then, John, I should require your warranty to back hers."
    "There'll be no bargaining," said the marshall flatly. "Surrender or pay the price."
    "Tell the empress," said Philip, "that her own costs may come high. We are not to be bought cheaply."
    The marshall shrugged largely, and wheeled his horse to descend the slope. "Never say you were not warned!" he called back over his shoulder, and cantered towards the trees with his herald before him and his officers at his back.
    After that they had not long to wait. The assault began with a volley of arrows from all the fringes of cover round the castle. For a good bowman the walls were within range, and whoever showed himself unwisely in an embrasure was a fair mark; but it seemed to Cadfael, himself up on the south-western tower, which came nearest to the village on the crest, that the