Hugh stooped, and raised the inert body by the left shoulder, turning it to see where the blood issued; and there, driven deep through the leather jerkin, was the dead man’s own poniard, which he had flung away to grasp at the sword. By the look of it the hilt had lodged downwards in thick grass against the solidly braced boot of one of the Flemings. Hugh’s onslaught had flung the owner headlong upon his discarded blade, and their rolling, heaving struggle had driven it home.

  I did not kill him, after all, though Beringar. His own cunning killed him. And whether he was glad or sorry he was too drained to know. Cadfael would be satisfied, at least; Nicholas Faintree was avenged, he had justice in full. His murderer had been accused publicly, and publicly the charge had been justified by heaven. And his murderer was dead; that failing breath was already spent.

  Beringar reached down and picked up his sword, which rose unresisting out of the convicted hand. He turned slowly, and raised it in salute to the king, and walked, limping now and dropping a few trickles of blood from stiffening cuts in hand and forearm, out of the square of lances, which opened silently to let him go free.

  Two or three paces he took across the sward towards the king’s chair, and Aline flew into his arms, and clasped him with a possessive fervour that shook him fully alive again. Her gold hair streamed about his shoulders and breast, she lifted to him a rapt, exultant and exhausted face, the image of his own, she called him by his name: “Hugh… Hugh…” and fingered with aching tenderness the oozing wounds that showed in his cheek and hand and wrist.

  “Why did you not tell me? Why? Why? Oh, you have made me die so many times! Now we are both alive again… Kiss me!”

  He kissed her, and she remained real, passionate and unquestionably his. She continued to caress, and fret, and fawn.

  “Hush, love,” he said, eased and restored, “or go on scolding, for if you turn tender to me now I’m a lost man. I can’t afford to droop yet, the king’s waiting. Now, if you’re my true lady, lend me your arm to lean on, and come and stand by me and prop me up, like a good wife, or I may fall flat at his feet.”

  “Am I your true lady?” demanded Aline, like all women wanting guarantees before witnesses.

  “Surely! Too late to think better of it now, my heart!”

  She was beside him, clasped firmly in his arm, when he came before the king. “Your Grace,” said Hugh, condescending out of some exalted private place scarcely flawed by weariness and wounds, “I trust I have proven my case against a murderer, and have your Grace’s countenance and approval.”

  “Your opponent,” said Stephen, “proved your case for you, all too well.” He eyed them thoughtfully, disarmed and diverted by this unexpected apparition of entwined lovers. “But what you have proved may also be your gain. You have robbed me, young man, of an able deputy sheriff of this shire, whatever else he may have been, and however foul a fighter. I may well take reprisal by drafting you into the vacancy you’ve created. Without prejudice to your own castles and your rights of garrison on our behalf. What do you say?”

  “With your Grace’s leave,” said Beringar, straight-faced, “I must first take counsel with my bride.”

  “Whatever is pleasing to my lord,” said Aline, equally demurely, “is also pleasing to me.”

  Well, well, though Brother Cadfael, looking on with interest, I doubt if troth was ever plighted more publicly. They had better invite the whole of Shrewsbury to the wedding.

  *

  Brother Cadfael walked across to the guest hall before Compline, and took with him not only a pot of his goose-grass salve for Hugh Beringar’s numerous minor grazes, but also Giles Siward’s dagger, with its topaz finial carefully restored.

  “Brother Oswald is a skilled silversmith, this is his gift and mine to your lady. Give it to her yourself. But ask her—as I know she will—to deal generously by the boy who fished it out of the river. So much you will have to tell her. For the rest, for her brother’s part, yes, silence, now and always. For her he was only one of the many who chose the unlucky side, and died for it.”

  Beringar took the repaired dagger in his hand, and booked at it long and somberly. “Yet this is not justice,” he said slowly. “You and I between us have forced into the light the truth of one man’s sins, and covered up the truth of another’s.” This night, for all his gains, he was very grave and a little sad, and not only because all his wounds were stiffening, and all his misused muscles groaning at every movement. The recoil from triumph had him fixing honest eyes on the countenance of failure, the fate he had escaped. “Is justice due only to the blameless? If he had not been so visited and tempted, he might never have found himself mired to the neck in so much infamy.”

  “We deal with what is,” said Cadfael. “Leave what might have been to eyes that can see it plain. You take what’s lawfully and honourably won, and value and enjoy it. You have that right. Here are you, deputy sheriff of Salop, in royal favour, affianced to as fine a girl as heart could wish, and, the one you set your mind on from the moment you saw her. Be sure I noticed! And if you’re stiff and sore in every bone tomorrow—and, lad, you will be!—what’s a little disciplinary pain to a young man in your high feather?”

  “I wonder,” said Hugh, brightening, “where the other two are by now.”

  “Within reach of the Welsh coast, waiting for a ship to carry them coastwise round to France. They’ll do well enough.” As between Stephen and Maud, Cadfael felt no allegiance; but these young creatures, though two of them held for Maud and two for Stephen, surely belonged to a future and an England delivered from the wounds of civil war, beyond this present anarchy.

  “As for justice,” said Brother Cadfael thoughtfully, “it is but half the tale.” He would say a prayer at Compline for the repose of Nicholas Faintree, a clean young man of mind and life, surely now assuaged and at rest. But he would also say a prayer for the soul of Adam Courcelle, dead in his guilt; for every untimely death, every man cut down in his vigour and strength without time for repentance and reparation, is one corpse too many. “No need,” said Cadfael, “for you ever to look over your shoulder, or feel any compunction. You did the work that fell to you, and did it well. God disposes all. From the highest to the lowest extreme of a man’s scope, wherever justice and retribution can reach him, so can grace.”

  Glossary of Terms

  Alltud

  A foreigner living in Wales

  Arbalest

  A crossbow that enables the bow to be drawn with a winding handle

  Baldric

  A sword-belt crossing the chest from shoulder to hip.

  Bannerole

  A thin ribbon attached to a lance tip

  Bodice

  The supportive upper area of a woman’s dress, sometimes a separate item of clothing worn over a blouse

  Brychan

  A woollen blanket

  Caltrop

  A small iron weapon consisting four spikes. Set on the ground and used against horses and infantry

  Capuchon

  A cowl-like hood

  Cariad

  Welsh for ‘beloved’

  Cassock

  A long garment of the clergy

  Castellan

  The ruler of a castle

  Chatelaine

  The lady of a manor house

  Chausses

  Male hose

  Coif

  The cap worn under a nun’s veil

  Conversus

  A man who joins the monkhood after living in the outside world

  Cottar

  A Villein who is leased a cottage in exchange for their work

  Cotte

  A full- or knee-length coat. Length is determined by the class of the wearer

  Croft

  Land used as pasture that abuts a house

  Currier

  A horse comb used for grooming

  Demesne

  The land retained by a lord for his own use

  Diocese

  The district attached to a cathedral

  Dortoir

  Dormitory (monastic)

  Electuary

  Medicinal powder mixed with honey. Taken by mouth

  Eremite

  A religious hermit

  Espringale

  Armament akin to a large crossbow

  Frater

  Dining room (monastic)

  Garderobe

  A shaft cut into a building wall used as a lavatory

  Garth

  A grass quadrangle within the cloisters (monastic)

  Geneth

  Welsh for ‘girl’

  Gentle

  A person of honourable family

  Glebe

  An area of land attached to a clerical office

  Grange

  The lands and buildings of a monastery farm

  Groat

  A small coin

  Gruel

  Thin porridge

  Guild

  A trade association

  Gyve

  An iron shackle

  Hauberk

  A chainmail coat to defend the neck and shoulders

  Helm

  A helmet

  Horarium

  The monastic timetable, divided into canonical hours, or offices, of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline

  Husbandman

  A tenant farmer

  Jess

  A short strap attached to a hawk’s leg when practising falconry

  Largesse

  Money or gifts, bestowed by a patron to mark an occasion

  Leat (Leet)

  A man-made waterway

  Litany

  Call and response prayer recited by clergyman and congregation

  Llys

  The timber-built royal court of Welsh princes

  Lodestar

  A star that acts as a fixed navigational point, i.e. the Pole Star

  Lodestone

  Magnetised ore

  Lye

  A solution used for washing and cleaning

  Mandora

  A stringed instrument, precursor to the mandolin

  Mangonel

  Armament used for hurling missiles

  Marl

  Soil of clay and lime, used as a fertiliser

  Messuage

  A house (rented) with land and out-buildings

  Midden

  Dung-heap

  Missal

  The prayer book detailing Mass services throughout the calendar

  Moneyer

  Coin minter

  Mountebank

  Trickster or entertainer

  Mummer

  An actor or player in a mime or masque

  Murage

  A tax levied to pay for civic repairs

  Murrain

  An infectious disease of livestock

  Myrmidon

  A faithful servant

  Nacre

  Mother-of-pearl

  Oblatus

  A monk placed in the monastery at a young age

  Orts

  Food scraps

  Ostler

  Horse handler

  Palfrey

  A horse saddled for a woman

  Pallet

  A narrow wooden bed or thin straw mattress

  Palliative

  A pain-killer

  Pannikin

  A metal cup or saucepan

  Parfytours

  Hounds used in hunting

  Parole

  The bond of a prisoner upon release from captivity

  Patten

  A wooden sandal

  Pavage

  A tax levied for street paving

  Penteulu

  A Welsh rank: captain of the royal guard

  Pommel

  The upward point on the front of a saddle

  Poniard

  A dagger

  Prelate

  A high-ranking member of the church (i.e. abbot or bishop)

  Prie-Dieu

  A kneeling desk used in prayer

  Pyx

  A small box or casket used to hold consecrated bread for Mass

  Quintain

  A target mounted on a post used for tilting practice

  Rebec

  A three string instrument, played using a bow

  Rheum

  Watery discharge of nose or eyes

  Saeson

  An Englishman

  Scabbard

  A sword or dagger sheath

  Sconce

  A bracket for candle or torch set on a wall

  Sheepfold

  A sheep pen

  Shriven

  Having received confession

  Shut

  An alley between streets

  Skiff

  A rowing boat for use in shallow waters

  Sow

  The structure protecting the men wielding a battering ram

  Springe

  A noose set as snare for small animals

  Stoup

  Drinking vessel

  Sumpter

  Pack-horse

  Synod

  A council or assembly of church officials presided over by the bishopry

  Tallow

  Fat used in candle or soap manufacture

  Timbrel

  A tambourine-like instrument

  Tithe

  A tax levied against labour and land and used to support the clergy

  Torsin

  Alarm bell

  Toper

  Drunkard

  Touchstone

  A heavy black stone used to test the quality of gold or silver

  Trencher

  A wooden platter

  Troche

  Medicinal lozenge

  Uchelwr

  A Welsh nobleman

  Vassal

  Tenant of a plot of land leased by and under the protection of a lord

  Villein

  Serf or tenant bound to a lord

  Virelai

  A French song form that usually has three stanzas and a refrain. It is one of the three formes fixes (the others being the ballade and the rondeau)

  Vittles

  Food and provisions

  Votary

  A person who vows to obey a certain code, usually religious

  Wattle

  Building material consisting of interwoven sticks, twigs and branches

  Wicket

  Small door or gate within or adjacent to a larger door

  Wimple

  Linen or silk cloth a woman would fold round her head and wrap under her chin

  Yeoman

  A freeman, usually a farmer, below the status of gentleman

  A Guide to Welsh Pronunciation

  ae

  As in chwaer (sister), like the y in sky, never the ae in Caesar.

  c

  As in cael (have), like the c in cat, never the c in city.

  ch

  As in chwech (six), like the ch in Scottish loch.

  dd

  As in Caerdydd (Cardiff), like the th in then, never the th in throw.

  f

  As in fioled (violet), like the v in violin.

  ff

  As in coffi (coffee), like the f in friend.

  g

  As in glaw (rain), like the g in crag, never the g in gene.

  ll

  As in llaeth (milk), like saying an h and l simultaneously. Made by putting your tongue in the position of l and then blowing out air gently.

  r

  As in carreg (stone), should be trilled and always pronounced, never dropped.

  rh

  As in rhain (these), should be trilled with aspiration. Like saying an h and r simultaneously.

  s

  As in sant (saint), like the s in sound, never the s in laser.

  th

  As in fyth (never), like the th in think, never the th in those.

  w

  As in gwin (wine), like the oo in book.

  y

  As in wy (egg), like uh in above

  About The Author

  ELLIS PETERS (the pen name of Edith Pargeter, (1913–1995) is a writer beloved of millions of readers worldwide and has been widely adapted for radio and television.

  She was born in the village of Horsehay (Shropshire, England), where her father was a clerk at a local ironworks. She was educated at Dawley Church of England School and the old Coalbrookdale High School for Girls. She had Welsh ancestry, and many of her short stories and books (both fictional and non-fictional) are set in Wales and its borderlands, and/or have Welsh protagonists.

  During World War II, Pargeter worked in an administrative role in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (the “Wrens”)—and reached the rank of petty officer. On 1 January 1944 she was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM).