For some reason the protracted interval of silence was more eloquent than what was finally said in reply. It would have been natural enough to answer at once: “Why do you want to know? What does it matter now?” seeing that lodging must be empty, if the man who had slept there had fled in the night. The pause made it plain that Gwion knew well enough who had walked in upon him in the chapel, and was well aware that they must have seen Bledri departing. He had time to think before he spoke, and what he said was: “I was glad, to set eyes on a man of my own tribe. I have been here hostage more than half a year. They will have told you as much. The steward had given him one of the lodgings against the north wall. I can show you. But what difference does it make now? He’s gone. Others may blame him,” he said haughtily, “but not I. If I had been free, I would have done as he did. I never made secret of where my fealty lay. And lies still!”
“God forbid anyone should condemn a man for keeping faith,” agreed Cadfael equably. “Did Bledri have his chamber to himself?”
“He did.” Gwion hoisted his shoulders, shrugging off an interest it seemed he did not understand, but accepted as meaning something to these wandering Benedictines if it meant nothing to him. “There was none sharing it with him, to prevent his going, if that is what you mean.”
“I was wondering, rather,” said Cadfael deprecatingly, “whether we are not assuming too much, just because a horse is missing. If his lodging was in a remote corner of the wards, with many a wall between, may he not have slept through this whole uproar, and be still snoring in all innocence? Since he lay alone, there was no one to wake him, if he proved so sound a sleeper.”
Gwion stood staring, eye to eye with him, his thick dark brows raised. “Well, true enough, but for the horn call a man with enough drink in him might have slept through it all. I doubt it, but if you feel the need to see for yourself… It’s not on my way, but I’ll show you.” And without more words he set off into the passage between the rear of the great hall and the long timber range of the storehouse and armoury. They followed his brisk figure, shadowy in the dimness, through towards the long line of buildings in the shelter of the outer wall.
“The third door was his.” It stood just ajar, no gleam of light showing in the crack. “Go in, Brothers, and see for yourselves. But by the look of it you’ll find him gone, and all his gear with him.”
The range of small rooms was built in beneath the watch-platform along the outer wall, and shadowed deeply by its overhang. Cadfael had seen only one stairway to the platform, broad and easy of access but in full view of the main gate. Moreover, it would not be easy to descend on the outer side, unless with a long rope, for the fighting gallery projected outward from the wall, and there was a ditch below. Cadfael set a hand to the door and pushed it open upon darkness. His eyes, by this time accustomed to the night and such light as the clear but moonless sky provided, were at once blind again. There was no movement, and no sound within. He set the door wide, and advanced a step or two into the small chamber.
“We should have brought a torch,” said Mark, at his shoulder.
No need for that, it seemed, to show that the room was empty of life. But Gwion, tolerant of these exigent visitors, offered from the threshold: “The brazier will be burning in the guardhouse. I’ll bring a light.”
Cadfael had made another step within, and all but stumbled as his foot tangled soundlessly with some shifting fold of soft material, as though a rumpled brychan had been swept from bed to floor. He stooped and felt forward into the rough weave of cloth, and found something of firmer texture within it. A fistful of sleeve rose to his grip, the warmth and odour of wool stirred on the air, and an articulated weight dangled and swung as he lifted it, solid within the cloth. He let it rest back again gently, and felt down the length of it to a thick hem, and beyond that, the smooth, lax touch of human flesh, cooling but not yet cold. A sleeve indeed, and an arm within it, and a large, sinewy hand at the end of the arm.
“Do that,” he said over his shoulder. “Bring a light. We are going to need all the light we can get.”
“What is it?” asked Mark, intent and still behind him.
“A dead man, by all the signs. A few hours dead. And unless he has grappled with someone who stood in the way of his flight, and left him here to tell the tale, who can this be but Bledri ap Rhys?”
Gwion came running with a torch, and set it in the sconce on the wall, meant only to hold a small lantern. In such confined rooms a torch would never normally be permitted, but this was crisis. The sparse contents of the chamber sprang sharply outlined from the dark, a rumpled bench bed against the rear wall, the brychans spilled over and dangling to the floor, the impression of a long body still discernible indenting the cover of the straw mattress. On a shelf beside the bed-head, convenient to the guest’s hand, a small saucer-lamp stood. Not quenched, for it had burned out and left only a smear of oil and the charred wick. Beneath the shelf, half-unfolded, lay a leather saddle-roll, and dropped carelessly upon it a man’s cotte and chausses and shirt, and the rolled cloak he had not needed on the journey. And in the corner his riding-boots, one overturned and displaced, as if a foot had kicked it aside.
And between the bed and the doorway, sprawled on his back at Cadfael’s feet, arms and legs flung wide, head propped against the timber wall, as though a great blow had lifted and hurled him backwards, Bledri ap Rhys lay with eyes half-open, and lips drawn back from his large, even teeth in a contorted grin. The skirts of his gown billowed about him in disorder, the breast had fallen open wide as he fell, and beneath it he was naked. In the flickering of the torch it was hard to tell whether the darkened blotch on his left jaw and cheek was shadow or bruise, but there was no mistaking the gash over his heart, and the blood that had flowed from it down into the folds of cloth under his side. The dagger that had inflicted the wound had been as quickly withdrawn, and drawn out the life after it.
Cadfael went down on his knees beside the body, and gently turned back the breast of the woollen gown to reveal the wound more clearly to the quivering light. Gwion, behind him in the doorway and hesitant to enter, drew deep breath, and let it out in a gusty sob that caused the flame to flicker wildly, and what seemed a living shudder passed over the dead face.
“Be easy,” said Cadfael tolerantly, and leaned to close the half-open eyes. “For he is easy enough now. Well I know, he was of your allegiance. And I am sorry!”
Mark stood quiet and still, staring down in undismayed compassion. “I wonder had he wife and children,” he said at last. Cadfael marked the first focus of one fledgling priest’s concern, and approved it. Christ’s first instinct might have been much the same. Not: “Unshriven, and in peril!” not even: “When did he last confess and find absolution?” but: “Who will care for his little ones?”
“Both!” said Gwion, very low. “Wife and children he has. I know. I will deal.”
“The prince will give you leave freely,” said Cadfael. He rose from his knees, a little stiffly. “We must go, all, and tell him what has befallen. We are within his writ and guests in his house, all, not least this man, and this is murder. Take the torch, Gwion, and go before, and I will close the door.”