“My lord, the lord Hywel set me a puzzle, to find the one person who should be here, and is not. Our own household of retainers and servants I thought well to leave aside, why should any among them take to his heels? My lord, the princess’s waiting woman knows the roll of her maids perfectly, and any guests who are women are her charge. There is one girl who came in your train yesterday, my lord, who is gone from the place allotted to her. She came here with her father, a canon of Saint Asaph, and a second canon of that diocese travelled with them. We have not disturbed the father as yet. I waited for your word. But there is no question, the young woman is gone. No one has seen her since the gates were closed.”
“God’s wounds!” swore Owain, between laughter and exasperation. “It was true what they told me! The dark lass that would not be a nun in England, God keep her, why should she, a black Welshwoman as ever was!, and said yes to Ieuan ab Ifor as a blessed relief by comparison, do you tell me she has stolen a horse and made off into the night before the guard shut us in? The devil!” he said, snapping his fingers. “What is the child’s name?”
“Her name is Heledd,” said Brother Cadfael.
Chapter Six
NO QUESTION, Heledd was gone. No hostess here, with duties and status, but perhaps the least among the arriving guests, she had held herself aloof from the princess’s waiting-woman, keeping her own counsel and, as it seemed, waiting her own chance. No more reconciled to the prospect of marriage with the unknown bridegroom from Anglesey than to a conventual cell among strangers in England, Heledd had slipped through the gates of Aber before they closed at night, and gone to look for some future of her own choosing. But how had she abstracted also a horse, saddled and bridled, and a choice and fleet horse into the bargain?
The last that anyone had seen of her was when she left the hall with an empty pitcher, barely halfway through the prince’s feast, leaving all the nobility busy at table, and her father still blackly scowling after her as she swung the screen curtain closed behind her. Perhaps she had truly intended to refill the pitcher and return to resume replenishing the Welsh drinking horns, if only to vex Canon Meirion. But no one had seen her since that moment. And when the first light came, and the prince’s force began to muster in the wards, and the bustle and clamour, however purposeful and moderate, would certainly bring out all the household, who was to tell the good canon that his daughter had taken flight in the darkness from the cloister, from marriage, and from her sire’s very imperfect love and care for her?
Such an unavoidable task Owain chose not to delegate. When the light from the east tipped the outer wall of the maenol, and the ward began to fill with horse and groom and man-at-arms and archer roused and ready, he sent to summon the two canons of Saint Asaph to the gatehouse, where he waited with one shrewd eye on the ranks mustering and mounting, and one on a sky and light that promised good weather for riding. No one had forestalled him with the bad news; so much was plain from Canon Meirion’s serene, assured face as he strode across the ward with a civil good-morning already forming on his lips, and a gracious benediction ready to follow it as soon as the prince should mount and ride. At his back, shorter-legged and more portly and selfconscious of bearing, Canon Morgant hugged his ponderous dignity about him, and kept a noncommittal countenance.
It was not Owain’s way to beat about bushes. Time was short, business urgent, and what mattered was to make such provision as was now possible to repair what had gone awry, both with threats from an obdurate brother and peril to a lost daughter.
“There is news in the night,” said the prince briskly, as soon as the two clerics drew close, “that will not please your reverences, and does not please me.”
Cadfael, watching from beside the gate, could detect no disquiet in Canon Meirion’s face at this opening. No doubt he thought it referred only to the threat of the Danish fleet, and possibly the flight of Bledri ap Rhys, for the two clerics had gone to their beds before that supposed flight changed to a death. But either would come rather as a relief and satisfaction to him, seeing that Bledri and Heledd between them had given him cause to tremble for his future career, with Canon Morgant storing up behind his austere forehead every unbecoming look and wanton word to report back to his bishop. By his present bearing, Meirion knew of nothing worse, nothing in the world to disturb his complacency now, if Bledri was either fled or dead. “My lord,” he began benignly, “we were present to hear of the threat to your coast. It will surely be put off without harm…”
“Not that!” said Owain bluntly. “This concerns yourself. Sir, your daughter has fled in the night. Sorry I am to say it, and to leave you to deal with the case in my absence, but there’s no help. I have given orders to the captain of my garrison here to give you every aid in searching for her. Stay as long as you need to stay, make use of my men and my stables as best serves. I and all who ride with me will be keeping a watch and asking news of her westward direct to Carnarvon. So, I trust, will Deacon Mark and Brother Cadfael on their ride to Bangor. Between us we should cover the country to westward. You ask and search round Aber and eastward, and south if need be, though I think she would not venture the mountains alone. I will return to the search as soon as I may.”
He had proceeded thus far uninterrupted only because Canon Meirion had been struck mute and amazed at the very first utterance, and stood staring with round eyes and parted lips, paling until the peaks of his sharp cheekbones stood out white under the straining skin. Utter consternation stopped the breath in his throat.
“My daughter!” he repeated slowly at last, the words shaped almost without sound. And then in a hoarse wheeze: “Gone? My daughter loose alone, and these sea-raiders abroad in the land?”
At least, thought brother Cadfael approvingly, if she could be here to hear it, she would know that he has some real care for her. His first outcry is for her safety, for once his own advancement is forgotten. If only for a moment!
“Half the width of Wales from here,” said Owain stoutly, “and I’ll see to it they come no nearer. She heard the messenger, she knows better than to ride into their arms. This girl you bred is no fool.”
“But headstrong!” Meirion lamented, his voice recovered and loud with anguish. “Who knows what risk she might not venture? And if she has fled me now, she will still hide from me. This I never foresaw, that she could feel so driven and so beset.”
“I say again,” said Owain firmly, “use my garrison, my stables, my men as you will, send out after news of her, for surely she cannot be far. As for the ways to westward, we will watch for her as we go. But go we must. You well know the need.”
Meirion drew himself back a little, erect at his tallest, and shook his broad shoulders.
“Go with God, my lord, you can do no other. My girl’s life is but one, and many depend upon you. She shall be my care. I dread I have not served her turn lately as well as I have served my own, or she would never have left me so.”