“Am I in your prayers?”
“Constantly,” said Cadfael gravely. “A man has to work at it in so stubborn a case.”
He crumbled a handful of warm, dark earth between his hands, dusted his palms, and Hugh gave him a hand to help him rise. There was a good deal more steel in the young sheriff’s slight body and slender wrist than anyone would suppose. Cadfael had known him for five years only, but drawn nearer to him than to many he had rubbed shoulders with all the twenty-three years of his monastic life. “And what are you doing here?” he demanded briskly. “I thought you were north among your own lands, getting in the hay.”
“So I was, until yesterday. The hay’s in, the shearing’s done, and I’ve brought Aline and Giles back to the town. Just in time to be summoned to pay my respects to some grand magnate who’s visiting here, and is none too pleased about it. If his horse hadn’t fallen lame he’d still be on his way to Chester. Have you not a drink, Cadfael, for a thirsty man? Though why I should be parched,” he added absently, “when he did all the talking, is more than I know.”
Cadfael had a wine of his own within the workshop, new but fit to drink. He brought a jug of it out into the sunshine, and they sat down together on the bench against the north wall of the garden, to sun themselves in unashamed idleness.
“I saw the horse,” said Cadfael. “He’ll be days yet before he’s fit to take the road to Chester. I saw the man, too, if it’s he the abbot made haste to welcome. By the sound of it he was not expected. If he’s in haste to get to Chester he’ll need a fresh horse, or more patience than I fancy he possesses.”
“Oh, he’s reconciled. Radulfus may have him on his hands a week or more yet. If he made for Chester now he wouldn’t find his man there, there’s no haste. Earl Ranulf is on the Welsh border, fending off another raid from Gwynedd. Owain will keep him busy a while.”
“And who is this cleric on his way to Chester?” asked Cadfael curiously. “And what did he want with you?”
“Well, being frustrated himself - until I told him there was no hurry, for the earl was away riding his borders - he had a mind to be as busy a nuisance to all about him as possible. Send for the sheriff, at least exact the reverence due! But there is a grain of purpose in it, too. He wanted whatever information I had about the whereabouts and intentions of Owain Gwynedd, and especially he wished to know how big a threat our Welsh prince is being to Earl Ranulf, how glad the earl might be to have some help in the matter, and how willing he might be to pay for it in kind.”
“In the king’s interests,” Cadfael deduced, after a moment of frowning thought. “Is he one of Bishop Henry’s familiars, then?”
“Not he! Stephen’s making wise use of the archbishop for once, instead of his brother of Winchester. Henry’s busy elsewhere. No, your guest is one Gerbert, of the Augustinian canons of Canterbury, a big man in the household of Archbishop Theobald. His errand is to make a cautious gesture of peace and goodwill to Earl Ranulf, whose loyalty - to Stephen’s or any side! - is never better than shaky, but might be secured - or Stephen hopes it might! - on terms of mutual gain. You give me full and fair support there in the north, and I’ll help you hold off Owain Gwynedd and his Welshmen. Stronger together than apart!”
Cadfael’s bushy eyebrows were arched towards his grizzled tonsure. “What, when Ranulf is still holding Lincoln castle, in Stephen’s despite? Yes, and other royal castles he holds illegally? Has Stephen shut his eyes to that fashion of support and friendship?”
“Stephen has forgotten nothing. But he’s willing to dissemble if it will keep Ranulf quiet and complacent for a few months. There’s more than one unchancy ally getting too big for his boots,” said Hugh. “I fancy Stephen has it in mind to deal with one at a time, and there’s one at least is a bigger threat than Ranulf of Chester. He’ll get his due, all in good time, but there’s one Stephen has more against than a few purloined castles, and it’s worth buying Chester’s complacence until Essex is dealt with.”
“You sound certain of what’s in the king’s mind,” said Cadfael mildly.
“As good as certain, yes. I saw how the man bore himself at court, last Christmas. A stranger might have doubted which among us was the king. Easygoing Stephen may be, meek he is not. And there were rumors that the earl of Essex was bargaining again with the empress while she was in Oxford, but changed his mind when the siege went against her. He’s been back and forth between the two of them times enough already. I think he’s near the end of his rope.”
“And Ranulf is to be placated until his fellow-earl has been dealt with.” Cadfael rubbed dubiously at his blunt brown nose, and thought that over for a moment in silence. “That seems to me more like the bishop of Winchester’s way of thinking than King Stephen’s,” he said warily.
“So it may be. And perhaps that’s why the king is using one of Canterbury’s household for this errand, and not Winchester’s. Who’s to suspect that any motion of Henry’s mind could be lurking behind Archbishop Theobald’s hand? There isn’t a man in the policies of king or empress who doesn’t know how little love’s lost between the two.”
Cadfael could not well deny the truth of that. The enmity dated back five years, to the time when the archbishopric of Canterbury had been vacant, after William of Corbeil’s death, and King Stephen’s younger brother, Henry, had cherished confident pretensions to the office, which he certainly regarded as no more than his due. His disappointment was acute when Pope Innocent gave the appointment instead to Theobald of Bec, and Henry made his displeasure so clear and the influence he could bring to bear so obvious that Innocent, either in a genuine wish to recognize his undoubted ability or in pure exasperation and malice, had given him, by way of consolation, the papal legateship in England, thus making him in fact superior to the archbishop, a measure hardly calculated to endear either of them to the other. Five years of dignified but fierce contention had banked the fires. No, no suspect earl approached by an intimate of Theobald’s was likely to look behind the proposition for any trace of Henry of Winchester’s devious manipulations.
“Well,” allowed Cadfael cautiously, “it may suit Ranulf to be civil, seeing his hands are full with the Welsh of Gwynedd. Though what Stephen can offer him by way of help is hard to see.”
“Nothing,” agreed Hugh with a short bark of laughter, “and Ranulf will know that as well as we do. Nothing but his forbearance, but that will be worth welcoming, in the circumstances. Oh, they’ll understand each other well enough, and no trust on either side, but either one of them will see that the other will keep to his part for the present, out of self-interest. An agreement to put off contention to a more convenient time is better at this moment than no agreement at all, and the need to look over a shoulder everyhour or so. Ranulf can give all his mind to Owain Gwynedd, and Stephen can give all his to the matter of Geoffrey de Mandeville in Essex.”
“And in the meantime we must entertain Canon Gerbert until his horse is fit to bear him.”
“And his body servant and his two grooms, and one of Bishop de Clinton’s deacons, lent as his guide here through the diocese. A meek little fellow called Serlo, who goes in trembling awe of the man. I doubt if he’d ever heard of Saint Winifred, for that matter - Gerbert, I mean, not Serlo - but he’ll be wanting to direct her festival for you, now that he’s halted here.”
“He had that look about him,” Cadfael admitted. “And what have you told him about the small matter of Owain Gwynedd?”