Holy Thief by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page A

doorway. “My name is Daalny. That is how my mother
said it, I never saw it written. I cannot read or write. My mother told me that
the first hero of her people came into Ireland out of the western seas, from
the land of the happy dead, which they call the land of the living. His name
was Partholan,” she said, and her voice had taken on for a moment the rhythmic,
singing tone of the storyteller. “And Daalny was his queen. There was a race of
monsters then in the land, but Partholan drove them northward into the seas and
beyond. But in the end there was a great pestilence, and all the race of
Partholan gathered together on the great plain, and died, and the land was left
empty for the next people to come out of the western sea. Always from the west.
They come from there, and when they die they go back there.”
    She
was away into the gathering twilight, lissome and straight, leaving the door
open behind her. Cadfael watched her until she rounded the box hedge and
vanished from his sight. Queen Daalny in slavery, almost a myth like her
namesake, and every bit as perilous.
     
    At
the end of the hour she had allowed herself, Donata turned the hourglass on the
bench beside her bed, and opened her eyes. They had been closed while Tutilo
played, to absent herself in some degree from him, to relieve him of the burden
of a withered old woman’s regard, and leave him free to enjoy his own talent
without the need to defer to his audience. Though she might well take pleasure
in contemplating his youth and freshness, there could hardly be much joy for
him in confronting her emaciation and ruin. She had had the harp moved from the
hall into her bedchamber to give him the pleasure of tuning and playing it, and
been glad to see that while he stroked and tightened and adjusted, bending his
curly head over the work, he had forgotten her very presence. That was as it should
be. For her the exquisite anguish of his music was none the less, and his
happiness was all the more.
    But
an hour was all she could ask. She had promised he should return by the hour of
Compline. She turned the hourglass, and on the instant he broke off, the
strings vibrating at the slight start he made.
    “Did
I play falsely?” he asked, dismayed.
    “No,
but you ask falsely,” she said drily. “You know there was no fault there. But
time passes, and you must go back to your duty. You have been kind, and I am
grateful, but your sub-prior will want you back as I promised, in time for
Compline. If I hope to be able to ask again, I must keep to terms.”
    “I
could play you to sleep,” he said, “before I go.”
    “I
shall sleep. Never fret for me. No, you must go, and there is something I want
you to take with you. Open the chest there, beside the psaltery you will find a
small leather bag. Bring it to me.”
    He
set the harp aside, and went to do her bidding. She loosened the cord that drew
the neck of the little, worn satchel together, and emptied out upon her
coverlet a handful of trinkets, a gold neckchain, twin bracelets, a heavy
torque of gold set with roughly cut gemstones, and two rings, one a man’s
massive seal, the other a broad gold band, deeply engraved. Her own finger
showed the shrunken, pallid mark below the swollen knuckle, from which she had
removed it. Last came a large and intricate ring brooch, the fastening of a
cloak, reddish gold, Saxon work.
    “Take
these, and add them to whatever you have amassed for Ramsey. My son promises a
good load of wood, part coppice wood, part seasoned timber, indeed Eudo will be
sending the carts down tomorrow by the evening. But these are my offering. They
are my younger son’s ransom.” She swept the gold back into the bag, and drew
the neck closed. Take them!”
    Tutilo
stood hesitant, eyeing her doubtfully. “Lady, there needs no ransom. He had not
taken final vows. He had the right to choose his own way. He owes nothing.”
    “Not
Sulien, but