The Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

about his person did not reveal itself for some time,
since he ate and drank little, and used only the right hand that lay easy on
the board under Cadfael’s eyes. Only when he turned directly towards his
neighbour, and rested his left elbow on the edge of the table, did it appear
that the left forearm terminated only a few inches below the joint, and a fine
linen cloth was drawn over the stump like a glove, and secured by a thin silver
bracelet. It was impossible not to stare, the revelation came so unexpectedly;
but Cadfael withdrew his gaze at once, and forbore from any comment, though he
could not resist studying the mutilation covertly when he thought himself
unobserved. But his neighbour had lived with his loss long enough to accustom
himself to its effect on others.
    “You
may ask, Brother,” he said, with a wry smile. “I am not ashamed to own where I
left it. It was my better hand once, though I could use both, and can still
make shift with the one I have left.”
    Since
curiosity was understood and expected of him, Cadfael made no secret of it,
though he was already hazarding a guess at the possible answers. For this young
man was almost certainly from South Wales, far from his customary kin here in
Gwynedd.
    “I
am in no doubt,” he said cautiously, “that wherever you may have left it, the
occasion did you nothing but honour. But if you are minded to tell me, you
should know that I have carried arms in my time, and given and taken injury in
the field. Where you admit me, I can follow you, and not as a stranger.”
    “I
thought,” said the young man, turning black, brilliant eyes on him
appraisingly, “you had not altogether the monastic look about you. Follow,
then, and welcome. I left my arm lying over my lord’s body, the sword still in
my hand.”
    “Last
year,” said Cadfael slowly, pursuing his own prophetic imaginings,” in
Deheubarth.”
    “As
you have said.”
    “Anarawd?”
    “My
prince and my foster-brother,” said the maimed man. “The stroke, the final
stroke, that took his life from him took my arm from me.”

 
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    “HOW
MANY,” ASKED CADFAEL CAREFULLY, after a moment of silence, “were with him
then?”
    “Three
of us. On a simple journey and a short, thinking no evil. There were eight of
them. I am the only one left who rode with Anarawd that day.” His voice was low
and even. He had forgotten nothing and forgiven nothing, but he was in complete
command of voice and face.
    “I
marvel,” said Cadfael, “that you lived to tell the story. It would not take
long to bleed to death from such a wound.”
    “And
even less time to strike again and finish the work,” the young man agreed with
a twisted smile. “And so they would have done if some others of our people had
not heard the affray and come in haste. Me they left lying when they rode away.
I was taken up and tended after his murderers had run. And when Hywel came with
his army to avenge the slaying, he brought me back here with him, and Owain has
taken me into his own service. A one-armed man is still good for something. And
he can still hate.”
    “You
were close to your prince?”
    “I
grew up with him. I loved him.” His black eyes rested steadily upon the lively
profile of Hywel ab Owain, who surely had taken Anarawd’s place in his loyalty,
in so far as one man can ever replace another.
    “May
I know your name?” asked Cadfael. “And mine is, or in the world it was, Cadfael
ap Meilyr ap Dafydd, a man of Gwynedd myself, born at Trefriw. And Benedictine
though I may be, I have not forgotten my ancestry.”
    “Nor
should you, in the world or out of it. And my name is Cuhelyn ab Einion, a
younger son of my father, and a man of my prince’s guard. In the old days,” he
said, darkling, “it was disgrace for a man of the guard to return alive from
the field on which his lord was slain. But I had and have good reason for
living.