Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

and he'll be displeased with us all, and when Owain's displeased I mind my walking very carefully. Which is what I did not do when I went with Cadwaladr. I wish heartily that I had and kept out of it. I never wanted to do harm to your ladies, but how could I draw back once I was in? And then to let myself be taken! By a handful of old women and peasants! I shall be in black displeasure at home, if not a laughingstock.' He sounded disgusted rather than downcast, and shrugged and grinned good, naturedly at the thought of being laughed at, but for all that, the prospect was painful. 'And if I'm to cost Owain high, there's another black stroke against me. He's not the man to take delight in paying out gold to buy back idiots.'
    Certainly this young man improved upon acquaintance. He turned honestly and manfully from wanting to kick everyone else to acknowledging that he ought to be kicking himself. Cadfael warmed to him.
    'Let me drop a word in your ear. The higher your value, the more welcome will you be to Hugh Beringar, who holds you here. And not for gold, either. There's a lord, the sheriff of this shire, who is most likely prisoner in Wales as you are here, and Hugh Beringar wants him back. If you can balance him, and he is found to be there alive, you may well be on your way home. At no cost to Owain Gwynedd, who never wanted to dip his fingers into that trough, and will be glad to show it by giving Gilbert Prestcote back to us.'
    'You mean it?' The boy had brightened and flushed, wide-eyed. 'Then I should speak? I'm in a fair way to get my release and please both Welsh and English? That would be better deliverance than ever I expected.'
    'Or deserved!' said Cadfael roundly, and watched the smooth brown neck stiffen in offence, and then suddenly relax again, as the black curls tossed and the ready grin appeared. 'Ah, well, you'll do! Tell your tale now, while I'm here, for I'm mightily curious, but tell it once. Let me fetch in Hugh Beringar, and let's all come to terms. Why lie here on stone and all but in the dark, when you could be stretching your legs about the castle wards?'
    'I'm won!' said the boy, hopefully shining. 'Bring me to confession, and I'll hold nothing back.'
    Once his mind was made up he spoke up cheerfully and volubly, an outward soul by nature, and very poorly given to silence. His abstention must have cost him prodigies of self, control. Hugh listened to him with an unrevealing face, but Cadfael knew by now how to read every least twitch of those lean, live brows and every glint in the black eyes.
    'My name is Elis ap Cynan, my mother was cousin to Owain Gwynedd. He is my overlord, and he has overwatched me in the fosterage where he placed me when my father died. That is, with my uncle Griffith ap Meilyr, where I grew up with my cousin Eliud as brothers. Griffith's wife is also distant kin to the prince, and Griffith ranks high among his officers. Owain values us. He will not willingly leave me in captivity,' said the young man sturdily.
    'Even though you hared off after his brother to a battle in which he wanted no part?' said Hugh, unsmiling but mild of voice.
    'Even so,' persisted Elis firmly. 'Though if truth must out, I wish I never had, and am like to wish it even more earnestly when I must go back and face him. He'll have my hide, as like as not.' But he did not sound particularly depressed at the thought, and his sudden grin, tentative here in Hugh's untested presence, nevertheless would out for a moment. 'I was a fool. Not for the first time, and I daresay not the last. Eliud had more sense. He's grave and deep, he thinks like Owain. It was the first time we ever went different ways. I wish now I'd listened to him. I never knew him to be wrong when it came to it. But I was greedy to see action, and pigheaded, and I went.'
    'And did you like the action you saw?' asked Hugh dryly.
    Elis gnawed a considering lip. 'The battle, that was fair fight, all in arms on both parts. You were there? Then you know yourself it was a great thing we did, crossing the river in flood, and standing to it in that frozen marsh as we were, sodden and shivering...'
    That exhilarating memory had suddenly recalled to him the second such crossing attempted, and its less heroic ending, the reverse of the dream of glory. Fished out like a drowning kitten, and hauled back to life facedown in muddy turf, hiccuping up the water he had swallowed, and being squeezed between the hands of a brawny forester. He caught