Read Online A Rare Benedictine by Ellis Peters - Free Book Online Page B

betray her.
    “Yes,”
she said, watching him with unwavering blue eyes.
    “So
in the end you had nothing against him making known how the candlesticks were
stolen.” It was not an accusation, he was pursuing his way to understanding.
    But
at once she said clearly: “I did not steal them. I took them. I will restore
them to their owner.”
    “Then
you don’t claim they are yours?”
    “No,”
she said, “they are not mine. But neither are they FitzHamon’s.”
    “Do
you tell me,” said Cadfael mildly, “that there has been no theft at all?”
    “Oh,
yes,” said Elfgiva, and her pallor burned into a fierce brightness, and her
voice vibrated like a harp-string. “Yes, there has been a theft, and a vile,
cruel theft, too, but not here, not now. The theft was a year ago, when
FitzHamon received these candlesticks from Alard who made them, his villein,
like me. Do you know what the promised price was for these? Manumission for
Alard, and marriage with me, what we had begged of him three years and more.
Even in villeinage we would have married and been thankful. But he promised
freedom! Free man makes free wife, and I was promised, too. But when he got the
fine works he wanted, then he refused the promised price. He laughed! I saw, I
heard him! He kicked Alard away from him like a dog. So what was his due, and
denied him, Alard took. He ran! On St Stephen’s Day he ran!”
    “And
left you behind?” said Cadfael gently.
    “What
chance had he to take me? Or even to bid me farewell? He was thrust out to manual
labour on FitzHamon’s other manor. When his chance came, he took it and fled. I
was not sad! I rejoiced! Whether I live or die, whether he remembers or forgets
me, he is free. No, but in two days more he will be free. For a year and a day
he will have been working for his living in his own craft, in a charter
borough, and after that he cannot be haled back into servitude, even if they
find him.”
    “I
do not think,” said Brother Cadfael, “that he will have forgotten you! Now I
see why our brother may speak after three days. It will be too late then to try
to reclaim a runaway serf. And you hold that these exquisite things you are
cradling belong by right to Alard who made them?”
    “Surely,”
she said, “seeing he never was paid for them, they are still his.”
    “And
you are setting out tonight to take them to him. Yes! As I heard it, they had
some cause to pursue him towards London... indeed, into London, though they
never found him. Have you had better word of him? From him?”
    The
pale face smiled. “Neither he nor I can read or write. And whom should he trust
to carry word until his time is complete, and he is free? No, never any word.”
    “But
Shrewsbury is also a charter borough, where the unfree may work their way to
freedom in a year and a day. And sensible boroughs encourage the coming of good
craftsmen, and will go far to hide and protect them. I know! So you think he
may be here. And the trail towards London a false trail. True, why should he
run so far, when there’s help so near? But, daughter, what if you do not find
him in Shrewsbury?”
    “Then
I will look for him elsewhere until I do. I can live as a runaway, too, I have
skills, I can make my own way until I do get word of him. Shrewsbury can as
well make room for a good seamstress as for a man’s gifts, and someone in the
silversmith’s craft will know where to find a brother so talented as Alard. I
shall find him!”
    “And
when you do? Oh, child, have you looked beyond that?”
    To
the very end,” said Elfgiva firmly. “If I find him and he no longer wants me,
no longer thinks of me, if he is married and has put me out of his mind, then I
will deliver him these things that belong to him, to do with as he pleases, and
go my own way and make my own life as best I may without him. And wish well to
him as long as I live.”
    Oh,
no, small fear, she would not be