he could not have been more different from his cousin: such a pair of eyes fixed upon Cadfael's face in implacable determination and eagerness and such a still, braced body waiting for the least encouragement to fly to respond. Owain, humouring him, lifted a beckoning finger, and he came like a lance launched, quivering. A long lad he was, and thin and intense, with bright hazel eyes in a grave oval face, featured finely enough for a woman, but with good lean bones in it, too. There was a quality of devotional anxiety about him that must be for Elis ap Cynan at this moment, but at another might be for Wales, for his prince, some day, no doubt, for a woman, but whatever its object it would always be there. This one would never be quite at rest.
He bent the knee eagerly to Owain, and Owain clouted him amiably on the shoulder and said: 'Sit down here with Brother Cadfael, and have out of him everything you want to know. Though the best you know already, your other self is alive and can be bought back you at a price.' And with that he left them together and went to confer with Tudur.
Eliud sat down willingly and spread his elbows on the board to lean ardently close. 'Brother, it is true, what Cristina told me? You have Elis safe in Shrewsbury? They came back without him... I sent to know, but there was no one could tell me where he went astray or how. I have been hunting and asking everywhere and so has the prince, for all he makes a light thing of it. He is my father's fostering, you're Welsh yourself, so you know. We grew up together from babes, and there are no more brothers, either side...'
'I do know,' agreed Cadfael, 'and I say again, as Cristina said to you, he is safe enough, man alive and as good as new.'
'You've seen him? Talked to him? You're sure it's Elis and no other? A well looking man of his company,' explained Eliud apologetically, 'if he found himself prisoner, might award himself a name that would stead him better than his own...'
Cadfael patiently described his man, and told over the whole tale of the rescue from the flooded brook and Elis's obstinate withdrawal into the Welsh tongue until a Welshman challenged him. Eliud listened, his lips parted and his eyes intent, and was visibly eased into conviction.
'And was he so uncivil to those ladies who saved him? Oh, now I do know him for Elis, he'd be so shamed to come back to life in such hands, like a babe being thumped into breathing!'
No mistake, the solemn youth could laugh, and laughter lit up his grave face and made his eyes sparkle. It was no blind love he had for his twin who was no twin, he knew him through and through, scolded, criticised, fought with him, and loved him none the less. The girl Cristina had a hard fight on her hands.
'And so you got him from the nuns. And had he no hurts at all, once he was wrung dry?'
'Nothing worse than a gash in his hinder end, got from a sharp rock in the brook while he was drowning. And that's salved and healed. His worst trouble was that you would be mourning him for dead, but my journey here eases him of that anxiety, as it does you of yours. No need to fret about Elis ap Cynan. Even in an English castle he is soon and easily at home.'
'So he would be,' agreed Eliud in the soft, musing voice of tolerant affection. 'So he always was and always will be. He has the gift. But so free with it, sometimes I fret for him indeed!'
Always, rather than sometimes, thought Cadfael, after the young man had left him, and the hall was settling down for the night round the turfed and quiet fire. Even now, assured of his friend's safety and well, being, and past question or measure glad of that, even now he goes with locked brows and inward, gazing eyes. He had a troubled vision of those three young creatures bound together in inescapable strife, the two boys linked together from childhood, locked even more securely by the one's gravity and the other's innocent rashness, and the girl betrothed in infancy to half of an
He bent the knee eagerly to Owain, and Owain clouted him amiably on the shoulder and said: 'Sit down here with Brother Cadfael, and have out of him everything you want to know. Though the best you know already, your other self is alive and can be bought back you at a price.' And with that he left them together and went to confer with Tudur.
Eliud sat down willingly and spread his elbows on the board to lean ardently close. 'Brother, it is true, what Cristina told me? You have Elis safe in Shrewsbury? They came back without him... I sent to know, but there was no one could tell me where he went astray or how. I have been hunting and asking everywhere and so has the prince, for all he makes a light thing of it. He is my father's fostering, you're Welsh yourself, so you know. We grew up together from babes, and there are no more brothers, either side...'
'I do know,' agreed Cadfael, 'and I say again, as Cristina said to you, he is safe enough, man alive and as good as new.'
'You've seen him? Talked to him? You're sure it's Elis and no other? A well looking man of his company,' explained Eliud apologetically, 'if he found himself prisoner, might award himself a name that would stead him better than his own...'
Cadfael patiently described his man, and told over the whole tale of the rescue from the flooded brook and Elis's obstinate withdrawal into the Welsh tongue until a Welshman challenged him. Eliud listened, his lips parted and his eyes intent, and was visibly eased into conviction.
'And was he so uncivil to those ladies who saved him? Oh, now I do know him for Elis, he'd be so shamed to come back to life in such hands, like a babe being thumped into breathing!'
No mistake, the solemn youth could laugh, and laughter lit up his grave face and made his eyes sparkle. It was no blind love he had for his twin who was no twin, he knew him through and through, scolded, criticised, fought with him, and loved him none the less. The girl Cristina had a hard fight on her hands.
'And so you got him from the nuns. And had he no hurts at all, once he was wrung dry?'
'Nothing worse than a gash in his hinder end, got from a sharp rock in the brook while he was drowning. And that's salved and healed. His worst trouble was that you would be mourning him for dead, but my journey here eases him of that anxiety, as it does you of yours. No need to fret about Elis ap Cynan. Even in an English castle he is soon and easily at home.'
'So he would be,' agreed Eliud in the soft, musing voice of tolerant affection. 'So he always was and always will be. He has the gift. But so free with it, sometimes I fret for him indeed!'
Always, rather than sometimes, thought Cadfael, after the young man had left him, and the hall was settling down for the night round the turfed and quiet fire. Even now, assured of his friend's safety and well, being, and past question or measure glad of that, even now he goes with locked brows and inward, gazing eyes. He had a troubled vision of those three young creatures bound together in inescapable strife, the two boys linked together from childhood, locked even more securely by the one's gravity and the other's innocent rashness, and the girl betrothed in infancy to half of an
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