Dead Man's Ransom by Ellis Peters

would not have cared too much where she chose to marry. What would have mattered most to Sybilla was that her son should inherit all, and her husband’s daughter be content with a modest dowry. And so she would have been content, yes, with none.
    “But it must not be an end!” vowed Elis fiercely. “Why should we submit to it? I won’t give you up, I can’t, I won’t part from you.”
    “Oh, foolish!” she said, her tears gushing against his cheek, “The escort that brings him home will take you away. There’s a bargain struck, and no choice but to keep it. You must go, and I must stay, and that will be the end. Oh, if he need never reach here…” Her own voice uttering such things terrified her, she buried her lips in the hollow of his shoulder to smother the unforgivable words.
    “No, but listen to me, my heart, my dear! Why should I not go to him and offer for you? Why should he not give me fair hearing? I’m born princely, I have lands, I’m his equal, why should he refuse to let me have you? I can endow you well, and there’s no man could ever love you more.” He had never told her, as he had so light, heartedly told Brother Cadfael, of the girl in Wales, betrothed to him from childhood. But that agreement had been made over their heads, by consent of others, and with patience and goodwill it could be honourably dissolved by the consent of all. Such a reversal might be a rarity in Gwynedd, but it was not unheard of. He had done no wrong to Cristina, it was not too late to withdraw.
    “Sweet fool innocent!” she said, between laughter and rage. “You do not know him! Every manor he holds is a border manor, he has had to sweat and fight for them many a time. Can you not see that after the empress, his enemy is Wales? And he as good a hater as ever was born! He would as soon marry his daughter to a blind leper in St Giles as to a Welshman, if he were the prince of Gwynedd himself. Never go near him, you will but harden him, and he’ll rend you. Oh, trust me, there’s no hope there.”
    “Yet I will not let you go,” vowed Elis into the cloud of her pale hair, that stirred and stroked against his face with a life of its own, in nervous, feathery caresses. “Somehow, somehow, I swear I’ll keep you, no matter what I must do to hold you, no matter how many I must fight to clear the way to you. I’ll kill whoever comes between us, my love, my dear…”
    “Oh, hush!” she said. “Don’t talk so. That’s not for you. There must, there must be some way for us…” But she could see none. They were caught in an inexorable process that would bring Gilbert Prestcote home, and sweep Elis ap Cynan away.
    “We have still a little time,” she whispered, taking heart as best she could. “They said he is not well, he had wounds barely healed. They’ll be a week or two yet.”
    “And you’ll still come? You will come? Every day? How should I bear it if I could no longer see you?”
    “I’ll come,” she said, “these moments are my life, too. Who knows, something may yet happen to save us.”
    “Oh, God, if we could but stop time! If we could hold back the days, make him take for ever on the journey, and never, never reach Shrewsbury!”
     
    It was ten days before the next word came from Owain Gwynedd. A runner came in on foot, armed with due authorisation from Einon ab Ithel, who ranked second only to Owain’s own penteulu, the captain of his personal guard. The messenger was brought to Hugh in the castle guardroom early in the afternoon; a border man, with some business dealings into England, and well acquainted with the language.
    “My lord, I bring greetings from Owain Gwynedd through the mouth of his captain, Einon ab Ithel. I am to tell you that the party lies tonight at Montford, and tomorrow we shall bring you our charge, the lord Gilbert Prestcote. But there is more. The lord Gilbert is still very weak from his wounds and hardships, and for most of the way we have carried him in a