"Boy, never get ahead of yourself. Learn the craft, let your brother's obligation go..."
That was one of the few things Cadfael's father ever directed directly to his youngest son. For generations upon generations, since at least the Trolloc Wars, one form of the Welith family or another has served to the lands that are now Andor. Always the first born would be a guard, the middle child a carpenter, and any there after a farmer to the family and lands.
Cadfael's older brother, Hardin, left to join the Caemlyn Guards, to serve until he could join the Queen's Guard... but Hardin never had the heart for service. His love for gambling disgraced Cadfael's father, and soon the old man's health waned. As a promise to his dying, emotionally aching father, Cadfael voweed to bring his brother home.
In his brother's stead, Cadfael joined the Queen's Guard. Scouring the filth from the city and countryside, in vigorous effort to rid the lands of the likes that brought about the downfall of his brother, Cadfael gained rank and knowledge, contacts and friends. The thread of fate between his place in the Pattern and his brother pulled tight, and Cadfael came across Hardin one day, deep in the Braem northwest of Caemlyn.
While friends battled down foes, Cadfael fought with Hardin, blood against blood, blade to blade. The bandits put down, only these two remained, soon hand to hand as brothers in contest, one for freedom, the other for honor. But freedom fights harder and dirtier, and Hardin slipped a long, thin blade from his sleeve, ironically a lion-head hilt. Cadfael gripped the blade itself and ripped it free from his older brother's hand, and drove it home into the heart.
Cadfael had served faithfully since, always glad to drive out the "rats" from the city. His carpentry has continued, and for his continued service to House Mantear, he was given a small home not far from his family's meager lands.
Then came the day that Cadfael met Eliana, a star of Cairhien's blood. Cadfael, plain as he is, was enthralled by this beauty that did her best to seem plain herself. Effort and time with her, out among the woodlands bound them together stronger than anything, but still they declared it to the world with a marriage. The most high and honorable Queen found lands for her loyal vassal and his new wife, and in the fair start of Spring, the Welith Manor was built, the new couple having made home in it. Cadfael's own carpentry went into the structure, and in his grand front room, the walls are lined with his family's histories put down in varnished wood and novice paintwork.
The Welith family crest (though not marked in the Ledger of Houses and Families) is a downward pointed sword over a crossing of a sheaf of grain and a simplified branch, symbolizing the primary occupations of the Welith family.
Cadfael had skin that is permanently tanned from the outdoor carpentry and his training in the services. If not for the sun-blonded hair, it could possibly be darker. His beard is a bushy and brilliant red. This framing of bright hair and colored beard sets off that tanned face. And to make it worse, his blue eyes beam a feeling on contentment, a happiness with what he's done with his life.
Cadfael Welith, unlikely Lord
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