The Holy Thief

Chapter Three

IN THE MORNING, immediately after High Mass, the borrowed wagon set out for Ramsey. The coffer from the altar was confided to Nicol for safekeeping, and though one of his companions from Ramsey was to travel on with Herluin to Worcester, the addition to the party for home of three craftsmen seeking work offered a reassuringly stout guard for the valuables aboard. The timber was well secured, the team of four horses had spent the night comfortably in the stable at the Horse Fair, above the flood level, and was ready for the road.

Their way lay eastward, out by Saint Giles, and once clear of the watermeadows and over the bridge by Atcham they would be moving away from the river’s coils, and out upon good roads, open and well used. Nearer to their destination, considering how Geoffrey de Mandeville’s cutthroats must be scattering for cover now, they might have occasion to be glad of three tough Shropshire lads, all good men of their hands.

The cart rattled away along the Foregate. They would be some days on the road, but at least in regions further removed from the mountains of Wales, which had launched such a weight of thaw-water down into the lowlands after the heavy winter snows.

An hour or so later Sub-Prior Herluin also set forth, attended by Tutilo and the third lay servant, to turn southeastward at Saint Giles. Possibly it had not yet dawned on Herluin that the floods he was thankfully leaving behind here might keep pace with him downstream and overtake him triumphantly at Worcester. The speed at which the flood-water travelled could be erratic in some winters; it might even be ahead of him when he reached the level meadows below the city.

Rémy of Pertuis made no move to depart. Even the lower living floor of the guesthall remained dry and snug enough, being raised upon a deep undercroft and approached by a flight of stone steps, so he was left to nurse his sore throat in comparative warmth and comfort. His best horse, his own riding horse, was still lame, according to his man Bénezet, who had the charge of the horses, and daily plashed impassively through the shallows of the court to tend them in the stable at the Horse Fair. The stable-yard within the enclave lay almost knee-deep in water, and might remain so for several days yet. Bénezet recommended a longer wait here, and his master, it seemed, thinking of possible inconveniences on the way north to Chester, what with the upstream Severn and the incalculable Dee to cope with, had no objection to make. He was dry and fed and safe where he was. And the rain seemed to be moving away. Westward the cloud was clearing, only a desultory shower or two punctuated the featureless calm of the day’s routine.

The horarium proceeded stubbornly in spite of difficulties. The choir remained just above the level of the waters, and could be reached dryshod by the night stairs from the dortoir, and the floor of the chapterhouse was barely covered on the first and second day, and on the third was seen to be retaining only the dark, moist lines between the flags. That was the first sign that the river had reasserted its powers, and was again carrying away its great weight of waters. Two more days passed before the change was perceptible by the fast flow of the brook, and the withdrawal of the overflow into its bed, sinking gradually through the saturated grass and leaving a rim of debris to mark the decline. The mill pond sank slowly, clawing turf and leaves down from the lower reaches of the gardens it had invaded. Even along Severnside under the town walls the level sank day by day, relinquishing the fringe of little houses and fishermen’s huts and boat-sheds stained by mud and littered with the jetsam of branches and bushes.

Within the week brook and river and pond were back in their confines, full but still gradually subsiding. The tide-mark left in the nave had after all reached no higher than the top of the second step of Saint Winifred’s altar.

“We need never have moved her,” said Prior Robert, viewing the proof of it and shaking his head. “We should have had more faith. Surely she is well able to take care of herself and her flock. She had but to command, and the waters would have abated.”

Nevertheless, an abode damp, clammy and cold, and filthy with mud and rubbish, was no fit place to bring a saint. They fell to work without complaint, sweeping and polishing and mopping up the puddles left in every irregularity in the floor tiles. They brought the cresset stones, all three, into the nave, filled all their cups with oil, and lit them to dry out the lingering dampness and warm the air. Floral essences added to the oil fought valiantly against the stink of the river. Undercrofts, storehouses, barns and stables would also need attention, but the church was the first priority. When it was again fit to receive and house them, all the treasures could be restored to their places here within the fold.

Abbot Radulfus marked the purification of the holy place with a celebratory Mass. Then they began to carry back from their higher sanctuaries the furnishings of the altars, the chests of vestments and plate, the candlesticks, newly polished, the frontals and hangings, the minor reliquaries. It was accepted without question that all must be restored and immaculate before the chief grace and adornment of the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul was brought back with all due ceremony to her rightful place, newly swept and garnished to receive her.

“Now,” said Prior Robert, straightening joyfully to his full majestic height, “let us bring back Saint Winifred to her altar. She was carried, as all here know, into the upper room over the north porch.” The little outer door there at the corner of the porch, and the spiral staircase within, very difficult for the transport of even a small coffin, had remained accessible until the highest point of the flood, and she had been well padded against any damage in transit. “Let us go,” declaimed Robert, “in devotion and joy, and bring her back to her mission and benediction among us.”

He had always, thought Cadfael, resignedly following through the narrow, retired door and up the tricky stair, this conviction that he owns the girl, because he believes, no, God be good to him, poor soul, he mistakenly but surely knows! that he brought her here. God forbid he should ever find out the truth, that she is far away in her own chosen place, and her connivance with his pride in her is only a kindhearted girl’s mercy to an idiot child.

Cynric, Father Boniface’s parish verger, had surrendered his small dwelling above the porch to the housing of the church treasures while the flood lasted. He would be back in possession soon; a tall, gaunt, quiet man, lantern-faced, a figure of awe to ordinary mortals, but totally accepted by the innocents, for the children of the Foregate, and their inseparable camp-followers, the dogs, came confidently to his hand, and sat and meditated contentedly on the steps with him in summer weather. His narrow room was bare now of all but the last and most precious resident. The swathed and roped coffin was taken up with all reverence, and carefully manipulated down the tight confines of the spiral stair.

In the nave they had set up trestles on which to lay her, while they unwound the sheath of brychans they had used to keep her reliquary from injury. The wrappings unrolled one after another and were laid aside, and it seemed to Cadfael, watching, that with the removal of each one the swaddled shape, dwindling, assumed a form too rigid and rectangular to match with what he carried devoutly in his mind. But the final padding was thick enough to shroud the delicacies of fashioning he knew so well. Prior Robert reached a hand with ceremonious reverence to take hold of the last fold, and drew it back to uncover what lay within.

He uttered a muted shriek that emerged with startling effect from so august a throat, though it was not loud. He fell back a long, unsteady pace in shock, and then as abruptly started forward again and dragged the rug away, to expose to general view the inexplicable and offensive reality they had manipulated so carefully down from its place of safety. Not the silver-chased reliquary of Saint Winifred, but a log of wood, smaller and shorter than the coffin it had been used to represent, light enough, probably, for one man to handle; and not new, for it had dried and weathered to seasoned ripeness.

All that care and reverence had been wasted. Wherever Saint Winifred was, she was certainly not here.

After the stunned and idiot silence, babble and turmoil broke out on all sides, drawing to the spot others who had heard the strangled cry of dismay, and left their own tasks to come and stare and wonder. Prior Robert stood frozen into an outraged statue, the rug clutched in both hands, glaring at the offending log, and for once stricken dumb. It was his obsequious shadow who lifted the burden of protest for him.

“This is some terrible error,” blurted Brother Jerome, wringing his hands. “In the confusion... and it grew dark before we were done... Someone mistook, someone moved her elsewhere. We shall find her, safe in one of the lofts

“And this?” demanded Prior Robert witheringly, pointing a damning finger at the offence before them. “Thus shrouded, as carefully as ever we did for her? No error! No mistake made in innocence! Someone did this deliberately to deceive! This was laid in her place, to be handled and cherished in her stead. And where now... where is she?”

Some disturbance in the air, some wind of alarm, had caught the scent by then, and carried it through the great court, and minute by minute more openmouthed onlookers were gathering, stray brothers summoned from scattered cleansing duties in the grange court and the stables, sharp-eared guests from their lodgings, a couple of round-eyed, inquisitive schoolboys who were chased away less indulgently than usual by Brother Paul.

“Who last handled her?” suggested Brother Cadfael reasonably. “Someone... more than one... carried her up to Cynric’s rooms. Any of you here?”

Brother Rhun came through the press of curious and frightened brothers, the youngest among them, the special protege of his saint, and her most devoted servitor, as every man here knew.

“It was I, with Brother Urien, who wrapped her safely. But to my grief, I was not here when she was moved from her place.”

A tall figure came looming over the heads of the nearest brothers, craning to see what was causing the stir. “That was the load from the altar there?” asked Bénezet, and thrust his way through to look more closely. “The reliquary, the saint’s coffin? And now this ...? But I helped to carry it up to the verger’s rooms. It was one of the last things we moved, late in the evening. I was here helping, and one of the brothers, Brother Matthew I’ve heard him named, called me to give him a hand. And so I did. We hefted her up the stairs and stowed her safely enough.” He looked round in search of confirmation, but Brother Matthew the cellarer was not there to speak for himself. “He’ll tell you,” said Bénezet confidently. “And this, a log of wood? Is this what we took such care of?”

“Look at the brychan,” said Cadfael, reaching in haste to open it before the man’s eyes and spread it wide. The outer wrapping, look at it closely. Did you see it clearly when you had the load in your hands? Is this the same?” By chance it was Welsh woollen cloth, patterned in a regular array of crude four-petalled flowers in a dim blue; many of its kind found their way into English homes through the market of Shrewsbury. It was worn thin in places, but had been of a solid, heavy weave, and bound at the edges with flax. Bénezet said without hesitation: “The same.”

“You are certain? It was late in the evening, you say. The altar was still lighted?”

“I’m certain.” Bénezet’s long lips delivered his certainty like an arrow launched. “I saw the weave plainly. This is what we lifted and carried, that night, and who was to know what was inside the brychans?”

Brother Rhun uttered a small, grievous sound, more a sob than a cry, and came forward almost fearfully to touch and feel, afraid to trust his eyes, young and clear and honest though they might be.

“But it is not the same,” he said in a muted whisper, “in which Brother Urien and I wrapped her, earlier that day, before noon. We left her ready on her altar, with a plain blanket bound round her, and an old, frayed altarcloth stretched over her. Brother Richard let us take it, as fitting her holiness. It was a beautiful one, great love went into the embroidery. That was her coverlet. This is no way the same. What this good man carried from here to the high place meant for Saint Winifred, was not that sweet lady, but this block, this mockery. Father Prior, where is our saint? What has become of Saint Winifred?”

Prior Robert swept one commanding glance round him, at the derisory object uncovered from its shroud, at the stricken brothers, and the boy bereaved and accusing, burning white as a candleflame. Rhun went whole, beautiful and lissome by Saint Winifred’s gift, he would have no rest nor allow any to his superiors, while she was lost to him.

“Leave all here as it lies,” said Prior Robert with authority, “and depart, all of you. No word be said, nothing done, until we have taken this cause to Father Abbot, within whose writ it lies.”

“There is no possibility of mere error,” said Cadfael, in the abbot’s parlour, that evening. “Brother Matthew is as certain as this lad Bénezet of what they carried, or at least of the pattern of the brychan that was wound about it. And Brother Rhun and Brother Urien are just as certain of what they took to wrap and cover her. By all the signs, no one meddled with the wrappings. A new burden was substituted for the first one on the altar, and borne away to safety in good faith, no blame to those who aided.”

“None,” said Radulfus. “The young man offered in all kindness. His merit is assured. But how did this come about? Who could wish it? Who perform, if he did wish it? Brother Cadfael, consider! There was flood, there was watchfulness but hope during the day, there was urgent need at night. Men prepare for a sudden and strange threat, but while it holds off they do not believe in it. And when it strikes, can everything be handled with calm and faith, as it should? In darkness, in confusion, mere feeble men do foolish things. Is there not still the possibility that this is all some error, even a stupid and malicious jest?”

“Never so stupid,” said Cadfael firmly, “as to dress up a stock of wood to match the mass and weight of that reliquary. Here there was purpose. Purpose to humiliate this house, yes, perhaps, though I fail to see why, or who should harbour so vile a grudge. But purpose, surely.”

They were alone together, since Cadfael had returned to confirm Bénezet’s testimony by the witness of Brother Matthew, who had carried the head end of the reliquary up the stairs, and tangled his fingers in the unravelling flaxen thread of the edging. Prior Robert had told his story with immense passion, and left the load, Cadfael suspected with considerable thankfulness, in his superior’s hands.

“And this log itself,” said Radulfus, focussing sharply on details, “was not from the Longner load?”

“Longner sent a proportion of seasoned wood, but not oak. The rest was coppice-wood. No, this has been cut a number of years. It is dried out so far that it could be used to balance, roughly at least, the weight of the reliquary. It is no mystery. In the southern end of the undercroft beneath the refectory, there is a small pile of timber that was left after the last building on the barns. I have looked,” said Cadfael. There is a place where such a log has been removed. The surfaces show the vacancy.”

“And the removal is recent?” asked Radulfus alertly.

“Father Abbot, it is.”

“So this was deliberate,” Radulfus said slowly. “Planned and purposeful, as you said. Hard to believe. And yet I cannot see how it can have come about by chance, by whatever absurd combination of circumstances. You say that Urien and Rhun prepared her before noon. Late in the evening what lay on her altar, ready to be carried elsewhere, was this mere stock. During the time between, our saint was removed, and the other substituted. For what end, with what mischief in mind? Cadfael, consider! In these few days of flood scarcely anyone has gone in and out of our enclave, certainly no one can have taken out so noticeable a burden. Somewhere within our walls the reliquary must be hidden. At least, before we look beyond, every corner of this house and all its outer buildings, must be searched.”

The hunt for Saint Winifred went on for two days, every moment between the Offices, and as if the honour of all within the walls was impugned in her loss, even the guests in the hall and the trusted regulars of the parish of Holy Cross trudged through the lingering mud to join in the search. Even Rémy of Pertuis, forgetting the tenderness of his throat, went with Bénezet to penetrate every corner of the Horse Fair stable and the loft over it, from which sanctuary the translated relics of Saint Elerius and certain minor treasures had already been reclaimed. It was not seemly for the girl Daalny to mingle with the brothers throughout the day, but she watched with tireless interest from the steps of the guesthall, as the hunters emerged from one doorway after another, from grange court to stable-yard, from the dortoir by the outer daystairs, into the cloister garth, out again by the scriptorium, across to the infirmary, and always empty-handed.

All those who had helped on the evening of the flood, when the need grew urgent, told what they knew, and the sum of what they knew covered the hurried movements of most of the church’s treasury, and traced it back to its proper places, but shed no light on what had happened to Saint Winifred’s swaddled reliquary between noon and evening of the day in question. At the end of the second day even Prior Robert, rigid with outrage, had to acknowledge defeat.

“She is not here,” he said. “Not within these walls, not here in the Foregate. If anything was known of her there, they would have told us.”

“No blinking it,” agreed the abbot grimly, “she is gone further. There is no possibility of mistake or confusion. An exchange was made, with intent to deceive. And yet what has left our gates during these days? Except for our brothers Herluin and Tutilo, and they certainly took nothing with them but what they brought, the very least a man needs upon the road.”

“There was the cart,” said Cadfael, “that set out for Ramsey.”

There fell a silence, while they looked at one another with misgiving, calculating uneasily the dangerous possibilities opening up before them.

“Is it possible?” ventured Brother Richard the Sub-Prior, almost hopefully. “In the darkness and confusion? Some order misunderstood? Can it have been put on to the cart by mistake?”

“No,” said Cadfael, bluntly cutting off that consideration. “If she was moved from her altar, then she was put somewhere else with deliberate intent. Nevertheless, yes, the cart departed next morning, and she may have gone with it. But not by chance, not in error.”

“Then this is sacrilegious theft!” declaimed Robert. “Offence against the laws of God and of the realm, and must be pursued with all rigour.”

“We must not say so,” reproved Radulfus, lifting a restraining hand, “until we have questioned every man who was present on that day and may have testimony to add to what we know. And that we have not yet done. Sub-Prior Herluin and Brother Tutilo were with us then, and as I know, Tutilo was helping with the removal of the altar furnishings until well into the evening. And were there not some others who came in to help? We should speak to every one who may have seen anything to the purpose, before we cry theft.”

“Eudo Blount’s carters who came with the wood,” offered Richard, “left the load and came in to help, until all was done, before they finished transferring the timber from the Longner cart. Should we not ask them? Dark as it was by then, they may have noticed something to the purpose.”

“We will neglect nothing,” said the abbot. “Father Herluin and Brother Tutilo, I know, will be coming back here to return our horses, but that may be some days, and we should not delay. Robert, they will be in Worcester by now, will you ride after them and hear what account they can give of that day?”

“With very good will,” said Robert fervently. “But, Father, if this becomes in all earnest a matter of theft, ought we not to confide it to the sheriff, and see if he thinks fit to have a man of his garrison go with me? In the end it may be as much for the king’s justice as for ours, and as you say, time is precious.”

“You are right,” agreed Radulfus. “I will speak with Hugh Beringar. And for the Longner men, we will send and hear what they have to say.”

“If you give me leave,” said Cadfael, “I will undertake that.” He had no wish to see someone of Prior Robert’s mind descending on Eudo Blount’s decent household, probing in a manner suggestive of black suspicions of duplicity and theft.

“Do so, Cadfael, if you will. You know the people there better than any of us, they will speak freely to you. Find her,” said Abbot Radulfus grimly, “we must and will. Tomorrow Hugh Beringar shall know what has happened, and pursue it as he sees fit.”

Hugh came from conference with the abbot half an hour after the end of Prime. “Well,” he said, plumping himself down on the bench against the timber wall of Cadfael’s workshop, “I hear you’ve got yourself into a pretty awkward corner this time. How did you come to lose your seeming saint? And what will you do, my friend, if someone, somewhere, decides to take the lid off that very pretty coffin?”

“Why should they?” said Cadfael, but none too confidently.

“Given human curiosity, of which you should know more than I,” said Hugh, grinning, “why should they not? Say the thing finds its way where no one knows what it is, or what it signifies, how better to find out what they have in their hands? You would be the first to break the seals.”

“I was the first,” said Cadfael, unguardedly since here a guard was useless, for Hugh knew exactly what was in Saint Winifred’s reliquary. “And also, I hope, the last. Hugh, I doubt if you are taking this with the gravity it deserves.”

“I find it difficult,” Hugh owned, “not to be amused. But be sure I’ll preserve your secrets if I can. I’m interested. All my local troublers of the peace seem to be frozen in until spring, I can afford to ride to Worcester. Even in Robert’s company it may be entertaining. And I’ll keep an eye open for your interests as well as I may. What do you think of this loss? Has someone conspired to rob you, or is it all a foolish tangle spawned out of the flood?”

“No,” said Cadfael positively, and turned from the board on which he was fashioning troches for queasy stomachs in the infirmary. “No tangle. A clear mind shifted that reliquary from the altar, and swathed and planted a log of wood from the undercroft in its place. So that both could be moved away well out of sight and out of mind, possibly for several days, as indeed both were. The one to make a clear field for the other to be removed beyond recovery. At least beyond immediate recovery,” he amended firmly, “for recover her we shall.”

Hugh was looking at him, across the glow of the brazier, with a twitch of the lips and an oblique tilt to the brow that Cadfael remembered from of old, from the time of their first precarious acquaintance, when neither of them had been quite sure whether the other was friend or foe, and yet each had been drawn to the other in a half-grave, half-impish contest to find out.

“Do you know,” said Hugh softly, “that you are speaking of that lost reliquary, some years now you have been speaking of it so, as if it truly contained the Welsh lady’s bones. “She”, you say, never “it”, or even more truly, “him”. And you know, none so well, that you left her to her rest there in Gwytherin. Can she be in two places at once?”

“Some essence of her certainly can,” said Cadfael, “for she has done miracles here among us. She lay in that coffin three days, why should she not have conferred the power of her grace upon it? Is she to be limited by time and place? I tell you, Hugh, sometimes I wonder what would be found within there, if ever that lid was lifted. Though I own,” he added ruefully, “I shall be praying devoutly that it never comes to the proof.”

“You had better,” Hugh agreed. “Imagine the uproar, if someone somewhere breaks those seals you repaired so neatly, and prizes off the lid, to find the body of a young man about twenty-four, instead of the bones of a virgin saint. And mother-naked, at that! Your goose would be finely cooked!” He rose, laughing, but even so a little wryly, for the possibility certainly existed, and might yet erupt into disaster. “I must go and make ready. Prior Robert means to set out as soon as he has dined.” He embraced Cadfael briskly about the shoulders in passing, by way of encouragement, and shook him bracingly. “Never fear, you are a favourite with her, and she’ll look after her own, let alone that you’ve managed very well so far at looking after yourself.”

“The strange thing is, Hugh,” Cadfael said suddenly, as Hugh reached the door, “that I’m concerned almost as anxiously for poor Columbanus.”

“Poor Columbanus?” Hugh echoed, turning to stare back at him in astonished amusement. “Cadfael, you never cease to surprise me. Poor Columbanus, indeed! A murderer by stealth, and all for his own glory, not for Shrewsbury’s, and certainly not for Winifred’s.”

“I know! But he ended the loser. And dead! And now, flooded out of what rest was allowed him on a quiet altar here at home, taken away to some strange place where he knows no one, friend or enemy. And perhaps,” said Cadfael, shaking his head over the strayed sinner, “having miracles expected of him, when he can do none. It would not be so hard to feel a little sorry for him.”

Cadfael went up to Longner as soon as the midday meal was over, and found the young lord of the manor in his smithy within the stockade, himself supervising the forging of a new iron tip for a ploughshare. Eudo Blount was a husbandman born, a big, candid, fair fellow, to all appearances better built for service in arms than his younger brother, but a man for whom soil, and crops and wellkept livestock would always be fulfilment enough. He would raise sons in his own image, and the earth would be glad of them. Younger sons must carve out their own fortunes. “Lost Saint Winifred?” said Eudo, gaping, when he heard the purport of Cadfael’s errand. “How the devil could you lose her? Not a thing to be palmed and slipped in a pouch when no one’s looking. And you want speech with Gregory and Lambert? Surely you don’t suppose they’d have any use for her, even if they did have a cart on the Horse Fair! There’s no complaint of my men down there, is there?”

“None in the world!” said Cadfael heartily. “But just by chance, they may have seen something the rest of us were blind enough to miss. They lent a hand when there was need of it, and we were heartily thankful. But no use looking further afield until we’ve looked close at home, and made sure no over-zealous idiot has put the lady away somewhere safely and mislaid her. We’ve asked of every soul within the walls, better consult these last two, or we might stop short of the simple answer.”

“Ask whatever you will,” said Eudo simply. “You’ll find them both across in the stable or the carthouse. And I wish you might get your easy answer, but I doubt it. They hauled the wood down there, and loaded it, and came home, and I recall Gregory did tell me what was going on in the church, and how high the water was come in the nave. But nothing besides. But try him!”

Secure among his own people, Eudo felt no need to watch or listen what might come to light, but went back practically to the bellows, and the ring of the smith’s hammer resumed, and followed Cadfael across the yard to the wide-open door of the carthouse.

They were both within, wheeling the light cart by its shafts back into a corner, the warmth of the horse they had just unharnessed still hanging in the air about them. Square-built, muscular men both, and weatherbeaten from outdoor living in all seasons, with a good twenty years between them, so that they might have been father and son. Most men of these local villages, tied to the soil by villeinage but also by inclination, and likely to marry within a very few miles’ radius, tended to have a close clan resemblance and a strong clan loyalty. The Welsh strain kept them short, wiry and durable, and of independent mind.

They greeted him civilly, without surprise; in the past year or two he had been an occasional visitor, and grown into a welcome one. But when he had unfolded what was required from them, they shook their heads doubtfully, and sat down without haste on the shafts of the cart to consider.

“We brought the cart down before it darkened,” said the elder then, narrowing his eyes to look back through the week of labour and leisure between, “but it was a black bitch of a day even at noon. We’d started shifting the load over to the abbey wagon, when the sub-prior comes out between the graves to the gate, and says, lads, lend us a hand to put the valuables inside high and dry, for it’s rising fast.”

“Sub-Prior Richard?” said Cadfael. “You’re sure it was he?”

“Sure as can be, him I do know, and it was not so dark then. Lambert here will tell you the same. So in we went, and set to, bundling up the hangings and lifting out the chests as he told us, and putting them where we were directed, up in the loft over the barn there, and some over the porch in Cynric’s place. It was dim inside there, and the brothers all darting about carrying coffers and candlesticks and crosses, and half the lamps ran out of oil, or got blown out with the doors open. As soon as the nave seemed to be clear we got out, and went back to loading the wood.”

“Aldhelm went back in,” said the young man Lambert, who had done no more than nod his head in endorsement until now.

“Aldhelm?” questioned Cadfael.

“He came down to help us out,” explained Gregory. “He has a half yardland by Preston, and works with the sheep at the manor of Upton.”

So there was one more yet before the job could be considered finished. And not today, thought Cadfael, calculating the hours left to him.

“This Aldhelm was in and out of the church like you? And went back in at the last moment?”

“One of the brothers caught him by the sleeve and haled him back to help move some last thing,” said Gregory indifferently. “We were off to the cart and shifting logs by then, all I know is someone called him, and he turned back. It was not much more than a moment or two. When we got the next load between us to the abbey wagon and slung it aboard, he was there by the wheel to help us hoist it in and settle it. And the monk was off to the church again. He called back goodnight to us.”

“But he had come out to the road with your man?” persisted Cadfael.

“We were all breathing easier then, everything that mattered was high enough to lie snug and dry till the river went down. A civil soul, he came out to say thanks and leave us a blessing... why not?”

Why not, indeed, when honest men turned to for no reward besides? “You did not,” asked Cadfael delicately, “see whether between them they brought out anything to load into the wagon? Before he left you with his blessing?”

They looked at each other sombrely, and shook their heads. “We were shifting logs to the back, to be easy to lift down. We heard them come. We had our arms full, hefting wood. When we got it to the wagon Aldhelm was reaching out to help us hoist it on, and the brother was away into the graveyard again. No, they never brought out anything that I saw.”

“Nor I,” said Lambert.

“And could you, either of you, put a name to this monk who called him back?”

“No,” said they both with one voice; and Gregory added kindly: “Brother, by then it was well dark. And I know names for only a few, the ones every man knows.”

True, monks are brothers by name only to those within; willing to be brothers to all men, outside the pale they are nameless. In some ways, surely, a pity.

“So dark,” said Cadfael, reaching his last question, “that you would not be able to recognize him, if you saw him again? Not by his face, or shape, or gait, or bearing? Nothing to mark him?”

“Brother,” said Gregory patiently, “he was close-cowled against the rain, and black disappearing into darkness. And his face we never saw at all.”

Cadfael sighed and thanked them, and was gathering himself up to trudge back by the sodden fields when Lambert said, breaking his habitual and impervious silence: “But Aldhelm may have seen it.”

The day was too far gone, if he was to get back for Vespers. The tiny hamlet of Preston was barely a mile out of his way, but if this Aldhelm worked with the sheep at Upton, at this hour he might be there, and not in his own cot on his own half-yardland of earth. Probing his memory would have to wait. Cadfael threaded the Longner woodlands and traversed the long slope of meadows above the subsiding river, making for home. The ford would be passable again by now, but abominably muddy and foul, the ferry was pleasanter and also quicker. The ferryman, a taciturn soul, put him ashore on the home bank with a little time in hand, so that he slackened his pace a little, to draw breath. There was a belt of close woodland on this side, too, before he could approach the first alleys and cots of the Foregate; open, heathy woodland over the ridge, then the trees drew in darkly, and the path narrowed. There would have to be some lopping done here, to clear it for horsemen. Even at this hour, not yet dusk but under heavy cloud, a man had all his work cut out to see his way clear and evade overgrown branches. A good place for ambush and secret violence, and all manner of skulduggery. It was the heavy cloud cover and the cheerless stillness of the day that gave him such thoughts, and even while they lingered with him he did not believe in them. Yet there was mischief abroad, for Saint Winifred was gone, or the token she had left with him and blessed for him was gone, and there was no longer any equilibrium in his world. Strange, since he knew where she was, and should have been able to send messages to her there, surely with greater assurance than to the coffin that did not contain her. But it was from that same coffin that he had always received his answers, and now the wind that should have brought him her voice from Gwytherin was mute.

Cadfael emerged into the Foregate at the Horse Fair somewhat angry with himself for allowing himself to be decoyed into imaginative glooms against his nature, and trudged doggedly along to the gatehouse in irritated haste to get back to a real world where he had solid work to do. Certainly he must hunt out Aldhelm of Preston, but between him and that task, and just as important, loomed a few sick old men, a number of confused and troubled young ones, and his plain duty of keeping the Rule he had chosen.

There were not many people abroad in the Foregate. The weather was still cold and the gloom of the day had sent people hurrying home, wasting no time once the day’s work was done. Some yards ahead of him two figures walked together, one of them limping heavily. Cadfael had a vague notion that he had seen those broad shoulders and that shaggy head before, and not so long ago, but the lame gait did not fit. The other was built more lightly, and younger. They went with heads thrust forward and shoulders down, like men tired after a long trudge and in dogged haste to reach their destination and be done with it. It was no great surprise when they turned in purposefully at the abbey gatehouse, tramping through thankfully into the great court with a recovered spring to their steps. Two more for the common guesthall, thought Cadfael, himself approaching the gate, and a place near the fire and a meal and a drink will come very welcome to them.

They were at the door of the porter’s lodge when Cadfael entered the court, and the porter had just come out to them. The light was not yet so far gone that Cadfael failed to see, and marvel, how the porter’s face, ready with its customary placid welcome and courteous enquiry, suddenly fell into a gaping stare of wonder and concern, and the words ready on his lips turned into a muted cry.

“Master James! How’s this, you here? I thought, Man,” he said, dismayed, “what’s come to you on the road?”

Cadfael was brought up with a jolt, no more than ten paces towards Vespers. He turned back in haste to join this unexpected confrontation, and look more closely at the lame man.

“Master James of Betton? Herluin’s master-carpenter?” No doubt of it, the same who had set out with the wagon-load of wood for Ramsey, more than a week ago, but limping and afoot now, and back where he had begun, and soiled and bruised not only from the road. And his companion, the elder of the two masons who had set off hopefully to find steady work at Ramsey, here beside him, with torn cotte and a clout bound about his head, and a cheekbone blackened from a blow.

“What’s come to us on the road!” the master-carpenter repeated ruefully. “Everything foul, short of murder. Robbery by cutthroats and outlaws. Wagon gone, timber gone, horses gone, stolen, every stick and every beast, and only by the grace of God not a man of us killed. For God’s sake, let us in and sit down. Martin here has a broken head, but he would come back with me...”

“Come!” said Cadfael, with an arm about the man’s shoulders. “Come within to the warmth, and Brother Porter will get some wine into you, while I go and tell Father Abbot what’s happened. I’ll be with you again in no time, and see to the lad’s head. Trouble for nothing now. Praise God you’re safely back! All Herluin’s alms couldn’t buy your lives.”