The Holy Thief

by Ellis Peters

  “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-petaled 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 parlor, 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 harbor 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 unraveling 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 honor 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 rigor.”

  “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 favorite 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 fulfillment 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.