The Holy Thief

by Ellis Peters

  “My lord sheriff, reverend gentlemen,” said the earl, “you come very aptly, if Robin has reported your errand rightly, for I confess I’ve been tempted to lift the lid on whatever it is they’ve brought me from Ullesthorpe. It would have been a pity to break those very handsome seals, I’m glad I held my hand.”

  And so am I, thought Hugh fervently, and so will Cadfael be. The earl’s voice was low-pitched and full, pleasing to the ear, and the news he had communicated even more pleasing. Prior Robert melted and became at once gracious and voluble. In the presence of a Norman magnate of such power and dignity this other Norman Robert, monastic though he was by choice, harked back to his own heredity, and blossomed as if preening before a mirror.

  “My lord, if I may speak for Shrewsbury, both abbey and town, I must tell you how grateful we are that Saint Winifred fell into such noble hands as yours. Almost one might feel that she has herself directed matters in miraculous fashion, protecting herself and her devotees even among such perils.”

  “Almost one might, indeed!” said Earl Robert, and the eloquent and sensitive lips curved into a gradual and thoughtful smile. “If the saints can secure at will whatever their own wishes may be, it would seem the lady saw fit to turn to me. I am honored beyond my deserts. Come, now, and see how I have lodged her, and that no harm or insult has been offered her. I’ll show you the way. You must lodge here tonight at least, and as long as you may wish. Over supper you shall tell me the whole story, and we shall see what must be done now, to please her.”

  His table was lavish, his welcome open and generous, they could hardly have fallen into richer pastures after all these vexations; and yet Hugh continued throughout the meal curiously alert, as though he expected something unforeseen to happen at any moment, and divert events into some wild course at a tangent, just when Prior Robert, at least, was beginning to believe his troubles over. It was not so much a feeling of disquiet as of expectation, almost pleasurable anticipation. Tempting to speculate what could possibly complicate their mission now?

  The earl had only a small household with him at Huncote, but even so they were ten at the high table, and all male, since the countess and her women were left behind in Leicester. Earl Robert kept the two monastic dignitaries one on either side of him, with Hugh at Herluin’s other side. Nicol had betaken himself to his due place among the servants, and Tutilo, silent and self-effacing among such distinguished company, was down at the end among the clerks and chaplains, and wary of opening his mouth even there. There are times when it is better to be a listener, and a very attentive one, at that.

  “A truly strange story,” said the earl, having listened with flattering concentration to Prior Robert’s eloquent exposition of the whole history of Shrewsbury’s tenure of Saint Winifred, from her triumphant translation from Gwytherin to an altar in the abbey, and her inexplicable disappearance during the flood. “For it seems that she was removed from her own altar without human agency—or at least you have found none. And she has already been known, you tell me, to work miracles. Is it possible,” wondered the earl, appealing deferentially to Prior Robert’s more profound instruction in things holy, “that for some beneficent purpose of her own she may have transferred herself miraculously from the place where she was laid? Can she have seen fit to pursue some errand of blessing elsewhere? Or felt some disaffection to the place where she was?” He had the prior stiffly erect and somewhat pale in the face by this time, though the manner of the questioning was altogether reverent and grave, even deprecating. “If I tread too presumptuously into sacred places, reprove me,” entreated the earl, with the submissive sweetness of a brand-new novice.

  Precious little chance of that happening, thought Hugh, listening and observing with a pleasure that recalled to mind some of his earliest and most tentative exchanges with Brother Cadfael, dealing trick for trick and dart for dart, and feeling their way over small battlefields to a lasting friendship. The prior might possibly suspect that he was being teased, for he was no fool, but he would certainly not challenge or provoke a magnate of Robert Beaumont’s stature. And in any case, the other austere Benedictine had taken the bait. Herluin’s lean countenance had quickened into calculating if cautious eagerness.

  “My lord,” he said, restraining what could easily have blossomed into a glow of triumph, “even a layman may be inspired to speak prophecy. My brother prior has himself testified to her powers oi-grace, and says plainly that no man has been found to own that he carried the reliquary. Is it too much to suppose that Saint Winifred herself moved her relics to the wagon that was bound for Ramsey? Ramsey, so shamefully plundered and denuded by impious villains? Where could she be more needed and honored? Where do more wonders for a house grossly misused? For it is now certain that she left Shrewsbury on the cart that was returning with gifts from the devout to our needy and afflicted abbey. If her intent was to come there with blessing, dare we contest her wishes?”

  Oh, he had them locked antler to antler now, two proud stags with lowered heads and rolling eyes, gathering their sinews for the thrust that should send one of them backing out of the contest. But the earl insinuated a restraining hand, though without any indication that he had seen the impending clash.

  “I do not presume to make any claim, who am I to read such riddles? For Shrewsbury certainly brought the lady from Wales, and in Shrewsbury she has done wonders, never renouncing their devotion to her. I seek guidance, never dare I offer it in such matters. I mentioned a possibility. If men had any hand in her movements, what I said falls to the ground, for then all is plain. But until we know…”

  “We have every reason to believe,” said Prior Robert, awesome in his silvery indignation, “that the saint has made her home with us. We have never failed in devotion. Her day has been celebrated most reverently every year, and the day of her translation has been particularly blessed. Our most dutiful and saintly brother was himself healed of his lameness by her, and has been ever since her particular squire and servant. I do not believe she would ever leave us of her own will.”

  “Oh, never with any heart to deprive you,” protested Herluin, “but in compassion for a monastic house brought to ruin might she not feel bound to exert herself to deliver? Trusting to your generosity to respect the need, and add to your alms already given the power and grace she could bestow? For certain it is that she did leave your enclave with my men, and with them took the road to Ramsey. Why so, if she had no wish to depart from you, and none to come and abide with us?”

  “It is not yet proven,” declared Prior Robert, falling back upon the mere material facts of the case, “that men—and sinful men, for if it happened so this was sacrilegious theft!—had no part in her removal from our care. In Shrewsbury our lord abbot has given orders to seek out all those who came to help us when the river rose into the church. We do not know what has been uncovered, what testimony given. There the truth may by now be known. Here it certainly is not.”

  The earl had sat well back from between the bristling champions, absolving himself from all responsibility here except to keep the peace and harmony of his hall. His countenance was bland, sympathetic to both parties, concerned that both should have justice done to them, and be satisfied.

  “Reverend Fathers,” he said mildly, “as I hear, you intend in any case returning together to Shrewsbury. What hinders that you should put off all dispute until you are there, and hear all that has been discovered in your absence? Then all may be made plain. And if that fails, and there is still no hand of man apparent in the removal, then it will be time to consider a rational judgment. Not now! Not yet!”

  With guarded relief but without enthusiasm they accepted that, at least as a means of postponing hostilities.

  True!” said Prior Robert, though still rather coldly. “We cannot anticipate. They will have done all that can be done to unearth the truth. Let us wait until we know.”

  “I did pray the saint’s help for our plight,” Herluin persisted, “while I was there with yo
u. It is surely conceivable that she heard and had pity on us… But you are right, patience is required of us until we hear further on the matter.”

  A little mischief in it, Hugh judged, content to be an onlooker and have the best view of the game, but no malice. He’s amusing himself at a dull time of year, and being here without his womenfolk, but he’s as adroit at calming the storm as he is at raising it. Now what more can he do to pass the evening pleasantly, and entertain his guests? One of them, at any rate, he admitted a shade guiltily, and reminded himself that he had still to get these two ambitious clerics back to Shrewsbury without bloodshed.

  “There is yet a small matter that has escaped notice,” said the earl almost apologetically. “I should be loth to create more difficulties, but I cannot help following a line of thought to its logical end. If Saint Winifred did indeed conceive and decree her departure with the wagon for Ramsey, and if a saint’s plans cannot be disrupted by man, then surely she must also have willed all that happened after… the ambush by outlaws, the theft of the cart and team, the abandonment of the load, and with it, her reliquary, to be found by my tenants, and brought to me here. All accomplished—does it not seem plain?—to bring her finally where she now rests. Had she meant to go to Ramsey, there would have been no ambush, there she would have gone without hindrance. But she came here to my care. Impossible to say of the first move, it was her will, and not to extend that to what followed, or reason is gone mad.”

  Both his neighbors at table were staring at him in shocked alarm, knocked clean out of words, and that in itself was an achievement. The earl looked from one to the other with a disarming smile.

  “You see my position. If the brothers in Shrewsbury have found the rogues or the fools who mislaid the saint in the first place, then there is no contention between any of us. But if they have not traced any such, then I have a logical claim. Gentlemen, I would not for the world be judge in a cause in which I am one party among three. I submit gladly to some more disinterested tribunal. If you are setting out for Shrewsbury tomorrow, so must Saint Winifred. And I will bear my part in escorting her, and ride with you.”

  Chapter Five

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  Brother Cadfael had made one journey to the hamlet of Preston in search of the young man Aldhelm, only to find that he was away in the riverside fields of the manor of Upton, busy with the lambing, for the season had been complicated by having to retrieve some of the ewes in haste from the rising water, and the shepherds were working all the hours of the day. On his second attempt, Cadfael made straight for Upton to enquire where their younger shepherd was to be found, and set out stoutly to tramp the further mile to a fold high and dry above the water-meadows.

  Aldhelm got up from the turf on which a new and unsteady lamb was also trying to get to its feet, nuzzled by the quivering ewe. The shepherd was a loose-limbed fellow all elbows and knees, but quick and deft in movement for all that. He had a blunt, good-natured face and a thick head of reddish hair. Haled in to help salvage the church’s treasures, he had set to and done whatever was asked of him without curiosity, but there was nothing amiss with his sharp and assured memory, once he understood what was being asked of him.

  “Yes, Brother, I was there. I went down to give Gregory and Lambert a hand with the timber, and Brother Richard called us in to help shift things within. There was another fellow running about there like us, someone from the guesthall, hefting things around off the altars. He seemed to know his way round, and what was needed. I just did what they asked of me.”

  “And did any ask of you, towards the end of the evening, to help him hoist a long bundle on to the wagon with the wood?” asked Cadfael, directly but without much expectation, and shook to the simple answer.

  “Yes, so he did. He said it was to go with the wagon to Ramsey, and we put it in among the logs, well wedged in. It was padded safely enough, it wouldn’t come to any harm.”

  It had come to harm enough, but he was not to know that. “The two lads from Longner never noticed it,” said Cadfael. “How could that be?”

  “Why, it was well dark then, and raining, and they were busy shifting the logs in the Longner cart down to the tail, to be easy to heft out and carry across. They might well have missed noticing. I never thought to mention it again, it was what the brother wanted, just one more thing to move. I took it he knew what he was about, and it was no business of ours to be curious about the abbey’s affairs.”

  It was certainly true that the brother in question had known all too well what he was about, and there was small doubt left as to who he must be, but he could not be accused without witness.

  “What was he like, this brother? Had you spoken with him before, in the church?”

  “No. He came running out and took me by the sleeve in the darkness. It was raining, his cowl was drawn up close. A Benedictine brother for certain, is all I know. Not very tall, less than me. By his voice a young fellow. What else can I tell you? I could point him out to you, though, if I see him,” he said positively.

  “Seen once in the dark, and cowled? And you could know him again?”

  “So I could, no question. I went back in with him to hoist this load, and the altar lamp was still bright. I saw his face close, with the light on it. To picture a man in words, one’s much like another,” said Aldhelm, “but bring me to see him, I’ll pick him out from a thousand.”

  “I have found him,” said Cadfael, reporting the result of his quest in private to Abbot Radulfus, “and he says he will know his man again.”

  “He is certain?”

  “He is certain. And I am persuaded. He is the only one who saw the monk’s face, by the altar lamp as they lifted the reliquary. That means close and clear, the light falling directly into the cowl. The others were outside, in the darkness and the rain. Yes, I think he can speak with certainty.”

  “And he will come?” asked Radulfus.

  “He will come, but on his own terms. He has a master, and work to do, and they are still lambing. While one of his ewes is in trouble he will not budge. But when I send for him, by the evening, when his day’s work is over, he’ll come. It cannot be yet,” said Cadfael, “not until they are back from Worcester. But the day I send for him, he will come.”

  “Good!” said Radulfus, but none too happily. “Since we have no choice but to pursue it.” No need to elaborate on why it would be useless to send for the witness yet, it was accepted between them without words. “And, Cadfael, even when the day comes, we will not make it known at chapter. Let no one be forewarned, to go in fear or spread rumors. Let this be done as sensibly as possible, with the least harm to any, even the guilty.”

  “If she comes back, unharmed, unchanged,” said Cadfael, “this may yet pass without harm or disgrace to any. She is also to be reckoned with, I have no fears for her.” And it dawned upon him suddenly how right Hugh had been in saying that he, Cadfael, spoke by instinct of this hollow reliquary, as good as empty, as though it truly contained the wonder whose name it bore. And how sadly he had missed her, lacking the unworthy symbol she had deigned to make worthy.

  Granted this authenticity even for the symbol, she came back the next day, nobly escorted.

  Brother Cadfael was just emerging from the door of the infirmary in mid-morning, after replenishing Brother Edmund’s stores in the medicine cupboard, when they rode in at the gatehouse before his eyes. Not simply Hugh, Prior Robert, and the two emissaries from Ramsey with their lay servant, who indeed seemed to be missing, but a company augmented by the addition of two attendant grooms or squires, whatever their exact status might be, and a compact personage in his prime, who rode unobtrusively at Hugh’s side, behind the two priors, and yet dominated the procession without any effort or gesture on his part. His riding gear was rich but in dark colors, the horse under him was more ornamented in his harness than the rider in his dress, and a very handsome dark roan. And behind him, on a narrow wheeled carriage drawn by one horse, came Saint Winifred’s reliquary, decent
ly nested on embroidered draperies.

  It was wonderful to see how the great court filled, as though the word of her return in triumph had been blown in on the wind. Brother Denis came out from the guesthall, Brother Paul from the schoolroom, with two of his boys peering out from behind his skirts, two novices and two grooms from the stable-yard, and half a dozen brothers from various scattered occupations, all appeared on the scene almost before the porter was out of his lodge in haste to greet Prior Robert, the sheriff and the guests.

  Tutilo, riding modestly at the rear of the cortège, slipped down from the saddle and ran to hold Herluin’s stirrup, like a courtly page, as his superior descended. The model novice, a little too assiduous, perhaps, to be quite easy in his mind. And if what Cadfael suspected was indeed true, he had now good reason to be on his best behavior. The missing reliquary, it seemed, was back where it belonged, just as a witness had been found who could and would confirm exactly how it had been made to disappear. And though Tutilo did not yet know what lay in store for him, nevertheless he could not be quite sure this apparently joyous return would be the end of it. Hopeful but anxious, plaiting his fingers for luck, he would be wholly virtuous until the last peril was past, and himself still anonymous and invisible. He might even pray earnestly to Saint Winifred to protect him, he had the innocent effrontery for it.

  Cadfael could not choose but feel some sympathy for one whose dubious but daring enterprise had come full circle, and now threatened him with disgrace and punishment; all the more as Cadfael himself had just been spared a possibly similar exposure. The lid of the reliquary, with its silver chasing exposed to view, no doubt to be instantly recognizable on entering the court, was still securely sealed down. No one had tampered with it, no one had viewed the body within. Cadfael at least could breathe again.