The Holy Thief

by Ellis Peters

  Or had he simply been curious as to how much was left within? A mere idle thought? People do odd, inconsequent things by the way, digressing without reason from what is currently occupying them. But bear it in mind. Odd, inconsequent things are sometimes highly significant. Cadfael shook himself, closed and locked the heavy door, and went on towards Saint Giles.

  In the great court, when he returned with his empty scrip, there was a purposeful but unhurried activity, a brisk wind blowing before a departure. No haste, they had all this day to make ready. Robert Bossu’s two squires came and went about the guesthall, assembling such clothing and equipment as their lord would not require on the journey. He traveled light, but liked meticulous service, and got it, as a rule, without having to labor the point. The steward Nicol and his younger companion, the one who had been left to make his way back from Worcester to Shrewsbury on foot, and had sensibly taken his time on the way, had very little to do by way of preparation, for this time their collected alms for their house would be carried by Earl Robert’s baggage carriage, the same which had brought Saint Winifred’s reliquary home, and was now to be baggage wagon for them all, while the earl’s packhorse could provide dignified transport for Sub-Prior Herluin. Robert Bossu was generous in small attentions to Herluin, very soothing to his dignity.

  And the third of the three parties now assembled for the journey into one, had perhaps the most demanding arrangements to make. Daalny came carefully down the steps of the guesthall with a handsome portative organ in her arms, craning her slender neck to peer round her burden to find the edge of every step, for Rémy’s instruments were precious almost beyond the value he put on his singer. The organ had its own specially made case for safekeeping, but it was somewhat bulky, and since space within was limited, the case had been banished to the stable. Daalny crossed the court, nursing the instrument like a child on her arm and clasping it caressingly with her free hand, for it was an object of love to her no less than to her lord. She looked up at Cadfael, when he fell in beside her, and offered him a wary smile, as if she selected and suppressed, within her mind, such topics as might arise with this companion, but had better be denied discussion.

  “You have the heaviest load,” said Cadfael. “Let me take it from you.”

  She smiled more warmly, but shook her head. “I am responsible, I will carry it or let it fall myself. But it is not so heavy, only bulky. The case is within there. Leather, soft, padded. You can help me put it in, if you will. It takes two, one to hold the bag wide open.”

  He went with her into the stableyard, and obediently held the fitted lid of the case braced back on his arm to allow her to slide the little organ within. She closed the lid upon it, and buckled the straps that held it firm. About them the earl’s young men went about their efficient business with the smooth and pleasurable grace of youth, and at the far end of the yard Bénezet was cleaning saddles and harness, and draping his work over a wooden frame, where the saddlecloths were spread out in the pale sunlight that was already acquiring a surprising degree of warmth. Rémy’s ornate bridle hung on a hook beside him.

  “Your lord likes his gear handsome,” said Cadfael, indicating it. She followed his glance impassively.

  “Oh, that! That isn’t Rémy’s, it’s Bénezet’s. Where he got it there’s no asking. I’ve often thought he stole it somewhere, but he’s close-mouthed, best not question.”

  Cadfael digested that without comment. Why so needless a lie? It served no detectable purpose that he could see, and that in itself was cause for further consideration.

  Perhaps Bénezet thought it wise to attribute the ownership of so fine a possession to his master, to avoid any curiosity as to how he had acquired it. Daalny had just suggested as much. He took the matter a stage further, in a very casual tone.

  “He takes no great care of it. He had left it in the barn at the Horse Fair all this time since the flood. He fetched it back only this morning.”

  This time she turned a face suddenly intent, and her hands halted on the last buckle. “He told you that? He spent half an hour cleaning and polishing that bridle early this morning. It never left here, I’ve seen it a dozen times since.”

  Her eyes were large, bright and sharp with speculation. Cadfael had no wish to start her wondering too much; she was already more deeply involved than he would have liked, and rash enough to surge into unwise action at this extreme, when she was about to be swept away to Leicester, with nothing resolved and nothing gained. Better by far keep her out of it, if that was any way possible. But she was very quick; she had her teeth into this discrepancy already. Cadfael shrugged, and said indifferently: “I must have misunderstood him. He was along there in mid-morning, carrying it. I thought he’d been to reclaim it, he was in the stable there. I took it for granted it was Rémy’s.”

  “Well you might,” she agreed. “I’ve wondered, myself, how he came by it. Somewhere in Provence, most likely. But honestly? I doubt it.” The brilliance of her eyes narrowed upon Cadfael’s face. She did not turn to glance at Bénezet, not yet. “What was he doing at the Horse Fair?” Her tone was still casually curious, as if neither question nor answer mattered very much, but the glitter in her eyes denied it.

  “Do I know?” said Cadfael. “I was up in the loft when he came in. Maybe he was just curious why the door was open.”

  That was a diversion she could not resist. Her eyes rounded eagerly, a little afraid to hope for too much. “And what were you doing in the loft?”

  “I was looking for proof of what you told me,” said Cadfael. “And I found it. Did you know that Tutilo forgot his breviary there after Compline?”

  She said: “No!” Almost soundlessly, on a soft, hopeful breath.

  “He borrowed mine, last night. He had no notion where he had lost his own, but I thought of one place at least where it would be worthwhile looking for it. And yes, it was there, and the place marked at Compline. It is hardly an eyewitness, Daalny, but it is good evidence. And I am waiting to put it into Hugh Beringar’s hands.”

  “Will it free him?” she asked in the same rapt whisper.

  “So far as Hugh is concerned, it well may. But Tutilo’s superior here is Herluin, and he cannot be passed by.”

  “Need he ever know?” she asked fiercely.

  “Not the whole truth, if Hugh sees with my eyes. That there’s very fair proof the boy never did murder, yes, that he’ll be told, but he need not know where you were or what you did, the pair of you, that night.”

  “We did no wrong,” she said, exultant and scornful of a world where needs must think evil, and where she knew of evil enough, but despised most of it and had no interest in any of it. “Cannot the abbot overrule Herluin? This is his domain, not Ramsey’s.”

  “The abbot will keep the Rule. He can no more detain the boy here and deprive Ramsey than he could abandon one of his own. Only wait! Let’s see whether even Herluin can be persuaded to open the door on the lad.” He did not go on to speculate on what would happen then, though it did seem to him that Tutilo’s passionate vocation had cooled to the point where it might slip out of sight and out of mind by comparison with the charm of delivering Partholan’s queen from slavery. Ah, well! Better take your hands from the ploughshare early and put them to other decent use, than persist, and take to ploughing narrower and narrower furrows until everything secular is anathema, and everything human doomed to reprobation.

  “Bring me word,” said Daalny, very gravely, her eyes royally commanding.

  Only when Cadfael had left her, to keep a watch on the gatehouse for Hugh’s coming, did she turn her gaze upon Bénezet. Why should he bother to tell needless lies? He might, true, prefer to let people think an improbably fine bridle belonged to his master rather than himself, if he had cause to be wary of flattering but inconvenient curiosity. But why offer any explanation at all? Why should a close-mouthed man who was sparing of words at all times go wasting words on quite unnecessary lies? And more interesting still, he certainly had not
made the journey to the Horse Fair to retrieve that bridle, his own or Rémy’s. It was the excuse, not the reason. So why had he made it? To retrieve something else? Something by no means forgotten, but deliberately left there? Tomorrow they were to ride for Leicester. If he had something put away there for safekeeping, something he could not risk showing, he had to reclaim it today.

  Moreover, if that was true, whatever it was had lain in hiding ever since the night of the flood, when chaos entered the church with the river water, when everything vulnerable within was being moved, when Tutilo’s ingenious theft was committed—oh, that she acknowledged —and the slow-rooting but certain seed of murder was sown. Murder of which Tutilo was not guilty. Murder, of which someone else was. Someone else who had cause to fear what Aldhelm might have to tell about that night, once his memory was stirred? What other reason could anyone have had to kill a harmless young man, a shepherd from a manor some miles away?

  Daalny went on with her work without haste, since she had no intention of quitting the stableyard while Bénezet was there. She had to go back to the guesthall for the smaller instruments, but she lost as little time over that as possible, and settled down again within view of Bénezet while she cased and bestowed them with care. The earl’s younger squire, interested, came to examine the Saracen oud that had come back with Rémy’s father from the Crusade, and his presence provided welcome cover for the watch she was keeping on her fellow-servant, and delayed her packing, which would otherwise have been complete within an hour or so, and left her with no excuse for remaining. The flutes and panpipes were easily carried; rebec and mandora had their own padded bags for protection, though the bow of the rebec had to be packed with care.

  It was drawing near to noon. Earl Robert’s young men piled all their baggage neatly together ready for loading next day, and took themselves off to see to their lord’s comfort withindoors, and serve his dinner. Daalny closed the last strap, and stacked the saddleroll that held the flutes beside the heavier saddlebags. “These are ready. Have you finished with the harness?”

  He had brought out one of his own bags, and had it already half-filled, folding an armful of clothes within it.

  What was beneath, she thought, he must have stowed away when she went back to the guesthall for the rebec and the mandora. When his back was turned she nudged the soft bulge of leather with her foot, and something within uttered the thinnest and clearest of sounds, the chink of coin against coin, very brief, as though for the thoroughness of the packing movement was barely possible. But there is nothing else that sounds quite the same. He turned his head sharply, but she met his eyes with a wide, clear stare, held her position as if she had heard nothing, and said with flat composure: “Come to dinner. He’s at table with Robert Bossu by now, you’re not needed to wait on him this time.”

  Hugh listened to Cadfael’s story, and turned the little breviary in his hands meantime with a small, wry smile, between amusement and exasperation.

  “I can and will answer for my shire, but within here I have no powers, as well you know. I accept that the boy never did murder, indeed I never seriously thought he had. This is proof enough for me on that count, but if I were you I would keep the circumstances even from Radulfus, let alone Herluin. You had better not appear in this. You might feel you must open the last detail to the abbot, but I doubt if even he could extricate the poor wretch in this case. Meeting a girl in a hayloft would be excellent grist to Herluin’s mill, if ever he got to hear of it. A worse charge than the sacrilegious theft—worse, at any rate, than that would have been if it had succeeded. I’ll see him clear of murder, even without being able to prove it home on someone else, but more than that I can’t promise.”

  “I leave it all to you,” said Cadfael resignedly. “Do as you see fit. Time’s short, God knows. Tomorrow they’ll all be gone.”

  “Well, at least,” said Hugh, rising, “Robert Bossu, with all the Beaumont heritage in Normandy and England on his mind, will hardly be greatly interested in riding gaoler on a wretched little clerk with a clerical hell waiting for him at the end of the road. I wouldn’t be greatly astonished if he left a door unlocked somewhere along the way, and turned a blind eye, or even set the hunt off in the opposite direction. There’s a deal of England between here and Ramsey.” He held out the breviary; the yellow straw still marked the place where Tutilo had recited the Office and shared the night prayers with Daalny. “Give this back to him. He’ll need it.”

  And he went away to his audience with Radulfus, while Cadfael sat somewhat morosely thinking, and holding the worn book in his hands. He was not quite sure why he should so concern himself with a clever little fool who had tried to steal Shrewsbury’s saint, and in the process started a vexatious series of events that had cost several decent men hurts, troubles and hardships, and one his life. None of which, of course, had Tutilo actually committed or intended, but trouble he was, and trouble he would continue as long as he remained where he did not belong. Even his over-ardent but genuine piety was not of the kind to fit into the discipline of a monastic brotherhood. Well, at least Hugh would make it plain that the boy was no murderer, whatever else might be charged against him, and his highly enterprising theft was not such as to come within the province of the king’s sheriff. For the rest, if the worst came to the worst, the boy must do what many a recalcitrant square peg in a round hole had had to do before him, survive his penance, resign himself to his fate, and settle down to live tamed and deformed, but safe. A singing bird caged. Though of course there was still Daalny. Bring me word, she had said. And yes, he would bring her word. Of both worst and best.

  In the abbot’s parlor Hugh delivered his judgment with few words. If all was not to be told, the fewer the better. “I came to tell you, Father Abbot, that I have no charge to make against the novice Tutilo. I have evidence enough now to be certain that he did no murder. The law of which I am custodian has no further interest in him. Unless,” he added mildly, “the common interest of wishing him well.”

  “You have found the murderer elsewhere?” asked Radulfus.

  “No, that I can’t say. But I am certain now that it is not Tutilo. What he did that night, in coming at once to give word of the slaying, was well done, and what he could do further the next day he did ungrudgingly. My law makes no complaint of him.”

  “But mine must,” said Radulfus. “It is no light offence to steal, but it is worse to have involved another in the theft, and brought him into peril of his life. To his better credit he confessed it, and has shown true remorse that ever he brought this unfortunate young man into his plans. He has gifts he may yet use to the glory of God. But there is a debt to pay.” He considered Hugh in attentive silence for a while, and then he said: “Am I to know what further witness has come to your hand? Since you have not fathomed out the guilty, there must be cause why you are sure of this one’s innocence.”

  “He made the excuse of being called to Longner,” said Hugh readily, “in order to be able to slip away and hide until the danger should be past and the witness departed, at least for that night. I doubt he looked beyond, it was the immediate threat he studied to avoid. Where he hid I know. It was in the loft of the abbey stable on the Horse Fair, and there is reasonable evidence he did not leave it until he heard the Compline bell. By which time Aldhelm was dead.”

  “And is there any other voice to bear out this timing?”

  “There is,” said Hugh, and offered nothing further. “Well,” said Radulfus, sitting back with a sigh, “he is not in my hands but by chance, and I cannot, if I would, pass over his offence or lighten his penalty. Sub-Prior Herluin will take him back to Ramsey, to his own abbot, and while he is within my walls, I must respect Ramsey’s right, and hold him fast and securely until he leaves my gates.”

  “He was not curious, he did not probe,” Hugh reported to Cadfael in the herb garden; his voice was appreciative and amused. “He accepted my assurance that I was satisfied Tutilo had done no murder and broken no law of th
e land, at least, none outside the Church’s pale, and that was enough for him. After all, he’ll be rid of the whole tangle by tomorrow, he has his own delinquent to worry about. Jerome is going to take a deal of absolving. But the abbot won’t do the one thing I suppose, as superior here, he could do, let our excommunicate come back into the services for this last night. He’s right, of course. Once they leave your gates, he’s no longer a responsibility of Shrewsbury’s, but until then Radulfus is forced to act for Ramsey as well as for his own household. Brother must behave correctly to brother—even if he detests him. I’m half sorry myself, but Tutilo remains in his cell. Officially, at any rate,” he added with a considering grin. “Even your backslidings, provided they offend only Church law, would be no affair of mine.”

  “On occasions they have been,” said Cadfael, and let his mind stray fondly after certain memories that brought a nostalgic gleam to his eye. “It’s a long time since we rode together by night.”

  “Just as well for your old bones,” said Hugh, and made an urchin’s face at him. “Be content, sleep in your bed, and let clever little bandits like your Tutilo sweat for their sins, and wait their time to be forgiven. For all we know the abbot of Ramsey is a good, humane soul with as soft a spot for minor sinners as you. And a sound ear for music, perhaps. That would serve just as well. If you turned him loose into the night now, how would he fare, without clothes, without food, without money?”

  And it was true enough, Cadfael acknowledged. He would manage, no doubt, but at some risk. A shirt and chausses filched from some woman’s drying-ground, an egg or so from under a hen, a few pence wheedled out of travelers on the road with a song, a few more begged at a market—But no stone walls shutting him in, and no locked door, no uncharitable elder preaching him endless sermons on his unpardoned sins, no banishment into the stony solitude of excommunication, barred from the communal meal and from the oratory, having no communication with his fellows, and if any should be so bold and so kind as to offer him a comfortable word, bringing down upon him the same cold fate.