by Ellis Peters
“You cannot tell,” suggested Prior Robert, agitated and grieved, “who stood close to you during the service? If indeed some ill-conditioned person has so misused the holy office as to commit theft in the very sacredness of the Mass…”
“Father, I was intent only upon the altar.” Ciaran shook with fervour, holding the ravished scrip open before him with his sparse possessions bared to be seen. “We were close pressed, so many people… as is only seemly, in such a shrine… Matthew was close at my back, but so he ever is. Who else there may have been by me, how can I say? There was no man nor woman among us who was not hemmed in every way.”
“It is truth,” said Prior Robert, who had been much gratified at the large attendance. “Father, the gate is now closed, we are all here who were present at Mass. And surely we all have a desire to see this wrong righted.”
“All, as I suppose,” said Radulfus drily, “but one. One, who brought in here a knife or dagger sharp enough to slice through these tough cords cleanly. What other intents he brought in with him, I bid him consider and tremble for his soul. Robert, this ring must be found. All men of goodwill here will offer their aid, and show freely what they have. So will every guest who has not theft and sacrilege to hide. And see to it also that enquiry be made, whether other articles of value have not been missed. For one theft means one thief, here within.”
“It shall be seen to, Father,” said Robert fervently. “No honest, devout pilgrim will grudge to offer his aid. How could he wish to share his lodging here with a thief?”
There was a stir of agreement and support, perhaps slightly delayed, as every man and woman eyed a neighbour, and then in haste elected to speak first. They came from every direction, hitherto unknown to one another, mingling and forming friendships now with the abandon of holiday. But how did they know who was immaculate and who was suspect, now the world had probed a merciless finger within the fold?
“Father,” pleaded Ciaran, still sweating and shaking with distress, “here I offer in this scrip all that I brought into this enclave. Examine it, show that I have indeed been robbed. Here I came without even shoes to my feet, my all is here in your hands. And my fellow Matthew will open to you his own scrip as freely, an example to all these others that they may deliver themselves pure of blame. What we offer, they will not refuse.”
Matthew had withdrawn his hand from Melangell’s sharply at this word. He shifted the unbleached cloth scrip, very like Ciaran’s, round upon his hip. Ciaran’s meagre travelling equipment lay open in the prior’s hands. Robert slid them back into the pouch from which they had come, and looked where Ciaran’s distressed gaze guided him.
“Into your hands, Father, and willingly,” said Matthew, and stripped the bag from its buckles and held it forth.
Robert acknowledged the offering with a grave bow, and opened and probed it with delicate consideration. Most of what was there within he did not display, though he handled it. A spare shirt and linen drawers, crumpled from being carried so, and laundered on the way, probably more than once. The means of a gentleman’s sparse toilet, razor, morsel of lye soap, a leather-bound breviary, a lean purse, a folded trophy of embroidered ribbon. Robert drew forth the only item he felt he must show, a sheathed dagger, such as any gentleman might carry at his right hip, barely longer than a man’s hand.
“Yes, that is mine,” said Matthew, looking Abbot Radulfus straightly in the eyes. “It has not slashed through those cords. Nor has it left my scrip since I entered your enclave, Father Abbot.”
Radulfus looked from the dagger to its owner, and briefly nodded. “I well understand that no young man would set forth on these highroads today without the means of defending himself. All the more if he had another to defend, who carried no weapons. As I understand is your condition, my son. Yet within these walls you should not bear arms.”
“What, then, should I have done?” demanded Matthew, with a stiffening neck, and a note in his voice that just fell short of defiance.
“What you must do now,” said Radulfus firmly. “Give it into the care of Brother Porter at the gatehouse, as others have done with their weapons. When you leave here you may reclaim it freely.”
There was nothing to be done but bow the head and give way gracefully, and Matthew managed it decently enough, but not gladly. “I will do so, Father, and pray your pardon that I did not ask advice before.”
“But, Father,” Ciaran pleaded anxiously, “my ring… How shall I survive the way if I have not that safe-conduct to show?”
“Your ring shall be sought throughout this enclave, and every man who bears no guilt for its loss,” said the abbot, raising his voice to carry to the distant fringes of the silent crowd, “will freely offer his own possessions for inspection. See to it, Robert!”
With that he proceeded on his way, and the crowd, after some moments of stillness as they watched him out of sight, dispersed in a sudden murmur of excited speculation. Prior Robert took Ciaran under his wing, and swept away with him towards the guest-hall, to recruit help from Brother Denis in his enquiries after the bishop’s ring; and Matthew, not without one hesitant glance at Melangell, turned on his heel and went hastily after them.
*
A more innocent and co-operative company than the guests at Shrewsbury abbey that day it would have been impossible to find. Every man opened his bundle or box almost eagerly, in haste to demonstrate his immaculate virtue. The quest, conducted as delicately as possible, went on all the afternoon, but they found no trace of the ring. Moreover, one or two of the better-off inhabitants of the common dormitory, who had had no occasion to penetrate to the bottom of their baggage so far, made grievous discoveries when they were obliged to do so. A yeoman from Lichfield found his reserve purse lighter by half than when he had tucked it away. Master Simeon Poer, one of the first to fling open his possessions, and the loudest in condemning so blasphemous a crime, claimed to have been robbed of a silver chain he had intended to present at the altar next day. A poor parish priest, making this pilgrimage the one fulfilled dream of his life, was left lamenting the loss of a small casket, made by his own hands over more than a year, and decorated with inlays of silver and glass, in which he had hoped to carry back with him some memento of his visit, a dried flower from the garden, even a thread or two drawn from the fringe of the altar-cloth under Saint Winifred’s reliquary. A merchant from Worcester could not find his good leather belt to his best coat, saved up for the morrow. One or two others had a suspicion that their belongings had been fingered and scorned, which was worst of all.
*
It was all over, and fruitless, when Cadfael at last repaired to his workshop in time to await the coming of Rhun. The boy came prompt to his hour, great-eyed and thoughtful, and lay submissive and mute under Cadfael’s ministrations, which probed every day a little deeper into his knotted and stubborn tissues.
“Brother,” he said at length, looking up, “you did not find a dagger in any other man’s pouch, did you?”
“No, no such thing.” Though there had been, understandably, a number of small, homely knives, the kind a man needs to hack his bread and meat in lodgings along the way, or meals under a hedge. Many of them were sharp enough for most everyday purposes, but not sharp enough to leave stout cords sheared through without a twitch to betray the assault. “But men who go shaven carry razors, too, and a blunt razor would be an abomination. Once a thief comes into the pale, child, it’s hard for honest men to be a match for him. He who has no scruple has always the advantage of those who keep to rule. But you need not trouble your heart, you’ve done no wrong to any man. Never let this ill thing spoil tomorrow for you.”
“No,” agreed the boy, still preoccupied. “But, brother, there is another dagger—one, at least. Sheath and all, a good length—I know, I was pressed close against him yesterday at Mass. You know I have to hold fast by my crutches to stand for long, and he had a big linen scrip on his belt, hard against my hand and arm, where we were crowded together. I felt the
shape of it, cross-hilt and all. I know! But you did not find it.”
“And who was it,” asked Cadfael, still carefully working the tissues that resisted his fingers, “who had this armoury about him at Mass?”
“It was that big merchant with the good gown—made from valley wool. I’ve learned to know cloth. They call him Simeon Poer. But you didn’t find it. Perhaps he’s handed it to Brother Porter, just as Matthew has had to do now.”
“Perhaps,” said Cadfael. “When was it you discovered this? Yesterday? And what of today? Was he again close to you?”
“No, not today.”
No, today he had stood stolidly to watch the play, eyes and ears alert, ready to open his pouch there before all if need be, smiling complacently as the abbot directed the disarming of another man. He had certainly had no dagger on him then, however he had disposed of it in the meantime. There were hiding-places enough here within the walls, for a dagger and any amount of small, stolen valuables. To search was itself only a pretence, unless authority was prepared to keep the gates closed and the guests prisoned within until every yard of the gardens had been dug up, and every bed and bench in dortoir and hall pulled to pieces. The sinners have always the start of the honest men.
“It was not fair that Matthew should be made to surrender his dagger,” said Rhun, “when another man had one still about him. And Ciaran already so terribly afraid to stir, not having his ring. He won’t even come out of the dortoir until tomorrow. He is sick for loss of it.”
Yes, that seemed to be true. And how strange, thought Cadfael, pricked into realisation, to see a man sweating for fear, who has already calmly declared himself as one condemned to death? Then why fear? Fear should be dead.
Yet men are strange, he thought in revulsion. And a blessed and quiet death in Aberdaron, well-prepared, and surrounded by the prayers and compassion of like-minded votaries, may well seem a very different matter from crude slaughter by strangers and footpads somewhere in the wilder stretches of the road.
But this Simeon Poer—say he had such a dagger yesterday, and therefore may well have had it on him today, in the crowded array of the Mass. Then what did he do with it so quickly, before Ciaran discovered his loss? And how did he know he must perforce dispose of it quickly? Who had such fair warning of the need, if not the thief?
“Trouble your head no more,” said Cadfael, looking down at the boy’s beautiful, vulnerable face, “for Matthew nor for Ciaran, but think only of the morrow, when you approach the saint. Both she and God see you all, and have no need to be told of what your needs are. All you have to do is wait in quiet for whatever will be. For whatever it may be, it will not be wanton. Did you take your dose last night?”
Rhun’s pale, brilliant eyes were startled wide open, sunlight and ice, blindingly clear. “No. It was a good day, I wanted to give thanks. It isn’t that I don’t value what you can do for me. Only I wished also to give something. And I did sleep, truly I slept well…”
“So do tonight also,” said Cadfael gently, and slid an arm round the boy’s body to hoist him steadily upright. “Say your prayers, think quietly what you should do, do it, and sleep. There is no man living, neither king nor emperor, can do more or better, or trust in a better harvest.”
Ciaran did not stir from within the guest-hall again that day. Matthew did, against all precedent emerging from the arched doorway without his companion, and standing at the head of the stone staircase to the great court with hands spread to touch the courses of the deep doorway, and head drawn back to heave in great breaths of evening air. Supper was eaten, the milder evening stir of movement threaded the court, in the cool, grateful lull before Compline.
Brother Cadfael had left the chapter-house before the end of the readings, having a few things to attend to in the herbarium, and was crossing towards the garden when he caught sight of the young man standing there at the top of the steps, breathing in deeply and with evident pleasure. For some reason Matthew looked taller for being alone, and younger, his face closed but tranquil in the soft evening light. When he moved forward and began to descend to the court, Cadfael looked instinctively for the other figure that should have been close behind him, if not in its usual place a step before him, but no Ciaran emerged. Well, he had been urged to rest, and presumably was glad to comply, but never before had Matthew left his side, by night or day, resting or stirring. Not even to follow Melangell, except broodingly with his eyes and against his will.
People, thought Cadfael, going on his way without haste, people are endlessly mysterious, and I am endlessly curious. A sin to be confessed, no doubt, and well worth a penance. As long as man is curious about his fellowman, that appetite alone will keep him alive. Why do folk do the things they do? Why, if you know you are diseased and dying, and wish to reach a desired haven before the end, why do you condemn yourself to do the long journey barefoot, and burden yourself with a weight about your neck? How are you thus rendered more acceptable to God, when you might have lent a hand to someone on the road crippled not by perversity but from birth, like the boy Rhun? And why do you dedicate your youth and strength to following another man step by step the length of the land, and why does he suffer you to be his shadow, when he should be composing his mind to peace, and taking a decent leave of his friends, not laying his own load upon them?
There he checked, rounding the corner of the yew hedge into the rose garden. It was not his fellow-man he beheld, sitting in the turf on the far side of the flower beds, gazing across the slope of the pease fields beyond and the low, stony, silvery summer waters of the Meole brook, but his fellow-woman, solitary and still, her knees drawn up under her chin and encircled closely by her folded arms. Aunt Alice Weaver, no doubt, was deep in talk with half a dozen worthy matrons of her own generation, and Rhun, surely, already in his bed. Melangell had stolen away alone to be quiet here in the garden and nurse her lame dreams and indomitable hopes. She was a small, dark shape, gold-haloed against the bright west. By the look of that sky, tomorrow, Saint Winifred’s day, would again be cloudless and beautiful.
The whole width of the rose garden was between them, and she did not hear him come and pass by on the grassy path to his final duties of the day in his workshop, seeing everything put away tidily, checking the stoppers of all his flagons and flasks, and making sure the brazier, which had been in service earlier, was safely quenched and cooled. Brother Oswin, young, enthusiastic and devoted, was nonetheless liable to overlook details, though he had now outlived his tendency to break things. Cadfael ran an eye over everything, and found it good. There was no hurry now, he had time before Compline to sit down here in the wood-scented dimness and think. Time for others to lose and find one another, and use or waste these closing moments of the day. For those three blameless tradesmen, Walter Bagot, glover; John Shure, tailor; William Hales, farrier; to betake themselves to wherever their dice school was to meet this night, and run their necks into Hugh’s trap. Time for that more ambiguous character, Simeon Poer, to evade or trip into the same snare, or go the other way about some other nocturnal business of his own. Cadfael had seen two of the former three go out from the gatehouse, and the third follow some minutes later, and was sure in his own mind that the self-styled merchant of Guildford would not be long after them. Time, too, for that unaccountably solitary young man, somehow loosed off his chain, to range this whole territory suddenly opened to him, and happen upon the solitary girl.
Cadfael put up his feet on the wooden bench, and closed his eyes for a brief respite.
Matthew was there at her back before she knew it. The sudden rustle as he stepped into sun-dried long grass at the edge of the field startled her, and she swung round in alarm, scrambling to her knees and staring up into his face with dilated eyes, half-blinded by the blaze of the sunset into which she had been steadily staring. Her face was utterly open, vulnerable and childlike. She looked as she had looked when he had swept her up in his arms and leaped the ditch with her, clear of the galloping horses. Just
so she had opened her eyes and looked up at him, still dazed and frightened, and just so had her fear melted away into wonder and pleasure, finding in him nothing but reassurance, kindness and admiration.
That pure, paired encounter of eyes did not last long. She blinked, and shook her head a little to clear her dazzled vision, and looked beyond him, searching, not believing he could be here alone.
“Ciaran…? Is there something you need for him?”
“No,” said Matthew shortly, and for a moment turned his head away. “He’s in his bed.”
“But you never leave his bed!” It was said in innocence, even in anxiety. Whatever she grudged to Ciaran, she still pitied and understood him.
“You see I have left it,” said Matthew harshly. “I have needs, too… a breath of air. And he is very well where he is, and won’t stir.”
“I was well sure,” she said with resigned bitterness, “that you had not come out to look for me.” She made to rise, swiftly and gracefully enough, but he put out a hand, almost against his will, as it seemed, to take her under the wrist and lift her. It was withdrawn as abruptly when she evaded his touch, and rose to her feet unaided. “But at least,” she said deliberately, “you did not turn and run from me when you found me. I should be grateful even for that.”
“I am not free,” he protested, stung. “You know it better than any.”
“Then neither were you free when we kept pace along the road,” said Melangell fiercely, “when you carried my burden, and walked beside me, and let Ciaran hobble along before, where he could not see how you smiled on me then and were gallant and cherished me when the road was rough and spoke softly, as if you took delight in being beside me. Why did you not give me warning then that you were not free? Or better, take him some other way, and leave us alone? Then I might have taken good heed in time, and in time forgotten you. As now I never shall! Never, to my life’s end!”
