Holy Thief (18 page)

The
earl smiled, a smile of extraordinary subtlety and charm. “No, Father Abbot,
for this last move was different. She is here again because I, with a claim of
my own to advance, and having regard to yet another claim, with strict
fairness, brought her back to Shrewsbury, from which she began her controversial
odyssey, so that she herself might choose where she wished to rest. Never did
she show any disposition to leave my chapel, where her repose was respected.
Voluntarily I brought her with me. I do not therefore surrender my claim. She
came to me. I welcomed her. If she so please, I will take her home with me, and
provide her an altar as rich as yours.”

“My
lord,” pronounced Prior Robert, stiff with resistance and outrage, “your
argument will not stand. As saints may make use even of creatures of illwill
for their own purposes, so surely can they with more grace employ goodwill
where they find it. That you brought her here, back to her chosen home, does
not give you a better claim than ours, though it does you infinite credit.
Saint Winifred has been happy here seven years and more, and to this house she
has returned. She shall not leave it now.”

“Yet
she made it known to Brother Tutilo,” retorted Herluin, burning up in his turn,
“that she has felt compassion towards afflicted Ramsey, and wishes to benefit
us in our distress. You cannot ignore it, she wished to set out and she did set
out to come to our aid.”

“We
are all three resolved,” said the earl, with aggravating serenity and
consideration. “Should we not submit the decision to some neutral assessor and
abide by his judgement?”

There
was a sharp and charged silence. Then Radulfus said with composed authority:
“We already have an assessor. Let Saint Winifred herself declare her will
openly. She was a lady of great scholarship in her later life. She expounded
the Scriptures to her nuns, she will expound them now to her disciples. At the
consecration of every bishop the prognosis for his ministry is taken by laying
the Gospels upon his shoulders, and opening it to read the line decreed. We
will take the sortes Biblicae upon the reliquary of the saint, and never doubt
but she will make her judgement plain. Why delegate to any other the choice
which is by right hers?”

Out
of the longer silence while they all digested this fiat and readjusted to a
suggestion so unexpected, the earl said with evident satisfaction, indeed, to
Cadfael’s ears bordering on glee: “Agreed! There could be no fairer process.
Father Abbot, grant us today and tomorrow to set our minds in order, examine
our claims and take thought to pray only for what is due to us. And the third
day let these sortes be taken. We will present our pleas to the lady herself,
and accept whatever verdict she offers us.”

“Instruct
me,” said Hugh an hour later, in Cadfael’s workshop in the herb garden. “I am
not in the counsels of bishops and archbishops. Just how is the ordinance of
heaven to be interpreted in these sortes Biblicae Radulfus has in mind? Oh,
certainly I know the common practice of reading the future by opening the
Evangel blindly, and laying a finger on the page, but what is this official use
of it in consecrating a new bishop? Too late then, surely, to change him for a
better if the word goes against him.”

Cadfael
removed a simmering pot from the grid on the side of his brazier, set it aside on
the earth floor to cool, and added a couple of turfs to damp down the glow,
before straightening his back with some caution, and sitting down beside his
friend.

“I
have never been in attendance at such a consecration myself,” he said. “The
bishops keep it within the circle. I marvel how the results ever leak out, but
they do. Or someone makes them up, of course. Too sharp to be true, I sometimes
feel. But yes, they are taken just as Abbot Radulfus said, and very solemnly,
so I’m told. The book of the Gospels is laid on the shoulders of the newly
chosen bishop, and opened at random, and a finger laid on the page, “

“By
whom?” demanded Hugh, laying his own finger on the fatal flaw.

“Now
that I never thought to ask. Surely the archbishop or bishop who is officiating.
Though, granted, he could be friend or enemy to the new man. I trust they play
fair, but who knows? Bad or good, that line is the prognostic for the bishop’s
future ministry. Apt enough, sometimes. The good Bishop Wulstan of Worcester
got: ‘Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.’ Some were not so
lucky. Do you know, Hugh, what the sortes sent to Roger of Salisbury, who fell
into Stephen’s displeasure not so many years ago and died disgraced? ‘Bind his
hands and feet, and cast him into outer darknesss.’”

“Hard
to believe!” said Hugh, hoisting a sceptical eyebrow. “Did not someone think of
pinning that on him after his fall? I wonder what was heaven’s response to
Henry of Winchester when he achieved the bishopric? Even I can think of some
lines that would come too near the knuckle for his liking.”

“I
believe,” said Cadfael, “it was something from Matthew, concerning the latter
days when false prophets would multiply among us. Something to the effect that
if any man should claim: Here is Christ! do not believe him. But much can be
done with the interpretation.”

“That
will be the sticking point this time,” Hugh said shrewdly, “unless the Gospels
speak all too plainly, and can’t be misread. Why do you suppose the abbot ever
suggested it? Doubtless it could be arranged to give the right answers. But
not, I suspect, with Radulfus in charge. Is he so sure of heaven’s justice?”

Cadfael
had already been considering the same question, and could only conclude that
the abbot had indeed total faith that the Gospels would justify Shrewsbury in
possession of its saint. He never ceased to wonder at the irony of expecting
miracles from a reliquary in which her bones had once lain for only three days
and nights, before being returned reverently to her native Welsh earth; and
even more to be wondered at, the infinite mercy that had transmitted grace
through all those miles between, forgiven the presence of a sorry human sinner
in the coffin she had quitted, and let the radiance of miracle remain invisibly
about her altar, unpredictable, accessible, a shade wanton in where it gave and
where it denied, as the stuff of miracles is liable to be, at least to the
human view. She was not here, had never been here, never in what remained of
her fragile flesh; yet she had certainly consented to let her essence be
brought here, and manifested her presence with startling mercies.

“Yes,”
said Cadfael, “I think he trusts Winifred to see right done. I think he knows
that she never really left us, and never will.”

Cadfael
came back to his workshop after supper, to make his final round for the night,
damp down his brazier to burn slowly until morning, and make sure all his jars
were covered and all his bottles and flasks stoppered securely. He was expecting
no visitors at this hour, and swung about in surprise when the door behind him
was opened softly, almost stealthily, and the girl Daalny came in. The yellow
glow from his little oil lamp showed her in unusual array, her black hair
braided in a red ribbon, with curls artfully breaking free around her temples,
her gown deepest and brightest blue like her eyes, and a girdle of gold braid
round her hips. She was very quick; she caught the glance that swept over her
from head to foot, and laughed.

“My
finery for when he entertains. I have been singing for his lordship of
Leicester. Now they are talking intimate possibilities, so I slipped away. I
shall not be missed now. I think Rémy will be riding back to Leicester with
Robert Bossu, if he plays his cards cleverly. And I told you, he is a good
musician. Leicester would not be cheated.”

“Is
he in need of my medicines again?” asked Cadfael practically.

“No.
Nor am I.” She was restless, moving uneasily about the hut as once before,
curious but preoccupied, and slow to come to what had brought her on this
errand. “Bénezet is saying that Tutilo is taken for murder. He says Tutilo
killed the man he tricked into helping him to steal away your saint. That
cannot be true,” she said with assured authority. “There is no harm and no
violence in Tutilo. He dreams. He does not do.”

“He
did more than dream when he purloined our saint,” Cadfael pointed out
reasonably.

“He
dreamed that before he did it. Oh, yes, he might thieve, that’s a different
matter. He longed to give his monastery a wonderful gift, to fulfil his visions
and be valued and praised. I doubt if he would steal for himself, but for
Ramsey, yes, surely he would. He was even beginning to dream of freeing me from
my slavery,” she said tolerantly, and smiled with the resigned amusement of one
experienced beyond young Tutilo’s innocent understanding. “But now you have him
somewhere under lock and key, and with nothing good to look forward to,
whatever follows. If your saint is to remain here now, then even if Tutilo escapes
the sheriffs law, if Herluin takes him back to Ramsey they’ll make him pay
through his skin for what he attempted and failed to bring to success. They’ll
starve and flay him. And if it goes the other way, and he’s called guilty of
murder, then, worse, he’ll hang.” She had arrived, finally, at what she really
wanted to know: “Where have you put him? I know he’s a prisoner.”

“He
is in the first penitentiary cell, close to the passage to the infirmary,” said
Cadfael. There are but two, we have few offenders in the general way of things.
At least the locked door designed to keep him in also keeps his enemies out, if
he can be said to have any enemies. I looked in on him not half an hour ago,
and he is fast asleep, and by the look of him he’ll sleep until past Prime
tomorrow.”

“Because
he has nothing on his conscience,” Daalny snapped triumphantly, “just as I
said.”

“I
would not say he has always told us all the truth,” said Cadfael mildly, “if
that’s a matter for his conscience. But I don’t grudge him his rest, poor imp,
he needs it.”

She
shrugged that off lightly, pouting long lips. “Of course he is a very good
liar, that’s part of his fantasies. You would have to be very sure of him and
of yourself to know when he’s lying, and when he’s telling the truth. One knows
another!” she agreed defiantly, meeting Cadfael’s quizzical look. “I’ve had to
be a good liar myself to keep my head above water all this time. So has he. But
do murder? No, that’s far out of his scope.”

And
still she did not go, but hovered, touching with long fingers along his shelves
of vessels, reaching up to rustle the hanging bunches of herbs overhead,
keeping only her profile towards him. There was more she wanted to know, but
hesitated how to ask, or better, how to find out what she needed without
asking.

“They
will feed him, will they not? You cannot starve a man. Who will look after him?
Is it you?”

“No,”
said Cadfael patiently. The porters will take him his food. But I can visit
him. Can, and will. Girl, if you wish him well, leave him where he is.”

“Small
choice I have!” said Daalny bitterly. Not, however, quite bitterly enough,
Cadfael thought. Rather to present the appearance of resignation than to accept
it. She was beginning to have dreams of her own and hers would proceed to
action. She had only to watch the porter’s moves next day to learn the times
when he visited his charge, and espy where the two keys of the penal cells hung
side by side in the gatehouse. And Wales was not far, and in any princely llys
in that country, great or small, such a voice as Tutilo’s, such a deft hand on
strings, would easily find shelter. But to go with the slur of murder still
upon him, and always the threat of pursuit and capture? No, better far sit it
out here and shame the devil. For Cadfael was certain that Tutilo had never
done violence to any man, and must not be marked with that obloquy for life.

Still
Daalny lingered, as if minded to say or ask something more, her thin oval face
sharply alert and her eyes half-veiled but very bright within the long dark
lashes. Then she turned and departed very quietly. From the threshold she said:
“Goodnight, Brother!” without turning her head, and closed the door behind her.

He
gave little thought to it then, reasoning that she was not in such grave
earnest that she would actually attempt to turn her indignant dream into
action. But he did reconsider next day, when he saw her watching the passage of
the porter from the refectory before noon, and following him with her eyes as
he turned in between infirmary and schoolroom, where the two small stony cells
were built into the angle of the wall, close to the wicket that led through to
the mill and the pond. When he was out of sight she crossed the great court to
the gatehouse, passed by the open door apparently without a glance, and stood
for some minutes in the gateway, looking along the Foregate, before turning
back towards the guesthouse. The board that held the keys in the porter’s
charge hung just within the doorway, and she had sharp enough eyes to pick out
the nail that was empty, and the fellow to the absent key close beside it.
Alike in size and general appearance, but not in the guards that operated them.

And
even this unobtrusive surveillance might be only a part of her fantasy. She
might never try to turn it into reality. All the same, Cadfael had a word with
the porter before evening. She would not move until dusk or even darkness; no
need to observe the passage of Tutilo’s supper, she knew now which key she
needed. All that was necessary was for the porter to replace it on the wrong
nail before going to Compline, and leave her its ineffective twin.