Leaving the church, Cadfael halted for a moment to snuff the air and survey the sky, which by this hour hung heavy with dropsical clouds, through which the moon occasionally glared for an instant, and was as quickly obscured again. When he went to close up his workshop for the night he observed that the waters of the brook had laid claim to another yard or so of the lower rim of his peasefields.
All night long from the Matins bell it rained heavily.
In the morning, about Prime, Hugh Beringar, King Stephen’s sheriff of Shropshire, came down in haste out of the town to carry the first warning of trouble ahead, sending his officers to cry the news along the Foregate, while he brought it in person to Abbot Radulfus.
“Word from Pool last evening, Severn’s well out below the town, and still raining heavily in Wales. Upriver beyond Montford the meadows are under water, and the main bulk still on its way down, and fast. I’d advise moving what’s valuable, stores can’t be risked, with transport threatened.” In time of flood the town, all but the encrustation of fishermen’s and small craft dwellings along the riverside, and the gardens under the wall, would be safe enough, but the Foregate could soon be under water, and parts of the abbey enclave were the lowest ground, threatened on every side by the river itself, the Meole Brook driven backwards by the weight of water, and the mill pond swelled by the pressure from both. I’d lend you some men, but we’ll need to get some of the waterside dwellers up into the town.”
“We have hands enough, we can shift for ourselves,” said the abbot. “My thanks for the warning. You think it will be a serious flood?”
“No knowing yet, but you’ll have time to prepare. If you mean to load that timber from Longner this evening, better have your wagon round by the Horse Fair. The level there is safe enough, and you can go in and out to your stable and loft by the cemetery gates.”
“Just as well,” said Radulfus, “if Herluin’s men can get their load away tomorrow, and be on their way home.” He rose to go and rally his household to the labour pending, and Hugh, for once, made for the gatehouse without looking up Brother Cadfael on the way. But it happened that Cadfael was rounding the hedge from the garden in considerable haste, just in time to cross his friend’s path. The Meole Brook was boiling back upstream, and the mill pool rising.
“Ah!” said Cadfael, pulling up sharply. “You’ve been before me, have you? The abbot’s warned?”
“He is, and you can pause and draw breath,” said Hugh, checking in his own flight to fling an arm about Cadfael’s shoulders. “Not that we know what we can expect, not yet. It may be less than we fear, but better be armed. The lowest of the town’s awash. Bring me to the gate, I’ve scarcely seen you this side Christmas.”
“It won’t last long,” Cadfael assured him breathlessly. “Soon up, soon down. Two or three days wading, longer to clean up after it, but we’ve done it all before.”
“Better make sure of what medicines may be wanted, and get them above-stairs in the infirmary. Too much wading, and you’ll be in a sickbed yourself.”
“I’ve been putting them together already,” Cadfael assured him. “I’m off to have a word with Edmund now. Thanks be, Aline and Giles are high and dry, up there by Saint Mary’s. All’s well with them?”
“Very well, but that it’s too long since you came to see your godson.” Hugh’s horse was hitched by the gatehouse; he reached to the bridle. “Make it soon, once Severn’s back in its bed.”
“I will so. Greet her for me, and make my peace with the lad.”
And Hugh was in the saddle, and away along the highroad to hunt out and confer with the provost of the Foregate; and Cadfael tucked up his habit and made for the infirmary. There would be heavier valuables to move to higher ground later, but his first duty was to make sure he had whatever medicaments might be needed in some readily accessible place, clear of the waters which were slowly creeping up from the thwarted Meole Brook one way, and the congested millpond another.
High Mass was observed as always, reverently and with out haste, that morning, but chapter was a matter of minutes, devoted mainly to allotting all the necessary tasks to appropriate groups of brothers, and ensuring an orderly and decorous move. First to wrap all those valuables that might have to be carried up staircases or lifted into lofts, and for the moment leave them, already protected, where they were. No need to move them before the rising waters made it essential. There were things to be lifted from the lowest points of the enclave long before the flood could lip at the church itself.
The stable-yard lying at a low point of the court, they moved the horses out to the abbey barn and loft by the Horse Fair ground, where there was fodder enough in store without having to cart any from the lofts within the enclave, where stocks were safe enough. Even the Severn in spring flood after heavy snows and torrential rain had never reached the upper storey, and never would; there was more than enough lower ground along its course into which to overflow. In places it would be a mile or more wide, in acres of drowned meadow, before ever it invaded the choir. The nave had been known to float a raft now and again over the years, once even a light boat. That was the most they need fear. So they swathed all the chests and coffers that housed the vestments, the plate, the crosses and candlesticks and furnishings of the altars, and the precious minor relics of the treasury. And Saint Winifred’s silver-chased reliquary they wrapped carefully in old, worn hangings and a large brychan, but left her on her altar until it should become clear that she must be carried to a higher refuge. If that became necessary, this would be the worst flood within Cadfael’s recollection by at least a foot; and if ever during this day the worst threatened, she would have to be removed, something which had never happened since she was brought here.
Cadfael forbore from eating that noon, and while the rest of the household, guests and all, were taking hasty refreshment, he went in and kneeled before her altar, as sometimes he did in silence, too full of remembering to pray, though there seemed, nevertheless, to be a dialogue in progress. If any kindly soul among the saints knew him through and through, it was Winifred, his young Welsh girl, who was not here at all, but safe and content away in her own Welsh earth at Gwytherin. No one knew it but the lady, her servant and devotee Cadfael, who had contrived her repose there, and Hugh Beringar, who had been let into the secret late. Here in England, no one else; but in her own Wales, her own Gwytherin, it was no secret, but a central tenet of Welsh faith never needing mention. She was with them still; all was well.
So it was not her rest, not hers, that was threatened now, only the uneasy repose of an ambitious, unstable young man who had done murder in pursuit of his own misguided dreams, greed for the abbey of Shrewsbury, greed for his own advancement. His death had afforded Winifred peace to remain where her heart clove to the beloved soil. That, at least, might almost be counted alleviation against his sins. For she had not withdrawn her blessing, because a sinner lay in the coffin prepared for her, and was entreated in her name. Where he was, and she was not, she had done miracles of grace.
“Geneth... Cariad!” said Cadfael silently. “Girl, dear, has he been in purgatory long enough? Can you lift even him out of his mire?”
During the afternoon the gradual rise of the brook and the river seemed to slow and hold constant, though there was certainly no decline. They began to think that the peril would pass. Then in the late evening the main body of the upland water from Wales came swirling down in a riot of muddy foam, torn branches, and not a few carcases of sheep caught and drowned on mounds too low to preserve them. Rolled and tumbled in the flood, trees lodged under the bridge and piled the turgid water even higher. Every soul in the enclave turned to in earnest, and helped to remove the precious furnishings to higher refuge, as brook and river and pond together advanced greedily into all the lower reaches of the court and cemetery, and gnawed at the steps of the west and south doors, turning the cloister garth into a shallow and muddy lake.