Both his neighbours 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
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, goodnatured face and a thick head of reddish hair. Haled in to help salvage the church’s treaures, 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 rumours. 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 colours, 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, decently 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 behaviour. 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.