“But then,” said Radulfus, thoughtfully frowning, “why come to me now, and confess the very thing of which the witness could have accused him?”
“Because he had not fully realized that suspicion would still follow him, and now it would be suspicion of murder. In such a case better to accept whatever penalties the Church might impose, however harsh, for theft and deceit, rather than fall into the hands of the secular law, my law,” said Hugh firmly, “where murder is a hanging matter. If by submitting to the one guilt he could evade all suspicion upon the worse count... he is quite shrewd enough, I fancy, to make the choice and quite durable enough to abide it. Father Herluin should know him better than we.”
But Cadfael was certain by then that Herluin did not know his Tutilo at all, probably never had any clear idea what went on in the minds of any of his novices, because he paid no regard to them. Hugh’s prompting, perhaps intentionally, had put him into a difficult position. He would want to distance himself and Ramsey in horror from any possibility of having harboured a murderer, but while the possibility still remained of profiting by a theft, holy or unholy, he would want to retain the appearance of valuing and believing in the thief.
“Brother Tutilo has not been in my especial care until this journey,” he said carefully, “but I have always found him truly devoted to our house of Ramsey. He says that he had his directions in prayer and reverence from the saint, and I have every reason to believe him. Such saintly inspirations have been known. It would be presumptuous to flout them.”
“We are speaking of murder,” said Radulfus austerely. “In all honesty, though I should be loth to say of any man that he is capable of killing, I dare not say of any man that he is wholly incapable of it. The boy was present on that path, by his own statement and actions, he had, however he might regret the act afterwards, cause to be rid of a man who could accuse him. That is as far as there is witness against him. For him it must be said that he went at once to report the death to authority, and then came back to us and again told the same story. Does it not seem to you that had the guilt been his, he could have come straight home and said never a word, and left it to some other to find the dead and sound the alarm?”
“We might well have wondered,” said Prior Robert flatly, “at his state. The sheriff has said he was in great agitation. It is not easy to show calm and unshaken before others, after such a deed.”
“Or after the discovery of such a deed,” said Hugh fairly.
“Whatever the truth of it,” said the earl with assurance, “you have him safe in hold, you need only wait, and if he has indeed more and worse to tell, you may get it from the lad himself. I doubt if he is a hard enough case to brazen it out for long in confinement. If he adds nothing, after a few weeks, you may take it he has nothing to add.”
That might very well be wisdom, Cadfael thought, listening respectfully. What could be more debilitating to the young, what harder to bear with constancy, than being shut into a narrow stone cell, under lock and key, with only a narrow cot, a tiny reading desk and a crucifix on the wall for company, and the length of half a dozen stone flags for exercise? Though Tutilo had entered it, only half an hour ago, with evident relief and pleasure, and even heard the key turned in the lock without a tremor. The bed was gift enough. Narrow and hard it might be, but it was large enough for him, and blissfully welcome. But leave him there alone and snared for as long as ten days, and yes, if he had by then any secrets left, he would confide them all in exchange for the air of the great court, and the music of the Office.
“I have no time to spend here in waiting,” said Herluin. “My mission is to take back to Ramsey such alms as I have been able to gain, at least by the goodwill of Worcester and Evesham. And unless some secular charge is made against Tutilo, I must take him back with me. If he has offended against Church law or the Rule of the Order, it is for Ramsey to discipline him. His own abbot must take that charge upon him. But by the leave of all here, I challenge your view, Father Abbot, that he has committed any offence touching the removal of Saint Winifred’s reliquary. I repeat, this was a holy theft, undertaken in duty and reverence. The saint herself instructed him. If it were not so, she would never have allowed it to succeed.”
“I tremble at crossing swords with you,” said Robert Bossu in the sweetest and most reasonable of voices, his high shoulder leaned at ease against the panelled wall at his back, “but I must observe that she did not allow it to succeed. The wagon that carried her was waylaid and stolen by vagabonds in the forests of my domain, and in my lands she came to rest.”
“That intervention was by the malice of evil men,” said Herluin, roused and fiery of eye.
“But you have acknowledged that the power of such a saint can and will frustrate the malice of evil men. If she did not see fit to prevent their actions, it must be because they served her purposes. She let pass her abduction from Shrewsbury, she let pass the onslaught of outlaws. In my woodland she came to rest, and to my house she was carried into sanctuary. By your own reasoning, Father, all this, if any, must have been achieved by her will.”
“I would remind you both,” said the abbot gently, “that if she has been all this while consulting her own wishes, and imposing them upon us mortals, Saint Winifred is again on her own altar in our church. This, then, must be the end at which all this diversion was aiming. And she is where she desires to be.”
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?”