The balance was instantly restored. Robert erected his impressive silvery head, and a wave of triumphant colour swept up from his long throat and flushed his cheeks. In a voice hesitant between exultation and awe he read out: “Saint John, the fifteenth chapter and the sixteenth verse: ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.’ “
All round the assembly of brothers waiting and watching with held breath, the great shudder and sigh passed like a gust of wind, or the surging of a wave up the shore, and then, like the shattering of the wave in spray, disintegrated into a whispering, stirring murmur as they shifted, nudged one another, shook with relief and a suggestion of hysterical emotion between laughter and tears. Abbot Radulfus stiffened instantly into rigid authority, and lifted a sobering hand to still the incipient storm.
“Silence! Respect this holy place, and abide all fates with composure, as mankind should. Father Prior, come down to us now. All that was needful has been done.”
Prior Robert was still so blind that he almost stumbled on the steps, but recovered himself with aristocratic dignity and by the time he reached the tiles of the floor was his complacent official self again. Whether the experience of religious dread had left any permanent effect would have to be left to the test of time. Cadfael thought, probably not. It had left at any rate a forcible temporary effect upon his own more cautious but equally human complacency. For a while he would be treading very softly, for awe of this little Welsh saint’s indignation and forbearance.
“Father,” said Prior Robert, his voice again all measured and mellifluous resonance, “I have delivered faithfully the lot committed to me. Now these fates can be interpreted.”
Oh, yes, he was himself again, he would be trailing this glory after him for as long as it still shed lustre. But at least for those few moments he had shown as human, like other men. No one who had seen would quite forget it.
“Father Abbot,” said the earl handsomely, “I withdraw all claim. I surrender even the question as to how I can be standing here in her virgin company, and still be told that where she is I may never come. Though I confess there is probably a story there that I should very much like to hear.” Yes, he was very quick, as Cadfael had realized, paradox was pleasure to him. “The field is yours, out and out,” said Robert Bossu heartily. “Clearly this blessed lady has brought herself home again without aid from me or anyone. I give you joy of her! And I would not for the world meddle with her plans, though I am proud that she has consented on the way to visit me for a while. With your leave, I will make an offering by way of acknowledgement.”
“I think,” said Radulfus, “that Saint Winifred might be pleased if you think fit to make your offering, in her honour, to the abbey of Ramsey. We are all brothers of one Order. And even if she has been put out by human errors and offences, I am sure she will not hold that against a brother-house in distress.”
They were both of them talking in these high and ceremonious terms, Cadfael suspected, in order to smooth away the first sore moments, and give Sub-Prior Herluin time to master his chagrin, and achieve a graceful retreat. He had swallowed the worst of his gall, although with a gulp that almost choked him. He was capable of acknowledging defeat with decent civility. But nothing, nothing would soften his mind now against that hapless youngster held safely under lock and key to await his penance.
“I feel shame,” said Herluin tightly, “for myself and for my abbey, that we have nourished and sheltered and trusted in a very false aspirant to brotherhood. My abbey I dare excuse. Myself I cannot. Surely I should have been better armed against the deceits of the devil. Blind and foolish I confess myself, but I never willed evil against this house, and I abase myself in acknowledgement of the wrong done, and ask forgiveness. His lordship of Leicester has spoken also for me. The field is yours, Father Abbot. Receive all its honour and all its spoils.”
There are ways of abasing oneself, though Prior Robert would perhaps have managed them with better grace had things gone otherwise!, as a means of exalting oneself. Those two were well matched, though Robert, being somewhat more nobly born, had the more complete mastery, and perhaps rather less burning malice when bested.
“If all are content,” said Radulfus, finding these exchanges growing not merely burdensome, but longwinded, “I would desire to close this assembly with prayer, and so disperse.”
They were still on their knees after the last Amen, when a sudden gust of wind arose, blowing past the nave altar and into the choir, as though from the south door, though there had been no sound of the latch lifting or the door creaking. Everyone felt it, and the air being still pregnant with prophecy and contention, everyone started and pricked attentive ears, and several opened their eyes to look round towards the source of this abrupt wind from the outer world. Brother Rhun, Saint Winifred’s devoted cavalier, turned his beautiful head instantly to look towards her altar, his first jealous care being always for her service and worship. High and clear through the silence he cried aloud: “Father, look to the altar! The pages of the Gospels are turning!”
Prior Robert, descending from his high place still blinded, with his triumph swirling about him in clouds of glory, had left the Gospels open where his victory had been written, Saint John, the last of the evangelists, far on in the volume. All eyes opened now to stare, and indeed the pages of the book were turning back, slowly, hesitantly, lingering erect only to slide onward, sometimes a single leaf, sometimes a stronger breath riffling several over together, almost as though fingers lifted and guided them, even fluttered them past in haste. The Gospels were turning back, out of John into Luke, out of Luke into Mark... and beyond... They were all watching in fascination, hardly noticing, hardly understanding, that the abrupt wind from the south door had fallen into total stillness, and still, leaf by leaf now and slowly and deliberately, the leaves kept turning. They rose, they hung almost still, and gradually they declined and were flattened into the bulk of the later books of the Evangel.
For by now they must be in Matthew. And now the pace slowed, leaf by leaf rose, quivered erect, and slowly descended. The last to turn settled lightly, not quite flat to its fellows, but then lay still, not a breath left of the wind that had fluttered the pages.
For some moments no one stirred. Then Abbot Radulfus rose and went to the altar. What spontaneous air had written must be of more than natural significance. He did not touch, but stood looking down at the page.
“Come, some of you. Let there be witnesses more than myself.”
Prior Robert was at the foot of the steps in a moment, tall enough to see and read without mounting. Cadfael came close on the other side. Herluin held off, too deeply sunk in his own turmoil of mind to be much concerned about further wonders, but the earl drew close in candid curiosity, craning to see the spread pages. On the left side the leaf rose a little, gently swaying from its own tensions, for there was now no breath of wind. The righthand page lay still, and in the spine a few white petals lay, and a single hard bud of blackthorn, the white blossom just breaking out of the dark husk.
“I have not touched,” said Radulfus, “for this is no asking of mine or any here. I take the omen as grace. And I accept this bud as the finger of truth thus manifested. It points me to the verse numbered twenty-one, and the line is: ‘And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death.’ “
There was a long, awed silence. Prior Robert put out a reverent hand to touch the tiny drift of loose petals, and the one bursting bud that had lodged in the spine.