Holy Thief (13 page)

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.

Cadfael
could not choose but feel some sympathy for one whose dubious but daring
enterprise had come full circle, and now threatened him with disgrace and
punishment; all the more as Cadfael himself had just been spared a possibly
similar exposure. The lid of the reliquary, with its silver chasing exposed to
view, no doubt to be instantly recognizable on entering the court, was still
securely sealed down. No one had tampered with it, no one had viewed the body
within. Cadfael at least could breathe again.

Prior
Robert on his own ground had taken charge of all. The excited brothers raised
the reliquary, and bore it away into the church, to its own altar, and Tutilo
followed devotedly. The grooms and novices led away the horses, and wheeled
away the light carriage into the grange court for housing. Robert, Herluin,
Hugh and the stranger departed in the direction of the abbot’s lodging, where
Radulfus had already come out to greet them.

Stranger
this new guest might be, certainly Cadfael had never seen him before, but it
was no particular problem to work out who he must be, even if that left his
presence here as a mystery. Not far from Leicester the ambush had taken place.
Here was clearly a magnate of considerable power and status, why look further
afield for his name? And Cadfael had not missed the heave of the misshapen
shoulder, visible now in this rear view as a distinct hump, though not grave
enough to disfigure an otherwise finely proportioned body. It was well known
that the younger Beaumont twin was a marked man. Robert Bossu they called him,
Robert the Hunchback, and reputedly he made no objection to the title.

So
what was Robert Bossu doing here? They had all disappeared into the abbot’s
hall now, whatever chance had brought him visiting would soon be known. And
what Hugh had to say to Abbot Radulfus would soon be talked over again with
Brother Cadfael. He had only to wait until this conference of sacred and
secular powers was over.

Meantime,
he reminded himself, since the entire company was now assembled, he had better
be about sending off Father Boniface’s errand-boy to find Aldhelm at Upton
among his sheep, and ask him to come down to the abbey when his work for the
day was over, and pick out his shadowy Benedictine from among a number now
complete.

There
was a silence in Cadfael’s workshop in the herb garden, once Hugh had told the
full story of Saint Winifred’s odyssey, and how, and in what mood, Robert
Beaumont had entered the contest to possess her.

“Is
he in earnest?” asked Cadfael then.

“Halfway.
He is playing, passing the tedious time while there’s virtually no fighting and
very little manoeuvring, and while he wants none, but is uneasy being still.
Short of employment, barring a difficult business of protecting his brother’s
interests here, as Waleran is protecting Robert’s over in Normandy, as well as
he can, this one enjoys putting the fox among the fowls, especially two such
spurred and hackled cockerels as your prior and Ramsey’s Herluin. There’s no
malice in it,” said Hugh tolerantly. “Should I grudge him his sport? I’ve done
the like in my time.”

“But
he’ll hold to it he has a claim?”

“As
long as it amuses him, and he has nothing better to do. Good God, they put the
notion into his head themselves! One might almost think, says Robert, our
Robert, must I call him?, that she has been directing affairs herself! Almost
one might, says the other Robert, and I saw the seed fall on fertile ground,
and there he’s tended it ever since. But never fret about him, he’ll never push
it to the length of humiliating either of them, let alone Abbot Radulfus, whom
he recognizes as his match.”

“It
hardly shows,” said Cadfael thoughtfully, going off at a surprising tangent.

“What
does?”

“The
hump. Robert Bossu! I’d heard the name, who has not? Robert and Waleran of
Beaumont seem to have parted company these last years, twins or no. The elder
has been in Normandy for four years now, Stephen can hardly count him as the
staunch supporter he used to be.”

“Nor
does he,” agreed Hugh dryly. “Stephen knows when he’s lost a sound man. More
than likely he fully understands the reason, and it can hardly be accounted any
man’s fault. The pair of them have lands both here in England and over in
Normandy, and since Geoffrey of Anjou has made himself master of Normandy, on
his son’s behalf, every man in Stephen’s backing fears for his lands over
there, and must be tempted to change sides to keep Anjou’s favour. The French
and Norman lands matter most to Waleran, who can wonder that he’s gone over
there and made himself at least acceptable to Geoffrey, rather than risk being
dispossessed. It’s more than the lands. He got the French possessions, the
heart of the honour, when their father died, he’s count of Meulan, and his line
is bound up in the title. Without Meulan he’d be nameless. Robert’s inheritance
was the English lands. Breteuil came only by marriage, this is where he belongs.
So Waleran goes where his roots are, to keep them safe from being torn up, even
if he must do homage to Anjou for the soil they’ve been firm in for
generations. Where his heart is I am not sure. He owes allegiance to Geoffrey
now, but does as little to aid him and as little to harm Stephen as possible,
protecting both his own and his brother’s interests there, while Robert does as
much for him here. They both hold off from what action there is. Small wonder!”
said Hugh. “There is also a matter of sheer weariness. This chaos has gone on
too long.”

“It
is never easy,” said Cadfael sententiously, “to serve two masters, even when
there are two brothers to share the labour.”

“There
are others with the same anxieties,” said Hugh.