Holy Thief (7 page)

The
vestments, furnishings, plate, crosses, all the treasury was carried up into
the two rooms over the north porch, where Cynric the verger lived and Father
Boniface robed. The reliquaries which held the smaller relics went out by the
cemetery doors to the loft over the Horse Fair barn. A day which had never been
fully light declined early into gloomy twilight, and there was a persistent,
depressing drizzle that clung clammily to eyelids and lashes and lips, adding
to the discomfort.

Two
carters from Longner had brought down the promised load of wood for rebuilding,
and begun to transfer it to the larger abbey wagon for the journey back to
Ramsey. The coffer containing Shrewsbury’s gifts for the cause still stood on
the altar of the Lady Chapel, key in lock, ready to be handed over to the
steward Nicol for safe transport on the morrow. That altar stood high enough to
survive all but a flood of Biblical proportions. The Longner carters had
brought with them a third willing helper, a shepherd from the neighbouring
hamlet of Preston. But the three had barely begun transferring their load when
they were haled away agitatedly by Brother Richard to help carry out from the
church, or set at a safe height within, some of the abbey’s threatened
treasures. Brothers and guests were at the same somewhat confused task in near
darkness.

Within
an hour most of the necessary salvage had been done, and the guests began to
withdraw to higher and dryer pastures, before the rising water should reach
their knees. It grew quiet within the nave, only the light slapping of
disturbed water against pillars as some stalwart splashed back thankfully to
the upstairs comfort of the guesthall. Rémy’s man Bénezet was the last to go,
booted to the knee, and well cloaked against the drizzle.

The
Longner carters and their helper went back to stacking their timber; but a
small brother, cowled and agitated, reached a hand to detain the last of them,
the shepherd from Preston. “Friend, there’s one thing more here to go with the
cart to Ramsey. Give me a hand with it.”

All
but the altar lights had burned out by then. The shepherd let himself be led by
the hand, and felt his way to one end of a long, slender burden well swathed in
brychans. They lifted it between them, a weight easy for two. The single altar
lamp cast yellowish light within the Benedictine cowl as they straightened up,
stroked briefly over an earnest, smooth face, and guttered in the draught from
the sacristy door. Together they carried their burden out between the graves of
the abbots to where the abbey wagon stood drawn up outside the heavy double
gates. The two men from Longner were up on their own cart, shifting logs along
to the rear, to be the more easily lifted down between them for transfer to the
larger wagon, and the dusk lay over all, thick with the beginning of a moist
and clammy mist. The swathed burden was hoisted aboard, and aligned neatly
alongside the cordwood already loaded. By the time the young brother had
straightened his back, dusted his hands, and withdrawn briskly towards the open
gate, the two carters had hefted another load of timber aboard, and were off to
their cart again for the next. The last fold of the outer wrapping, a momentary
glitter of gilt embroidery now frayed and threadbare, vanished under the
gleanings of the Longner coppices.

Somewhere within
the graveyard, and retreating into the darkness of the church, a light voice
called thanks and blessings to them, and a hearty goodnight.

Chapter Three.

IN
THE MORNING, immediately after High Mass, the borrowed wagon set out for
Ramsey. The coffer from the altar was confided to Nicol for safekeeping, and
though one of his companions from Ramsey was to travel on with Herluin to
Worcester, the addition to the party for home of three craftsmen seeking work
offered a reassuringly stout guard for the valuables aboard. The timber was
well secured, the team of four horses had spent the night comfortably in the
stable at the Horse Fair, above the flood level, and was ready for the road.

Their
way lay eastward, out by Saint Giles, and once clear of the watermeadows and
over the bridge by Atcham they would be moving away from the river’s coils, and
out upon good roads, open and well used. Nearer to their destination,
considering how Geoffrey de Mandeville’s cutthroats must be scattering for
cover now, they might have occasion to be glad of three tough Shropshire lads,
all good men of their hands.

The
cart rattled away along the Foregate. They would be some days on the road, but
at least in regions further removed from the mountains of Wales, which had
launched such a weight of thaw-water down into the lowlands after the heavy
winter snows.

An
hour or so later Sub-Prior Herluin also set forth, attended by Tutilo and the
third lay servant, to turn southeastward at Saint Giles. Possibly it had not
yet dawned on Herluin that the floods he was thankfully leaving behind here
might keep pace with him downstream and overtake him triumphantly at Worcester.
The speed at which the flood-water travelled could be erratic in some winters;
it might even be ahead of him when he reached the level meadows below the city.

Rémy
of Pertuis made no move to depart. Even the lower living floor of the guesthall
remained dry and snug enough, being raised upon a deep undercroft and
approached by a flight of stone steps, so he was left to nurse his sore throat
in comparative warmth and comfort. His best horse, his own riding horse, was
still lame, according to his man Bénezet, who had the charge of the horses, and
daily plashed impassively through the shallows of the court to tend them in the
stable at the Horse Fair. The stable-yard within the enclave lay almost
knee-deep in water, and might remain so for several days yet. Bénezet
recommended a longer wait here, and his master, it seemed, thinking of possible
inconveniences on the way north to Chester, what with the upstream Severn and
the incalculable Dee to cope with, had no objection to make. He was dry and fed
and safe where he was. And the rain seemed to be moving away. Westward the
cloud was clearing, only a desultory shower or two punctuated the featureless
calm of the day’s routine.

The
horarium proceeded stubbornly in spite of difficulties. The choir remained just
above the level of the waters, and could be reached dryshod by the night stairs
from the dortoir, and the floor of the chapterhouse was barely covered on the
first and second day, and on the third was seen to be retaining only the dark,
moist lines between the flags. That was the first sign that the river had
reasserted its powers, and was again carrying away its great weight of waters.
Two more days passed before the change was perceptible by the fast flow of the
brook, and the withdrawal of the overflow into its bed, sinking gradually
through the saturated grass and leaving a rim of debris to mark the decline.
The mill pond sank slowly, clawing turf and leaves down from the lower reaches
of the gardens it had invaded. Even along Severnside under the town walls the
level sank day by day, relinquishing the fringe of little houses and
fishermen’s huts and boat-sheds stained by mud and littered with the jetsam of
branches and bushes.

Within
the week brook and river and pond were back in their confines, full but still
gradually subsiding. The tide-mark left in the nave had after all reached no
higher than the top of the second step of Saint Winifred’s altar.

“We
need never have moved her,” said Prior Robert, viewing the proof of it and
shaking his head. “We should have had more faith. Surely she is well able to
take care of herself and her flock. She had but to command, and the waters
would have abated.”

Nevertheless,
an abode damp, clammy and cold, and filthy with mud and rubbish, was no fit
place to bring a saint. They fell to work without complaint, sweeping and
polishing and mopping up the puddles left in every irregularity in the floor
tiles. They brought the cresset stones, all three, into the nave, filled all
their cups with oil, and lit them to dry out the lingering dampness and warm
the air. Floral essences added to the oil fought valiantly against the stink of
the river. Undercrofts, storehouses, barns and stables would also need
attention, but the church was the first priority. When it was again fit to
receive and house them, all the treasures could be restored to their places
here within the fold.

Abbot
Radulfus marked the purification of the holy place with a celebratory Mass.
Then they began to carry back from their higher sanctuaries the furnishings of
the altars, the chests of vestments and plate, the candlesticks, newly
polished, the frontals and hangings, the minor reliquaries. It was accepted
without question that all must be restored and immaculate before the chief
grace and adornment of the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul was brought back
with all due ceremony to her rightful place, newly swept and garnished to
receive her.

“Now,”
said Prior Robert, straightening joyfully to his full majestic height, “let us
bring back Saint Winifred to her altar. She was carried, as all here know, into
the upper room over the north porch.” The little outer door there at the corner
of the porch, and the spiral staircase within, very difficult for the transport
of even a small coffin, had remained accessible until the highest point of the
flood, and she had been well padded against any damage in transit. “Let us go,”
declaimed Robert, “in devotion and joy, and bring her back to her mission and
benediction among us.”

He
had always, thought Cadfael, resignedly following through the narrow, retired
door and up the tricky stair, this conviction that he owns the girl, because he
believes, no, God be good to him, poor soul, he mistakenly but surely knows!
that he brought her here. God forbid he should ever find out the truth, that
she is far away in her own chosen place, and her connivance with his pride in
her is only a kindhearted girl’s mercy to an idiot child.

Cynric,
Father Boniface’s parish verger, had surrendered his small dwelling above the
porch to the housing of the church treasures while the flood lasted. He would
be back in possession soon; a tall, gaunt, quiet man, lantern-faced, a figure
of awe to ordinary mortals, but totally accepted by the innocents, for the
children of the Foregate, and their inseparable camp-followers, the dogs, came
confidently to his hand, and sat and meditated contentedly on the steps with
him in summer weather. His narrow room was bare now of all but the last and
most precious resident. The swathed and roped coffin was taken up with all
reverence, and carefully manipulated down the tight confines of the spiral
stair.

In
the nave they had set up trestles on which to lay her, while they unwound the
sheath of brychans they had used to keep her reliquary from injury. The
wrappings unrolled one after another and were laid aside, and it seemed to
Cadfael, watching, that with the removal of each one the swaddled shape,
dwindling, assumed a form too rigid and rectangular to match with what he
carried devoutly in his mind. But the final padding was thick enough to shroud
the delicacies of fashioning he knew so well. Prior Robert reached a hand with
ceremonious reverence to take hold of the last fold, and drew it back to
uncover what lay within.

He
uttered a muted shriek that emerged with startling effect from so august a
throat, though it was not loud. He fell back a long, unsteady pace in shock,
and then as abruptly started forward again and dragged the rug away, to expose
to general view the inexplicable and offensive reality they had manipulated so
carefully down from its place of safety. Not the silver-chased reliquary of
Saint Winifred, but a log of wood, smaller and shorter than the coffin it had been
used to represent, light enough, probably, for one man to handle; and not new,
for it had dried and weathered to seasoned ripeness.

All
that care and reverence had been wasted. Wherever Saint Winifred was, she was
certainly not here.

After
the stunned and idiot silence, babble and turmoil broke out on all sides,
drawing to the spot others who had heard the strangled cry of dismay, and left
their own tasks to come and stare and wonder. Prior Robert stood frozen into an
outraged statue, the rug clutched in both hands, glaring at the offending log,
and for once stricken dumb. It was his obsequious shadow who lifted the burden
of protest for him.

This
is some terrible error,” blurted Brother Jerome, wringing his hands. “In the
confusion... and it grew dark before we were done... Someone mistook, someone
moved her elsewhere. We shall find her, safe in one of the lofts

“And
this?” demanded Prior Robert witheringly, pointing a damning finger at the
offence before them. “Thus shrouded, as carefully as ever we did for her? No
error! No mistake made in innocence! Someone did this deliberately to deceive!
This was laid in her place, to be handled and cherished in her stead. And where
now... where is she?”

Some
disturbance in the air, some wind of alarm, had caught the scent by then, and
carried it through the great court, and minute by minute more openmouthed
onlookers were gathering, stray brothers summoned from scattered cleansing
duties in the grange court and the stables, sharp-eared guests from their
lodgings, a couple of round-eyed, inquisitive schoolboys who were chased away
less indulgently than usual by Brother Paul.