The Holy Thief Read online

  The Holy Thief

  Ellis Peters

  The Holy Thief

  Ellis Peters

  The Nineteenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael

  EBook Design Group v2 HTML February 07, 2003

  CONTENTS

  ^

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Prologue

  ^ »

  In the height of a hot summer, in late August of 1144, Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, deferred to the heat of the sun, and made the final, fatal mistake of his long and opportunist career. He was engaged, at the time, in planning the destruction by siege of one of the circle of improvised but effective fortresses King Stephen had thrown up to contain and compress the depredations of Geoffrey’s host of outlaws, rebels and predators in the Fen country. For more than a year, from his elusive bases in the Fens, Geoffrey had so devastated the countryside as to ensure that not a field should be safely planted or reaped, not a manor properly tended, not a man with anything of value to lose should be left in possession of it, and not one who refused to surrender it should be left with even a life to lose. As the king had wrested from him all his own relatively legitimate castles and lands and titles, none too legally if the truth be told, so Geoffrey had set to work in defiance to do as much to every man, poor or rich, who got in his way. For a year, from the borders of Huntingdon to Mildenhall in Suffolk and over much of Cambridgeshire, the Fens had become an enclosed robber kingdom in spite of King Stephen’s head, and though his hasty ring of castles had done something to prevent its further enlargement, it had not hampered the earl’s movements greatly, or brought him to the battle he was expert at avoiding.

  But this strong-point of Burwell, north-east of Cambridge, irritated him because it was beginning to interfere with his supply lines, almost the only thing vulnerable about him. And on one of the hottest days of August he was riding round the offending castle to view the best possibilities for attack. Because of the heat he had discarded his helmet and the curtain of fine chain mail that guarded his neck. An ordinary bowman on the wall loosed a shot at him, and struck him in the head.

  Geoffrey laughed at it, the wound seemed so slight; he withdrew to allow a few days for healing. And in a few days he was burning with a fevered infection that pared the flesh from his bones and brought him to his bed. They carried him as far as Mildenhall in Suffolk, and there awoke to the knowledge that he was dying. The sun had done what all King Stephen’s armies could not do.

  What was impossible was that he should die in peace. He was an unabsolved excommunicate; not even a priest could help him, for in the mid-Lent council called the previous year by Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester, the king’s brother and at that time papal legate, it had been decreed that no man who did violence to a cleric could be absolved by anyone but the Pope himself, and that not by any distant decree, but in the Pope’s veritable presence. A long way from Mildenhall to Rome for a dying man in terror of hellfire. For Geoffrey’s excommunication had been earned by his seizure by violence of the abbey of Ramsey, and his expulsion of the monks and their abbot, to turn the convent into the capital of his kingdom of thieves, torturers and murderers. For him there was no possible absolution, no hope of burial. The earth would not have him.

  There were those who did their best for him, frantic in defense of his soul, if they could not help his body. When he grew so weak that he ceased to rave and sank into stupor, his officials and men of law began feverishly issuing charters in his name, restoring to the Church various properties he had seized from her, including the abbey of Ramsey. Whether with his goodwill or not, no one stopped to ask, and no one ever knew. The orders were carried out, and respected, but they did not avail him. His body was refused Christian burial, his earldom was abolished, his lands and offices remained forfeit, and his family disinherited. His eldest son was excommunicate with him, and partner in his rebellion. A younger, and his namesake, was already with the Empress Maud, and recognized by her as earl of Essex, for what such an acknowledgement was worth without lands or status.

  On the sixteenth day of September Geoffrey de Mandeville died, still excommunicate, still unabsolved. The only remaining mercy was shown to him by certain Knights Templar who were in Mildenhall at the time, and took his coffined body back with them to London, where for want of any Christian relenting they were forced to let him lie in a pit outside the churchyard of the Temple, in unhallowed ground, and even so a step beyond what was permitted by canon law, for by the strict letter he should not have been laid in the earth at all.

  In the ranks of his motley army there was no one strong enough to take his place. The only thing that held them together was mutual self-interest and greed, and without him their dubious alliance began to fall apart, as the encouraged forces of the king moved in upon them with renewed resolution. Parties of outlaws withdrew discreetly in all directions to look for less frequented pastures and more impenetrable solitudes, where they could hope to continue their lives as beasts of prey. The more reputable, or those of more regarded birth and with more to proffer, went roundabout to make their peace and retire into safer alliances.

  To everyone else the news of Geoffrey’s death gave universal satisfaction. It reached the king quickly, relieved him of the most dangerous and implacable of his enemies, and instantly eased him of the necessity of immobilizing the greater part of his forces in one region. It was carried from village to village through the Fen country as the raggle-taggle marauders withdrew, and people who had lived in terror emerged cautiously to retrieve what they could of a plundered harvest, rebuild their burned homes and reassemble their families and kinships. Also, for death had been more than usually busy in those parts, to bury their dead decently. It would take more than a year for life to get back into any kind of normality, but at least now it could take the first wary steps.

  And before the year’s end it reached Abbot Walter of Ramsey, with the deathbed charter that gave his monastery back to him, and he gave due thanks to God, and set about sending the word on to his prior and sub-prior and all his scattered brothers, who had been forced out penniless and homeless to find shelter where they could, some with their kin, some in other hospitable Benedictine houses. The first and nearest hurried to answer the summons home, and entered a total desolation. The monastic buildings were a mere shell, the lands untilled, the manors the house had formerly possessed handed out to thieves and vagabonds, all its treasures stripped away. The walls, they said, bled for very grief. Nevertheless, Abbot Walter and his brothers set to work to restore their house and their church, and sent out the news of their return to all those monks and novices who had had to go long distances to find a shelter during their exile. Being members of a wider brotherhood, having all the Benedictine Order as kin, they also sent out an urgent appeal for help in alms, material and labor to speed the work of rebuilding and refurnishing the sacred place.

  In due time the news, the invitation and the need arrived at the gatehouse of the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury.

  Chapter One

  « ^ »

  The messengers arrived during the half hour of chapter, and would not eat, drink or rest, or wash the mud of the roads from their feet, until they had made their way in to the assembly in the chapterhouse, and delivered their charge. If the suppliants failed in zeal, so would the givers.

  They stood with every eye upon them, refusing to
sit until the message was proclaimed. Sub-Prior Herluin, long in experience and authority, a man of impressive presence, stood fronting the lord abbot, his lean hands folded at his girdle. The young novice who had walked with him all the way from Ramsey stood modestly a pace or two behind, devoutly copying his superior’s pose and stillness. Three lay servants of their house, escort on the journey, they had left with the porter at the gatehouse.

  “Father Abbot, you know, as all men know, our lamentable history. It is now two months since our house and estates were restored to us. Abbot Walter is now calling back to their vocation all those brothers who were forced to disperse and find shelter wherever they could, when the rebels and outlaws took everything from us, and drove us out at sword-point. Those of us who remained close returned with our abbot as soon as we were permitted. To an utter desolation. By right we were possessed of many manors, but after the dispossession all were handed out to such lawless villains as would support de Mandeville, and to declare them restored to us avails us nothing, since we have no force to recover them from the robber lords except by law, and the law will take years to justify us. Also, such as we do recover will have been plundered and stripped of everything of value, half-ruined, possibly burned. And within the pale…”

  He had a clear, confident voice which had proceeded thus far with considered force, but without passion, but throbbing indignation robbed him of utterance for a moment when he reached the day of the return.

  “I was there. I saw what they had made of the holy place. An abomination! A midden! The church defiled, the cloisters an uncleansed stable, dortoir and frater stripped of woodwork to feed fires, all provisions taken away, all those valuables we had no time or warning to remove, stolen. Lead stripped from roofs, rooms left open to the weather, to rain and frost. Not so much as a pot for cooking, or a service book or a slip of vellum. Ruinous walls, an emptiness, a barren void. All this we have undertaken to rebuild and make more glorious than before, but we cannot do it alone. Abbot Walter has even given up much of his own wealth to buy food for the people of our villages, for harvest there has been none. Who could till the fields with death for ever at his heels? Even from the poorest of the poor those malefactors extorted the last wretched possession, and if there was nothing left to steal, they killed.”

  “We have heard, all too truly, of the terror let loose on all your countryside,” said Abbot Radulfus. “With grief we have heard it, and prayed an end to it. Now that that end is come, there is no house of our Order that can refuse all possible help to restore what was despoiled. Ask of us what can best serve Ramsey’s needs. For I think you are sent as a brother to brothers, and within this family of ours injury to one is injury to all.”

  “I am sent to ask help from this house and from any among the laity who may be moved to do a deed of grace, in alms, in skills, if there are any in Shrewsbury experienced in building and willing to work for some weeks far from home, in materials, in whatever aids may avail for our restoration and the benefit of the souls of the generous. For every penny and every prayer Ramsey will be grateful. To that end, I ask leave to preach once here in your church, and once, with the permission of sheriff and clergy, at the High Cross in Shrewsbury, so that every goodman of the town may search his heart and give what he is moved to give.”

  “We will confer with Father Boniface,” said Radulfus, “and he will surely agree to have you speak at a parish service. Of the sympathy of this house you may already be assured.”

  “On brotherly love,” said Herluin graciously, “I knew we could rely. Others, like Brother Tutilo here and myself, have gone forth to pray the aid of other Benedictine houses in other shires. We are charged, also, with carrying the news to all those brothers who were forced to scatter to save their lives when our troubles began, to call them home again, where they are sorely needed. For some of them cannot yet even know that Abbot Walter is back within the enclave, and has need of every son’s labor and faith to bring about the great work of restoration. There is one of our number, I believe,” he said, earnestly watching the abbot’s face, “came here to Shrewsbury, to the home of his family. I must see him, and exhort him to return with me.”

  “That is true,” Radulfus allowed. “Sulien Blount, of the manor of Longner. He came here to us, with Abbot Walter’s countenance. The young man had not taken his final vows. He was approaching the end of his novitiate, and was in some doubt of his vocation. He came here upon terms, with his abbot’s full leave, to consider on his future. It was his own decision to leave this house, and return to his family, and I absolved him accordingly. In my view he had entered the Order mistakenly. Nevertheless, he must and will answer for himself. I will have one of the brothers show you the way to his elder brother’s manor.”

  “I shall do my best to recall him to his better self,” Herluin stated, with a distinct implication in his tone that he would enjoy hounding back to the fold a reluctant but out-argued penitent.

  Brother Cadfael, studying this formidable personage from his retired corner, and his long years of secular and monastic experience of all sorts and conditions of men, reflected that the sub-prior would probably make a very good preacher at the High Cross, and exact donations from a great many guilty consciences; for he was voluble enough, even capable of passion in the service of Ramsey. But over his chances of shifting young Sulien Blount’s mind, as against the fine girl he was shortly to marry, Cadfael shook his head. If he could do it, he was a miracle-worker, and on his way to sainthood. There were uncomfortable saints in Cadfael’s hagiology, whom he personally would have consigned to a less reverend status, but whose aggravating rectitude he could not deny. On the whole, he could even feel a little sorry for Sub-Prior Herluin, who was about to blunt all his weapons against the impregnable shield of love. Try and get Sulien Blount away from Pernel Otmere now! He had learned to know the pair of them too well to be in doubt.

  He found that he was not, so far, greatly attracted to Sub-Prior Herluin, though he could respect the man’s toughness on this long journey afoot, and his determination to replenish Ramsey’s plundered coffers and rebuild its ruined halls. They were a pair very oddly assorted, these itinerant brothers from the Fens. The sub-prior was a big man, long-boned, wide-shouldered, carrying flesh once ample, perhaps even excessive, but shrunken and a little flabby now. Certainly no reproach to him; he had shared, it seemed, the short commons on which the unfortunate fen-dwellers had had to survive during this harvestless year of oppression. His uncovered head showed a pale tonsure encircled with grizzled, springy hair more brown than grey, and a long, lantern face, austere of feature, deep-set and stern of eye, with a long straight stroke of a mouth, almost lipless in repose, as though totally stranger to smiling. Such lines as his countenance had acquired, during a lifetime Cadfael judged at about fifty years, all bore heavily downward, repressed and forbidding.

  Not a very amiable companion on a long journey, unless his looks belied him. Brother Tutilo, who stood modestly a little behind his superior, following with rapt attention every word Herluin said, looked about twenty years old, perhaps even less; a lightly-built lad, notably lissome and graceful in movement, a model of disciplined composure in stillness. His crown only just topped Herluin’s shoulder, and was ringed with a profusion of light brown curls, the crop grown during a lengthy journey. No doubt they would be clipped austerely close when Herluin got him back to Ramsey, but now they would have done credit to a painted seraph in a missal, though the face beneath this aureole was scarcely seraphic, in spite of its air of radiant devotion. At first glance a lovely innocent, as open as his wide eyes, and with the silken pink and whiteness of a girl, but a more penetrating study revealed that this childlike coloring was imposed upon an oval face of classic symmetry and sharp and incisive molding. The coloring of roses on those pure marble lines had almost the air of a disguise, behind which an engaging but slightly perilous creature lurked in possibly mischievous ambush.

  Tutilo—a strange name for an English youth; for
there was nothing of the Norman or the Celtic about this young man. Perhaps the name chosen for him when he entered his novitiate. He must ask Brother Anselm what it signified, and where the authorities in Ramsey could have found it. Cadfael turned his attention once again to what was being discussed between host and guests.

  “While you are in these parts,” said the abbot, “I take it you may wish to visit other Benedictine houses. We will provide horses, if you so please. The season is not the most favorable for traveling. The rivers are running high, some of the fords will be impassable, you will be better mounted. We will hasten whatever arrangements you may choose to make, confer with Father Boniface about the use of the church, for he has the cure of souls in the parish of Holy Cross, and with Hugh Beringar as sheriff and the provost and Guild Merchant of the town concerning your gathering at the High Cross in Shrewsbury. If there is anything more we can do to be of service, you need but state it.”

  “We shall be grateful indeed to go mounted a while,” agreed Herluin, coming as near to smiling as his features would permit, “for we intend to go on at least to our brothers at Worcester, perhaps also to Evesham and Pershore, and it would be simple to return by Shrewsbury and bring back your horses. Ours were taken, every one, by the outlaws before they departed. But first, even this day if possible, we would wish to go and speak with Brother Sulien.”

  “As you think best,” said Radulfus simply. “Brother Cadfael, I think, is best acquainted with the way—there is a ferry to be crossed—and also with the household of the lord of Longner. It may be well if he accompanies you.”