A Morbid Taste For Bones Page 11

  At this point he was interrupted by an audible sob from Brother Columbanus, that drew all eyes to that young man. Trembling and meek, he rose from his place and stood with lowered eyes and folded hands before Robert.

  “Father Prior, alas, mea culpa! I am to blame! I have been unfaithful, and I desire to make confession. I came to chapter determined to cleanse my bosom and ask penance, for my backsliding is the cause of our continued distresses. May I speak?”

  I knew there was something brewing, thought Brother Cadfael, resigned and disgusted. But at least without rolling on the ground and biting the grass, this time!

  “Speak out,” said the prior, not unkindly. “You have never sought to make light of your failings, I do not think you need fear our too harsh condemnation. You have been commonly your own sternest judge.” So he had, but that, well handled, can be one way of evading and forestalling the judgements of others.

  Brother Columbanus sank to his knees in the orchard turf. And very comely and aristocratic he looked, Cadfael admitted, again admiring with surprise the compact grace and strength of his body, and the supple flow of his movements.

  “Father, you sent me with Brother Jerome, yesterday, to keep vigil in the chapel, and pray earnestly for a good outcome, in amity and peace. Father, we came there in good time, before eleven, as I judge, and having eaten our meal, we went in and took our places, for there are prayer-desks within, and the altar is kept clean and well-tended. Oh, Father, my will to keep vigil was good, but the flesh was weak. I had not been half an hour kneeling in prayer, when I fell asleep on my arms on the desk, to my endless shame. It is no excuse that I have slept badly and thought much since we came here. Prayer should fix and purify the mind. I slept, and our cause was weakened. I must have slept all the afternoon, for the next thing I remember is Brother Jerome shaking me by the shoulder and telling me there was a messenger calling us to go with him.”

  He caught his breath, and a frantic tear rolled down his cheek, circling the bold, rounded Norman bone. “Oh, do not look askance at Brother Jerome, for he surely never knew I had been sleeping, and there is no blame at all to him for not observing and reporting my sin. I awoke as he touched me, and arose and went with him. He thought me as earnest in prayer as he, and knew no wrong.”

  Nobody, probably, had thought of looking askance at Brother Jerome until then, but Cadfael was probably the quickest and most alert, and the only one who caught the curious expression of apprehension, fading rapidly into complacency, that passed over Brother Jerome’s normally controlled countenance. Jerome had not been pursuing the same studies as Cadfael, or he would have been far from complacent. For Brother Columbanus in his self-absorbed innocence had just removed all certainty that Jerome had spent the previous noon and afternoon motionless in Saint Winifred’s chapel, praying for a happy solution. His only guarantor had been fast asleep throughout. He could have sauntered out and gone anywhere he chose.

  “Son,” said Prior Robert, in an indulgent voice he would certainly never have used to Brother John, “your fault is human, and frailty is in our nature. And you redeem your own error, in defending your brother. Why did you not tell us of this yesterday?”

  “Father, how could I? There was no opportunity, before we learned of Rhisiart’s death. Thus burdened, how could I burden you further at that time? I kept it for this chapter, the right place for erring brothers to receive their penance, and make their abasement. As I do abase myself, as all unworthy the vocation I chose. Speak out sentence on me, for I desire penance.”

  The prior was opening his lips to give judgment, patiently enough, for such devout submission and awareness of guilt disarmed him, when they were distracted by the clap of the wooden bar of the garden gate, and there was Father Huw himself advancing across the grass towards them, hair and beard even more disordered than usual, and his eyes heavy and resolved and calm.

  “Father Prior,” he said, halting before them, “I have just come from holding council with Cadwallon, and Rhys, and Meurice, and all the men of substance in my parish. It was the best opportunity, though I’m sad indeed about the cause. They all came to the mourning for Rhisiart. Every man there knew how he had been struck down, and how such a fate was prophesied…”

  “God forbid,” said Prior Robert hastily, “that I should threaten any man’s death. I said that Saint Winifred would be revenged in her own time on the man who stood in the way and did her offence, I never said word of killing.”

  “But when he was dead you did claim that this was the saint’s vengeance. Every man there heard it, and most believed. I took this chance of conferring with them again in the matter. They do not wish to do anything that is against the will of heaven, nor to give offence to the Benedictine order and the abbey of Shrewsbury. They do not think it right or wise, after what has happened, even to put any man, woman or child of Gwytherin in peril. I am commissioned, Father Prior, to tell you that they withdraw all opposition to your plans. The relics of Saint Winifred are yours to take away with you.”

  Prior Robert drew a great breath of triumph and joy, and whatever will he might have had to deal even the lightest punishment left him in an instant. It was everything he had hoped for. Brother Columbanus, still kneeling, cast up his eyes radiantly towards heaven and clasped his hands in gratitude, and somehow contrived to look as though he had brought about this desired consummation himself, the deprivation caused by his unfaithfulness compensated in full by this reward of his penitence. Brother Jerome, just as determined to impress prior and priest with his devotion, threw up his hands and uttered a reverent Latin invocation of praise to God and the saints.

  “I am certain,” said Prior Robert magnanimously, “that the people of Gwytherin never wished to offend, and that they have done wisely and rightly now. I am glad, for them as for my abbey, that we may complete our work here and take our leave in amity with you all. And for your part in bringing about this good ending, Father Huw, we are all grateful. You have done well for your parish and your people.”

  “I am bound to tell you,” said Huw honestly, “that they are not at all happy at losing the saint. But none of them will hinder what you wish. If you so will, we will take you to the burial place today.”

  “We will go in procession after the next Mass,” said the prior, unwonted animation lighting up his severe countenance now that he had his own way, “and not touch food until we have knelt at Saint Winifred’s altar and given thanks.” His eyes lit upon Brother Columbanus, patiently kneeling and gazing upon him with doglike eyes, still insistent upon having his sin recognised. Robert looked faintly surprised for a moment, as if he had forgotten the young man’s existence. “Rise, brother, and take heart, for you see that there is forgiveness in the air. You shall not be deprived of your share in the delight of visiting the virgin saint and paying honour to her.”

  “And my penance?” insisted the incorrigible penitent.

  There was a good deal of iron in Brother Columbanus’s meekness.

  “For penance you shall undertake the menial duties that fell to Brother John, and serve your fellows and their beasts until we return home. But your part in the glory of this day you shall have, and help to bear the reliquary in which the saint’s bones are to rest. We’ll carry it with us, and set it up before the altar. Every move we make I would have the virgin approve plainly, in all men’s sight.”

  “And will you break the ground today?” asked Father Huw wearily. No doubt he would be glad to have the whole episode over and forgotten, and be rid of them all, so that Gwytherin could settle again to its age-old business, though short of one good man.

  “No,” said Prior Robert after due thought. “I wish to show forth at every stage our willingness to be guided, and the truth of what we have claimed, that our mission was inspired by Saint Winifred herself. I decree that there shall be three nights of vigil and prayer before the chapel altar, before ever we break the sod, to confirm to all that what we are doing is indeed right and blessed. We are six here, if
you will join us, Father Huw. Two by two we will be watching nightlong in the chapel, and pray to be guided rightly.”

  They took up the silver-inlaid coffin made in implicit faith in Shrewsbury, and carried it in procession up through the woods, past Cadwallon’s house, taking the right-hand path that led them obliquely away from the scene of Rhisiart’s death, until they came to a small clearing on a hillside, ringed round on three sides by tall, thick clumps of hawthorn, then in snowy bloom. The chapel was of wood, dark with age, small and shadowy within, a tiny bell-turret without a bell leaning over the doorway. Round it the old graveyard lay spread like billowing green skirts, thick with herbs and brambles and tall grasses. By the time they reached this place they had a silent and ever-growing company of local inhabitants following them, curious, submissive, wary. There was no way of telling whether they still felt resentment. Their eyes were steady, observant and opaque, determined to miss nothing and give nothing away.

  At the sagging wooden gate that still hung where the path entered, Prior Robert halted, and made the sign of the cross with large, grave gestures. “Wait here!” he said, when Huw would have led him forward. “Let us see if prayer can guide my feet, for I have prayed. You shall not show me the saint’s grave. I will show it to you, if she will be my aid.”

  Obediently they stood and watched his tall figure advance with measured steps, as if he felt his way, the skirts of his habit sweeping through the tangles of grass and flowers. Without hesitation and without haste he made his way to a little, overgrown mound aligned with the east end of the chapel, and sank to his knees at its head.

  “Saint Winifred lies here,” he said.

  Cadfael thought about it every step of the way, as he went up through the woods that afternoon to Rhisiart’s hall. A man could count on Prior Robert to be impressive, but that little miracle had been a master-stroke. The breathless hush, the rippling outbreak of comment and wonder and awe among the men of Gwytherin were with him still. No question but the remotest villein hut and the poorest free holding in the parish would be buzzing with the news by now. The monks of Shrewsbury were vindicated. The saint had taken their prior by the hand and led him to her grave. No, the man had never before been to that place, nor had the grave been marked in any way, by a belated attempt to cut the brambles from it, for instance. It was as it had always been, and yet he had known it from all the rest.

  No use at all pointing out, to a crowd swayed by emotion, that if Prior Robert had not previously been to the chapel, Brothers Jerome and Columbanus, his most faithful adherents, had, only the previous day, and with the boy Edwin to guide them, and what more probable than that one of them should have asked the child the whereabouts of the lady they had come all this way to find?

  And now, with this triumph already establishing his claim,

  Robert had given himself three whole days and nights of delay, in which other, similar prodigies might well confirm his ascendancy. A very bold step, but then, Robert was a bold and resourceful man, quite capable of gambling his chances of providing further miracles against any risk of contrary chance refuting him. He meant to leave Gwytherin with what he had come for, but to leave it, if not fully reconciled, then permanently cowed. No scuttling away in haste with his prize of bones, as though still in terror of being thwarted.

  But he could not have killed Rhisiart, thought Cadfael with certainty. That I know. Could he have gone so far as to procure…? He considered the possibility honestly, and discarded it. Robert he endured, disliked, and in a fashion admired. At Brother John’s age he would have detested him, but Cadfael was old, experienced and grown tolerant.

  He came to the gatehouse of Rhisiart’s holding, a wattle hut shored into a corner of the palisade fence. The man knew him again from yesterday, and let him in freely. Cai came across the enclosed court to meet him, grinning. All grins here were somewhat soured and chastened now, but a spark of inward mischief survived.

  “Have you come to rescue your mate?” asked Cai. “I doubt he wouldn’t thank you, he’s lying snug, and feeding like a fighting cock, and no threats of the bailiff yet. She’s said never a word, you may be sure, and Father Huw would be in no hurry. I reckon we’ve a couple of days yet, unless your prior makes it his business, where it’s none. And if he does, we have boys out will give us plenty of notice before any horseman reaches the gate. Brother John’s in good hands.”

  It was Engelard’s fellow-worker speaking, the man who knew him as well as any in this place. Clearly Brother John had established himself with his gaoler, and Cai’s mission was rather to keep the threatening world from him, than to keep him from sallying forth into the world. When the key was needed for the right purpose, it would be provided.

  “Take care for your own head,” said Cadfael, though without much anxiety. They knew what they were doing. “Your prince may have a lawyer’s mind, and want to keep in with the Benedictines along the border.”

  “Ah, never fret! An escaped felon can be nobody’s fault. And everybody’s quarry and nobody’s prize! Have you never hunted zealously in all the wrong places for something you desired not to find?”

  “Say no more,” said Cadfael, “or I shall have to stop my ears. And tell the lad I never even asked after him, for I know there’s no need.”

  “Would you be wishing to have a gossip with him?” offered Cai generously. “He’s lodged over yonder in a nice little stable that’s clean and empty, and he gets his meals princely, I tell you!”

  “Tell me nothing, for I might be asked,” said Cadfael. “A blind eye and a deaf ear can be useful sometimes. I’ll be glad to spend a while with you presently, but now I’m bound to her. We have business together.”

  Sioned was not in the hall, but in the small chamber curtained off at its end, Rhisiart’s private room. And Rhisiart was private there with his daughter, stretched out straight and still on draped furs, on a trestle table, with a white linen sheet covering him. The girl sat beside him, waiting, very formally attired, very grave, her hair austerely braided about her head. She looked older, and taller, now that she was the lady-lord of this holding. But she rose to meet Brother Cadfael with the bright, sad, eager smile of a child sure now of counsel and guidance.

  “I looked for you earlier. No matter, I’m glad you’re here. I have his clothes for you. I did not fold them; if I had, the damp would have spread evenly through, and now, though they may have dried off, I think you’ll still feel a difference.” She brought them, chausses, tunic and shirt, and he took them from her one by one and felt at the cloth testingly. “I see,” she said, “that you already know where to feel.”

  Rhisiart’s hose, though partly covered by the tunic he had worn, were still damp at the back of the thighs and legs, but in front dry, though the damp had spread round through the threads to narrow the dry part to a few inches. His tunic was moist all down the back to the hem, the full width of his shoulders still shaped in a dark patch like spread wings, but all the breast of it, round the dark-rimmed slit the arrow had made, was quite dry. The shirt, though less definitely, showed the same pattern. The fronts of the sleeves were dry, the backs damp. Where the exit wound pierced his back, shirt and tunic were soaked in blood now drying and encrusted.

  “You remember,” said Cadfael, “just how he lay when we found him?”

  “I shall remember it my life long,” said Sioned. “From the hips up flat on his back, but his right hip turned into the grass, and his legs twisted, the left over the right, like…” She hesitated, frowning, feeling for her own half-glimpsed meaning, and found it. “Like a man who has been lying on his face, and heaves himself over in his sleep on to his back, and sleeps again at once.”

  “Or,” said Cadfael, “like a man who has been taken by the left shoulder, as he lay on his face, and heaved over on to his back. After he was well asleep!”

  She gazed at him steadily, with eyes hollow and dark like wounds. “Tell me all your thoughts. I need to know. I must know.”

  “First, then,”
said Brother Cadfael, “I call attention to the place where this thing happened. A close-set, thicketed place, with plenty of bushes for cover, but not more than fifty paces clear view in any direction. Is that an archer’s ground? I think not. Even if he wished the body to be left in woodlands where it might lie undiscovered for hours, he could have found a hundred places more favourable to him. An expert bowman does not need to get close to his quarry, he needs room to draw on a target he can hold in view long enough for a steady aim.”

  “Yes,” said Sioned. “Even if it could be believed of him that he would kill, that rules out Engelard.”

  “Not only Engelard, any good bowman, and if someone so incompetent as to need so close a shot tried it, I doubt if he could succeed. I do not like this arrow, it has no place here, and yet here it is. It has one clear purpose, to cast the guilt on Engelard. But I cannot get it out of my head that it has some other purpose, too.”

  “To kill!” said Sioned, burning darkly.

  “Even that I question, mad though it may seem. See the angle at which it enters and leaves. And then see how the blood is all at the back, and not where the shaft entered. And remember all we have said and noted about his clothes, how they were wet behind, though he lay on his back. And how you yourself said it was the attitude of a man who had heaved himself over from lying on his face. And one more thing I found out yesterday, as I kneeled beside him. Under him the thick grass was wet. But all down by his right side, shoulder to hip and body-wide, it was bone-dry. There was a brisk shower yesterday morning, half an hour of rain. When that rain began, your father was lying on his face, already dead. How else could that patch of grass have remained dry, but sheltered by his body?”

  “And then,” said Sioned low but clearly, “as you say, he was taken by his left shoulder and heaved over on to his back. When he was well asleep. Deep asleep!”

  “So it looks to me!”

  “But the arrow entered his breast,” she said. “How, then, could he fall on his face?”