A Morbid Taste For Bones Read online

  The prior had never looked holier or more surely headed for sainthood himself. He had always a sense of occasion, and beyond a doubt it had been his idea to hold the meeting here in the open, where the sun could gild and illuminate his other-worldly beauty. It was Cadfael’s detached opinion that he did himself more than justice, by being less overbearing than might have been expected. Usually he overdid things, this time he got it right, or as right as something only equivocally right in itself can be got.

  “They’re not happy!” whispered Brother John in Cadfael’s ear, himself sounding far from sad about it. There were times when even Brother John could be humanly smug. And indeed, those Welsh faces ranged round them were singularly lacking in enthusiasm for all these English miracles performed by a Welsh saint. Robert at his best was not exactly carrying his audience.

  They swayed and murmured, and eyed one another, and again turned as one man to eye him.

  “If Owain ap Griffith wills it, and the bishop gives his blessing, too,” began Cadwallon hesitantly, “as loyal sons of the church, and true men of Gwynedd, we can hardly…”

  “Both prince and bishop have blessed our errand,” said the prior loftily.

  “But the girl is here, in Gwytherin,” said Rhisiart abruptly. He had the voice that might have been expected from him, large, melodious and deep, a voice that sang what it felt, and waited for thought afterwards, to find that the thought had been there already in the feeling. “Ours, not Bishop David’s! Not Owain ap Griffith’s! She lived out her life here, and never said a word about wanting to leave us. Am I to believe easily that she wants to leave us now, after so long? Why has she never told us? Why?”

  “She has made it clear to us,” said the prior, “by many manifestations, as I have told you.”

  “But never a word to us,” cried Rhisiart, roused. “Do you call that courtesy? Are we to believe that, of a virgin who chose to make her home here among us?”

  They were with him, his assurance had fired their smouldering reluctance. They cried out from a dozen directions at once that Saint Winifred belonged to Gwytherin, and to no other place.

  “Do you dare tell me,” said Prior Robert, high and clear, “that you have visited her? That you have committed your prayers to her? That you have invoked the aid of this blessed virgin, and given her the honour that is her due? Do you know of any reason why she should desire to remain here among you? Have you not neglected even her grave?”

  “And if we have,” said Rhisiart with blithe conviction, “do you suppose the girl wonders at it? You have not lived here among us. She did. You are English, she was Welsh, she knew us, and was never so moved against us that she withdrew or complained. We know she is there, no need to exclaim or make any great outcry. If we have needs, she knows it, and never asks that we should come with prayers and tears, knocking our knees on the ground before her. If she grudged a few brambles and weeds, she would have found a means to tell us. Us, not some distant Benedictine house in England!”

  Throats were opening joyfully, shouting where they had muttered. The man was a poet and a preacher, match for any Englishman. Brother Cadfael let loose his bardic blood, and rejoiced silently. Not even because it was Prior Robert recoiling into marble rage under Welsh siege. Only because it was a Welsh voice that cried battle.

  “And do you deny,” thundered Robert, stretching his ascetic length to its loftiest, “the truth of those omens and miracles I have declared to you, the beckoning that led us here?”

  “No!” said Rhisiart roundly. “I never doubted you believed and had experienced these portents. But portents can arise, miracles can be delivered, either from angels or devils. If these are from heaven, why have we not been instructed? The little saint is here, not in England. She owes us the courtesy of kinsmen. Dare you say she is turned traitor? Is there not a church in Wales, a Celtic church such as she served? What did she know of yours? I do not believe she would speak to you and not to us. You have been deceived by devils! Winifred never said word!”

  A dozen voices took up the challenge, hallooing applause for their most articulate spokesman, who had put his finger on the very pulse of their resentment. Even the very system of bishoprics galled the devout adherents of the old, saintly Celtic church, that had no worldly trappings, courted no thrones, but rather withdrew from the world into the blessed solitude of thought and prayer. The murmur became a subdued rumbling, a thunder, a roar. Prior Robert, none too wisely, raised his commanding voice to shout them down.

  “She said no word to you, for you had left her forgotten and unhonoured. She has turned to us for recognition, when she could get none from you.”

  “That is not true,” said Rhisiart, “though you in your ignorance may believe it. The saint is a good Welshwoman, and knows her countrymen. We are not quick in respect to rank or riches, we do not doff and bow and scrape when any man flaunts himself before us. We are blunt and familiar even in praise. What we value we value in the heart, and this Welsh girl knows it. She would never leave her own unfurnished, even if we have neglected to trim her grave. It is the spirit that leans to us, and is felt by us as guardian and kin. But these bones you come hunting are also hers. Not ours, not yours! Until she tells us she wills to have them moved, here they stay. We should be damned else!”

  It was the bitterest blow of Prior Robert’s life to know that he had met his match and overmatch in eloquence and argument, here in a half-barbaric Welsh landholder, no great lord, but a mere squireling elevated among his inferiors to a status he barely rated, at least in Norman eyes. It was the difference between them that Robert thought in hierarchies, and Rhisiart thought in blood-ties, high and low of one mind and in one kinship, and not a man among them aware of inferiority, only of his due place in a united family.

  The thunder was one voice now, demanding and assured, but it was one man who had called it into being. Prior Robert, well aware that a single adversary confronted him, subdued his angry tones, and opted for the wisdom of the dove, and the subtlety of single combat. He raised his long, elegant arms, from which the wide sleeves of his habit fell free, and smiled on the assembly, turning the smile at its most compelling and fatherly upon Rhisiart.

  “Come Brother Cadfael, say this for me to the lord Rhisiart, that it is all too easy for us, who have the same devotion at heart, to disagree about the means. It is better to speak quietly, man to man, and avoid the deformation of anger. Lord Rhisiart, I beg you to come apart with me, and let us debate this matter in quietude, and then you shall have liberty to speak out what you will. And having had my say fairly with you, I will say no word further to challenge what you have to impart to your people.”

  “That is fair and generous,” said Rhisiart promptly to this offer, and stood forward with ingenuous pleasure from the crowd, which parted to let him through.

  “We will not take even the shadow of dissension into the church,” said Prior Robert. “Will you come with us into Father Huw’s house?” All those bright, sullen, roused eyes followed them in through the low doorway, and clung there to wait for them to come forth again. Not a man of the Welsh moved from his place. They trusted the voice that had spoken for them hitherto to speak for them still.

  In the small, wood-scented room, dark after the brightness of the day outside, Prior Robert faced his opponent with a calm and reasonable face.

  “You have spoken well,” he said, “and I commend your faith, and the high value you set on the saint, for so do we value her highly. And at her own wish, for so we believe, we have come here, solely to serve her. Both church and state are with us, and you know better than I the duty a nobleman of Wales owes to both. But I would not willingly leave Gwytherin with a sense of grievance, for I do know that by Saint Winifred’s departure Gwytherin’s loss is great. That we own, and I would wish to make due reparation.”

  “Reparation to Gwytherin?” repeated Rhisiart, when this was translated to him. “I do not understand how…”

  “And to you,” said Robert softly a
nd matter-of-factly, “if you will withdraw your opposition, for then I feel sure all your fellows will do the same, and sensibly accept what bishop and prince decree.”

  It occurred to Cadfael as he interpreted this, even before the prior began the slow, significant motion of one long hand into the breast of his habit, that Robert was about to make the most disastrous miscalculation of his life. But Rhisiart’s face remained dubious and aloof, quite without understanding, as the prior drew from his bosom a soft leather bag drawn up with a cord at the neck, and laid it on the table, pushing it gently across until it rested against Rhisiart’s right hand. Its progress over the rough boards gave out a small chinking sound. Rhisiart eyed it suspiciously, and lifted uncomprehending eyes to stare at the prior. “I don’t understand you. What is this?”

  “It is yours,” said Robert, “if you will persuade the parish to agree to give up the saint.”

  Too late he felt the unbelieving coldness in the air, and sensed the terrible error he had made. Hastily he did his best to recover some of the ground lost. “To be used as you think best for Gwytherin—a great sum…” It was useless Cadfael let it lie in silence.

  “Money!” said Rhisiart in the most extraordinary of tones, at once curious, derisory and revolted. He knew about money, of course, and even understood its use, but as an aberration in human relations. In the rural parts of Wales, which indeed were almost all of Wales, it was hardly used at all, and hardly needed. Provision was made in the code for all necessary exchange of goods and services, nobody was so poor as to be without the means of living, and beggars were unknown. The kinship took care of its helpless members, and every house was open as of right. The minted coins that had seeped in through the marches were a pointless eccentricity. Only after a moment of scornful wonder did it occur to Rhisiart that in this case they were also a mortal insult. He snatched away his hand from the affronting touch, and the blood surged into his face darkly red, suffusing even the whites of his eyes.

  “Money? You dare offer to buy our saint? To buy me? I was in two minds about you, and about what I ought to do, but now, by God, I know what to think! You had your omens. Now I have mine.”

  “You mistake me!” cried the prior, stumbling after his blunder and seeing it outdistance him at every breath. “One cannot buy what is holy, I am only offering a gift to Gwytherin, in gratitude and compensation for their sacrifice—“

  “Mine, you said it was,” Rhisiart reminded him, glowing copper bright with dignified rage. “Mine, if I persuaded…! Not a gift! A bribe! This foolish stuff you hoard about you more dearly far than your reputations, don’t think you can use it to buy my conscience. I know now that I was right to doubt you. You have said your say, now I will say mine to those people without, as you promised me I should, without hindrance.”

  “No, wait!” The prior was in such agitation that he actually reached out a hand and caught his opponent by the sleeve. “Do nothing in haste! You have mistaken my meaning indeed, and if I was wrong even to offer an alms to Gwytherin, I am sorry for it. But do not call it—“

  Rhisiart withdrew himself angrily from the detaining clasp, and cut off the protest curtly, wheeling on Cadfael. “Tell him he need not be afraid. I should be ashamed to tell my people that a prior of Shrewsbury tried to corrupt me with a bribe. I don’t deal in that kind of warfare. But where I stand—that they shall know, and you, too.” And he strode out from them, and Father Huw put out a warning hand to prevent any of them from attempting to impede or follow him.

  “Not now! He is hot now. Tomorrow something may be done to approach him, but not now. You must let him say what he will.”

  “Then at least let’s put in an appearance,” said the prior, magnificently picking up what pieces he could of the ruin he had created; and he swept out into the sunlight and took his stand close to the door of the church, with all his fellow-monks dutifully following on his heels, and stood with erect head and calmly folded hands, in full view, while Rhisiart thundered his declaration to the assembled people of Gwytherin.

  “I have listened to what these men from Shrewsbury have had to say to me, and I have made my judgment accordingly, and now I deliver it to you. I say that so far from changing my views, I am confirmed a thousand times that I was right to oppose the sacrilege they desire. I say that Saint Winifred’s place is here among us, where she has always belonged, and that it would be mortal sin to let her be taken away to a strange place, where not even the prayers would be in a tongue she knows, where foreigners not worthy to draw near her would be her only company. I pledge my opposition to the death, against any attempt to move her bones, and I urge upon you the same duty. And now this conference is ended.”

  So he said, and so it was. There could be no possible way of prolonging it. The prior was forced to stand with marble face and quiet hands while Rhisiart strode away towards the forest path, and all the assembly, in awed and purposeful silence, melted away mysteriously in all directions after his departure, so that within minutes all that green, trodden arena was empty.

  Chapter Four

  YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME what you intended,” said Father Huw, timidly reproachful. “I could have told you it was folly, the worst possible. What attraction do you think money has for a man like Rhisiart? Even if he was for sale, and he is not, you would have had to find other means to purchase him. I thought you had taken his measure, and were proposing to plead to him the sorry plight of English pilgrims, who have no powerful saints of their own, and are sadly in need of such a protectress. He would have listened to something that entreated of his generosity.”

  “I am come with the blessing of church and sovereign,” said the prior fiercely, though the repetition was beginning to pall even on him. “I cannot be repudiated at the will of a local squire. Has my order no rights here in Wales?”

  “Very few,” said Cadfael bluntly. “My people have a natural reverence, but it leans towards the hermitage, not the cloister.”

  The heated conference went on until Vespers, and poisoned even Vespers with its bitterness, for there Prior Robert preached a fearful sermon detailing all the omens that Winifred desired above all things to remove to the sanctity of Shrewsbury, and issuing her prophetic denunciation against all who stood in the way of her translation. Terrible would be her wrath visited on those who dared resist her will. Thus Prior Robert approached the necessary reconciliation with Rhisiart. And though Cadfael in translating toned down the threat as much as he dared, there were some among the congregation who understood enough English to get the full drift of it. He knew by their closed, mute faces. Now they would go away to spread the word to those who had not been present, until everyone in Gwytherin knew that the prior had bidden them remember what befell Prince Cradoc, whose very flesh watered away into the ground like rain, so that he vanished utterly, as to the body expunged out of the world, as to the soul, the fearful imagination dared not guess. So also it might happen to those who dared offend against Winifred now.

  Father Huw, harried and anxious, cast about him as honestly as he could for a way of pleasing everybody. It took him most of the evening to get the prior to listen, but from sheer exhaustion a calm had to set in at last.

  “Rhisiart is not an impious man—“

  “Not impious!” fluted Brother Jerome, appealing to heaven with uplifted eyes. “Men have been excommunicated for less!”

  “Then men have been excommunicated for no evil at all,” said Huw sturdily, “and truly I think they sometimes have. No, I say he is a decent, devout man, open-handed and fair, and had a right to resent it when he was misunderstood and affronted. If he is ever to withdraw his opposition, it must be you, Father Prior, who make the first approach to him, and upon a different footing. Not in person first, I would not ask or advise it. But if I were to go to him, perhaps with Brother Cadfael here, who is known to be a good Welshman himself, and ask him to forget all that has been said and done, and come with an open mind to begin the discussion over again, I think he would not re
fuse. Moreover, the very act of seeking him out would disarm him, for he has a generous heart. I don’t say he would necessarily change his mind—it would depend on how he is handled this time—but I do say he would listen.”

  “Far be it from me” said Prior Robert loftily “to pass over any means of saving a soul from perdition. I wish the man no ill, if he tempers his offences. It is not a humiliation to stoop to deliver a sinner.”

  “O wondrous clemency!” intoned Brother Jerome. “Saintly generosity towards the ill-doer!”

  Brother John flashed a narrow, glittering glance, and shifted one foot uneasily, as if restraining an impulse to kick. Father Huw, desperate to preserve his stock of goodwill with prince, bishop, prior and people alike, cast him a warning look, and resumed hurriedly: “I will go to Rhisiart tonight, and ask him to dine here at my house tomorrow. Then if we can come to terms between us, another assembly can be called, so that all may know there is peace.”

  “Very well!” said the prior, after consideration. In that way he need never actually admit any guilt on his part, or apologise for any act of his, nor need he enquire too closely what Huw might have to say on his behalf. “Very well, do so, and I hope you may succeed.”

  “It would be a mark of your status, and the importance of this gesture,” suggested Cadfael with an earnest face, “if your messengers went mounted. It’s not yet dark, and the horses would be better for exercise.”

  “True,” said the prior, mildly gratified. “It would be in keeping with our dignity and lend weight to our errand. Very well, let Brother John bring the horses.”