The Holy Thief Read online

  Hugh and Prior Robert had arrived at the priory late in the evening, paid their respects to the prior, attended Vespers to do reverence to the saints of the foundation, Saints Oswald and Wulstan, and taken Herluin and his attendants into their confidence about the loss, or at the very least the misplacement, of Saint Winifred’s reliquary; with a sharp eye, at least on Hugh’s part, for the way the news was received. But he could find no fault with Herluin’s reaction, which displayed natural dismay and concern, but not to excess. Too much exclaiming and protesting would have aroused a degree of doubt as to his sincerity, but Herluin clearly felt that here was nothing worse than some confused stupidity among too many helpers in too much panic and haste, and what was lost would be found as soon as everyone calmed down and halted the hunt for a while to take thought. It was impressive, too, that he instantly stated his intention of returning at once to Shrewsbury, to help to clarify the confusion, though he seemed to be relying on his natural authority and leadership to produce order out of chaos, rather than having anything practical in mind. He himself had nothing to contribute. He had taken no part in the hurried labors within the church, but had held himself aloof with dignity in the abbot’s lodging, which was still high and dry. No, he knew nothing of who had salvaged Saint Winifred. His last sight of her reliquary had been at morning Mass.

  Tutilo, awed and mute, shook his head, still in its aureole of unshorn curls, and opened his amber eyes wide at hearing the disturbing news. Given leave to speak, he said he had gone into the church to help, and had simply obeyed such orders as were given to him, and he knew nothing of where the saint’s coffin might be at this moment.

  “This must not go by default,” pronounced Herluin at his most majestic. “Tomorrow we will ride back with you to Shrewsbury. She cannot be far. She must be found.”

  “After Mass tomorrow,” said Prior Robert, firmly reasserting his own leadership as representing Shrewsbury, “we will set out.”

  And so they would have done, but for the coming of Nicol.

  Their horses were saddled and waiting, their farewells to the prior and brothers already made, and Hugh just reaching for his bridle, when Nicol came trudging sturdily in at the gatehouse, soiled and bruised and hoisting himself along on a staff he had cut for himself in the forest. Herluin saw him, and uttered a wordless cry, rather of vexation than surprise or alarm, for by this time the steward should have been home in Ramsey, all his booty safely delivered. His unexpected appearance here, whatever its cause, boded no good.

  “Nicol!” pronounced Herluin, suppressing his first exasperation, at this or any disruption of his plans. “Man, what are you doing here? Why are you not back in Ramsey? I had thought I could have complete trust in you to get your charge safely home. What has happened? Where have you left the wagon? And your fellows, where are they?”

  Nicol drew deep breath, and told him. “Father, we were set upon in woodland, south of Leicester. Five of us, and a dozen of them, with cudgels and daggers, and two archers among them. Horses and wagon were what they wanted, and what they took, for all we could do to stop them. They were on the run, and in haste, or we should all be dead men. They had one at least of their number wounded, and they needed to move fast. They battered us into the bushes, and made off into the forest with the cart and the team and the load, and left us to limp away on foot wherever we would. And that’s the whole tale,” he said, and shut his mouth with a snap, confronting Herluin with the stony stare of an elder provoked and ready to do battle.

  The abbey’s wagon gone, a team of horses gone, Longner’s cartload of timber gone, worst of all, Ramsey’s little chest of treasure for the rebuilding, lost to a company of outlaws along the road! Prior Robert drew a hissing breath, Sub-Prior Herluin uttered a howl of bitter deprivation, and began to babble indignation into Nicol’s set face.

  “Could you do no better than that? All my work gone to waste! I thought I could rely on you, that Ramsey could rely on you…”

  Hugh laid a restraining hand on the sub-prior’s heaving shoulder, and rode somewhat unceremoniously over his lament. “Was any man of yours badly hurt?”

  “None past making his way afoot. As I’ve made mine,” said Nicol sturdily, “all these miles, to bring word as soon as I might.”

  “And well done,” said Hugh. “God be thanked there was no killing. And where have they headed, since they let you make for here alone?”

  “Roger and the young mason are gone on together for Ramsey. And the master carpenter and the other lad turned back for Shrewsbury. They’ll be there by this, if they had no more trouble along the way.”

  “And where was this ambush? South of Leicester, you said? Could you lead us there? But no,” said Hugh decisively, looking the man over. An elder, well past fifty, and battered and tired from a dogged and laborious journey on foot. “No, you need your rest. Name me some village close by, and we’ll find the traces. Here are we, and ready for the road. As well for Leicester as for Shrewsbury.”

  “It was in the forest, not far from Ullesthorpe,” said Nicol. “But they’ll be long gone. I told you, they needed the cart and the horses, for they were running from old pastures gone sour on them, and in the devil’s own hurry.”

  “If they needed the wagon and the team so sorely,” said Hugh, “one thing’s certain, they’d want no great load of timber to slow them down. As soon as they were well clear of you, they’d surely get rid of that dead weight, they’d upend the cart and tip the load. If your little treasury was well buried among the coppice-wood, Father Herluin, we may recover it yet.” And if something else really was slipped aboard at the last moment, he thought, who knows but we may recover that, too!

  Herluin had brightened and gathered his dignity about him wonderfully, at the very thought of regaining what had gone astray. So had Nicol perceptibly brightened, though rather with the hope of getting his revenge on the devils who had tumbled him from the wagon, and threatened his companions with steel and arrows.

  “You mean to go back there after them?” he questioned, glittering. Then, my lord, gladly I’ll come back with you. I’ll know the place again, and take you there straight. Father Herluin came with three horses from Shrewsbury. Let his man make his way back there, and let me have the third horse and bring you the quickest way to Ullesthorpe. Give me a moment to wet my throat and take a bite, and I’m ready!”

  “You’ll fall by the wayside,” said Hugh, laughing at a vehemence he could well understand.

  “Not I, my lord! Let me but get my hands on one of that grisly crew, and you’ll put me in better fettle than all the rest in the world. I would not be left out! This was my charge, and I have a score to settle. I kept the key safe, Father Herluin, but never had time to toss the coffer into the bushes, before I was flung there myself, winded among the brambles, and scratches enough to show for it. You would not leave me behind now?”

  “Not for the world!” said Hugh heartily. “I can do with a man of spirit about me. Go, quickly then, get bread and ale. We’ll leave the Ramsey lad and have you along for guide.”

  The reeve of Ullesthorpe was a canny forty-five year old, wiry and spry, and adroit at defending not only himself and his position, but the interests of his village. Confronted with a party weighted in favor of the clerical, he nevertheless took a thoughtful look at Hugh Beringar, and addressed himself rather to the secular justice.

  “True enough, my lord! We found the place some days past. We’d got word of these outlaws passing through the woods, though they never came near the villages, and then this master-carpenter and his fellow came back to us and told us what had befallen them, and we did what we could for them to set them on their way back to Shrewsbury. I reasoned like you, my lord, that they’d rid themselves of the load, it would only slow them down. I’ll take you to the place. It’s a couple of miles into the forest.”

  He added nothing more until he had brought them deep into thick woodland, threaded by a single open ride, where deep wheel-ruts still showed here and
there in the moist ground, even after so many days. The marauders had simply backed the wagon into a relatively open grove, and tipped the stack of wood headlong, raking out the last slim cordwood and dragging the cart away from under them. It did not surprise Hugh to see that the stack had been scattered abroad from the original untidy pile dumped thus, and most of the seasoned timber removed, leaving the flattened bushes plain to be seen. Thrifty villagers had sorted out the best for their own uses, present or future. Give them time, and the rest of the coppice-wood would also find a good home. The reeve, attendant at Hugh’s elbow, eyed him sidelong, and said insinuatingly: “You’ll not think it ill of good husbandmen to take what God sends and be grateful for it?”

  Herluin remarked, but with controlled resignation: “This was the property of Ramsey Abbey, nevertheless.”

  “Why, Father, there was but a few of us, those who talked with the lads from Shrewsbury, ever knew that. The first here were from an assart only cut from the woods a few years back, it was a godsend indeed to them. Why leave it to go to waste? They never saw the wagon or the men that brought it here. And the earl gives us the right to take fallen wood, and this was long felled.”

  “As well mending a roof as lying here,” said Hugh, shrugging. “Small blame to them.” The heap of logs, probed and hauled apart days since, had spread over the woodland ride and into the tangle of grass and undergrowth among the trees. They walked the circuit of it, sifting among the remains, and Nicol, who had strayed a little further afield, suddenly uttered a shout, and plunging among the bushes, caught up and brandished before their eyes the small coffer which had held Herluin’s treasury. Broken apart by force, the lid splintered, the box shed a handful of stones and a drift of dead leaves as he turned it upside down and shook it ruefully.

  “You see? You see? They never got the key from me, they never would have got it, but that was no hindrance. A dagger prizing under the lid, close by the lock… And all that good alms and good will gone to rogues and vagabonds!”

  “I expected no better,” said Herluin bitterly, and took the broken box in his hands to stare at the damage. “Well, we have survived even worse, and shall survive this loss also. There were times when I feared our house was lost for ever. This is but a stumble on the way, we shall make good what we have vowed, in spite of all.”

  Small chance, however, reflected Hugh, of recovering these particular gifts. All Shrewsbury’s giving, whether from the heart or the conscience, all Donata’s surrendered vanities, relinquished without regret, all gone with the fugitive ruffians, how far distant already there was no guessing.

  “So this is all,” said Prior Robert sadly.

  “My lord…” The reeve edged closer to Hugh’s shoulder and leaned confidingly to his ear. “My lord, there was something else found among the logs. Well hidden underneath it was, or either the rogues would have found it when they tipped the load, or else the first who came to carry off timber would have seen it. But it so chanced it was covered deep, and came to light only when I was here to see. I knew when we unwrapped it, it was not for us to meddle with.”

  He had all their attention now, every eye was wide and bright upon him, Herluin and Robert irresistibly moved to hoping against hope, but very wary of disappointment, Nicol interested but bewildered, for nothing had been said to him of the loss of Saint Winifred’s reliquary, or the possibility that he might have had it aboard his wagon, and had been robbed of it with all the rest. Tutilo hovered in the background, keeping himself modestly apart while his betters conferred. He had even suppressed, as he could do at will, the brightness of his amber eyes.

  “And what was this thing you found?” asked Hugh cautiously.

  “A coffin, my lord, by its shape. Not very large, if coffin it really is; whoever lies in it was fine-boned and slender. Ornamented in silver, very chastely. I knew it was precious enough to be perilous. I took it in charge for safety.”

  “And what,” pursued Prior Robert, beginning to glow with the promise of a triumph, “did you do with this coffin?”

  “I had it taken to my lord, since it was found in his territory. I was risking no man of my village or those round about being charged with stealing a thing of value. Earl Robert was and is in residence in his manor of Huncote,” said the reeve, “a few miles nearer Leicester. We carried it to him there, and told him how we found it, and there in his hall it is yet. You may find it safe enough in his care.”

  “Praise God, who has shown us marvelous mercies!” breathed Prior Robert in rapture. “I do believe we have found the saint we mourned as lost.”

  Hugh was visited by a momentary vision of Brother Cadfael’s face, if he could have been present to appreciate the irony. Yet both virgin saint and unrepentant sinner must fall within the range of humanity. Maybe, after all, Cadfael had been right to speak so simply of ‘poor Columbanus’. If only, thought Hugh, between amusement and anxiety, if only the lady has been gracious enough and considerate enough to keep the lid firmly on that reliquary of hers, we may yet come out of this without scandal. In any case, there was no escaping the next move.

  “Very well so!” said Hugh philosophically. “Then we’ll go to Huncote, and have speech with the earl.”

  Huncote was a trim and compact village. There was a thriving mill, and the fields of the demesne were wide and green, the ploughland well tended. It lay clear of the edge of the forest, closely grouped round the manor and its walled courtyard. The house was not large, but built of stone, with a squat tower as solid as a castle keep. Within the pale the strangers entering were observed immediately, and approached with an alertness and efficiency that probably stemmed from the fact that the earl himself was in residence. Grooms came at once, and briskly, to take the bridles, and a spruce page came bounding down the steps from the hall door to greet the newcomers and discover their business here, but he was waved away by an older steward who had emerged from the stables. The apparition of three Benedictines, two of them obviously venerable, and attended by two lay guests, one a servitor, the other with an authority equal to the monastic, but clearly secular, produced a welcome at once courteous and cool. Here every grace of hospitality would be offered to all who came, only warmth waited on further exchanges.

  In a country still torn between two rivals for sovereignty, and plagued by numerous uncommitted lords more interested in carving out kingdoms of their own, wise men observed their hospitable duties and opened their houses to all, but waited to examine credentials before opening their minds.

  “My lord, reverend sirs,” said the steward, “you are very welcome. I am the steward of my lord Robert Beaumont’s manor of Huncote. How may I serve the Benedictine Order and those who ride in their company? Have you business here within?”

  “If Earl Robert is within, and will receive us,” said Hugh, “we have indeed business. We come in the matter of something lost from the abbey of Shrewsbury, and found, as we have learned, here within the earl’s woodlands. A little matter of a saint’s reliquary. Your lord may even find it diverting, as well as enlightening, for he must have been wondering what had been laid on his doorstone.”

  “I am the prior of Shrewsbury,” said Robert with ceremonious dignity, but was only briefly regarded. The steward was elderly, experienced and intelligent, and though he was custodian only of one of the minor properties in Leicester’s huge and international honor, by the sharpening glint in his eye he was in his lord’s confidence, and well acquainted with the mysterious and elaborate coffin so strangely jettisoned in the forest beyond Ullesthorpe.

  “I am King Stephen’s sheriff of Shropshire,” said Hugh, “and in pursuit of that same errant saint. If your lord has her safe and sound, he is entitled to the prayers of all the brothers of Shrewsbury, and of half Wales into the bargain.”

  “No man’s the worse for an extra prayer or two,” said the steward, visibly thawing. “Go within, brothers, and welcome. Robin here will show you. We’ll see your beasts cared for.”

  The boy, perhaps sixt
een years old, pert and lively, had waited their pleasure with stretched ears and eyes bright with curiosity when their errand was mentioned. Some younger son from among Leicester’s tenants, placed by a dutiful father where he could readily get advancement. And by his easy manner, Hugh judged, Leicester was no very hard master for such as met his standards. This lad bounded up the steps ahead of them, his chin on his shoulder, eyeing them brightly.

  “My lord came down here from the town when he heard of these outlaws passing this way, but never a glimpse of them have we encountered since. They’ll be well out of reach before this. He’ll welcome diversion, if you have so curious a tale to tell. He left his countess behind in Leicester.”

  “And the reliquary is here?” demanded Prior Robert, anxious to have his best hopes confirmed.

  “If that is what it is, Father, yes, it’s here.”

  “And has suffered no damage?”

  “I think not,” said the boy, willing to please. “But I have not seen it close. I know the earl admired the silverwork.”

  He left them in a paneled solar beyond the hall, and went to inform his master that he had unexpected guests; and no more than five minutes later the door of the room opened upon the lord of half Leicestershire, a good slice of Warwickshire and Northampton, and a large honor in Normandy brought to him by his marriage with the heiress of Breteuil.

  It was the first time Hugh had seen him, and he came to the encounter with sharp and wary interest. Robert Beaumont, earl of Leicester like his father before him, was a man barely a year past forty, squarely built and no more than medium tall, dark of hair and darker of eyes, rich but somber in his attire, and carrying the habit of command very lightly, not overstressed, for there was no need. He was cleanshaven, in the Norman manner, leaving open to view a face broad at brow and well provided with strong and shapely bone, a lean jaw, and a full, firm mouth, long-lipped and mobile, and quirking upward at the corners to match a certain incalculable spark in his eye. The symmetry of his body and the smoothness of his movements were thrown out of balance by the slight bulge that heaved one shoulder out of line with its fellow. Not a great flaw, but insistently it troubled the eyes of guests coming new to his acquaintance.