Holy Thief (6 page)

She
was away into the gathering twilight, lissome and straight, leaving the door
open behind her. Cadfael watched her until she rounded the box hedge and
vanished from his sight. Queen Daalny in slavery, almost a myth like her
namesake, and every bit as perilous.

At
the end of the hour she had allowed herself, Donata turned the hourglass on the
bench beside her bed, and opened her eyes. They had been closed while Tutilo
played, to absent herself in some degree from him, to relieve him of the burden
of a withered old woman’s regard, and leave him free to enjoy his own talent
without the need to defer to his audience. Though she might well take pleasure
in contemplating his youth and freshness, there could hardly be much joy for
him in confronting her emaciation and ruin. She had had the harp moved from the
hall into her bedchamber to give him the pleasure of tuning and playing it, and
been glad to see that while he stroked and tightened and adjusted, bending his
curly head over the work, he had forgotten her very presence. That was as it should
be. For her the exquisite anguish of his music was none the less, and his
happiness was all the more.

But
an hour was all she could ask. She had promised he should return by the hour of
Compline. She turned the hourglass, and on the instant he broke off, the
strings vibrating at the slight start he made.

“Did
I play falsely?” he asked, dismayed.

“No,
but you ask falsely,” she said drily. “You know there was no fault there. But
time passes, and you must go back to your duty. You have been kind, and I am
grateful, but your sub-prior will want you back as I promised, in time for
Compline. If I hope to be able to ask again, I must keep to terms.”

“I
could play you to sleep,” he said, “before I go.”

“I
shall sleep. Never fret for me. No, you must go, and there is something I want
you to take with you. Open the chest there, beside the psaltery you will find a
small leather bag. Bring it to me.”

He
set the harp aside, and went to do her bidding. She loosened the cord that drew
the neck of the little, worn satchel together, and emptied out upon her
coverlet a handful of trinkets, a gold neckchain, twin bracelets, a heavy
torque of gold set with roughly cut gemstones, and two rings, one a man’s
massive seal, the other a broad gold band, deeply engraved. Her own finger
showed the shrunken, pallid mark below the swollen knuckle, from which she had
removed it. Last came a large and intricate ring brooch, the fastening of a
cloak, reddish gold, Saxon work.

“Take
these, and add them to whatever you have amassed for Ramsey. My son promises a
good load of wood, part coppice wood, part seasoned timber, indeed Eudo will be
sending the carts down tomorrow by the evening. But these are my offering. They
are my younger son’s ransom.” She swept the gold back into the bag, and drew
the neck closed. Take them!”

Tutilo
stood hesitant, eyeing her doubtfully. “Lady, there needs no ransom. He had not
taken final vows. He had the right to choose his own way. He owes nothing.”

“Not
Sulien, but I,” she said, and smiled. “You need not scruple to take them. They
are mine to give, not from my husband’s family, but my father’s.”

“But
your son’s wife,” he urged, “and the lady who is to marry your Sulien, have not
they some claim? These are of great value, and women like such things.”

“My
daughters are in my councils. We are all of one mind. Ramsey may pray for my
soul,” she said serenely, “and that will settle all accounts.”

He
gave in then, still in some wonder and doubt, accepted the bag from her, and
kissed the hand that bestowed it.

“Go
now,” said Donata, stretching back into her pillows with a sigh. “Edred will
ride with you to see you over the ferry, and bring back the pony. You should
not go on foot tonight.”

He
made his farewells to her, still a little anxious, unsure whether he did right
to accept what seemed to him so rich a gift. He turned again in the doorway to
look back, and she shook her head at him, and motioned him away with an
authority that drove him out in haste, as though he had been scolded.

In
the courtyard the groom was waiting with the ponies. It was already night, but
clear and moonlit, with scudding clouds high overhead. At the ferry the river
was running higher than when they had come, though there had been no rain.
Somewhere upstream there was flood water on its way.

He
delivered his treasures proudly to Sub-Prior Herluin at the end of Compline.
The entire household, and most of the guests, were there to witness the arrival
of the worn leather bag, and glimpsed its contents as Tutilo joyfully displayed
them. Donata’s gifts were bestowed with the alms of the burgesses of Shrewsbury
in the wooden coffer that was to carry them back to Ramsey, with the cartload
of timber from Longner, while Herluin and Tutilo went on to visit Worcester,
and possibly Evesham and Pershore as well, to appeal for further aid.

Herluin
turned the key on the treasury, and bestowed the coffer on the altar of Saint
Mary until the time should come to commit it to the care of Nicol, his most
trusted servant, for the journey home. Two days more, and they would be setting
out. The abbey had loaned a large wagon for transport, and the town provided
the loan of a team to draw it. Horses from the abbey stable would carry Herluin
and Tutilo on their further journey. Shrewsbury had done very well by its
sister-house, and Donata’s gold was the crown of the effort. Many eyes followed
the turning of the key, and the installation of the coffer on the altar, where
awe of heaven would keep it from violation. God has a powerful attraction.

Leaving
the church, Cadfael halted for a moment to snuff the air and survey the sky,
which by this hour hung heavy with dropsical clouds, through which the moon
occasionally glared for an instant, and was as quickly obscured again. When he
went to close up his workshop for the night he observed that the waters of the
brook had laid claim to another yard or so of the lower rim of his peasefields.

All
night long from the Matins bell it rained heavily.

In
the morning, about Prime, Hugh Beringar, King Stephen’s sheriff of Shropshire,
came down in haste out of the town to carry the first warning of trouble ahead,
sending his officers to cry the news along the Foregate, while he brought it in
person to Abbot Radulfus.

“Word
from Pool last evening, Severn’s well out below the town, and still raining
heavily in Wales. Upriver beyond Montford the meadows are under water, and the
main bulk still on its way down, and fast. I’d advise moving what’s valuable,
stores can’t be risked, with transport threatened.” In time of flood the town,
all but the encrustation of fishermen’s and small craft dwellings along the
riverside, and the gardens under the wall, would be safe enough, but the
Foregate could soon be under water, and parts of the abbey enclave were the
lowest ground, threatened on every side by the river itself, the Meole Brook
driven backwards by the weight of water, and the mill pond swelled by the
pressure from both. I’d lend you some men, but we’ll need to get some of the
waterside dwellers up into the town.”

“We
have hands enough, we can shift for ourselves,” said the abbot. “My thanks for
the warning. You think it will be a serious flood?”

“No
knowing yet, but you’ll have time to prepare. If you mean to load that timber
from Longner this evening, better have your wagon round by the Horse Fair. The
level there is safe enough, and you can go in and out to your stable and loft
by the cemetery gates.”

“Just
as well,” said Radulfus, “if Herluin’s men can get their load away tomorrow,
and be on their way home.” He rose to go and rally his household to the labour
pending, and Hugh, for once, made for the gatehouse without looking up Brother
Cadfael on the way. But it happened that Cadfael was rounding the hedge from
the garden in considerable haste, just in time to cross his friend’s path. The
Meole Brook was boiling back upstream, and the mill pool rising.

“Ah!”
said Cadfael, pulling up sharply. “You’ve been before me, have you? The abbot’s
warned?”

“He
is, and you can pause and draw breath,” said Hugh, checking in his own flight
to fling an arm about Cadfael’s shoulders. “Not that we know what we can
expect, not yet. It may be less than we fear, but better be armed. The lowest
of the town’s awash. Bring me to the gate, I’ve scarcely seen you this side
Christmas.”

“It
won’t last long,” Cadfael assured him breathlessly. “Soon up, soon down. Two or
three days wading, longer to clean up after it, but we’ve done it all before.”

“Better
make sure of what medicines may be wanted, and get them above-stairs in the
infirmary. Too much wading, and you’ll be in a sickbed yourself.”

“I’ve
been putting them together already,” Cadfael assured him. “I’m off to have a
word with Edmund now. Thanks be, Aline and Giles are high and dry, up there by
Saint Mary’s. All’s well with them?”

“Very
well, but that it’s too long since you came to see your godson.” Hugh’s horse
was hitched by the gatehouse; he reached to the bridle. “Make it soon, once
Severn’s back in its bed.”

“I
will so. Greet her for me, and make my peace with the lad.”

And
Hugh was in the saddle, and away along the highroad to hunt out and confer with
the provost of the Foregate; and Cadfael tucked up his habit and made for the
infirmary. There would be heavier valuables to move to higher ground later, but
his first duty was to make sure he had whatever medicaments might be needed in
some readily accessible place, clear of the waters which were slowly creeping
up from the thwarted Meole Brook one way, and the congested millpond another.

High
Mass was observed as always, reverently and with out haste, that morning, but
chapter was a matter of minutes, devoted mainly to allotting all the necessary
tasks to appropriate groups of brothers, and ensuring an orderly and decorous
move. First to wrap all those valuables that might have to be carried up
staircases or lifted into lofts, and for the moment leave them, already
protected, where they were. No need to move them before the rising waters made
it essential. There were things to be lifted from the lowest points of the
enclave long before the flood could lip at the church itself.

The
stable-yard lying at a low point of the court, they moved the horses out to the
abbey barn and loft by the Horse Fair ground, where there was fodder enough in
store without having to cart any from the lofts within the enclave, where
stocks were safe enough. Even the Severn in spring flood after heavy snows and
torrential rain had never reached the upper storey, and never would; there was
more than enough lower ground along its course into which to overflow. In
places it would be a mile or more wide, in acres of drowned meadow, before ever
it invaded the choir. The nave had been known to float a raft now and again
over the years, once even a light boat. That was the most they need fear. So
they swathed all the chests and coffers that housed the vestments, the plate,
the crosses and candlesticks and furnishings of the altars, and the precious
minor relics of the treasury. And Saint Winifred’s silver-chased reliquary they
wrapped carefully in old, worn hangings and a large brychan, but left her on
her altar until it should become clear that she must be carried to a higher
refuge. If that became necessary, this would be the worst flood within
Cadfael’s recollection by at least a foot; and if ever during this day the
worst threatened, she would have to be removed, something which had never
happened since she was brought here.

Cadfael
forbore from eating that noon, and while the rest of the household, guests and
all, were taking hasty refreshment, he went in and kneeled before her altar, as
sometimes he did in silence, too full of remembering to pray, though there
seemed, nevertheless, to be a dialogue in progress. If any kindly soul among
the saints knew him through and through, it was Winifred, his young Welsh girl,
who was not here at all, but safe and content away in her own Welsh earth at
Gwytherin. No one knew it but the lady, her servant and devotee Cadfael, who
had contrived her repose there, and Hugh Beringar, who had been let into the
secret late. Here in England, no one else; but in her own Wales, her own
Gwytherin, it was no secret, but a central tenet of Welsh faith never needing
mention. She was with them still; all was well.

So
it was not her rest, not hers, that was threatened now, only the uneasy repose
of an ambitious, unstable young man who had done murder in pursuit of his own
misguided dreams, greed for the abbey of Shrewsbury, greed for his own
advancement. His death had afforded Winifred peace to remain where her heart
clove to the beloved soil. That, at least, might almost be counted alleviation
against his sins. For she had not withdrawn her blessing, because a sinner lay
in the coffin prepared for her, and was entreated in her name. Where he was,
and she was not, she had done miracles of grace.

“Geneth...
Cariad!” said Cadfael silently. “Girl, dear, has he been in purgatory long
enough? Can you lift even him out of his mire?”

During
the afternoon the gradual rise of the brook and the river seemed to slow and
hold constant, though there was certainly no decline. They began to think that
the peril would pass. Then in the late evening the main body of the upland
water from Wales came swirling down in a riot of muddy foam, torn branches, and
not a few carcases of sheep caught and drowned on mounds too low to preserve
them. Rolled and tumbled in the flood, trees lodged under the bridge and piled
the turgid water even higher. Every soul in the enclave turned to in earnest,
and helped to remove the precious furnishings to higher refuge, as brook and
river and pond together advanced greedily into all the lower reaches of the
court and cemetery, and gnawed at the steps of the west and south doors,
turning the cloister garth into a shallow and muddy lake.