The Brothers of Glastonbury (30 page)

Mistress Pennard was a different matter, and there was nothing that anyone could do to ease her lot. She vigorously denied all knowledge of what her husband and sons had been up to, and as the three of them upheld her claim she was, after rigorous examination, allowed to go free. But she had lost her home, her livelihood and her friends. What would become of her in the end, I could not hazard. She would probably end her days in the shelter of some religious house, alone and friendless. As I said, the innocent suffer as much as the guilty.

Dame Joan begged me to stay with them for a little while longer. ‘Just until my brother arrives,’ she pleaded, her expression lost and frightened.

But who could say what length of time it would take for her letter to reach him? And now that my task was done I wanted to be home. Yet even that would be further delayed by the return of Barnabas to Farleigh Castle and the fulfilment of my promise to Master Honeyman, who now languished in prison. So I hardened my heart and said that I would spend the Sabbath beneath her roof, but that I must be on my way no later than the following day.

Cicely, I noticed, did not entreat me to remain, as she might have done a day or two earlier. Rather, she seemed impatient for me to be gone, sparing me but little thought as she held conference with Rob and John on the intricacies of the task before her.

‘We shall miss you, of course,’ she said on Monday morning, absentmindedly reaching up to peck my cheek before hurrying into the workshop.

I smiled to myself, then went to take my leave of Brother Hilarion at the abbey. He was plainly both relieved and distressed by the outcome of my investigations.

‘A bad business. A bad business,’ he kept repeating over and over.

I asked him to keep an eye on Dame Gildersleeve and to invoke Father Abbot’s protection for her against the malice of her neighbours. ‘At least the stigma of a son who dabbled in the Black Arts has been removed, but she will still be branded the mother of a thief.’

Brother Hilarion sighed his acknowledgement and gave me his blessing. As I turned away he called urgently after me, ‘Roger! My child, wait a moment! There’s something I must ask you.’

But just at that moment I was hailed by one of the brothers who had been a novice with me in those days when he had been plain Nicholas Fletcher. And by the time we had traded memories of our time together, and recalled his brother Martin, whom I had met the preceding year in far from happy circumstances, Brother Hilarion’s attention had been claimed by two of his pupils. I wondered idly what he had wanted, but I was too eager now to be off, and bade Brother Nicholas make my farewells for me.

I did not loiter but went straight to Northload Street and the stables to take my leave of Edgar Shapwick.

‘But for you, I should be dead,’ I said, embracing him.

‘I only carried out your instructions to contact the Sheriff’s men,’ he protested. ‘You were wise not to trust the Pennards, it seems. Did you know what you were going to find?’

I shook my head. ‘Although perhaps I should have guessed. But I only knew that the disappearance of Mark and Peter Gildersleeve must be linked to them, once those traces of tar had been found in Dorabella’s mane. It has been a muddled, unsatisfactory business in many ways.’

‘What led you to suspect there was a cave in that part of the hills?’ Edgar inquired, holding Barnabas’s head while I mounted.

‘It’s a long story,’ I answered, then clapped a hand to my mouth as I realized just what it was that Brother Hilarion had been about to ask me.

‘Is something wrong?’ my companion enquired, noting my consternation.

‘N-no,’ I answered slowly. ‘No, nothing!’ I leaned from the saddle. ‘Once again, thank you for your good offices, Master Shapwick.’

‘It’s we, the folk of Glastonbury and the villages around, who should thank you,’ he protested. ‘You’ve done what the Sheriff’s men were unable to do and cleared up the mystery of these robberies. There will be many a home’s occupants grateful to see the return of their valuables.’ He handed up my scorched and blackened cudgel and slapped the cob’s rump. ‘God go with you, lad, and guard you safely home to Bristol.’

I accepted his good wishes and also enlisted his support for Dame Joan and Cicely. ‘They’ll need stalwart friends.’

‘They will that. You can rely on me.’ He clasped my hand and watched me ride out of the stable before turning back to resume the morning’s business.

I rode up the High Street, past the abbey and the church of Saint John, and on into Bove Town, where the pilgrims’ chapel of Saint James indicated the track leading to the Jarrolds’ cottage. To my right the strange, brooding hump of the Tor rose against the skyline, crowned by Saint Michael’s chapel, the home of Merlin, of Gwyn ap Nud, of the early Celtic gods who had been worshipped in these parts long before the coming of the first Christians.

I remembered with a smile my longing, a week ago, to be plunged into some romantic adventure, to become a part of the the mystic, mythical world of my wildest dreams. And for a few, brief hours I had thought myself to be standing on the threshhold of one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind, just as Peter Gildersleeve had done before me. But now, as I turned off along the raised causeway to Wells and the Mendip Hills, I wondered heavily whatever had possessed me to believe it possible, and felt that I had been touched by a sort of madness. I had completely forgotten about the Grail in the aftermath of what had happened in the cave, and had only recollected the object of my search just now, prompted by Edgar Shapwick’s question. I felt stupid and dull, as if I had just awakened from a long, deep sleep. Well, it was too late now. I should never be able to prove what Brother Begninus had concealed from the Saxons a thousand years ago, or where he had hidden it …

And then, suddenly, as a shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds which had hung like a pall over the countryside for the past two days, my spirits rose, and I was glad that I had not found the Holy Grail. Down through the centuries it had grown to symbolize so much more than just a great Christian relic. It had come to stand for Man’s quest for everything worthwhile, for his better nature, for hope in an unfriendly world. If it could be reduced to nothing more than an object of gold and precious jewels it would lose its significance, and the world would be a poorer place because it had lost an ideal.

And as I urged Barnabas to a trot, I began to smile.

Also by Kate Sedley

Death and the Chapman

The Plymouth Cloak

The Hanged Man

The Holy Innocents

The Eve of St Hyacinth

The Wicked Winter

The Weaver’s Inheritance

All characters in this publication are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

THE BROTHERS OF GLASTONBURY.
Copyright © 1997 by Kate Sedley. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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ISBN 0-312-27282-0

First published in Great Britain by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING, a division of Hodder Headline

First U.S. Edition: January 2001

eISBN 9781466873957

First eBook edition: May 2014