The Pilgram of Hate (17 page)

They
moved forward again into the nave of the church, and then to the right, towards
the bared and waiting altar. The vast, dreaming, sun-warmed bulk of the church
enclosed them, dim, silent and empty, since no other could enter until they had
discharged their duty, lodged their patroness and retired to their own
insignificant places. Then they came, led by abbot and prior, first the
brothers to fill up their stalls in the choir, then the provost and guildsmen
of the town and the notables of the shire, and then all that great concourse of
people, flooding in from hot mid-morning sunlight to the cool dimness of stone,
and from the excited clamour of festival to the great silence of worship, until
all the space of the nave was filled with the colour and warmth and breath of
humanity, and all as still as the candle-flames on the altar. Even the
reflected gleams in the silver chacings of the casket were fixed and motionless
as jewels.

Abbot
Radulfus stood forth. The sobering solemnity of the Mass began.

For
the very intensity of all that mortal emotion gathered thus between confining
walls and beneath one roof, it was impossible to withdraw the eyes for an
instant from the act of worship on which it was centred, or the mind from the words
of the office. There had been times, through the years of his vocation, when
Cadfael’s thoughts had strayed during Mass to worrying at other problems, and
working out other intents. It was not so now. Throughout, he was unaware of a
single face in all that throng, only of the presence of humankind, in whom his
own identity was lost; or, perhaps, into whom his own identity expanded like
air, to fill every part of the whole. He forgot Melangell and Matthew, he
forgot Ciaran and Rhun, he never looked round to see if Hugh had come. If there
was a face before his mind’s eye at all it was one he had never seen, though he
well remembered the slight and fragile bones he had lifted with such care and
awe out of the earth, and with so much better heart again laid beneath the same
soil, there to resume her hawthorn-scented sleep under the sheltering trees.
For some reason, though she had lived to a good old age, he could not imagine
her older than seventeen or eighteen, as she had been when the king’s son
Cradoc pursued her. The slender little bones had cried out of youth, and the
shadowy face he had imagined for her was fresh and eager and open, and very
beautiful. But he saw it always half turned away from him. Now, if ever, she
might at last look round, and show him fully that reassuring countenance.

At
the end of Mass the abbot withdrew to his own stall, to the right of the
entrance from nave to choir, round the parish altar, and with lifted voice and
open arms bade the pilgrims advance to the saint’s altar, where everyone who
had a petition to make might make it on his knees, and touch the reliquary with
hand and lip. And in orderly and reverent silence they came. Prior Robert took
his stand at the foot of the three steps that led up to the altar, ready to
offer a hand to those who needed help to mount or kneel. Those who were in
health and had no pressing requirements to advance came through from the nave
on the other side, and found corners where they might stand and watch, and miss
nothing of this memorable day. They had faces again, they spoke in whispers,
they were as various as an hour since they had been one.

On
his knees in his stall, Brother Cadfael looked on, knowing them one from
another now as they came, kneeled and touched. The long file of petitioners was
drawing near its end when he saw Rhun approaching. Dame Alice had a hand
solicitously under his left elbow, Melangell nursed him along on his right,
Matthew followed close, no less anxious than they. The boy advanced with his usual
laborious gait, his dragging toe just scraping the tiles of the floor. His face
was intensely pale, but with a brilliant pallor that almost dazzled the
watching eyes, and the wide gaze he fixed steadily upon the reliquary shone
translucent, like ice with a bright bluish light behind it. Dame Alice was
whispering low, encouraging entreaties into one ear, Melangell into the other,
but he was aware of nothing but the altar towards which he moved. When his turn
came, he shook off his supporters, and for a moment seemed to hesitate before
venturing to advance alone.

Prior
Robert observed his condition, and held out a hand. “You need not be abashed,
my son, because you cannot kneel. God and the saint will know your goodwill.”

The
softest whisper of a voice, though clearly audible in the waiting silence, said
tremulously: “But, Father, I can! I will!”

Rhun
straightened up, taking his hands from his crutches, which slid from under his
armpits and fell. That on the left crashed with an unnerving clatter upon the tiles,
on the right Melangell started forward and dropped to her knees, catching the
falling prop in her arms with a faint cry. And there she crouched, embracing
the discarded thing desperately, while Rhun set his twisted foot to the ground
and stood upright. He had but two or three paces to go to the foot of the altar
steps. He took them slowly and steadily, his eyes fixed upon the reliquary.
Once he lurched slightly, and Dame Alice made a trembling move to run after
him, only to halt again in wonder and fear, while Prior Robert again extended
his hand to offer aid. Rhun paid no attention to them or to anyone else, he did
not seem to see or hear anything but his goal, and whatever voice it might be
that called him forward. For he went with held breath, as a child learning to
walk ventures across perilous distances to reach its mother’s open arms and
coaxing, praising blandishments that wooed it to the deed.

It
was the twisted foot he set first on the lowest step, and now the twisted foot,
though a little awkward and unpractised, was twisted no longer, and did not
fail him, and the wasted leg, as he put his weight on it, seemed to have
smoothed out into shapeliness, and bore him up bravely.

Only
then did Cadfael become aware of the stillness and the silence, as if every
soul present held his breath with the boy, spellbound, not yet ready, not yet
permitted to acknowledge what they saw before their eyes. Even Prior Robert
stood charmed into a tall, austere statue, frozen at gaze. Even Melangell,
crouching with the crutch hugged to her breast, could not stir a finger to help
or break the spell, but hung upon every deliberate step with agonised eyes, as
though she were laying her heart under his feet as a voluntary sacrifice to buy
off fate.

He
had reached the third step, he sank to his knees with only the gentlest of
manipulations, holding by the fringes of the altar frontal, and the cloth of
gold that was draped under the reliquary. He lifted his joined hands and starry
face, white and bright even with eyes now closed, and though there was hardly
any sound they saw his lips moving upon whatever prayers he had made ready for
her. Certainly they contained no request for his own healing. He had put
himself simply in her hands, submissively and joyfully, and what had been done
to him and for him surely she had done, of her own perfect will.

He
had to hold by her draperies to rise, as babes hold by their mothers’ skirts.
No doubt but she had him under the arms to raise him. He bent his fair head and
kissed the hem of her garment, rose erect and kissed the silver rim of the
reliquary, in which, whether she lay or not, she alone commanded and had
sovereignty. Then he withdrew from her, feeling his way backward down the three
steps. Twisted foot and shrunken leg carried him securely. At the foot he made
obeisance gravely, and then turned and went briskly, like any other healthy lad
of sixteen, to smile reassurance on his trembling womenfolk, take up gently the
crutches for which he had no further use, and carry them back to lay them
tidily under the altar.

The
spell broke, for the marvellous thing was done, and its absolute nature made
manifest. A great, shuddering sigh went round nave, choir, transepts and all,
wherever there were human creatures watching and listening. And after the sigh
the quivering murmur of a gathering storm, whether of tears or laughter there
was no telling, but the air shook with its passion. And then the outcry, the
loosing of both tears and laughter, in a gale of wonder and praise. From stone
walls and lofty, arched roof, from rood-loft and transept arcades, the echoes
flew and rebounded, and the candles that had stood so still and tall shook and
guttered in the gale. Melangell hung weak with weeping and joy in Matthew’s
arms, Dame Alice whirled from friend to friend, spouting tears like a fountain,
and smiling like the most blessed of women. Prior Robert lifted his hands in
vindicated stewardship, and his voice in the opening of a thanksgiving psalm,
and Brother Anselm took up the chant.

A
miracle, a miracle, a miracle…

And
in the midst Rhun stood erect and still, even a little bewildered, braced
sturdily on his two long, shapely legs, looking all about him at the shouting,
weeping, exulting faces, letting the meaningless sounds wash over him in waves,
wanting the quiet he had known when there had been no one here in this holy
place but himself and his saint, who had told him, in how sweet and private
conference, all that he had to do.

Brother
Cadfael rose with his brothers, after the church was cleared of all others,
after all that jubilant, bubbling, boiling throng had gone forth to spill its
feverish excitement in open summer air, to cry the miracle aloud, carry it out
into the Foregate, beyond into the town, buffet it back and forth across the
tables at dinner in the guest-hall, and return to extol it at Vespers with what
breath was left. When they dispersed the word would go with them wherever they
went, sounding Saint Winifred’s praises, inspiring other souls to take to the
roads and bring their troubles to Shrewsbury. Where healing was proven, and
attested by hundreds of voices.

The
brothers went to their modest, accustomed dinner in the refectory, and
observed, whatever their own feelings were, the discipline of silence. They
were very tired, which made silence welcome. They had risen early, worked hard,
been through fire and flood body and soul, no wonder they ate humbly,
thankfully, in silence.

Chapter Ten

IT
WAS NOT UNTIL DINNER was almost over in the guest-hall that Matthew, seated at
Melangell’s side and still flushed and exalted from the morning’s heady
wonders, suddenly bethought him of sterner matters, and began to look back with
a thoughtful frown which as yet only faintly dimmed the unaccustomed brightness
of his face. Being in attendance on Mistress Weaver and her young people had
made him a part, for a while, of their unshadowed joy, and caused him to forget
everything else. But it could not last, though Rhun sat there half-lost in
wonder still, with hardly a word to say, and felt no need of food or drink, and
his womenfolk fawned on him unregarded. So far away had he been that the return
took time.

“I
haven’t seen Ciaran,” said Matthew quietly in Melangell’s ear, and he rose a
little in his place to look round the crowded room. “Did you catch ever a
glimpse of him in the church?”

She,
too, had forgotten until then, but at sight of his face she remembered all too
sharply, with a sickening lurch of her heart. But she kept her countenance, and
laid a persuasive hand on his arm to draw him down again beside her. “Among so
many? But he surely would be there. He must have been among the first, he
stayed here, he would find a good place. We didn’t see all those who went to
the altar—we all stayed with Rhun, and his place was far back.” Such a mingling
of truth and lies, but she kept her voice confident, and clung to her shaken
hope.

“But
where is he now? I don’t see him within here.” Though there was so much
excitement, so much moving about from table to table to talk with friends, that
one man might easily avoid detection. “I must find him,” said Matthew, not yet
greatly troubled but wanting reassurance, and rose.

“No,
sit down! You know he must be here somewhere. Let him alone, and he’ll appear
when he chooses. He may be resting on his bed, if he has to go forth again
barefoot tomorrow. Why look for him now? Can you not do without him even one
day? And such a day?”

Matthew
looked down at her with a face from which all the openness and joy had faded,
and freed his sleeve from her grasp gently enough, but decidedly. “Still, I
must find him. Stay here with Rhun, I’ll come back. All I want is to see him,
to be sure…”

He
was away, slipping quietly out between the festive tables, looking sharply
about him as he went. She was in two minds about following him, but then she
thought better of it, for while he hunted time would be slipping softly away,
and Ciaran would be dwindling into distance, as later she prayed he could fade
even out of mind, and be forgotten. So she remained with the happy company, but
not of it, and with every passing moment hesitated whether to grow more
reassured or more uneasy. At last she could not bear the waiting any longer.
She rose quietly and slipped away. Dame Alice was in full spate, torn between tears
and smiles, sitting proudly by her prodigy, and surrounded by neighbours as
happy and voluble as herself, and Rhun, still somehow apart though he was the
centre of the group, sat withdrawn into his revelation, even as he answered
eager questions, lamely enough but as well as he could. They had no need of
Melangell, they would not miss her for a little while.