The Holy Thief

by Ellis Peters

  They greeted him civilly, without surprise; in the past year or two he had been an occasional visitor, and grown into a welcome one. But when he had unfolded what was required from them, they shook their heads doubtfully, and sat down without haste on the shafts of the cart to consider.

  “We brought the cart down before it darkened,” said the elder then, narrowing his eyes to look back through the week of labor and leisure between, “but it was a black bitch of a day even at noon. We’d started shifting the load over to the abbey wagon, when the sub-prior comes out between the graves to the gate, and says, lads, lend us a hand to put the valuables inside high and dry, for it’s rising fast.”

  “Sub-Prior Richard?” said Cadfael. “You’re sure it was he?”

  “Sure as can be, him I do know, and it was not so dark then. Lambert here will tell you the same. So in we went, and set to, bundling up the hangings and lifting out the chests as he told us, and putting them where we were directed, up in the loft over the barn there, and some over the porch in Cynric’s place. It was dim inside there, and the brothers all darting about carrying coffers and candlesticks and crosses, and half the lamps ran out of oil, or got blown out with the doors open. As soon as the nave seemed to be clear we got out, and went back to loading the wood.”

  “Aldhelm went back in,” said the young man Lambert, who had done no more than nod his head in endorsement until now.

  “Aldhelm?” questioned Cadfael.

  “He came down to help us out,” explained Gregory. “He has a half yardland by Preston, and works with the sheep at the manor of Upton.”

  So there was one more yet before the job could be considered finished. And not today, thought Cadfael, calculating the hours left to him.

  “This Aldhelm was in and out of the church like you? And went back in at the last moment?”

  “One of the brothers caught him by the sleeve and haled him back to help move some last thing,” said Gregory indifferently. “We were off to the cart and shifting logs by then, all I know is someone called him, and he turned back. It was not much more than a moment or two. When we got the next load between us to the abbey wagon and slung it aboard, he was there by the wheel to help us hoist it in and settle it. And the monk was off to the church again. He called back goodnight to us.”

  “But he had come out to the road with your man?” persisted Cadfael.

  “We were all breathing easier then, everything that mattered was high enough to lie snug and dry till the river went down. A civil soul, he came out to say thanks and leave us a blessing… why not?”

  Why not, indeed, when honest men turned to for no reward besides? “You did not,” asked Cadfael delicately, “see whether between them they brought out anything to load into the wagon? Before he left you with his blessing?”

  They looked at each other sombrely, and shook their heads. “We were shifting logs to the back, to be easy to lift down. We heard them come. We had our arms full, hefting wood. When we got it to the wagon Aldhelm was reaching out to help us hoist it on, and the brother was away into the graveyard again. No, they never brought out anything that I saw.”

  “Nor I,” said Lambert.

  “And could you, either of you, put a name to this monk who called him back?”

  “No,” said they both with one voice; and Gregory added kindly: “Brother, by then it was well dark. And I know names for only a few, the ones every man knows.”

  True, monks are brothers by name only to those within; willing to be brothers to all men, outside the pale they are nameless. In some ways, surely, a pity.

  “So dark,” said Cadfael, reaching his last question, “that you would not be able to recognize him, if you saw him again? Not by his face, or shape, or gait, or bearing? Nothing to mark him?”

  “Brother,” said Gregory patiently, “he was close-cowled against the rain, and black disappearing into darkness. And his face we never saw at all.”

  Cadfael sighed and thanked them, and was gathering himself up to trudge back by the sodden fields when Lambert said, breaking his habitual and impervious silence: “But Aldhelm may have seen it.”

  The day was too far gone, if he was to get back for Vespers. The tiny hamlet of Preston was barely a mile out of his way, but if this Aldhelm worked with the sheep at Upton, at this hour he might be there, and not in his own cot on his own half-yardland of earth. Probing his memory would have to wait. Cadfael threaded the Longner woodlands and traversed the long slope of meadows above the subsiding river, making for home. The ford would be passable again by now, but abominably muddy and foul, the ferry was pleasanter and also quicker. The ferryman, a taciturn soul, put him ashore on the home bank with a little time in hand, so that he slackened his pace a little, to draw breath. There was a belt of close woodland on this side, too, before he could approach the first alleys and cots of the Foregate; open, heathy woodland over the ridge, then the trees drew in darkly, and the path narrowed. There would have to be some lopping done here, to clear it for horsemen. Even at this hour, not yet dusk but under heavy cloud, a man had all his work cut out to see his way clear and evade overgrown branches. A good place for ambush and secret violence, and all manner of skulduggery. It was the heavy cloud cover and the cheerless stillness of the day that gave him such thoughts, and even while they lingered with him he did not believe in them. Yet there was mischief abroad, for Saint Winifred was gone, or the token she had left with him and blessed for him was gone, and there was no longer any equilibrium in his world. Strange, since he knew where she was, and should have been able to send messages to her there, surely with greater assurance than to the coffin that did not contain her. But it was from that same coffin that he had always received his answers, and now the wind that should have brought him her voice from Gwytherin was mute.

  Cadfael emerged into the Foregate at the Horse Fair somewhat angry with himself for allowing himself to be decoyed into imaginative glooms against his nature, and trudged doggedly along to the gatehouse in irritated haste to get back to a real world where he had solid work to do. Certainly he must hunt out Aldhelm of Preston, but between him and that task, and just as important, loomed a few sick old men, a number of confused and troubled young ones, and his plain duty of keeping the Rule he had chosen.

  There were not many people abroad in the Foregate. The weather was still cold and the gloom of the day had sent people hurrying home, wasting no time once the day’s work was done. Some yards ahead of him two figures walked together, one of them limping heavily. Cadfael had a vague notion that he had seen those broad shoulders and that shaggy head before, and not so long ago, but the lame gait did not fit. The other was built more lightly, and younger. They went with heads thrust forward and shoulders down, like men tired after a long trudge and in dogged haste to reach their destination and be done with it. It was no great surprise when they turned in purposefully at the abbey gatehouse, tramping through thankfully into the great court with a recovered spring to their steps. Two more for the common guesthall, thought Cadfael, himself approaching the gate, and a place near the fire and a meal and a drink will come very welcome to them.

  They were at the door of the porter’s lodge when Cadfael entered the court, and the porter had just come out to them. The light was not yet so far gone that Cadfael failed to see, and marvel, how the porter’s face, ready with its customary placid welcome and courteous enquiry, suddenly fell into a gaping stare of wonder and concern, and the words ready on his lips turned into a muted cry.

  “Master James! How’s this—you here? I thought—Man,” he said, dismayed, “what’s come to you on the road?”

  Cadfael was brought up with a jolt, no more than ten paces towards Vespers. He turned back in haste to join this unexpected confrontation, and look more closely at the lame man.

  “Master James of Betton? Herluin’s master-carpenter?” No doubt of it, the same who had set out with the wagon-load of wood for Ramsey, more than a week ago, but limping and afoot now, and back where he had begun
, and soiled and bruised not only from the road. And his companion, the elder of the two masons who had set off hopefully to find steady work at Ramsey, here beside him, with torn cotte and a clout bound about his head, and a cheekbone blackened from a blow.

  “What’s come to us on the road!” the master-carpenter repeated ruefully. “Everything foul, short of murder. Robbery by cutthroats and outlaws. Wagon gone, timber gone, horses gone—stolen, every stick and every beast, and only by the grace of God not a man of us killed. For God’s sake, let us in and sit down. Martin here has a broken head, but he would come back with me…”

  “Come!” said Cadfael, with an arm about the man’s shoulders. “Come within to the warmth, and Brother Porter will get some wine into you, while I go and tell Father Abbot what’s happened. I’ll be with you again in no time, and see to the lad’s head. Trouble for nothing now. Praise God you’re safely back! All Herluin’s alms couldn’t buy your lives.”

  Chapter Four

  « ^ »

  “We did well enough,” said Master James of Betton, in the abbot’s paneled parlor an hour later, “until we came into the forest there, beyond Eaton. It’s thick woodland there south of Leicester, but well managed, as the roads go these days. And we had five good lads aboard, we never thought to run into any trouble we couldn’t handle. A couple of wretches on the run, skulking in the bushes on the lookout for prey, would never have dared break cover and try their luck with us. No, these were very different gentry. Eleven or twelve of them, with daggers and bludgeons, and two wore swords. They must have been moving alongside us in cover, taking our measure, and they had two archers ahead, one either side the track. Someone whistled them out when we came to the narrowest place, bows strung and shafts fitted, shouting to us to halt. Roger from Ramsey was driving, and a good enough hand with horses and wagons, but what chance did he have with the pair of them drawing on him? He says he did think of whipping up and running them down, but it would have been useless, they could shoot far faster than we could drive at them. And then they came at us from both sides.”

  “I thank God,” said Abbot Radulfus fervently, “that you live to tell it. And all, you say, all your fellows are well alive? The loss is reparable, but your lives are greater worth.”

  “Father,” said Master James, “there’s none of us but bears the marks of it. We did not let them put us down easily. There’s Martin here was clubbed senseless and slung into the bushes. And Roger laid about him with his whip, and left the print of it on two of the rogues before they downed him and used the thong to bind him. But we were five against double as many, and armed villains very willing to kill. They wanted the horses most, we saw but three they already had with them, the rest forced to go afoot, and the wagon was welcome, too, they had one, I think, already wounded. They beat and drove us aside, and off with team and wagon at high speed into the forest by a track that turned southwards. All the load, clean gone. And when I ran after, and young Payne on my heels, they loosed a shaft at us that clipped my shoulder—you see the tear. We had no choice but to draw off, and go and pick up Martin and Roger. Nicol gave as good an account of himself as any of us, elder though he may be, and kept the key of the coffer safe, but they threw him off the cart, and coffer and all are gone, for it was there among the coppice-wood. What more could we have done? We never looked to encounter an armed company in the forest, and so close to Leicester.”

  “You did all that could be expected of any man,” said the abbot firmly. “I am only sorry you ever were put to it, and glad out of all measure that you came out of it without worse harm. Rest here a day or two and let your hurts be tended before you return to your homes. I marvel who these wretches could be, moving in such numbers, and so heavily armed. Of what appearance were they—beggarly and mean, or savage with less excuse for savagery?”

  “Father,” said Master James earnestly, “I never before saw poor devils living wild wearing good leather jerkins and solid boots, and daggers fit for a baron’s guard.”

  “And they made off southerly?” asked Cadfael, pondering this militant company so well found in everything but horses.

  “Southwest,” amended the young man Martin. “And in a mortal hurry by all the signs.”

  “In a hurry to get out of the earl of Leicester’s reach,” Cadfael hazarded. “They’d get short shrift from him if he once laid hands on them. I wonder if these were not some of the horde Geoffrey de Mandeville collected about him, looking for safer pastures to settle in, now the king is master of the Fens again? They’ll be scattering in all directions still, and hunted everywhere. In Leicester’s lands they certainly would not want to linger.”

  That raised a murmur of agreement from them all. No sane malefactor would want to settle and conduct his predatory business in territory controlled by so active and powerful a magnate as Robert Beaumont, earl of Leicester. He was the younger of the twin Beaumont brothers, sons of the elder Robert who had been one of the most reliable props of old King Henry’s firm rule, and they in their turn had been as staunch in support of King Stephen. The father had died in possession of the earldom of Leicester in England, Beaumont, Brionne and Pontaudemer in Normandy, and the county of Meulan in France, and on his death the elder twin Waleran inherited the Norman and French lands, the younger Robert the English title and honor.

  “He is certainly not the man to tolerate thieves and bandits in his lands,” said the abbot. “He may yet take these thieves before they can escape his writ. Something may yet be recovered. More to the purpose at this moment, what has become of your companions, Master James? You say all of them are living. Where are they now?”

  “Why, my lord, when we were left alone—and I think if they had not been in such haste to move on they would not have left a man of us alive to tell the tale—we first tended the worst hurt, and took counsel, and decided we must take the news on to Ramsey, and also back here to Shrewsbury. And Nicol, knowing that by then Sub-Prior Herluin would be in Worcester, said that he would make his way there and tell him what had befallen us. Roger was to make his way home to Ramsey, and young Payne chose to go on there with him, as he had said he would. Martin here would have done as much, but that I was none too secure on my feet, and he would not let me undertake the journey home alone. And here at home I mean to stay, for I’ve lost my taste for traveling, after that melee, I can tell you.”

  “No blame to you,” agreed the abbot wryly. “So by this time this news of yours should also have reached both Ramsey and Worcester, if there have been no further ambushes on the way, as God forbid! And Hugh Beringar may already be in Worcester, and will know what has happened. If anything can be done to trace our cart and the hired horses, well! If not, at least the most precious lading, the lives of five men, come out of it safely, God be thanked!”

  Thus far Cadfael had deferred his own news in favor of the far more urgent word brought back by these battered survivors from the forests of Leicestershire. Now he thought fit to put in a word. “Father Abbot, I’m back from Longner without much gained, for neither of the young men who brought down the timber has anything of note to tell. But still I feel that one more thing of immense value must have been taken away with that wagon. I see no other way by which Saint Winifred’s reliquary can have left the enclave.”

  The abbot gave him a long, penetrating look, and concluded at length: “You are in solemn earnest. And indeed I see the force of what you say. You have spoken now with everyone who took part in that evening’s work?”

  “No, Father, there’s yet one more to be seen, a young man from a neighboring hamlet who came down to help the carters. But them I have seen, and they do say that this third man was called back into the church by one of the brothers, at the end of the evening, for some last purpose, after which the brother came out with him to thank them all, and bid them goodnight. They did not see anything being stowed on the wagon for Ramsey. But they were busy and not paying attention except to their own work. It’s a vague enough notion, that something unautho
rized was then loaded under cover of the dark. But I entertain it because I see no other.”

  “And you will pursue it?” said the abbot.

  “I will go again, and find this young man Aldhelm, if you approve.”

  “We must,” said Radulfus. “One of the brothers, you say, called back the young man, and came out afterwards with him. Could they name him?”

  “No, nor would they be able to know him again. It was dark, he was cowled against the rain. And most likely, wholly innocent. But I’ll go the last step of the way, and ask the last man.”

  “We must do what can be done,” said Radulfus heavily, “to recover what has been lost. If we fail, we fail. But try we must.” And to the two returned travelers: “Precisely where did this ambush take place?”

  “Close by a village called Ullesthorpe, a few miles from Leicester,” said Master James of Betton.

  The two of them were drooping by then, in reaction from their long and laborious walk home, and sleepy from the wine mulled for them with their supper. Radulfus knew when to close the conference.

  “Go to your well-earned rest now, and leave all to God and the saints, who have not turned away their faces from us.”

  If Hugh and Prior Robert had not been well mounted, and the elderly but resolute former steward of Ramsey forced to go afoot, they could not have arrived at the cathedral priory of Worcester within a day of each other. Nicol, since the disastrous encounter near Ullesthorpe, had had five days to make his way lamely across country to reach Sub-Prior Herluin and make his report. He was a stouthearted, even an obstinate man, not to be deterred by a few bruises, and not to surrender his charge without a struggle. If pursuit was possible, Nicol intended to demand it of whatever authority held the writ in these parts.