The Holy Thief Part 3

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 pa.s.sable again by now, but abominably muddy and foul, the ferry was pleasanter and also quicker. The ferryman, a taciturn soul, put him ash.o.r.e 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 hors.e.m.e.n. 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 a.s.surance 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 G.o.d not a man of us killed. For G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 panelled parlour 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 G.o.d," 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 t.i.tle and honour.

"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 travelling, 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 G.o.d 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, G.o.d be thanked!"

Thus far Cadfael had deferred his own news in favour 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 neighbouring 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 unauthorized 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 travellers: "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 G.o.d 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.

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 labours 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 Ma.s.s.

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," p.r.o.nounced Herluin at his most majestic. "Tomorrow we will ride back with you to Shrewsbury. She cannot be far. She must be found."

"After Ma.s.s tomorrow," said Prior Robert, firmly rea.s.serting 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 st.u.r.dily 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!" p.r.o.nounced 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 st.u.r.dily, "all these miles, to bring word as soon as I might."

"And well done," said Hugh. "G.o.d 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 favour 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sart only cut from the woods a few years back, it was a G.o.dsend 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 gra.s.s 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 G.o.d, who has shown us marvellous 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 Columba.n.u.s'. If only, thought Hugh, between amus.e.m.e.nt 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 honour, 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 ent.i.tled 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 sixteen 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.