The Potter's Field Part 1

ThePotter's Field.

by Ellis Peters.

Chapter One.

SAINT PETER'S FAIR OF THAT YEAR, 1143, was one week past, and they were settling down again into the ordinary routine of a dry and favourable August, with the corn harvest already being carted into the barns, when Brother Matthew the cellarer first brought into chapter the matter of business he had been discussing for some days during the Fair with the prior of the Augustinian priory of Saint John the Evangelist, at Haughmond, about four miles to the north-east of Shrewsbury. Haughmond was a FitzAlan foundation, and FitzAlan was out of favour and dispossessed since he had held Shrewsbury castle against King Stephen, though rumour said he was back in England again from his refuge in France, and safe with the Empress's forces in Bristol. But many of his tenants locally had continued loyal to the king, and retained their lands, and Haughmond flourished in their patronage and gifts, a highly respectable neighbour with whom business could be done to mutual advantage at times. This, according to Brother Matthew, was one of the times.

"The proposal for this exchange of land came from Haughmond," he said, "but it makes good sense for both houses. I have already set the necessary facts before Father Abbot and Prior Robert, and I have here rough plans of the two fields in question, both large and of comparable quality. The one which this house owns lies some mile and a half beyond Haughton, and is bounded on all sides by land gifted to Haughmond Priory. Clearly it will advantage them to add this piece to their holdings, for economy in use and the saving of time and labour in going back and forth. And the field which Haughmond wishes to exchange for it is on the hither side of the manor of Longner, barely two miles from us but inconveniently distant from Haughmond. Clearly it is good sense to consider this exchange. I have viewed the ground, and the bargain is a fair one. I recommend that we should accept."

"If this field is on the hither side of Longner," said Brother Richard, the sub-prior, who came from a mile or so beyond that manor and knew the outlines of the land, "how does it lie with regard to the river? Is it subject to flooding?"

"No. It has the Severn along one flank, yes, but the bank is high, and the meadow climbs gradually from it to a headland and a windbreak of trees and bushes along the ridge. It is the field of which Brother Ruald was tenant until some fifteen months ago. There were two or three small claypits along the river bank, but I believe they are exhausted. The field is known as the Potter's Field."

A slight ripple of movement went round the chapterhouse, as all heads turned in one direction, and all eyes fastened for one discreet moment upon Brother Ruald. A slight, quiet, grave man, with a long, austere face, very regular of feature, of an ageless, cla.s.sical comeliness, he still went about the devout hours of the day like one half withdrawn into a private rapture, for his final vows were only two months old, and his desire for the life of the cloister, recognised only after fifteen years of married life and twenty-five of plying the potter's craft, had burned into an acute agony before he gained admittance and entered into peace. A peace he never seemed to leave now, even for a moment. All eyes might turn on him, and his calm remained absolute. Everyone here knew his story, which was complex and strange enough, but that did not trouble him. He was where he wanted to be.

"It is good pasture," he said simply. "And could well be cultivated, if it is needed. It lies well above any common floodline. The other field, of course, I do not know."

"It may be a little greater," said Brother Matthew judicially, contemplating his parchments with head on one side, measuring with narrowed eyes. "But at that distance we are spared time and labour. I have said, I judge it a fair exchange."

"The Potter's Field!" said Prior Robert, musing. "It was such a field that was bought with the silver of Judas's betrayal, for the burial of strangers. I trust there can be no ill omen in the name."

"It was only named for my craft," said Ruald. "Earth is innocent. Only the use we make of it can mar it. I laboured honestly there, before I knew whither I was truly bound. It is good land. It may well be better used than for a workshop and kiln such as mine. A narrow yard would have done for that."

"And access is easy?" asked Brother Richard. "It lies on the far side of the river from the highroad."

"There is a ford a little way upstream, and a ferry even nearer to the field."

"That land was gifted to Haughmond only a year ago, by Eudo Blount of Longner," Brother Anselm reminded them. "Is Blount a partner to this exchange? He made no demur? Or has he yet been consulted?"

"You will remember," said Brother Matthew, patiently competent at every point, as was his way, "that Eudo Blount the elder died early this year at Wilton, in the rearguard that secured the king's retreat. His son, also Eudo, is now lord of Longner. Yes, we have talked with him. He has no objection. The gift is Haughmond's property, to be used to Haughmond's best advantage, which manifestly this exchange serves well. There is no obstacle there."

"And no restriction as to the use we in our turn may make of it?" demanded the prior acutely. "The agreement will be on the usual terms? That either party may make whatever use it wishes of the fields? To build, or cultivate, or keep as pasture, at will?"

"That is agreed. If we want to plough, there is no bar."

"It seems to me," said Abbot Radulfus, casting a long glance around at the attentive faces of his flock, "that we have heard enough. If anyone has any other point to raise, do so now, by all means."

In the considering silence that followed many eyes turned again, mildly expectant, to the austere face of Brother Ruald, who alone remained withdrawn and unconcerned. Who should know better the qualities of that field where he had worked for so many years, or be better qualified to state whether they would be doing well in approving the proposed exchange? But he had said all he had to say, in duty bound, and felt no need to add another word. When he had turned his back upon the world and entered into his desired vocation, field and cottage and kiln and kin had vanished for him. He never spoke of his former life, probably he never thought of it. All those years he had been astray and far from home.

"Very well!" said the abbot. "Clearly both we and Haughmond gain by the exchange. Will you confer with the prior, Matthew, and draw up the charter accordingly, and as soon as a day can be fixed we will see it witnessed and sealed. And once that is done, I think Brother Richard and Brother Cadfael might view the ground, and consider its most profitable use."

Brother Matthew rolled up his plans with a brisk hand and a satisfied countenance. It was his part to keep a strict eye upon the property and funds of the house, to reckon up land, crops, gifts and legacies in the profits they could bring to the monastery of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and he had a.s.sessed the Potter's Field with professional shrewdness, and liked what he saw.

"There is no other business?" asked Radulfus.

"None, Father."

"Then this chapter is concluded," said the abbot, and led the way out of the chapter-house into the sun-bleached August gra.s.ses of the cemetery.

Brother Cadfael went up into the town after Vespers, in the cooling sunlight of a clear evening, to sup with his friend Hugh Beringar, and visit his G.o.dson Giles, three and a half years old, long and strong and something of a benevolent tyrant to the entire household. In view of the sacred duty such a sponsor has towards his charge Cadfael had leave to visit the house with reasonable regularity, and if the time he spent with the boy was occupied more often in play than in the serious admonitions of a responsible G.o.dparent, neither Giles nor his own parents had any complaint to make.

"He pays more heed to you," said Aline, looking on with smiling serenity, "than he does to me. But he'll tire you out before you can do as much for him. Well for you it's near his bedtime."

She was as fair as Hugh was black, primrose-fair, and fine-boned, and a shade taller than her husband. The child was built on the same long, slender lines, and flaxen like her. Some day he would top his father by a head. Hugh himself had foretold it, when first he saw his newborn heir, a whiter child, come with the approach of Christmas, the finest of gifts for the festival. Now at three years old he had the boisterous energy of a healthy pup, and the same whole-hearted abandonment to sleep when energy was spent. He was carried away at length in Aline's arms to his bed, and Hugh and Cadfael were left to sit down companionably together over their wine, and look back over the events of the day.

"Ruald's field?" said Hugh, when he heard of the morning's business at chapter. "That's the big field the near side of Longner, where he used to have his croft and his kiln? I remember the gift to Haughmond, I was a witness to it. Early October of last year, that was. The Blounts were always good patrons to Haughmond. Not that the canons ever made much use of that land when they had it. It will do better in your hands."

"It's a long time since I pa.s.sed that way close," said Cadfael. "Why is it so neglected? When Ruald came into the cloister there was no one to take over his craft, I know, but at least Haughmond put a tenant into the cottage."

"So they did, an old widow woman, what could she do with the ground? Now even she is gone, to her daughter's household in the town. The kiln has been looted for stone, and the cottage is falling into decay. It's time someone took the place over. The canons never even bothered to take the hay crop in, this year, they'll be glad to get it off their hands."

"It suits both sides very well," said Cadfael thoughtfully. "And young Eudo Blount at Longner has no objection, so Matthew reports. Though the prior of Haughmond must have asked his leave beforehand, since the gift came from his father in the first place. A pity," he said ruefully, "the giver is gone to his maker untimely, and isn't here to say a word for himself in the matter."

Eudo Blount the elder, of the manor of Longner, had left his lands in the charge of his son and heir only a few weeks after making the gift of the field to the priory, and gone in arms to join King Stephen's army, then besieging the Empress and her forces in Oxford. That campaign he had survived, only to die a few months later in the unexpected rout of Wilton. The king, not for the first time, had underestimated his most formidable opponent, Earl Robert of Gloucester, miscalculated the speed at which the enemy could move, and ridden with only his vanguard into a perilous situation from which he had extricated himself safely only by virtue of a heroic rearguard action, which had cost the king's steward, William Martel, his liberty, and Eudo Blount his life. Stephen, in honour bound, had paid a high price to redeem Martel. No one, in this world, could ransom back Eudo Blount. His elder son became lord of Longner in his place. His younger son, Cadfael recalled, a novice at the abbey of Ramsey, had brought his father's body home for burial in March.

"A fine, tall man he was," Hugh recalled, "no more than two or three years past forty. And handsome! There's neither of his lads can match him. Strange how the lot falls. The lady's some years older, and sick with some trouble that's worn her to a shadow and gives her no rest from pain, yet she lingers on here, and he's gone. Does she ever send to you for medicines? The lady of Longner? I forget her name."

"Donata," said Cadfael. "Donata is her name. Now you mention it, there was a time when her maid used to come for draughts to help her with the pain. But not for a year or more now. I thought she might have been on the mend, and felt less need of the herbs. Little enough I could ever do for her. There are diseases beyond any small skill of mine."

"I saw her when they buried Eudo," said Hugh, gazing sombrely out through the open hall door at the summer dusk gathering blue and luminous above his garden. "No, there's no remission. So little flesh she has between her skin and bone, I swear the light shone through her hand when she raised it, and her face grey as lavender, and shrunken into deep lines. Eudo sent for me when he made up his mind to go to Oxford, to the siege. I did wonder how he could bear to leave her in such case. Stephen had not called him, and even if he had, there was no need for him to go himself. His only due was an esquire, armed and mounted, for forty days. Yet he saw his affairs in order, made over his manor to his son, and went."

"It may well be," Cadfael said, "that he could no longer bear to stay, and look on daily at a distress he could neither prevent nor help."

His voice was very low, and Aline, re-entering the hall at that moment, did not hear the words. The very sight of her, radiantly content in her fulfilment, happy wife and mother, banished all such thoughts, and caused them both to shake off in haste all trace of a solemnity that might have cast a shadow on her serenity. She came to sit with them, her hands for once empty, for the light was too far gone for sewing or even spinning, and the warm, soft evening too beautiful to be banished by lighting candles.

"He's fast asleep. He was nodding over his prayers. But still he could rouse enough to demand his story from Constance. He'll have heard no more than the first words, but custom is custom. And I want my story, too," she said, smiling at Cadfael, "before I let you leave us. What is the news with you, there at the abbey? Since the fair I've got no further afield than Saint Mary's for Ma.s.s. Do you find the fair a success this year? There were fewer Remings there, I thought, but some excellent cloths, just the same. I bought well, some heavy Welsh woollen for winter gowns. The sheriff," she said, and made an impish face at Hugh, "cares nothing what he puts on, but I won't have my husband go threadbare and cold. Will you believe, his best indoor gown is ten years old, and twice relined, and still he won't part with it?"

"Old servants are the best," said Hugh absently. "Truth to tell, it's only habit sends me looking for it, you may clothe me new, my heart, whenever you wish. And for what else is new, Cadfael tells me there's an exchange of lands agreed between Shrewsbury and Haughmond. The field they call the Potter's Field, by Longner, will come to the abbey. In good time for the ploughing, if that's what you decide, Cadfael."

"It may well be," Cadfael conceded. "At least on the upper part, well clear of the river. The lower part is good grazing."

"I used to buy from Ruald," said Aline rather ruefully. "He was a good craftsman. I still wonder-what was it made him leave the world for the cloister, and all so suddenly?"

"Who can tell?" Cadfael looked back, as now he seldom did, to the turning-point of his own life, many years past. After all manner of journeying, fighting, endurance of heat and cold and hardship, after the pleasures and the pains of experience, the sudden irresistible longing to turn about and withdraw into quietness remained a mystery. Not a retreat, certainly. Rather an emergence into light and certainty. "He never could explain it or describe it. All he could say was that he had had a revelation of G.o.d, and had turned where he was pointed, and come where he was called. It happens. I think Radulfus had his doubts at first. He kept him the full term and over in his novitiate. His desire was extreme, and our abbot suspects extremes. And then, the man had been fifteen years married, and his wife was by no means consenting. Ruald left her everything he had to leave, and all of it she scorned. She fought his resolve for many weeks, but he would not be moved. After he was admitted among us she did not stay long in the croft, or avail herself of anything he had left behind for her. She went away, only a few weeks later, left the door open and everything in its place, and vanished."

"With another man, so all the neighbours said," Hugh remarked cynically.

"Well," said Cadfael reasonably, "her own had left her. And very bitter she was about it, by all accounts. She might well take a lover by way of revenge. Did ever you see the woman?"

"No," said Hugh, "not that I recall."

"I have," said Aline. "She helped at his booth on market days and at the fair. Not last year, of course, last year he was in the cloister and she was already gone. There was a lot of talk about Ruald's leaving her, naturally, and gossip is never very charitable. She was not well liked among the market women, she never went out of her way to make friends, never let them close to her. And then, you see, she was very beautiful, and a stranger. He brought her from Wales, years ago, and even after years she spoke little English, and never made any effort to be anything but a stranger. She seemed to want no one but Ruald. No wonder if she was bitter when he abandoned her. The neighbours said she turned to hating him, and claimed she had another lover and could do without such a husband. But she fought for him to the end. Women turn for ease to hate, sometimes, when love leaves them nothing but pain." She had mused herself into another woman's anguish with unwonted gravity; she shook off the image with some dismay. "Now I am the gossip! What will you think of me? And it's all a year past, and surely by now she's reconciled. No wonder if she took up her roots-they were shallow enough here, once Ruald was gone-and went away home to Wales without a word to a soul. With another man, or alone, what does it matter?"

"Love," declared Hugh, at once touched and amused, "you never cease to be a wonder to me. How did you ever come to know so much about the case? And feel so hotly about it?"

"I've seen them together, that was enough. From across a fairground stall it was plain to be seen how fond, and wild she was. And you men," said Aline, with resigned tolerance, "naturally see the man's rights first, when he sets his heart on doing what he wants, whether it's entering the cloister or going off to war, but I'm a woman, and I see how deeply wronged the wife was. Had she no rights in the matter? And did you ever stop to think-he could have his freedom to go and become a monk, but his going didn't confer freedom on her. She could not take another husband; the one she had, monk or no, was still alive. Was that fair? Almost," avowed Aline roundly, "I hope she did go with a lover, rather than have to live and endure alone."

Hugh reached a long arm to draw his wife to him, with something between a laugh and a sigh. "Lady, there is much in what you say, and this world is full of injustice."

"Still I suppose it was not Ruald's fault," said Aline, relenting. "I daresay he would have released her if he could. It's done, and I hope, wherever she is, she has some comfort in her life. And I suppose if a man really is overtaken by an act of G.o.d there's nothing he can do but obey. It may even have cost him almost as much. What kind of brother has he made, Cadfael? Was it really something that could not be denied?"

Truly," said Cadfael, "it seems that it was. The man is wholly devoted. I verily believe he had no choice." He paused reflectively, finding it hard to discover the appropriate words for a degree of self-surrender which was impossible to him. "He has now that entire security that cannot be moved by well or ill, since to his present state everything is well. If martyrdom was demanded of him now, he would accept it with the same serenity as bliss. Indeed it would be bliss, he knows nothing less. I doubt if he gives a thought to any part of that life he led for forty years, or the wife he knew and abandoned. No, Ruald had no choice."

Aline was regarding him steadily with her wide iris eyes, that were so shrewd in their innocence. "Was it like that for you," she asked, "when your time came?"

"No, I had a choice. I made a choice. It was even a hard choice, but I made it, and I hold to it. I am no such elect saint as Ruald."

"Is that a saint?" and Aline. "It seems to me all too easy."

The charter of the exchange of lands between Haughmond and Shrewsbury was drawn up, sealed and witnessed in the first week of September. Some days later Brother Cadfael and Brother Richard the sub-prior went to view the new acquisition, and consider its future use to the best advantage of the abbey. The morning was misty when they set out, but by the time they had reached the ferry just upstream from the field the sun was already coming through the haze, and their sandalled feet left dark tracks through the dewy gra.s.s above the sh.o.r.e.

Across the river the further bank rose, sandy and steep, undercut here and there by the currents, and levelling off into a narrow plain of gra.s.s, with a rising ridge of bushes and trees beyond. When they stepped from the boat they had some minutes of walking along this belt of pasture, and then they stood at the corner of the Potter's Field, and had the whole expanse obliquely before them.

It was a very fair place. From the sandy escarpment of the river bank the slope of gra.s.s rose gradually towards a natural headland of bush and thorn and a filigree screen of birch trees against the sky. Backed into this crest in the far corner the sh.e.l.l of the empty cottage squatted, its garden unfenced and running wild into the embracing wildness of the unreaped gra.s.s. The crop Haughmond had not found worth his while to garner was bleaching into early autumn pallor, having ripened and seeded weeks earlier, and among the whitened standing stems all manner of meadow flowers still showed, harebell and archangel, poppy and daisy and centaury, with the fresh green shoots of new gra.s.s just breaking through the roots of the fading yield. Under the headland above, tangles of bramble offered fruit just beginning to blacken from red.

"We could still cut and dry this for bedding," said Brother Richard, casting a judicial eye over the wild expanse, "but would it be worth the labour? Or we could leave it to die down of itself, and plough it in. This land has not been under the plough for generations."

"It would be heavy work," said Cadfael, viewing with pleasure the sheen of sunlight on the distant white trunks of the birch trees on the ridge.

"Not so heavy as you might think. The soil beneath is good, friable loam. And we have a strong ox-team, and the field has length enough to get a team of six into the yoke. We need a deep, broad furrow for the first ploughing. I would recommend it," said Brother Richard, secure in the experience of his farming stock, and set off up the field to the crest, by the same rural instinct keeping to the headland instead of wading through the gra.s.s. "We should leave the lower strip for pasture, and plough this upper level."

Cadfael was of the same mind. The field they had parted with, distant beyond Haughton, had been best left under stock; here they could very well take a crop of wheat or barley, and turn the stock from the lower pasture into the stubble afterwards, to manure the land for the next year. The place pleased him, and yet had an undefined sadness about it. The remnants of the garden fence, when they reached it, the tangled growth in which herb and weed contended for root and light and s.p.a.ce, the doorless doorway and shutterless window, all sounded a note of humanity departed and human occupation abandoned. Without the remnants this would have been a scene wholly placid, gentle and content. But it was impossible to look at the deserted croft without reflecting that two lives had been lived there for fifteen years, joined in a childless marriage, and that of all the thoughts and feelings they had shared not a trace now remained here. Nor to note the bare, levelled site from which every stone had been plundered, without recalling that a craftsman had laboured here at loading his kiln and firing it, where now the hearth was barren and cold. There must surely have been human happiness here, satisfaction of the mind, fulfilment of the hands. There had certainly been grief, bitterness and rage, but only the detritus of that past life clung about the spot now, coldly, indifferently melancholy.

Cadfael turned his back upon the corner which had once been inhabited, and there before him lay the sweep of meadow, gently steaming as the sun drew off the morning mist and dew, and the sharp, small colours of the flowers brightened among the seeding gra.s.ses. Birds skimmed the bushes of the headland and flickered among the trees of the crest, and the uneasy memory of man was gone from the Potter's Field.

"Well, what's your judgement?" asked Brother Richard.

"I think we should do well to sow a winter crop. Deep-plough now, then do a second ploughing, and sow winter wheat, and some beans with it. So much the better if we can get some marl on to it for the second ploughing."

"As good a use as any," agreed Richard contentedly, and led the way down the slope towards the curve and glimmer of the river under its miniature cliffs of sand. Cadfael followed, the dry gra.s.ses rustling round his ankles in long, rhythmic sighs, as if for a tragedy remembered. As well, he thought, break the ground up there as soon as maybe, and get the soil to bear. Let's have young corn greening over where the kiln was, and either pull down the cottage or put a live tenant into it, and see to it he clears and tends the garden. Either that, or plough up all. Better forget it ever was a potter's croft and field.

In the first days of October the abbey's plough team of six oxen, with the heavy, high-wheeled plough, was brought over by the ford, and cut and turned the first sod in Ruald's field. They began at the upper corner, close to the derelict cottage, and drove the first furrow along beneath the ridge, under the strong growth of bushes and brambles that formed the headland. The ox-driver urged his team, the oxen lumbered stolidly ahead, the coulter bit deep through turf and soil, the ploughshare sheared through the matted roots, and the furrow-board heaved the sod widely away like a sullenly breaking wave, turning up black soil and the strong scent of the earth. Brother Richard and Brother Cadfael had come to see the work begun, Abbot Radulfus had blessed the plough, and every augury was good. The first straight furrow drove the length of the field, brightly black against the autumnal pallor of the gra.s.ses, and the ploughman, proud of his skill, swung his long team in a swooping curve to bring them about as neatly as possible on the return course. Richard had been right, the soil was not so heavy, the work would go briskly.

Cadfael had turned his back on the work, and stood in the gaping doorway of the cottage, gazing into the empty interior. A full year ago, after the woman had shaken off the dust of this place from her feet and walked away from the debris of her life to look for a new beginning elsewhere, all the movable belongings of Ruald's marriage had been removed, with the consent of his overlord at Longner, and given to Brother Ambrose the almoner, to be shared among his pet.i.tioners according to their needs. Nothing remained within. The hearthstone was still soiled with the last cold ashes, and leaves had been blown into corners and silted there into nesting-places for the hibernating hedge-pig and the dormouse. Long coils of bramble had found their way in at the vacant window from the bushes outside, and a branch of hawthorn nodded in over his shoulder, half its leaves shed, but starred with red berries. Nettle and groundsel had rooted and grown in the crevices of the flooring. It takes a very short time for earth to seal over the traces of humankind.

He heard the distant shout from across the field, but thought nothing of it but that the driver was bawling at his team, until Richard caught at his sleeve and said sharply into his ear: "Something's amiss, over there! Look, they've stopped. They've turned up something-or broken something-Oh, surely not the coulter!" He had flashed easily into vexation. A plough is a costly machine, and an iron-shod coulter on new and untried ground might well be vulnerable.

Cadfael turned to stare towards the spot where the team had halted, at the far edge of the field where the tangle of bushes rose. They had taken the plough close, making the fullest use possible of the ground, and now the oxen stood still and patient in their harness, only a few yards advanced into the new furrow, while teamster and ploughman were stooped with their heads together over something in the ground. And in a moment the ploughman came springing to his feet and running headlong for the cottage, arms pumping, feet stumbling in the tufted gra.s.ses.

"Brother... Brother Cadfael... Will you come? Come and see! There's something there..."

Richard had opened his mouth to question, in some irritation at so incoherent a summons, but Cadfael had taken a look at the ploughman's face, startled and disquieted, and was off across the field at a trot. For clearly this something, whatever it might be, was as unwelcome as it was unforeseen, and of a nature for which higher authority would have to take the responsibility. The ploughman ran beside him, blurting distracted words that failed to shed much light.

The coulter dragged it up-there's more underground, no telling what..."

The teamster had risen to his feet and stood waiting for them with hands dangling helplessly.

"Brother, we could take no charge here, there's no knowing what we've come on." He had led the team a little forward to leave the place clear and show what had so strangely interrupted the work. Close under the slight slope of the bank which marked the margin of the field, with broom brushes leaning over the curve of the furrow, where the plough had turned, the coulter had cut in more deeply, and dragged along the furrow after it something that was not root or stem. Cadfael went on his knees, and stooped close to see the better. Brother Richard, shaken at last by the consternation that had rendered his fellows inarticulate and now chilled them into silence, stood back and watched warily, as Cadfael drew a hand along the furrow, touching the long threads that had entangled the coulter and been drawn upward into the light of day.

Fibres, but fashioned by man. Not the sinewy threads of roots gouged out of the bank, but half rotted strands of cloth, once black, or the common dark brown, now the colour of the earth, but still with enough nature left in them to tear in long, frayed rags when the iron ripped through the folds from which they came. And something more, drawn out with them, perhaps from within them, and lying along the furrow for almost the length of a man's forearm, black and wavy and fine, a long thick tress of dark hair.

Chapter Two.

BROTHER CADFAEL RETURNED ALONE TO THE ABBEY, and asked immediate audience of Abbot Radulfus.

"Father, something unforeseen sends me back to you in this haste. I would not have troubled you for less, but in the Potter's Field the plough has uncovered something which must be of concern both to this house and to the secular law. I have not yet gone further. I need your sanction to report this also to Hugh Beringar, and if he so permits, to pursue what as yet I have left as we found it. Father, the coulter has brought into daylight rags of cloth and a coil of human hair. A woman's hair, or so it seems to me. It is long and fine, I think it has never been cut. And, Father, it is held fast under the earth."

"You are telling me," said Radulfus, after a long and pregnant pause, "that it is still rooted in a human head." His voice was level and firm. There were few improbable situations he had not encountered in his more than fifty years. If this was the first of its kind, it was by no means the gravest he had ever confronted. The monastic enclave is still contained within and contingent upon a world where all things are possible. "In this unconsecrated place there is some human creature buried. Unlawfully."

"That is what I fear," said Cadfael. "But we have not gone on to confirm it, wanting your leave and the sheriffs attendance."

"Then what have you done? How have you left things there in the field?"

"Brother Richard is keeping watch at the place. The ploughing continues, but with due care, and away from that spot. There seemed no need," he said reasonably, "to delay it. Nor would we want to call too much attention to what is happening there. The ploughing accounts for our presence, no one need wonder at seeing us busy there. And even if it proves true, this may be old, very old, long before our time."

"True," said the abbot, his eyes very shrewd upon Cadfael's face, "though I think you do not believe in any such grace. To the best that I know from record and charter, there never at any time was church or churchyard near that place. I pray G.o.d there may be no more such discoveries to be made, one is more than enough. Well, you have my authority, do what needs to be done."

What needed to be done, Cadfael did. The first priority was to alert Hugh, and ensure that the secular authority should be witness to whatever followed. Hugh knew his friend well enough to cast no doubts, ask no questions, and waste no time in demur, but at once had horses saddled up, taking one sergeant of the garrison with him to ride messenger should he be needed, and set off with Cadfael for the ford of Severn and the Potter's Field.

The plough team was still at work, lower down the slope, when they rode along the headland to the spot where Brother Richard waited by the bank of broom bushes. The long, attenuated, sinuous S-shapes of the furrows shone richly dark against the thick, matted pallor of the meadow. Only this corner under the headland had been left virgin, the plough drawn well aside after the first ominous turn. The scar the coulter had left ended abruptly, the long, dark filaments drawn along the groove. Hugh stooped to look, and to touch. The threads of cloth disintegrated under his fingers, the long strands of hair curled and clung. When he lifted them tentatively they slid through his hold, still rooted in earth. He stood back, and stared down sombrely into the deep scar.

"Whatever you've found here, we'd best have it out. Your ploughman was a little too greedy for land, it seems. He could have spared us trouble if he'd turned his team a few yards short of the rise."

But it was already too late, the thing was done and could not be covered again and forgotten. They had brought spades with them, a mattock to peel off, with care, the matted root-felt of long undisturbed growth, and a sickle to cut back the overhanging broom that hampered their movements and had partially hidden this secret burial place. Within a quarter of an hour it became plain that the shape beneath had indeed the length of a grave, for the rotted shreds of cloth appeared here and there in alignment with the foot of the bank, and Cadfael abandoned the spade to kneel and scoop away earth with his hands. It was not even a deep grave, rather this swathed bundle had been laid in concealment under the slope, and the thick sod restored over it, and the bushes left to veil the place. Deep enough to rest undisturbed, in such a spot; a less efficient plough would not have turned so tightly as to reach it, nor the coulter have driven deep enough to penetrate it.

Cadfael felt along the exposed swathes of black cloth, and knew the bones within. The long tear the coulter had made slit the side distant from the bank from middle to head, where it had dragged out with the threads the tress of hair. He brushed away soil from where the face should be. Head to foot, the body was swathed in rotting woollen cloth, cloak or brychan, but there was no longer any doubt that it was a human creature, here laid underground in secret. Unlawfully, Radulfus had said. Buried unlawfully, dead unlawfully.

With their hands they scooped away patiently the soil that shrouded the unmistakable outline of humanity, worked their way cautiously beneath it from either side, to ease it out of its bed, and hoisted it from the grave to lay it upon the gra.s.s. Light, slender and fragile it rose into light, to be handled with held breath and careful touch, for at every friction the woollen threads crumbled and disintegrated. Cadfael eased the folds apart, and turned back the cloth to lay bare the withered remains.

Certainly a woman, for she wore a long, dark gown, ungirdled, unornamented, and strangely it seemed that the fullness of the skirt had been drawn out carefully into orderly folds, still preserved by the brychan in which she had been swathed for burial. The face was skeletal, the hands that emerged from the long sleeves were mere bone, but held in shape by her wrappings. Traces of dried and shrunken flesh showed at the wrists and at her bared ankles. The one last recollection of abundant life left to her was the great crown of black, braided hair, from which the one disordered coil had been drawn out by the coulter from beside her right temple. Strangely, she had clearly been stretched out decently for burial, her hands drawn up and crossed on her breast. More strangely still they were clasped upon a crude cross, made from two trimmed sticks bound together with a strip of linen cloth.