Brother Cadfael 01: A Morbid Taste for Bones

this being knew. "No, it's all wrong, I am misjudged! I was asleep here when Father Huw's messenger came for us. Jerome shook me awake... The messenger is witness..."
    "The messenger never passed the doorway. Brother Jerome was already stirring out of his poisoned sleep, and went to meet him. As for you, you feigned and lied, as you feign and lie now. Who was it brought the poppy syrup? Who was it knew its use? You were pretending sleep, you lied even in confessing to sleep, and Jerome, as weak as you are wicked, was glad enough to think you could not accuse him, not even seeing that you were indeed accusing him of worse, of your act, of your slaying! He did not know you lied, and could not charge you with it. But I know, and I do charge you! And my vengeance loosed upon Cradoc may also be loosed upon you, if you lie to me but once more!"
    "No!" he shrieked, and covered his face as though she dazzled him with lightnings, though only a thin, small, terrible sound threatened him. "No, spare! I am not lying! Blessed virgin, I have been your true servant... I have tried to do your will... I know nothing of this! I never harmed Rhisiart! I never gave poisoned wine to Jerome!"
    "Fool!" said the voice in a sudden loud cry. "Do you think you can deceive me? Then what is this?"
    There was a sudden silvery flash in the air before him, and something fell and smashed with a shivering of glass on the floor just in front of the desk, spattering his knees with sharp fragments and infinitesimal, sticky drops, and at the same instant the flame of the lamp died utterly, and black darkness fell.
    Shivering and sick with fear, Columbanus groped forward along the earth floor, and slivers of glass crushed and stabbed under his palms, drawing blood. He lifted one hand to his face, whimpering, and smelled the sweet, cloying scent of the poppy syrup, and knew that he was kneeling among the fragments of the phial he had left safe in his scrip at Cadwallon's house.
    It was no more than a minute before the total darkness eased, and there beyond the bier and the altar the small oblong shape of the window formed in comparative light, a deep, clear sky, moonless but starlit. Shapes within the chapel again loomed very dimly, giving space to his sickening terror. There was a figure standing motionless between him and the bier.
    It took a little while for his eyes to accustom themselves to the dimness, and assemble out of it this shadowy, erect pallor, a woman lost in obscurity from the waist down, but head and shoulders feebly illuminated by the starlight from the altar window. He had not seen her come, he had heard nothing. She had appeared while he was dragging his torn palm over the shards of glass, and moaning as if at the derisory pain. A slender, still form swathed from head to foot closely in white, Winifred in her grave clothes, long since dust, a thin veil covering her face and head, and her arm outstretched and pointing at him.
    He shrank back before her, scuffling abjectly backwards along the floor, making feeble gestures with his hands to fend off the very sight of her. Frantic tears burst out of his eyes, and frantic words from his lips.
    "It was for you! It was for you and for my abbey! I did it for the glory of our house! I believed I had warranty - from you and from heaven! He stood in the way of God's will! He would not let you go. I meant only rightly when I did what I did!"
    "Speak plainly," said the voice, sharp with command, "and say out what you did."
    "I gave the syrup to Jerome - in his wine - and when he was asleep I stole out to the forest path, and waited for Rhisiart. I followed him. I struck him down... Oh, sweet Saint Winifred, don't let me be damned for striking down the enemy who stood in the way of blessedness..."
    "Struck in the back!" said the pale figure, and a sudden cold gust of air swept over her and shuddered in her draperies, and surging across the chapel, blew upon Columbanus and chilled him to the bone. As if she had touched him! And she was surely a pace nearer, though he had not seen her move. "Struck in the back, as mean cowards and traitors do! Own it! Say it all!"
    "In the back!" babbled Columbanus, scrambling back from her like a broken animal, until his shoulders came up against the wall, and he could retreat no farther. "I own it. I confess it all! Oh, merciful saint, you know all, and I cannot hide from you! Have pity on me! Don't destroy me! It was all for you, I did it for you!"
    "You did it for