Brother Cadfael 01: A Morbid Taste for Bones

here while you're away. Take that sheet of yours, and go and spread it under the may trees in the hedge, where they're beginning to shed, but not yet brown, Shake the bushes and bring us a whole cloud of petals. The last time she visited him, it was with wondrous sweet odours and a shower of white flowers. Bring the one, and we shall have the other."
    Confidently, understanding nothing as yet, she took the linen sheet from which she had unwound herself as from a shroud, and went to do his bidding.
    "Give me the dagger," said Cadfael briskly when she was gone. He wiped the blade on the veil Columbanus had torn from Sioned's head, and moved the candles so that they shone upon the great red seals that closed Winifred's reliquary. "Thank God he didn't bleed," he said. "His habit and clothes are unmarked. Strip him!"
    And he fingered the first seal, nodded satisfaction at its fatness and the thinness and sharpness of the dagger, and thrust the tip of the blade into the flame of the lamp.
    Long before daylight they were ready. They walked down all three together from the chapel towards the village, and separated at the edge of the wood, where the shortest path turned off uphill towards Rhisiart's holding.
    Sioned carried with her the blood-stained sheet and veil, and the fragments of glass they had buried in the forest. A good thing the servants who had filled in Rhisiart's grave had left their spades on the scene, meaning to tidy the mound next day. That had saved a journey to borrow without leave, and a good hour of time.
    "There'll be no scandal," said Cadfael, when they halted at the place where the paths divided. "No scandal, and no accusations. I think you may take him home with you, but keep him out of sight until we're gone. There'll be peace when we're gone. And you needn't fear that the prince or his bailiff will ever proceed further against Engelard, any more than against John. I'll speak a word in Peredur's ear, Peredur will speak it into the bailiff's ear, the bailiff will speak it into Owain Gwynedd's ear - Father Huw we'll leave out of it, no need to burden his conscience, the good, simple man. And if the monks of Shrewsbury are happy, and the people of Gwytherin are happy - for they'll hear the whisper fast enough - why should anyone want to upset such a satisfactory state of affairs, by speaking the word aloud? A wise prince - and Owain Gwynedd seems to me very wise - will let well alone."
    "All Gwytherin," said Sioned, and shivered a little at the thought, "will be there in the morning to watch you take the reliquary away."
    "So much the better, we want all the witnesses we can have, all the emotion, all the wonder. I am a great sinner," said Cadfael philosophically, "but I feel no weight. Does the end justify the means, I wonder?"
    "One thing I know," she said. "My father can rest now, and that he owes to you. And I owe you that and more. When I first came down to you out of the tree - you remember? - I thought you would be like other monks, and not want to look at me."
    "Child, I should have to be out of my wits, not to want to look at you. I've looked so attentively, I shall remember you all my life. But your love, my children, and how you manage it - with that I can't help you."
    "No need," said Engelard. "I am an outlander, with a proper agreement. That agreement can be dissolved by consent, and I can be a free man by dividing all my goods equally with my lord, and now Sioned is my lord."
    "And then there can no man prevent," said Sioned, "if I choose to endow him with half my goods, as is only fair. Uncle Meurice won't stand in our way. And it won't even be hard for him to justify. To marry an heiress to an outlander servant is one thing, to marry her to a free man and heir to a manor, even if it's in England and can't be claimed for a while, is quite another."
    "Especially," said Cadfael, "when you already know he's the best hand with cattle in the four cantrefs."
    It seemed that those two, at any rate, were satisfied. And Rhisiart in his honoured grave would not grudge them their happiness. He had not been a grudging man.
    Engelard, no talker, said his thanks plainly and briefly when they parted. Sioned turned back impulsively, flung her arms round Cadfael's neck, and kissed him. It was their farewell, for he had thought it best to advise them not to show themselves at the chapel again. It was a wry touch that she smelled so heady and sweet with flowering may, and left so saintly a fragrance in