Brother Cadfael 10: The Pilgrim of Hate

penance. You might deliver the judgement, Hugh, but you cannot deliver the absolution."
    "Nor the penance, neither," said Hugh, and laughed freely. "So tell it to me, and go free without penalty."
    The idea of confiding was unexpectedly pleasing and acceptable. "It's a long story," said Cadfael warningly.
    "Then now's your time, for whatever I can do here is done, nothing is asked of me but watchfulness and patience, and why should I wait unentertained if there's a good story to be heard? And you are at leisure until Vespers. You may even get merit," said Hugh, composing his face into priestly solemnity, "by unburdening your soul to the secular arm. And I can be secret," he said, "as any confessional."
    "Wait, then," said Cadfael, "while I fetch a draught of that maturing wine, and come within to the bench under the north wall, where the afternoon sun falls. We may as well be at ease while I talk."
    "It was a year or so before I knew you," said Cadfael, bracing his back comfortably against the warmed, stony roughness of the herb-garden wall. "We were without a tame saint to our house, and somewhat envious of Wenlock, where the Cluny community had discovered their Saxon foundress Milburga, and were making great play with her. And we had certain signs that sent off an ailing brother of ours into Wales, to bathe at Holywell, where this girl Winifred died her first death, and brought forth her healing spring. There was her own patron, Saint Beuno, ready and able to bring her back to life, but the spring remained, and did wonders. So it came to Prior Robert that the lady could be persuaded to leave Gwytherin, where she died her second death and was buried, and come and bring her glory to us here in Shrewsbury. I was one of the party he took with him to deal with the parish there, and bring them to give up the saint's bones."
    "All of which," said Hugh, warmed and attentive beside him, "I know very well, since all men here know it."
    "Surely! But you do not know to the end what followed. There was one Welsh lord in Gwytherin who would not suffer the girl to be disturbed, and would not be persuaded or bribed or threatened into letting her go. And he died, Hugh, murdered. By one of us, a brother who came from high rank, and had his eyes already set on a mitre. And when we came near to accusing him, it was his life or a better. There were certain young people of that place put in peril by him, the dead lord's daughter and her lover. The boy lashed out in anger, with good reason, seeing his girl wounded and bleeding. He was stronger than he knew. The murderer's neck was broken."
    "How many knew of this?" asked Hugh, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully upon the glossy-leaved rose-bushes.
    "When it befell, only the lovers, the dead man and I. And Saint Winifred, who had been raised from her grave and laid in that casket of which you and all men know. She knew. She was there. From the moment I raised her," said Cadfael, "and by God, it was I who took her from the soil, and I who restored her-and still that makes me glad-from the moment I uncovered those slender bones, I felt in mine they wished only to be left in peace. It was so little and so wild and quiet a graveyard there, with the small church long out of use, meadow flowers growing over all, and the mounds so modest and green. And Welsh soil! The girl was Welsh, like me, her church was of the old persuasion, what did she know of this alien English shire? And I had those young things to keep. Who would have taken their word or mine against all the force of the church? They would have closed their ranks to bury the scandal, and bury the boy with it, and he guilty of nothing but defending his dear. So I took measures."
    Hugh's mobile lips twitched. "Now indeed you amaze me! And what measures were those? With a dead brother to account for, and Prior Robert to keep sweet..."
    "Ah, well, Robert is a simpler soul than he supposes, and then I had a good deal of help from the dead brother himself. He'd been busy building himself such a reputation for sanctity, delivering messages from the saint herself - it was he told us she was offering the grave she'd left to the murdered man - and going into trance-sleeps, and praying to leave this world and be taken into bliss living... So we did him that small favour. He'd been keeping a solitary night-watch in the old church, and in the morning when it ended, there were his habit and sandals fallen together at his prayer-stool, and the body of him