Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

together his violated dignity and emerging with formidable resolution into the field of discussion, as if he had never changed and rechanged his coat, nor been shut up fast in his own castle in his own city, in peril of his life. It took a deal of persistence to get admission to his lordship's presence, but Nicholas, in his present cause, had persistence enough to force his way through even these prickly defences.
    'Do you trouble me with such trifles?' Bishop Henry had demanded, after perusing, with a blackly frowning countenance, the list Nicholas presented to him. 'I know nothing of any such tawdry trinkets. None of these have I ever seen, none belongs to any house of worship known here to me. What is there here to concern me?'
    'My lord, there is a lady's life,' said Nicholas, stung. 'She intended what she never achieved, a life of dedication in the abbey of Wherwell. Before ever reaching there she was lost, and what I intend is to find her, if she lives, and avenge her, if she is dead. And only by these, as you say, tawdry trinkets can I hope to trace her.'
    'In that,' said the bishop shortly, 'I cannot help you. I tell you certainly, none of these things ever came into the possession of the Old Minster, nor of any church or convent under my supervision. But you may enquire where you will among other houses in this city, and say that I have sanctioned your search. That is all I can do.'
    And with that Nicholas had had to be content, and indeed it did give him a considerable authority, should he be questioned as to what right he had in the matter. However eclipsed for a time, Henry of Blois would rise again like the phoenix, as formidable as ever, and the fire that had all but consumed him could be relied upon to scorch whoever dared his enmity afterwards.
    From church to church and priest to priest Nicholas carried his list, and found nothing but shaken heads and helplessly knitted brows everywhere, even where there was manifest goodwill towards him. No house of religion surviving in Winchester knew anything of the twin candlesticks, the stone-studded cross or the silver pyx that had been a part of Julian Grace's dowry. There was no reason to doubt their word, they had no reason to lie, none even to prevaricate.
    There remained the streets, the shops of goldsmiths, silversmiths, even the casual market-traders who would buy and sell whatever came to hand. Nicholas began the systematic examination of them all, and in so rich a city, with so wealthy a clientele of lofty churchmen and rich foundations, they were many.
    Thus he came, on the morning of this same day when Brother Humilis entreated passage to the place of his birth, into a small, scarred shop in the High Street, close under the shadow of Saint Maurice's church. The frontage had suffered in the fires, and the silversmith had rigged a shuttered opening like a fairground booth, and drawn his workbench close to it, to have the full daylight on his work. The raised shutter overhead protected his face from glare, but let in the morning shine to the brooch he was handling, and the fine stones he was setting in it. A man in his prime, probably well-fleshed when times were good, but now somewhat shrunken after the privations of the long siege, for his skin hung on him flaccid and greyish, like a too-large coat on a fasting man. He looked up alertly through a forelock of greying hair, and asked if he could serve the gentleman.
    'I begin to think it a thin enough chance,' admitted Nicholas ruefully, 'but at least let's make the assay. I am hunting for word, any word, of certain pieces of church plate and ornaments that went astray in these parts three years ago. Do you handle such things?'
    'I handle anything of gold or silver. I have made church plate in my time. But three years is a long while. What is so notable about them? Stolen, you think? I deal in no suspect goods. If there's anything dubious about what's offered, I never touch it.'
    'There need not have been anything here to deter you. True enough they might have been stolen, but there need be nothing to tell you so. They belonged to no southern church or convent, they were brought from Shropshire, and most likely made in that region, and to a man like you they'd be recognisable as northern work. The crosses might well be old, and Saxon.'
    'And what are these items? Read me your list. My memory is not infallible, but I may recall, even after three years.'
    Nicholas went through the list slowly, watching