Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

R� of Pertuis was a man of fifty or so, of striking appearance, a gentleman who valued himself on his looks and presentation. Cadfael watched him cross towards the guesthall; he had not so far had occasion to pay him much attention, but if Anselm respected him and approved his musical conscience he might be worth studying. A fine, burnished head of russet hair and a clipped beard. Good carriage and a body very handsomely appointed, fur lining his cloak, gold at his belt. And two attendants following close behind him, a tall fellow somewhere in his mid-thirties, all muted brown from head to foot, his good but plain clothing placing him discreetly between squire and groom, and a woman, cloaked and hooded, but by her slender figure and light step young.
    "What's his need for the girl?" Cadfael wondered.
    "Ah, that he has explained to Brother Denis," said Anselm, and smiled. "Meticulously! Not his kin..."
    "I never thought it," said Cadfael.
    "But you may have thought, as I certainly did when first they rode in here, that he had a very particular use for her, as indeed he has, though not as I imagined it." Brother Anselm, for all he had come early to the cloister, had fathomed most of the byways that were current outside the walls, and had long ago ceased to be either surprised or shocked by them. "It's the girl who performs most of his songs. She has a lovely voice, and he values her for it, and highly, but for nothing else, so far as I can see. She's an important part of his stock in trade."
    "But what," wondered Cadfael, "is a minstrel from the heart of Provence doing here in the heart of England? And plainly no mere jongleur, but a genuine troubadour. He's wandered far from home, surely?"
    And yet, he thought, why not? The patrons on whom such artists depend are becoming now as much English as French, or Norman, or Breton, or Angevin. They have estates both here and oversea, as well seek them here as there. And the very nature of the troubadour, after all, is to wander and venture, as the Galician word trobar, from which they take their name, though it has come to signify to create poetry and music, literally means to find. Those who find, seek and find out the poetry and the music both, these are the troubadours. And if their art is universal, why should they not be found everywhere?
    "He's heading for Chester," said Anselm. "So his man says, B�zet, he's called. It may be he hopes to get a place in the earl's household. But he's in no haste, and plainly in no want of money. Three good riding horses and two servants in his following is pretty comfortable travelling."
    "Now I wonder," said Cadfael, musing darkly, "why he left his last service? Made himself too agreeable to his lord's lady, perhaps? Something serious, to make it necessary to cross the sea."
    "I am more interested," said Anselm, undisturbed by such a cynical view of troubadours in general, "in where he got the girl. For she is not French, not Breton, not from Provence. She speaks the English of these borders, and some Welsh. It would seem she is one property he got this side the ocean. The groom, B�zet, he's a southerner like his master."
    The trio had vanished into the guesthall by then, their entangled lives still as mysterious as when they had first entered the enclave. And in some few days, if the roads stayed passable and the lame horse mended, they would depart just as enigmatically, like so many who took refuge under that hospitable roof a day, a week, and then passed, leaving nothing of themselves behind. Cadfael shook himself free of vain wondering about souls that passed by as strangers, and sighed, and went back into the church to say a brief word into Saint Winifred's ear before going to his work in the garden.
    Someone was before him in needing Saint Winifred's attention, it seemed. Tutilo had something to ask of the saint, for he was kneeling on the lowest step of her altar, sharply outlined against the candle-light. He was so intent upon his prayer that he did not hear Cadfael's steps on the tiles. His face was lifted to the light, eager and vehement, and his lips were moving rapidly and silently in voluble appeal, and by his wide-open eyes and flushed cheeks with every confidence of being heard and having his plea granted. What Tutilo did, he did with his might. For him a simple request to heaven, through the intercession of a kindly disposed saint, was equal to wrestling with angels, and out-arguing doctors of divinity. And when