Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

excuse for savagery?"
    "Father," said Master James earnestly, "I never before saw poor devils living wild wearing good leather jerkins and solid boots, and daggers fit for a baron's guard."
    "And they made off southerly?" asked Cadfael, pondering this militant company so well found in everything but horses.
    "South-west," amended the young man Martin. "And in a mortal hurry by all the signs."
    "In a hurry to get out of the earl of Leicester's reach," Cadfael hazarded. "They'd get short shrift from him if he once laid hands on them. I wonder if these were not some of the horde Geoffrey de Mandeville collected about him, looking for safer pastures to settle in, now the king is master of the Fens again? They'll be scattering in all directions still, and hunted everywhere. In Leicester's lands they certainly would not want to linger."
    That raised a murmur of agreement from them all. No sane malefactor would want to settle and conduct his predatory business in territory controlled by so active and powerful a magnate as Robert Beaumont, earl of Leicester. He was the younger of the twin Beaumont brothers, sons of the elder Robert who had been one of the most reliable props of old King Henry's firm rule, and they in their turn had been as staunch in support of King Stephen. The father had died in possession of the earldom of Leicester in England, Beaumont, Brionne and Pontaudemer in Normandy, and the county of Meulan in France, and on his death the elder twin Waleran inherited the Norman and French lands, the younger Robert the English title and honour.
    "He is certainly not the man to tolerate thieves and bandits in his lands," said the abbot. "He may yet take these thieves before they can escape his writ. Something may yet be recovered. More to the purpose at this moment, what has become of your companions, Master James? You say all of them are living. Where are they now?"
    "Why, my lord, when we were left alone, and I think if they had not been in such haste to move on they would not have left a man of us alive to tell the tale, we first tended the worst hurt, and took counsel, and decided we must take the news on to Ramsey, and also back here to Shrewsbury. And Nicol, knowing that by then Sub-Prior Herluin would be in Worcester, said that he would make his way there and tell him what had befallen us. Roger was to make his way home to Ramsey, and young Payne chose to go on there with him, as he had said he would. Martin here would have done as much, but that I was none too secure on my feet, and he would not let me undertake the journey home alone. And here at home I mean to stay, for I've lost my taste for travelling, after that melee, I can tell you."
    "No blame to you," agreed the abbot wryly. "So by this time this news of yours should also have reached both Ramsey and Worcester, if there have been no further ambushes on the way, as God forbid! And Hugh Beringar may already be in Worcester, and will know what has happened. If anything can be done to trace our cart and the hired horses, well! If not, at least the most precious lading, the lives of five men, come out of it safely, God be thanked!"
    Thus far Cadfael had deferred his own news in favour of the far more urgent word brought back by these battered survivors from the forests of Leicestershire. Now he thought fit to put in a word. "Father Abbot, I'm back from Longner without much gained, for neither of the young men who brought down the timber has anything of note to tell. But still I feel that one more thing of immense value must have been taken away with that wagon. I see no other way by which Saint Winifred's reliquary can have left the enclave."
    The abbot gave him a long, penetrating look, and concluded at length: "You are in solemn earnest. And indeed I see the force of what you say. You have spoken now with everyone who took part in that evening's work?"
    "No, Father, there's yet one more to be seen, a young man from a neighbouring hamlet who came down to help the carters. But them I have seen, and they do say that this third man was called back into the church by one of the brothers, at the end of the evening, for some last purpose, after which the brother came out with him to thank them all, and bid them goodnight. They did not see anything being stowed on the wagon for Ramsey. But they were busy and not paying attention except to their own work. It's a vague enough notion, that something unauthorized was then loaded under cover of the dark. But I