Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

recover will have been plundered and stripped of everything of value, half-ruined, possibly burned. And within the pale..."
    He had a clear, confident voice which had proceeded thus far with considered force, but without passion, but throbbing indignation robbed him of utterance for a moment when he reached the day of the return.
    "I was there. I saw what they had made of the holy place. An abomination! A midden! The church defiled, the cloisters an uncleansed stable, dortoir and frater stripped of woodwork to feed fires, all provisions taken away, all those valuables we had no time or warning to remove, stolen. Lead stripped from roofs, rooms left open to the weather, to rain and frost. Not so much as a pot for cooking, or a service book or a slip of vellum. Ruinous walls, an emptiness, a barren void. All this we have undertaken to rebuild and make more glorious than before, but we cannot do it alone. Abbot Walter has even given up much of his own wealth to buy food for the people of our villages, for harvest there has been none. Who could till the fields with death for ever at his heels? Even from the poorest of the poor those malefactors extorted the last wretched possession, and if there was nothing left to steal, they killed."
    "We have heard, all too truly, of the terror let loose on all your countryside," said Abbot Radulfus. "With grief we have heard it, and prayed an end to it. Now that that end is come, there is no house of our Order that can refuse all possible help to restore what was despoiled. Ask of us what can best serve Ramsey's needs. For I think you are sent as a brother to brothers, and within this family of ours injury to one is injury to all."
    "I am sent to ask help from this house and from any among the laity who may be moved to do a deed of grace, in alms, in skills, if there are any in Shrewsbury experienced in building and willing to work for some weeks far from home, in materials, in whatever aids may avail for our restoration and the benefit of the souls of the generous. For every penny and every prayer Ramsey will be grateful. To that end, I ask leave to preach once here in your church, and once, with the permission of sheriff and clergy, at the High Cross in Shrewsbury, so that every goodman of the town may search his heart and give what he is moved to give."
    "We will confer with Father Boniface," said Radulfus, "and he will surely agree to have you speak at a parish service. Of the sympathy of this house you may already be assured."
    "On brotherly love," said Herluin graciously, "I knew we could rely. Others, like Brother Tutilo here and myself, have gone forth to pray the aid of other Benedictine houses in other shires. We are charged, also, with carrying the news to all those brothers who were forced to scatter to save their lives when our troubles began, to call them home again, where they are sorely needed. For some of them cannot yet even know that Abbot Walter is back within the enclave, and has need of every son's labour and faith to bring about the great work of restoration. There is one of our number, I believe," he said, earnestly watching the abbot's face, "came here to Shrewsbury, to the home of his family. I must see him, and exhort him to return with me."
    "That is true," Radulfus allowed. "Sulien Blount, of the manor of Longner. He came here to us, with Abbot Walter's countenance. The young man had not taken his final vows. He was approaching the end of his novitiate, and was in some doubt of his vocation. He came here upon terms, with his abbot's full leave, to consider on his future. It was his own decision to leave this house, and return to his family, and I absolved him accordingly. In my view he had entered the Order mistakenly. Nevertheless, he must and will answer for himself. I will have one of the brothers show you the way to his elder brother's manor."
    "I shall do my best to recall him to his better self," Herluin stated, with a distinct implication in his tone that he would enjoy hounding back to the fold a reluctant but out-argued penitent.
    Brother Cadfael, studying this formidable personage from his retired corner, and his long years of secular and monastic experience of all sorts and conditions of men, reflected that the sub-prior would probably make a very good preacher at the High Cross, and exact donations from a great many guilty consciences; for he was voluble enough, even capable of passion in the service of Ramsey. But over his chances of shifting