Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

moved to hoping against hope, but very wary of disappointment, Nicol interested but bewildered, for nothing had been said to him of the loss of Saint Winifred's reliquary, or the possibility that he might have had it aboard his wagon, and had been robbed of it with all the rest. Tutilo hovered in the background, keeping himself modestly apart while his betters conferred. He had even suppressed, as he could do at will, the brightness of his amber eyes.
    "And what was this thing you found?" asked Hugh cautiously.
    "A coffin, my lord, by its shape. Not very large, if coffin it really is; whoever lies in it was fine-boned and slender. Ornamented in silver, very chastely. I knew it was precious enough to be perilous. I took it in charge for safety."
    "And what," pursued Prior Robert, beginning to glow with the promise of a triumph, "did you do with this coffin?"
    "I had it taken to my lord, since it was found in his territory. I was risking no man of my village or those round about being charged with stealing a thing of value. Earl Robert was and is in residence in his manor of Huncote," said the reeve, "a few miles nearer Leicester. We carried it to him there, and told him how we found it, and there in his hall it is yet. You may find it safe enough in his care."
    "Praise God, who has shown us marvellous mercies!" breathed Prior Robert in rapture. "I do believe we have found the saint we mourned as lost."
    Hugh was visited by a momentary vision of Brother Cadfael's face, if he could have been present to appreciate the irony. Yet both virgin saint and unrepentant sinner must fall within the range of humanity. Maybe, after all, Cadfael had been right to speak so simply of 'poor Columbanus'. If only, thought Hugh, between amusement and anxiety, if only the lady has been gracious enough and considerate enough to keep the lid firmly on that reliquary of hers, we may yet come out of this without scandal. In any case, there was no escaping the next move.
    "Very well so!" said Hugh philosophically. "Then we'll go to Huncote, and have speech with the earl."
    Huncote was a trim and compact village. There was a thriving mill, and the fields of the demesne were wide and green, the ploughland well tended. It lay clear of the edge of the forest, closely grouped round the manor and its walled courtyard. The house was not large, but built of stone, with a squat tower as solid as a castle keep. Within the pale the strangers entering were observed immediately, and approached with an alertness and efficiency that probably stemmed from the fact that the earl himself was in residence. Grooms came at once, and briskly, to take the bridles, and a spruce page came bounding down the steps from the hall door to greet the newcomers and discover their business here, but he was waved away by an older steward who had emerged from the stables. The apparition of three Benedictines, two of them obviously venerable, and attended by two lay guests, one a servitor, the other with an authority equal to the monastic, but clearly secular, produced a welcome at once courteous and cool. Here every grace of hospitality would be offered to all who came, only warmth waited on further exchanges.
    In a country still torn between two rivals for sovereignty, and plagued by numerous uncommitted lords more interested in carving out kingdoms of their own, wise men observed their hospitable duties and opened their houses to all, but waited to examine credentials before opening their minds.
    "My lord, reverend sirs," said the steward, "you are very welcome. I am the steward of my lord Robert Beaumont's manor of Huncote. How may I serve the Benedictine Order and those who ride in their company? Have you business here within?"
    "If Earl Robert is within, and will receive us," said Hugh, "we have indeed business. We come in the matter of something lost from the abbey of Shrewsbury, and found, as we have learned, here within the earl's woodlands. A little matter of a saint's reliquary. Your lord may even find it diverting, as well as enlightening, for he must have been wondering what had been laid on his doorstone."
    "I am the prior of Shrewsbury," said Robert with ceremonious dignity, but was only briefly regarded. The steward was elderly, experienced and intelligent, and though he was custodian only of one of the minor properties in Leicester's huge and international honour, by the sharpening glint in his eye he was in his lord's confidence, and well acquainted with the