Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

to elaborate on why it would be useless to send for the witness yet, it was accepted between them without words. "And, Cadfael, even when the day comes, we will not make it known at chapter. Let no one be forewarned, to go in fear or spread rumours. Let this be done as sensibly as possible, with the least harm to any, even the guilty."
    "If she comes back, unharmed, unchanged," said Cadfael, "this may yet pass without harm or disgrace to any. She is also to be reckoned with, I have no fears for her." And it dawned upon him suddenly how right Hugh had been in saying that he, Cadfael, spoke by instinct of this hollow reliquary, as good as empty, as though it truly contained the wonder whose name it bore. And how sadly he had missed her, lacking the unworthy symbol she had deigned to make worthy.
    Granted this authenticity even for the symbol, she came back the next day, nobly escorted.
    Brother Cadfael was just emerging from the door of the infirmary in mid-morning, after replenishing Brother Edmund's stores in the medicine cupboard, when they rode in at the gatehouse before his eyes. Not simply Hugh, Prior Robert, and the two emissaries from Ramsey with their lay servant, who indeed seemed to be missing, but a company augmented by the addition of two attendant grooms or squires, whatever their exact status might be, and a compact personage in his prime, who rode unobtrusively at Hugh's side, behind the two priors, and yet dominated the procession without any effort or gesture on his part. His riding gear was rich but in dark colours, the horse under him was more ornamented in his harness than the rider in his dress, and a very handsome dark roan. And behind him, on a narrow wheeled carriage drawn by one horse, came Saint Winifred's reliquary, decently nested on embroidered draperies.
    It was wonderful to see how the great court filled, as though the word of her return in triumph had been blown in on the wind. Brother Denis came out from the guesthall, Brother Paul from the schoolroom, with two of his boys peering out from behind his skirts, two novices and two grooms from the stable-yard, and half a dozen brothers from various scattered occupations, all appeared on the scene almost before the porter was out of his lodge in haste to greet Prior Robert, the sheriff and the guests.
    Tutilo, riding modestly at the rear of the cort�, slipped down from the saddle and ran to hold Herluin's stirrup, like a courtly page, as his superior descended. The model novice, a little too assiduous, perhaps, to be quite easy in his mind. And if what Cadfael suspected was indeed true, he had now good reason to be on his best behaviour. The missing reliquary, it seemed, was back where it belonged, just as a witness had been found who could and would confirm exactly how it had been made to disappear. And though Tutilo did not yet know what lay in store for him, nevertheless he could not be quite sure this apparently joyous return would be the end of it. Hopeful but anxious, plaiting his fingers for luck, he would be wholly virtuous until the last peril was past, and himself still anonymous and invisible. He might even pray earnestly to Saint Winifred to protect him, he had the innocent effrontery for it.
    Cadfael could not choose but feel some sympathy for one whose dubious but daring enterprise had come full circle, and now threatened him with disgrace and punishment; all the more as Cadfael himself had just been spared a possibly similar exposure. The lid of the reliquary, with its silver chasing exposed to view, no doubt to be instantly recognizable on entering the court, was still securely sealed down. No one had tampered with it, no one had viewed the body within. Cadfael at least could breathe again.
    Prior Robert on his own ground had taken charge of all. The excited brothers raised the reliquary, and bore it away into the church, to its own altar, and Tutilo followed devotedly. The grooms and novices led away the horses, and wheeled away the light carriage into the grange court for housing. Robert, Herluin, Hugh and the stranger departed in the direction of the abbot's lodging, where Radulfus had already come out to greet them.
    Stranger this new guest might be, certainly Cadfael had never seen him before, but it was no particular problem to work out who he must be, even if that left his presence here as a mystery. Not far from Leicester the ambush had taken place. Here was clearly a magnate of considerable power and status, why