Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

shiftings? Sin detected can contrive all manner of veils to cover its nakedness.
    "I planned and did what I have already told you," said Tutilo, suddenly brief and dry. "I felt that I was doing no wrong. I believed I was instructed, and faithfully I obeyed. But bitterly I regret that I needed another man's hands to help me, and he in ignorance."
    "In innocence," said the abbot, "to his peril."
    "I acknowledge it," said Tutilo, erect and wide-eyed. "I regret it. God forgive me for it!"
    "In due time," said Radulfus with unremitting detachment, "so he may. That is not for us to meddle with. As for us, we have your story, we have a saint who has made her way back to us by strange ways, and we have those who have been friends to her on that journey, and may well believe, as you believe, that the lady has been in control of her own destiny, and choosing her own friends and her own dependants. But before ever we come to that issue, we have here a murdered man. Neither God nor his saints will tolerate murder. This young man Aldhelm cries to us for justice. If there is anything you can tell us that may shed light on his death, speak now."
    "Father," said Tutilo, burning into startling whiteness, "I pledge you my faith I never did nor never would have done him any harm, nor do I know of any who might need to wish him ill. It is true he could have told you of me what now I have told you. It never was matter for such fear to me that I must have tried to silence him. He helped me! He helped her! I would have said yes to him when he pointed at me. Granted I was a little afraid, I tried to be secret. But there are no secrets now."
    "Yet you are the only man," insisted the abbot mercilessly, but without pressing the suggestion to an accusation, "who is known to have had reason to fear his coming here with what he could tell. What you yourself have now chosen to tell us can neither undo that truth, nor absolve you from it. Until more is known concerning his death, I judge that you must be held in confinement within my custody. The only charge that can be made against you at this moment is of theft from our house, however that may be read hereafter. That leaves you within my writ. I think the lord sheriff may have somewhat to say to that disposition."
    "I have nothing to object to it," said Hugh promptly. "I trust him to your charge, Father Abbot."
    Herluin had said not a word for or against. He was nursing in silence the options left to him, and so far they did not appear to him totally unpromising. The silly boy might have made potentially disastrous mistakes, but he had preserved the basis of his claim. The saint had willed it! How does the incumbent house prove otherwise? She did set out, only the wickedness of men frustrated her journey.
    "Ask Brother Vitalis to call the porters to take him away," said the abbot. "And, Brother Cadfael, see him into his cell, and if you will, come back to us."
    Chapter Seven.
    It was apparent to Cadfael, when he re-entered the abbot's parlour, that if battle had not actually been joined, war trumpets were certainly being tuned for the onset. Radulfus maintained his judicial calm, and the earl's broad brow was suave and benign, though there was no guessing what went on in the highly intelligent mind behind it; but Prior Robert and Sub-Prior Herluin sat very erect, stiff in the spine and with long, refined faces sharpened into steel, studiously not looking straight at each other, but maintaining each a bright gaze on distance, and the appearance of considering with magisterial detachment the situation that confronted them.
    "Setting aside the issue of murder," said Herluin, "for which as yet we lack any kind of proof, surely his story is to be believed. This was a holy theft. He was doing what the saint willed."
    "I do not find it easy," said Abbot Radulfus, with a distinct chill in his voice, "to set aside the issue of murder. It takes precedence of any other matter. Hugh, what can you say of this boy? He has told us now what he might well have feared the dead man could tell us. That leaves him with no cause to kill."
    "No," said Hugh. "He had cause, by his own admission, and we know of no other who had. It is possible that he did kill, but having killed, took thought to cover what he had done. Possible... I say no more than that. He came straight to us at the castle, and told us how he had found the body, and no question but he was greatly shaken and agitated, as well he might be, guilty or