Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

is the ordinance of heaven to be interpreted in these sortes Biblicae Radulfus has in mind? Oh, certainly I know the common practice of reading the future by opening the Evangel blindly, and laying a finger on the page, but what is this official use of it in consecrating a new bishop? Too late then, surely, to change him for a better if the word goes against him."
    Cadfael removed a simmering pot from the grid on the side of his brazier, set it aside on the earth floor to cool, and added a couple of turfs to damp down the glow, before straightening his back with some caution, and sitting down beside his friend.
    "I have never been in attendance at such a consecration myself," he said. "The bishops keep it within the circle. I marvel how the results ever leak out, but they do. Or someone makes them up, of course. Too sharp to be true, I sometimes feel. But yes, they are taken just as Abbot Radulfus said, and very solemnly, so I'm told. The book of the Gospels is laid on the shoulders of the newly chosen bishop, and opened at random, and a finger laid on the page."
    "By whom?" demanded Hugh, laying his own finger on the fatal flaw.
    "Now that I never thought to ask. Surely the archbishop or bishop who is officiating. Though, granted, he could be friend or enemy to the new man. I trust they play fair, but who knows? Bad or good, that line is the prognostic for the bishop's future ministry. Apt enough, sometimes. The good Bishop Wulstan of Worcester got: 'Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.' Some were not so lucky. Do you know, Hugh, what the sortes sent to Roger of Salisbury, who fell into Stephen's displeasure not so many years ago and died disgraced? 'Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into outer darkness.'"
    "Hard to believe!" said Hugh, hoisting a sceptical eyebrow. "Did not someone think of pinning that on him after his fall? I wonder what was heaven's response to Henry of Winchester when he achieved the bishopric? Even I can think of some lines that would come too near the knuckle for his liking."
    "I believe," said Cadfael, "it was something from Matthew, concerning the latter days when false prophets would multiply among us. Something to the effect that if any man should claim: Here is Christ! do not believe him. But much can be done with the interpretation."
    "That will be the sticking point this time," Hugh said shrewdly, "unless the Gospels speak all too plainly, and can't be misread. Why do you suppose the abbot ever suggested it? Doubtless it could be arranged to give the right answers. But not, I suspect, with Radulfus in charge. Is he so sure of heaven's justice?"
    Cadfael had already been considering the same question, and could only conclude that the abbot had indeed total faith that the Gospels would justify Shrewsbury in possession of its saint. He never ceased to wonder at the irony of expecting miracles from a reliquary in which her bones had once lain for only three days and nights, before being returned reverently to her native Welsh earth; and even more to be wondered at, the infinite mercy that had transmitted grace through all those miles between, forgiven the presence of a sorry human sinner in the coffin she had quitted, and let the radiance of miracle remain invisibly about her altar, unpredictable, accessible, a shade wanton in where it gave and where it denied, as the stuff of miracles is liable to be, at least to the human view. She was not here, had never been here, never in what remained of her fragile flesh; yet she had certainly consented to let her essence be brought here, and manifested her presence with startling mercies.
    "Yes," said Cadfael, "I think he trusts Winifred to see right done. I think he knows that she never really left us, and never will."
    Cadfael came back to his workshop after supper, to make his final round for the night, damp down his brazier to burn slowly until morning, and make sure all his jars were covered and all his bottles and flasks stoppered securely. He was expecting no visitors at this hour, and swung about in surprise when the door behind him was opened softly, almost stealthily, and the girl Daalny came in. The yellow glow from his little oil lamp showed her in unusual array, her black hair braided in a red ribbon, with curls artfully breaking free around her temples, her gown deepest and brightest blue like her eyes, and a girdle of gold braid round her hips. She was very quick; she caught the glance that swept over her from