Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

aligned the book scrupulously central upon the reliquary, and descended the steps to stand well aside. "Proceed, my lord."
    "God and Saint Winifred dispose!" said the earl, and mounted without haste, to stand for a moment motionless, before turning the book, with slow, hieratic gestures that could be clearly seen by all, upon its spine between his long, muscular hands, thumbs meeting to part the pages. Opening it fully, he flattened both palms for a moment upon the chosen pages, and then let his finger hover a moment again before touching. He had neither glanced down nor passed a fingertip over the edges of the leaves, to determine how far advanced in the book his page might be. There are ways of trying to manipulate even the sortes Biblicae, but he had meticulously and demonstratively avoided them. He never was in earnest, Cadfael reflected with certainty, and it would spoil his sport to use contrivance. His interest is in pricking Prior Robert and Sub-Prior Herluin into bristling at each other with wattles glowing scarlet and throats gobbling rage.
    The earl read aloud, translating into the vernacular as fluently as any cleric: " 'Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, thither ye cannot come.' " He looked up, musing. "It is John, the seventh chapter and the fifty-fourth verse. Father Abbot, here is a strange saying, for she came to me when I was not seeking her at all, when I knew nothing of her. It was she found me. And here surely is a hard riddle to read, that where she is I cannot come, for here indeed she is, and here am I beside her. How do you decipher this?"
    Cadfael could have told him, but kept his mouth very firmly closed, though it would have been interesting to answer the query, and hear how this subtle man would respond. It was even tempting, for here was a man who would have appreciated every irony. Robert Bossu had pursued the dispute here to Shrewsbury in search of diversion in a time of frustration and inaction, a pity he must be denied the best of the joke that was so much more than merely a joke. That would still have to be shared only with Hugh, who knew the best and the worst of his friend Cadfael. No, there was one more who knew everything. Surely Saint Winifred sometimes remembered and smiled, in her tranquil sleep in Gwytherin, even laughed when she roused to extend the sunrays of her grace to lift up a lame boy here in Shrewsbury.
    And in a way this answer, like the first, was astonishingly appropriate, brandishing a secret truth and a paradox before a man who would have appreciated it to the full, but could not be let into the secret. If his will was to tantalize and bewilder, why should not she take her own gentle revenge?
    "I am in the same case as you," said the abbot, and smiled. "I listen and labour to understand. It may be that we must wait until all has been answered before hoping for enlightenment. Shall we proceed, and wait for revelation?"
    "Willingly!" said the earl, and turned to descend the three steps, the skirts of his crimson surcoat swirling around him. From this angle, stepping down with the altar candles behind him, his high shoulder and the bulge behind it scarcely broke the symmetry of a body beautifully compact and admirably handled. He withdrew at once to a gracious distance, not to disturb in any way the privacy and composure of the next contender, and his two young squires, well-trained to be equally unobtrusive in attendance, drew in silently at either shoulder.
    If he plays games to while away the tedious time, thought Cadfael, he plays them by noble rules, even those he makes up as he goes. Hugh liked him from the first; and so do I like him, I like him very well. And it entered his mind uninvited to wonder about the strangeness of human relationships. What has such a man as this, he marvelled, to do with our loud, headlong, candid Stephen, who charges at events like a stamping bull? For that matter, now that I see them for this moment so clearly, what has Hugh to do with the king, either? Must not all such thinking souls be growing hideously weary with this long contention that makes no progress, that wastes men and harvests and the very wellbeing of the land? Weary not only with Stephen, but also, perhaps even more, with this lady who sinks her teeth into empire and will not let go. Somewhere there must be an inheritor of more promise, a hint before sunrise of a sun fit to disperse doubts like morning mists, and dazzle out of our vision both