Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

flowers, but these... these she sends in their place, again the whiteness of her purity. It is a direct sign from Saint Winifred. What she confides to us we are bound by our office to heed."
    A stir and a murmur passed round the watching brothers, and softly they drew in more closely about the wonder. Somewhere among them someone drew breath sharp and painful as a sob, hurriedly suppressed.
    "It is a matter of interpretation," said Radulfus gravely. "How are we to understand such an oracle?"
    "It speaks of death," said the earl practically. "And there has been a death. The threat of it, as I understand, hangs over a young man of your Order. The shadow over all. This oracle speaks of a brother as the instrument of death, which fits with the case as it is yet known. But it speaks also of a brother as the victim. The victim was not a brother. How is this to be understood?"
    "If she has indeed pointed the way," said the abbot firmly, "we cannot but follow it. 'Brother' she says, and if we believe her word, a brother it was whose death was planned by a brother. The meaning that word has within these walls the saint knows as well as we. If any man among you has a thought to share upon this most urgent matter, speak now."
    Into the uneasy silence, while brother looked most earnestly at brother, and wondered, and sought or evaded the eyes of his neighbours, Brother Cadfael said: "Brother Abbot, I have thoughts to share that never visited me until this morning, but are become very relevant now. The night of this murder was dark, not only as to the hour, but also the weather, for cloud was low, and there was a drizzling rain. The place where Aldhelm's body was found is within close woodland, untended, on a narrow path, where the only light would come from the open sky above the track. Enough to show a shape, an outline, to a man waiting, and with eyes accustomed to the dark. And the shape Aldhelm would present was that of a man young by his step and pace, in a dun-coloured cloak wrapped about him against the rain, and with the pointed hood drawn up over his head. Father, how is that to be distinguished, in such conditions, from a Benedictine brother in dark habit and cowl, if he be young and stepping out briskly to get out of the rain?"
    "If I read you rightly," said Radulfus, having searched Cadfael's face, and found it in very grave earnest, "you are saying that the young man was attacked in mistake for a Benedictine brother."
    "It accords with what is written here in the fates," said Cadfael.
    "And with the night's obscurity, I grant you. Are you further suggesting that the intended quarry was Brother Tutilo? That he was not the hunter, but the hunted?"
    "Father, that thought is in my mind. In build and years the two matched well enough. And as all men know, he was out of the enclave that night, with leave, though leave he got by deceit. It was known on what path he would be returning, or at least, according to what he had led us all to believe. And, Father, be it admitted, he had done much to raise up enemies to himself in this house."
    "Brother turning upon brother..." said the abbot heavily. "Well, we are fallible men like the rest of mankind, and hatred and evil are not out of our scope. But, then, how to account for this second and deadly brother? There was no other out of the enclave upon any errand that night."
    "None that we know of. But it is not difficult," said Cadfael, "to become unnoticed for a while. There are ways in and out for any who are determined to pass."
    The abbot met his eyes without a smile; he was always in command of his countenance. For all that, there was not much that went on in this household that Radulfus did not know. There had been times when Cadfael had both departed and returned by night, without passing the gatehouse, on urgent matters in which he found justification for absence. Of the instruments of good works listed in the Rule of Saint Benedict, second only to the love of God came the love of humankind, and Cadfael reverenced the Rule above the detailed and meticulous rules.
    "No doubt you speak out of long experience," said the abbot. "Certainly that is true. However, we know of no such defector on that night. Unless you have knowledge that I have not?"
    "No, Father, I have none."
    "If I may venture," said Earl Robert deprecatingly, "why should not the oracle that has spoken of two brothers be asked to send us a further sign? We are surely required to follow this trail as best we