Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief

can. A name might be too much to ask, but there are other ways, as this blessed lady has shown us, of making all things plain."
    Gradually, almost stealthily, all the brothers had crept out of their stalls, and gathered in a circle about this altar and the group debating at its foot. They did not draw too close, but hovered within earshot of all that was said. And somewhere among them, not readily to be located, there was a centre of desperate but controlled unease, a disquiet that caused the air within the choir to quake, with a rapid vibration of disquiet and dread, like a heartbeat driven into the fluttering panic of a bird's wings. Cadfael felt it, but thought it no more than the tension of the sortes. And that was enough. He himself was beginning to ache as though stretched on the rack, with the worst still to come. It was high time to end this, and release all these overcharged souls into the moist, chilly, healing air of early March.
    "If in some sort the brothers all stand accused by this present word," said Earl Robert helpfully, "it is they, the humbler children of the household, who have the best right to ask for a name. If you see fit, Father Abbot, let one of them appeal for a judgement. How else can all the rest be vindicated? Justice is surely due to the innocent, by even stronger right than retribution to the guilty."
    If he was still amusing himself, thought Cadfael, he was doing it with the eloquent dignity of archbishops and all the king's judges. In jest or earnest, such a man would not wish to leave this human and more than human mystery unresolved. He would thrust and persuade it as far as he could towards an ending. And he had a willing listener in Prior Robert, his namesake. Now that the prior was assured of retaining his saint, together with all the lustre accruing to him as her discoverer and translator, he wanted everything tidied up and ended, and these troublesome visitors from Ramsey off his premises, before they contrived some further mischief.
    "Father," he said insinuatingly, "that is fair and just. May we do so?"
    "Very well," said Radulfus. "In your hands!"
    The prior turned to cast a sweeping glance over the silent array of monks, watching him wide-eyed in anticipation and awe. The name he called was the inevitable name. He even frowned at having to look for his acolyte.
    "Brother Jerome, I bid you undertake this testing on behalf of all. Come forth and make this assay."
    And indeed, where was Brother Jerome, and why had no word been heard from him and nothing seen of him all this time? When, until now, had he ever been far from the skirts of Prior Robert's habit, attendant with ready flattery and obsequious assent to every word that fell from his patron's lips. Now that Cadfael came to think of it, less than usual had been seen and heard of Jerome for the past few days, ever since the evening when he had been discovered on his bed, quaking and sick with belly-aches and headaches, and been soothed to sleep by Cadfael's stomachics and syrups.
    A furtive swirl of movement troubled the rear ranks of the assembled household, and cast up Brother Jerome from his unaccustomed retirement, emerging through the ranks without eagerness, almost reluctantly. He shuffled forward with bent head and arms folded tightly about his body as if he felt a mortal chill enclosing him. His face was greyish and pinched, his eyes, when he raised them, inflamed. He looked ill and wizened. I should have made a point of following up his sickness, thought Cadfael, touched, but I thought he, of all people, would make good sure he got all the treatment he needed.
    That was all that he had in mind, as Prior Robert, bewildered and displeased by what seemed to him very grudging acceptance of a duty that should have conveyed honour upon the recipient, waved Jerome imperiously to the altar.
    "Come, we are waiting. Open prayerfully."
    The abbot had gently brushed the petals of blackthorn from the spine, and closed the Gospels. He stood aside to make way for Jerome to mount.
    Jerome crept to the foot of the steps, and there halted, baulked, rather, like a startled horse, drew hard breath and assayed to mount, and then suddenly threw up his arms to cover his face, fell on his knees with a lamentable, choking cry, and bowed himself against the stone of the steps. From under the hunched shoulders and clutching arms a broken voice emerged in a stammering howl a stray dog might have launched into the night after company in