"What more can we do? If you know of anything, only tell me. We have not been favoured so far. And today is to be his burial."
"I know it," said Cadfael, and brooded. "As for this affair in the night, I"m torn two ways. I should think it possible it was all planned, to reinforce our cause with another miracle, but for two things. To me Prior Robert"s amazement and concern, however I look at them, seem to be true and not false. And Columba.n.u.s has shown these strange properties before, and the way they overtake him is violent and perilous, and it"s hard to believe he is feigning. A tumbler at a fair, making his living by playing the devil with his own body, could not outdo Columba.n.u.s when the fit comes on him. I am not able to judge. I think there are some who live on a knife-edge in the soul, and at times are driven to hurl themselves into the air, at the mercy of heaven or h.e.l.l which way to fall."
"All I know," said Sioned, burning darkly red like a slow torch, "is that my father whom I loved is murdered, and I want justice on the murderer, and I do not want a blood price. There is no price I will accept for Rhisiart"s blood."
"I know, I know!" said Cadfael. "I am as Welsh as you. But keep a door open to pity, as who knows when you or I may need it! And have you spoken with Engelard? And is all well with him?"
She quivered and flushed and softened beside him, like a frost-blighted flower miraculously revived by a southern wind. But she did not answer. There was no need.
"Ah, you"ll live!" said Brother Cadfael, satisfied. "As he"d want you to. Even if he did set his face against, like a proper Welsh lord. You"d have got your way in the end, you were right about that. And listen, I have thought of two things you should yet do. We must try whatever we can. Don"t go home now. Let Annest take you to Bened"s smithy to rest, and the both of you come to Ma.s.s. Who knows what we may learn once our half-fledged saint regains his senses? And then, also, when you bury your father, make certain Peredur comes with his father. He might try to avoid else, if he"s eluded you this far, but if you ask him, he cannot refuse. I am still in more minds than one, and none of them very clear, concerning Master Peredur."
Chapter Eight.
IT WAS THE LITTLE BRAZEN BELL RINGING FOR Ma.s.s that penetrated Brother Columba.n.u.s" enchanted sleep at last. It could not be said that it awoke him, rather it caused him to open his closed eyes, quiver through all his frozen members, flex his stiff arms, and press his re-quickened hands together over his breast. Otherwise his face did not change, nor did he seem to be aware of those who were gathered anxiously about the bed on which he lay. They might not have been there at all. All Brother Columba.n.u.s responded to was the bell, the first call to worship. He stirred and sat up. He rose from the bed, and stood firmly on his feet. He looked radiant, but still private and apart.
"He is preparing to take his usual place with us," said the prior, moved and awed. "Let us go, and make no attempt yet to rouse him. When he has given thanks he"ll come back to us, and speak out what he has experienced."
And he led the way to the church, and as he had supposed, Columba.n.u.s fell into his usual place as the youngest in the attendant brotherhood now that John was disgraced, and followed modestly, and modestly took part in the service, still like a man in a dream.
The church was full as it would hold, and there were more people cl.u.s.tered outside the doorway. The word had gone round already that something strange and wonderful had happened at Saint Winifred"s chapel, and revelations might very well follow at Ma.s.s.
Not until the end did any further change occur in the condition of Brother Columba.n.u.s. But when the prior, slowly and expectantly, as one turning a key and almost confident of entry, took the first step towards the doorway, suddenly Columba.n.u.s gave a great start, and uttered a soft cry, staring wonderingly about him at all these known faces. His own visage came to life, smiling. He put out a hand as if to arrest the prior"s departure, and said in a high voice: "Oh, Father, I have been so blessed, I have known such bliss! How did I come here, when I know I was elsewhere, and translated out of night"s darkness into so glorious a light? And surely this is again the world I left! A fair world enough, but I have been in a fairer, far beyond any deserts of mine. Oh, if I could but tell you!"
Every eye was upon him, and every ear stretched to catch his least word. Not a soul left the church, rather those without crowded in closer.
"Son," said Prior Robert, with unwontedly respectful kindness, "you are here among your brothers, engaged in the worship of G.o.d, and there is nothing to fear and nothing to regret, for the visitation granted you was surely meant to inspire and arm you to go fearless through an imperfect world, in the hope of a perfect world hereafter. You were keeping night watch with Brother Cadfael at Saint Winifred"s chapel-do you remember that? In the night something befell you that drew your spirit for a time away from us, out of the body, but left that body unharmed and at rest like a child asleep. We brought you back here still absent from us in the spirit, but now you are here with us again, and all is well. You have been greatly privileged."
"Oh, greatly, far more than you know," sang Columba.n.u.s, glowing like a pale lantern. "I am the messenger of such goodness, I am the instrument of reconciliation and peace. Oh, Father Father Huw brothers let me speak out here before all, for what I am bidden to tell concerns all."
Nothing, thought Cadfael, could have stopped him, so plainly did his heavenly emba.s.sage override any objection mere prior or priest might muster. And Robert was proving surprisingly compliant in accepting this transfer of authority. Either he already knew that the voice from heaven was about to say something entirely favourable to his plans and conducive to his glory, or else he was truly impressed, and inclining heart and ear to listen as devoutly as any man there present.
"Speak freely, brother," he said, "let us share your joy."
"Father, at the hour of midnight as I knelt before the altar I heard a sweet voice crying my name, and I arose and went forward to obey the call. What happened to my body then I do not know, you tell me it was lying as if asleep when you came. But it seemed to me that as I stepped towards the altar there was suddenly a soft, golden light all about it, and there rose up, floating in the midst of the light, a most beautiful virgin, who moved in a miraculous shower of white petals, and distilled most sweet odours from her robe and from her long hair. And this gracious being spoke to me, and told me that her name was Winifred, and that she was come to approve our enterprise, and also to forgive all those who out of mistaken loyalty and reverence had opposed it hitherto. And then, oh, marvellous goodness!-she laid her hand on Rhisiart"s breast, as his daughter has begged us to do in token of our mere personal forgiveness, but she in divine absolution, and with such perfection of grace, I cannot describe it."
"Oh, son," said Prior Robert in rapture, riding over the quivering murmurs that crossed the church like ripples on a pool, "you tell a greater wonder than we dared hope. Even the lost saved!"
"It is so! And, Father, there is more! When she laid her hand on him, she bade me speak out to all men in this place, both native and stranger, and make known her merciful will. And it is this Where my bones shall be taken out of the earth," she said, there will be an open grave provided. What I relinquish, I may bestow. In this grave," said Winifred, let Rhisiart be buried, that his rest may be a.s.sured, and my power made manifest." "
"What could I do," said Sioned, "but thank him for his good offices, when he brought divine rea.s.surance for my father"s weal? And yet it outrages me, I would rather have stood up and said that I am not and never have been in the least doubt that my father is in blessedness this moment, for he was a good man who never did a mean wrong to anyone. And certainly it"s kind of Saint Winifred to offer him the lodging she"s leaving, and graciously forgive him, but-forgiveness for what? Absolution for what? She might have praised him while she was about it, and said outright that he was justified, not forgiven."
"Yet a very amba.s.sadorial message," admitted Cadfael appreciatively, "calculated to get us what we came for, a.s.suage the people of Gwytherin, make peace all round-"
"And to placate me, and cause me to give up the pursuit of my father"s murderer," said Sioned, "burying the deed along with the victim. Except that I will not rest until I know."
"-and shed reflected glory upon Prior Robert, I was going to say. And I wish I knew which mind conceived the idea!"
They had met for a few hurried minutes at Bened"s smithy, where Cadfael had gone to borrow mattock and spade for the holy work now to be undertaken. Even a few of the men of Gwytherin had come forward and asked to have a share in breaking the sacred earth, for though they were still reluctant to lose their saint, if it was her will to leave them they had no wish to cross her. Prodigious things were happening, and they intended to be in receipt of her approval and blessing rather than run the risk of encountering her arrows.
"It seems to me most of the glory is falling, rather, on Brother Columba.n.u.s of late," said Sioned shrewdly. "And the prior took it meekly, and never made any attempt to filch it back fro from him. That"s the one thing that makes me believe he may be honest."
She had said something that caused Cadfael to pause and look attentively at her, scrubbing dubiously at his nose.
"You may well be right. And certainly this story is bound to go back to Shrewsbury with us, and spread through all our sister houses, when we come home with our triumph. Yes, Columba.n.u.s will certainly have made himself a great name for holiness and divine favour in the order."
"They say an ambitious man can make a grand career in the cloister," she said. "Maybe he"s busy laying the foundations, a great step up towards being prior himself when Robert becomes abbot. Or even abbot, when Robert supposes he"s about to become abbot! For it"s not his name they"ll be buzzing round the shires as the visionary the saints use to make their wants known."
"That," agreed Cadfael, "may not even have dawned on Robert yet, but when the awe of the occasion pa.s.ses it will. And he"s the one who"s pledged to write a life of the saint, and complete it with the account of this pilgrimage. Columba.n.u.s may very well end up as an anonymous brother who happened to be charged with a message to the prior from his patroness. Chroniclers can edit names out as easily as visionaries can noise them abroad. But I grant you, this lad comes of a thrusting Norman family that doesn"t put even its younger sons into the Benedictine habit to spend their lives doing menial work like gardening."
"And we"re no further forward," said Sioned bitterly.
"No. But we have not finished yet."
"But as I see it, this is devised to be an ending, to close this whole episode in general amity, as if everything was resolved. But everything is not resolved! Somewhere in this land there is a man who stabbed my father in the back, and we"re all being asked to draw a veil over that and lose sight of it in the great treaty of peace. But I want that man found, and Engelard vindicated, and my father avenged, and I won"t rest, or let anyone else rest, until I get what I want. And now tell me what I am to do."
"What I"ve already told you," said Cadfael. "Have all your household party and friends gathered at the chapel to watch the grave opened, and make sure that Peredur attends."
"I"ve already sent Annest to beg him to come," said Sioned. "And then? What have I to say or do to Peredur?"
"That silver cross you wear round your neck," said Cadfael. "Are you willing to part with it in exchange for one step ahead towards what you want to know?"
"That and all the rest of the valuables I own. You know it."
"Then this," said Cadfael, "is what you will do"
With prayers and psalms they carried their tools up to the tangled graveyard by the chapel, trimmed back the brambles and wild flowers and long gra.s.s from the little mound of Winifred"s grave, and reverently broke the sod. By turns they laboured, all taking a share in the work for the merit to be acquired. And most of Gwytherin gathered round the place in the course of the day, all work left at a standstill in the fields and crofts, to watch the end of this contention. For Sioned had spoken truly. She and all her household servants were there among the rest, in mourning and ma.s.sed to bring out Rhisiart"s body for burial when the time came, but this funeral party had become, for the time being, no more than a side-issue, an incident in the story of Saint Winifred, and a closed incident at that.
Cadwallon was there, Uncle Meurice was there, and Bened, and all the other neighbours. And there at his father"s elbow, withdrawn and brooding, stood young Peredur, by the look of him wishing himself a hundred leagues away. His thick dark brows were drawn together as though his head ached, and wherever his brown eyes wandered, it was never towards Sioned. He had crept here reluctantly at her express asking, but he could not or would not face her. The bold red mouth was chilled and pale from the tension with which it was tightened against his teeth. He watched the dark pit deepen in the gra.s.s, and breathed hard and deep, like a man containing pain. A far cry from the spoiled boy with the long, light step and the audacious smile, who so plainly had taken it for granted that the world was his for the wooing. Peredur"s demons were at him within.
The ground was moist but light, not hard to work, but the grave was deep. Gradually the diggers sank to the shoulders in the pit, and by mid-afternoon Brother Cadfael, shortest of the party, had almost disappeared from view when he took his final turn in the depths. No one dared to doubt openly if they were in the right place, but some must have been wondering. Cadfael, for no good reason that he could see, had no doubts at all. The girl was here. She had lived many years as an abbess after her brief martyrdom and miraculous restoration, yet he thought of her as that devout, green girl, in romantic love with celibacy and holiness, who had fled from Prince Cradoc"s advances as from the devil himself. By some perverse severance of the heart in two he could feel both for her and for the desperate lover, so roughly molten out of the flesh and presumably exterminated in the spirit. Did anyone every pray for him? He was in greater need than Winifred. In the end, perhaps the only prayers he ever benefited by were Winifred"s prayers. She was Welsh, and capable of detachment and subtlety. She might well have put in a word for him, to rea.s.semble his liquefied person and congeal it again into the shape of a man. A chastened man, doubtless, but still the same shape as before. Even a saint may take pleasure, in retrospect, in having been once desired.
The spade grated on something in the dark, friable soil, something neither loam nor stone. Cadfael checked his stroke instantly at its suggestion of age, frailty and crumbling dryness. He let the blade lie, and stooped to scoop away with his hands the cool, odorous, gentle earth that hid the obstruction from him. Dark soil peeled away under his fingers from a slender, pale, delicate thing, the gentle dove-grey of pre-dawn, but freckled with pitted points of black. He drew out an arm-bone, scarcely more than child size, and stroked away the clinging earth. Islands of the same soft colouring showed below, grouped loosely together. He did not want to break any of them. He hoisted the spade and tossed it out of the pit.
"She is here. We have found her. Softly, now, leave her to me."
Faces peered in upon him. Prior Robert gleamed in silvery agitation, thirsting to plunge in and dredge up the prize in person, but deterred by the clinging darkness of the soil and the whiteness of his hands. Brother Columba.n.u.s at the brink towered and glittered, his exalted visage turned, not towards the depths where this fragile virgin substance lay at rest, but rather to the heavens from which her diffused spiritual essence had addressed him. He displayed, no doubt of it, an aura of distinct proprietorship that dwarfed both prior and sub-prior, and shone with its full radiance upon all those who watched from the distance. Brother Columba.n.u.s meant to be, was, and knew that he was, memorable in this memorable hour.
Brother Cadfael kneeled. It may even have been a significant omen that at this moment he alone was kneeling. He judged that he was at the feet of the skeleton. She had been there some centuries, but the earth had dealt kindly, she might well be whole, or virtually whole. He had not wanted her disturbed at all, but now he wanted her disturbed as little as might be, and delved carefully with scooping palms and probing, stroking finger-tips to uncover the whole slender length of her without damage. She must have been a little above medium height, but willowy as a seventeen-year-old girl. Tenderly he stroked the earth away from round her. He found the skull, and leaned on stretched arms, fingering the eye-sockets clear, marvelling at the narrow elegance of the cheek-bones, and the generosity of the dome. She had beauty and fineness in her death. He leaned over her like a shield, and grieved.
"Let me down a linen sheet," he said, "and some bands to raise it smoothly. She shall not come out of here bone by bone, but whole woman as she went in."
"They handed a cloth down to him, and he spread it beside the slight skeleton, and with infinite care eased her free of the loose soil, and edged her by inches into the shroud of linen, laying the disturbed armbone in its proper place. With bands of cloth slung under her she was drawn up into the light of day, and laid tenderly in the gra.s.s at the side of her grave.
"We must wash away the soil-marks from her bones," said Prior Robert, gazing in reverent awe upon the prize he had gone to such trouble to gain, "and wrap them afresh."
"They are dry and frail and brittle, warned Cadfael impatiently. "If she is robbed of this Welsh earth she may very well crumble to Welsh earth herself in your hands. And if you keep her here in the air and the sun too long, she may fall to dust in any case. If you are wise, Father Prior, you"ll wrap her well as she lies, and get her into the reliquary and seal her from the air as tight as you can, as quickly as you can."
That was good sense, and the prior acted on it, even if he did not much relish being told what to do so brusquely. With hasty but exultant prayers they brought the resplendent coffin out to the lady, to avoid moving her more than they must, and with repeated swathings of linen bound her little bones carefully together, and laid her in the coffin. The brothers who made it had realised the need for perfect sealing to preserve the treasure, and taken great pains to make the lid fit down close as a skin, and line the interior with lead. Before Saint Winifred was carried back into the chapel for the thanksgiving Ma.s.s the lid was closed upon her, the catches secured, and at the end of the service the prior"s seals were added to make all fast. They had her imprisoned, to be carried away into the alien land that desired her patronage. All the Welsh who could crowd into the chapel or cling close enough to the doorway to catch glimpses of the proceedings kept a silence uncannily perfect, their eyes following every move, secret eyes that expressed no resentment, but by their very attention, fixed and unwavering, implied an unreconciled opposition they were afraid to speak aloud.
"Now that this sacred duty is done," said Father Huw, at once relieved and saddened, "it is time to attend to the other duty which the saint herself has laid upon us, and bury Rhisiart honourably, with full absolution, in the grave she has bequeathed to him. And I call to mind, in the hearing of all, how great a blessing is thus bestowed, and how notable an honour." It was as near as he would go to speaking out his own view of Rhisiart, and in this, at least, he had the sympathy of every Welshman there present.
That burial service was brief, and after it six of Rhisiart"s oldest and most trusted servants took up the bier of branches, a little wilted now but still green, and carried it out to the graveside. The same slings which had lifted Saint Winifred waited to lower Rhisiart into the same bed.
Sioned stood beside her uncle, and looked all round her at the circle of her friends and neighbours, and unclasped the silver cross from her neck. She had so placed herself that Cadwallon and Peredur were close at her right hand, and it was simple and natural to turn towards them. Peredur had hung back throughout, never looking at her but when he was sure she was looking away, and when she swung round upon him suddenly he had no way of avoiding.
"One last gift I want to give to my father. And I would like you, Peredur, to be the one to give it. You have been like a son to him. Will you lay this cross on his breast, where the murderer"s arrow pierced him? I want it to be buried with him. It is my farewell to him here, let it be yours, too."
Peredur stood dumbstruck and aghast, staring from her still and challenging face to the little thing she held out to him, in front of so many witnesses, all of whom knew him, all of whom were known to him. She had spoken clearly, to be heard by all. Every eye was on him, and all recorded, though without understanding, the slow draining of blood from his face, and his horror-stricken stare. He could not refuse what she asked. He could not do it without touching the dead man, touching the very place where death had struck him.
His hand came out with aching reluctance, and took the cross from her. To leave her thus extending it in vain was more than he could stand. He did not look at it, but only desperately at her, and in her face the testing calm had blanched into incredulous dismay, for now she believed she knew everything, and it was worse than anything she had imagined. But as he could not escape from the trap she had laid for him, neither could she release him. It was sprung, and now he had to fight his way out of it as best he could. They were already wondering why he made no move, and whispering together in concern at his hanging back.
He made a great effort, drawing himself together with a frantic briskness that lasted only a moment. He took a few irresolute steps towards the bier and the grave, and then baulked like a frightened horse, and halted again, and that was worse, for now he stood alone in the middle of the circle of witnesses, and could go neither forward nor back. Cadfael saw sweat break in great beads on his forehead and lip.
"Come, son," said Father Huw kindly, the last to suspect evil, "don"t keep the dead waiting, and don"t grieve too much for them, for that would be sin. I know, as Sioned has said, he was like another father to you, and you share her loss. So do we all."
Peredur stood quivering at Sioned"s name, and at the word "father," and tried to go forward, and could not move. His feet would not take him one step nearer to the swathed form that lay by the open grave. The light of the sun on him, the weight of all eyes, bore him down. He fell on his knees suddenly, the cross still clutched in one hand, the other spread to hide his face.
"He cannot!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely from behind the shielding palm. "He cannot accuse me! I am not guilty of murder! What I did was done when Rhisiart was already dead!"
A great, gasping sigh pa.s.sed like a sudden wind round the clearing and over the tangled grave, and subsided into a vast silence. It was a long minute before Father Huw broke it, for this was his sheep, not Prior Robert"s, a child of his flock, and hitherto a child of grace, now stricken into wild self-accusation of some terrible sin not yet explained, but to do with violent death.
"Son Peredur," said Father Huw firmly, "you have not been charged with any ill-doing by any other but yourself. We are waiting only for you to do what Sioned has asked of you, for her asking was a grace. Therefore do her bidding, or speak out why you will not, and speak plainly."
Peredur heard, and ceased to tremble. A little while he kneeled and gathered his shattered composure about him doggedly, like a cloak. Then he uncovered his face, which was pale, despairing but eased, no longer in combat with truth but consenting to it. He was a young man of courage. He got to his feet and faced them squarely.
"Father I come to confession by constraint, and not gladly, and I am as ashamed of that as of what I have to confess. But it is not murder. I did not kill Rhisiart. I found him dead."
"At what hour?" asked Brother Cadfael, wholly without right, but n.o.body questioned the interruption.
"I went out after the rain stopped. You remember it rained." They remembered. They had good reason. "It would be a little after noon. I was going up to the pasture our side of Bryn, and I found him lying on his face in that place where afterwards we all saw him. He was dead then, I swear it! And I was grieved, but also I was tempted, for there was nothing in this world I could do for Rhisiart, but I saw a way" Peredur swallowed and sighed, bracing his forehead against his fate, and went on. "I saw a means of ridding myself of a rival. Of the favoured rival. Rhisiart had refused his daughter to Engelard, but Sioned had not refused him, and well I knew there was no hope for me, however her father urged her, while Engelard was there between us. Men might easily believe that Engelard should kill Rhisiart, if-if there was some proof"
"But you did not believe it," said Cadfael, so softly that hardly anyone noticed the interruption, it was accepted and answered without thought.
"No!" said Peredur almost scornfully. "I knew him, he never would!"
"Yet you were willing he should be taken and accused. It was all one to you if it was death that removed him out of your way, so he was removed."
"No!" said Peredur again, smouldering but aware that he was justly lashed. "No, not that! I thought he would run, take himself away again into England, and leave us alone, Sioned and me. I never wished him worse than that. I thought, with him gone, in the end Sioned would do what her father had wished, and marry me. I could wait! I would have waited years"
He did not say, but there were two there, at least, who knew, and remembered in his favour, that he had opened the way for Engelard to break out of the ring that penned him in, and deliberately let him pa.s.s, just as Brother John, with a better conscience, had frustrated the pursuit.
Brother Cadfael said sternly: "But you went so far as to steal one of this unfortunate young man"s arrows, to make sure all eyes turned on him."
"I did not steal it, though no less discredit to me that I used it as I did. I was out with Engelard after game, not a week earlier, with Rhisiart"s permission. When we retrieved our arrows, I took one of his by error among mine. I had it with me then."
Peredur"s shoulders had straightened, his head was up, his hands, the right still holding Sioned"s cross, hung gently and resignedly at his sides. His face was pale but calm. He had got the worst of it off his back, after what he had borne alone these last days confession and penance were balm.
"Let me tell the whole of it, all the thing I did, that has made me a monster in my own eyes ever since. I will not make it less than it was, and it was hideous. Rhisiart was stabbed in the back, and the dagger withdrawn and gone. I turned him over on his back, and I turned that wound back to front, and I tell you, my hands burn now, but I did it. He was dead, he suffered nothing. I pierced my own flesh, not his. I could tell the line of the wound, for the dagger had gone right through him, though the breast wound was small. I took my own dagger, and opened the way for Engelard"s arrow to follow, and I thrust it through and left it standing in him for witness. And I have not had one quiet moment, night or day," said Peredur, not asking pity, rather grateful that now his silence was broken and his infamy known, and nothing more to hide, "since I did this small, vile thing, and now I am glad it"s out, whatever becomes of me. And at least grant me this, I did not make my trap in such a way as to accuse Engelard of shooting a man in the back! I knew him! I lived almost side by side with him since he came here a fugitive, we were of an age, we could match each other. I have liked him, hunted with him, fought with him, been jealous of him, even hated him because he was loved where I was not. Love makes men do terrible things," said Peredur, not pleading, marvelling, "even to their friends."
He had created, all unconsciously, a tremendous hush all about him, of awe at his blasphemy, of startled pity for his desolation, of chastened wonder at their own misconceivings. The truth fell like thunder, subduing them all. Rhisiart had not been shot down with an arrow, but felled from behind at close quarters, out of thick cover, a coward"s killing. Not saints, but men, deal in that kind of treachery.
Father Huw broke the silence. In his own providence, where no alien dignitaries dared intrude, he grew taller and more secure in his gentle, neighbourly authority. And great violence had been done to what he knew to be right, and great requital was due from the sinner, and great compa.s.sion due to him.
"Son Peredur," he said, "you stand in dire sin, and cannot be excused. Such violation of the image of G.o.d, such misuse of a clean affection-for such I know you had with Rhisiart-and such malice towards an innocent man-for such you proclaimed Engelard-cannot go unpunished."
"G.o.d forbid," said Peredur humbly, "that I should escape any part of what is due. I want it! I cannot live with myself if I have only this present self to live with!"
"Child, if you mean that, then give yourself into my hands, to be delivered up both to secular and religious justice. As to the law, I shall speak with the prince"s bailiff. As to the penance due before G.o.d, that is for me as your confessor, and I require that you shall wait my considered judgment."
"So I will, Father," said Peredur. "I want no unearned pardon. I take penance willingly."
"Then you need not despair of grace. Go home now, and remain withindoors until I send for you."
"I will be obedient to you in all things. But I have one prayer before I go." He turned slowly and faced Sioned. She was standing quite still where the awful dread had fallen upon her, her hands clutched to her cheeks, her eyes fixed in fascination and pain upon the boy who had grown up as her playfellow. But the rigidity had ebbed out of her, for though he called himself a monster, he was not, after all, the monster she had briefly thought him. "May I now do what you asked of me? I am not afraid now. He was a fair man always. He won"t accuse me of more than my due."
He was both asking her pardon and saying his farewell to any hope he had still cherished of winning her, for now that was irrevocably over. And the strange thing was that now he could approach her, even after so great an offence, without constraint, almost without jealousy. Nor did her face express any great heat or bitterness against him. It was thoughtful and intent.
"Yes," she said, "I still wish it." If he had spoken the whole truth, and she was persuaded that he had, it was well that he should take his appeal to Rhisiart, in a form every man there would acknowledge. In otherworldly justice the body would clear him of the evil he had not committed, now that confession was made of what he had.
Peredur went forward steadily enough now, sank to his knees beside Rhisiart"s body, and laid first his hand, and then Sioned"s cross, upon the heart he had pierced, and no gush of blood sprang at his touch. And if there was one thing certain, it was that here was a man who did believe. He hesitated a moment, still kneeling, and then, feeling a need rather to give thanks for this acceptance than to make any late and unfitting display of affection, stooped and kissed the right hand that lay quiet over the left on Rhisiart"s breast, their clasped shape showing through the close shroud. That done, he rose and went firmly away by the downhill path towards his father"s house. The people parted to let him through in a great silence, and Cadwallon, starting out of a trance of unbelieving misery, lurched forward in haste and went trotting after his son.
Chapter Nine.
THE EVENING WAS DRAWING IN by the time they had buried Rhisiart, and it was too late for Prior Robert and his companions to take their prize and leave at once for home, even if it had been a seemly thing to do, after all that had happened. Some ceremony was due to the community the saint was leaving, and the houses that had offered hospitality freely even to those who came to rob them.
"We will stay this night over, and sing Vespers and Compline in the church with you, and give due thanks," said the prior. "And after Compline one of us will again watch the night through with Saint Winifred, as is only proper. And should the prince"s bailiff require that we stay longer, we will do as he asks. For there is still the matter of Brother John, who stands in contempt of the law, to our disgrace."
"At present," said Father Huw deprecatingly, "the bailiff is giving his attention to the case of Rhisiart"s murder. For though we have suffered many revelations in that matter, you see that we are no nearer knowing who is guilty. What we have seen today is one man who certainly is innocent of the crime, whatever his other sins may be."
"I fear," said Prior Robert with unwonted humility, "that without ill intent we have caused you great grief and trouble here, and for that I am sorry. And greatly sorry for the parents of that sinful young man, who are suffering, I think, far worse than he, and without blame."
"I am going to them now," said Huw. "Will you go on ahead, Father Prior, and sing Vespers for me? For I may be delayed some time. I must do what I can for this troubled household."