Father Huw’s house?” All those bright, sullen, roused eyes followed them in through the low doorway, and clung there to wait for them to come forth again. Not a man of the Welsh moved from his place. They trusted the voice that had spoken for them hitherto to speak for them still.
In the small, woodscented room, dark after the brightness of the day outside, Prior Robert faced his opponent with a calm and reasonable face.
“You have spoken well,” he said, “and I commend your faith, and the high value you set on the saint, for so do we value her highly. And at her own wish, for so we believe, we have come here, solely to serve her. Both church and state are with us, and you know better than I the duty a nobleman of Wales owes to both. But I would not willingly leave Gwytherin with a sense of grievance, for I do know that by Saint Winifred’s departure Gwytherin’s loss is great. That we own, and I would wish to make due reparation.”
“Reparation to Gwytherin?” repeated Rhisiart, when this was translated to him. “I do not understand how…”
“And to you,” said Robert softly and matter-of-factly, “if you will withdraw your opposition, for then I feel sure all your fellows will do the same, and sensibly accept what bishop and prince decree.”
It occurred to Cadfael as he interpreted this, even before the prior began the slow, significant motion of one long hand into the breast of his habit, that Robert was about to make the most disastrous miscalculation of his life. But Rhisiart’s face remained dubious and aloof, quite without understanding, as the prior drew from his bosom a soft leather bag drawn up with a cord at the neck, and laid it on the table, pushing it gently across until it rested against Rhisiart’s right hand. Its progress over the rough boards gave out a small chinking sound. Rhisiart eyed it suspiciously, and lifted uncomprehending eyes to stare at the prior. “I don’t understand you. What is this?”
“It is yours,” said Robert, “if you will persuade the parish to agree to give up the saint.”
Too late he felt the unbelieving coldness in the air, and sensed the terrible error he had made. Hastily he did his best to recover some of the ground lost. “To be used as you think best for Gwytherin — a great sum…” It was useless Cadfael let it lie in silence.
“Money!” said Rhisiart in the most extraordinary of tones, at once curious, derisory and revolted. He knew about money, of course, and even understood its use, but as an aberration in human relations. In the rural parts of Wales, which indeed were almost all of Wales, it was hardly used at all, and hardly needed. Provision was made in the code for all necessary exchange of goods and services, nobody was so poor as to be without the means of living, and beggars were unknown. The kinship took care of its helpless members, and every house was open as of right. The minted coins that had seeped in through the marches were a pointless eccentricity. Only after a moment of scornful wonder did it occur to Rhisiart that in this case they were also a mortal insult. He snatched away his hand from the affronting touch, and the blood surged into his face darkly red, suffusing even the whites of his eyes.
“Money? You dare offer to buy our saint? To buy me? 1 was in two minds about you, and about what I ought to do, but now, by God, I know what to think! You had your omens. Now I have mine.”
“You mistake me!” cried the prior, stumbling after his blunder and seeing it outdistance him at every breath. “One cannot buy what is holy, I am only offering a gift to Gwytherin, in gratitude and compensation for their sacrifice — “
“Mine, you said it was,” Rhisiart reminded him, glowing copper bright with dignified rage. “Mine, if I persuaded…! Not a gift! A bribe! This foolish stuff you hoard about you more dearly far than your reputations, don’t think you can use it to buy my conscience. I know now that I was right to doubt you. You have said your say, now I will say mine to those people without, as you promised me I should, without hindrance.”
“No, wait!” The prior was in such agitation that he actually reached out a hand and caught his opponent by the sleeve. “Do nothing in haste! You have mistaken my meaning indeed, and if I was wrong even to offer an alms to Gwytherin, I am sorry for it. But do not call it — “
Rhisiart withdrew himself angrily from the detaining clasp, and cut off the protest curtly, wheeling on Cadfael. “Tell him he need not be afraid. I should be ashamed to tell my people that a prior of Shrewsbury tried to corrupt me with a bribe. I don’t deal in that kind of warfare. But where I stand — that they shall know, and you, too.” And he strode out from them, and Father Huw put out a warning hand to prevent any of them from attempting to impede or follow him.
“Not now! He is hot now. Tomorrow something may be done to approach him, but not now. You must let him say what he will.”
“Then at least let’s put in an appearance,” said the prior, magnificently picking up what pieces he could of the ruin he had created; and he swept out into the sunlight and took his stand close to the door of the church, with all his fellow-monks dutifully following on his heels, and stood with erect head and calmly folded hands, in full view, while Rhisiart thundered his declaration to the assembled people of Gwytherin.
“I have listened to what these men from Shrewsbury have had to say to me, and I have made my judgment accordingly, and now I deliver it to you. I say that so far from changing my views, I am confirmed a thousand times that I was right to oppose the sacrilege they desire. I say that Saint Winifred’s place is here among us, where she has always belonged, and that it would be mortal sin to let her be taken away to a strange place, where not even the prayers would be in a tongue she knows, where foreigners not worthy to draw near her would be her only company. I pledge my opposition to the death, against any attempt to move her bones, and I urge upon you the same duty. And now this conference is ended.”
So he said, and so it was. There could be no possible way of prolonging it. The prior was forced to stand with marble face and quiet hands while Rhisiart strode away towards the forest path, and all the assembly, in awed and purposeful silence, melted away mysteriously in all directions after his departure, so that within minutes all that green, trodden arena was empty.
Chapter Four
You should have told me what you intended,” said Father Huw, timidly reproachful. “I could have told you it was folly, the worst possible. What attraction do you think money has for a man like Rhisiart? Even if he was for sale, and he is not, you would have had to find other means to purchase him. I thought you had taken his measure, and were proposing to plead to him the sorry plight of English pilgrims, who have no powerful saints of their own, and are sadly in need of such a protectress. He would have listened to something that entreated of his generosity.”
“I am come with the blessing of church and sovereign,” said the prior fiercely, though the repetition was beginning to pall even on him. “I cannot be repudiated at the will of a local squire. Has my order no rights here in Wales?”
“Very few,” said Cadfael bluntly. “My people have a natural reverence, but it leans towards the hermitage, not
