grace and blessing to reach more people in need.”
“You are inspired, having been present at this miracle,” said Prior Robert, tall and splendid with faith rewarded, “and you speak out what I have felt in listening to you. Surely Saint Winifred is calling us to rescue as she came to the rescue of Brother Columbanus. Many have need of her goodness as he had, and know nothing of her. In our hands she would be exalted as she deserves, and those who need her grace would know where to come and seek it. I pray that we may mount that expedition of faith to which she summons us. Father Abbot, give me your leave to petition the church, and bring this blessed lady home to rest here among us, and be our proudest boast. For I believe it is her will and her command.”
“In the name of God,” said Abbot Heribert devoutly, “I approve that project, and pray the blessing of heaven upon it!”
“He had it all planned beforehand,” said Brother John over the bed of mint, between envy and scorn. “That was all a show, all that wonder and amazement, and asking who Saint Winifred was, and where to find her. He knew it all along. He’d already picked her out from those he’s discovered neglected in Wales, and decided she was the one most likely to be available, as well as the one to shed most lustre on him. But it had to come out into the open by miraculous means. There’ll be another prodigy whenever he needs his way smoothed for him, until he gets the girl here safely installed in the church, to his glory. It’s a great enterprise, he means to climb high on the strength of it. So he starts out with a vision, and a prodigious healing, and divine grace leading his footsteps. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“And are you saying,” asked Brother Cadfael mildly, “that Brother Columbanus is in the plot as well as Brother Jerome, and that falling fit of his was a fake, too? I should have to be very sure of my reward in heaven before I volunteered to break the paving with my forehead, even to provide Prior Robert with a miracle.
Brother John considered seriously, frowning. “No, that I don’t say. We all know our meek white lamb is liable to the horrors over a penance scamped, and ecstasies over a vigil or a fast, and pouring ice-cold water over him at Holywell would be the very treatment to jolt him back into his right wits. We could just as well have tossed him in the fishpond here! But of course he’d believe what they told him, and credit it all to the saint. Catch him missing such a chance! No, I wouldn’t say he was a party to it — not knowingly. But he gave them the opportunity for a splendid demonstration of grace. You notice it was Jerome who was set to take care of him overnight! It takes only one man to be favoured with a vision, but it has to be the right man.” He rolled a sprig of the young green leaves sadly between his palms, and the fragrance distilled richly on the early morning air. “And it will be the right men who’ll accompany Prior Robert into Wales,” he said with sour certainty. “You’ll see!”
No doubt about it, this young man was hankering after a glimpse of the world again, and a breath of air from outside the walls. Brother Cadfael pondered, not only with sympathy for his young assistant, but also with some pleasurable stirrings of his own. So momentous an event in the otherwise even course of monastic life ought not to be missed. Besides the undoubted possibilities of mischief!
“True!” he said thoughtfully. “Perhaps we ought to take some steps to leaven the lump. Wales should not be left with the notion that Jerome is the best Shrewsbury can muster, that’s very true.”
“You have about as much chance of being invited as I,” said Brother John with his customary bluntness. “Jerome is sure of his place. Prior Robert must have his right hand with him. And Columbanus, fool innocent, was the instrument of grace, and could be made to serve the same turn again. Brother Sub-Prior they have to take along, for form’s sake. Surely we could think up some way of getting a foot in the door? They can’t move for a few days yet, the carpenters and carvers are working hard on this splendid reliquary coffin they’re going to take with them for the lady, but it will take them a while to finish it. Get your wits to work, brother! There isn’t anything you couldn’t do, if you’ve a mind! Prior or no prior!”
“Well, well, did I say you had no faith?” wondered
Brother Cadfael, charmed and disarmed. “I might worm my own way in, there could be ways, but how am I to recommend a graceless rogue like you? What are you good at, to be taken along on such an errand?”
“I’m a good hand with mules,” said Brother John hopefully, “and you don’t think Prior Robert intends to go on foot, I suppose? Or to do the grooming and feeding and watering himself? Or the mucking-out? They’ll need somebody to do the hard work and wait on them. Why not me?”
It was, indeed, something nobody as yet seemed to have thought of. And why take a lay-brother, if there was a cloister-brother, with a sweet voice in the Mass, willing to do the sweating into the bargain? And the boy deserved his outing, since he was willing to earn it the hard way. Besides, he might be useful before the end. If not to Prior Robert, to Brother Cadfael.
“We’ll see,” he said, and with that drove his mutinous protege back to the work in hand. But after dinner, in the somnolent half-hour of sleep for the elders and play for the novices, he sought out Abbot Heribert in his study.
“Father Abbot, it is on my mind that we are undertaking this pilgrimage to Gwytherin without full consideration. First we must send to the bishop of Bangor, in whose see Gwytherin lies, for without his approval the matter cannot proceed. Now it is not essential to have a speaker fluent in Welsh there, since the bishop is obviously conversant with Latin. But not every parish priest in Wales has that tongue, and it is vital to be able to speak freely with the priest at Gwytherin, should the bishop sanction our quest. But most of all, the see of Bangor is wholly within the sovereignty of the king of Gwynedd, and surely his goodwill and permission are essential as those of the church. The princes of Gwynedd speak only Welsh, though they have learned clerks. Father Prior, certainly, has a smattering of Welsh, but…”
“That is very true,” said Abbot Heribert, easily dismayed. “It is but a smattering. And the king’s agreement is all-important. Brother Cadfael, Welsh is your first, best language, and has no mysteries for you. Could you… ? The garden, I am aware… But with your aid there would be no problem.”
“In the garden,” said Brother Cadfael, “everything is well forward, and can manage without me ten days or more, and take no hurt. I should be glad indeed to be the interpreter, and lend my skills also in Gwytherin.”
“Then so be it!” sighed the abbot in heartfelt relief. “Go with Prior Robert, and be our voice to the Welsh people. I shall sanction your errand myself, and you will have my authority.”
He was old and human and gentle, full of experience, short on ambition, self-righteousness and resolution. There could have been two ways of approaching him concerning Brother John. Cadfael took the more honest and simple way.
“Father, there is a young brother concerning whose vocation I have doubts, but concerning whose goodness I have none. He is close to me, and I would that he might find his true way, for if he finds it he will not forsake it. But it may not be with us. I beg that I may take him with me, as our hewer of wood and drawer of water in this enterprise, to allow him time to consider.”
Abbot Heribert looked faintly dismayed and apprehensive, but not unsympathetic. Perhaps he remembered long-ago days when his own vocation had suffered periods of storm.
