dismay, Aunt Alice attendant at his shoulder, bright with curiosity. Here are we all, thought Cadfael, and not one of us knows what is in any other mind, or who has done what has been done, or what will come of it for any of those who look on and marvel.
“You cannot tell,” suggested Prior Robert, agitated and grieved, “who stood close to you during the service? If indeed some ill-conditioned person has so misused the holy office as to commit theft in the very sacredness of the Mass…”
“Father, I was intent only upon the altar.” Ciaran shook with fervour, holding the ravished scrip open before him with his sparse possessions bared to be seen. “We were close pressed, so many people… as is only seemly, in such a shrine… Matthew was close at my back, but so he ever is. Who else there may have been by me, how can I say? There was no man nor woman among us who was not hemmed in every way.”
“It is truth,” said Prior Robert, who had been much gratified at the large attendance. “Father, the gate is now closed, we are all here who were present at Mass. And surely we all have a desire to see this wrong righted.”
“All, as I suppose,” said Radulfus drily, “but one. One, who brought in here a knife or dagger sharp enough to slice through these tough cords cleanly. What other intents he brought in with him, I bid him consider and tremble for his soul. Robert, this ring must be found. All men of goodwill here will offer their aid, and show freely what they have. So will every guest who has not theft and sacrilege to hide. And see to it also that enquiry be made, whether other articles of value have not been missed. For one theft means one thief, here within.”
“It shall be seen to, Father,” said Robert fervently. “No honest, devout pilgrim will grudge to offer his aid. How could he wish to share his lodging here with a thief?”
There was a stir of agreement and support, perhaps slightly delayed, as every man and woman eyed a neighbour, and then in haste elected to speak first. They came from every direction, hitherto unknown to one another, mingling and forming friendships now with the abandon of holiday. But how did they know who was immaculate and who was suspect, now the world had probed a merciless finger within the fold?
“Father,” pleaded Ciaran, still sweating and shaking with distress, “here I offer in this scrip all that I brought into this enclave. Examine it, show that I have indeed been robbed. Here I came without even shoes to my feet, my all is here in your hands. And my fellow Matthew will open to you his own scrip as freely, an example to all these others that they may deliver themselves pure of blame. What we offer, they will not refuse.”
Matthew had withdrawn his hand from Melangell’s sharply at this word. He shifted the unbleached cloth scrip, very like Ciaran’s, round upon his hip. Ciaran’s meagre travelling equipment lay open in the prior’s hands. Robert slid them back into the pouch from which they had come, and looked where Ciaran’s distressed gaze guided him.
“Into your hands, Father, and willingly,” said Matthew, and stripped the bag from its buckles and held it forth.
Robert acknowledged the offering with a grave bow, and opened and probed it with delicate consideration. Most of what was there within he did not display, though he handled it. A spare shirt and linen drawers, crumpled from being carried so, and laundered on the way, probably more than once. The means of a gentleman’s sparse toilet, razor, morsel of lye soap, a leather-bound breviary, a lean purse, a folded trophy of embroidered ribbon. Robert drew forth the only item he felt he must show, a sheathed dagger, such as any gentleman might carry at his right hip, barely longer than a man’s hand.
“Yes, that is mine,” said Matthew, looking Abbot Radulfus straightly in the eyes. “It has not slashed through those cords. Nor has it left my scrip since I entered your enclave, Father Abbot.”
Radulfus looked from the dagger to its owner, and briefly nodded. “I well understand that no young man would set forth on these highroads today without the means of defending himself. All the more if he had another to defend, who carried no weapons. As I understand is your condition, my son. Yet within these walls you should not bear arms.”
“What, then, should I have done?” demanded Matthew, with a stiffening neck, and a note in his voice that just fell short of defiance.
“What you must do now,” said Radulfus firmly. “Give it into the care of Brother Porter at the gatehouse, as others have done with their weapons. When you leave here you may reclaim it freely.”
There was nothing to be done but bow the head and give way gracefully, and Matthew managed it decently enough, but not gladly. “I will do so, Father, and pray your pardon that I did not ask advice before.”
“But, Father,” Ciaran pleaded anxiously, “my ring… How shall I survive the way if I have not that safe-conduct to show?”
“Your ring shall be sought throughout this enclave, and every man who bears no guilt for its loss,” said the abbot, raising his voice to carry to the distant fringes of the silent crowd, “will freely offer his own possessions for inspection. See to it, Robert!”
With that he proceeded on his way, and the crowd, after some moments of stillness as they watched him out of sight, dispersed in a sudden murmur of excited speculation. Prior Robert took Ciaran under his wing, and swept away with him towards the guest-hall, to recruit help from Brother Denis in his enquiries after the bishop’s ring; and Matthew, not without one hesitant glance at Melangell, turned on his heel and went hastily after them.
A more innocent and co-operative company than the guests at Shrewsbury abbey that day it would have been impossible to find. Every man opened his bundle or box almost eagerly, in haste to demonstrate his immaculate virtue. The quest, conducted as delicately as possible, went on all the afternoon, but they found no trace of the ring. Moreover, one or two of the better-off inhabitants of the common dormitory, who had had no occasion to penetrate to the bottom of their baggage so far, made grievous discoveries when they were obliged to do so. A yeoman from Lichfield found his reserve purse lighter by half than when he had tucked it away. Master Simeon Poer, one of the first to fling open his possessions, and the loudest in condemning so blasphemous a crime, claimed to have been robbed of a silver chain he had intended to present at the altar next day. A poor parish priest, making this pilgrimage the one fulfilled dream of his life, was left lamenting the loss of a small casket, made by his own hands over more than a year, and decorated with inlays of silver and glass, in which he had hoped to carry back with him some memento of his visit, a dried flower from the garden, even a thread or two drawn from the fringe of the altar-cloth under Saint Winifred’s reliquary. A merchant from Worcester could not find his good leather belt to his best coat, saved up for the morrow. One or two others had a suspicion that their belongings had been fingered and scorned, which was worst of all.
It was all over, and fruitless, when Cadfael at last repaired to his workshop in time to await the coming of Rhun. The boy came prompt to his hour, great-eyed and thoughtful, and lay submissive and mute under Cadfael’s ministrations, which probed every day a little deeper into his knotted and stubborn tissues.
“Brother,” he said at length, looking up, “you did not find a dagger in any other man’s pouch, did you?”
