sigh went round nave, choir, transepts and all, wherever there were human creatures watching and listening. And after the sigh the quivering murmur of a gathering storm, whether of tears or laughter there was no telling, but the air shook with its passion. And then the outcry, the loosing of both tears and laughter, in a gale of wonder and praise. From stone walls and lofty, arched roof, from rood-loft and transept arcades, the echoes flew and rebounded, and the candles that had stood so still and tall shook and guttered in the gale. Melangell hung weak with weeping and joy in Matthew’s arms, Dame Alice whirled from friend to friend, spouting tears like a fountain, and smiling like the most blessed of women. Prior Robert lifted his hands in vindicated stewardship, and his voice in the opening of a thanksgiving psalm, and Brother Anselm took up the chant.
A miracle, a miracle, a miracle…
And in the midst Rhun stood erect and still, even a little bewildered, braced sturdily on his two long, shapely legs, looking all about him at the shouting, weeping, exulting faces, letting the meaningless sounds wash over him in waves, wanting the quiet he had known when there had been no one here in this holy place but himself and his saint, who had told him, in how sweet and private conference, all that he had to do.
Brother Cadfael rose with his brothers, after the church was cleared of all others, after all that jubilant, bubbling, boiling throng had gone forth to spill its feverish excitement in open summer air, to cry the miracle aloud, carry it out into the Foregate, beyond into the town, buffet it back and forth across the tables at dinner in the guest-hall, and return to extol it at Vespers with what breath was left. When they dispersed the word would go with them wherever they went, sounding Saint Winifred’s praises, inspiring other souls to take to the roads and bring their troubles to Shrewsbury. Where healing was proven, and attested by hundreds of voices.
The brothers went to their modest, accustomed dinner in the refectory, and observed, whatever their own feelings were, the discipline of silence. They were very tired, which made silence welcome. They had risen early, worked hard, been through fire and flood body and soul, no wonder they ate humbly, thankfully, in silence.
Chapter Ten.
IT WAS NOT UNTIL dinner was almost over in the guest-hall that Matthew, seated at Melangell’s side and still flushed and exalted from the morning’s heady wonders, suddenly bethought him of sterner matters, and began to look back with a thoughtful frown which as yet only faintly dimmed the unaccustomed brightness of his face. Being in attendance on Mistress Weaver and her young people had made him a part, for a while, of their unshadowed joy, and caused him to forget everything else. But it could not last, though Rhun sat there half-lost in wonder still, with hardly a word to say, and felt no need of food or drink, and his womenfolk fawned on him unregarded. So far away had he been that the return took time.
“I haven’t seen Ciaran,” said Matthew quietly in Melangell’s ear, and he rose a little in his place to look round the crowded room. “Did you catch ever a glimpse of him in the church?”
She, too, had forgotten until then, but at sight of his face she remembered all too sharply, with a sickening lurch of her heart. But she kept her countenance, and laid a persuasive hand on his arm to draw him down again beside her. “Among so many? But he surely would be there. He must have been among the first, he stayed here, he would find a good place. We didn’t see all those who went to the altar-we all stayed with Rhun, and his place was far back.” Such a mingling of truth and lies, but she kept her voice confident, and clung to her shaken hope.
“But where is he now? I don’t see him within here.” Though there was so much excitement, so much moving about from table to table to talk with friends, that one man might easily avoid detection. “I must find him,” said Matthew, not yet greatly troubled but wanting reassurance, and rose.
“No, sit down! You know he must be here somewhere. Let him alone, and he’ll appear when he chooses. He may be resting on his bed, if he has to go forth again barefoot tomorrow. Why look for him now? Can you not do without him even one day? And such a day?”
Matthew looked down at her with a face from which all the openness and joy had faded, and freed his sleeve from her grasp gently enough, but decidedly. “Still, I must find him. Stay here with Rhun, I’ll come back. All I want is to see him, to be sure…”
He was away, slipping quietly out between the festive tables, looking sharply about him as he went. She was in two minds about following him, but then she thought better of it, for while he hunted time would be slipping softly away, and Ciaran would be dwindling into distance, as later she prayed he could fade even out of mind, and be forgotten. So she remained with the happy company, but not of it, and with every passing moment hesitated whether to grow more reassured or more uneasy. At last she could not bear the waiting any longer. She rose quietly and slipped away. Dame Alice was in full spate, torn between tears and smiles, sitting proudly by her prodigy, and surrounded by neighbours as happy and voluble as herself, and Rhun, still somehow apart though he was the centre of the group, sat withdrawn into his revelation, even as he answered eager questions, lamely enough but as well as he could. They had no need of Melangell, they would not miss her for a little while.
When she came out into the great court, into the brilliance of the noonday sun, it was the quietest hour, the pause after meat. There never was a time of day when there was no traffic about the court, no going and coming at the gatehouse, but now it moved at its gentlest and quietest. She went down almost fearfully into the cloister, and found no one there but a single copyist busy reviewing what he had done the previous day, and Brother Anselm in his workshop going over the music for Vespers; into the stableyard, though there was no reason in the world why Matthew should be there, having no mount, and no expectation that his companion would or possibly could acquire one; into the gardens, where a couple of novices were clipping back the too exuberant shoots of a box hedge; even into the grange court, where the barns and storehouses were, and a few lay servants were taking their ease, and harrowing over the morning’s marvel, like everyone else within the enclave, and most of Shrewsbury and the Foregate into the bargain. The abbot’s garden was empty, neat, glowing with carefully-tended roses, his lodging showed an open door, and some ordered bustle ot guests within.
She turned back towards the garden, now in deep anxiety. She was not good at lying, she had no practice, even for a good end she could not but botch the effort. And for all the to and fro of customary commerce within the pale, never without work to be done, she had seen nothing of Matthew. But he could not be gone, no, the porter could tell him nothing, Ciaran had not passed there; and she would not, never until she must, never until Matthew’s too fond heart was reconciled to loss, and open and receptive to a better gain.
She turned back, rounding the box hedge and out of sight of the busy novices, and walked breast to breast into Matthew.
They met between the thick hedges, in a terrible privacy. She started back from him in a brief revulsion of guilt, for he looked more distant and alien than ever before, even as he recognised her, and acknowledged with a contortion of his troubled face her right to come out in search of him, and almost in the same instant frowned her off as irrelevant.
“He’s gone!” he said in a chill and grating voice, and looked through her and far beyond. “God keep you, Melangell, you must fend for yourself now, sorry as I am. He’s gone, fled while my back was turned. I’ve looked for him everywhere, and never a trace of him. Nor has the porter seen him pass the gate, I’ve asked there. But he’s gone! Alone! And I must go after him. God keep you, girl, as I cannot, and fare you well!”
