Brother Cadfael 19: The Holy Thief Read Free

eyes, and with the silken pink and whiteness of a girl, but a more penetrating study revealed that this childlike colouring was imposed upon an oval face of classic symmetry and sharp and incisive moulding. The colouring of roses on those pure marble lines had almost the air of a disguise, behind which an engaging but slightly perilous creature lurked in possibly mischievous ambush.
    Tutilo, a strange name for an English youth; for there was nothing of the Norman or the Celtic about this young man. Perhaps the name chosen for him when he entered his novitiate. He must ask Brother Anselm what it signified, and where the authorities in Ramsey could have found it. Cadfael turned his attention once again to what was being discussed between host and guests.
    "While you are in these parts," said the abbot, "I take it you may wish to visit other Benedictine houses. We will provide horses, if you so please. The season is not the most favourable for travelling. The rivers are running high, some of the fords will be impassable, you will be better mounted. We will hasten whatever arrangements you may choose to make, confer with Father Boniface about the use of the church, for he has the cure of souls in the parish of Holy Cross, and with Hugh Beringar as sheriff and the provost and Guild Merchant of the town concerning your gathering at the High Cross in Shrewsbury. If there is anything more we can do to be of service, you need but state it."
    "We shall be grateful indeed to go mounted a while," agreed Herluin, coming as near to smiling as his features would permit, "for we intend to go on at least to our brothers at Worcester, perhaps also to Evesham and Pershore, and it would be simple to return by Shrewsbury and bring back your horses. Ours were taken, every one, by the outlaws before they departed. But first, even this day if possible, we would wish to go and speak with Brother Sulien."
    "As you think best," said Radulfus simply. "Brother Cadfael, I think, is best acquainted with the way, there is a ferry to be crossed, and also with the household of the lord of Longner. It may be well if he accompanies you."
    "Brother Sulien," remarked Cadfael, crossing the court afterwards with Brother Anselm the precentor and librarian, "has not been called by that title for some while, and is hardly likely to take kindly to it again now. And so Radulfus could have told him, for he knows the whole story of that young man as well as I do. But if he had said as much, this Herluin would not have listened, I suppose. 'Brother' means his own brother Eudo now to Sulien. He's in training for arms, and will be one of Hugh's young men of the garrison up there in the castle as soon as his mother dies, and they tell me that's very close now. And a married man, very likely, even before that happens. There'll be no going back to Ramsey."
    "If his abbot sent the boy home to come to his own decision," said Anselm reasonably,"the sub-prior can hardly be empowered to bring too severe pressure on him to return. Argue and exhort as he may, he's helpless, and must know it, if the young man stands fast. It may well be," he added dryly, "that what he hopes for from that quarter is a conscience fee in silver."
    "Likely enough. And he may very well get it, too. There's more than one conscience in that house," agreed Cadfael, "feels a debt towards Ramsey. And what," he asked, "do you make of the other?"
    "The young one? An enthusiast, with grace and fervour shining out of his creamy cheeks. Chosen to go with Herluin to temper the chill, would you say?"
    "And where did he get that outlandish name of his?"
    "Tutilo! Yes," said Anselm, musing. "Not at his baptism! There must be a reason why they chose that for him. Tutilo you'll find among the March saints, though we don't pay him much attention here. He was a monk of Saint Gall, two hundred years and more ago since he died, and by all accounts he was a master of all the arts, painter, poet, musician and all. Perhaps we have