The Pilgram of Hate Read Free

There was one Welsh lord in
Gwytherin who would not suffer the girl to be disturbed, and would not be
persuaded or bribed or threatened into letting her go. And he died, Hugh,
murdered. By one of us, a brother who came from high rank, and had his eyes
already set on a mitre. And when we came near to accusing him, it was his life
or a better. There were certain young people of that place put in peril by him,
the dead lord’s daughter and her lover. The boy lashed out in anger, with good
reason, seeing his girl wounded and bleeding. He was stronger than he knew. The
murderer’s neck was broken.”
    “How
many knew of this?” asked Hugh, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully upon the
glossy-leaved rose-bushes.
    “When
it befell, only the lovers, the dead man and I. And Saint Winifred, who had
been raised from her grave and laid in that casket of which you and all men
know. She knew. She was there. From the moment I raised her,” said Cadfael,
“and by God, it was I who took her from the soil, and I who restored her—and
still that makes me glad—from the moment I uncovered those slender bones, I
felt in mine they wished only to be left in peace. It was so little and so wild
and quiet a graveyard there, with the small church long out of use, meadow
flowers growing over all, and the mounds so modest and green. And Welsh soil!
The girl was Welsh, like me, her church was of the old persuasion, what did she
know of this alien English shire? And I had those young things to keep. Who
would have taken their word or mine against all the force of the church? They
would have closed their ranks to bury the scandal, and bury the boy with it,
and he guilty of nothing but defending his dear. So I took measures.”
    Hugh’s
mobile lips twitched. “Now indeed you amaze me! And what measures were those?
With a dead brother to account for, and Prior Robert to keep sweet…”
    “Ah,
well, Robert is a simpler soul than he supposes, and then I had a good deal of
help from the dead brother himself. He’d been busy building himself such a
reputation for sanctity, delivering messages from the saint herself—it was he
told us she was offering the grave she’d left to the murdered man—and going
into trance-sleeps, and praying to leave this world and be taken into bliss
living… So we did him that small favour. He’d been keeping a solitary
night-watch in the old church, and in the morning when it ended, there were his
habit and sandals fallen together at his prayer-stool, and the body of him
lifted clean out of them, in sweet odours and a shower of may-blossom. That was
how he claimed the saint had already visited him, why should not Robert recall
it and believe? Certainly he was gone. Why look for him? Would a modest brother
of our house be running through the Welsh woods mother-naked?”
    “Are
you telling me,” asked Hugh cautiously, “That what you have there in the
reliquary is not… Then the casket had not yet been sealed?” His eyebrows were
tangling with his black forelock, but his voice was soft and unsurprised.
    “Well…”
Cadfael twitched his blunt brown nose bashfully between finger and thumb.
“Sealed it was, but there are ways of dealing with seals that leave them
unblemished. It’s one of the more dubious of my remembered skills, but for all
that I was glad of it then.”
    “And
you put the lady back in the place that was hers, along with her champion?”
    “He
was a decent, good man, and had spoken up for her nobly. She would not grudge
him house-room. I have always thought,” confided Cadfael, “that she was not
displeased with us. She has shown her power in Gwytherin since that time, by
many miracles, so I cannot believe she is angry. But what a little troubles me
is that she has not so far chosen to favour us with any great mark of her
patronage here, to keep Robert happy, and set my mind at rest. Oh, a few little
things, but nothing of unmistakable note. How