The Pilgram of Hate by Ellis Peters Page A

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?”
    “No,
no such thing.” Though there had been, understandably, a number of small,
homely knives,