Candace Robb - A Gift Of Sanctuary

As they approached St David’s they joined a crowd of pilgrims coming from Nine Wells and all in the company dismounted, but Sir Robert. When he moved to do the same, Owen forbade it.

‘You have been unwell. To ride is more of a penance to you than walking is to many we have passed.’

‘Age brings many blessings,’ Michaelo said.

‘And much humiliation,’ Sir Robert retorted.

‘It is good for a pilgrim to be humble.’

Owen did not join in their argument, and it soon died.

Geoffrey came alive in the crowd, speaking to as many of the pilgrims as he could, asking whence they came, their purpose in the pilgrimage. He was disappointed that many spoke only Welsh.

Now they saw many Welsh, the women in starched white veils folded up at the front like bonnets, the men in light wool cloaks and long shirts, often bare-legged. All went by foot. Sir Robert towered above the crowd, his face stony.

At last the elderly pilgrim dismounted at the edge of a rough-and-tumble row of houses that led towards Tower Gate, the pilgrims’ gateway to the city of St David’s. Sir Robert wished to descend on foot to the cathedral. He invited Owen, Geoffrey and Brother Michaelo to accompany him, while the other men took the horses round to Bonning’s Gate and through to the stables at the bishop’s palace. Owen judged it a reasonable walk for Sir Robert. The city was little more than the cathedral close, comprising the church, the cemetery, the dwellings of those connected to the cathedral either as clerics, administrators or servants, and the hostelries for the pilgrims. The four made their way slowly through a throng of people whispering and jostling one another. There were townspeople as well as pilgrims, judging from their garments.

‘Have we forgotten a feast day?’ Sir Robert wondered. ‘God forgive me if I have.’

Michaelo shook his head. ‘St David’s Day is past. We are in Lent, but not so far.’

Owen’s attention was drawn to a clutch of men who huddled about a point just without the gate. He lingered long enough to hear that at dawn the porter had found a body there. Everyone must now expound their theories and dire predictions.

‘It must have been brought here during the night,’ said one man. ‘But why did the porter not spy the activity?’

‘The man had been gutted, they say,’ another whispered.

‘There will be war now among the Marcher lords.’

‘They say that a shepherd in Ceredigion once ate a box of hosts — the Lord split him open like a gutted pig so that the faithful might witness his sin.’

‘What is it?’ Sir Robert asked at Owen’s side. ‘Of what do they speak in such hushed voices?’

Thank God Sir Robert knew no Welsh. ‘An argument, is all. It means naught to us.’ Owen wanted neither Michaelo nor Sir Robert to learn of the body — one would panic, the other would interfere.

As they passed through the gate, they all paused and exclaimed. Without the gate they could see but the top of the cathedral’s central tower. Now, tumbling down the steep hill and spread in the valley below was a small city with cottages and great halls, all clustered within the walls and round two huge and magnificent structures straddling either side of the River Alun, the Cathedral of St David and St Andrew, and the bishop’s palace beyond.

Brother Michaelo was most impressed by the palace. ‘See the scalloped arcading? That is Bishop Henry Gower’s work. Was he not the most ingenious man? Is it not as I described it?’

Geoffrey laughed. ‘You mean as Owen described it.’ Owen was the only member of the company who had ever been to St David’s. ‘Though I grant you have often repeated tales of the palace’s splendour.’

Years ago, when Owen was thirteen, his mother had brought him here with his baby brother Morgan. He remembered workmen atop scaffolding, adding clean stone to peeling, mossy walls. His mother had explained how they would then clean the older stone and apply fresh colour. Now Owen saw for the first time the completed result of Gower’s work. As he walked down the steep slope along the north side of the cathedral, he admired the sunlight playing on the reds, blues, greens and golds of the palace walls below. He shielded his eye against the brightening sun and gazed in wonder upon the delicate arcading atop the walls, with a chequer-work pattern of alternating small squares of purple and white stone. It was a decorative lace, serving no purpose but beauty — the palace was protected by the wall that enclosed the entire complex, cathedral, palace and additional residences. There was no need for guards to pace the palace roofs.

‘It is peaceful here,’ Geoffrey said as he paused before the stone bridge over the small, placid River Alun.

‘God grant that I find peace here,’ said Sir Robert.

Owen observed the unhealthy flush on his father-in-law’s cheeks and forehead and prayed that their lodgings at the bishop’s palace would be warm and dry. But he said nothing, not wishing to call attention to a weakness that Sir Robert found humiliating. ‘Even before St David founded his monastery in this vale, it was a holy place.’

‘A heathen holiness,’ Michaelo reminded them.

The bridge was a great slab of marble ten foot long, six foot wide, a foot thick. Its surface had been polished by the shuffling feet of hundreds of pilgrims, and was cracked down the middle.

‘They might provide a better bridge,’ Michaelo muttered.

‘You do not replace such a bridge, not until it no longer serves,’ Owen said. ‘Have you not heard the legends of this bridge?’

‘It is but a plain bridge. There is no art to it.’

‘This bridge that you so despise is called Llechllafar — the singing stone,’ Owen said. ‘Once, as a corpse was being carried across it, Llechllafar burst forth with a reprimand so passionate it cracked with the effort. Ever since, it has been forbidden to carry the dead across this stone.’

‘A stone cannot speak,’ Michaelo protested.

Owen paid him no heed. ‘Merlinus predicted that a king of England, upon returning from the conquest of Ireland, would be mortally wounded by a red-handed man as he crossed the stone. Henry Plantagenet crossed it unscathed on his return from his successful campaigns in Ireland; he declared Merlinus a liar.’

‘The Lionheart’s father was here?’ Michaelo said, suddenly more interested.

‘Aye, that he was. Come, let us cross over.’

But now Michaelo looked wary as he considered the stone. ‘Your people tell tales about everything.’

‘Everything has its tale.’

‘What happened when the King called Merlinus a liar?’ asked Sir Robert.

‘Someone in the crowd laughed at the King and said, “Perhaps the prediction spoke of another king, yet to come.” It is said that Henry was not pleased, but said no more.’

‘Foolish pride,’ Geoffrey muttered.

It was a nervous group that crossed the bridge.

The courtyard of the bishop’s palace appeared to be a meeting place for pilgrims and the various clerics who lived in the close. From their furtive gestures and excited whispers Owen guessed they, too, discussed the body that had been left at the gate.

But the courtyard in which they stood claimed Michaelo’s attention. ‘How magnificent,’ he said, gazing round.

Sir Robert reluctantly agreed.

Two great porches, approached by broad stone stairways, led to separate wings. Directly in front, the expanse that housed the great hall presented a deep red ochre façade; at a right angle to the left, the wing that held the bishop’s private quarters was rendered and whitewashed. Owen and Geoffrey stepped aside to allow Brother Michaelo and Sir Robert to ascend to the porch of the great hall first. They were, after all, the pilgrims.