Ellis Peters - The Pilgrim of Hate

In her at least there was nothing unfamiliar. The sight of her brought back colour and form and reality into the very stones of the wall at her back, and the cobbles under her feet. The elusive grey between-light could not blur the outlines of head and hand, or dim the brightness of her hair. Life came flooding back into Luc with a shock of pain, as feeling returns after a numbing wound. She came towards him with hands a little extended and face raised, and the faintest and most anxious of smiles on her lips and in her eyes. Then, as she hesitated for the first time, a few paces from him, he saw the dark stain of the bruise that marred her cheek.

It was the bruise that shattered him. He shook from head to heels in a great convulsion of shame and grief, and blundered forward blindly into her arms, which reached gladly to receive him. On his knees, with his arms wound about her and his face buried in her breast, he burst into a storm of tears, as spontaneous and as healing as Saint Winifred’s own miraculous spring.

He was in perfect command of voice and face when they met after chapter in the abbot’s parlour, abbot, prior, Brother Cadfael, Hugh Beringar, Olivier and Luc, to set right in all its details the account of Rainald Bossard’s death, and all that had followed from it.

“Unwittingly I deceived you, Father,” said Cadfael, harking back to the interview which had sent him forth in such haste. “When you asked if we had entertained a murderer unawares, I answered truly that I did think so, but that we might yet have time to prevent a second death. I never realised until afterwards how you might interpret that, seeing we had just found the bloodstained shirt. But, see, the man who struck the blow might be spattered as to sleeve or collar, but he would not be marked by this great blot that covered breast and shoulder over the heart. No, that was rather the sign of one who had held a wounded man, a man wounded to death, in his arms as he died. Nor would the slayer, if his clothing was bloodstained, have kept and carried it with him, but burned or buried it, or somehow rid himself of it. But this shirt, though washed most carefully, still bore the outline of the stain clear to be seen, and it was carried as a sacred relic is carried, perhaps as a pledge to exact vengeance. So I knew that this same Luc whom we knew as Matthew, and in whose scrip the talisman was found, was not the murderer. But when I recalled all the words I had heard those two young men speak, and all the evidence of devoted attendance, the one on the other, then suddenly I saw that pairing in the utterly opposed way, as a pursuit. And I feared it must be to the death.”

The abbot looked at Luc, and asked simply: “Is that a true reading?”

“Father, it is.” Luc set forth with deliberation the progress of his own obsession, as though he discovered it and understood it only in speaking. “I was with my lord that night, close to the Old Minster it was, when four or five set on the clerk, and my lord ran, and we with him, to beat them off. And then they fled, but one turned back and struck. I saw it done, and it was done of intent! I had my lord in my arms, he had been good to me, and I loved him,” said Luc with grimly measured moderation and burning eyes as he remembered. “He was dead in a mere moment, in the twinkling of an eye… And I had seen where the murderer fled, into the passage by the chapter house. I went after him, and I heard their voices in the sacristy, Bishop Henry had come from the chapter house after the council ended for the night, and there Ciaran had found him and fell on his knees to him, blurting out all. I lay in hiding, and heard every word. I think he even hoped for praise,” said Luc with bitter deliberation.

“Is it possible?” wondered Prior Robert, shocked to the heart. “Bishop Henry could not for one moment connive at or condone an act so evil.”

“No, he did not condone. But neither would he deliver over one of his own intimate servants as a murderer. To do him justice,” said Luc, but with plain distaste, “his concern was not to cause further anger and quarrelling, but to put away and smooth over everything that threatened the empress’s fortunes and the peace he was trying to make. But condone murder, no, that he would not. Therefore I overheard the sentence he laid upon Ciaran, though then I did not know who he was, nor that Ciaran was his name. He banished him back to his Dublin home, for ever, and condemned him to go every step of the way to Bangor and to the ship at Caergybi barefoot, and carrying that heavy cross. And if ever he put on shoes or laid by the cross from round his neck, then his forfeit life was no longer spared, but might be taken by whoever willed, without sin or penalty. But see,” said Luc, merciless in judgement, “how he cheated! For not only did he give his creature the ring that would ensure him the protection of the church to Bangor, but also, mark, not one word was ever made public of this guilt or this sentence, so how was that forfeit life in danger? No one was to know of it but they two, if God had not prevented and brought there a witness to hear the sentence and take upon himself the vengeance due.”

“As you did,” said the abbot, and his voice was even and calm, avoiding judgement.

“As I did, Father. For as Ciaran swore to keep the terms laid down on pain of death, so did I swear an oath as solemn to follow him the length of the land, and if ever he broke his terms for a moment, to have his life as payment for my lord.”

“And how,” asked Radulfus in the same mild tone, “did you know what man you were thus to hunt to his death? For you say you did not see his face clearly or know his name then.”

“I knew the way he was bound to go, and the day of his setting out. I waited by the roadside for one walking north, barefoot, and one not used to going barefoot, but very well shod,” said Luc with a brief, wry smile. “I saw the cross at his neck. I fell in at his side, and I told him, not who I was, but what. I took another name, so that no failure nor shame of mine should ever cast a shadow on my lady or her house. One Evangelist in exchange for another! Step for step with him I went all this way, here to this place, and never let him from my sight and reach, night or day, and never let him forget that I meant to be his death. He could not ask help to rid himself of me, since I could then as easily strip him of his pilgrim holiness and show what he really was. And I could not denounce him, partly for fear of Bishop Henry, partly because neither did I want more feuding between factions, my feud was between two men, but chiefly because he was mine, mine, and I would not let any other vengeance or danger reach him. So we kept together, he trying to elude me, but he was court-bred and tender and crippled by the miles, and I holding fast to him, and waiting.”

He looked up suddenly and caught the abbot’s compassionate but calm eyes upon him, and his own eyes were wide, dark and clear. “It is not beautiful, I know. Neither was murder beautiful. And this blotch was only mine, my lord went to his grave immaculate, defending one opposed to him.”

It was Olivier, silent until now, who said softly: “And so did you!” The grave, thought Cadfael at the height of the Mass, had closed firmly to deny Luc entrance, but that arm outstretched between his enemy and the knives of three assailants must never be forgotten. Hell had also shut its mouth and refused to devour him. He was young, clean, alive again after a kind of death. Yes, Olivier had uttered truth. His own life ventured, his enemy’s life defended, what was there between Luc and his lord but the accident, the vain and random accident, of the death itself?

He recalled also, when he was most diligent in prayer, that these few days while Saint Winifred was manifesting her virtue in disentangling the troubled lives of some half-dozen people in Shrewsbury, were also the vital days when the fates of Englishmen in general were being determined, perhaps with less compassion and wisdom. For by this time the date of the empress’s coronation might well be settled, the crown even now placed upon her head. No doubt God and the saints had that consideration in mind, too.