“Take good care of him,” said Prior Robert, frowning anxiously over the young man’s bed. “I think someone should be constantly by to watch over him, in case the fit comes again. You have your other sick men to attend to, you cannot sit by his side day and night. Brother Jerome, I put this sufferer in your charge, and excuse you from all other duties while he needs you.”
“Willingly,” said Brother Jerome, “and prayerfully!” He was Prior Robert’s closest associate and most devoted hanger-on, and an inevitable choice whenever Robert required strict obedience and meticulous reporting, as might well be the case where a brother of the house succumbed to what might elsewhere be whispered abroad as a fit of madness.
“Stay with him in particular during the night,” said the prior, “for in the night a man’s resistance falters, and his bodily evils may rise against him. If he sleeps peacefully, you may rest also, but remain close, in case he needs you.”
“He’ll sleep within the hour,” said Cadfael confidently, “and may pass into natural sleep well before night. God willing, he may put this off before morning.”
For his part, he thought Brother Columbanus lacked sufficient work for both mind and body, and took his revenge for his deprivation in these excesses, half-willful, half-involuntary, and both to be pitied and censured. But he retained enough caution to reserve a doubt with every conviction. He was not sure he knew any of his adopted brothers well enough to judge with certainty. Well, Brother John—yes, perhaps! But inside the conventual life or outside, cheerful, blunt, extrovert Brother Johns are few and far between.
Brother Jerome appeared at chapter next morning with an exalted countenance, and the air of one bursting with momentous news. At Abbot Heribert’s mild reproof for leaving his patient without permission, he folded his hands meekly and bowed his head, but lost none of his rapt assurance.
“Father, I am sent here by another duty, that seemed to me even more urgent. I have left Brother Columbanus sleeping, though not peacefully, for even his sleep is tormented. But two lay-brothers are watching by him. If I have done wrong, I will abide it humbly.”
“Our brother is no better?” asked the abbot anxiously.
“He is still deeply troubled, and when he wakes he raves.
But, Father, this is my errand! There is a sure hope for him! In the night I have been miraculously visited. I have come to tell you what divine mercy has instructed me. Father, in the small hours I fell into a doze beside Brother Columbanus’ bed, and had a marvellously sweet dream.”
By this time he had everyone’s attention, even Brother Cadfael was wide awake. “What, another of them?” whispered Brother John wickedly into his ear. “The plague’s spreading!”
“Father, it seemed to me that the wall of the room opened, and a great light shone in, and through the light and radiating the light there came in a most beautiful young virgin, and stood beside our brother’s bed, and spoke to me. She told me that her name was Winifred, and that in Wales there is a holy spring, that rose to the light where she suffered martyrdom. And she said that if Brother Columbanus bathed in the water of that well, he would surely be healed, and restored at once to his senses. Then she uttered a blessing upon our house, and vanished in a great light, and I awoke.”
Through the murmur of excitement that went round the chapter-house, Prior Robert’s voice rose in reverent triumph: “Father Abbot, we are being guided! Our quest for a saint has drawn to us this sign of favour, in token that we should persevere.”
“Winifred!” said the abbot doubtfully. “I do not recall clearly the story of this saint and martyr. There are so many of them in Wales. Certainly we ought to send Brother Columbanus to her holy spring, it would be ingratitude to neglect so clear an omen. But exactly where is it to be found?”
Prior Robert looked round for the few Welshmen among the brothers, passed somewhat hurriedly over Brother Cadfael, who had never been one of his favourites, perhaps by reason of a certain spark in his eye, as well as his notoriously worldly past, and lit gladly upon Old Brother Rhys, who was virtually senile but doctrinally safe, and had the capacious if capricious memory of the very old. “Brother, can you tell us the history of this saint, and where her well is to be found?”
The old man was slow to realise that he had become the centre of attention. He was shrunken like a bird, and toothless, and used to a tolerant oblivion. He began hesitantly, but warmed to the work as he found all eyes upon him.
“Saint Winifred, you say, Father? Everybody knows of Saint Winifred. You’ll find her spring by the name they gave the place, Holywell, it’s no great way in from Chester. But she’s not there. You won’t find her grave at Holywell.”
“Tell us about her,” coaxed Prior Robert, almost fawning in his eagerness. “Tell us all her story.”
“Saint Winifred,” declaimed the old man, beginning to enjoy his hour of glory, “was the only child of a knight named Tevyth, who lived in those parts when the princes were yet heathens. But this knight and all his household were converted by Saint Beuno, and made him a church there, and gave him house-room. The girl was devoted even above her parents, and pledged herself to a virgin life, hearing Mass every day. But one Sunday it happened that she was sick, and stayed at home when all the rest of the household went to church. And there came to the door the prince of those parts. Cradoc, son of the king, who had fallen in love with her at a distance. For this girl was very beautiful. Very beautiful!” gloated Brother Rhys, and licked his lips loudly. Prior Robert visibly recoiled, but refrained from stopping the flow by reproof. “He pleaded that he was hot and parched from hunting,” said Brother Rhys darkly, “and asked for a drink of water, and the girl let him in and gave him to drink. Then,” he shrilled, hunching himself in his voluminous habit and springing erect with a vigour nobody present would have credited, “he pressed his suit upon her, and grappled her in his arms. Thus!” The effort was almost too much for him, and moreover, the prior was eyeing him in alarm; he subsided with dignity. “The faithful virgin put him off with soft words, and escaping into another room, climbed from a window and fled towards the church. But finding that she had eluded him, Prince Cradoc took horse and rode after, and overtaking her just within sight of the church, and dreading that she would reveal his infamy, struck off her head with his sword.”
He paused for the murmur of horror, pity and indignation, and got it, with a flurry of prayerfully-folded hands, and a tribute of round eyes.
“Then thus piteously she came by her death and beatitude?” intoned Brother Jerome enthusiastically.
“Not a bit of it!” snapped Brother Rhys. He had never liked Brother Jerome. “Saint Beuno and the congregation were coming out of the church, and saw what had passed. The saint drew a terrible curse upon the murderer, who at once sank to the ground, and began to melt like wax in a fire, until all his body had sunk away into the grass. Then Saint Beuno fitted the head of the virgin onto her neck, and the flesh grew together, and she stood up alive, and the holy fountain sprang up on the spot where she arose.”
They waited, spellbound, and he let them wait. He had lost interest after the death.
“And afterwards?” insinuated Prior Robert. “What did the saint do with her restored life?”
“She went on a pilgrimage to Rome,” said Brother Rhys indifferently, “and she attended at a great synod of saints, and was appointed to be prioress over a community of virgin sisters at Gwytherin, by Llanrwst. And there she lived many years, and did many miracles in her lifetime. If it should be called her lifetime? She was once dead already. When she died a second time, that was where it befell.” He felt nothing concerning this residue of life, he offered it with a shrug. The girl had had her chance with Prince Cradoc, and let it slip, obviously her natural bent was to be prioress of a nest of virgins, and there was nothing more to be told about her.
“And she is buried there at Gwytherin?” persisted the prior. “And her miracles continued after death?”
“So I have heard. But it’s a long time,” said the old man, “since I’ve heard her name mentioned. And longer since I was in those parts.”
Prior Robert stood in the circle of sunlight that filtered between the pillars of the chapter-house, drawn to his full imposing height, and turned a radiant face and commanding eyes upon Abbot Heribert.