Wynstan said contemptuously: “An idol for the ignorant to worship. I suppose it’s painted, too?”
“The face is white, and the hands and feet. The robe is gray. But the eyes are so blue you’d think they were looking at you!”
Blue was the most costly paint, being made with crushed gems of lapis lazuli. Wynstan said slowly: “I know what that sly devil is up to.”
Degbert said: “I wish you’d tell me.”
“He’s going to take the relics on a tour. He’ll stop at every church between Glastonbury and Dreng’s Ferry. He needs money, now that Hildred has stopped his subsidy, and he wants to use the saint to raise funds.”
“It will probably work,” said Degbert.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” said Wynstan.
CHAPTER 28
May 1001
n the outskirts of the village of Trench, the monks began to sing.
All eight from the Dreng’s Ferry priory were present, including blind Cuthbert, plus Edgar to work the mechanism. They walked in solemn procession on each side of the cart, with Godleof leading the ox by the ring in its nose.
The effigy of the saint and the yew chest containing the bones were on the cart but covered by cloths that also prevented their shifting.
The villagers were working in the fields. They were busy, but it was the time for weeding, and that task was easy to abandon. As they heard the singing they unbent from the green shoots of barley and rye, stood upright rubbing their backs, saw the procession, and came across the fields to the road to find out what was going on.
Aldred had ordered the monks not to speak to anyone until afterward. They continued to sing, solemn-faced, looking straight ahead. The villagers joined the procession, following the cart, talking among themselves in excited whispers.
Aldred had planned everything carefully, but this was the first time he had tried it out. He prayed for success.
The cart passed between houses, drawing out all those who were not working in the fields: old men and women, children too young to tell the difference between crops and weeds, a shepherd with a sickly lamb in his arms, a carpenter with a hammer and chisel, a milkmaid carrying a butter churn that she continued to agitate as she fell in behind the cart. The dogs came, too, excitedly sniffing the robes of the strangers.
They all arrived at the center of the village. There was a pond, an unfenced communal pasture where a few goats grazed, an alehouse, and a small wooden church. A large house presumably belonged to old Thane Cenbryht, but he did not appear, and Aldred presumed he was away from home.
Godleof brought the cart around so that its rear end was in line with the church door, then released the ox and put it to graze in the pasture.
The relics and the effigy could now be smoothly lifted and carried into the church by the monks: they had practiced this maneuver to be confident of doing it in a dignified manner.
That was Aldred’s plan. But now he saw the village priest standing in front of the church door with his arms folded. He was young, and he looked scared but determined.
That was strange.
“Keep singing,” Aldred murmured to the others, then he approached the priest. “Good day, Father.”
“Good day to you.”
“I’m Prior Aldred of Dreng’s Ferry, and I bring the holy relics of Saint Adolphus.”
“I know,” said the priest.
Aldred frowned. How did he know? Aldred had told no one his plans. But he decided not to get into that discussion. “The saint wishes to spend tonight in the church.”
The man looked troubled, but he said: “Well, he can’t.”
Aldred stared at him, astonished. “You’re willing to provoke the anger of the saint, with his sacred bones there in front of you?”
The priest swallowed hard. “I have my orders.”
“You do God’s will, of course.”
