“I’m done here for this while,” he said,brushing his hands together to get rid of the hollow worn by theladle. “Come into the daylight, and see the flowerswe’re bringing on for the festival of Saint Winifred. FatherAbbot will be home in good time to preside over her reception fromSaint Giles. And we shall have a houseful of pilgrims to carefor.”

They had brought the reliquary of the Welsh saintfour years previously from Gwytherin, where she lay buried, andinstalled it on the altar of the church at the hospital of SaintGiles, at the very edge of Shrewsbury’s Foregate suburb,where the sick, the infected, the deformed, the lepers, who mightnot venture within the walls, were housed and cared for. And thencethey had borne her casket in splendour to her altar in the abbeychurch, to be an ornament and a wonder, a means of healing andblessing to all who came reverently and in need. This year they hadundertaken to repeat that last journey, to bring her from SaintGiles in procession, and open her altar to all who came withprayers and offerings. Every year she had drawn many pilgrims. Thisyear they would be legion.

“A man might wonder,” said Hugh, standingspread-footed among the flower beds just beginning to burn from thesoft, shy colours of spring into the blaze of summer,“whether you were not rather preparing for abridal.”

Hedges of hazel and may-blossom shed silver petals and dangledpale, silver-green catkins round the enclosure where they stood,cowslips were rearing in the grass of the meadow beyond, and iriseswere in tight, thrusting bud. Even the roses showed a harvest ofbuds, erect and ready to break and display the first colour. In thewalled shelter of Cadfael’s herb-garden there were fat globesof peonies, too, just cracking their green sheaths. Cadfael hadmedicinal uses for the seeds, and Brother Petrus, the abbot’scook, used them as spices in the kitchen.

“A man might not be so far out, at that,” saidCadfael, viewing the fruits of his labours complacently. “Aperpetual and pure bridal. This Welsh girl was virgin until the dayof her death.”