where the Cluny community had discovered their Saxon foundressMilburga, and were making great play with her. And we had certainsigns that sent off an ailing brother of ours into Wales, to batheat Holywell, where this girl Winifred died her first death, andbrought forth her healing spring. There was her own patron, SaintBeuno, ready and able to bring her back to life, but the springremained, and did wonders. So it came to Prior Robert that the ladycould be persuaded to leave Gwytherin, where she died her seconddeath and was buried, and come and bring her glory to us here inShrewsbury. I was one of the party he took with him to deal withthe parish there, and bring them to give up the saint’sbones.”

“All of which,” said Hugh, warmed and attentivebeside him, “I know very well, since all men here knowit.”

“Surely! But you do not know to the end what followed.There was one Welsh lord in Gwytherin who would not suffer the girlto be disturbed, and would not be persuaded or bribed or threatenedinto letting her go. And he died, Hugh—murdered. By one ofus, a brother who came from high rank, and had his eyes already seton a mitre. And when we came near to accusing him, it was his lifeor a better. There were certain young people of that place put inperil by him, the dead lord’s daughter and her lover. The boylashed out in anger, with good reason, seeing his girl wounded andbleeding. He was stronger than he knew. The murderer’s neckwas broken.”

“How many knew of this?” asked Hugh, his eyesnarrowed thoughtfully upon the glossy-leaved rose-bushes.

“When it befell, only the lovers, the dead man and I. AndSaint Winifred, who had been raised from her grave and laid in thatcasket of which you and all men know. She knew. She wasthere. From the moment I raised her,” said Cadfael,“and by God, it was I who took her from the soil, and I whorestored her—and still that makes me glad—from themoment I uncovered those slender bones, I felt in mine they wished