A Gift of Sanctuary by Candace Robb Read Free Book Online Page A

here during the night,’ said one man. ‘But why did the porter not spy the activity?’
    ‘The man had been gutted, they say,’ another whispered.
    ‘There will be war now among the Marcher lords.’
    ‘They say that a shepherd in Ceredigion once ate a box of hosts – the Lord split him open like a gutted pig so that the faithful might witness his sin.’
    ‘What is it?’ Sir Robert asked at Owen’s side. ‘Of what do they speak in such hushed voices?’
    Thank God Sir Robert knew no Welsh. ‘An argument, is all. It means naught to us.’ Owen wanted neither Michaelo nor Sir Robert to learn of the body – one would panic, the other would interfere.
    As they passed through the gate, they all paused and exclaimed. Without the gate they could see but the top of the cathedral’s central tower. Now, tumbling down the steep hill and spread in the valley below was a small city with cottages and great halls, all clustered within the walls and round two huge and magnificent structures straddling either side of the River Alun, the Cathedral of St David and St Andrew, and the bishop’s palace beyond.
    Brother Michaelo was most impressed by the palace. ‘See the scalloped arcading? That is Bishop Henry Gower’s work. Was he not the most ingenious man? Is it not as I described it?’
    Geoffrey laughed. ‘You mean as Owen described it.’ Owen was the only member of the company who had ever been to St David’s. ‘Though I grant you have often repeated tales of the palace’s splendour.’
    Years ago, when Owen was thirteen, his mother had brought him here with his baby brother Morgan. He remembered workmen atop scaffolding, adding clean stone to peeling, mossy walls. His mother had explained how they would then clean the older stone and apply fresh colour. Now Owen saw for the first time the completed result of Gower’s work. As he walked down the steep slope along the north side of the cathedral, he admired the sunlight playing on the reds, blues, greens and golds of the palace walls below. He shielded his eye against the brightening sun and gazed in wonder upon the delicate arcading atop the walls, with a chequer-work pattern of alternating small squares of purple and white stone. It was a decorative lace, serving no purpose but beauty – the palace was protected by the wall that enclosed the entire complex, cathedral, palace and additional residences. There was no need for guards to pace the palace roofs.
    ‘It is peaceful here,’ Geoffrey said as he paused before the stone bridge over the small, placid River Alun.
    ‘God grant that I find peace here,’ said Sir Robert.
    Owen observed the unhealthy flush on his father-in-law’s cheeks and forehead and prayed that their lodgings at the bishop’s palace would be warm and dry. But he said nothing, not wishing to call attention to a weakness that Sir Robert found humiliating. ‘Even before St David founded his monastery in this vale, it was a holy place.’
    ‘A heathen holiness,’ Michaelo reminded them.
    The bridge was a great slab of marble ten foot long, six foot wide, a foot thick. Its surface had been polished by the shuffling feet of hundreds of pilgrims, and was cracked down the middle.
    ‘They might provide a better bridge,’ Michaelo muttered.
    ‘You do not replace such a bridge, not until it no longer serves,’ Owen said. ‘Have you not heard the legends of this bridge?’
    ‘It is but a plain bridge. There is no art to it.’
    ‘This bridge that you so despise is called Llechllafar – the singing stone,’ Owen said. ‘Once, as a corpse was being carried across it, Llechllafar burst forth with a reprimand so passionate it cracked with the effort. Ever since, it has been forbidden to carry the dead across this stone.’
    ‘A stone cannot speak,’ Michaelo protested.
    Owen paid him no heed. ‘Merlinus predicted that a king of England, upon returning from the conquest of Ireland, would be mortally wounded by a red-handed man as he crossed