'Son,' said Radulfus, with chill detachment, for murderers comes in all shapes, ages and kinds, 'you heard what is charged against you by those who surely sought your life. Here you have committed body and soul to the care of the Church, and I and all here are bound to keep and succour you. On that you may rely. As at this moment, I offer you only one channel to grace, and ask of you but one question. Whatever the answer, here you are safe as long as the right of sanctuary lasts. I promise it.'
The wretch crouched on his knees, watching the abbot's face as though he numbered him among his enemies, and said no word.
'How do you answer to this charge?' asked Radulfus. 'Have you this day murdered and robbed?'
Distorted lips parted painfully to loose a light, high, wary voice like a frightened child's. 'No, Father Abbot, I swear it!'
'Get up,' said the abbot, neither trusting nor judging. 'Stand close, and lay your hand upon this casket on the altar. Do you know what it contains? Here within are the bones of the blessed Saint Elerius, the friend and director of Saint Winifred. On these holy relics, consider and answer me once again, as God hears you: are you guilty of that which they charge you?'
With all the obstinate, despairing fervour so slight a body could contain, and without hesitation, the light voice shrilled: 'As God sees me, I am not! I have done no wrong!'
THE SANCTUARY SPARROW
Ellis Peters
A Brother Cadfael Medieval Mystery
Shrewsbury, England,
Early summer, 1140
When the circle was cast, Kate paused and looked round at their intent faces.
Plain, comely, young, old; all looked radiant.
'Our beloved King Richard, best appointed, and approved of by the sisterhood of Auset, is under threat from many enemies,' she said. 'I have asked you here to summon from the earth the powers of the Serpent Mother, in order to aid Richard and confound his foes. By the love of Auset, I adjure you to help me. She is the one who takes apart and restores what is scattered. You are bound into the temple and cannot turn back. Come with me now. Have no fear, rouse the wrath of Auset from the depths.
She saw the women looking nervously at each other. What they were about to do was strictly forbidden by the outer world. Yet no one quailed. A heavy excitement lay on them, and they were wholly with her.
[...]
Kate began the chant and the women took it up. They began to move about the circle, a slow stepping dance, bare feet slapping on the flagstones. The chill air grew clammy with their heat. The drumbeat of feet and voices sank them deep into trance. Kate saw the energy coming from them as a scarlet mist, made from millions of tiny flames, each an elemental born of their inner fire.
In the bowl, the eel rose from the bottom and began to circle, faster, faster.
Kate lowered her voice and let them speak on without her. The chant rolled on, unstoppable, like low rhythmic thunder. She raised her hands, holding in the right an athame with a twisted snake for a hilt, and pressed the blade to her left wrist and let her blood dribble into the water.
The serpent thrashed madly. The water boiled.
THE COURT OF THE MIDNIGHT KING
Freda Warrington
England, 1460-85
My eyes saw a different world: wider, brighter, clearer. It was confusing, for I did not see objects so much as patterns of light and dark; shadows above me which might be danger; patches below me which might be places of rest, I felt my body suspended in air; borne by the current. Part human, part creature, I saw with bird-sight and must constantly remind myself of what things were and how I must act. Boats. Sails. Follow them, said the human part of me. Home, said the bird. Turn for home. Too far. But I flew on, for the one thing that never left me was the fear that I might be too slow, or too weak. I was afraid I would lose them, and myself be lost.
[...]
I must go on. But I was tired, and the wind was getting stronger, and the air seemed colder. Weren't the curraghs further away now, not below me and just ahead any more, but over on my right, and I much further offshore and being carried steadily eastwards? I was moving my wings, and trying to find a level where the currents would help me, and every time I looked the boats seemed smaller, and the land beyond them more distant. Would this cruel wind carry me all the way to the shores of Alba?
A shadow moved above me. Large, swift, an echo of that dark presence which had terrified Sibeal's horse, and nearly caused the child's death.
