Page 92 of The Ladies Least Likely
“By the by, I heard an odd tale from the vicar of St. Mary’s in Abergavenny,” Mr. Stanley remarked. “Seems a stranger in a small dory floated up the Usk many days back. His fine clothes were covered in filth, smelling of sulfur and dung, and he’d been so knocked about he couldn’t recall his own name. They sent him to the workhouse, and like he’ll be put to work in the mines of the Black Mountains as soon as he recovers. Can’t expect he’ll last long there, poor creature. It’s a great mystery where he came from.”
“All sorts of traffic on the Usk, newcomers and such,” Evans said.
“Wasn’t St. Mary’s once a Benedictine priory?” Gwen asked.
Pen set a fresh wooden board in place and hammered it down with several loud blows. “Unlucky bastard. Hope it all turns out well for him, though I doubt he’ll have the good fortune I did.” He gave Gwen a saucy wink.
A few hollow thumps echoed behind her, then a loud click. Gwen turned to find Ifor struggling with a wooden panel on the side of the altar.
“Cerys,” Ifor called. “There’s a compartment in here, there is.”
“I knew that.” Cerys hurried over. “I found it years ago. Nothing in it but some lumps of old pottery.”
Ifor reached in and ran a hand over the shapes inside. A grin stretched over his face. “Old pottery, is it?”
Gwen knelt and peered inside the compartment. “The nuns might have hidden things here they didn’t want soldiers or thieves to find. Ifor! Perhaps we’ll find records, or an old scrap of altar cloth, mayhap even?—”
“St. Sefin’s treasure,” Cerys said with a gasp.
“Ooh.” Tomos leaned over her shoulder, his eyes round.
“Cerys,calon bach, I know you love the tale, but it’s not…possible that…”
Gwen fell silent as Ifor pulled an item from the dark hollow. He handed her a large shallow platter, covered with hastily made clay, not even properly fired in a kiln. “Now why would they hide lumps of old mud?”
Dovey reached around her and broke off a piece of the red-brown clay. “Because there’s something beneath,” she said.
Through the break shone another color, a dull buttery gleam.
“The paten,” Cerys said. “The poem said there was one.”
Gwen couldn’t speak as Ifor handed her the next item, shaped like a goblet. Following Dovey’s lead, she nicked a piece of the masking clay with her fingernail. It broke apart, and inher hand gleamed a silver cup inlaid with delicate carvings and precious gems.
“The chalice.” Cerys clapped her hands. “What else?”
There were half a dozen pieces, including an intricate ciborium, the vessel that held the bread used for communion, and a gorgeous monstrance shaped like a golden sunburst on a long stem, bristling with gold and gems, a worthy backdrop for the host it was meant to display. The men came down from their heights and joined the women and children as they clustered around the altar and stared at the holy relics as they emerged from their cloaks of clay. They were old, expertly fashioned, and extremely valuable.
“Iknewit was here,” Cerys said with satisfaction.
“Gold,” Pen said in surprise as Gwen handed him a censor and he ran his hands over the delicate carvings. “Finely made.”
“You can sell these, Dovey, and be set for life,” Gwen said.
“Sell them? I’ll have copies made and put on display for pilgrims,” Dovey said. “I’ll have St. Sefin’s treasure put in all the guidebooks. Travelers who come to climb the ruins of Newport Castle or see the Romanesque arch at St. Woolos will come here to see the priceless relics that St. Gwladys brought with her when she founded her hermitage.”
“St. Gwladys’s hermitage was at Pencarn,” Gwen felt obliged to point out. “She lived on vegetables and bathed in the Ebbw. Her grave is there.”
Dovey shrugged. “Those old stories of saint’s lives never agree, do they? You were worried about abandoning us, Gwenllian ap Ewyas. I know you were. And now you needn’t fear we can’t make do. You can sally off with your light o’ love and never look back.”
Gwen hugged her friend, her ally for so long. “We’ll live at Penrydd most of the time. You’ll never be rid of me.”
As she released Dovey and straightened, a new thought struck her. “But the papers haven’t been signed yet. The treasure—” Pen could claim it, and he had the right. The items on this table would obliterate his brother’s debts and restore the Price family’s fortunes in full.
Pen raised his voice so that it reached Anne and Prunella, hovering in the doorway of the chapter house with glassy eyes and cheeks pink with the flush of wine. His voice was firm and authoritative.
“The papers Barlow is finishing as we speak entrust Mrs. Van der Welle Evans with the property of St. Sefin’s and all its lands, furnishing, and movables. I’ll not change a word of it. Whatever lies within these walls will be hers.”
Dovey dipped her chin in a gracious acknowledgement. “Thank you, milord.”
