And he could see that the magnates were beginning to come around to Wynstan’s version of events. They might not believe him—they knew what he was like, after all—but his guilt could not be proved. And he was a bishop.

Wynstan’s masterstroke had been to prosecute the case himself, thereby robbing the sheriff of the chance to tell the whole convincing story: Wynstan’s visits to Dreng’s Ferry after each quarter day, his gifts to the residents, his trips to Combe with Degbert, and their free-spending evenings in the town’s alehouses and brothels. None of that had come out, and if raised now it would seem feeble and circumstantial.

Wynstan had gambled with forged money, but no one could prove that. His victim, Monsieur Robert, was the skipper of an oceangoing ship and might now be at any port in Europe.

The only hole in Wynstan’s story was that he had not “discovered” Cuthbert’s crime until the minster was raided by the sheriff. That was surely too much of a coincidence for the magnates to swallow.

Aldred was about to point this out when Wynstan forestalled him. “I see the hand of God in this,” said the bishop, his voice increasingly sonorous, like a church bell. “It must have been divinely ordained that, at the very hour I discovered Cuthbert’s crime, Sheriff Den came to Dreng’s Ferry—just in time to arrest the wicked priest! Heaven be praised.”

Aldred was amazed by Wynstan’s sheer nerve. The hand of God! Did the man have no concern for how he might explain himself on the Day of Judgment? Wynstan was constantly changing. At Combe he had seemed no worse than a slave to pleasure, a clergyman who had lost his self-discipline; then when he had been found out at Dreng’s Ferry he had become possessed, screaming and foaming at the mouth; but now he was sane again, and more wily than ever, yet plunging more deeply into wickedness. This must be how the devil made a man his own, Aldred thought; by stages, one sin leading to a worse.

Wynstan’s logic, and the confidence with which he told his deceitful story, were so overwhelming that Aldred almost found himself wondering if it could be true; and he could see by the faces of the magnates that they were going to go along with it, even if they might have private reservations.

Wilwulf sensed the mood and moved to take advantage of it. “Degbert having been dealt with already, we need only sentence Cuthbert.”

“Wrong!” shouted Sheriff Den. “You have to deal with the accusation against Wynstan.”

“No one has accused Wynstan.”

“Cuthbert did.”

Wilwulf mimed astonishment. “Are you suggesting that the oath of a lowly priest is worth more than that of a bishop?”

“Then I accuse Wynstan myself. When I entered the minster I found Wynstan in the workshop with Cuthbert while the forgery was going on!”

“Bishop Wynstan has explained that he had at that very moment discovered the crime—by divine providence, no doubt.”