The Raven in the Foregate Page 3

  “And mentioned the Empress, or so I’ve heard,” said Hugh equally drily, “as the countess of Anjou.” It was a title the Empress detested, as belittling both her birth and her rank by her first marriage, a king’s daughter and the widow of an emperor, now reduced to a title borrowed from her none-too-loved and none-too-loving second husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, her inferior in every particular but talent, common sense and efficiency. All he had ever done for Maud was give her a son. Of the love she bore to the boy Henry there was no doubt at all.

  “No one raised a voice against what was said,” the abbot mentioned almost absently. “Except an envoy from the lady, who fared no better than the one who spoke, last time, for King Stephen’s queen. Though this one, at least, was not set upon by assassins in the street.”

  Inevitably those two legatine councils, one in April, one in December, had been exact and chilling mirror-images, fortune turning her face now to one faction, now to the other, and taking back with the left hand what she had given with the right. There might yet be as many further reversals before ever there was an end in sight.

  “We are back where we began,” said the abbot, “and nothing to show for months of misery. And what will the King do now?”

  “That I shall hope to find out during the Christmas feast,” said Hugh, rising to take his leave. “For I’m summoned to my lord, Father, like you. King Stephen wants all his sheriffs about him at his court at Canterbury, where he keeps the feast, to render account of our stewardships. Me among them, as his sheriff here for want of a better. What he’ll do with his freedom remains to be seen. They say he’s in good health and resolute spirits, if that means anything. As for what he means to do with me—well, that, no doubt, I shall discover, in due time.”

  “My son, I trust he’ll have the good sense to leave well alone. For here,” said Radulfus, “we have at least preserved what good we can, and by the present measure in this unhappy realm, it is well with this shire. But I doubt whatever he does else can only mean more fighting and more wretchedness for England. And you and I can do nothing to prevent or better it.”

  “Well, if we cannot give England peace,” said Hugh, smiling somewhat wryly, “at least let’s see what you and I can do between us for Shrewsbury.”

  *

  After dinner in the refectory Brother Cadfael made his way across the great court, rounded the thick, dark mass of the box hedge—grown straggly now, he noted, and ripe for a final clipping before growth ceased in the cold—and entered the moist flower gardens, where leggy roses balanced at a man’s height on their thin, leafless stems, and still glowed with invincible light and life. Beyond lay his herb garden, walled and silent, all its small, square beds already falling asleep, naked spears of mint left standing stiff as wire, cushions of thyme flattened to the ground, crouching to protect their remaining leaves, yet over all a faint surviving fragrance of the summer’s spices. Partly a memory, perhaps, partly drifting out from the open door of his workshop, where bunches of dried herbs swung from the eaves and the beams within, but surely, also, still emanating from these drowsy minor manifestations of God, grown old and tired now only to grow young and vigorous again with the spring. Green phoenixes every one, visible proof, if any were needed, of perpetual life.

  Within the wall it was mild and still, a sanctuary within a sanctuary. Cadfael sat down on the bench in his workshop, facing the open door, and composed himself at ease to employ his half-hour of permitted repose in meditation rather than sleep. The morning had provided plenty of food for thought, and he did his best thinking alone here in his own small kingdom.

  So that, he thought, is the new priest of Holy Cross. Now why did Bishop Henry take the trouble to bestow on us one of his own household clerks, and one he valued, at that? One who either was born with or has acquired by reverent imitation what I take to be his overlord’s notable qualities? Is it possible that two masterful, confident, proud men had become one too many for comfort, and Henry was glad to part with him? Or is the legate, after the humiliation of publicly eating his own words twice in one year, and the damage that may well have done to his prestige—after all that, has he been taking this opportunity of courting all his bishops and abbots by taking a fatherly interest in all their wants and needs? Flattering them by his attentions to prop up what might be stumbling allegiance? That is also possible, and he might be willing to sacrifice even a valued clerk to feel certain of a man like Radulfus. But one thing is sure, Cadfael concluded firmly, our abbot would not have been a party to such an appointment if he had not been convinced he was getting a man fit for the work.

  He had closed his eyes, to think the better, and braced his back comfortably against the timber wall, sandalled feet crossed before him, hands folded in the sleeves of his habit, so still that to the young man approaching along the gravel path he seemed asleep. Others, unused to such complete stillness in a waking man, had sometimes made that mistake with Brother Cadfael. Cadfael heard the footsteps, wary and soft as they were. Not a brother, and the lay servants were few in number, and seldom had occasion to come here. Nor would they approach so cautiously if they had some errand here. Not sandals, these, but old, well-worn shoes, and their wearer imagined they trod silently, and indeed they came close to it, if Cadfael had not had the hearing of a wild creature. Outside the open door the steps halted, and for a long moment the silence became complete. He studies me, thought Cadfael. Well, I know what he sees, if I don’t know what he makes of it: a man past sixty, in robust health, bar the occasional stiffness in the joints proper to his age, squarely made, blunt-featured, with wiry brown hair laced with grey, and in need of a trim, come to think of it!—round a shaven crown that’s been out in all weathers for many a year. He weighs me, he measures me, and takes his time about it.

  He opened his eyes. “I may look like a mastiff,” he said amiably, “but it’s years now since I bit anyone. Step in, and never hesitate.”

  So brisk and unexpected a greeting, so far from drawing the visitor within, caused him to take a startled pace backwards, so that he stood full in the soft noon light of the day, to be seen clearly. A young fellow surely not above twenty, of the middle height but very well put together, dressed in wrinkled cloth hose of an indeterminate drab colour, scuffed leather shoes very down at heel, a dark brown cotte rubbed slightly paler where the sleeves chafed the flanks, and belted with a frayed rope girdle, and a short, caped capuchon thrown back on his shoulders. The coarse linen of his shirt showed at the neck, unlaced, and the sleeves of the cotte were short on him, showing a length of paler wrist above good brown hands. A compact, stout pillar of young manhood stood sturdily to be appraised, and once the immediate check had passed, even a long and silent appraisal seemed to reassure him rather than to make him uneasy, for a distinct spark lit in his eye, and an irrepressible grin hovered about his mouth as he said very respectfully: “They told me at the gatehouse to come here. I’m looking for a brother named Cadfael.”

  He had a pleasant voice, pitched agreeably low but with a fine, blithe ring to it, and just now practising a meekness which did nor seem altogether at home on his tongue. Cadfael continued to study him with quickening interest. A mop of shaggy light-brown curls capped a shapely head poised on an elegant neck, and the face that took such pains to play the rustic innocent abashed before his betters was youthfully rounded of cheek and chin, but very adequately supplied with bone, too, and shaven clean as the schoolboy it aimed at presenting. A guileless face, but for the suppressed smoulder of mischief in the wide hazel eyes, changeable and fluid like peat water flowing over sunlit pebbles of delectable, autumnal greens and browns. There was nothing he could do about that merry sparkle. Asleep, the angelic simpleton might achieve conviction, but not with those eyes open.

  “Then you have found him,” said Cadfael. “That name belongs to me. And you, I take it, must be the young fellow who came here with the priest, and wants work with us for a while.” He rose, gathering himself without haste. Their eyes came virtuall
y on a level. Dancing, brook-water eyes the boy had, scintillating with winter sunlight. “What was the name they gave you, son?”

  “N… name?” The stammer was a surprise, and the sudden nervous flickering of long brown lashes that briefly veiled the lively eyes was the first sign of unease Cadfael had detected in him. “Benet—my name’s Benet. My Aunt Diota is widow to a decent man, John Hammet, who was a groom in the lord bishop’s service, so when he died Bishop Henry found a place for her with Father Ailnoth. That’s how we came here. They’re used to each other now for three years and more. And I begged to come here along with them to see could I find work near to her. I’m not skilled, but what I don’t know I can learn.”

  Very voluble now, all at once, and no more stammering, either, and he had stepped within, into shadow from the midday light, quenching somewhat of his perilous brightness. “He said you could make use of me here,” said the vibrant voice, meekly muted. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “And a very proper attitude to work,” allowed Cadfael. “You’ll be sharing the life here within the enclave, so I’m told. Where have they lodged you? Among the lay servants?”

  “Nowhere yet,” said the boy, his voice cautiously recovering its spring and resonance. “But I’m promised a bed here within. I’d just as soon be out of the priest’s house. There’s a parish fellow looks after his glebe, they tell me, so there’s no need for me there.”

  “Well, there’s need enough here,” said Cadfael heartily, “for what with one thing and another I’m behind with the rough digging that ought to be done before the frosts come, and I’ve half a dozen fruit trees here in the small orchard that need pruning about Christmas time. Brother Bernard will be wanting to borrow you to help with the ploughing in the Gaye, where our main gardens are—you’ll scarcely be familiar with the lie of the land yet, but you’ll soon get used to it. I’ll see you’re not snatched away until I’ve had the worth of you here. Come, then, and see what we have for you within the walls.”

  Benet had come a few paces more into the hut, and was looking about him with curiosity and mild awe at the array of bottles, jars and flagons that furnished Brother Cadfael’s shelves, the rustling bunches of herbs that sighed overhead in the faint stirrings of air from the open door, the small brass scales, the three mortars, the single gently bubbling wine-jar, the little wooden bowls of medicinal roots, and a batch of small white lozenges drying on a marble slab. His round-eyed, open-mouthed stare spoke for him. Cadfael half-expected him to cross himself defensively against such ominous mysteries, but Benet stopped short of that. Just as well, thought Cadfael, alerted and amused, for I should not quite have believed in it.

  “This, too, you can learn, if you put your mind to it diligently enough,” he said drily, “but it will take you some years. Mere medicines—God made every ingredient that goes into them, there’s no other magic. But let’s begin with what’s needed most. There’s a good acre of vegetable garden beds to rough-dig, and a small mountain of well-weathered stable muck to cart and spread on the main butts and the rose beds. And the sooner we get down to it, the sooner it will be done. Come and see!”

  The boy followed him willingly enough, his light, lively eyes scanning everything with interest. Beyond the fish ponds, in the two pease fields that ran down the slope to the Meole Brook, the western boundary of the enclave, the haulms had long since been cut close and dried for stable bedding, and the roots ploughed back into the soil, but there would be a heavy and dirty job there spreading much of the ripened and tempered manure from the stable yard and the byres. There were the few fruit trees in the small orchard to be pruned, but such growth as remained in the grass, in this mild opening of the month, was cropped neatly by two yearling lambs. The flower beds wore their usual somewhat ragged autumn look, but would do with one last weeding, if time served, before all growth ceased in the cold. The kitchen garden, cleared of its crops, lay weedy and trampled, waiting for the spade, a dauntingly large expanse. But it seemed that nothing could daunt Benet.

  “A goodish stretch,” he said cheerfully, eyeing the long main butt with no sign of discouragement. “Where will I find the tools?”

  Cadfael showed him the low shed where they were to be found, and was interested to note that the young man looked round him among the assembly with a slightly doubtful face, though he soon selected the iron-shod wooden spade appropriate to the job in hand, and even viewed the length of the ground ahead and started his first row with judgement and energy, if not with very much skill.

  “Wait!” said Cadfael, noting the thin, worn shoes the boy wore. “If you thrust like that in such wear you’ll have a swollen foot before long. I have wooden pattens in my hut that you can strap under your feet and shove as hard as you please. But no need to rush at it, or you’ll be in a muck sweat before you’ve done a dozen rows. What you must do is set an even pace, get a rhythm into it, and you can go on all day, the spade will keep time for you. Sing to it if you have breath enough, or hum with it and save your breath. You’ll be surprised how the rows will multiply.” He caught himself up there, somewhat belatedly aware that he was giving away too much of what he had already observed. “Your work’s been mainly with horses, as I heard,” he said blandly. “There’s an art in every labour.” And he went to fetch the wooden pattens he had himself carved out to shoe his own feet against either harsh digging or deep mire, before Benet could bridle in self-defence.

  Thus shod and advised, Benet began very circumspectly, and Cadfael stayed only to see him launched into a good, steady action before he took himself off into his workshop, to be about his ordinary business of pounding up green herbs for an ointment of his own concoction, good against the chapped hands that would surely make their usual January appearance among the copyists and illuminators in the scriptorium. There would be coughs and colds, too, no doubt, later on, and now was the right time to prepare such of his medicines as would keep through the winter.

  When it was almost time to clear away his impedimenta and prepare for Vespers he went out to see how his acolyte was faring. No one likes to be watched at his work, especially if he comes raw to the practice, and maybe a thought sensitive about his lack of skill and experience. Cadfael was impressed by the great surge the young man had made down the formidable butt of ground. His rows were straight, clearly he had a good eye. His cut appeared to be deep, by the rich black of the upturned tilth. True, he had somewhat sprayed soil over the border paths, but he had also ferreted out a twig broom from the shed, and was busy brushing back the spilled earth to where it belonged. He looked up a little defensively at Cadfael, flicking a glance towards the spade he had left lying.

  “I’ve blunted the iron edge against a stone,” he said, and dropped his broom to up-end the spade and run his fingers gingerly along the metal rim that bound the wood. “I’ll hammer it out fine before I leave it. There’s a hammer in the shed there, and your water trough has a good wide rim to the stone. Though I was aiming at two rows more before the light goes.”

  “Son,” said Cadfael heartily, “you’ve already done more than ever I expected of you. As for the spade, that edge has been replaced three times at least since the tool was made, and I know well enough it’s due for a fourth sheathing very soon. If you think it will do yet a while, at least to finish this task, then beat it out again by all means, but then put it away, and wash, and come to Vespers.”

  Benet looked up from the dented edge, suddenly aware of cautious praise, and broke into the broadest and most unguarded grin Cadfael could ever recall seeing, and the speckled, limpid light blazed up in his trout-stream eyes.

  “I’ll do, then?” he said, between simple pleasure and subtle impudence, flushed and exhilarated with his own energy; and added with unwary honesty: “I’ve hardly had a spade in my hands before.”

  “Now that,” said Cadfael, straight-faced, and eyeing with interest the form and trim of the hands that jutted a little too far from the outgrown sleeves, “that I never would have s
uspected.”

  “I’ve worked mostly with—” Benet began in slight haste.

  “…with horses. Yes, I know! Well, you match today’s effort tomorrow, and tomorrow’s the next day, and yes, you’ll do.”

  Cadfael went to Vespers with his mind’s eye full of the jaunty figure of his new labourer, striding away to beat out the dented iron edge of the spade into even sharpness, and his ears were still stretched to catch the whistled tune, certainly not liturgical in character, to which Benet’s large young feet in their scuffed shoes and borrowed pattens kept time.

  *

  “Father Ailnoth was installed in his cure this morning,” said Cadfael, coming fresh from the induction on the second day. “You didn’t want to attend?”

  “I?” Benet straightened up over his spade in ingenuous surprise. “No, why should I? I’ve got my work here, he can take care of his without any help from me. I hardly knew the man until we set off to come here. Why, did all go well?”

  “Yes—oh, yes, all went well. His sermon was perhaps a little harsh on poor sinners,” said Cadfael, doubtfully pondering. “No doubt he wanted to begin by showing his zeal at the outset. The rein can always be slackened later, when priest and people come to know each other better, and know where they stand. It’s never easy for a younger man and a stranger to follow one old and accustomed. The old shoe comforts, the new pinches. But given time enough, the new comes to be the old, and fits as gently.”

  It seemed that Benet had very quickly developed the ability to read between lines where his new master was concerned. He stood gazing earnestly at Cadfael with a slight frown, his curly head on one side, his smooth brown forehead creased in unaccustomed gravity, as if he had been brought up without warning against some unforeseen question, and was suddenly aware that he ought to have been giving thought to it long ago, if he had not been totally preoccupied with some other enterprise of his own.