The Raven in the Foregate (4 page)

“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 virtually 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.