The Raven in the Foregate (5 page)

“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 suspected.”

“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.

“Aunt Diota has been with him over three years,” he
said consideringly, “and she’s never made any complaint of him, as far as I
know. I only rubbed shoulders with him on the way here, and I was thankful to
him for bringing me. Not a man a servant like me could be easy with, but I
minded my tongue and did what he bade me, and he was fair enough in his
dealings with me.” Benet’s buoyancy returned like a gust of the western wind,
blowing doubts away. “Ah, here is he as raw in his new work as I am in mine,
but he sets out to cudgel his way through, and I have the good sense to worm my
way in gently. Let him alone, and he’ll get his feet to the ground.”

He was right, of course, a new man comes unmeasured
and uneasy into a place not yet mellowed to him, and must be given time to
breathe, and listen to the breathing of others. But Cadfael went to his own
work with fretting memories of a homily half frenetic dream, half judgement
day, eloquently phrased, beginning with the pure air of a scarcely accessible heaven,
and ending with the anatomy of a far-too-visual hell.

“— that hell which is an island, for ever circled by
four seas, the guardian dragons of the condemned. The sea of bitterness, whose
every wave burns more white-hot than the mainland fires of hell itself; the sea
of rebellion, which at every stroke of swimmer or rower casts the fugitive back
into the fire; the sea of despair, in which every barque founders, and every
swimmer sinks like a stone. And last, the sea of penitence, composed of all the
tears of all the damned, by which alone, for the very few, escape is possible,
since a single tear of Our Lord over sinners once fell into the fiery flood,
and permeated, cooled and calmed the entire ocean for such as reach the
perfection of remorse…”

A narrow and terrifying mercy, thought Cadfael,
stirring a balsam for the chests of the old, imperfect men in the infirmary,
human and fallible like himself, and not long for this world. Hardly mercy at
all!

Chapter Three

THE FIRST SMALL CLOUD THAT SHOWED IN THE SERENE SKY of
the foregate came when Aelgar, who had always worked the field strips of the
priest’s glebe, and cared for the parish bull and the parish boar, came with a
grievance to Erwald the wheelwright, who was provost of the Foregate, rather in
anxiety than in any spirit of rebellion, complaining that his new master had raised
doubts about whether his servant was free or villein. For there was one strip
in the more distant fields which was in mild dispute at the time of Father
Adam’s death, and the tenure had not been agreed between priest and man when
Adam died. Had he lived there would have been an amicable arrangement, since
Adam certainly had no greed in his make-up, and there was a fair claim on
Aelgar’s part through his mother. But Father Ailnoth, unswervingly exact, had
insisted rather that the case should come to court, and further, had said
outright that in the King’s court Aelgar would have no standing, since he was
not free, but villein.

“And everyone knows,” said Aelgar, fretting,”that I’m
a free man and always have been, but he says I have villein kin, for my uncle
and my cousin have a yardland in the manor of Worthin, and hold it by customary
services, and that’s the proof. And true enough, for my father’s younger
brother, being landless, took the yardland gladly when it fell vacant, and
agreed to do service for it, but for all that he was born free, like all my
kin. It’s not that I grudge him or the church that strip, if it’s justly his,
but how if he bring case to prove me a villein and no free man?”

“He’ll not do that,” said Erwald comfortably, “for it
would never stand if he did. And why should he want to do you wrong? He’s a
stickler for the letter of the law, you’ll find, but nothing more than that.
Why, every soul in the parish would testify. I’ll tell him so, and he’ll hear
reason.”

But the tale had gone round before nightfall.

The second small blot in the clear sky was an urchin
with a broken head, who admitted, between sniffs and sobs, that he and a few
more of his age had been playing a somewhat rumbustious ball game against the
wall of the priest’s house, a clear, windowless wall well suited for the
purpose, and that they had naturally made a certain amount of noise in the
process. But so they had many times before, and Father Adam had never done
worse than shake a tolerant fist at them, and grin, and finally shoo them away
like chickens. This time a tall black figure had surged out of the house crying
anathema at them and brandishing a great long staff, and even their startled
speed had not been enough to bring them off without damage. Two or three had bad
bruises to show for it, and this unfortunate had taken a blow on the head that
all but stunned him, and left him with a broken wound that bled alarmingly for
a while, as head wounds do.

“I know they can be imps of Satan,” said Erwald to
Brother Cadfael, when the child had been soothed and bandaged and lugged away
by an indignant mother, “and many a time I expect you and I have clouted a
backside or boxed an ear, but not with a great walking-staff like that one he
carries.”

“That could well have been an unlucky stroke that was
never meant to land,” said Cadfael. “But I wouldn’t say he’ll ever be as easy
on the scamps as Father Adam was. They’d best learn to stay out of his way, or
mind their manners within reach of him.”

It was soon plain that the boys thought so, too, for
there were no more noisy games outside the small house at the end of the alley,
and when the tall, black-clad figure was seen stalking down the Foregate, cloak
flying like a crow’s wings in time to his impetuous stride, the children melted
away to safe distances, even when they were about blameless business.

It certainly could not be said that Father Ailnoth
neglected his duties. He was meticulous in observing the hours, and let nothing
interrupt his saying of the office, he preached somewhat stern sermons,
conducted his services reverently, visited the sick, exhorted the backsliding.
His comfort to the ailing was austere, even chilling, and his penances heavier
than those to which his flock was accustomed, but he did all that his cure required
of him. He also took jealous care of all the perquisites of his office, tithe
and tilth, to the extent that one of his neighbours in the fields was
complaining of having half his headland ploughed up, and Aelgar was protesting
that he had been ordered to plough more closely, for the waste of ground was
blameworthy.

The few boys who had been learning a smattering of
letters from Father Adam, and had continued their lessons under his successor,
grew less and less willing to attend, and muttered to their parents that they
were beaten now for the least error, let alone a real offence.

“It was a mistake,” said Brother Jerome loftily, “ever
to let them run wild, as Father Adam did. They feel a proper curb now as
affliction, instead of fair usage. What says the Rule on this head? That boys
or youths who cannot yet understand how great a punishment excommunication is,
must be punished for their offences either by fasting, or by sharp stripes, for
their own good. The priest does very properly by them.”

“I cannot regard a simple mistake in letters,”
retorted Brother Paul, up in arms for lads no older than his own charges, “as
an offence. Offence argues a will to offend, and these children answer as best
they know, having no will but to do well.”

“The offence,” said Jerome pompously, “is in the
neglect and inattention which caused them to be imperfect in answering. Those
who attend diligently will be able to answer without fault.”

“Not when they are already afraid,” snapped Brother
Paul, and fled the argument for fear of his own temper. Jerome had a way of
presenting his pious face as a target, and Paul, who like most big, powerful
men could be astonishingly gentle and tender with the helpless, like his
youngest pupils, was only too well aware of what his fists could do to an
opponent of his own size, let alone a puny creature like Jerome.

It was more than a week before the matter came to the
notice of Abbot Radulfus, and even then it was a relatively minor complaint
that set the affair in motion. For Father Ailnoth had publicly accused Jordan
Achard, the Foregate baker, of delivering short-weight loaves, and Jordan,
rightly pricked in his professional pride, meant to rebut the charge at all
costs.

“And a lucky man he is,” said Erwald the provost
heartily,”that he’s charged with the one thing every soul in the Foregate will
swear is false, for he gives just measure and always has, if he does nothing
else justly in his life. If he’d been charged with fathering one or two of the
recent bastards in these parts, he’d have had good cause to sing very low. But
he bakes good bread, and never cheats on the weight. And how the priest came by
this error is a mystery, but Jordan wants blood for it, and he has a fluent
mouth on him that might well speak up usefully for others less bold.”

So it was that the provost of the Foregate, backed by
Jordan the baker and one or two more of the notables of the parish, came to ask
audience of Abbot Radulfus in chapter on the eighteenth day of December.

“I have asked you here into private with me,” said the
abbot, when they had withdrawn at his request into the parlour in his lodging,
“so that the daily duties of the brothers may not be disrupted. For I see that
you have much to discuss, and I would like you to speak freely.

Now we have time enough. Master Provost, you have my
attention. I desire the prosperity and happiness of the Foregate, as you do.”

His very use of the courtesy title, to which Erwald
had no official right, was meant as an invitation, and as such accepted.

“Father Abbot,” began Erwald earnestly, “we are come
to you thus because we are not altogether easy at the rule of our new priest.
Father Ailnoth has his duties in the church, and performs them faithfully, and
there we have no complaint of him. But where he moves among us in the parish we
are not happy with his dealings. He has called into question whether Aelgar,
who works for him, is villein or free, and has not asked of us, who know very
well he is a free man. He has also caused Aelgar to plough up a part of the
headland of his neighbour Eadwin, without Eadwin’s knowledge or leave. He has
accused Master Jordan, here, of giving short weight, while all of us here know
that is false. Jordan is known for good bread and good measure.”