A Rare Benedictine (9 page)

But
William Rede was not going to be done out of his grievance so easily. “Oh, no
fault of yours,” he owned grudgingly, “but very ill luck for me, as if I had
not enough on my hands in any event, with the rent-roll grown so long, and the
burden of scribe’s work for ever lengthening, as it does. And I have troubles
of my own nearer home, into the bargain, with that rogue son of mine nothing
but brawler and gamester as he is. If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a score
of times, the next time he comes to me to pay his debts or buy him out of
trouble, he’ll come in vain, he may sweat it out in gaol, and serve him right.
A man would think he could get a little peace and comfort from his own flesh
and blood. All I get is vexation.”

Once
launched upon this tune, he was liable to continue the song indefinitely, and
Brother Ambrose was already looking apologetic and abject, as though not
William, but he, had engendered the unsatisfactory son. Cadfael could not
recall that he had ever spoken with young Rede, beyond exchanging the time of
day, and knew enough about fathers and sons, and the expectations each had of
the other, to take all such complaints with wary reserve. Report certainly said
the young man was a wild one, but at twenty-two which of the town hopefuls was
not? By thirty they were most of them working hard, and minding their own
purses, homes and wives. “Your lad will mend, like many another,” said Cadfael
comfortably, edging the voluble visitor out from the infirmary into the
sunshine of the great court. Before them on their left the great west tower of
the church loomed; on their right, the long block of the guest-halls, and
beyond, the crowns of the garden trees just bursting into leaf and bud, with a
moist, pearly light filming over stonework and cobbles and all with a soft
Spring sheen. “And as for the rents, you know very well, old humbug, that you
have your finger on every line of the leiger book, and tomorrow’s affair will
go like a morning walk. At any rate, you can’t complain of your prentice hand.
He’s worked hard enough over those books of yours.”

“Jacob
has certainly shown application,” the steward agreed cautiously. “I own I’ve
been surprised at the grasp he has of abbey affairs, in so short a time. Young
people nowadays take so little interest in what they’re set to do fly-by-nights
and frivolous, most of them. It’s been heartening to see one of them work with
such zeal. I daresay he knows the value due from every property of the house by
this time. Yes, a good boy. But too ingenuous, Cadfael, there’s his flaw too
affable. Figures and characters on vellum cannot baffle him, but a rogue with a
friendly tongue might come over him. He cannot stand men off he cannot put
frost between. It’s not well to be too open with all men.”

It
was mid-afternoon; in an hour or so it would be time for Vespers. The great
court had always some steady flow of activity, but at this hour it was at its
quietest. They crossed the court together at leisure, Brother Cadfael to return
to his workshop in the herb garden, the steward to the north walk of the
cloister, where his assistant was hard at work in the scriptorium. But before
they had reached the spot where their paths would divide, two young men emerged
from the cloister in easy conversation, and came towards them.

Jacob
of Bouldon was a sturdy, square-set young fellow from the south of the shire,
with a round, amiable face, large, candid eyes, and a ready smile. He came with
a vellum leaf doubled in one hand, and a pen behind his ear, in every
particular the eager, hard-working clerk. A little too open to any man’s
approaches, perhaps, as his master had said. The lanky, narrow-headed fellow
attentive at his side had a very different look about him, weather-beaten,
sharp-eyed and drab in hard-wearing dark clothes, with a leather jerkin to bear
the rubbing of a heavy pack. The back of the left shoulder was scrubbed pallid
and dull from much carrying, and his hat was wide and drooping of brim, to shed
off rain. A travelling haberdasher with a few days’ business in Shrewsbury, no
novelty in the commoners’ guest-hall of the abbey. His like were always on the
roads, somewhere about the shire.

The
pedlar louted to Master William with obsequious respect, said his goodday, and
made off to his lodging. Early to be home for the night, surely, but perhaps he
had done good business and come back to replenish his stock. A wise tradesman
kept something in reserve, when he had a safe store to hand, rather than carry
his all on every foray.

Master
William looked after him with no great favour. “What had that fellow to do thus
with you, boy?” he questioned suspiciously. “He’s a deal too curious, with that
long nose of his. I’ve seen him making up to any of the household he can back
into a corner. What was he after in the scriptorium?”

Jacob
opened his wide eyes even wider. “Oh, he’s an honest fellow enough, sir, I’m
sure. Though he does like to probe into everything, I grant you, and asks a lot
of questions...”

“Then
you give him no answers,” said the steward firmly.

“I
don’t, nothing but general talk that leaves him no wiser. Though I think he’s
but naturally inquisitive and no harm meant. He likes to curry favour with everyone,
but that’s by way of his trade. A rough-tongued pedlar would not sell many
tapes and laces,” said the young man blithely, and flourished the leaf of
vellum he carried. “I was coming to ask you about this carucate of land in
Recordine there’s an erasure in the leiger book, I looked up the copy to
compare. You’ll remember, sir, it was disputed land for a while, the heir tried
to recover it...”

“I
do recall. Come, I’ll show you the original copy. But have as little to say to
these travelling folk as you can with civility,” Master William adjured
earnestly. “There are rogues on the roads as well as honest tradesmen. There,
you go before, I’ll follow you.”

He
looked after the jaunty figure as it departed smartly, back to the scriptorium.
“As I said, Cadfael, too easily pleased with every man. It’s not wise to look
always for the best in men. But for all that,” he added, reverting morosely to
his private grievance, “I wish that scamp of mine was more like him. In debt
already for some gambling folly, and he has to get himself picked up by the
sergeants for a street brawl, and fined, and cannot pay the fine. And to keep
my own name in respect, he’s confident I shall have to buy him clear. I must
see to it tomorrow, one way or the other, when I’ve finished my rounds in the
town, for he has but three days left to pay. If it weren’t for his mother...
Even so, even so, this time I ought to let him stew.”

He
departed after his clerk, shaking his head bitterly over his troubles. And
Cadfael went off to see what feats of idiocy or genius Brother Oswin had
wrought in the herb garden in his absence.

In
the morning, when the brothers came out from Prime, Brother Cadfael saw the
steward departing to begin his round, the deep leather satchel secured to his
locked belt, and swinging by two stout straps. By evening it would be heavy
with the annual wealth of the city rents, and those from the northern suburbs
outside the walls. Jacob was there to see him go, listening dutifully to his
last emphatic instructions, and sighing as he was left behind to complete the
bookwork. Warm Harefoot, the packman, was off early, too, to ply his trade
among the housewives either of the town or the parish of the Foregate. A
pliable fellow, full of professional bows and smiles, but by the look of him
all his efforts brought him no better than a meagre living.

So
there went Jacob, back to his pen and inkhorn in the cloisters, and forth to
his important business went Master William. And who knows, thought Cadfael,
which is in the right, the young man who sees the best in all, and trusts all,
or the old one who suspects all until he has probed them through and through?
The one may stumble into a snare now and then, but at least enjoy sunshine
along the way, between falls. The other may never miss his footing, but seldom
experience joy. Better find a way somewhere between!

It
was a curious chance that seated him next to Brother Eutropius at breakfast,
for what did anyone know about Brother Eutropius? He had come to the abbey of
Saint Peter and Saint Paul of Shrewsbury only two months ago, from a minor
grange of the order. But in two months of Brother Oswin, say, that young man
would have been an open book to every reader, whereas Eutropius contained
himself as tightly as did his skin, and gave out much less in the way of
information. A taciturn man, thirty or so at a guess, who kept himself apart
and looked solitary discontent at everything that crossed his path, but never
complained. It might be merely newness and shyness, in one naturally
uncommunicative, or it might be a gnawing inward anger against his lot and all
the world. Rumour said, a man frustrated in love, and finding no relief in his
resort to the cowl. But rumour was using its imagination, for want of fuel more
reliable.

Eutropius
also worked under Brother Matthew, the cellarer, and was intelligent and
literate, but not a good or a quick scribe. Perhaps, when Brother Ambrose fell
ill, he would have liked to be trusted to take over his books. Perhaps he
resented the lay clerk being preferred before him. Perhaps! With Eutropius
everything, thus far, was conjecture. Some day someone would pierce that
carapace of his, with an unguarded word or a sudden irresistible motion of
grace, and the mystery would no longer be a mystery, or the stranger a stranger.

Brother
Cadfael knew better than to be in a hurry, where souls were concerned. There
was plenty of elbow-room in eternity.

In
the afternoon, returning to the grange court to collect some seed he had left
stored in the loft, Cadfael encountered Jacob, his scribing done for the
moment, setting forth importantly with his own leather satchel into the
Foregate, “So he’s left you a parcel to clear for him,” said Cadfael.

“I
would gladly have done more,” said Jacob, mildly aggrieved and on his dignity.
He looked less than his twenty-five years, well-grown as he was, with that
cherubic face. “But he says I’m sure to be slow, not knowing the rounds or the
tenants, so he’s let me take only the outlying lanes here in the Foregate,
where I can take my time. I daresay he’s right, it will take me longer than I
think. I ‘m sorry to see him so worried about his son,” he said, shaking his
head. “He has to see to this business with the law, he told me not to worry if
he was late returning today. I hope all goes well,” said the loyal subordinate,
and set forth sturdily to do his own duty towards his master, however beset he
might be by other cares.

Cadfael
took his seed back to the garden, put in an hour or so of contented work there,
washed his hands, and went to check on the progress of Brother Ambrose, who was
just able to croak in his ear, more audibly than yesterday: “I could rise and
help poor William such a day for him...!

He
was halted there by a large, rough palm. “Lie quiet,” said Cadfael, “like a
wise man. Let them see how well they can fend without you, and they’ll value
you the better hereafter. And about time, too!” And he fed his captive bird
again, and returned to his labours in the garden.

At
Vespers, Brother Eutropius came late and in haste, and took his place breathing
rapidly, but as impenetrable as ever. And when they emerged to go to supper in
the refectory, Jacob of Bouldon was just coming in at the gatehouse with his
leather satchel of rents jealously guarded by one hand and looking round
hopefully for his master, who had not yet returned. Nor had he some twenty
minutes later, when supper was over; but in the gathering dusk Warin Harefoot
trudged wearily across the court to the guest-hall, and the pack on his
shoulder looked hardly lighter than when he had gone out in the morning.

Madog
of the Dead-Boat, in addition to his primary means of livelihood, which was
salvaging dead bodies from the River Severn at any season, had a number of
seasonal occupations that afforded him sport as well as a living. Of these the
one he enjoyed most was fishing, and of all the fishing seasons the one he
liked best was the early Spring run up-river of the mature salmon, fine,
energetic young males which had arrived early in the estuary, and would run and
leap like athletes many miles upstream before they spawned. Madog was expert at
taking them, and had had one out of the water this same day, before he paddled
his coracle into the thick bushes under the castle’s water-gate, a narrow lane
running down from the town, and dropped a lesser line into the river to pick up
whatever else offered. Here he was in good, leafy cover, and could stake
himself into the bank and lie back to drowse until his line jerked him awake.
From above, whether castle ramparts, town wall or upper window, he could not be
seen.

It
was beginning to grow dusk when he was startled wide awake by the hollow splash
of something heavy plunging into the water, just upstream. Alert in a moment,
he shoved off a yard or so from shore to look that way, but saw nothing to
account for the sound, until an eddy in midstream showed him a dun-coloured
sleeve breaking surface, and then the oval pallor of a face rising and sinking
again from sight. A man’s body turned slowly in the current as it sailed past.
Madog was out after it instantly, his paddle plying. Getting a body from river
into a coracle is a tricky business, but he had practised it so long that he
had it perfect, balance and heft and all, from his first grasp on the billowing
sleeve to the moment when the little boat bobbed like a cork and spun like a
drifting leaf, with the drowned man in-board and streaming water. They were
halfway across the river by that time, and there were half a dozen lay brothers
just leaving their work in the vegetable gardens along the Gaye, on the other
side, the nearest help in view. Madog made for their shore, and sent a halloo
ahead of him to halt their departure and bring them running.