The Raven in the Foregate (6 page)

“That is truth,” said Jordan emphatically. “I rent my
bakery ovens from the abbey, it is on your land I work, you have known me for
years, that I take pride in my bread.”

“You have that right,” agreed Radulfus, “it is good
bread. Go on, Master Provost, there is more to tell.”

“My lord, there is,” said Erwald, very gravely now.
“You may have heard with what strict dealing Father Ailnoth keeps his school.
The same severity he uses towards the boys of the parish, wherever he sees them
gathered, if they put a foot aside—and you know that the young are liable to
folly. He is too free with his blows, he has done violence where it was not
called for, not by our measure. The children are afraid of him. That is not
good, though not everyone has patience with children. But the women are
frightened, too. He preaches such dire things, they are afraid of hell.”

“There is no need to fear,” said the abbot, “unless by
reason of a consciousness of sin. I do not think we have here in the parish
such great sinners.”

“No, my lord, but women are tender and easily
frightened. They look within for sins they may have committed, unknowing. They
are no longer sure what is sin and what is not, so they dare not breathe
without wondering if they do wrong. But there is more still.”

“I am listening,” said the abbot.

“My lord, there’s a decent poor man of this parish,
Centwin, whose wife Elen bore a very weakly child, a boy, four days ago. It was
about Sext when the baby was born, and it was so small and feeble, they were
sure it must die, and Centwin ran quickly to the priest’s house, and begged him
to come and baptise the boy before he died, that his soul might be saved. And
Father Ailnoth sent out word that he was at his devotions, and could not come
until he had completed the office. Centwin begged him, but he would not
interrupt his prayers. And when he did go, Father, the baby was dead.”

The small, chill silence seemed to bring down a
looming darkness on the panelled room.

“Father, he would not give the child Christian burial,
because it was not baptised. He said it could not come within the hallowed
ground, though he would say what prayers he could at its burial—which was in a
grave outside the pale. The place I can show.”

Abbot Radulfus said with infinite heaviness: “He was
within his rights.”

“His rights! What of the child’s rights? It might have
been christen soul if he had come when he was called for.”

“He was within his rights,” said Radulfus again,
inexorably but with deep detestation. “The office is sacrosanct.”

“So is the newborn soul,” said Erwald, remorselessly
eloquent.

“You say well. And God hears us both. There can and
shall be dispensation. If you have more to tell, go on, tell me all.”

“My lord, there was a girl of this parish—Eluned—very
beautiful. Not like other girls, wild as a hare. Everyone knew her. God knows
she never harmed a soul but herself, the creature! My lord, she could not say
no to men. Time and again she went with this one or that, but always she came back,
as wild returning as going, in tears, and made her confession, and swore
amendment. And meant it! But she never could keep it, a lad would look at her
and sigh… Father Adam always took her back, confessed her, gave her penance,
and afterwards absolution. He knew she could not help it. And she as kind a
creature to man or child or beast as ever breathed—too kind!”

The abbot sat still and silent, foreseeing what was to
come.

“Last month she bore a child. When she was delivered
and recovered she came, as she always came, mad with shame, to make her
confession. He refused her countenance. He told her she had broken every
promise of amendment, and so she had, but still… He would not give her penance,
because he would not take her word, and so he refused her absolution. And when
she came humbly to enter the church and hear Mass, he turned her away, and shut
the door against her. Publicly and loudly he did it, in front of all.”

There was a long and deep silence before the abbot
asked, perforce: “What became of her?” For clearly she was already in the past,
an outcast shade.

“They took her out of the mill-pond, my lord. By good
fortune she had drifted down to the brook, and those who drew her out were from
the town, and did not know her, so they took her with them back to their own
parish, and the priest of Saint Chad’s has buried her. It was not clear how she
came to drown, it was taken for accident.”

Though of course everyone knew it was none. That was
clear in look and voice. Despair is deadly sin. Then what of the record of
those who deal out despair?

“Leave all this in my hands,” said Abbot Radulfus. “I
will speak to Father Ailnoth.”

There was no trace of guilt, trepidation or want of
assurance in the long, austere, handsome face that confronted Abbot Radulfus
across the desk in his parlour, after Mass.

The man stood quite erect and still, with hands folded
at ease and face invincibly calm.

“Father Abbot, if I may speak freely, the souls of my
cure had been long neglected, to their own ruin. The garden is full of weeds,
they starve and strangle the good grain. I am pledged to do whatever is needed
to bring a clean crop, and so I must and will endeavour. I can do no other. The
child spared will be the man spoiled. As for the matter of Eadwin’s headland,
it has been shown me that I have removed his boundary stone. That was in error,
and the error has been made good. I have replaced the stone and drawn my own
bounds short of it. I would not possess myself of one hand’s breadth of land
that belonged to another man.”

And that was surely truth. Not a hand’s breadth of
land nor a penny in money. Nor let go of one or the other that belonged to him.
The bare razor of justice was his measure.

“I am less concerned for a yard of headland,” said the
abbot drily,”than for matters that touch a man’s being even more nearly. Your
man Aelgar was born free, is free man now, and so are his uncle and cousin, and
if they take steps to assert it there will be no man query it hereafter. They
assumed such customary duties as they do by way of payment for a piece of land,
there is no disfranchisement, no more than when a man pays in money.”

“So I have found by enquiry,” said Ailnoth
imperturbably, “and have said as much to him.”

“Then that was properly done. But it would have been
better to enquire first and accuse afterwards.”

“My lord, no just man should resent the appeal to
justice. I am new among these people, I heard of the kinsmen’s land, that it
was held by villein service. It was my duty to find out the truth, and it was
honest to speak first to the man himself.”

Which was true enough, if not kindly, and it seemed he
had acknowledged the truth against himself, once established, with the same
steely integrity. But what is to be done with such a man, among the common,
fallible run of humanity? Radulfus went on to graver matters.

“The child that was born to the man Centwin and his
wife, and lived barely an hour… The man came to you, urging haste, since the
baby was very feeble and likely to die. You did not go with him to give it
Christian baptism, and since your ministration came too late, as I hear, you
denied the infant burial in consecrated ground. Why did you not go at once when
you were called, and with all haste?”

“Because I had but just begun the office. My lord, I
never have broken off my devotions according to my vows, and never will, for
any cause, though it were my own death. Until I had completed the act of
worship I could not go. As soon as it was ended, I did go. I could not know the
child would die so soon. But if I had known, still I could not have cut short
the worship I owe.”

“There are other obligations you owe no less,” said
Radulfus with some asperity. “There are times when it is needful to make a
choice between duties, and yours, I think, is first to the souls of those within
your care. You chose rather the perfection of your own personal worship, and
consigned the child to a grave outside the pale. Was that well done?”

“My lord,” said Ailnoth, unflinching, and with the
high and smouldering gleam of self-justification in his black eyes, “as I hold,
it was. I will not go aside from the least iota of my service where the sacred
office is concerned. My own soul and all others must bow to that.”

“Even the soul of the most innocent, new come into the
world, the most defenceless of God’s creatures?”

“My lord, you know well that the letter of divine law
does not permit the burial of unchristened creatures within the pale. I keep
the rules by which I am bound. I can do no other. God will know where to find
Centwin’s babe, if his mercy extends to him, in holy ground or base.”

After its merciless fashion it was a good answer. The
abbot pondered, eyeing the stony, assured face.

“The letter of the rule is much, I grant you, but the
spirit is more. And you might well have jeopardised your own soul to ensure
that of a newborn child. An office interrupted can be completed without sin, if
the cause be urgent enough. And there is also the matter of the girl Eluned,
who went to her death after—I say after, mark, I do not say because!—you turned
her away from the church. It is a grave thing to refuse confession and penance
even to the greatest sinner.”

“Father Abbot,” said Ailnoth, with the first hot spurt
of passion, immovable in righteousness, “where there is no penitence there can
be neither penance nor absolution. The woman had pleaded penitence and vowed
amendment time after time, and never kept her word. I have heard from others
all her reputation, and it is past amendment. I could not in conscience confess
her, for I could not take her word. If there is no truth in the act of
contrition, there is no merit in confession, and to absolve her would have been
deadly sin. A whore past recovery! I do not repent me, whether she died or no.
I would do again what I did. There is no compromise with the pledges by which I
am bound.”

“There will be no compromise with the answer you must
make for two deaths,” said Radulfus solemnly, “if God should take a view
different from yours. I bid you recall, Father Ailnoth, that you are summoned
to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance, the weak, the fallible,
those who go in fear and ignorance, and have not your pure advantage. Temper
your demands to their abilities, and be less severe on those who cannot match
your perfection.” He paused there, for it was meant as irony, to bite, but the
proud, impervious face never winced, accepting the accolade. “And be slow to
lay your hand upon the children,” he said, “unless they offend of malicious
intent. To error we are all liable, even you.”

“I study to do right,” said Ailnoth, “as I have
always, and always shall.” And he went away with the same confident step,
vehement and firm, the skirts of his gown billowing like wings in the wind of
his going.

“A man abstemious, rigidly upright, inflexibly honest,
ferociously chaste,” said Radulfus in private to Prior Robert. “A man with
every virtue, except humility and human kindness. That is what I have brought
upon the Foregate, Robert. And now what are we to do about him?”

Dame Diota Hammet came on the twenty-second day of
December to the gatehouse of the abbey with a covered basket, and asked meekly
for her nephew Benet, for whom she had brought a cake for his Christmas, and a
few honey buns from her festival baking. The porter, knowing her for the parish
priest’s housekeeper, directed her through to the garden, where Benet was busy
clipping the last straggly growth from the box hedges.

Hearing their voices, Cadfael looked out from his
workshop, and divining who this matronly woman must be, was about to return to
his mortar when he was caught by some delicate shade in their greeting. A
matter-of-fact affection, easy-going and undemonstrative, was natural between
aunt and nephew, and what he beheld here hardly went beyond that, but for all
that there was a gloss of tenderness and almost deference in the woman’s
bearing towards her young kinsman, and an unexpected, childish grace in the
warmth with which he embraced her. True, he was already known for a young man
who did nothing by halves, but here were certainly aunt and nephew who did not
take each other for granted.

Cadfael withdrew to his work again and left them their
privacy. A comely, well-kept woman was Mistress Hammet, with decent black
clothing befitting a priest’s housekeeper, and a dark shawl over her neat,
greying hair. Her oval face, mildly sad in repose, brightened vividly in
greeting the boy, and then she looked no more than forty years old, and
perhaps, indeed, she was no more. Benet’s mother’s sister? wondered Cadfael. If
so, he took after his father, for there was very little resemblance here. Well,
it was none of his business!

Benet came bounding into the workshop to empty the
basket of its good things, spreading them out on the wooden bench. “We’re in
luck, Brother Cadfael, for she’s as good a cook as you’d find in the King’s own
kitchen. You and I can eat like princes.”

And he was off again as blithely to restore the empty
basket. Cadfael looked out after him through the open door, and saw him hand
over, besides the basket, some small thing he drew from the breast of his
cotte. She took it, nodding earnestly, unsmiling, and the boy stooped and
kissed her cheek. She smiled then. He had a way with him, no question. She
turned and went away, and left him looking after her for a long moment, before
he also turned, and came back to the workshop. The engaging grin came back
readily to his face.