“Be easy,” said Cadfael placidly. “It’s but an empty threat. She knows as well as any that the law is slow and costs dear, at the best of times, and this is none of the best, with the king far away and busy with more urgent matters, and half his kingdom cut off from any manner of justice at all. No, she hoped to make the lord abbot think again and yield ground for fear of long vexation. She had the wrong man. He knows she has no intention of going to law. Far more likely to take law into her own hands and try to steal the boy away. It would take slow law or swift action to snatch him back again, once she had him, and force is further out of the abbot’s reach than it is out of hers.”
“It is to be hoped,” said Brother Edmund, aghast at the suggestion, “that she has not yet used up all her persuasions, if the last resort is to be violence.” No one could quite determine exactly how young Richard came to know every twist and turn of the contention over his future. He could not have overheard anything of what went on at chapter, nor were the novices present at the daily gatherings, and there was none among the brothers likely to gossip about the matter to the child at the centre of the conflict. Yet it was clear that Richard did know all that went on, and took perverse pleasure in it. Mischief made life more interesting, and here within the enclave he felt quite safe from any real danger, while he could enjoy being fought over. “He watches the comings and goings from Eaton,” said Brother Paul, confiding his mild anxiety to Cadfael in the peace of the herb garden, “and is sharp enough to be very well aware what they mean. And he understood all too well what went on at his father’s funeral. I could wish him less acute, for his own sake.”
“As well he should have his wits about him,” said Cadfael comfortably. “It’s the knowing innocents that avoid the snares. And the lady’s made no move now for ten days. Maybe she’s grown resigned, and given up the struggle.” But he was by no means convinced of that. Dame Dionisia was not used to being thwarted. “It may be so,” agreed Paul hopefully, “for I hear she’s taken in some reverend pilgrim, and refurbished the old hermitage in her woodland for his use. She wants his prayers daily for her son’s soul. Edmund was telling us about it when he brought our allowance of venison. We saw the man, Cadfael, at the funeral. He was there with the two brothers from Buildwas. He’d been lodged with them a week, they give him a very saintly report.”
Cadfael straightened up with a grunt from his bed of mint, grown wiry and thin of leaf now in late October. “The fellow who wore the scallop shell? And the medal of Saint James? Yes, I remember noticing him. So he’s settling among us, is he? And chooses a cell and a little square of garden in the woods rather than a grey habit at Buildwas! I never was drawn to the solitary life myself, but I’ve known those who can think and pray the better that way. It’s a long time since that cell was lived in.”
He knew the place, though he seldom passed that way, the abbey’s forester having excellent health, and very little need of herbal remedies. The hermitage, disused now for many years, lay in a thickly wooded dell, a stone-built hut with a square of ground once fenced and cultivated, now overgrown and wild. Here the belt of forest embraced both Eaton ground and the abbey’s woodland of Eyton, and the hermitage occupied a spot where the Ludel border jutted into neighbour territory, close to the forester’s cherished coppice. “He’ll be quiet enough there,” said Cadfael, “if he means to stay. By what name are we to know him?”
“They call him Cuthred. A neighbour saint is a fine thing to have, and it seems they’re already beginning to bring their troubles to him to sort. It may be,” ventured Brother Paul optimistically, “that it’s he who has tamed the lady. He must have a strong influence over her, or she’d never have entreated him to stay. And there’s been no move from her these ten days. It may be we’re all in his debt.”
And indeed, as the soft October days slid away tranquilly one after another, in dim, misty dawns, noondays bright but veiled, and moist green twilights magically still, it seemed that there was to be no further combat over young Richard, that Dame Dionisia had thought better of the threat of law, and resigned herself to submission. She even sent, by her parish priest, a gift of money to pay for Masses in the Lady Chapel for her son’s soul, a gesture which could only be interpreted as a move towards reconciliation. So, at least, Brother Francis, the new custodian of Saint Mary’s altar, considered it. “Father Andrew tells me,” he reported after the visitor had departed, “that since the Savigniac brothers from Buildwas brought this Cuthred into her house she sets great store by his counsel, and rules herself by his advice and example. The man has won a great report for holiness already. They say he’s taken strict vows in the old way, and never leaves his cell and garden now. But he never refuses help or prayers to any who ask. Father Andrew thinks very highly of him. The anchorite way is not our way,” said Brother Francis with great earnestness, “but it’s no bad thing to have such a holy man living so close, on a neighbouring manor. It cannot but bring a blessing.” So thought all the countryside, for the possession of so devout a hermit brought great lustre to the manor of Eaton, and the one criticism that ever came to Cadfael’s ears concerning Cuthred was that he was too modest, and at first deprecated, and later forbade, the too lavish sounding of his praises abroad. No matter what minor prodigy he brought about, averting by his prayers a threatened cattle murrain, after one of Dionisia’s herd sickened, sending out his boy to give warning of a coming storm, which by favour of his intercessions passed off without damage, whatever the act of grace, he would not allow any of the merit for it to be ascribed to him, and grew stern and awesomely angry if the attempt was made, threatening the wrath of God on any who disobeyed his ban. Within a month of his coming his discipline counted for more in the manor of Eaton than did either Dionisia’s or Father Andrew’s, and his fame, banned from being spread openly, went about by neighbourly whispers, like a prized secret to be exulted in privately but hidden from the world.
Chapter Three
EILMUND, THE FORESTER OF EYTON, came now and then to chapter at the abbey to report on work done, or on any difficulties he might have encountered, and extra help he might need. It was not often he had anything but placid progress to report, but in the second week of November he came one morning with a puzzled frown fixed on his brow, and a glum face. It seemed that a curious blight of misfortune had settled upon his woodland.
Eilmund was a thickset, dark, shaggy man past forty, very powerful of body, and sharp enough of mind. He stood squarely in the midst at chapter, solidly braced on his sturdy legs like a wrestler confronting his opponent, and made few words of what he had to tell.
“My lord abbot, there are things happening in my charge that I cannot fathom. A week ago, in that great rainstorm we had, the brook that runs between our coppice and the open forest washed down some loose bushes, and built up such a dam that it overflowed and changed its course, and flooded my newest planting. And no sooner had I cleared the block than I found the flood-water had undercut part of the bank of my ditch, a small way upstream, and the fall of soil had bridged the ditch. By the time I found it the deer had got into the coppice. They’ve eaten off all the young growth from the plot we cropped two years ago. I doubt some of the trees may die, and all will be held back a couple more years at least before they get their growth. It spoils my planning,” complained Eilmund, outraged for the ruin of his cycle of culling, “besides the present loss.”