“ ‘On no account’,” quoted Cadfael, straight-faced, “ ‘may a monk accept small presents of any kind, from his parents or anyone else, without the abbot’s permission’. That, sweet son, is in the Rule.”
“Lucky you, then, and lucky I,” said the boy gaily, “that I’ve taken no vows. She makes the best honey cakes ever I tasted.” And he sank even white teeth into one of them, and reached to offer another to Cadfael.
“ ‘… nor may the brethren exchange them, one with another,” said Cadfael, and accepted the offering. “Lucky, indeed! Though I transgress in accepting, you go sinless in offering. Have you quite abandoned your inclination to the cloistered life, then?”
“Me?” said the youth, startled out of his busy munching, and open-mouthed. “When did I ever profess any?”
“Not you, lad, but your sponsor on your account, when he asked work for you here.”
“Did he say that of me?”
“He did. Not positively promising it, mark you, but holding out the hope that you might settle to it one day. I grant you I’ve never seen much sign of it.”
Benet thought that over for a moment, while he finished his cake and licked the sticky crumbs from his fingers. “No doubt he was anxious to get rid of me, and thought it might make me more welcome here. My face was never in any great favour with him—too much given to smiling, maybe. No, not even you will pen me in here for very long, Cadfael. When the time comes I’ll be on my way. But while I’m here,” he said, breaking into the bountiful smile that might well strike an ascetic as far too frivolous, “I’ll do my fair share of the work.”
And he was off back to his box hedge, swinging the shears in one large, easy hand, and leaving Cadfael gazing after him with a very thoughtful face.
Chapter Four
DAME DIOTA HAMMET PRESENTED HERSELF later that afternoon at a house near Saint Chad’s church, and asked timidly for the lord Ralph Giffard. The servant who opened the door to her looked her up and down and hesitated, never having seen her before.
“What’s your business with him, mistress? Who sends you?”
“I’m to bring him this letter,” said Diota submissively, and held out a small rolled leaf fastened with a seal. “And to wait for an answer, if my lord will be so good.”
He was in two minds about taking it from her hand. It was a small and irregularly shaped slip of parchment, with good reason, since it was one of the discarded edges from a leaf Brother Anselm had trimmed to shape and size for a piece of music, two days since. But the seal argued matter of possible importance, even on so insignificant a missive. The servant was still hesitating when a girl came out into the porch at his back, and seeing a woman unknown but clearly respectable, stayed to enquire curiously what was to do. She accepted the scroll readily enough, and knew the seal. She looked up with startled, intent blue eyes into Diota’s face, and abruptly handed the scroll back to her.
“Come in, and deliver this yourself. I’ll bring you to my step-father.”
The master of the house was sitting by a comfortable fire in a small solar, with wine at his elbow and a deer-hound coiled about his feet. A big, ruddy, sinewy man of fifty, balding and bearded, very spruce in his dress and only just beginning to put on a little extra flesh after an active life, he looked what he was, the lord of two or three country manors and this town house, where he preferred to spend his Christmas in comfort. He looked up at Diota, when the girl presented her, with complete incomprehension, but he comprehended all too well when he looked at the seal that fastened the parchment. He asked no questions, but sent the girl for his clerk, and listened intently as the content was read to him, in so low a voice that it was plain the clerk understood how dangerous its import could be. He was a small, withered man, grown old in Giffard’s service, and utterly trustworthy. He made an end, and watched his master’s face anxiously.
“My lord, send nothing in writing! Word of mouth is safer, if you want to reply. Words said can be denied, to write them would be folly.”
Ralph sat pondering for a while in silence, and eyeing the unlikely messenger, who stood patiently and uneasily waiting.
“Tell him,” he said at last, “that I have received and understood his message.”
She hesitated, and ventured at last to ask: “Is that all, my lord?”
“It’s enough! The less said the better, for him and for me.”
The girl, who had remained unobtrusive but attentive in a corner of the room, followed Diota out to the shadow of the porch, with doors closed behind them.
“Mistress,” she said softly in Diota’s ear, “where is he to be found—this man who sent you?”
By the brief, blank silence and the doubtful face of the older woman she understood her fears, and made impatient haste to allay them, her voice low and vehement. “I mean him no harm, God knows! My father was of the same party—did you not see how well I knew the seal?”
“You can trust me, I won’t say word to any, nor to him, either, but I want to know how I may know him, where I may find him, in case of need.”
“At the abbey,” said Diota as softly and hurriedly, making up her mind. “He’s working in the garden, by the name of Benet, under the herbalist brother.”
“Oh, Brother Cadfael—I know him!” said the girl, breathing satisfaction. “He treated me once for a bad fever, when I was ten years old, and he came to help my mother, three Christmases ago, when she fell into her last illness. Good, I know where his herbarium is. Go now, quickly!”
She watched Diota scurry hastily out of the small courtyard, and then closed the door and went back to the solar, where Giffard was sitting sunk in anxious consideration, heavy-browed and sombre.
“Shall you go to this meeting?”
He had the letter still in his hand. Once already he had made an impulsive motion towards the fire, to thrust the parchment into it and be rid of it, but then had drawn back again, rolled it carefully and hid it in the breast of his cotte. She took that for a sign favourable to the sender, and was pleased. It was no surprise that he did not give her a direct answer. This was a serious business and needed thought, and in any case he never paid any great heed to his step-daughter, either to confide in her or to regulate her actions. He was indulgent rather out of tolerant indifference than out of affection.
“Say no word of this to anyone,” he said. “What have I to gain by keeping such an appointment? And everything to lose! Have not your family and mine lost enough already by loyalty to that cause? How if he should be followed to the mill?”
“Why should he be? No one has any suspicion of him. He’s accepted at the abbey as a labourer in the gardens, calling himself Benet. He’s vouched for. Christmas Eve, and by night, there’ll be no one abroad but those already in the church. Where’s the risk? It was a good time to choose. And he needs help.”
“Well…” said Ralph, and drummed his fingers irresolutely on the small cylinder in the breast of his cotte. “We have two days yet, we’ll watch and wait until the time comes.”
Benet was sweeping up the brushings from the hedge, and whistling merrily over the work, when he heard brisk, light steps stirring the moist gravel on the path behind him, and turned to behold a young woman in a dark cloak and hood advancing upon him from the great court. A small, slender girl of erect and confident bearing, the outline of her swathed form softened and blurred by the faint mist of a still day, and the hovering approach of dusk. Not until she was quite near to him and he had stepped deferentially aside to give her passage could he see clearly the rosy, youthful face within the shadow of the hood, a rounded face with apple-blossom skin, a resolute chin, and a mouth full and firm in its generosity of line, and coloured like half-open roses. Then what light remained gathered into the harebell blue of her wide-set eyes, at once soft and brilliant, and he lost sight of everything else. And though he had made way for her to pass him by, and ducked his head to her in a properly servant-like reverence, she did not pass by, but lingered, studying him closely and candidly, with the fearless, innocent stare of a cat. Indeed there was something of the kitten about the whole face, wider at the brow and eyes than its length from brow to chin, tapered and tilted imperiously, as a kitten confronts the world, never having experienced fear. She looked him up and down gravely, and took her time about it, in a solemn inspection that might have been insolent if it had not implied a very serious purpose. Though what interest some noble young woman of the county or well-to-do merchant daughter of the town could have in him was more than Benet could imagine.