“No one should take to the cloistered life as a second-best, and that is what you would be doing. It must be embraced out of genuine desire, or not at all. It is not enough to wish to escape from the world without, you must be on fire for the world within.”
“Was it so with you?” she asked, and suddenly she smiled, and her austere face kindled into warmth for a moment.
He considered that in silence for a brief, cautious while. “I came late to it, and it may be that my fire burned somewhat dully,” he said honestly at length, “but it gave light enough to show me the road to what I wanted. I was running towards, not away.”
She looked him full in the face with her daunting, direct eyes, and said with abrupt, bleak deliberation: “Have you never thought, Brother Cadfael, that a woman may have more cause to run away than ever you had? More perils to run from, and fewer alternatives than flight?”
“That is truth,” admitted Cadfael, stirring vigorously. “But you, as I know, are better placed than many to hold your own, as well as having more courage than a good many of us men. You are your own mistress, your kin depend on you, and not you on them. There is no overlord to claim the right to order your future, no one can force you into another marriage - yes, I have heard there are many would be only too pleased if they could, but they have no power over you. No father living, no elder kinsman to influence you. No matter how men may pester you or affairs weary you, you know you are more than equal to them. And as for what you have lost,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation as to whether he should tread so near, “it is lost only to this world. Waiting is not easy, but no harder, believe me, among the vexations and distractions of the world than in the solitude and silence of the cloister. I have seen men make that mistake, for as reasonable cause, and suffer all the more with the double deprivation. Do not you take that risk. Never unless you are sure of what you want, and want it with all your heart and soul.”
It was as much as he dared say, as much as and perhaps more than he had any right to say. She heard him out without turning her eyes away. He felt their clear stare heavy upon him all the time he was smoothing his ointment into its jar for her, and tying down the lid of the pot for safe carriage.
“Sister Magdalen, from the Benedictine cell at Godric’s Ford,” he said, “is coming to Shrewsbury in two days’ time, to fetch away Brother Edmund’s niece, who wants to join the sisterhood there. As for the girl’s motives, I know nothing of them, but if Sister Magdalen is accepting her as a novice it must be from conviction, and moreover, the child will be carefully watched, and get no further than her novitiate unless Magdalen is satisfied of her vocation. Will you speak with her about this? I think you already know something of her.”
“I do.” Judith’s voice was soft, and yet there was a shade of quiet amusement in the tone. “Her own motives, I think, when she entered Godric’s Ford, were scarcely what you are demanding.”
That was something he could not well deny. Sister Magdalen had formerly been, for many years, the constant mistress of a certain nobleman, and on his death had looked about her with single-minded resolution for another field in which to employ her undoubted talents. No question but the choice of the cloister had been coolly and practically made. What redeemed it was the vigour and loyalty she had devoted to it since the day of her entry, and would maintain, without question, until the day of her death.
“In no way that I know of,” admitted Cadfael, “is Sister Magdalen anything but unique. You are right, she entered the cell seeking not a vocation, but a career, and a career she is making, and a notable one, too. Mother Mariana is old and bedridden now; the weight of the cell falls all on Magdalen, and I know no shoulders better fitted to carry it. And I do not think she would say to you, as I said, that there is but one good reason for taking the veil, true longing for the life of the spirit. The more reason you could and should listen to her advice and weigh it carefully, before you take so grave a step. And bear in mind, you are young, she had said goodbye to her prime.”
“And I have buried mine,” said Judith very firmly, and as one stating truth, without self-pity.
“Well, if it comes to second-bests,” said Cadfael, “they can be found outside the cloister as well as within. Managing the business your fathers built up, providing employment for so many people, is itself a sufficient justification for a life, for want of better.”
“It does not put me to any great test,” she said indifferently. “Ah, well, I said only that I had been thinking of quitting the world. Nothing is done, as yet. And whether or no, I shall be glad to talk with Sister Magdalen, for I do value her wit, and know better than to discard unconsidered whatever she may say. Let me know when she comes, and I will send and bid her to my house, or go to her wherever she is lodged.”
She rose to take the jar of ointment from him. Standing, she was the breadth of two fingers taller than he, but thin and slender-boned. The coils of her hair would have seemed over-heavy if she had not carried her head so nobly.
“Your roses are budding well,” she said, as he went out with her along the gravel path from the workshop. “However late they come, they always bloom equally in the end.”
It could have been a metaphor for the quality of a life, he thought, as they had been discussing it. But he did not say so. Better leave her to the shrewd and penetrating wisdom of Sister Magdalen. “And yours?” he said. “There’ll be a choice of blooms when Saint Winifred’s feast comes round. You should have the best and freshest for your fee.”
The most fleeting of smiles crossed her face, and left her sombre again, her eyes on the path. “Yes,” she said, and nothing more, though it seemed there should have been more. Was it possible that she had noted and been troubled by the same trouble that haunted Eluric? Three times he had carried the rose rent to her, a matter of how long in her presence? Two minutes annually? Three, perhaps? But no man’s shadow clouded Judith Perle’s eyes, no living man’s. She might, none the less, have become somehow aware, thought Cadfael, not of a young man’s physical entrance into her house and presence, but of the nearness of pain.
“I’m going there now,” she said, stirring out of her preoccupation. “I’ve lost the buckle of a good girdle, I should like to have a new one made, to match the rosettes that decorate the leather, and the end-tag. Enamel inlay on the bronze. It was a present Edred once made to me. Niall Bronzesmith will be able to copy the design. He’s a fine craftsman. I’m glad the abbey has such a good tenant for the house.”
“A decent, quiet man,” agreed Cadfael, “and keeps the garden well tended. You’ll find your rose-bush in very good heart.”
To that she made no reply, only thanked him simply for his services as they entered the great court together, and there separated, she to continue along the Foregate to the large house beyond the abbey forge, where she had spent the few years of her married life, he to the lavatorium to wash his hands before dinner. But he turned at the corner of the cloister to look after her, and watched until she passed through the arch of the gatehouse and vanished from his sight. She had a walk that might be very becoming in an abbess, but to his mind it looked just as well on the capable heiress of the chief clothier in the town. He went on to the refectory convinced that he was right in dissuading her from the conventual life. If she looked upon it as a refuge now, the time might come when it would seem to her a prison, and none the less constricting because she would have entered it willingly.
Chapter Two
The house in the Foregate stood well along towards the grassy triangle of the horse-fair ground, where the high road turned the corner of the abbey wall. A lower wall on the opposite side of the road closed in the yard where Niall the bronzesmith had his shop and workshop, and beyond lay the substantial and well-built house with its large garden, and a small field of grazing land behind. Niall did a good trade in everything from brooches and buttons, small weights and pins, to metal cooking pots, ewers and dishes, and paid the abbey a suitable rent for his premises. He had even worked occasionally with others of his trade in the founding of bells, but that was a very rare commission, and demanded travel to the site itself, rather than having to transport the heavy bells after casting.