The Raven in the Foregate bc-12

by Ellis Peters

  The women, for the most part, had been left at home. No doubt Jordan’s wife was looking after his bakery, raking out the ashes from the early morning firing, and making ready for the second batch, the loaves already shaped and waiting. Just as well for her to be at a safe distance from what was to come, though surely Hugh would not involve the poor soul, when she had only admitted her husband’s sleeping abroad in order to save him from this worse accusation. Well, that must be left to Hugh, and Hugh was usually adroit about his manipulations of people and events. But some of the women were here, the elders, the matrons, the widows of solid craftsmen, those who upheld the church even when others became backsliders. The stalwarts at all the least timely services, attending doggedly even at the monastic Vespers as well as the parish Mass, were mostly these sturdy she-elders in their decent black, like lay members of the community itself. They would not miss the ceremonies of this day.

  Cadfael was watching the arrivals with a half-attentive gaze and his mind elsewhere, when he saw Diota Hammet come in at the gate, with Sanan’s hand solicitous at her elbow. It came both as an anxious reminder and a pleasant refreshment to his eyes, two comely women thus linked in a carefully groomed and perhaps brittle dignity, very calm and stiff with resolution. Autumn and spring came gallantly supporting each other. Ninian in his banishment and solitude would require a full account, and never have an easy moment until he got it. Two hours more and the thing would be done, one way or the other.

  They had come in through the gate to the court, and were looking about them, clearly seeking someone. It was Sanan who saw him first, and brightened as she turned to speak quickly into Diota’s ear. The widow turned to look, and at once started towards him. He went to meet them, since it seemed he must be the one they were seeking.

  “I’m glad to have found you thus before the service,” said the widow. “The ointment you gave me—there’s the half of it left, and you see I don’t need it any more. It would be a shame to waste it, you must have a deal of call for it in this wintry weather.” She had it put away safely in the little bag slung from her girdle, and had to fumble under her cloak to get it out. A small, rough pottery jar, with a wooden lid stoppered tightly into the neck to seal it. She held it out to him on her open palm, and offered him with it a pale but steady smile. “All my grazes are gone, this can still serve someone else. Take it, with my thanks.”

  The last of her grazes, faded now almost to invisibility, hair-fine threads of white, showed elusively round the jar in her palm. The mark on her temple was merely a hyacinth oval, the bruise all but gone.

  “You could have kept it against future need, with all my goodwill,” said Cadfael, accepting the offering.

  “Well, should I ever have need again, I hope I shall still be here, and able to send to you,” said Diota.

  She made him a small, dignified reverence, and turned back towards the church. Over her shoulder Cadfael caught Sanan’s confiding blue gaze, harebell-soft and sky-bright, almost as intimate as a signal between conspirators. Then she, too, turned, taking the older woman’s arm, and the two of them walked away from him, across the court to the gate, and in at the west door of the church.

  Ninian awoke when it was full daylight, thick-headed and slow to collect his wits from having lain half the night wakeful, and then fallen into too profound a slumber. He rose, and swung himself down from the loft without using the ladder, and went out into the fresh, chill, moist morning to shake off the lingering cobwebs. The stalls below were empty. Sanan’s man Sweyn had been here already from his own cottage nearer the town, and turned out the two horses into the fenced paddock. They needed a little space for exercise, after the harder frosts when they had been kept indoors, and they were making good use of their freedom, glad of the air and the light. Young and high-spirited and short of work, they would not easily let themselves be caught and bridled, but it was unlikely they would be needed this day.

  The cattle byre was still peopled, they would not be let out to the grazing along the riverside until Sweyn was near to keep an eye on them. The byre and stable stood in a large clearing between slopes of woodland, with an open side only to the river, pleasantly private, and under the western stand of trees a little stream ran down to the Severn. Ninian made for it sleepily, stripped off coat and shirt, shivering a little, and plunged head and arms into the water, flinching and drawing in hissing breath at the instant coldness, but taking pleasure in feeling his wits start into warm wakefulness. Shaking off drops from his face and wringing his hands through his thick thatch of curls, he ran a couple of circuits of the open grass at full gallop, caught up his discarded clothes and ran back with them into the shelter of the stable, to scrub himself vigorously with a clean sack until he glowed, and dress himself to face the day. Which might be long and lonely and full of anxieties, but at this moment felt bracing and hopeful.

  He had combed his hair into such order as his fingers could command, and was sitting on a bale of straw eating a hunk of bread and an apple from the store Sanan had provided, when he heard the herdsman come along the rough path towards the door. Or was this some other man, and not Sweyn at all? Ninian stiffened to listen, with his cheek bulging with apple, and his jaws motionless. No whistling, and Sweyn always whistled, and these feet came in unusual haste, clearly audible in the rough grass and small stones. Ninian was up in still greater haste, and swung himself up into the loft and hung silent over the hatch, ready for whoever should come.

  “Young master

  ” called a voice in the open doorway, without any suggestion of caution. Sweyn, after all, but a Sweyn who had been hurrying, was a little out of breath, and had no thought to spare for whistling this morning. “Lad, where are you? Come down!”

  Ninian let out his breath in a great gust, and slid back through the hatch to hang at arm’s length and drop beside the herdsman. “God’s love, Sweyn, you had me reaching for a knife then! I never thought it was you. I thought I had you by heart, by this time, but you came like a stranger. What is it?” He flung an arm about his friend and ally boisterously in his relief, and as quickly held him off to look him up and down from head to foot. “Lord, lord, in your best, too! In whose honour?”

  Sweyn was a thickset, grizzled man of middle age, with a ragged brown beard and a twinkling glance. Whatever warm clothing he put on against the winter he must have put on underneath, for he had but the one stout pair of cloth hose, and Ninian had never yet seen him in any coat but the much-mended drab brown, but evidently he possessed another, for this morning he had on a green coat, unpatched, and a dark brown capuchon protecting head and shoulders.

  “I’ve been into Shrewsbury,” he said shortly, “fetching a pair of shoes my wife left to be clouted at Provost Corviser’s. I was here at first light and let out the horses, they’ve been penned long enough, and then I went back to fettle myself for the town, and I’ve had no time to put on my working gear again. There’s word going round the town, master, that the sheriff means to attend the Foregate priest’s funeral, and fetch a murderer away with him. I thought I’d best bring you word as fast as I could. For it may be true.”

  Ninian stood gaping at him aghast for a moment in stricken silence. “No! He’s going to take her? Is that the word? Oh, God, not Diota! And she there to be seized, —all unsuspecting. And I not there!” He clutched earnestly at Sweyn’s arm. “Is this certain?”

  “It’s the common talk about the town. Folks are all agog, there’ll be a stream of them making haste over the bridge to see it done. They don’t say who—leastways, they guess at it, two or three ways, but they all agree it’s coming, be the poor wretch who he may.”

  Ninian flung away the apple he had still been holding, and beat his fists together in frantic thought. “I must go! The parish Mass won’t be until ten, there’s still time

  “

  “You can’t go. The young mistress said—”

  “I know what she said, but this is my business now. I must and will get Diota out of it. Who els
e can it be the sheriff means to accuse? But he shan’t have her! I won’t suffer it!”

  “You’ll be known! It may not be your woman he has in mind, how then? He may have the rights of it, and know well what he’s doing. And you’ll have thrown yourself away for nothing,” urged the herdsman reasonably.

  “No, I needn’t be known. One in a crowd—and only the people of the abbey and a few in the Foregate know me well by sight. In any case,” said Ninian grimly, “let anyone lay a hand on her and I will be known, and with a vengeance, too. But I can be lost among a crowd, why not? Lend me that coat and capuchon, Sweyn, who’s to know me under a hood? And they’ve never seen me but in this gear, yours is far too fine for the Benet they’ve seen about the place

  “

  “Take the horse,” said Sweyn, stripping off his capuchon without protest, and hoisting the loose cotte over his head.

  Ninian did cast one glance out into the field where the two horses kicked up their heels, happy to be at large. “No, no time! I can do it as fast afoot. And I’d be more noticeable, mounted. How many horsemen will there be about Ailnoth’s funeral?” He thrust his way into the over-ample garment already warmed for him, and emerged ruffled and flushed. “I daren’t show a sword. But the dagger I can hide about me.” He was up into the loft to fetch it, and fasten it safely out of sight under his coat, secure in the belt of his hose.

  At the doorway, poised to run, he was stricken with another qualm, and turned to clutch again at the herdsman’s arm. “Sweyn, if I’m taken—Sanan will see you shan’t be the loser. Your good clothes—I’ve no right

  “

  “Ah, go on with you!” said Sweyn, half-affronted, and gave him a shove out into the field and towards the trees. “I can go in sacking if needs must. You bring yourself back safe, or the young mistress will have my head for it. And put up your hood, fool boy, before you come near the road!”

  Ninian ran, across the meadow and into the slope of trees, heading for the track that would bring him, within a mile or so, to the Meole Brook, and across it into the Foregate, close by the bridge into the town.

  Word of the fat rumour that was running round Shrewsbury reached Ralph Giffard some time later, none of his household having been abroad in the town before nine o’clock, when a maidservant went out to fetch a pitcher of milk, and was a long time about it by reason of the juicy gossip she learned on her errand. Even when she returned to the house the news took some time to be carried from the kitchen to the clerk, who had come to see what all the chatter was about, and thence to Giffard himself, who was at that moment reflecting whether it was not time to leave the town house to the caretaker and make for his chief manor in the north-east. It was pleasant to prolong the comfortable stay here, and he had taken pleasure in falling in with his young son’s wish to practise the skills of managing a manor for himself, unsupervised. The boy was sixteen, two years younger than his step-sister, and somewhat jealous of her show of maturity and responsibility in running the distaff side of the household. He was already affianced, a good match with a neighbour’s daughter, and naturally he was eager to try his wings. And no doubt he would be doing well enough, and proud of his prowess, but still a father would be only prudent to keep an eye on affairs. There was no bad blood between boy and girl, but for all that, young Ralph would not be sorry to have Sanan safely married and out of the house. If only her marriage did not threaten to cost so much!

  “My lord,” said the old clerk, coming in upon his ponderings towards mid morning, “I think you are rid of your incubus this day, or soon will be. It seems it’s all round the town, being bandied across every counter and every doorstep, that Beringar has his murderer known and proved, and means to take him at the priest’s burial. And who can it be but that youngster of FitzAlan’s? He may have made his escape once, but it seems they’ve run him to earth this time.”

  He brought it as good news, and as such Giffard received it. Once the troublesome fellow was safely in hold, and his own part in the matter as clearly decorous and loyal, he could be at ease. While the rogue ran loose, there might still be unpleasant echoes for any man who had had to do with him.

  “So I did well to uncover him,” he said, breathing deeply. “I might still have been suspect else, when they lay hands on him. Well, well! So the thing’s as good as over, and no harm done.”

  The thought was very satisfying, even though he would have been just as pleased if it could have been achieved without the act of betrayal with which a lingering scruple in his own mind still reproached him. But now, if it was to be proven that the young fellow really had murdered the priest, then there was no longer need to feel any qualms on his behalf, for he had his deserts.

  It was some last superstition that something might yet go wrong, added to a contradictory desire to see the successful consummation in person, that made him think again, and make up his mind, somewhat belatedly, to be in at the death. To make sure, and to wring the fullest savour out of his own preservation.

  “After the parish Mass, this was to be? They’ll be well into the abbot’s sermon by now. I think I’ll ride down and see the end of it.” And he was out of his chair and shouting across the yard for the groom to saddle his horse.

  Abbot Radulfus had been speaking for some time, slowly, with the high, withdrawn voice of intense thought, every word measured. In the choir it was always dim, a parable of the life of man, a small, lighted space arched over by a vast shadowy darkness, for even in darkness there are degrees of shadow. The crowded nave was lighter, and with so many people in attendance not even notably cold. When choir monks and secular congregation met for worship together, the separation between them seemed accentuated rather than softened. We here, you out there, thought Brother Cadfael, and yet we are all like flesh, and our souls subject to the same final judgement.

  “The company of the saints,” said Abbot Radulfus, his head raised so that he looked rather into the vault than at those he addressed, “is not to be determined by any measure within our understanding. It cannot be made up of those without sin, for who that ever wore flesh, except one, can make so high a claim? Surely there is room within it for those who have set before themselves lofty aims, and done their best to reach them, and so, we believe, did our brother and shepherd here dead. Yes, even though they fail of attaining their aims, more, even though those aims may have been too narrow, the mind that conceived them being blinded by prejudice and pride, and channelled too greedily towards a personal excellence. For even the pursuit of perfection may be sin, if it infringes the rights and needs of another soul. Better to fail a little, by turning aside to lift up another, than to pass by him in haste to reach our own reward, and leave him to solitude and despair. Better to labour in lameness, in fallibility, but holding up others who falter, than to stride forward alone.

  “Again, it is not enough to abstain from evil, there must also be an outgoing goodness. The company of the blessed may extend justifiably to embrace even men who have been great sinners, yet also great lovers of their fellow men, such as have never turned away their eyes from other men’s needs, but have done them such good as they might, and as little harm as they must. For in that they saw a neighbour’s need, they saw God’s need, as he himself has shown us, and inasmuch as they saw a neighbour’s face more clearly than their own, so also they saw God’s face.

  “Further, I show you certainly that all such as are born into this world and die untainted by personal sin partake of the martyred purity of the Holy Innocents, and die for Our Lord, who also will embrace them and quicken them living, where they shall no more partake of death. And if they died without name here, yet their name is written in his book, and no other need know it, until the day come.

  “But we, all we who share the burden of sin, it behoves us not to question or fret concerning the measure dealt out to us, or try to calculate our own merit and deserving, for we have not the tools by which to measure values concerning the soul. That is God’s business. Rather it behoves us to li
ve every day as though it were our last, to the full of such truth and kindness as is within us, and to lie down every night as though the next day were to be our first, and a new and pure beginning. The day will come when all will be made plain. Then shall we know, as now we trust. And in that trust we commit our pastor here to the care of the shepherd of shepherds, in the sure hope of the resurrection.”

  He uttered the blessing with his face lowered at last to those who listened. Probably he wondered how many had understood, and how many, indeed, had need of understanding.

  It was over here, people stirred stealthily in the nave, sliding towards the north door to be first out and secure a good place ahead of the procession. In the choir the three ministering priests, abbot, prior and sub-prior, descended to the bier, and the brothers formed silent file, two by two, after them. The party of bearers took up the burden, and made towards the open north doorway into the Foregate. How is it, thought Cadfael, watching, and glad of a distraction, however sinful at such a moment, how is it that there is always one out of step, or just a little too short in height and stride to match the others? Is it so that we should not fall into the error of taking even death too seriously?