The Raven in the Foregate Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’s in good health and resolute spirits,
if that means anything. As for what he means to do with me—well, that, no
doubt, I shall discover, in due time.”
    “My son, I trust he’ll have the good sense to leave
well alone. For here,” said Radulfus, “we have at least preserved what good we
can, and by the present measure in this unhappy realm, it is well with this
shire. But I doubt whatever he does else can only mean more fighting and more
wretchedness for England. And you and I can do nothing to prevent or better
it.”
    “Well, if we cannot give England peace,” said Hugh,
smiling somewhat wryly, “at least let’s see what you and I can do between us
for Shrewsbury.”
     
    After dinner in the refectory Brother Cadfael made his
way across the great court, rounded the thick, dark mass of the box hedge—grown
straggly now, he noted, and ripe for a final clipping before growth ceased in
the cold—and entered the moist flower gardens, where leggy roses balanced at a
man’s height on their thin, leafless stems, and still glowed with invincible
light and life. Beyond lay his herb garden, walled and silent, all its small,
square beds already falling asleep, naked spears of mint left standing stiff as
wire, cushions of thyme flattened to the ground, crouching to protect their
remaining leaves, yet over all a faint surviving fragrance of the summer’s
spices. Partly a memory, perhaps, partly drifting out from the open door of his
workshop, where bunches of dried herbs swung from the eaves and the beams
within, but surely, also, still emanating from these drowsy minor
manifestations of God, grown old and tired now only to grow young and vigorous
again with the spring. Green phoenixes every one, visible proof, if any were
needed, of perpetual life.
    Within the wall it was mild and still, a sanctuary
within a sanctuary. Cadfael sat down on the bench in his workshop, facing the
open door, and composed himself at ease to employ his half-hour of permitted
repose in meditation rather than sleep. The morning had provided plenty of food
for thought, and he did his best thinking alone here in his own small kingdom.
    So that, he thought, is the new priest of Holy Cross.
Now why did Bishop Henry take the trouble to bestow on us one of his own
household clerks, and one he valued, at that? One who either was born with or
has acquired by reverent imitation what I take to be his overlord’s notable
qualities? Is it possible that two masterful, confident, proud men had become
one too many for comfort, and Henry was glad to part with him? Or is the legate,
after the humiliation of publicly eating his own words twice in one year, and
the damage that may well have done to his prestige—after all that, has he been
taking this opportunity of courting all his bishops and abbots by taking a
fatherly interest in all their wants and needs? Flattering them by his
attentions to prop up what might be stumbling allegiance? That is also
possible, and he might be willing to sacrifice even a valued clerk to feel
certain of a man like Radulfus. But one thing is sure, Cadfael concluded
firmly, our abbot would not have been a party to such an appointment if he had
not been convinced he was getting a man fit for the work.
    He had closed his eyes, to think the better, and
braced his back comfortably against the timber wall, sandalled feet crossed
before him, hands folded in the sleeves of his habit, so still that to the
young man approaching along the gravel path he seemed asleep. Others, unused to
such complete stillness in a waking man, had sometimes made that mistake with Brother
Cadfael. Cadfael heard the footsteps, wary and soft as they were. Not a
brother, and the lay servants were few in number, and seldom had occasion to
come here. Nor would they approach so cautiously if they had some errand here.
Not sandals, these, but old, well-worn shoes, and their wearer imagined they
trod silently, and