The Raven in the Foregate Read Online Free PDF

indeed they came close to it, if Cadfael had not had the
hearing of a wild creature. Outside the open door the steps halted, and for a
long moment the silence became complete. He studies me, thought Cadfael. Well,
I know what he sees, if I don’t know what he makes of it: a man past sixty, in
robust health, bar the occasional stiffness in the joints proper to his age,
squarely made, blunt-featured, with wiry brown hair laced with grey, and in
need of a trim, come to think of it!—round a shaven crown that’s been out in
all weathers for many a year. He weighs me, he measures me, and takes his time
about it.
    He opened his eyes. “I may look like a mastiff,” he
said amiably, “but it’s years now since I bit anyone. Step in, and never
hesitate.”
    So brisk and unexpected a greeting, so far from
drawing the visitor within, caused him to take a startled pace backwards, so
that he stood full in the soft noon light of the day, to be seen clearly. A
young fellow surely not above twenty, of the middle height but very well put
together, dressed in wrinkled cloth hose of an indeterminate drab colour,
scuffed leather shoes very down at heel, a dark brown cotte rubbed slightly
paler where the sleeves chafed the flanks, and belted with a frayed rope
girdle, and a short, caped capuchon thrown back on his shoulders. The coarse
linen of his shirt showed at the neck, unlaced, and the sleeves of the cotte
were short on him, showing a length of paler wrist above good brown hands. A
compact, stout pillar of young manhood stood sturdily to be appraised, and once
the immediate check had passed, even a long and silent appraisal seemed to
reassure him rather than to make him uneasy, for a distinct spark lit in his
eye, and an irrepressible grin hovered about his mouth as he said very
respectfully:
    “They told me at the gatehouse to come here. I’m
looking for a brother named Cadfael.”
    He had a pleasant voice, pitched agreeably low but
with a fine, blithe ring to it, and just now practising a meekness which did
nor seem altogether at home on his tongue. Cadfael continued to study him with
quickening interest. A mop of shaggy light-brown curls capped a shapely head
poised on an elegant neck, and the face that took such pains to play the rustic
innocent abashed before his betters was youthfully rounded of cheek and chin,
but very adequately supplied with bone, too, and shaven clean as the schoolboy
it aimed at presenting. A guileless face, but for the suppressed smoulder of
mischief in the wide hazel eyes, changeable and fluid like peat water flowing
over sunlit pebbles of delectable, autumnal greens and browns. There was
nothing he could do about that merry sparkle. Asleep, the angelic simpleton
might achieve conviction, but not with those eyes open.
    “Then you have found him,” said Cadfael. “That name
belongs to me. And you, I take it, must be the young fellow who came here with
the priest, and wants work with us for a while.” He rose, gathering himself
without haste. Their eyes came virtually on a level. Dancing, brook-water eyes
the boy had, scintillating with winter sunlight. “What was the name they gave
you, son?”
    “N… name?” The stammer was a surprise, and the sudden
nervous flickering of long brown lashes that briefly veiled the lively eyes was
the first sign of unease Cadfael had detected in him. “Benet—my name’s Benet.
My Aunt Diota is widow to a decent man, John Hammet, who was a groom in the
lord bishop’s service, so when he died Bishop Henry found a place for her with
Father Ailnoth. That’s how we came here. They’re used to each other now for
three years and more. And I begged to come here along with them to see could I
find work near to her. I’m not skilled, but what I don’t know I can learn.”
    Very voluble now, all at once, and no more stammering,
either, and he had stepped within, into shadow from the midday light, quenching
somewhat of