Brother Cadfael 03: Monk's Hood

have stopped him for a word, lifted the lid in curiosity at the savoury smell, been told for whom it was sent, and added another savour of my own making? A moment's distraction, and it could have been done. How easy it is to bring on oneself a suspicion there's no disproving!
    "Is it indeed truth, brother," asked Robert weightily, "that Mistress Bonel was intimately known to you in your youth, before you took vows?"

"It is," said Cadfael directly, "if by intimately you mean only well and closely, on terms of affection. Before I took the Cross we held ourselves to be affianced, though no one else knew of it. That was more than forty years ago, and I had not seen her since. She married in my absence, and I, after my return, took the cowl." The fewer words here, the better.
    "Why did you never say word of this, when they came to our house?"
    "I did not know who Mistress Bonel was, until I saw her. The name meant nothing to me, I knew only of her first marriage. I was called to the house, as you know, and went in good faith."
    "That I acknowledge," conceded Robert. "I did not observe anything untoward in your conduct there."
    "I do not suggest, Father Prior," Jerome made haste to assure him, "that Brother Cadfael has done anything deserving of blame ..." The lingering ending added silently: "... as yet!" but he did not go so far as to utter it. "I am concerned only for his protection from the snares of temptation. The devil can betray even through a Christian affection."
    Prior Robert was continuing his heavy and intent study of Cadfael, and if he was not expressing condemnation, there was no mistaking the disapproval in his elevated eyebrows and distended nostrils. No inmate of his convent should even admit to noticing a woman, unless by way of Christian ministry or hard-headed business. "In attending a sick man, certainly you did only right, Brother Cadfael. But is it also true that you visited this woman last night? Why should that be? If she was in need of spiritual comfort, there is here also a parish priest. Two days ago you had a right and proper reason for going there, last night you surely had none."
    "I went there," said Cadfael patiently, since there was no help in impatience, and nothing could mortify Brother Jerome so much as to be treated with detached forbearance, "to ask certain questions which may bear upon her husband's death - a matter which you, Father Prior, and I, and all here, must devoutly wish to be cleared up as quickly as possible, so that this house may be in peace."
    "That is the business of the sheriff and his sergeants," said Robert curtly, "and none of yours. As I understand it, there is no doubt whose is the guilt, and it is only a matter of laying hands upon the youth who did so vile a thing. I do not like your excuse, Brother Cadfael."
    "In due obedience," said Cadfael, "I bow to your judgment, but also must not despise my own. I think there is doubt, and the truth will not be easily uncovered. And my reason was not an excuse; it was for that purpose I went to the house. It was my own preparation, meant to bring comfort and relief from pain, that was used to bring death, and neither this house nor I, as a brother herein, can be at peace until the truth is known."
    "In saying so, you show lack of faith in those who uphold the law, and whose business justice is, as yours it is not. It is an arrogant attitude, and I deplore it." What he meant was that he wished to distance the Benedictine house of St Peter and St Paul from the ugly thing that had happened just outside its walls, and he would find a means of preventing the effective working of a conscience so inconvenient to his aims. "In my judgment, Brother Jerome is right, and it is our duty to ensure that you are not allowed, by your own folly, to stray into spiritual danger. You will have no further contact with Mistress Bonel. Until her future movements are decided, and she leaves her present house, you will confine yourself to the enclave, and your energies to your proper function of work and worship within our walls only."
    There was no help for it. Vows of obedience, voluntarily taken, cannot be discarded whenever they become inconvenient. Cadfael inclined his head - bowed would have been the wrong word, it was more like a small, solid and formidable bull lowering its armed brow for combat! - and said grimly: "I shall observe the order laid upon me, as in duty bound."
    "But you, young man," he was saying to Brother Mark in the