Brother Cadfael 03: Monk's Hood

surely, be called by the same name?
    Cadfael dropped his bridle and went softly forward towards the serenely feeding beast, which paid him no attention whatever after a single, glance. He chirruped to it, and called quietly: "Japhet!"
    The piebald pricked long ears and lifted a gaunt, amiable head, stretching out a questing muzzle and dilated nostrils towards the familiar sound, and having made up his mind he was not mistaken, advanced confidently and briskly to the hand Cadfael extended. He ran caressing fingers up the tall forehead, and along the stretched, inquisitive neck. "Japhet, Japhet, my friend, what are you doing here?"
    The rustle of feet in the dry grass, while all four feet of this mild creature were still, caused Cadfael to look up sharply towards the corner of the house. A venerable old man stood looking at him steadily and silently; a tall old man, white-haired and white-bearded, but still with brows black and thick as gorse-bushes, and eyes as. starkly blue as a winter sky beneath them. His dress was the common homespun of the countryman, but his carriage and height turned it into purple.
    "As I think," said Cadfael, turning towards him with one hand still on Japhet's leaning neck, "you must be Ifor ap Morgan. My name is Cadfael, sometime Cadfael ap Meilyr ap Dafydd of Trefriw. I have an errand to you from Rhys ap Griffith, your wife's brother, who is now Brother Rhys of the abbey of Shrewsbury."
    The voice that emerged from the long, austere, dry lips was deep and sonorous, a surprising music. "Are you sure your errand is not to a guest of mine, brother?"
    "It was not," said Cadfael, "it was to you. Now it is to both. And the first thing I would say is, keep this beast out of sight, for if I can know him again from a mere description, so can others."
    The old man gave him a lengthy, piercing blue stare. "Come into the house," he said, and turned on his heel and led the way. But Cadfael took time to lead Japhet well behind the house and shorten his tether to keep him there, before he followed.
    In the dimness within, smoky and wood-scented, the old man stood with a hand protectively on Edwin's shoulder; and Edwin, with the impressionable generosity of youth, had somehow gathered to himself a virgin semblance of the old man's dignity and grace, and stood like him, erect and quiet within his untried body as was Ifor ap Morgan in his old and experienced one, copied the carriage of his head and the high serenity of his regard.
    "The boy tells me," said Ifor, "that you are a friend. His friends are welcome."
    "Brother Cadfael has been good to me," said Edwin, "and to my nephew, Edwy, also, as Meurig told us. I have been well blessed in my friends. But how did you find me?"
    "By not looking for you," said Cadfael. "Indeed, I've been at some pains not to know where you had taken yourself, and certainly I never rode this way to find you. I came with a harmless errand to Ifor ap Morgan here, from that same old brother you visited with Meurig in our infirmary. Your wife's brother, friend, Rhys ap Griffith, is still living, and for his age hale, too, in our convent, and when he heard that I was bound into these parts he charged me to bring his kinsmen his greetings and prayers. He has not forgotten his kin, though it's long since he came among you, and I doubt he'll come no more. I have been with Cynfrith ap Rhys, and sent the same word by him to his brother Owain, and if there are any others of his generation left, or who would remember him, be kind enough to give them word, when chance offers, that he remembers his blood and his own soil yet, and all those whose roots are in it."
    "So he would," said Ifor, melting suddenly into a warm smile. "He was always a loyal kinsman, and fond of my child and all the other young in our clan, having none of his own. He lost his wife early, or he'd have been here among us yet. Sit down a while, brother, and tell me how he does, and if you'll take my blessings back to him, I'll be grateful."
    "Meurig will have told you much of what I can tell," and Cadfael, settling beside him on a bench at the rough table, "when he brought you Edwin to shelter. Is he not here with you?"
    "My grandson is away making the round of all his kin and neighbours," said the old man, "for he comes home rarely now. He'll be here again in a few days, I daresay. He did tell me he'd been to see the old man, along with the boy here, but he stayed only an hour or so before making off about his visiting.