Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

lofty, gravely considering the phalanx of stout burgesses before him. "That is the view of you all?"
    Edric Flesher spoke up bluntly: "It is. And of all our townsmen, too. There are many who would voice the matter more forcibly than Master Corviser has done. But we trust in your fellow-feeling, and wait your answer."
    The faint stir that went round the chapter-house was like a great, cautious sigh. Most of the brothers looked on wide-eyed and anxious; the younger ones shifted and whispered, but very warily. Prior Robert Pennant, who had looked to be abbot by this time, and been sorely disappointed at having a stranger promoted over his head, maintained a silvery, ascetic calm, appeared to move his lips in prayer, and shot sidelong looks at his superior between narrowed ivory lids, wishing him irredeemable error while appearing to compassionate and bless. Old Brother Heribert, recently abbot of this house and now degraded to its ranks, dozed in a quiet corner, smiling gently, thankful to be at rest.
    "We are considering, are we not," said Radulfus at length, gently and without haste, "what you pose as a dispute between the rights of the town and the rights of this house. In such a balance, should the judgment rest with you, or with me? Surely not! Some disinterested judge is needed. But, gentlemen, I would remind you, there has been such a decision, now, within the past half-year, since the siege of which you complain. At the beginning of this year his Grace King Stephen confirmed to us our ancient charter, with all its grants in lands, rights and privileges, just as we held them aforetime. He confirmed also our right to this three-day fair on the feast of our patron Saint Peter, at the same fee we have paid before, and on the same conditions. Do you suppose he would have countenanced such a grant, if he had not held it to be just?"
    "To say outright what I suppose," said the provost warmly, "I never supposed for a moment that the thought of justice entered into it. I make no murmur against what his Grace chose to do, but it's plain he held Shrewsbury to be a hostile town, and most like still does hold it so, because FitzAlan, who is fled to France now, garrisoned the castle and kept it over a month against him. But small say we of the town ever had in the matter, and little we could have done about it! The castle declared for the Empress Maud, and we must put up with the consequences, while FitzAlan's away, safe out of reach. My lord abbot, is that justice?"
    "Are you making the claim that his Grace, by confirming the abbey in its rights, is taking revenge on the town?" asked the abbot with soft and perilous gentleness.
    "I am saying that he never so much as gave the town a thought, or its injuries a look, or he might have made some concession."
    "Ah! Then should not this appeal of yours be addressed rather to the Lord Gilbert Prestcote, who is the king's sheriff, and no doubt has his ear, rather than to us?"
    "It has been so addressed, though not with regard to the fair. It is not for the sheriff to give away any part of what has been bestowed on the abbey. Only you, Father, can do that," said Geoffrey Corviser briskly. It began to be apparent that the provost knew his way about among the pitfalls of words every bit as well as did the abbot.
    "And what answer did you get from the sheriff?"
    "He will do nothing for us until his own walls at the castle are made good. He promises us the loan of labour when work there is finished, but labour we could supply, it's money and materials we need, and it will be a year or more before he's ready to turn over even a handful of his men to our needs. In such a case, Father, do you wonder that we find the fair a burden?"
    "Yet we have our needs, too, as urgent to us as yours to you," said the abbot after a thoughtful moment of silence. "And I would remind you, our lands and possessions here lie outside the town walls, even outside the loop of the river, two protections you enjoy that we do not share. Should we, men, be asked to pay tolls for what cannot apply to us?"
    "Not all your possessions," said the provost promptly. "There are within the town some thirty or more messuages in your hold, and your tenants within them, and their children have to wade in the kennels of broken streets as ours do, and their horses break legs where the paving is shattered, as ours do."
    "Our tenants enjoy fair treatment from us, and considerate rents, and for such matters we are responsible. But we