Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

never kept her word. I have heard from others all her reputation, and it is past amendment. I could not in conscience confess her, for I could not take her word. If there is no truth in the act of contrition, there is no merit in confession, and to absolve her would have been deadly sin. A whore past recovery! I do not repent me, whether she died or no. I would do again what I did. There is no compromise with the pledges by which I am bound."
    "There will be no compromise with the answer you must make for two deaths," said Radulfus solemnly, "if God should take a view different from yours. I bid you recall, Father Ailnoth, that you are summoned to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance, the weak, the fallible, those who go in fear and ignorance, and have not your pure advantage. Temper your demands to their abilities, and be less severe on those who cannot match your perfection." He paused there, for it was meant as irony, to bite, but the proud, impervious face never winced, accepting the accolade. "And be slow to lay your hand upon the children," he said, "unless they offend of malicious intent. To error we are all liable, even you."
    "I study to do right," said Ailnoth, "as I have always, and always shall." And he went away with the same confident step, vehement and firm, the skirts of his gown billowing like wings in the wind of his going.
    "A man abstemious, rigidly upright, inflexibly honest, ferociously chaste," said Radulfus in private to Prior Robert. "A man with every virtue, except humility and human kindness. That is what I have brought upon the Foregate, Robert. And now what are we to do about him?"
    Dame Diota Hammet came on the twenty-second day of December to the gatehouse of the abbey with a covered basket, and asked meekly for her nephew Benet, for whom she had brought a cake for his Christmas, and a few honey buns from her festival baking. The porter, knowing her for the parish priest's housekeeper, directed her through to the garden, where Benet was busy clipping the last straggly growth from the box hedges.
    Hearing their voices, Cadfael looked out from his workshop, and divining who this matronly woman must be, was about to return to his mortar when he was caught by some delicate shade in their greeting. A matter-of-fact affection, easy-going and undemonstrative, was natural between aunt and nephew, and what he beheld here hardly went beyond that, but for all that there was a gloss of tenderness and almost deference in the woman's bearing towards her young kinsman, and an unexpected, childish grace in the warmth with which he embraced her. True, he was already known for a young man who did nothing by halves, but here were certainly aunt and nephew who did not take each other for granted.
    Cadfael withdrew to his work again and left them their privacy. A comely, well-kept woman was Mistress Hammet, with decent black clothing befitting a priest's housekeeper, and a dark shawl over her neat, greying hair. Her oval face, mildly sad in repose, brightened vividly in greeting the boy, and then she looked no more than forty years old, and perhaps, indeed, she was no more. "Benet's mother's sister?" wondered Cadfael. If so, he took after his father, for there was very little resemblance here. Well, it was none of his business!
    Benet came bounding into the workshop to empty the basket of its good things, spreading them out on the wooden bench. "We're in luck, Brother Cadfael, for she's as good a cook as you'd find in the King's own kitchen. You and I can eat like princes."
    And he was off again as blithely to restore the empty basket. Cadfael looked out after him through the open door, and saw him hand over, besides the basket, some small thing he drew from the breast of his cotte. She took it, nodding earnestly, unsmiling, and the boy stooped and kissed her cheek. She smiled then. He had a way with him, no question. She turned and went away, and left him looking after her for a long moment, before he also turned, and came back to the workshop. The engaging grin came back readily to his face.
    " 'On no account'," quoted Cadfael, straight-faced, " 'may a monk accept small presents of any kind, from his parents or anyone else, without the abbot's permission'. That, sweet son, is in the Rule."
    "Lucky you, then, and lucky I," said the boy gaily, "that I've taken no vows. She makes the best honey cakes ever I tasted." And he sank even white teeth into one of them, and reached to offer another to