Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

Cadfael.
    " ' ... nor may the brethren exchange them, one with another'," said Cadfael, and accepted the offering. "Lucky, indeed! Though I transgress in accepting, you go sinless in offering. Have you quite abandoned your inclination to the cloistered life, then?"
    "Me?" said the youth, startled out of his busy munching, and open-mouthed. "When did I ever profess any?"
    "Not you, lad, but your sponsor on your account, when he asked work for you here."
    "Did he say that of me?"
    "He did. Not positively promising it, mark you, but holding out the hope that you might settle to it one day. I grant you I've never seen much sign of it."
    Benet thought that over for a moment, while he finished his cake and licked the sticky crumbs from his fingers. "No doubt he was anxious to get rid of me, and thought it might make me more welcome here. My face was never in any great favour with him - too much given to smiling, maybe. No, not even you will pen me in here for very long, Cadfael. When the time comes I'll be on my way. But while I'm here," he said, breaking into the bountiful smile that might well strike an ascetic as far too frivolous, "I'll do my fair share of the work."
    And he was off back to his box hedge, swinging the shears in one large, easy hand, and leaving Cadfael gazing after him with a very thoughtful face.
    Chapter Four
    Dame Diota Hammet presented herself later that afternoon at a house near Saint Chad's church, and asked timidly for the lord Ralph Giffard. The servant who opened the door to her looked her up and down and hesitated, never having seen her before.
    "What's your business with him, mistress? Who sends you?"
    "I'm to bring him this letter," said Diota submissively, and held out a small rolled leaf fastened with a seal. "And to wait for an answer, if my lord will be so good."
    He was in two minds about taking it from her hand. It was a small and irregularly shaped slip of parchment, with good reason, since it was one of the discarded edges from a leaf Brother Anselm had trimmed to shape and size for a piece of music, two days since. But the seal argued matter of possible importance, even on so insignificant a missive. The servant was still hesitating when a girl came out into the porch at his back, and seeing a woman unknown but clearly respectable, stayed to enquire curiously what was to do. She accepted the scroll readily enough, and knew the seal. She looked up with startled, intent blue eyes into Diota's face, and abruptly handed the scroll back to her.
    "Come in, and deliver this yourself. I'll bring you to my step-father."
    The master of the house was sitting by a comfortable fire in a small solar, with wine at his elbow and a deer-hound coiled about his feet. A big, ruddy, sinewy man of fifty, balding and bearded, very spruce in his dress and only just beginning to put on a little extra flesh after an active life, he looked what he was, the lord of two or three country manors and this town house, where he preferred to spend his Christmas in comfort. He looked up at Diota, when the girl presented her, with complete incomprehension, but he comprehended all too well when he looked at the seal that fastened the parchment. He asked no questions, but sent the girl for his clerk, and listened intently as the content was read to him, in so low a voice that it was plain the clerk understood how dangerous its import could be. He was a small, withered man, grown old in Giffard's service, and utterly trustworthy. He made an end, and watched his master's face anxiously.
    "My lord, send nothing in writing! Word of mouth is safer, if you want to reply. Words said can be denied, to write them would be folly."
    Ralph sat pondering for a while in silence, and eyeing the unlikely messenger, who stood patiently and uneasily waiting.
    "Tell him," he said at last, "that I have received and understood his message."
    She hesitated, and ventured at last to ask: "Is that all, my lord?"
    "It's enough! The less said the better, for him and for me."
    The girl, who had remained unobtrusive but attentive in a corner of the room, followed Diota out to the shadow of the porch, with doors closed behind them.
    "Mistress," she said softly in Diota's ear, "where is he to be found - this man who sent you?"
    By the brief, blank silence and the doubtful face of the older woman she understood her fears, and made impatient haste to allay them, her voice low and vehement. "I mean him no harm, God knows! My father was of the same party