Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

less be taken very seriously by the King's officers. He came down immediately after Prime next morning, to get the most authoritative account from the abbot, and confer with him over the whole troublesome matter of the priest's relationship with his flock. He had also another grave matter of his own to confide.
    Cadfael knew nothing of Hugh's return until mid morning, when his friend sought him out in the workshop. The broken-glass grating of boots on the frozen gravel made Cadfael turn from his mortar, knowing the step but hardly believing in it.
    "Well, well!" he said, delighted. "I hadn't thought to clap eyes on you for a day or two yet. Glad I am to see you, and I hope I read the signs aright?" He broke free from Hugh's embrace to hold him off at arm's length and study his face anxiously. "Yes, you have the look of success about you. Do I see you confirmed in office?"
    "You do, old friend, you do! And kicked out promptly to my shire to be about my master's business. Trust me, Cadfael, he's come back to us lean and hungry and with the iron-marks on him, and he wants action, and vengeance, and blood. If he could but keep up this fury of energy, he could finish this contention within the year. But it won't last," said Hugh philosophically, "it never does. God, but I'm still stiff with all the riding I've done. Have you got a cup of wine about you, and half an hour to sit and waste with me?"
    He flung himself down gratefully on the wooden bench and stretched out his feet to the warmth of the brazier, and Cadfael brought cups and a flagon, and sat down beside him, taking pleasure in viewing the slight figure and thin, eloquent face that brought in with them the whole savour of the outside world, fresh from the court, ratified in office, a man whose energy did not flag as Stephen's did, who did not abandon one enterprise to go off after another, as Stephen did. Or were those days now over? Perhaps the King's privations and grievances in prison in Bristol had put an end to all half-hearted proceedings in the future. But plainly Hugh did not think him capable of sustaining so great a change.
    "He wore his crown again at the Christmas feast, and a sumptuous affair it was. Give him his due, there's no man living could look more of a king than Stephen. He questioned me closely in private as to how things shape in these parts, and I gave him a full account of how we stand with the earl of Chester, and the solid ally Owain Gwynedd has been to us there in the north of the shire. He seemed content enough with me - at least he clouted me hard on the back - a fist like a shovel, Cadfael! - and gave me his authority to get on with the work as sheriff confirmed. He even recalled how I ever came to get his countenance as Prestcote's deputy. I fancy that's a rare touch in kings, part of the reason why we cling to Stephen even when he maddens us. So I got not only his sanction, but a great shove to get back on the road and back to my duty. I think he means to make a visit north when the worst of the winter's over, to buckle a few more of the waverers to him again. Lucky I'd thought to get a change of horses four times on the way south," said Hugh thankfully, "thinking I might be in haste coming back. I'd left my grey in Oxford, going down. And here I am, glad to be home."
    "And Alan Herbard will be glad to see you home," said Cadfael, "for he's been dropped into deep water while you've been away. Not that he shrinks from it, though he can hardly have welcomed it. He'll have told you what's happened here? On the very Nativity! A bad business!"
    "He's told me. I've just come from the abbot, to get his view of it. I saw but little of the man, but I've heard enough from others. A man well hated, and in so short a time. Is their view of him justified? I could hardly ask Abbot Radulfus to cry his candidate down, but I would not say he had any great regard for him."
    "A man without charity or humility," said Cadfael simply. "Salted with those, he might have been a decent fellow, but both were left out of him. He came down over the parish like a cloud of blight, suddenly."
    "And you're sure it was murder? I've seen his body, I know of the head wound. Hard to see, I grant you, how he could have come by that by accident, or alone."
    "You'll have to pursue it," said Cadfael, "whatever poor angry soul struck the blow. But you'll get no help from the Foregate folk. Their hearts will be with whoever rid them of the shadow."
    "So Alan says, too,"