Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

said Cadfael, sweet and calm and guileless as ever.
    The boy, interested and off his guard, halted and swung about in response to his name, waiting with a willing smile to hear what next he should bring. And on the instant he froze where he stood, the serene brightness still visible on a face turned to marble, the smile fixed and empty. For a long moment they contemplated each other eye to eye, Cadfael also smiling, then warm blood flushed into Benet's face and he stirred out of his stillness, and the smile, wary as it was, became live and young again. The silence endured longer, but it was the boy who broke it at last.
    "Now what should happen? Am I supposed to overturn the brazier, set the hut on fire, rush out and bar the door on you, and run for my life?"
    "Hardly," said Cadfael, "unless that's what you want. It would scarcely suit me. It would become you better to put that scale down on the level slab there, and pay attention to what you and I are about. And while you're at it, that jar by the shutter is hog's fat, bring that out, too."
    Benet did so, with admirable calm now, and turned a wryly smiling face. "How did you know? How did you know even my name?" He was making no further pretence at secrecy, he had even relaxed into a measure of perverse enjoyment.
    "Son, the story of your invasion of this realm, along with another mad-head as reckless as yourself, seems to be common currency by this time, and the whole land knows you are supposed to have fled northwards from regions where you were far too hotly hunted for comfort. Hugh Beringar got his orders to keep an eye open for you, at the feast in Canterbury. King Stephen's blood is up, and until it cools your liberty is not worth a penny if his officers catch up with you. For I take it," he said mildly, "that you are Ninian Bachiler?"
    "I am. But how did you know?"
    "Why, once I heard that there was a certain Ninian lost somewhere in these midland counties, it was not so hard. Once you all but told me yourself. "What's your name?" I asked you, and you began to say "Ninian", and then caught yourself up and changed it to a clownish echo of the question, before you got out "Benet". And oh, my child, how soon you gave over pretending with me that you were a simple country groom. Never had a spade in your hand before! No, I swear you never had, though I grant you you learn very quickly. And your speech, and your hands - No, never blush or look mortified, it was not so obvious, it simply added together grain by grain. And besides, you stopped counting me as someone to be deceived. You may as well admit it."
    "It seemed unworthy," said the boy, and scowled briefly at the beaten earth floor. "Or useless, perhaps! I don't know! What are you going to do with me now? If you try to give me up, I warn you I'll do all I can to break away. But I won't do it by laying hand on you. We've been friendly together."
    "As well for both you and me," said Cadfael, smiling, "for you might find you'd met your match. And who said I had any notion of giving you up? I am neither King Stephen's partisan nor the Empress Maud's, and whoever serves either of them honestly and at risk to himself may go about his business freely for me. But you may as well tell me what that business is. Without implicating any other, of course. I take it, for instance, that Mistress Hammet is not your aunt?"
    "No," said Ninian slowly, his eyes intent and earnest on Cadfael's face. "You will respect her part in this? She was in my mother's service before she married the bishop's groom. She was my nurse when I was a child. When I was in flight I went to her for help. It was thoughtless, and I wish it could be undone, but believe it, whatever she has done has been done in pure aifection for me, and what I've been about is nothing to do with her. She got me these clothes I wear - mine had been living rough in the woods and in and out of rivers, but they still marked me for what I am. And it was of her own will that she asked leave to bring me here with her as her nephew, when Father Ailnoth got this preferment. To get me away from the hunters. She had asked and been given his leave before ever I knew of it, I could not avoid. And it did come as a blessing to me, I own it."
    "What was your intent when you came over from Normandy?" asked Cadfael.
    "Why, to make contact with any friends of the Empress who might be lying very low in the south and east, where she's least loved, and urge them to be ready to rise if