Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

with the general goodwill open to whoever comes, because the general goodwill was there to speed the one departed."
    "Children will always be glad of a weak master who never uses the rod," said Jerome sagely, "and rascals of a judge who lets them off lightly. But the payment that falls due later will be fearful. Better they should be brought up harshly against the wages of sin now, and lay up safety for their souls hereafter."
    Brother Paul, master of the novices and the boys, who very rarely laid a hand upon his pupils, and certainly only when they had well deserved it, smiled and held his peace.
    "In too much mercy is too little kindness," pronounced Jerome, conscious of his own eloquence, and mindful of his reputation as a preacher. "The Rule itself decrees that where the child offends he must be beaten, and these folk of the Foregate, what are they but children?"
    They were called by the bell to Compline at that moment, but in any case it was unlikely that any of them would have troubled to argue with Jerome, whose much noise and small effect hardly challenged notice. No doubt he would preach stern sermons at the parish Mass, on the two days allotted to him, but there would be very few of the regular attenders there to listen to him, and even those who did attend would let his homily in at one ear and out at the other, knowing his office here could last but a few days.
    For all that, Cadfael went to his bed that night very thoughtful, and though he heard a few whispered exchanges in the dortoir, himself kept silence, mindful of the rule that the words of Compline, the completion, the perfecting of the day's worship, should be the last words uttered before sleep, that the mind should not be distracted from the Opus Dei. Nor was it. For the words lingered with him between sleep and waking, the same words over and over, faintly returning. By chance the psalm was the sixth. He took it with him into slumber.
    "Domine, ne in furore - O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy displeasure ... Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak and helpless."
    Chapter Two
    On the tenth day of December, abbot Radulfus returned, riding in at the gatehouse just as the daylight was fading, and the brethren were within at Vespers. Thus the porter was the only witness of his arrival, and of the embellished entourage he brought back with him, and not until the next day at chapter did the brothers hear all that he had to tell, or as much of it as concerned the abbey itself. But Brother Porter, the soul of discretion when required, could also be the best-informed gossip in the enclave to his special friends, and Cadfael learned something of what was toward that same night, in one of the carrels in the cloister, immediately after Vespers.
    "He's brought back with him a priest, a fine tall fellow - not above thirty-five years or so I'd guess him to be. He's bedded now in the guest hall, they rode hard today to get home before dark. Not a word has Father Abbot said to me, beyond giving me my orders to let Brother Denis know he has a guest for the night, and to take care of the other two. For there's a woman come with the priest, a decent soul going grey and very modestly conducted, that I take to be some sort of aunt or housekeeper to the priest, for I was bidden get one of the lay grooms to show her the way to Father Adam's cottage, and that I did. And not the woman alone, there's another young servant lad with her, that waits on the pair of them and does their errands. A widow and her son they could be, in the priest's service. Off he goes with only Brother Vitalis, as always, and comes back with three more, and two extra horses. The young lad brought the woman pillion behind him. And what do you make of all that?"
    "Why, there's but one way of it," said Cadfael, after giving the matter serious thought. "The lord abbot has brought back a priest for Holy Cross from the southlands, and his household with him. The man himself is made comfortable in the guest hall overnight, while his domestics go to open up the empty house and get a good fire going for him, and food in store, and the place warmed and ready. And tomorrow at chapter, no doubt, we shall hear how the abbot came by him, and which of all the bishops gathered there recommended him to the benefice."
    "It's what I myself was thinking," agreed the porter, "though it would have been more to the general mind, I fancy, if a local man had been advanced to the vacancy.