Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate

fallibility, but holding up others who falter, than to stride forward alone.
    "Again, it is not enough to abstain from evil, there must also be an outgoing goodness. The company of the blessed may extend justifiably to embrace even men who have been great sinners, yet also great lovers of their fellow men, such as have never turned away their eyes from other men's needs, but have done them such good as they might, and as little harm as they must. For in that they saw a neighbour's need, they saw God's need, as he himself has shown us, and inasmuch as they saw a neighbour's face more clearly than their own, so also they saw God's face.
    "Further, I show you certainly that all such as are born into this world and die untainted by personal sin partake of the martyred purity of the Holy Innocents, and die for Our Lord, who also will embrace them and quicken them living, where they shall no more partake of death. And if they died without name here, yet their name is written in his book, and no other need know it, until the day come.
    "But we, all we who share the burden of sin, it behoves us not to question or fret concerning the measure dealt out to us, or try to calculate our own merit and deserving, for we have not the tools by which to measure values concerning the soul. That is God's business. Rather it behoves us to live every day as though it were our last, to the full of such truth and kindness as is within us, and to lie down every night as though the next day were to be our first, and a new and pure beginning. The day will come when all will be made plain. Then shall we know, as now we trust. And in that trust we commit our pastor here to the care of the shepherd of shepherds, in the sure hope of the resurrection."
    He uttered the blessing with his face lowered at last to those who listened. Probably he wondered how many had understood, and how many, indeed, had need of understanding.
    It was over here, people stirred stealthily in the nave, sliding towards the north door to be first out and secure a good place ahead of the procession. In the choir the three ministering priests, abbot, prior and sub-prior, descended to the bier, and the brothers formed silent file, two by two, after them. The party of bearers took up the burden, and made towards the open north doorway into the Foregate. How is it, thought Cadfael, watching, and glad of a distraction, however sinful at such a moment, how is it that there is always one out of step, or just a little too short in height and stride to match the others? Is it so that we should not fall into the error of taking even death too seriously?
    It was no great surprise to find the Foregate crowded when the procession issued from the north porch and turned to the right along the precinct wall, but at first glance it did come as a surprise to find half the townspeople among the starers, as well as the men of the parish. Then Cadfael understood the reason. Hugh had had discreet whispers of his plans leaked within the town walls, too late for them to be carried out here to the folk most concerned, and give warning, but in time to bring the worthies of Shrewsbury - or perhaps even more surely the un-worthies, who had time to waste on curiosity - hurrying here to be witnesses of the ending.
    Cadfael was still wondering what that ending was to be. Hugh's device might provoke some man's conscience and make him speak out, to deliver a neighbour mistakenly accused, but equally it might come as an immense relief to the guilty, and be accepted as a gift - certainly not from heaven, rather from the other place! At every step along the Foregate he fretted at the tangle of details churning in his mind, and found no coherence among them. Not until the little jar of ointment he had thrust into the breast of his habit nodded against his middle as his foot slid in a muddy rut. The touch was like an impatient nudge at his mind. He saw it again, resting in the palm of a shapely but work-worn hand, as Diota held it out to him. A hand seamed with the lines proper to the human palm, graven deep with lifelong use, but also bearing thread-like white lines that crossed these, fanning from wrist to fingers, barely visible now, soon to vanish altogether.
    An icy night, certainly, he had trodden cautiously through it himself, he knew. And a woman slipping as she turned to step back on to the frozen doorstone of a house, and falling forward, naturally puts out her hands to save herself, and her hands take