Brother Cadfael 13: The Rose Rent

nonsense was over."
    "I did tell Brother Cadfael I should like to see her," said Judith, stilling her spindle. "No more than that. She's here to fetch a new novice away - the infirmarer's sister's girl."
    "Then don't you be fool enough to offer her a second. Though you do have your follies, as I know," he said lightly, and clapped her affectionately on the shoulder. "Like giving away for a rose-leaf the best property in the Foregate. Do you intend to cap that by giving away yourself?"
    He was two years older than his cousin, and given to playing the elder, full of sage advice, though with a lightness that tempered the image. A young man very neatly and compactly made, strong and lissome, and as good at riding and wrestling and shooting at the butts by the riverside as he was at managing a clothier's business. He had his mother's blue, alert eyes and light-brown hair, but none of her blurred complacency. All that was, or seemed, vague and shallow in the mother became clear and decisive in the son. Judith had had good cause to be glad of him, and to rely on his solid good sense in all matters concerning commerce.
    "I may do as I please with myself," she said, rising and laying her spindle down in safety with its cone of russet yarn, "if only I knew what does best please me! But truth to tell, I'm utterly in the dark. All I've done is to say I should be glad to talk to her. So I shall. I like Sister Magdalen."
    "So do I," agreed Miles heartily. "But I should grudge you to her. This house would founder without you."
    "Folly!" said Judith sharply. "You know well enough it could fare as well without me as with me. It's you who hold up the roof, not I."
    If he disclaimed that, she did not wait to hear, but gave him a sudden reassuring smile and a touch of her hand on his sleeve as she passed, and went to join her guest. Miles had a ruthless honesty, he knew that what she had said was no more than truth, he could have run everything here without her. The sharp reminder pricked her. She was indeed expendable, a woman without purpose here in this world, she might well consider whether there was not a better use for her out of the world. In urging her against it, he had reopened the hollow in her heart, and turned her thoughts again towards the cloister.
    Sister Magdalen was sitting on a cushioned bench beside the unshuttered window in Judith's small private chamber, broad, composed and placid in her black habit. Agatha had brought her fruit and wine, and left her to herself, for she went in some awe of her. Judith sat down beside her visitor.
    "Cadfael has told me," said the nun simply, "what ails you, and what you have confided to him. God forbid I should press you one way or the other, for in the end the decision is yours to make, and no other can make it for you. I am taking into account how grievous your losses have been."
    "I envy you," said Judith, looking down into her linked hands. "You are kind, and I am sure you are wise and strong. I do not believe I am now any of these things, and it is tempting to lean upon someone who is. Oh, I do live, I do work, I have not abandoned house, or kinsfolk, or duties. Yet all this could as well go on without me. My cousin has just shown me as much by denying it. It would be a most welcome refuge, to have a vocation elsewhere."
    "Which you have not," said Sister Magdalen shrewdly, "or you could not have said that." Her sudden smile was like a ray of warmth, and the dimple that darted in and out of her cheek sparkled and was gone.
    "No. Brother Cadfael said as much. He said the religious life should not be embraced as a second-best, but only as the best - not a hiding-place, but a passion."
    "He would be hard put to it to apply that to me," said Sister Magdalen bluntly. "But neither do I recommend to others what I myself do. If truth be told, I am no example to any woman. I took what I chose, I have still some years of life in which to pay for it. And if the debt is not discharged by then, I'll pay the balance after, ungrudging. But you have incurred no such debt, and I do not think you should. The price comes high. You, I judge, will do better to wait, and spend your substance for something different."
    "I know of nothing," said Judith bleakly, after a long moment of thought, "that I find worth buying in this world now. But you and Brother Cadfael are right, if I took the veil I should be hiding behind a lie. All I covet in the cloister is the quiet, and the wall around me, keeping