Brother Cadfael 13: The Rose Rent

she would soon learn."
    It seemed to Cadfael, working away with his back turned to her, that she was talking to fill the silence while she thought, and thought of something far removed from what she was saying. It was no great surprise when she said suddenly, and in a very different voice, abrupt and resolute: "Brother Cadfael, I have thoughts of taking the veil. Serious thoughts! The world is not so desirable that I should hesitate to leave it, nor my condition so hopeful that I dare look for a better time to come. The business can do very well without me; Cousin Miles runs it very profitably, and values it more than I do. Oh, I do my duty well enough, as I was always taught to do, but he could do it every bit as well without me. Why should I hesitate?"
    Cadfael turned to face her, the mortar balanced on his palm. "Have you said as much to your aunt and your cousin?"
    "I have mentioned it."
    "And what do they say to it?"
    "Nothing. It's left to me. Miles will neither commend nor advise, he brushes it aside. I think he doesn't take me seriously. My aunt - you know her a little? She's widowed like me, and for ever lamenting it, even after years. She talks of the peace of the cloister, and release from the cares of the world. But she always talks so, though I know she's well content with her comfortable life if the truth were told. I live, Brother Cadfael, I do my work, but I am not content. It would be something settled and stable, to take to the cloister."
    "And wrong," said Cadfael firmly. "Wrong, at least, for you."
    "Why would it be so wrong?" she challenged. The hood had slipped back from her head, the great braid of light-brown hair, silver-lit like veined oak, glowed faintly in the subdued light.
    "No one should take to the cloistered life as a second-best, and that is what you would be doing. It must be embraced out of genuine desire, or not at all. It is not enough to wish to escape from the world without, you must be on fire for the world within."
    "Was it so with you?" she asked, and suddenly she smiled, and her austere face kindled into warmth for a moment.
    He considered that in silence for a brief, cautious while. "I came late to it, and it may be that my fire burned somewhat dully," he said honestly at length, "but it gave light enough to show me the road to what I wanted. I was running towards, not away."
    She looked him full in the face with her daunting, direct eyes, and said with abrupt, bleak deliberation: "Have you never thought, Brother Cadfael, that a woman may have more cause to run away than ever you had? More perils to run from, and fewer alternatives than flight?"
    "That is truth," admitted Cadfael, stirring vigorously. "But you, as I know, are better placed than many to hold your own, as well as having more courage than a good many of us men. You are your own mistress, your kin depend on you, and not you on them. There is no overlord to claim the right to order your future, no one can force you into another marriage - yes, I have heard there are many would be only too pleased if they could, but they have no power over you. No father living, no elder kinsman to influence you. No matter how men may pester you or affairs weary you, you know you are more than equal to them. And as for what you have lost," he said, after a moment's hesitation as to whether he should tread so near, "it is lost only to this world. Waiting is not easy, but no harder, believe me, among the vexations and distractions of the world than in the solitude and silence of the cloister. I have seen men make that mistake, for as reasonable cause, and suffer all the more with the double deprivation. Do not you take that risk. Never unless you are sure of what you want, and want it with all your heart and soul."
    It was as much as he dared say, as much as and perhaps more than he had any right to say. She heard him out without turning her eyes away. He felt their clear stare heavy upon him all the time he was smoothing his ointment into its jar for her, and tying down the lid of the pot for safe carriage.
    "Sister Magdalen, from the Benedictine cell at Godric's Ford," he said, "is coming to Shrewsbury in two days' time, to fetch away Brother Edmund's niece, who wants to join the sisterhood there. As for the girl's motives, I know nothing of them, but if Sister Magdalen is accepting her as a novice it must be from conviction, and moreover, the child will be carefully watched, and get no further than her novitiate unless Magdalen