Brother Cadfael 13: The Rose Rent

himself out of his daze.
    "I had been thinking," he said slowly, "of bringing my little girl home here today. We were talking of it only the other night, that I should do well to have her with me, now she's no longer a babe. But now I wonder! With such a madman haunting this house, she's safer where she is."
    "Yes," said Cadfael, rousing, "yes, do that, bring her home! You need not fear. After tomorrow, Niall, this madman will haunt you no more. I promise it!"
    The day of Saint Winifred's translation dawned fine and sunny, with a fresh breeze that sprang up only with the light, and drifted the stench of burning across the roofs of the Foregate as inevitably as the first labourer to cross the bridge brought the news of the fire into the town. It reached the Vestier shop as soon as the shutters were taken down and the first customer entered. Miles came bursting into the solar with a face of consternation, like someone charged with bad news and uncertain how to convey it delicately.
    "Judith, it seems we're not done yet with the ill luck that hangs around your rose-bush. There's yet one more strange thing happened, I heard it just this moment. No need for you to trouble too much, no one is dead or hurt this time, it's not so terribly grave. But I know it will distress you, all the same."
    So long and deprecating a preamble was not calculated to reassure her, in spite of its soothing tone. She rose from the window-bench where she was sitting with Sister Magdalen. "What is it now? What was there left that could happen?"
    "There's been a fire in the night - someone set fire to the rose-bush. It's burned, every leaf, burned down to the bole, so they're saying. There can't be a bud or a twig left, let alone a flower to pay your rent."
    "The house?" she demanded, aghast. "Did that take fire? Was there damage? No harm to Niall? Only the bush?"
    "No, no, nothing else touched, never fret for the smith, nor for the house, they're safe enough. They'd have said if anyone had been harmed. Now, be easy, it's over!" He took her by the shoulders, very gently and brotherly, smiling into her face. "Over now, and no one the worse. Only that plaguey bush gone, and I say just as well, considering all the mischief it's caused. Such a queer bargain to make, you're well rid of it."
    "It need never have brought harm to anyone," she said wretchedly, and slowly sat down again, drawing herself out of his hands quite gently. "The house was mine to give. I had been happy in it. I wanted to give it to God, I wanted it blessed."
    "It's yours again to give or keep, now," said Miles, "for you'll get no rose for your rent this year, my dear. You could take your house back for the default. You could give it as your dowry if you do go so far as to join the Benedictines." He looked sidelong at Sister Magdalen with his blue, clear eyes, smiling. "Or you could live in it again if you're so minded - or let Isabel and me live in it when we marry. Whatever you decide, the old bargain's broken. If I were you, I would be in no hurry to make such another, after all that's happened in consequence."
    "I don't take back gifts," she said, "especially from God." Miles had left the door of the solar open behind him; she could hear the murmur of the women's voices from the far end of the long room beyond, suddenly and sharply cut across by other voices at the hall door, a man's first, courteous and low, then her aunt's, with the sweet social note in it. There might be a number of neighbourly visits this day, as Bertred went to his burial. At mid-morning he would be carried to Saint Chad's churchyard. "Let it rest," said Judith, turning away to the window. "Why should we be talking of this now? If the bush is burned..." That had an ominous biblical ring about it, the burning bush of revelation. But that one, surely, was not consumed.
    "Judith, my dear," said Agatha, appearing in the doorway, "here is the lord sheriff to visit you again, and Brother Cadfael is come with him."
    They came in quietly, with nothing ominous about them, but for the fact that two sergeants of the garrison followed them into the room and stood well withdrawn, one on either side the doorway. Judith had turned to meet the visitors, anticipating news already known.
    "My lord, I and my affairs are causing you trouble still. My cousin has already told me what happened in the night. With all my heart I hope this may be the last ripple of this whirlpool. I'm sorry to have put you to such shifts, it shall