Brother Cadfael 21: A Rare Benedictine

The other may never miss his footing, but seldom experience joy. Better find a way somewhere between!
    It was a curious chance that seated him next to Brother Eutropius at breakfast, for what did anyone know about Brother Eutropius? He had come to the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul of Shrewsbury only two months ago, from a minor grange of the order. But in two months of Brother Oswin, say, that young man would have been an open book to every reader, whereas Eutropius contained himself as tightly as did his skin, and gave out much less in the way of information. A taciturn man, thirty or so at a guess, who kept himself apart and looked solitary discontent at everything that crossed his path, but never complained. It might be merely newness and shyness, in one naturally uncommunicative, or it might be a gnawing inward anger against his lot and all the world. Rumour said, a man frustrated in love, and finding no relief in his resort to the cowl. But rumour was using its imagination, for want of fuel more reliable.
    Eutropius also worked under Brother Matthew, the cellarer, and was intelligent and literate, but not a good or a quick scribe. Perhaps, when Brother Ambrose fell ill, he would have liked to be trusted to take over his books. Perhaps he resented the lay clerk being preferred before him. Perhaps! With Eutropius everything, thus far, was conjecture. Some day someone would pierce that carapace of his, with an unguarded word or a sudden irresistible motion of grace, and the mystery would no longer be a mystery, or the stranger a stranger.
    Brother Cadfael knew better than to be in a hurry, where souls were concerned. There was plenty of elbow-room in eternity.
    In the afternoon, returning to the grange court to collect some seed he had left stored in the loft, Cadfael encountered Jacob, his scribing done for the moment, setting forth importantly with his own leather satchel into the Foregate, "So he's left you a parcel to clear for him," said Cadfael.
    "I would gladly have done more," said Jacob, mildly aggrieved and on his dignity. He looked less than his twenty-five years, well-grown as he was, with that cherubic face. "But he says I'm sure to be slow, not knowing the rounds or the tenants, so he's let me take only the outlying lanes here in the Foregate, where I can take my time. I daresay he's right, it will take me longer than I think. I'm sorry to see him so worried about his son," he said, shaking his head. "He has to see to this business with the law, he told me not to worry if he was late returning today. I hope all goes well," said the loyal subordinate, and set forth sturdily to do his own duty towards his master, however beset he might be by other cares.
    Cadfael took his seed back to the garden, put in an hour or so of contented work there, washed his hands, and went to check on the progress of Brother Ambrose, who was just able to croak in his ear, more audibly than yesterday: "I could rise and help poor William such a day for him...!"
    He was halted there by a large, rough palm. "Lie quiet," said Cadfael, "like a wise man. Let them see how well they can fend without you, and they'll value you the better hereafter. And about time, too!" And he fed his captive bird again, and returned to his labours in the garden.
    At Vespers, Brother Eutropius came late and in haste, and took his place breathing rapidly, but as impenetrable as ever. And when they emerged to go to supper in the refectory, Jacob of Bouldon was just coming in at the gatehouse with his leather satchel of rents jealously guarded by one hand and looking round hopefully for his master, who had not yet returned. Nor had he some twenty minutes later, when supper was over; but in the gathering dusk Warin Harefoot trudged wearily across the court to the guest-hall, and the pack on his shoulder looked hardly lighter than when he had gone out in the morning.
    Madog of the Dead-Boat, in addition to his primary means of livelihood, which was salvaging dead bodies from the River Severn at any season, had a number of seasonal occupations that afforded him sport as well as a living. Of these the one he enjoyed most was fishing, and of all the fishing seasons the one he liked best was the early Spring run up-river of the mature salmon, fine, energetic young males which had arrived early in the estuary, and would run and leap like athletes many miles upstream before they spawned. Madog was expert at taking them, and had had one out of the water