Monk's Hood (16 page)

“There
is also the matter of the horse that belonged to Master Gervase Bonel,” said
Brother Matthew, “who is to be buried today. Our responsibility to provide
stabling and feed is now at an end, though I know the case is in suspense until
the matter of the man’s death and the disposal of his property is cleared up.
But the widow as survivor is certainly
not entitled to livery
for a horse. She has a daughter married in the town, and doubtless will be able
to make provision for the beast, and of course we must house it until she so
disposes, but it need not occupy a stall in our main stables. Have I your
approval to move it out with our own working beasts to the stabling under our
barn in the horse-fair ground?”

Most
certainly he had not Cadfael’s approval! He sat stiff with alarm and
exasperation, fuming at his own unfortunate choice of hiding-place rather than
Matthew’s practical dispositions. Yet how could he have foreseen this? Very
seldom had it been necessary to make use of the stalls at the barn, apart from
its actual purpose as temporary accommodation at the horse-fairs and St.
Peter’s fair. And now how was he to get to Edwin in time to remove him from the
peril of discovery? In broad daylight, and with the inescapable spiritual
duties of the day confining his movements?

“That
should certainly provide adequate stabling,” agreed Prior Robert. “It would be
well to make the transfer at once.”

“I
will give instructions to the grooms. And you agree also, Father, to the Widow
Bonel’s horse being removed with them?”

“By
all means!” Robert no longer had quite the same interest in the Bonel family,
now that it seemed doubtful he would ever lay his hands on the manor of
Mallilie, though he did not intend to give up without a struggle. The unnatural
death and its consequences irked him like a thorn in his flesh, and he would
gladly have removed not merely the horse but the whole household, could he have
done so with propriety. He did not want murder associated with his convent, he
did not want the sheriff’s officers probing among his guests, or the whiff of
notoriety hanging round the monastery buildings like a bad odour. “It will be
necessary to go into the legal complications on the vexed question of the
charter, which inevitably lapses now unless a new lord chooses to endorse and
complete it. But until after Master Bonel’s burial, of course, nothing should
be done. The horse, however, can well be moved. I doubt if the widow will now
have any use for a mount, but that is not yet our problem.”

He
is already regretting, thought Cadfael, that in the first flush of sympathy and
concern he authorised a grave for Bonel in the transept. But his dignity will
not let him withdraw the concession now. God be thanked, Richildis will have
whatever comfort there is in a solemn and dignified funeral, since all that
Robert does must be done with grandeur. Gervase has lain in state in the
mortuary chapel of the abbey, and will lie in abbey ground by nightfall. She
would be soothed and calmed by that. She felt, he was sure, a kind of guilt
towards the dead man. Whenever she was solitary she would be playing the
ageless, debilitating game of: If only… If only I’d never accepted him… if only
I had managed affairs between him and Edwin better… if only—then he might have
been alive and hale today!

Cadfael
closed his ears to the desultory discussion of a possible purchase of land to
enlarge the graveyard, and gave his mind to the consideration of his own more
pressing problem. It would not be impossible to find himself an errand along
the Foregate when the grooms were stabling the horses in their new quarters,
and the lay brothers would not question any movements of his. He could as well
bring Edwin out of his retreat in a Benedictine habit as lead him into it,
provided he took care to time the exit property. And once out, then where?
Certainly not towards the gatehouse. There were people in one or two houses
along the highroad towards St. Giles who had had dealings with him when sick,
some whose children he had attended in fever. They might give shelter to a
young man at his recommendation, though he did not much like the idea of
involving them. Or there was, at the end of this stretch of road, the leper
hospital of St. Giles, where young brothers often served a part of their
novitiate in attendance on those less fortunate. Something, surely, might be
arranged to hide one haunted boy.

Incredulously,
Cadfael heard his own name spoken, and was jerked sharply out of his planning.
Across the chapter-house, in his stall as close as possible to Prior Robert,
Brother Jerome had risen, and was in full spate, his meagre figure deceptively
humble in stance, his sharp eyes half-hooded in
holy meekness.
And he had just uttered Brother Cadfael’s name, with odious concern and
affection!

“…
I do not say, Father, that there has been any impropriety in our dearly valued
brother’s conduct. I do but appeal for aid and guidance for his soul’s sake,
for he stands in peril. Father, it has come to my knowledge that many years
since, before his call to this blessed vocation, Brother Cadfael was in a
relationship of worldly affection with the lady who is now Mistress Bonel, and
a guest of this house. By reason of the death of her husband he was drawn back
into contact with her, by no fault of his, oh, no, I do not speak of blame, for
he was called to help a dying man. But consider, Father, how severe a test may
be imposed upon a brother’s sincere devotion, when he is again brought
unexpectedly into so close touch with a long-forgotten attachment according to
this world!”

To
judge by Prior Robert’s loftily erected head and stretched neck, which enabled
him to look from an even greater height down his nose at the imperilled
brother, he was indeed considering it. So was Cadfael, with astonished
indignation that congealed rapidly into cool, inimical comprehension. He had
underestimated Brother Jerome’s audacity, no less than his venom. That large,
sinewy ear must have been pressed lovingly to the large keyhole of Richildis’s
door, to have gathered so much.

“Do
you allege,” demanded Robert incredulously, “that Brother Cadfael has been in
unlawful conversation with this woman? On what occasion? We ourselves know well
that he attended Master Bonel’s death-bed, and did his best for the
unfortunate, and that the unhappy wife was then present. We have no reproach to
make upon that count, it was his duty to go where he was needed.”

Brother
Cadfael, as yet unaddressed, sat grimly silent, and let them proceed, for
obviously this attack came as unexpectedly to Robert as to him.

“Oh,
no man of us can question that,” agreed Jerome obligingly. “It was his
Christian duty to give aid according to his skills, and so he did. But as I
have learned, our brother
has again visited the widow and
spoken with her, only last night. Doubtless for purposes of comfort and
blessing to the bereaved. But what dangers may lurk in such a meeting, Father,
I need not try to express. God forbid it should ever enter any mind, that a man
once betrothed, and having lost his affianced wife to another, should succumb
to jealousy in his late years, after abandoning the world, when he once again
encounters the former object of his affections. No, that we may not even
consider. But would it not be better if our beloved brother should be removed
utterly even from the temptations of memory? I speak as one having his
wellbeing and spiritual health at heart.”

You
speak, thought Cadfael, grinding his teeth, as one at last provided with a
weapon against a man you’ve hated for years with little effect. And, God
forgive me, if I could wring your scrawny neck now, I would do it and rejoice.

He
rose and stood forth from his retired place to be seen. “I am here, Father
Prior, examine me of my actions as you wish. Brother Jerome is somewhat
over-tender of my vocation, which is in no danger.” And that, at least, was
heartfelt.

Prior
Robert continued to look down at him all too thoughtfully for Cadfael’s liking.
He would certainly fight any suggestion of misconduct among his flock, and
defend them to the world for his own sake, but he might also welcome an
opportunity of curbing the independent activities of a man who always caused
him slight discomfort, as though he found in Cadfael’s blunt, practical,
tolerant self-sufficiency a hidden vein of desire of satire and amusement. He
was no fool, and could hardly have failed to notice that he was being obliquely
invited to believe that Cadfael might, when confronted with his old sweetheart
married to another, have so far succumbed to jealousy as to remove his rival
from the world with his own hands. Who, after all, knew the properties of herbs
and plants better, or the proportions in which they could be used for good or
ill? God forbid it should enter any mind, Jerome had said piously, neatly
planting the notion as he deplored it. Doubtful if Robert would seriously
entertain any such thought, but neither would he censure it in Jerome, who was
unfailingly useful and obsequious to him. Nor could it be argued
that the thing was altogether impossible. Cadfael had made the monk’s-hood oil,
and knew what could be done with it. He had not even to procure it secretly, he
had it in his own charge; and if he had been sent for in haste to a man already
sick to death, who was to say he had not first administered the poison he
feigned to combat? And I watched Aelfric cross the court, thought Cadfael, and
might easily have stopped him for a word, lifted the lid in curiosity at the
savoury smell, been told for whom it was sent, and added another savour of my
own making? A moment’s distraction, and it could have been done. How easy it is
to bring on oneself a suspicion there’s no disproving!

“Is
it indeed truth, brother,” asked Robert weightily, “that Mistress Bonel was
intimately known to you in your youth, before you took vows?”

“It
is,” said Cadfael directly, “if by intimately you mean only well and closely,
on terms of affection. Before I took the Cross we held ourselves to be
affianced, though no one else knew of it. That was more than forty years ago,
and I had not seen her since. She married in my absence, and I, after my return,
took the cowl.” The fewer words here, the better.

“Why
did you never say word of this, when they came to our house?”

“I
did not know who Mistress Bonel was, until I saw her. The name meant nothing to
me, I knew only of her first marriage. I was called to the house, as you know,
and went in good faith.”

“That
I acknowledge,” conceded Robert. “I did not observe anything untoward in your
conduct there.”

“I
do not suggest, Father Prior,” Jerome made haste to assure him, “that Brother
Cadfael has done anything deserving of blame…” The lingering ending added
silently: “… as yet!” but he did not go so far as to utter it. “I am concerned
only for his protection from the snares of temptation. The devil can betray
even through a Christian affection.”

Prior
Robert was continuing his heavy and intent study of
Cadfael,
and if he was not expressing condemnation, there was no mistaking the
disapproval in his elevated eyebrows and distended nostrils. No inmate of his
convent should even admit to noticing a woman, unless by way of Christian
ministry or hard-headed business. “In attending a sick man, certainly you did
only right, Brother Cadfael. But is it also true that you visited this woman
last night? Why should that be? If she was in need of spiritual comfort, there
is here also a parish priest. Two days ago you had a right and proper reason
for going there, last night you surely had none.”

“I
went there,” said Cadfael patiently, since there was no help in impatience, and
nothing could mortify Brother Jerome so much as to be treated with detached
forbearance, “to ask certain questions which may bear upon her husband’s
death—a matter which you, Father Prior, and I, and all here, must devoutly wish
to be cleared up as quickly as possible, so that this house may be in peace.”

“That
is the business of the sheriff and his sergeants,” said Robert curtly, “and
none of yours. As I understand it, there is no doubt whose is the guilt, and it
is only a matter of laying hands upon the youth who did so vile a thing. I do not
like your excuse, Brother Cadfael.”

“In
due obedience,” said Cadfael, “I bow to your judgment, but also must not
despise my own. I think there is doubt, and the truth will not be easily
uncovered. And my reason was not an excuse; it was for that purpose I went to
the house. It was my own preparation, meant to bring comfort and relief from
pain, that was used to bring death, and neither this house nor I, as a brother
herein, can be at peace until the truth is known.”

“In
saying so, you show lack of faith in those who uphold the law, and whose
business justice is, as yours it is not. It is an arrogant attitude, and I
deplore it.” What he meant was that he wished to distance the Benedictine house
of St. Peter and St. Paul from the ugly thing that had happened just outside
its walls, and he would find a means of preventing the effective working of a
conscience so inconvenient to his aims.
“In my judgment,
Brother Jerome is right, and it is our duty to ensure that you are not allowed,
by your own folly, to stray into spiritual danger. You will have no further
contact with Mistress Bonel. Until her future movements are decided, and she
leaves her present house, you will confine yourself to the enclave, and your
energies to your proper function of work and worship within our walls only.”