Ellis Peters - The Raven in the Foregate

“I am less concerned for a yard of headland,” said the abbot drily,”than for matters that touch a man’s being even more nearly. Your man Aelgar was born free, is free man now, and so are his uncle and cousin, and if they take steps to assert it there will be no man query it hereafter. They assumed such customary duties as they do by way of payment for a piece of land, there is no disfranchisement, no more than when a man pays in money.”

“So I have found by enquiry,” said Ailnoth imperturbably, “and have said as much to him.”

“Then that was properly done. But it would have been better to enquire first and accuse afterwards.”

“My lord, no just man should resent the appeal to justice. I am new among these people, I heard of the kinsmen’s land, that it was held by villein service. It was my duty to find out the truth, and it was honest to speak first to the man himself.”

Which was true enough, if not kindly, and it seemed he had acknowledged the truth against himself, once established, with the same steely integrity. But what is to be done with such a man, among the common, fallible run of humanity? Radulfus went on to graver matters.

“The child that was born to the man Centwin and his wife, and lived barely an hour… The man came to you, urging haste, since the baby was very feeble and likely to die. You did not go with him to give it Christian baptism, and since your ministration came too late, as I hear, you denied the infant burial in consecrated ground. Why did you not go at once when you were called, and with all haste?”

“Because I had but just begun the office. My lord, I never have broken off my devotions according to my vows, and never will, for any cause, though it were my own death. Until I had completed the act of worship I could not go. As soon as it was ended, I did go. I could not know the child would die so soon. But if I had known, still I could not have cut short the worship I owe.”

“There are other obligations you owe no less,” said Radulfus with some asperity. “There are times when it is needful to make a choice between duties, and yours, I think, is first to the souls of those within your care. You chose rather the perfection of your own personal worship, and consigned the child to a grave outside the pale. Was that well done?”

“My lord,” said Ailnoth, unflinching, and with the high and smouldering gleam of self-justification in his black eyes, “as I hold, it was. I will not go aside from the least iota of my service where the sacred office is concerned. My own soul and all others must bow to that.”

“Even the soul of the most innocent, new come into the world, the most defenceless of God’s creatures?”

“My lord, you know well that the letter of divine law does not permit the burial of unchristened creatures within the pale. I keep the rules by which I am bound. I can do no other. God will know where to find Centwin’s babe, if his mercy extends to him, in holy ground or base.”

After its merciless fashion it was a good answer. The abbot pondered, eyeing the stony, assured face.

“The letter of the rule is much, I grant you, but the spirit is more. And you might well have jeopardised your own soul to ensure that of a newborn child. An office interrupted can be completed without sin, if the cause be urgent enough. And there is also the matter of the girl Eluned, who went to her death after—I say after, mark, I do not say because!—you turned her away from the church. It is a grave thing to refuse confession and penance even to the greatest sinner.”

“Father Abbot,” said Ailnoth, with the first hot spurt of passion, immovable in righteousness, “where there is no penitence there can be neither penance nor absolution. The woman had pleaded penitence and vowed amendment time after time, and never kept her word. I have heard from others all her reputation, and it is past amendment. I could not in conscience confess her, for I could not take her word. If there is no truth in the act of contrition, there is no merit in confession, and to absolve her would have been deadly sin. A whore past recovery! I do not repent me, whether she died or no. I would do again what I did. There is no compromise with the pledges by which I am bound.”

“There will be no compromise with the answer you must make for two deaths,” said Radulfus solemnly, “if God should take a view different from yours. I bid you recall, Father Ailnoth, that you are summoned to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance, the weak, the fallible, those who go in fear and ignorance, and have not your pure advantage. Temper your demands to their abilities, and be less severe on those who cannot match your perfection.” He paused there, for it was meant as irony, to bite, but the proud, impervious face never winced, accepting the accolade. “And be slow to lay your hand upon the children,” he said, “unless they offend of malicious intent. To error we are all liable, even you.”

“I study to do right,” said Ailnoth, “as I have always, and always shall.” And he went away with the same confident step, vehement and firm, the skirts of his gown billowing like wings in the wind of his going.

“A man abstemious, rigidly upright, inflexibly honest, ferociously chaste,” said Radulfus in private to Prior Robert. “A man with every virtue, except humility and human kindness. That is what I have brought upon the Foregate, Robert. And now what are we to do about him?”

Dame Diota Hammet came on the twenty-second day of December to the gatehouse of the abbey with a covered basket, and asked meekly for her nephew Benet, for whom she had brought a cake for his Christmas, and a few honey buns from her festival baking. The porter, knowing her for the parish priest’s housekeeper, directed her through to the garden, where Benet was busy clipping the last straggly growth from the box hedges.

Hearing their voices, Cadfael looked out from his workshop, and divining who this matronly woman must be, was about to return to his mortar when he was caught by some delicate shade in their greeting. A matter-of-fact affection, easy-going and undemonstrative, was natural between aunt and nephew, and what he beheld here hardly went beyond that, but for all that there was a gloss of tenderness and almost deference in the woman’s bearing towards her young kinsman, and an unexpected, childish grace in the warmth with which he embraced her. True, he was already known for a young man who did nothing by halves, but here were certainly aunt and nephew who did not take each other for granted.

Cadfael withdrew to his work again and left them their privacy. A comely, well-kept woman was Mistress Hammet, with decent black clothing befitting a priest’s housekeeper, and a dark shawl over her neat, greying hair. Her oval face, mildly sad in repose, brightened vividly in greeting the boy, and then she looked no more than forty years old, and perhaps, indeed, she was no more. Benet’s mother’s sister? wondered Cadfael. If so, he took after his father, for there was very little resemblance here. Well, it was none of his business!

Benet came bounding into the workshop to empty the basket of its good things, spreading them out on the wooden bench. “We’re in luck, Brother Cadfael, for she’s as good a cook as you’d find in the King’s own kitchen. You and I can eat like princes.”

And he was off again as blithely to restore the empty basket. Cadfael looked out after him through the open door, and saw him hand over, besides the basket, some small thing he drew from the breast of his cotte. She took it, nodding earnestly, unsmiling, and the boy stooped and kissed her cheek. She smiled then. He had a way with him, no question. She turned and went away, and left him looking after her for a long moment, before he also turned, and came back to the workshop. The engaging grin came back readily to his face.