Brother Cadfael 12: The Raven in the Foregate Read Free

grown family, and very occasionally at feast or holiday he visited there, but that happened very rarely now, his whole life being centred here in the great church and the small upper room. So spare, silent and dark a form and face might have aroused awe and avoidance, but did not, since what the darkness and the silence covered was known to all, even the mischievous boys of the Foregate, and inspired no fear or revulsion at all. A good man, with his own preferences and peculiarities, and certainly no talker, but if you needed him, he was there, and like his master, would not send you away empty.
    Those who could not be easy with his mute company at least respected him, and those who could included the most innocent and guileless. Children and dogs would sit companionably on the steps of the north porch with him in summer weather, and do all the talking necessary to such a friendship, after their own fashion, while he listened. Many a mother in the Foregate, content to see her young consorting so familiarly with a respectable churchman, had wondered why Cynric had never married and had children of his own, since plainly he had an affinity for them. It could not be because of his office of verger, for there were still plenty of married priests scattered through the parishes of the shire, and no one thought any wrong of them. The new order of clerics without women was only just beginning to make headway here, no one, not even bishops, had yet begun to look sidewise at those of the old school who did not conform. Monks were monks, and had made their choice, but surely the secular clergy could still be secular without reproach.
    "He had no living kin?" asked Cadfael. For of all men remaining behind, Cynric would know.
    "None."
    "He was newly priest here," said Cadfael, "when I came first from Woodstock with Abbot Heribert - Prior Heribert he was then, for Abbot Godefrid was still alive. You came, as I remember, a year or two later. You're a younger man than I. You and I between us could put together a history of cowl and cassock here in the Foregate all this long while. It would make a very handsome memorial to Father Adam. No falling out, no falling off. He had his everlasting penitents, but that was his glory, that they always came back. They could not do without him. And he kept his thread that drew them back, whether they would or no."
    "So he did," said Cynric, and clipped the last blackened wick with a snap of his fingernails, and straightened the candlesticks on the parish altar, standing back a pace with narrowed lids to check that they stood correct as soldiers on guard.
    His throat creaked, forcing unwilling chords to flex, when he used more words. The strings protested now. "Is there a man in mind?"
    "No," said Cadfael, "or Father Abbot would have told you. He goes south by forced rides tomorrow to the legate's council in Westminster, and this presentation must wait his return, but he's promised haste. He knows the need. You may well get Brother Jerome now and again until the abbot returns, but never doubt that Radulfus has the parish very much at heart."
    To that Cynric nodded silent assent, for the relations between cloister and parish here had been harmonious under three abbots in succession, all the years of Father Adam's incumbency, whereas in some churches thus shared, as everyone knew, there was constant friction, the monastics grudging the commonalty room in their enclave and entry to their privileged buildings, and the secular priest putting up a fight for his rights to avoid being elbowed out. Not so here. Perhaps it was the modest goodness of Father Adam that had done the lion's share in keeping the peace, and making the relationship easy.
    "He liked a sup now and again," said Cadfael meditatively. "I still have some of a wine he liked - distilled with herbs, good for the blood and heart. Come and take a cup with me in the garden, some afternoon, Cynric, and we'll drink to him."
    "I will so," said Cynric, and