Brother Cadfael 13: The Rose Rent Read Free Page A

and yet composed and calm like the Blessed Virgin herself. And he coming to her bearing a white rose, their hands perhaps touching as he delivers it. And now I recall that Anselm says he's something of a poet. Well, what follies we commit without evil intent!
    It was far too late now to devote his mind to its proper business of prayer and praise. He contented himself with hoping that by the time the brothers emerged from the choir after service the lady would be gone.
    By the mercy of God, she was.
    But she was gone, it seemed, no further than Cadfael's workshop in the herb-garden, where he found her waiting patiently outside the open door when he came to decant the lotion he had left cooling before Mass. Her brow was smooth and her voice mild, and everything about her practical and sensible. The fire that burned Eluric was unknown to her. At Cadfael's invitation she followed him in, under the gently swaying bunches of herbs that rustled overhead from the beams.
    "You once made me an ointment, Brother Cadfael, if you remember. For a rash on the hands. There's one of my carders breaks out in little pustules, handling the new fleeces. But not every season - that's strange too. This year she has trouble with it again."
    "I remember it," said Cadfael. "It was three years ago. Yes, I know the receipt. I can make some fresh for you in a matter of minutes, if you've leisure to wait?"
    It seemed that she had. She sat down on the wooden bench against the timber wall, and drew her dark skirts close about her feet, very erect and still in the corner of the hut, as Cadfael reached for pestle and mortar, and the little scale with its brass weights.
    "And how are you faring now?" he asked, busy with hog's fat and herbal oils. "Up there in the town?"
    "Well enough," she said composedly. "The business gives me plenty to do, and the wool clip has turned out better than I feared. I can't complain. Isn't it strange," she went on, warming, "that wool should bring up this rash for Branwen, when you use the fat from wool to doctor skin diseases for many people?"
    "Such contrary cases do happen," he said. "There are plants some people cannot handle without coming to grief. No one knows the reason. We learn by observing. You had good results with this salve, I remember."
    "Oh, yes, her hands healed very quickly. But I think perhaps I should keep her from carding, and teach her weaving. When the wool is washed and dyed and spun, perhaps she could handle it more safely. She's a good girl, she would soon learn."
    It seemed to Cadfael, working away with his back turned to her, that she was talking to fill the silence while she thought, and thought of something far removed from what she was saying. It was no great surprise when she said suddenly, and in a very different voice, abrupt and resolute: "Brother Cadfael, I have thoughts of taking the veil. Serious thoughts! The world is not so desirable that I should hesitate to leave it, nor my condition so hopeful that I dare look for a better time to come. The business can do very well without me; Cousin Miles runs it very profitably, and values it more than I do. Oh, I do my duty well enough, as I was always taught to do, but he could do it every bit as well without me. Why should I hesitate?"
    Cadfael turned to face her, the mortar balanced on his palm. "Have you said as much to your aunt and your cousin?"
    "I have mentioned it."
    "And what do they say to it?"
    "Nothing. It's left to me. Miles will neither commend nor advise, he brushes it aside. I think he doesn't take me seriously. My aunt - you know her a little? She's widowed like me, and for ever lamenting it, even after years. She talks of the peace of the cloister, and release from the cares of the world. But she always talks so, though I know she's well content with her comfortable life if the truth were told. I live, Brother Cadfael, I do my work, but I am not content. It would be something settled and stable, to take to the cloister."
    "And