Monk's Hood Read Free Page A

sack not properly filled. Many of the brothers crowded to the gates to watch
him as long as he remained in view, and their faces were apprehensive and
aggrieved. Some of the boy pupils came out to join them, looking even more
dismayed, for the abbot had allowed Brother Paul to conduct his schooling
undisturbed, which meant very tolerantly, but with Prior Robert in charge there
was no department of this house likely to go its way un-goaded, and discipline
might be expected to tighten abruptly.
    There
was, Cadfael could not but admit, room for a little hard practicality within
these walls, if the truth were told. Heribert of late had grown deeply
discouraged with the world of men, and withdrawn more and more into his
prayers. The siege and fall of Shrewsbury, with all the bloodshed and revenge
involved, had been enough to sadden any man, though that was no excuse for
abandoning the effort to defend right and oppose wrong. But there comes a time
when the old grow very tired, and the load of leadership unjustly heavy to
bear. And perhaps—perhaps!—Heribert would not be quite so sad as even he now
supposed, if the load should be lifted from him.
    Mass
and chapter passed that day with unexceptionabledecorum and calm,
High Mass was celebrated devoutly, the duties of the day proceeded in their
smooth and regular course. Robert was too sensible of his own image to rub his
hands visibly, or lick his lips before witnesses. All that he did would be done
according to just and pious law, with the authority of sainthood. Nevertheless,
what he considered his due would be appropriated, to the last privilege.
    Cadfael was
accustomed to having two assistants allotted to him throughout the active part
of the gardening years, for he grew other things in his walled garden besides
the enclosure of herbs, though the main kitchen gardens of the abbey were
outside the enclave, across the main highway and along the fields by the river,
the lush level called the Gaye. The waters of Severn regularly moistened it in
the flood season, and its soil was rich and bore well. Here within the walls he
had made, virtually single-handed, this closed garden for the small and
precious things, and in the outer levels, running down to the Meole brook that
fed the mill, he grew food crops, beans and cabbages and pulse, and fields of
pease. But now with the winter closing gently in, and the soil settling to its
sleep like the urchins under the hedges, curled drowsily with all their
prickles cushioned by straw and dead grass and leaves, he was left with just
one novice to help him brew his draughts, and roll his pills, and stir his
rubbing oils, and pound his poultices, to medicine not only the brothers, but
many who came for help in their troubles, from the town and the Foregate,
sometimes even from the scattered villages beyond. He had not been bred to this
science, he had learned it by experience, by trial and study, accumulating
knowledge over the years, until some preferred his ministrations to those of the
acknowledged physicians.
    His
assistant at this time was a novice of no more than eighteen years, Brother
Mark, orphaned, and a trouble to a neglectful uncle, who had sent him into the
abbey at sixteen to be rid of him. He had entered tongue-tied, solitary and
homesick, a waif who seemed even younger than his years, who did what he was
told with apprehensive submission, as though the best to be hoped out of life
was to avoid punishment. But some months of working in the
garden with Cadfael had gradually loosened his tongue and put his fears to
flight. He was still undersized, and slightly wary of authority, but healthy
and wiry, and good at making things grow, and he was acquiring a sure and
delicate touch with the making of medicines, and an eager interest in them.
Mute among his fellows, he made up for it by being voluble enough in the garden
workshop, and with none but Cadfael by. It was always Mark, for