The Pilgram of Hate Read Free Page B

year-old son made a nest for
his private happiness when he shut the door on his public burdens.
    Cadfael
thought of his godson, the sturdy imp who already clutched his way lustily
round the rooms of Hugh’s town house, climbed unaided into a godfather’s lap,
and began to utter human sounds of approval, enquiry, indignation and
affection. Every man asks of heaven a son. Hugh had his, as promising a sprig
as ever budded from the stem. So, by proxy, had Cadfael, a son in God.
    There
was, after all, a great deal of human happiness in the world, even a world so
torn and mangled with conflict, cruelty and greed. So it had always been, and
always would be. And so be it, provided the indomitable spark of joy never went
out.
     
    In
the refectory, after supper and grace, in the grateful warmth and lingering
light of the end of May, when they were shuffling their benches to rise from
table, Prior Robert Pennant rose first in his place, levering erect his more
than six feet of lean, austere prelate, silver-tonsured and ivory-featured.
    “Brothers,
I have received a further message from Father Abbot. He has reached Warwick on
his way home to us, and hopes to be with us by the fourth day of June or
earlier. He bids us be diligent in making proper preparation for the
celebration of Saint Winifred’s translation, our most gracious patroness.” Perhaps
the abbot had so instructed, in duty bound, but it was Robert himself who laid
such stress on it, viewing himself, as he did, as the patron of their
patroness. His large patrician eye swept round the refectory tables, settling
upon those heads most deeply committed. “Brother Anselm, you have the music
already in hand?”
    Brother
Anselm the precentor, whose mind seldom left its neums and instruments for many
seconds together, looked up vaguely, awoke to the question, and stared,
wide-eyed. “The entire order of procession and office is ready,” he said, in
amiable surprise that anyone should feel it necessary to ask.
    “And
Brother Denis, you have made all the preparations necessary for stocking your
halls to feed great numbers? For we shall surely need every cot and every dish
we can muster.”
    Brother
Denis the hospitaller, accustomed to outer panics and secure ruler of his own
domain, testified calmly that he had made the fullest provision he considered
needful, and further, that he had reserves laid by to tap at need.
    “There
will also be many sick persons to be tended, for that reason they come.”
    Brother
Edmund the infirmarer, not waiting to be named, said crisply that he had taken
into account the probable need, and was prepared for the demands that might be
made on his beds and medicines. He mentioned also, being on his feet, that
Brother Cadfael had already provided stocks of all the remedies most likely to
be wanted, and stood ready to meet any other needs that should arise.
    “That
is well,” said Prior Robert. “Now, Father Abbot has yet a special request to
make until he comes. He asks that prayers be made at every High Mass for the
repose of the soul of a good man, treacherously slain in Winchester as he
strove to keep the peace and reconcile faction with faction, in Christian
duty.”
    For
a moment it seemed to Brother Cadfael, and perhaps to most of the others
present, that the death of one man, far away in the south, hardly rated so
solemn a mention and so signal a mark of respect, in a country where deaths had
been commonplace for so long, from the field of Lincoln strewn with bodies to
the sack of Worcester with its streets running blood, from the widespread
baronial slaughters by disaffected earls to the sordid village banditries where
law had broken down. Then he looked at it again, and with the abbot’s measuring
eyes. Here was a good man cut down in the very city where prelates and barons
were parleying over matters of peace and sovereignty, killed in trying to keep
one faction from the throat of