The Raven in the Foregate Read Free

years of wear, and he lived in the tiny upper room over the north porch
where Father Adam robed and kept his church furnishings. A taciturn, grave,
durable man, built upon long, strong bones, but very meagre in flesh, as much
by reason of the hermit’s forgetfulness as any want of means. He came of a
country family of free folk, and had a brother somewhere north of the town with
a 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 finger-nails, 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