The Raven in the Foregate by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

But she never could keep it, a lad would look at her
and sigh… Father Adam always took her back, confessed her, gave her penance,
and afterwards absolution. He knew she could not help it. And she as kind a
creature to man or child or beast as ever breathed—too kind!”
    The abbot sat still and silent, foreseeing what was to
come.
    “Last month she bore a child. When she was delivered
and recovered she came, as she always came, mad with shame, to make her
confession. He refused her countenance. He told her she had broken every
promise of amendment, and so she had, but still… He would not give her penance,
because he would not take her word, and so he refused her absolution. And when
she came humbly to enter the church and hear Mass, he turned her away, and shut
the door against her. Publicly and loudly he did it, in front of all.”
    There was a long and deep silence before the abbot
asked, perforce: “What became of her?” For clearly she was already in the past,
an outcast shade.
    “They took her out of the mill-pond, my lord. By good
fortune she had drifted down to the brook, and those who drew her out were from
the town, and did not know her, so they took her with them back to their own
parish, and the priest of Saint Chad’s has buried her. It was not clear how she
came to drown, it was taken for accident.”
    Though of course everyone knew it was none. That was
clear in look and voice. Despair is deadly sin. Then what of the record of
those who deal out despair?
    “Leave all this in my hands,” said Abbot Radulfus. “I
will speak to Father Ailnoth.”
     
    There was no trace of guilt, trepidation or want of
assurance in the long, austere, handsome face that confronted Abbot Radulfus
across the desk in his parlour, after Mass.
    The man stood quite erect and still, with hands folded
at ease and face invincibly calm.
    “Father Abbot, if I may speak freely, the souls of my
cure had been long neglected, to their own ruin. The garden is full of weeds,
they starve and strangle the good grain. I am pledged to do whatever is needed
to bring a clean crop, and so I must and will endeavour. I can do no other. The
child spared will be the man spoiled. As for the matter of Eadwin’s headland,
it has been shown me that I have removed his boundary stone. That was in error,
and the error has been made good. I have replaced the stone and drawn my own
bounds short of it. I would not possess myself of one hand’s breadth of land
that belonged to another man.”
    And that was surely truth. Not a hand’s breadth of
land nor a penny in money. Nor let go of one or the other that belonged to him.
The bare razor of justice was his measure.
    “I am less concerned for a yard of headland,” said the
abbot drily,”than for matters that touch a man’s being even more nearly. Your
man Aelgar was born free, is free man now, and so are his uncle and cousin, and
if they take steps to assert it there will be no man query it hereafter. They
assumed such customary duties as they do by way of payment for a piece of land,
there is no disfranchisement, no more than when a man pays in money.”
    “So I have found by enquiry,” said Ailnoth
imperturbably, “and have said as much to him.”
    “Then that was properly done. But it would have been
better to enquire first and accuse afterwards.”
    “My lord, no just man should resent the appeal to
justice. I am new among these people, I heard of the kinsmen’s land, that it
was held by villein service. It was my duty to find out the truth, and it was
honest to speak first to the man himself.”
    Which was true enough, if not kindly, and it seemed he
had acknowledged the truth against himself, once established, with the same
steely integrity. But what is to be done with such a man, among the common,
fallible run of humanity? Radulfus went on to graver matters.
    “The child that was born to the man Centwin and his
wife, and lived barely an