Wise as he might be, this was one occasion when Abbot Radulfus was to find his predictions going far astray.
Chapter Two
THEY were all at chapter, on the twentieth morning of October, when the steward of the manor of Eaton presented himself, requesting a hearing with a message from his mistress.
John of Longwood was a burly, bearded man of fifty, with a balding crown and neat, deliberate movements. He made a respectful obeisance to the abbot, and delivered his errand bluntly and practically, as one performing a duty but without committing himself to approval or disapproval.
‘My lord, Dame Dionisia Ludel sends me to you with her devout greetings, and asks that you will send back to her, in my charge, her grandson Richard, to take up his rightful place as lord of the manor of Eaton in his father’s room.’
Abbot Radulfus leaned back in his stall and regarded the messenger with an impassive face. ‘Certainly Richard shall attend his father’s funeral. When is that to be?’
‘Tomorrow, my lord, before High Mass. But that is not my mistress’s meaning. She wants the young lord to leave his studies here and come to take his proper place as lord of Eaton. I’m to say that Dame Dionisia feels herself to be the proper person to have charge of him, now that he’s come into his inheritance, as she’s assured he shall do, without delay or hindrance. I have orders to bring him back with me.’
‘I fear, master steward,’ said the abbot with deliberation, ‘that you may not be able to carry out your orders. Richard Ludel committed the care of his son to me, should he himself die before the boy came to manhood. It was his wish that his son should be properly educated, the better to manage his estate when he came to inherit. I intend to fulfil what I undertook. Richard remains in my care until he comes of age and takes control of his own affairs. Until which time, I am sure, you will serve him as well as you have served his father, and keep his lands in good heart.’
‘Very surely I will, my lord,’ said John of Longwood, with more warmth than he had shown in delivering his mistress’s message. ‘My lord Richard has left all to me since Lincoln, and he never had cause to find fault, and neither shall his son ever be the loser by me. On that you may rely.’
‘So I do. And therefore we may continue here with easy minds, and take as good care of Richard’s schooling and wellbeing as you do of his estates.’
‘And what reply am I to take back to Dame Dionisia?’ asked John, without any apparent disappointment or reluctance.
‘Say to your lady that I greet her reverently in Christ, and that Richard shall come tomorrow, as is due, properly escorted,’ said the abbot with a slightly admonitory emphasis, ‘but that I have his father’s sacred charge to hold him in wardship myself until he is a man, and by his father’s wishes I shall abide.’
‘I will say so, my lord,’ said John with a straight, wide stare and a deep reverence, and walked jauntily out of the chapterhouse.
Brother Cadfael and Brother Edmund the infirmarer emerged into the great court just in time to see the messenger from Eaton mount his stocky Welsh cob at the gatehouse and ride unhurriedly out into the Foregate.
‘There goes a man, unless I’m much mistaken,’ remarked Brother Cadfael sagely, ‘no way seriously displeased at taking back a flat refusal. Nor at all afraid of delivering it. A man might almost think he’ll savour the moment.’
‘He is not dependent on the dame’s good will,’ said Brother Edmund. ‘Only the sheriff as overlord can threaten his tenure, until the boy is his own master, and John knows his worth. And so does she, for that matter, having a shrewd head and proper appreciation of good management. For the sake of peace he’ll do her bidding, he does not have to relish the task, only to keep his mouth shut.’
And John of Longwood was a man of few words at the best of times, it would probably be no hardship to him to contain his dissent and keep a wooden face.
‘But this will not be the end of it,’ Cadfael warned. ‘If she has a greedy eye on Wroxeter and Leighton she’ll not give up so easily, and the boy’s her only means of getting her hands on them. We shall yet hear more from Dame Dionisia Ludel.’
Abbot Radulfus had taken the warning seriously. Young Richard was accompanied to Eaton by Brother Paul, Brother Anselm and Brother Cadfael, a bodyguard stout enough to fend off even an attempt at abduction by force, which was unlikely in the extreme. Far more probable that the lady would try using the fond persuasions of affection and the ties of blood to work upon the boy with tears and blandishments, and turn him into a homesick ally in the enemy camp. If she had any such ideas, Cadfael reflected, studying Richard’s face along the way, she was under- estimating the innocent shrewdness of children. The boy was quite capable of weighing up his own interests and making the most of what advantages he had. He was happy enough at school, he had companions of his own age, he would not lightly abandon a known and pleasant life for one as yet strange, devoid of brothers, and threatened with a bride already old in his eyes. No doubt he valued and longed for his inheritance, but his it was, and safe, and whether he stayed at school or came home, he would not yet be allowed to rule it as he wished. No, it would take more than grandmotherly tears and embraces to secure Richard’s alliance, especially tears and embraces from a source never before known to be demonstratively fond.
It was a matter of seven miles or more from the abbey to the manor of Eaton, and for the honour and dignity of the monastery of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in attendance on so solemn an occasion, they were sent forth mounted. Dame Dionisia had sent a groom with a stout Welsh pony for her grandson, perhaps as a first move in a campaign to enlist him as her ally, and the gift had been received with greedy pleasure, but it would not therefore necessarily produce a return in kind. A gift is a gift, and children are shrewd enough, and have a sharp enough perception of the motives of their elders, to take what is offered unsolicited, without the least intention of paying for it in the fashion expected of them. Richard sat his new pony proudly and happily, and in the fine, dewy autumn morning and the pleasure of being loosed from school for the day, almost forgot the sombre reason for the ride. The groom, a long-legged boy of sixteen, loped cheerfully beside him, and led the pony as they splashed through the ford at Wroxeter, where centuries back the Romans had crossed the Severn before them. Nothing remained of their sojourn now but a gaunt, broken wall standing russet against the green fields, and a scattering of stones long ago plundered by the villagers for their own building purposes. In the place of what some said had been a city and a fortress there was now a flourishing manor blessed with fat, productive land, and a prosperous church that maintained four canons.
Cadfael viewed it with some interest as they passed, for this was one of the two manors which Dame Dionisia hoped to secure to the Ludel estate by marrying off Richard to the girl Hiltrude Astley. So fine a property was
