in her eyes as she reared her head and glanced round, half expecting to see some evidence of a child’s presence. “Oh, not here! I should have been hard put to it to care for a newborn babe, and there’s my sister, out at Pulley, no great distance, married to Mortimer’s steward at the demesne there, and with two boys and a girl of her own, not very much older. My little lass stays there with them, where she has other children for playmates, and a woman’s care. I walk over to see her every Sunday, and sometimes in the evenings, too, but she’s better with Cecily and John and the youngsters than here solitary with me, leastways while she’s still so young.”
Judith drew breath long and deeply. Widower he might be, and his loss there as bitter as hers, but he had one priceless pledge left to him, while she was barren. “You don’t know,” she said abruptly, “how I envy you. My child I lost.” She had not meant to say so much, but it came out of her naturally and bluntly, and naturally and bluntly he received it.
“I heard of your trouble, mistress. I was mortally sorry then, having known the like myself not so long before. But the little one at least was spared to me. I thank God for that. When a man suffers such a wound, he also finds out how to value such a mercy.”
“Yes,” she said, and turned away sharply. “Well
I trust your daughter thrives,” she said, recovering, “and will always be a joy to you. I’ll come for the girdle in three days’ time, if that’s enough for you. No need to bring it.”
She was in the doorway of the shop before he could speak, and then there seemed nothing of any significance to say. But he watched her cross the yard and turn into the Foregate, and turned back to his work at the bench only when she had vanished from his sight.
It was late in the afternoon, but still an hour short of Vespers at this season of the year, when Brother Eluric, custodian of Saint Mary’s altar, slipped almost furtively away from his work in the scriptorium, crossed the great court to the abbot’s lodging in its small fenced garden, and asked for audience. His manner was so taut and brittle that Brother Vitalis, chaplain and secretary to Abbot Radulfus, raised questioning eyebrows, and hesitated before announcing him. But Radulfus was absolute that every son of the house in trouble or need of advice must have ready access to him. Vitalis shrugged, and went in to ask leave, which was readily given.
In the panelled parlour the bright sunlight softened into a mellow haze. Eluric halted just within the doorway, and heard the door gently closed at his back. Radulfus was sitting at his desk near the open window, quill in hand, and did not look up for a moment from his writing. Against the light his aquiline profile showed dark and calm, an outline of gold shaping lofty brow and lean cheek. Eluric went in great awe of him, and yet was drawn gratefully to that composure and certainty, so far out of his own scope.
Radulfus put a period to his well-shaped sentence, and laid down his quill in the bronze tray before him. “Yes, my son? I am here. I am listening.” He looked up. “If you have need of me, ask freely.”
“Father,” said Eluric, from a throat constricted and dry, and in a voice so low it was barely audible across the room, “I have a great trouble. I hardly know how to tell it, or how far it must be seen as shame and guilt to me, though God knows I have struggled with it, and been constant in prayer to keep myself from evil. I am both petitioner and penitent, and yet I have not sinned, and by your grace and understanding may still be saved from offence.”
Radulfus eyed him more sharply, and saw the tension that stiffened the young man’s body, and set him quivering like a drawn bowstring. An over-intense boy, always racked by remorse for faults as often as not imaginary, or so venial that to inflate them into sins was itself an offence, being a distortion of truth.
“Child,” said the abbot tolerantly, “from all I know of you, you are too forward to take to your charge as great sins such small matters as a wise man would think unworthy of mention. Beware of inverted pride! Moderation in all things is not the most spectacular path to perfection, but it is the safest and the most modest. Now speak up plainly, and let’s see what between us we can do to end your trouble.” And he added briskly: “Come closer! Let me see you clearly, and hear you make good sense.”
Eluric crept closer, linked his hands before him in a nervous convulsion that whitened the knuckles perceptibly, and moistened his dry lips. “Father, in eight days’ time it will be the day of Saint Winifred’s translation, and the rose rent must be paid for the property in the Foregate
to Mistress Perle, who gave the house by charter on those terms
“Yes,” said Radulfus, “I know it. Well?”
“Father, I came to beg you to release me from this duty. Three times I have carried the rose to her, according to the charter, and with every year it grows harder for me. Do not send me there again! Lift this burden from me, before I founder! It is more than I can bear.” He was shaking violently, and had difficulty in continuing to speak, so that the words came in painful bursts, like gouts of blood from a wound. “Father, the very sight and sound of her are torment to me, to be in the same room with her is the pain of death. I have prayed, I have kept vigil, I have implored God and the saints for deliverance from sin, but not all my prayers and austerities could keep me from this uninvited love.”
Radulfus sat silent for a while after the last word had been said, and his face had not changed, beyond a certain sharpening of his attention, a steady gleam in his deep-set eyes.
“Love, of itself,” he said at last with deliberation, “is not sin, cannot be sin, though it may lead into sin. Has any word of this inordinate affection ever been said between you and the woman, any act or look that would blemish your vows or her purity?”
“No! No, Father, never! Never word of any sort but in civil greeting and farewell, and a blessing, due to such a benefactress. Nothing wrong has been done or said, only my heart is the offender. She knows nothing of my torment, she never has nor never will give one thought to me but as the messenger of this house. God forbid she should ever come to know, for she is blameless. It is for her sake, as well as mine, that I pray to be excused from ever seeing her again, for such pain as I feel might well disturb and distress her, even without understanding. The last thing I wish is for her to suffer.”
Radulfus rose abruptly from his seat, and Eluric, drained with the effort of confession and convinced of guilt, sank to his knees and bowed his head into his hands, expecting condemnation. But the abbot merely turned away to the window, and stood for a while looking out into the sunlit afternoon, where his own roses were coming into lavish bud.
No more oblates, the abbot was reflecting ruefully, and thanking God for it. No more taking these babes out of their cradles and severing them from the very sight and sound of women, half the creation stolen out of their world. How can they be expected to deal capably at last with something as strange and daunting to them as dragons? Sooner or later a woman must cross their path, terrible as an army with banners, and these wretched children without arms or armour to withstand the onslaught! We wrong women, and we wrong these boys, to send them unprepared into maturity, whole men, defenceless against the first pricking of the flesh. In defending them from perils we have deprived them of the means to defend themselves. Well, no more now! Those who enter here
