Brother Cadfael 21: A Rare Benedictine by Ellis Peters

return to his workshop in the herb garden, the steward to the north walk of the cloister, where his assistant was hard at work in the scriptorium. But before they had reached the spot where their paths would divide, two young men emerged from the cloister in easy conversation, and came towards them.
    Jacob of Bouldon was a sturdy, square-set young fellow from the south of the shire, with a round, amiable face, large, candid eyes, and a ready smile. He came with a vellum leaf doubled in one hand, and a pen behind his ear, in every particular the eager, hard-working clerk. A little too open to any man's approaches, perhaps, as his master had said. The lanky, narrow-headed fellow attentive at his side had a very different look about him, weather-beaten, sharp-eyed and drab in hard-wearing dark clothes, with a leather jerkin to bear the rubbing of a heavy pack. The back of the left shoulder was scrubbed pallid and dull from much carrying, and his hat was wide and drooping of brim, to shed off rain. A travelling haberdasher with a few days' business in Shrewsbury, no novelty in the commoners' guest-hall of the abbey. His like were always on the roads, somewhere about the shire.
    The pedlar louted to Master William with obsequious respect, said his goodday, and made off to his lodging. Early to be home for the night, surely, but perhaps he had done good business and come back to replenish his stock. A wise tradesman kept something in reserve, when he had a safe store to hand, rather than carry his all on every foray.
    Master William looked after him with no great favour. "What had that fellow to do thus with you, boy?" he questioned suspiciously. "He's a deal too curious, with that long nose of his. I've seen him making up to any of the household he can back into a corner. What was he after in the scriptorium?"
    Jacob opened his wide eyes even wider. "Oh, he's an honest fellow enough, sir, I'm sure. Though he does like to probe into everything, I grant you, and asks a lot of questions..."
    "Then you give him no answers," said the steward firmly.
    "I don't, nothing but general talk that leaves him no wiser. Though I think he's but naturally inquisitive and no harm meant. He likes to curry favour with everyone, but that's by way of his trade. A rough-tongued pedlar would not sell many tapes and laces," said the young man blithely, and flourished the leaf of vellum he carried. "I was coming to ask you about this carucate of land in Recordine there's an erasure in the leiger book, I looked up the copy to compare. You'll remember, sir, it was disputed land for a while, the heir tried to recover it..."
    "I do recall. Come, I'll show you the original copy. But have as little to say to these travelling folk as you can with civility," Master William adjured earnestly. "There are rogues on the roads as well as honest tradesmen. There, you go before, I'll follow you."
    He looked after the jaunty figure as it departed smartly, back to the scriptorium. "As I said, Cadfael, too easily pleased with every man. It's not wise to look always for the best in men. But for all that," he added, reverting morosely to his private grievance, "I wish that scamp of mine was more like him. In debt already for some gambling folly, and he has to get himself picked up by the sergeants for a street brawl, and fined, and cannot pay the fine. And to keep my own name in respect, he's confident I shall have to buy him clear. I must see to it tomorrow, one way or the other, when I've finished my rounds in the town, for he has but three days left to pay. If it weren't for his mother... Even so, even so, this time I ought to let him stew."
    He departed after his clerk, shaking his head bitterly over his troubles. And Cadfael went off to see what feats of idiocy or genius Brother Oswin had wrought in the herb garden in his absence.
    In the morning, when the brothers came out from Prime, Brother Cadfael saw the steward departing to begin his round, the deep leather satchel