Brother Cadfael 21: A Rare Benedictine by Ellis Peters Page A

secured to his locked belt, and swinging by two stout straps. By evening it would be heavy with the annual wealth of the city rents, and those from the northern suburbs outside the walls. Jacob was there to see him go, listening dutifully to his last emphatic instructions, and sighing as he was left behind to complete the bookwork. Warm Harefoot, the packman, was off early, too, to ply his trade among the housewives either of the town or the parish of the Foregate. A pliable fellow, full of professional bows and smiles, but by the look of him all his efforts brought him no better than a meagre living.
    So there went Jacob, back to his pen and inkhorn in the cloisters, and forth to his important business went Master William. And who knows, thought Cadfael, which is in the right, the young man who sees the best in all, and trusts all, or the old one who suspects all until he has probed them through and through? The one may stumble into a snare now and then, but at least enjoy sunshine along the way, between falls. The other may never miss his footing, but seldom experience joy. Better find a way somewhere between!
    It was a curious chance that seated him next to Brother Eutropius at breakfast, for what did anyone know about Brother Eutropius? He had come to the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul of Shrewsbury only two months ago, from a minor grange of the order. But in two months of Brother Oswin, say, that young man would have been an open book to every reader, whereas Eutropius contained himself as tightly as did his skin, and gave out much less in the way of information. A taciturn man, thirty or so at a guess, who kept himself apart and looked solitary discontent at everything that crossed his path, but never complained. It might be merely newness and shyness, in one naturally uncommunicative, or it might be a gnawing inward anger against his lot and all the world. Rumour said, a man frustrated in love, and finding no relief in his resort to the cowl. But rumour was using its imagination, for want of fuel more reliable.
    Eutropius also worked under Brother Matthew, the cellarer, and was intelligent and literate, but not a good or a quick scribe. Perhaps, when Brother Ambrose fell ill, he would have liked to be trusted to take over his books. Perhaps he resented the lay clerk being preferred before him. Perhaps! With Eutropius everything, thus far, was conjecture. Some day someone would pierce that carapace of his, with an unguarded word or a sudden irresistible motion of grace, and the mystery would no longer be a mystery, or the stranger a stranger.
    Brother Cadfael knew better than to be in a hurry, where souls were concerned. There was plenty of elbow-room in eternity.
    In the afternoon, returning to the grange court to collect some seed he had left stored in the loft, Cadfael encountered Jacob, his scribing done for the moment, setting forth importantly with his own leather satchel into the Foregate, "So he's left you a parcel to clear for him," said Cadfael.
    "I would gladly have done more," said Jacob, mildly aggrieved and on his dignity. He looked less than his twenty-five years, well-grown as he was, with that cherubic face. "But he says I'm sure to be slow, not knowing the rounds or the tenants, so he's let me take only the outlying lanes here in the Foregate, where I can take my time. I daresay he's right, it will take me longer than I think. I'm sorry to see him so worried about his son," he said, shaking his head. "He has to see to this business with the law, he told me not to worry if he was late returning today. I hope all goes well," said the loyal subordinate, and set forth sturdily to do his own duty towards his master, however beset he might be by other cares.
    Cadfael took his seed back to the garden, put in an hour or so of contented work there, washed his hands, and went to check on the progress of Brother Ambrose, who was just able to croak in his ear, more audibly than yesterday: "I could rise and