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

seal?”
    “You can trust me, I won’t say word to any, nor to
him, either, but I want to know how I may know him, where I may find him, in
case of need.”
    “At the abbey,” said Diota as softly and hurriedly,
making up her mind. “He’s working in the garden, by the name of Benet, under
the herbalist brother.”
    “Oh, Brother Cadfael—I know him!” said the girl,
breathing satisfaction. “He treated me once for a bad fever, when I was ten
years old, and he came to help my mother, three Christmases ago, when she fell
into her last illness. Good, I know where his herbarium is. Go now, quickly!”
    She watched Diota scurry hastily out of the small
courtyard, and then closed the door and went back to the solar, where Giffard
was sitting sunk in anxious consideration, heavy-browed and sombre.
    “Shall you go to this meeting?”
    He had the letter still in his hand. Once already he
had made an impulsive motion towards the fire, to thrust the parchment into it
and be rid of it, but then had drawn back again, rolled it carefully and hid it
in the breast of his cotte. She took that for a sign favourable to the sender,
and was pleased. It was no surprise that he did not give her a direct answer.
This was a serious business and needed thought, and in any case he never paid
any great heed to his step-daughter, either to confide in her or to regulate
her actions. He was indulgent rather out of tolerant indifference than out of
affection.
    “Say no word of this to anyone,” he said. “What have I
to gain by keeping such an appointment? And everything to lose! Have not your
family and mine lost enough already by loyalty to that cause? How if he should
be followed to the mill?”
    “Why should he be? No one has any suspicion of him.
He’s accepted at the abbey as a labourer in the gardens, calling himself Benet.
He’s vouched for. Christmas Eve, and by night, there’ll be no one abroad but
those already in the church. Where’s the risk? It was a good time to choose.
And he needs help.”
    “Well…” said Ralph, and drummed his fingers
irresolutely on the small cylinder in the breast of his cotte. “We have two
days yet, we’ll watch and wait until the time comes.”
     
    Benet was sweeping up the brushings from the hedge,
and whistling merrily over the work, when he heard brisk, light steps stirring
the moist gravel on the path behind him, and turned to behold a young woman in
a dark cloak and hood advancing upon him from the great court. A small, slender
girl of erect and confident bearing, the outline of her swathed form softened
and blurred by the faint mist of a still day, and the hovering approach of
dusk. Not until she was quite near to him and he had stepped deferentially
aside to give her passage could he see clearly the rosy, youthful face within
the shadow of the hood, a rounded face with apple-blossom skin, a resolute
chin, and a mouth full and firm in its generosity of line, and coloured like
half-open roses. Then what light remained gathered into the harebell blue of
her wide-set eyes, at once soft and brilliant, and he lost sight of everything
else. And though he had made way for her to pass him by, and ducked his head to
her in a properly servant-like reverence, she did not pass by, but lingered,
studying him closely and candidly, with the fearless, innocent stare of a cat. Indeed
there was something of the kitten about the whole face, wider at the brow and
eyes than its length from brow to chin, tapered and tilted imperiously, as a
kitten confronts the world, never having experienced fear. She looked him up
and down gravely, and took her time about it, in a solemn inspection that might
have been insolent if it had not implied a very serious purpose. Though what
interest some noble young woman of the county or well-to-do merchant daughter
of the town could have in him was more than Benet could imagine.
    Only when she was satisfied of whatever had been in