finished his cake and licked the sticky crumbs from his fingers. “No doubt he
was anxious to get rid of me, and thought it might make me more welcome here.
My face was never in any great favour with him—too much given to smiling,
maybe. No, not even you will pen me in here for very long, Cadfael. When the
time comes I’ll be on my way. But while I’m here,” he said, breaking into the
bountiful smile that might well strike an ascetic as far too frivolous, “I’ll
do my fair share of the work.”
And he was off back to his box hedge, swinging the
shears in one large, easy hand, and leaving Cadfael gazing after him with a
very thoughtful face.
Chapter Four
DAME DIOTA HAMMET PRESENTED HERSELF later that
afternoon at a house near Saint Chad’s church, and asked timidly for the lord
Ralph Giffard. The servant who opened the door to her looked her up and down
and hesitated, never having seen her before.
“What’s your business with him, mistress? Who sends
you?”
“I’m to bring him this letter,” said Diota
submissively, and held out a small rolled leaf fastened with a seal. “And to
wait for an answer, if my lord will be so good.”
He was in two minds about taking it from her hand. It
was a small and irregularly shaped slip of parchment, with good reason, since
it was one of the discarded edges from a leaf Brother Anselm had trimmed to
shape and size for a piece of music, two days since. But the seal argued matter
of possible importance, even on so insignificant a missive. The servant was
still hesitating when a girl came out into the porch at his back, and seeing a
woman unknown but clearly respectable, stayed to enquire curiously what was to
do. She accepted the scroll readily enough, and knew the seal. She looked up
with startled, intent blue eyes into Diota’s face, and abruptly handed the
scroll back to her.
“Come in, and deliver this yourself. I’ll bring you to
my step-father.”
The master of the house was sitting by a comfortable
fire in a small solar, with wine at his elbow and a deer-hound coiled about his
feet. A big, ruddy, sinewy man of fifty, balding and bearded, very spruce in
his dress and only just beginning to put on a little extra flesh after an
active life, he looked what he was, the lord of two or three country manors and
this town house, where he preferred to spend his Christmas in comfort. He
looked up at Diota, when the girl presented her, with complete incomprehension,
but he comprehended all too well when he looked at the seal that fastened the
parchment. He asked no questions, but sent the girl for his clerk, and listened
intently as the content was read to him, in so low a voice that it was plain
the clerk understood how dangerous its import could be. He was a small,
withered man, grown old in Giffard’s service, and utterly trustworthy. He made
an end, and watched his master’s face anxiously.
“My lord, send nothing in writing! Word of mouth is
safer, if you want to reply. Words said can be denied, to write them would be
folly.”
Ralph sat pondering for a while in silence, and eyeing
the unlikely messenger, who stood patiently and uneasily waiting.
“Tell him,” he said at last, “that I have received and
understood his message.”
She hesitated, and ventured at last to ask: “Is that
all, my lord?”
“It’s enough! The less said the better, for him and
for me.”
The girl, who had remained unobtrusive but attentive
in a corner of the room, followed Diota out to the shadow of the porch, with
doors closed behind them.
“Mistress,” she said softly in Diota’s ear, “where is
he to be found—this man who sent you?”
By the brief, blank silence and the doubtful face of
the older woman she understood her fears, and made impatient haste to allay
them, her voice low and vehement. “I mean him no harm, God knows! My father was
of the same party—did you not see how well I knew the
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