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“You are warned, now guard yourself.”
    It
was fair, he considered; it was enough. He turned and went away without another
word. He went, just as he was, to Vespers in the parish church, for no better
reason or so he thought then than that the dimness within the open doorway
beckoned him as he turned his back on a duty completed, inviting him to
quietness and thought, and the bell was just sounding. The little prior was
there, ardent in thanksgiving, one more creature who had fumbled his way to the
completion of a task, and the turning of a leaf in the book of his life.
    Cadfael
watched out the office, and stood mute and still for some time after priest and
worshippers had departed. The silence after their going was deeper than the
ocean and more secure than the earth. Cadfael breathed and consumed it like new
bread. It was the light touch of a small hand on the hilt of his sword that
startled him out of that profound isolation. He looked down to see a little
acolyte, no higher than his elbow, regarding him gravely from great round eyes of
blinding blue, intent and challenging, as solemn as ever was angelic messenger.
    “Sir,”
said the child in stern treble reproof, tapping the hilt with an infant finger,
“should not all weapons of war be laid aside here?”
    “Sir,”
said Cadfael hardly less gravely, though he was smiling, “you may very well be
right.” And slowly he unbuckled the sword from his belt, and went and laid it
down, flatlings, on the lowest step under the altar. It looked strangely
appropriate and at peace there. The hilt, after all, was a cross.
    Prior
Heribert was at a frugal supper with his happy brothers in the parish priest’s
house when Cadfael asked audience with him. The little man came out graciously
to welcome a stranger, and knew him for an acquaintance at least, and now at a
breath certainly a friend.
    “You,
my son! And surely it was you at Vespers? I felt that I should know the shape
of you. You are the most welcome of guests here, and if there is anything I and
mine can do to repay you for what you did for us, you need but name it.”
    “Father,”
said Cadfael, briskly Welsh in his asking, “do you ride for home tomorrow?”
    “Surely,
my son, we leave after Prime. Abbot Godefrid will be waiting to hear how we
have fared.”
    Then,
Father, here am I at the turning of my life, free of one master’s service, and
finished with arms. Take me with you!”

 
----
    The
Price of Light
     
    HAMO
FITZHAMON OF LIDYATE HELD TWO FAT MANORS in the northeastern corner of the
county, towards the border of Cheshire. Though a gross feeder, a heavy drinker,
a self-indulgent lecher, a harsh landlord and a brutal master, he had reached
the age of sixty in the best of health, and it came as a salutary shock to him
when he was at last taken with a mild seizure, and for the first time in his
life saw the next world yawning before him, and woke to the uneasy
consciousness that it might see fit to treat him somewhat more austerely than
this world had done. Though he repented none of them, he was aware of a whole
register of acts in his past which heaven might construe as heavy sins. It
began to seem to him a prudent precaution to acquire merit for his soul as
quickly as possible. Also as cheaply, for he was a grasping and possessive man.
A judicious gift to some holy house should secure the welfare of his soul.
There was no need to go so far as endowing an abbey, or a new church of his
own. The Benedictine abbey of Shrewsbury could put up a powerful assault of
prayers on his behalf in return for a much more modest gift.
    The
thought of alms to the poor, however ostentatiously bestowed in the first
place, did not recommend itself. Whatever was given would be soon consumed and
forgotten, and a rag-tag of beggarly blessings from the indigent could carry
very little weight, besides failing to confer a lasting lustre upon himself.
No, he wanted something