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sharp enough to be very
well aware what they mean. And he understood all too well what went on at his
father’s funeral. I could wish him less acute, for his own sake.”
    “As
well he should have his wits about him,” said Cadfael comfortably. “It’s the
knowing innocents that avoid the snares. And the lady’s made no move now for
ten days. Maybe she’s grown resigned, and given up the struggle.” But he was by
no means convinced of that. Dame Dionisia was not used to being thwarted. “It
may be so,” agreed Paul hopefully, “for I hear she’s taken in some reverend
pilgrim, and refurbished the old hermitage in her woodland for his use. She
wants his prayers daily for her son’s soul. Edmund was telling us about it when
he brought our allowance of venison. We saw the man, Cadfael, at the funeral.
He was there with the two brothers from Buildwas. He’d been lodged with them a
week, they give him a very saintly report.”
    Cadfael
straightened up with a grunt from his bed of mint, grown wiry and thin of leaf
now in late October. “The fellow who wore the scallop shell? And the medal of
Saint James? Yes, I remember noticing him. So he’s settling among us, is he?
And chooses a cell and a little square of garden in the woods rather than a
grey habit at Buildwas! I never was drawn to the solitary life myself, but I’ve
known those who can think and pray the better that way. It’s a long time since
that cell was lived in.”
    He
knew the place, though he seldom passed that way, the abbey’s forester having
excellent health, and very little need of herbal remedies. The hermitage,
disused now for many years, lay in a thickly wooded dell, a stone-built hut
with a square of ground once fenced and cultivated, now overgrown and wild.
Here the belt of forest embraced both Eaton ground and the abbey’s woodland of
Eyton, and the hermitage occupied a spot where the Ludel border jutted into
neighbour territory, close to the forester’s cherished coppice. “He’ll be quiet
enough there,” said Cadfael, “if he means to stay. By what name are we to know
him?”
    “They
call him Cuthred. A neighbour saint is a fine thing to have, and it seems
they’re already beginning to bring their troubles to him to sort. It may be,”
ventured Brother Paul optimistically, “that it’s he who has tamed the lady. He
must have a strong influence over her, or she’d never have entreated him to
stay. And there’s been no move from her these ten days. It may be we’re all in
his debt.”
     
    And indeed, as
the soft October days slid away tranquilly one after another, in dim, misty
dawns, noondays bright but veiled, and moist green twilights magically still,
it seemed that there was to be no further combat over young Richard, that Dame
Dionisia had thought better of the threat of law, and resigned herself to
submission. She even sent, by her parish priest, a gift of money to pay for
Masses in the Lady Chapel for her son’s soul, a gesture which could only be
interpreted as a move towards reconciliation. So, at least, Brother Francis,
the new custodian of Saint Mary’s altar, considered it. “Father Andrew tells
me,” he reported after the visitor had departed, “that since the Savigniac
brothers from Buildwas brought this Cuthred into her house she sets great store
by his counsel, and rules herself by his advice and example. The man has won a
great report for holiness already. They say he’s taken strict vows in the old
way, and never leaves his cell and garden now. But he never refuses help or
prayers to any who ask. Father Andrew thinks very highly of him. The anchorite
way is not our way,” said Brother Francis with great earnestness, “but it’s no
bad thing to have such a holy man living so close, on a neighbouring manor. It
cannot but bring a blessing.” So thought all the countryside, for the
possession of so devout a hermit brought great lustre to the manor of