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little.
    “There’s
not much ails him, more of the mind than the body. He’ll be well enough when he
plucks up heart. He’s out of sorts with his kin most of all,” said Aelfric,
growing unexpectedly confiding.
    “That’s
trying for you all, even the lady,” said Cadfael.
    “And
she does everything woman could do for him, there’s nothing he can reproach her
with. But this upheaval has him out with everybody, even himself. He’s been
expecting his son to come running and eat humble pie before this, to try and
get his inheritance back, and he’s been disappointed, and that sours him.”
    Cadfael
turned a surprised face at this. “You mean he’s cut off a son, to give his
inheritance to the abbey? To spite the young man? That he couldn’t, in law. No
house would think of accepting such a bargain, without the consent of the
heir.”
    “It’s
not his own son.” Aelfric shrugged, shaking his head. “It’s his wife’s son by a
former marriage, so the lad has no legal claims on him. It’s true he’d made a
will naming him as his heir, but the abbey charter wipes that out—or will when
it’s sealed and witnessed. He has no remedy in law. They fell out, and he’s
lost his promised manor, and that’s all there is to it.”
    “For
what fault could he deserve such treatment?” Cadfael wondered.
    Aelfric
hoisted deprecating shoulders, lean shoulders but broad and straight, as
Cadfael observed. “He’s young and wayward, and my lord is old and irritable,
not used to being crossed. Neither was the boy used to it, and he fought hard
when he found his liberty curbed.”
    “And
what’s become of him now? For I recall you said you were but four in the
house.”
    “He
has a neck as stiff as my lord’s, he’s taken himself off to live with his
married sister and her family, and learn a trade. He was expected back with his
tail between his legs before now, my lord was counting on it, but never a sign,
and I doubt if there will be.”
    It
sounded, Cadfael reflected ruefully, a troublous situation for the disinherited
boy’s mother, who must be torn two ways in this dissension. Certainly it
accounted for an act of spleen which the old man was probably already
regretting. He handed over the bunch of mint stems, their oval leaves still
well formed and whole, for they had dried in honest summer heat, and had even a
good shade of green left. “She’ll need to rub it herself, but it keeps its
flavour better so. If she wants more, and you let me know, I’ll crumble it fine
for her, but this time we’ll not keep her waiting. I hope it may go some way
towards sweetening him, for his own sake and hers. And yours, too,” said
Cadfael, and clapped him lightly on the shoulder.
    Aelfric’s
gaunt features were convulsed for a moment by what might almost have been a
smile, but of a bitter, resigned sort. “Villeins are there to be scapegoats,”
he said with soft, sudden violence, and left the hut hurriedly, with only a
hasty, belated murmur of thanks.
    With
the approach of Christmas it was quite usual for many of the merchants of
Shrewsbury, and the lords of many small manors close by, to give a guilty
thought to the welfare of their souls, and their standing as devout and
ostentatious Christians, and to see small ways of acquiring merit, preferably
as economically as possible. The conventual fare of pulse, beans, fish, and
occasional and meagre meat benefited by sudden gifts of flesh and fowl to
provide treats for the monks of St. Peter’s. Honey-baked cakes appeared, and
dried fruits, and chickens, and even, sometimes, a haunch of venison, all
devoted to the pittances that turned a devotional sacrament into a rare
indulgence, a holy day into a holiday.
    Some, of course, were selective in their giving, and
made sure that their alms reached abbot or prior, on the assumption that his
prayers might avail them more than those of the humbler brothers. There was a
knight