Free The Raven in the Foregate by Ellis Peters

evening, and out of the town?
Unless he meant to celebrate Christmas at the church of Holy Cross instead of
in his own parish of Saint Chad. That was possible, though if so he was
over-early. A good number of the wealthier townsfolk would also be making for
the abbey this night.
    Cadfael went on up the long curve of the Wyle, between
the sparkling celestial darkness and the red, warm, earthy torchlight, to
Hugh’s house close by Saint Mary’s church, and in through the courtyard to the
hall door. No sooner had he set foot within than the excited imp Giles bore
down upon him, yelling, and embraced him cripplingly round the thighs, which
was as high as he could reach. To detach him was easy enough. As soon as the
small, cloth-wrapped parcel was lowered into his sight he held up his arms for
it gleefully, and plumped down in the rushes of the hall floor to unwrap it
with cries of delight. But he did not forget, once the first transports were
over, to make a rush for his godfather again, and clamber into his lap by the
fireside to present him with a moist but fervent kiss in thanks. He had Hugh’s
self-reliant nature, but something also of his mother’s instinctive sweetness.
    “I can stay no more than an hour,” said Cadfael, as
the boy scrambled down again to play with his new toy. “I must be back for
Compline, and very soon after that begins Matins, and we shall be up all the
night until Prime and the dawn Mass.”
    “Then at least rest an hour, and take food with me,
and stay until Constance fetches my demon there away to his bed. Will you
believe,” said Aline, smiling indulgently upon her offspring, “what he says of
this house without Hugh? Though it was Hugh told him what to say. He says he is
the man of the house now, and asks how long his father will be away. He’s too
proud of himself to miss Hugh. It pleases his lordship to be taking his
father’s place.”
    “You’d find his face fall if you told him longer than
three or four days,” said Cadfael shrewdly. “Tell him he’s gone for a week, and
there’ll be tears. But three days? I daresay his pride will last out that
long.”
    At that moment the boy had no attention to spare for
his dignity as lord of the household or his responsibilities as its protector
in his father’s absence, he was wholly taken up with galloping his new steed
through the open plain of rushes, on some heroic adventure with an imaginary
rider. Cadfael was left at liberty to sit with Aline, take meat and wine with
her, and think and talk about Hugh, his possible reception at Canterbury, and
his future, now hanging in the balance.
    “He has deserved well of Stephen,” said Cadfael
firmly, “and Stephen is not quite a fool, he’s seen too many change their
coats, and change them back again when the wind turned. He’ll know how to value
one who never changed.”
    When he noted the sand in the glass and rose to take
his leave, he went out from the hall into the bright glitter of frost, and a
vault of stars now three times larger than when first they appeared, and
crackling with brilliance. The first real frost of the winter. As he made his
way cautiously down the Wyle and out at the town gate he was thinking of the hard
winter two years earlier, when the boy had been born, and hoping that this
winter there would be no such mountainous snows and ferocious winds to drive
it. This night, the eve of the Nativity, hung about the town utterly still and
silent, not a breath to temper the bite of the frost. Even the movements of
such men as were abroad seemed hushed and almost stealthy, afraid to shake the
wonder.
    The bridge had a sheen of silver upon it after the
earlier fine rain. The river ran dark and still, with too strong a flow for
frost to have any hold. A few voices gave him good night as he passed. In the
rutted road of the Foregate he began to hurry, fearing he had lingered a little
too long. The trees that sheltered the