It was too cold to linger very long in the deep snow, watchingthe cautious activities on the guest hall roof. They resumed theirpassage through the gardens, skirting the frozen pools whereBrother Simeon had chopped jagged holes to let in air to the fishbelow, and crossing the mill leat that fed the ponds by the narrowplank bridge glazed over with a thin and treacherous crust of ice.Closer now, the piers of the scaffolding jutted from the south wallof the guest hall across the drainage channel, and the workers onthe roof were hidden from sight.

“I had him with me among the herbs as a novice, longago,” said Cadfael as they threaded the snowy beds of theupper garden and emerged into the great court. “Haluin, Imean. It was not long after I ended my own novitiate. I came in atpast forty, and he barely turned eighteen. They sent him to mebecause he was lettered and had the Latin at his finger ends, andafter three or four years I was still learning. He comes of alanded family, and would have inherited a good manor if hehadn’t chosen the cloister. A cousin has it now. The boy hadbeen put out to a noble household, as the custom is, and was clerkto his lord’s estate, being uncommonly bright at learning andfiguring. I often wondered why he changed course, but as every manwithin here knows, there’s no questioning a vocation. Itcomes when it will, and there’s no refusal.”

“It would have been simpler to plant the lad straight intothe scriptorium, if he came in with so much learning,” saidHugh practically. “I’ve seen some of his work,he’d be wasted on any other labor.”

“Ah, but his conscience would have him pass through everystage of the common apprenticeship before he came to rest. I hadhim for three years among the herbs, then he did two years more atthe hospital of Saint Giles, among the sick and crippled, and twomore laboring in the gardens at the Gaye, and helping with thesheep out at Rhydycroesau, before he’d settle to do what wefound he could do best. Even now, as you saw, he’ll have noprivilege because he has a delicate hand with the brushes and pens.If others must slither perilously on a snowy roof, so will he. Agood fault, mind you,” admitted Cadfael, “but he takesit to extremes, and the Rule disapproves extremes.”